I am a bodybuilder
OVERALL RATING
There was once a time in my life where I would cringe when people would ask if I was a bodybuilder...."no I'm a figure competitor"... And then I would spend the next 15m trying to explain to them exactly what that meant because heaven forbid someone mistake me for something I wasn't... I'm not sure why I thought it was so 'wrong' to be mistaken as a bodybuilder... Maybe it was the stereotypical characteristics that society has placed on female bodybuilders, automatically assuming we look like men... Or maybe it was the insecurities I adopted associating bodybuilding with getting 'big, bulky and/or *****' or maybe it was the people I was surrounding myself with who made me feel like everything I loved doing was 'not female enough' ...the point is since the first day I chose to lift, and not just to go to the gym and take part in a class, but to invest in this lifestyle, I committed to the art of building my body one shape at a time just as a hockey player commits to the game one stride at a time or a football player and his tackles or a golfer and his swings....I promised myself I would accept all the phases of my journey, to embrace getting big and then small and then big again.... I learned to eat for goals and gains and emotionally value my body rather than mentally abuse it.... I chose to be an athlete in a sport called bodybuilding... So yes, the next time someone asks I will smile and say 'yes I'm a #bodybuilder'....and I wouldn't have it any other way.