Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, keto, savage.com And today I've got special guest Elena Reinhardt on the line. She is a competitor. She just recently did her first competition. She is training for another one in June and she actually got in contact with me via one of my clients that met her at her first show in his first show and he said that she had a inspiring story, wanted to get her on the podcast. So I reached out to her and lo
and behold, here we are. She does have an incredibly inspiring story. Love to peel in the curtain back on that, talking about her journey, what led to her competitive endeavors, what she's learning, that process, how she's transformed mentally and physically, and then what her plans are going forward. So I've got no doubt that you will take something from this without further delay. Sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Elena and we are live. Elena, how are you?
I'm good. How are you? I'm doing wonderfully well. I'm excited to chat with you. So just for the listeners context here, you and I got connected because one of my clients did the same show that you did back in November and he messaged me and said hey, you got to get her on the podcast. She's got a super inspiring story. So here we are today and I'm excited to dive in and learn more about your journey. So great to have you, Elena. Yeah, there's no mistakes,
right? I'm so excited to be here. It's my first ever time being on anybody's podcast. So thank you for inviting me on and getting giving me the opportunity to just be a part of this. Yeah, no, my pleasure. I feel like podcasting is a great way just to connect with people, have a long form conversation and I love talking with competitors because there's so much of A journey with that in and of itself. And the same holds true for you here.
We we start talking a little bit before we started recording, but I wanted to just peel the curtain back on what got you into the wonderful world of competing in the 1st place. Like what? What incentivized you to get into health in general? Yeah, and it is a little bit deeper than what we initially talked about too. I I have a backed up phone of photos you know that you get and I have photos that I've been saving of competitors on my
phone for 10 years. It's always been something I wanted to do. And I struggled with eating and alcohol and partying and just being in my young 20s and not really disciplining myself to do the things I would need to do to ever compete. And as I got older and started to think about maybe, you know, having a family of my own felt even less motivated to want to go for that goal because I thought, Oh, well, I'm gonna have kids and then I won't, you
know, be able to compete. So because of things that happened in my life, it kind of gave me the platform to just go for a goal I've had for over 10 years. So you've been, you've had these pictures on your phone of other competitors for the past 10 years and then you were, you know, drinking and partying and whatnot during that time.
Did you did you feel like in the back of your mind you were going to compete at someday or did you just feel like giving your current lifestyle circumstances that was just a a far away dream that you never really anticipated doing? Yeah, I can think of times about five years ago I was like 200 lbs. From pretty much just lack of any kind of workout plan whatsoever and a very sedentary
lifestyle. And laying in bed holding my stomach and hating myself, absolutely hating my body and and just hating the fact that I couldn't sleep because I had been drinking all day or, you know, in the evening and you just get terrible sleep when you drink and and you're not eating right and you just terrible lifestyle, you know? And I just hated myself. But I pretty much just felt like there was no way I would ever get back to a place where I
could compete. What what do you think was the the catalyst for that lifestyle to begin with? Like, was that something that was brought on in college or what was the the trajectory for starting the partying scene? Yeah, I mean, fortunately, fortunately for me, I have never personally been interested in drugs, so it was really just alcohol. I think our culture is very alcohol positive, although I am grateful that sober curiosity is
becoming a trend. I've been on this train for almost four years now, but it's great to see so many people talking about how there's alternatives. And you know, you don't have to just chase your next drink all the time, but you know, it's definitely around the people you spend time with. And growing up in San Diego and in a town in San Diego that's more low income than, you know, the kind of San Diego you fly into.
And not that the gas lamp isn't just a big party scene itself, but, you know, pretty much the only thing to do in the part of California I'm from is to just go out to the dive bars and kind of, you know, if I go home and I visit, it's the same people doing the same thing years and years later. You know, there's just not much to do.
And that's just kind of what people fall into is, you know, maybe it really comes down to people use alcohol to escape the reality and they don't love the reality of the life they're living and the place they're living and what they're doing with their life. So they are using alcohol as an escape from that. Yeah, I totally agree. I I used to drink in college. I'd drink pretty heavily, like
my first semester in college. And then I started prepping for my first bodybuilding competition as a sophomore in college. And then once I did that, it was like, really hard to justify drinking because it was just so counterproductive to the goals that I had at the time. And I've just maintained that ever since. But before that, you know, I didn't have those goals.
And it's easy to turn to some form of escapism, like the drinking or the drugs or whatever the case may be, and just fall into that negative feedback loop and breaking free
of that. When you're around people, when all your peers are doing it, when all your friends are doing it like that, that becomes the trend that just honestly keeps people stuck and trapped for so many years, 'cause I look back at the people that I went to school with, and so many of them are doing the exact same thing still.
Yeah, yeah. And I I honestly have to say like it was for me, You know, I I'm not gonna say I was like a functioning alcoholic to the point of like, you know, I had a drink to start my day. I'm definitely a coffee drinker. I like it to at least start my day that way. But, you know, it just usually my activities where I was
spending my time. How I planned my day was like if there was alcohol involved, you know, and it's like I can think back to not wanting to go do something if there wasn't going to be alcohol involved or like if as long as I could bring like a roadie with me or something, which it's embarrassing to admit. But I also hope that this will be relatable to somebody who's maybe at that point because it is extremely easy to fall into and being.
I just, I know for so many people when you're drinking and you know you need to cut back or you know that you're doing something that's just so detrimental to you, you'll you'll, you'll usually be like, well, if I'll, I'll quit, you know, once the holidays are over or after my birthday month or like once I get through this event And I so was there, like, but you can't do that because you'll always have an excuse. There's going to be some event you want to go to and drink at.
Like, you just have to decide that you're not doing it anymore, which really segues into competing because it's the same thing with food. Once you start to want to compete and you have to start to plan your food and what's good for you and not good for you, you can't be like, well, I'm just going to, you know, cheat here and there because it's like, it's not going to help you reach those goals. Yeah, does not really work like that.
And like the when you're drinking pretty heavily and going to the party scene in the nightlife, like there's generally not pretty good food options there. I mean, like it kind of goes hand in hand. Like, if you're drinking a lot, you're probably eating bottom of the barrel food quality and a lot of it. Yeah, totally. It's funny they talk about munchies with pot, but like, it's just as bad with alcohol.
And I feel like the they talk about how you have like a lack of, you know, I can't think of the word they use, but like we're, you know, you're your choices are not, you know, as good or whatever when you're drinking like that liquid courage kind of thing. But I think it's like that was food choices too. You're like, I'm totally going to eat this and not have any guilt around it because I'm drinking and I don't care. Yeah, totally. You said you got up to 200 lbs at your heaviest.
Were you were you eating pretty, you know, standard American diet foods early on, like when you were a child, before you started drinking or? Like, so my parents were really great about, you know, really not eating out, making home cooked meals, you know, big portions of protein and vegetables, starches. I mean, it wasn't like so clean that it's crazy, but it was definitely like a really good diet. But the first time I started struggling with diet was in college.
I think as soon as I got that freedom to start making my own food choices in the cafeteria, I gravitated towards all the foods that were bad for you. And I didn't understand, like, the value of fiber. And that really started to impact me as I, you know, was eating the crappy food all the time in college and it followed me for a while, but I was still skinny in college. It wasn't that, you know, you're in your early 20s as women, the hormones and everything, they
don't catch up to you. I I didn't get my hips until I was 25. And once that kind of set on it was pretty much between 25 and 30 that the weight loss, I mean the weight gain and it really hit me. Part of it was birth control, you know as well. And I think that's not often talked about either, but you know finding something that's going to work for you can really
affect that too. You know they say weight gain can happen from it and you usually don't think it's going to be you, but it definitely affected me. But I think the main thing was just not eating well at all. You know, in those years I was married and my husband and I, we love to have fun and we were just always looking for the next, you know, good time. I mean, it was very fun and we were eating whatever we felt like eating. And, you know, just not worried about that.
And I think that, you know, definitely contributed to it. Did you ever have any issues with like disordered eating, like eating, bingeing, purging, things of that nature? Yeah, so I want to say that if I have an eating issue, it is definitely more on like the binging than the like anorexia side. I definitely don't struggle with not eating as much. I I think portion control is
hard for a lot of people. It's probably why I've gotten so addicted to macro counting since starting to be a competitor. It's one of my favorite ways to kind of part of my day planning is what I'm eating and I find it fascinating like how much protein is in one ounce of chicken That is crazy to me.
Side note it's about 10 grams. So I had I was just out the other night which I don't ever go out but I wanted to go out and some girl Bachelorette party came out to me and they said your arms are goals and how much protein do you eat? That's always a good thing. To do, I said about 140 grams a day and then they're like how do you get to that? And I was like well, one chicken breast if you eat like 10 ounces is 100 grams. And they were like no way.
So, you know, I, I have seen a lot of lately. I'm in the social media business, so my job is to spend time on social media. And I've seen a lot of posts lately about high protein diets and how women keep bringing up. You know, like, oh, I'm, I'm just learning now I need to have a high protein diet. And I definitely have known that
for a long time. So I'm surprised it's just now kind of Catching Fire. But you know, the fact that they came up to me and asked me how much protein I eat was was pretty funny to me actually. Yeah, no, that's promising for sure. I've always been actually had this conversation with my wife last night. I was eating and I looked at my macro tracker and I don't normally consume this much protein.
But I was kind of doing an experiment and I I had 450 grams of protein yesterday and it was easy, it was effortless. I mean it was just it went down smooth and so many people have a hard time getting enough protein in. And I'm like, how do people have a hard time getting protein? And it's super easy if you have some basic knowledge of nutrition and make good new choices. But so many people, to your point, under consume protein and that's just no bueno from any standpoint.
Yeah, definitely. I I I personally have pretty high protein breakfast every day. Two eggs, protein pancakes and a a Greek yogurt with which is packed with protein. So I start my day off pretty high protein from the get go and there's definitely times that I over consume protein based on what my coach has given me as you know macros. But it's better than over consuming carbs and thigh again. Yeah, for sure.
So when it comes to your desire to actually compete and I guess not desired because you've had that for quite some time, but you're, you know, making steps to actually compete, what was the catalyst for that? Like what spurred on that that moment? Yeah. So yeah, In 2020, my husband passed away and he was 34 years old. I was 31. And first thing I did pretty much right away was get into grief coaching. It's funny. They always say like everybody handles grief differently.
And looking back, I definitely had a hard time processing what was going on in my life and kind of compartmentalize that and just it, you know, put my head down and just kept moving. I am part of, like, Facebook groups for widows, and there's plenty of women in there that are like, I still haven't cleaned out the closet. I still haven't, you know, cleaned out his car or sold his car or whatever. For me, it was like, immediate. I was just like, moving forward.
And I don't think that's right or wrong, 'cause, like they say, everybody handles it differently. But I definitely had to go into survival mode. My husband was the the breadwinner and I had to figure out how I was gonna, like, survive without him. And I committed in the the grief program to not use any substances to cope. And so that started my alcohol
free life. And what originally was supposed to be a eight week program turned into 16 weeks because I needed more time to do the homework in between the classes. And so at that point I was four months alcohol free and I had dropped almost a pound a day. And that really motivated me to want to kind of get my, you know, body back, if you will. Like I played softball growing up.
I I was pretty lean through high school and college, had a six pack from being a softball pitcher and I wanted those ABS back. That was my goal. I looked back at old pictures and I'm like, I just want my ABS back. So I started following the Isagenix nutrition program, which worked for me. Not to say it would work for everybody, but it definitely worked for me and doing that alongside cardio and not
drinking. I was from 195 lbs to 125 lbs within four months and and so at that point I was maintaining that from beginning of 2021 until I moved to Florida at the end of 2021 and I started into like this new place. And about a year I enjoyed those results of just kind of being what I like to call like fat skinny because I didn't have any muscle from the way I did it. I wasn't working out or building muscle, I just wanted to be skinny.
So I was still eating whatever I wanted after like I had reached that goal and wasn't really being active and I just started not liking the habits I was putting in place again and and I really felt like I know what this road is leading to. I know where this is going. I've been here before and I I don't want to go back to where I where I just came from, minus
the alcohol. I've really not had a problem staying away from that, thank goodness, but just the, you know, sugar and sedentary lifestyle and eating stuff that comes out of containers and packages rather than Whole Foods and whatnot. And so I reached out to a coach I had met here in Tampa, Allie Cass Health, And I asked her if she could help me, you know, prepare for my first show. So I sent her pictures and her response to me was, well, you
need to build muscle. And I I don't know what I was thinking like from the day I signed up. I just, I don't know what I ever thought I was signing up for. But has been such an educational journey as I've been going through it because most people who want to do a show don't start the same day they start going to the gym.
From what I understand, most people have been going to the gym for a long time, have been maintaining muscle mass for a long time, and now they just want to cut for a show. So I kind of did it. I don't want to say backwards, but I definitely did it the hard way of like getting super skinny and lean, no muscle mass to having to bulk significantly over the last year and then cutting just in time for the
show. So it was, it was definitely, it definitely took kind of the hard route, if you will. Did you have any, like, stigmas against resistance training when you first started? You know, losing the weight? Like, did you just assume that you were gonna blow up and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, like a lot of females think for some reason? I guess a little bit there. You know, even though I wanted my ABS back, there was one guy that said to me, like, he didn't really think that was
attractive. And it's so funny. It's like, I don't know why this came to my brain, but you know, podcast life in the 5th grade, I was wearing glasses and a boy told me that they weren't, they weren't cute. And I never wore glasses again to this day where contacts. And I've been wearing them since like fifth grade because I was like, glasses aren't cute on me. So sometimes what people say to you will follow you. As we know words can kind of stick. So somebody said it to me.
I was trying not to be muscular, I think because of that comment, even though I wanted my abs back, 'cause they're kind of natural on me, I was definitely not trying to get muscular. The one thing I will say though, like my first ever, like real big roll job was at 24 Hour Fitness. So I've always enjoyed like the gym atmosphere, but I naturally have like a pretty built upper body because of softball and didn't really ever work out my legs.
Growing up or you know, in my my younger years and so that has been my struggle this entire time, is that like my legs have absolutely no muscle memory? No. You know, like soccer players, you can kind of tell girls at the gym that, like played soccer or something prior to this because they've got that quad definition or you know, hamstring definition. I I just don't have that.
And even today after doing a show and another six months of training, I still feel like my legs look like I've never been to the gym, even though I train them three days a week very hard. Whereas I, like I said, I have women coming up to me out at the bar saying you have my dream arms, you know? So it's funny. I think we all have our our weaknesses and our strengths, but my bottom half is my struggle. Yeah, mine has always been my chest and my calves and my legs
too. But I've been, I've been hitting those like it's like a Mad Men that they're finally growing, which is good, but it's been my weak point for sure. So when you started training and you reach out to your trainer, they asked you to, to build some muscle, prioritize that. That was when you were around that 120 mark, right when you reached out to them initially. Yeah, exactly.
And I I do want to share that the first day I did the workout that, you know, was was prescribed to me to start, you know, being a bodybuilder, I was like, oh, she's going to kill me. It was really hard, like way harder than any workout I'd ever done. And that was just day one. And I told her it was really hard. And she basically was like, well, maybe bodybuilding's not for you, which lit a fire in me. I'm like oh I'm proof her wrong. I like it.
How long was your building phase after you started training? Yeah. So I started building in March and we started cutting about 12 weeks out from the November 11th show. So I guess like August ish, so March to August was was definitely the building phase. Did you gain much weight during that time?
About 20 lbs. Nice. So yeah, like a lot of people like, since you hadn't really done much resistance training prior to that, your body was super responsive to the weight training because it was all a very new stimulus to your body. A lot of people don't realize that, too. Like when you first start weight training, the last thing you want to do is go into a massive deficit because you want to just give your body the fuel it needs to capitalize on those newbie gains, so to speak.
So it's awesome that you're able to do that prior to actually cutting down for the show. Yeah, I do want to mention though, that the hardest part for me last year was the bulking phase. Yeah. Mentally, it was very hard for me to see weight gain. My abs started to disappear and I really was having issues with, you know, body dysmorphia and body image and just never been through the process before. There was a lot of fear I had. I mean, I definitely had to lean in and just trust my coach.
But I also, just like I said, I kind of went to approach this whole thing so backwards that I didn't know or understand even like what the process was. I didn't fully understand what I was trying to sign up for. My my real reason for wanting to do a show was like, I wanted to do a show. I just, I wanted to do the actual physical, like be on stage and do a show. But I had to get my body
competitive to do so, you know? And I just didn't fully understand what that really meant when it came to like the the additional step of actually building the muscle and then having to cut to be able to be lean enough to be on stage. So very grateful. Obviously loved it enough that my next show's coming up in four months. But, but I yeah, I definitely have been learning as I go and
you know, going from there. Yeah, I want to talk about that in detail because so many clients that have worked with me over the years, especially female clients that have never gone through a building and cutting cycle. The idea of gaining weight during the building phase is very scary, especially when they've worked so hard to lose the weight to begin with or if they've come from a place where
they were overweight. To see that scale kind of go the other direction is like a psychological battle every single day. So when you're doing that, what I always tell people is just get like change the proxy for what it is you're getting excited about. So rather than seeing the scale go down, get excited about seeing the way you're pushing the gym go up And like your performance markers, how did you cope with that scale weight increasing? You know, you gained 20 lbs
during that time. Like, how did you lean into that and get excited about that? To be honest, I definitely don't think I pushed myself at the gym as much as I should have to gain to increase my lifts. I would say that's probably one benefit of having a coach in person versus a coach that's remote. My coach is is, even though she's here, she coaches me remotely.
And I think that if I had a trainer in person, that is like watching my form and encouraging me to go for more weight or you know, just to push me a little harder. Or even just keeping an eye on the the workouts that I was inputting and saying like, hey, you know, you've been kind of sticking to the same weight for three months, you probably should, you know, up it or something. Because I was so afraid of one one of two things. First of all, I just want to mention because of your brand.
So I went for 417 days of no days off and that was like a really big part of my life. Last year I just started the snow days off things to get myself motivated. And the reason I got to 417 was I got COVID and I was out for a week. So when it finally derailed me, but I I did not miss a day for 417 days. But I didn't want to miss a day, so I didn't want to get hurt. And I was very worried about getting hurt and not being able
to compete. So I think I held myself back a little bit of like overdoing the weight because I was afraid of that. Where I now have been increasing my weight on every single time I go to the gym, like a week after week I'm increasing my weight significantly. And I think it's partially because I'm not worried, like if I get hurt, OK, I just won't do my show in June.
It's not like as big of a thing as my first show that I was like really amping up. And like, I got the feedback from the judges when after my show, they told me to, you know, that I had a great base, but that they wanted to see much more glute and quad growth on the next time I was on stage. So like, since I'm pushing, if you're a coach, you know that my coach is not pushing me to do a show in June. I'm pushing to do the show in June.
Since I'm pushing for that, I'm really pushing to get my development as far as I can take it so that I can do this show and and feel like I'm coming with a different package. Yeah, that's. That's the main thing. Like so many people compete too frequently or they don't push themselves enough in the building phase. They don't take the, quote UN quote offseason seriously. But realistically, there's no offseason with bodybuilding like it's a lifestyle year in and year round.
But I think having a market improvement in your physique every time you step on stage should be the the paramount goal. And if you're not doing that, then that's not good. So yeah, I've got no doubt that you can improve upon your last showing. What? What? What? What division did you do? Bikini. I did the OCB show bikini and got second in my class for novice. And this next one is actually going to be a WNBF show.
Not because I don't want to do OCB, but just because I want to compete in my hometown in Escondido, CA and that they're having a show there WNBF. And it's also a natural federation that does the polygraph and urine analysis. So I talked with my posing coach and she kind of gave me the stamp of approval on that federation.
She's been in the industry for over 25 years so she knows everything about every federation and she said go for it. So I'm going to be swapping federations just so that I can compete in a place where I have friends and family there to support me. I. Love it. I love it. Well, I've competed in multiple federations in. I can honestly say not to talk bad about the OCB by any means or any federation, but as far as federations go, I think the WNBF is probably the upper echelon
within the natural. It's got it's it's more prestigious, they they have a a greater competitive class in my opinion, generally speaking and they just take things very serious like it's a very professionally run organization. So you definitely aren't going wrong by going with the WNBF. Great. Now I feel even more nervous. That's good though. I mean like you want to compete against the best of the best that you can really test yourself. So I'm excited about you.
So what was your, what was your intake like? Out of curiosity, I know, I know you're not doing a ketogenic diet, but for like a caloric standpoint, what were you consuming prior to the building phase? What did you get up to calorie wise at the end of that building phase? And then what did you kind of do with your macros tapering down for the show?
Yeah. And The thing is, I was so surprised by how that whole process was because I didn't have like a full understanding of what it was going to look like. It kind of just came in as like week by week. Here's your macros. And so it was interesting to see how it kind of all played in. But during the building Phase, I I want to say that I got up to 2500 calories, might have been 2000, but I I want to say I was about 2500 and then tapered to 2000 getting closer to the cut
phase. And then once we started the cut it was like 1800, seventeen 116, fifty 1600 like week after week. And then I got down to 1200 calories, not peak week but the week prior to peak week. And then we did like the carb loading. The one thing I didn't do was a lot with my water. Water in general. I am just the worst example when it comes to that. I drink a lot of sparkling water, so I'm not really great with like keeping my gallon with me all the time.
So there wasn't a lot of opportunity there. So I'll definitely be trying to improve that for this show. But the other thing that I really struggled with during days leading into the show was bloating. Like I was very, very constipated and I did not know how to mitigate that. Like, you know, coaches don't want you to use laxatives because you know that's not good for you and they don't want you to become dependent on them.
So one of the things that I'll be really trying to improve upon going into this next show is playing with foods that are Whole, Foods that will help regulate my body so that I'm not relying on packaged foods going into the show because I do think that had something to do with it. And so, I mean, of course, we all know Whole Foods are always better, but it's just so easy to grab things and packages.
And I definitely want to do better going into this next show so that I can, you know, hold it together. They have you on stage for so long holding it in. And if you're not feeling great, it's so hard. I mean, it was miserable, Which is How I Met Kevin, your client. Because in between my novice stage time and my open class time, my first time ever on stage, I was like fainting. Like I took everything in me, not to faint, Not because I was like depleted of water or anything.
I didn't feel good, like I was so not feeling good and I I texted my coach and she said go eat a rice cake. So I ran down and that's when I met Kevin during my little rice cake moment. Nice, nice.
Yeah. Well, I certainly am probably going to be a little biased, but I would definitely encourage the ketogenic approach when it comes to the prep because you're not going to have near as many issues with bloating and the the fluid fluctuation that often comes with people that are carb back loading or carb loading for peak week. Like all that pretty much just is minimized.
Like you don't have the risk of of spilling over so to speak and having that that soft loop because of improper electrolyte and hydration manipulation as a result of that water retention from the carbs. So yeah, that that would be key. I mean it it is sad when I see competitors who like they don't feel good on show day. Like you put in so much work and if you don't feel good on show day and you're not able to capitalize on that moment like it's it's disheartening.
Like, I've had competitors that I've been on stage with that literally had to stop in the middle of the the poses and walk off stage because they were cramping so badly. And I'm like, man, that's got to be rough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My hardest part was like, the lights. They're just so bright and they're right in your eyes. And the judges are so low and you're trying to like, look at the judges.
And yeah, it was like, I don't know how to explain almost like if you get like seizure from strobe lights, it was kind of like that. Like the lights were just really throwing me off, like my balance and everything. And I just, like I said, I wasn't feeling good. So I, like really couldn't like hold it together. And a coach that I follow on Facebook, he was there with his clients, not for me. He said, yeah, I could tell a few times that you, like, didn't hold your stomach in.
And that's like the worst feeling in the way in the world because I was very lean like that morning. But I ate like 2000 calories between like 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM when I got on stage and then I just wasn't feeling whilst I wasn't able to like hold that together. What kind of foods were you eating with this with this peak
week, for instance? So because of the bloating kind of coming like setting in on peak week my coach really pushed like dairy free, gluten free because my breakfast every morning being the the pancakes and the yogurt and she that's not part of her like what she would like. So for the days leading in, I did like sweet potatoes and eggs and spinach for breakfast, and then my lunch slash dinner was like white rice with cicchini and chicken.
So that was kind of like what I ate, just like the week of the show. Gotcha, gotcha. What was the actually before I moved there, I'll, I'll give you a forewarning with the with the WNBF Federation, they like to have their competitors on stage a long time. I've been on stage I think for like north of 30 minutes at a time before. So get ready for that. Wow. OK. Practice to posing like religiously before you ever even get close to peak week, because they're going to have you out
there for a long time. Yeah. That's good though. That's good. So what did you do? I'm going to talk about reverse thatting because I'm I'm kind of on the tail end of my reverse that now. And that's a a part of the whole process that often times gets totally unspoken, so to speak. People love to talk about getting leaner, losing weights, seeing more visible ABS, definition, vascularity.
The show itself obviously, but then when the show is over, it's like the story styles, but in reality the story definitely keeps going post show. So what was it like after the show was over? Like did you have a massive celebratory meal? Did you gain a bunch of weight? Did you feel good? Did you feel bad? Like, what was that like for you? So I planned the meal I wanted to eat that night and I cooked at home with all like planned ingredients fit it all.
I didn't worry about the macros because like I said, I had already eaten my daily macros like what I would normally have eaten for the day before my show started. Though it was definitely like a 5000 calorie day, but I made beef Wellington which is like filet mignon like wrapped in pastry and I think I made asparagus and like mashed potatoes like it was bomb. And then after that, yeah, I think she said like go ahead and take like a day. But then she wanted me to kind of like reverse out.
So starting pretty low kind of where I had been and then you know increasing calories again like about 50 to 100 calories per week, just increasing it. The one interesting thing? A couple things. So being that any eating disorder I've ever struggled with is more on the binging side than the not allowing myself food side, I struggled more with. I didn't struggle, excuse me, I did not struggle more with the binging.
Surprisingly, I think most people do binge after a show because they depleted themselves so much. But for me, I was so happy to kind of see myself in the best place I had ever been physically. I really just wanted to stay at the lower calories and my coach really had to work with me on like that mindset than anything. I think I really wanted to just stay at that, like leanness.
And she's like, Nope, you got to start eating again, especially if you want to compete again, like you have to start getting back up. So it actually took me quite a while to go back the other way, but I had a family cruise over the holidays, Christmas and New Year's that I had every intention of eating whatever I wanted on the cruise. So I think there was a little bit of motivation for me to stay within the prescribed reverse diet.
And if anything, like not pushing myself to increase more than anything, because I really wanted to be able to eat whatever I wanted on the cruise and I just wanted to like build up my intake enough to be able to do that.
And I definitely did. I ate so much on the cruise and I definitely gained weight, but I got COVID on the cruise and then coming back I was so sick for over a week, which is when I got derailed from my no days off and I ended up losing all the way I had gained on the cruise from just basically not being able to eat for a week. So I don't recommend that, but it definitely worked. Yeah, that is rough for sure. Did did you lose your cycle the latter half of the prep?
I didn't, actually. In fact, I had it during the show. Oh lovely. Yeah, really dunk on top of everything else. That may have been a contributing factor to some of the bloating and and fluid retention then, for sure. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty rough. I literally, like, woke up with it the day before the show. So it was like, awesome. I did want to mention one thing. It was kind of interesting. So the week after my show, I flew to Utah for a family wedding and I was still macro
counting. So I asked my cousin what the dinner was and, you know, just kind of wanted to, like, guesstimate whatever it would be to put it in so I could plan my food for the day. And she's like, oh, it's a pasta bar. And I'm like, awesome. This thing's challenging. Not in the plan ever.
So you know again I I listened to plenty of podcasts bodybuilding podcasts and somebody had suggested like if you ever go to a family wedding or something just eat the protein only you know and and stay away from all the carbs. If if, if you know you have to and whatever your plans are or whatever And it's all when she says the pasta bar I'm thinking like well there's going to be no protein like what am I going to eat? So ended up at the the actual
wedding. They had like grilled vegetables and I filled my entire plate with vegetables. It was like cauliflower and carrots, broccoli or something like one of those like vegetable medallies. And then I just topped it with like the marinara beef sauce and I'm guessing the beef was like 80%, you know, not like what I would normally cook like 93 or whatever, but I just put it all in my my app was like, this is what I'm eating.
And you know, got my fat intake from that because it was plenty with the the 20% beef or or whatever. But I still was able to like avoid the pasta bar a week out of my show, which is, you know, I didn't want to be eating an entire plate of pasta and I didn't want to be hungry. Avoided the cookies. What what app are you using for tracking your macros? So I use chronometer I just. Switched over to that one myself. I'm still using both. I've been using my macros plus
for like the past. I don't know 10 years, but I've switched over to chronometer. Chronometer however you pronounce it, and I love how detailed it is with regards to micronutrients and just all the functionality it has. It's a pretty slick app. Yeah, I really like it. And what I really enjoy about that app is how easy it is to move food items to the next day or to copy and paste them to other days. That's really helpful, you know, for like your time sake. And you can add so much of the
custom meals. Even my peanut butter and Jelly sandwich that I eat almost every day cuz I've made it fit in my macros and I pick specific ingredients or whatever and I can just copy and paste that to the next day. Or if I change breads I can easily change it. I just really like how that app works for that. But the other nice thing is if you find a recipe online, you can import the recipe and then update whatever ingredients you
know. If it just calls for flour or something, you can like put the exact flour you're using, but it saves a lot of time when you can import a recipe. And then also, if you're eating out and you have a general idea of like what was in the food, you can find a recipe that's similar and then bring that in to at least get as close as you
can. Obviously you shouldn't do that if you're in the middle of a cut, but if you're just in the bulking phase or you're just trying to like kind of, you know, keep keep an idea of where you're at macronutrient wise. Totally. Do you like tracking macros even in the building phase, or do you find it to be too tedious and time consuming? No, I love it, I say. I love counting macros and I hate counting reps.
Nice, nice. Yeah. I feel like a lot of people, they go back and forth like they they find tracking to be unsustainable long term. And for me it's like I like having the data. I like knowing how my body's responding. There may be times where I intentionally don't track just so that I can allow myself to be more intuitive, but I eat pretty much the same thing every day anyway, so it's not really that
much of an issue. But so many people never track macros and therefore have no concept of, you know, what is 8 ounces of ground beef even look like on a plate and they they over consume or they under consume. So I think anybody would benefit from a period of tracking macros just to have that education. Yeah, that's what I was kind of referencing earlier about like the one ounce of chicken.
It's like once you have a concept of what one ounce of chicken looks like on a plate, like you just said and you know that's 10 grams of protein, you realize how easy it is to get that protein in because you can, you know what it is. And that same weekend, family weekend, Utah wedding, the next day we went to brunch. And again, it's tough, you know, like everyone's eating whatever they want and overeating. But I'm on a week out of my reverse diet, so I'm not trying
to overeat at brunch. And I had my steal out and I'm sure no one said anything, but I'm sure there were people that thought like that was over the top. But what I was measuring was how much chicken was eating, how much blueberries I was eating because I wanted to make sure I
got enough food in for the day. Not because I was trying to cut back, but because I was trying to make sure I ended up with enough food for the day and I. And so yeah, when people see you weighing your food out at a public restaurant, I think you know that it's such a stigma of like, negativity. But it was like, I'm trying to make sure I get enough food. Yeah, it's unfortunate there is that stigma there. But I don't know, like, I am definitely that weird guy as
well. Like, I bring my food scale. I've gone as far as to bring like a smaller scale for for weighing, you know, sodium intake out. And obviously I'm a drug dealer because I got this little drug scans for salt. But it's like once you commit to this and you make it a lifestyle, it just becomes part of your life. And then ideally you've got enough self-confidence that you don't really worry about what
people think. And more often than not, the people that are passing judgment or, you know, throwing sneers your way when you pull out a food scale at a restaurant like those people are often times incredibly overweight. They're not healthy by any stretch of the imagination, They're not really making any moves in their own life. So it's like, who are they to judge what you're doing anyways?
Right. And the and I think that, you know kind of comes back to you can eat at a buffet and just eat whatever looks good and fill your plate. And the goal is how many plates of food did I eat? But, like, you have no concept of how many calories you just took down. And it's like, no wonder you go home and you just want to sleep because you don't even know, like, how much food you just took.
And like, I just think it's so valuable to to count your food and and have a good idea of what you're in taking no matter no matter what your goals are. You know, my roommate I just recently moved in with, she struggles to eat. And I was kind of joking with her about it because you know, she's living with a bodybuilder who's like eating 6 to 8 meals a day and and so I've been encouraging her to start putting food in an app just to get her basics.
You know, I'm I'm no not a trainer or anything. I'm just, I really want to see her just start to start to eat and get those those nutrients in. On that note, I I just discovered this with the Chronometer. But there's a feature in there that allows like if you're a coach and you're using it with your clients, for instance, there's a feature in there that allows you to said it such that the people logging their food can't see the nutrition breakdown. They could just simply add the food.
And that's kind of a a pretty cool use case scenario for people that are on the anorexia side of the spectrum and they're they're trying not to eat enough food or they're not consuming enough food in general. So you could like have them log their food and then not know what the macro nutrient breakdown is, but you can, you know, instruct them to eat more, eat less, just adjust things accordingly. But yeah, so many people struggle with just simply not
getting adequate nutrition. There's there's two extremes. People eat far too much and people eat far too little, and neither is optimal by any stretch of the imagination. And it can go. It can be so valuable. I gave myself like a cheat doughnut like couple months ago. It's like maybe six weeks after. My show is definitely like plenty of time to do it or whatever. And I went to Dunkin. I was really just going there
for coffee. And I was like, I haven't had a doughnut in so long, so I didn't, like, put plan it and I didn't put it in first and like make any, you know, real executive decision. It was kind of an impulse, like we all do. And afterwards, of course, I put it in the app and it was like 70 calories for one doughnut hole. And I'm like, that was just not worth it. I mean, I definitely ate them, but I was like way over on my macros that day, just from that one cheat, 3 doughnut, 3
doughnut holes. It was like crazy what the macros were on that. And I think it's just so it's like for me now that I know that I will not do that again because I have a concept of what those macros were. Yeah, I think that's just good for everybody to have that kind of a concept, you know, So easy for us to just be like, oh, it was only three and they were blueberries.
Yeah. It's easy for people to justify their decisions, but if you're like tracking it and being objective and what that date is telling you, then you can at least be honest with yourself. And if you decide to eat it then then by all means make that decision. But make it consciously, you know. And it really comes down to being that I've been on this journey for over a year now. I've had a lot of people reach out to me on social media, sharing their issues with
themselves. Their, you know, whether it's, you know, I wish, I wish I had a body like that or I wish I was skinnier or I wish I, you know, whatever it might be, You know, so many people out there that have a lot of wishes but aren't taking the action to get there. And you know, my motivation is I don't ever want to hate how I feel in my own skin ever again. I hate going to the gym, which is so abnormal for people that are in bodybuilding. I think most people are like,
it's therapy. I love it. It's my outlet. I don't feel that way. I really don't. And I'm. I'm being honest about that because I I think there's so many people out there like, well, I just don't like the gym. Me either. But I also don't like how I feel when my clothes don't fit, when I have to keep buying bigger clothes, when I'm choosing a lazy lifestyle and I'm making bad eating habits. And then everything starts to make, you know, end up where you don't feel good in a swimsuit or
in whatever you're wearing. And just it can affect everything, including, you know, your sex life, because you don't feel good about how you feel naked, you know? And I think that it's so important. And that's just on the outside. We have no idea what those things are doing to our insides and how that's affecting your organs and can affect your long term health when you're not making those healthy choices. Yeah, totally agree. And like people know. They know if they've left
anything on the table or not. Like you can. It's not good to compare, you know, one's physique to somebody else's. I mean, you just have to be the best that you can be. But you know, if you're pushing yourself, you know if you're being disciplined, you know if you're being lazy, you know what you're doing. And it's all like perspective is all relative to that individual. But just strive to be better every single day. And there's gonna be high days, there's gonna be low days.
But if the overall trajectory is moving in the right direction, you're getting better over time, then feel good about that. Right. I totally agree with that. And I definitely don't want to encourage people to compare themselves to me or to somebody else, but it is also very normal
in our society. That's literally like the premise of social media, which is not great, but everybody looks at each other on social media and then they want whatever somebody else has, which I think we all have a little bit of a reality check that. Those are just the highlights. But you know, at the end of the day, just seeing, seeing that you're making the choice to show up for yourself, I think that's really what it comes down to.
There's going to be days that you don't feel like it, and there's going to be days that you would rather just be crappy. But you making the decision to be disciplined, to do the things that you need to do so that you can reach those goals, it will all come with consistency. And I think so often we're just in such a instant gratification culture that, you know, we can only do it for two weeks and it's like, oh, I didn't really lose anything or I I it's just easier to be lazy or easier to
just eat out. But you just have to be consistent and do it for yourself. Yeah, 100% agree. So you've you've got another show you said in June, right? June 15th. June 15th, So what do you what do you forecast for this long term? Like, do you feel like you've got the the bodybuilding bug dug in deep now? Like you're going to make this complete lifestyle and keep going with it? Or what are you thinking?
Yeah. So for me, I see a lot of competitors that I quote UN quote compare myself to and a lot of them they've been on this journey for five, 710 years. So for me, I would like to commit to doing this for five to 10 years as a minimum because the goals I have for specifically my legs, since they look like they still haven't ever been to a gym. I think that's just going to
take a long time. I think I look at pictures of women that you know their first year versus their fifth year and their legs look the way I want my legs to look. So I do think it's just going to be something I have to be committed to long term. As for the food and whatnot, I think that they're just, it's good to do and I like counting my food and knowing what it is. So I mean, it comes alongside
with the bodybuilding. And so I'm definitely committed to all of it. I'm excited to start cutting again in the near future, probably six weeks from now or so. I'm just because I definitely am very obviously in bulk to myself in the mirror. But I'm also excited to see what all of these very heavy lifts have accomplished on the bottom half. But I just keep saying like once my legs look the way I want them to, I'm never going to want to let that go.
So I'm going to always want to maintain that because I worked so hard, because the day I have a teardrop, it will be like I I was not gifted with that. Naturally, I will definitely want to hold on to that. Well, hopefully you've got deep squats implemented into your programming. Deep squats, got it. I definitely do squat deep, but I don't think it's very heavy. That's where I have to just keep
working. You know, I will say, you know, we didn't talk much about like any kind of, like limitations. But I have a spot in my left shoulder blade that has a nerve touching a tendon. And I know this because I had an ultrasound on it just to make sure that there was nothing I would do that would was like maybe holding on by a string and then, you know, too heavy of a deadlift and I would like snap my tendon. So it's nothing like that. It's just that the tendon is rubbing on a nerve.
And so when I deadlift more than about 90 lbs, it burns and I can't. I lose the ability to hold the weight even if I use like a wrist strap. Like it doesn't matter and and I just can't do it. So it's been a limitation for me throughout my entire prep to not be able to deadlift. In fact, my entire last prep leading into my first show, I didn't do any deadlifts with a
barbell, only dead. Only dumbbell deadlifts like B stance where your feet are staggered and it was definitely not enough weight because you know your upper body can only hold the dumbbells at so much weight without you know your it really affecting your bottom half anyway. So I've been kind of pushing myself through that as best as I can. Now again, not being as worried about getting hurt and missing out on my show, but also I'm just trying to come up with other ways to to build.
You know, if you can't do one thing just finding an adaptation and another way to do, you know, to to target that. Good mornings don't bother me at all and I definitely feel like they target the same area. So it's just like finding an adaptation. Yeah, that that's so key. I mean, I feel like a lot of people use some form of injury or ailment as an excuse to not train at all. And there's so many different ways to skin a cat.
As the saying goes, like there's there's a movement out there, there's an exercise out there that you can do. If you do that. I mean, if you can't do squats, if you can't do deadlifts, then there's so many variations to those that will target the same muscles in a slightly different way but still activate the tissue. So yeah, I think just getting creative and mixing things up and figuring out what you can do and then attacking that with the same degree of intensity is is the key.
Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I'm a big person. I love my chiropractor. I love my massages. There's definitely things you should be doing in between your working out to make sure that your body is functioning the best it can. And, you know, doing things like getting an ultrasound on a weird spot on your back if you just want to make sure that you know you're being safe, but ultimately, like not letting anything hold you back.
You know, I know somebody was born with one hand and did a bodybuilding show and used a wrist strap to attach the dumbbells to, you know, their limb and like did amazing in their show because like they didn't let that hold them back, you know? So it's like you see people all the time with the prosthetic at the gym and whatnot. Like, you know, it's like, what's your excuse? Do you know their name off top of your hand? Yeah. I don't want to say it though.
I I had one guy on my podcast that was born without an arm or born born without a hand that he did the same thing and he competed and he did amazing. So I didn't know if it was the same person or not, yeah. Probably not. That that's super cool, like people that that do great things in spite of the obstacles. Like that to me is where the inspirational stories come from. Like if you had everything handed to you on a silver platter and you succeeded in
life, you know, great. But that is not nearly as impressive to me as someone who is born with the odds stacked against them and just did the best they could with what they had and killed it like that. That's that's what stories are made from, right there. And even if it's not physical, it could be something like losing a spouse, losing a parent, you know, so your whole life gets derailed. Use that as your fuel. I mean, that's exactly what I
have done. You know, like, life has been so hard the last four years, and there's so many days that I had every excuse to just be like, I'm not doing this anymore. But I just use that pain, you know? Sometimes it's what makes me lift harder, or sometimes it's just what makes me, you know, realize that, like I've been through so much worse than whatever I'm dealing with right now. And it can just be that fuel to just help me get through that day or get through that hour at
the gym. Yeah, no. Totally. Have you ever dove into Stoicism much by chance? Yeah, a lot. Nice, nice. What? What got you into that? What was your What was your introduction to Stoicism? Partner actually. Very cool. Yeah. Stoicism has had a profound impact on my life. The the book by Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way. Have you ever read that? I have not. Highly, highly recommended. That was my introduction to it and I've literally listened to that book on Audible on repeat.
When I'm in a prep, I mean it's like it's it's it's good, it's good energy for a prep for sure. That's great. I'll definitely look into that. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, and I'm super excited for you. You have made tremendous headway and just you got a super inspiring story maybe that's
lost that much weight. Did all this as a catalyst from a unhealthy lifestyle, lost your your husband in the process and had just continued to stay the course and get better as every day progresses like that that that's super impressive. So I'm I'm forever grateful for you being as transparent and honest with you, with what you have done on this podcast, and I've got no doubt that you'll keep making waves going forward. Yes, thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Where do people go to find out more about you and follow along on social? Follow me on Instagram. I like to call it miscellaneous, so it's MSELANAUS and that's where I post anything I can to just inspire you to living your best life. My goal in life is to be a ray of sunshine to other people, because I've every reason to be cloudy and I choose to show up differently anyway.
And so I post a lot of just fun relatable stuff on there and of course content about prep and working out and and that kind of thing I. Love it? Well, we certainly need as much sunshine in the world as we can get, So keep doing what you're doing, and if there's everything I can do to help in any way, by all means just reach out and let me know. Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Take care.