Look Good Naked

Every time I step on the scale, I end up asking myself the same question, “Why, oh why did I just do that?!”  Yet, every week, I slide my bare, pedicured feet up onto that cold, annoying scale in hopes of seeing something miraculous.  Usually, I end up feeling defeated, annoyed, frustrated, and even angry.  The rational part of my brain says, “BP, relax, you’re built like a racehorse and you’re an athlete.”  But the crazy part of my brain screams, “Fatty!!  Stop eating doughnuts!”  Since I’m currently 6 weeks out from my next show, I DO need to see the numbers decreasing, but, at the same time, weight maintenance means muscle retention, which is always good for figure competitors. So, how do I stay sane during contest prep, and what advice can I offer to women who are trying to transform their physiques?  The scale is a random number generator, in my honest opinion.  It tells you nothing more than what you weigh at the exact moment that you weigh yourself.  It doesn’t take into account water retention from menstruation (being a woman is so awesome!), or when you ate your last meal (this is why I weigh myself in the morning, fasted, and nekkid); most importantly, it doesn’t take into account your body composition.  Ladies, it’s time to stop the obsession with the scale.  In fact, if you have one in your bathroom, throw the damn thing out the window and gleefully watch it shatter into a thousand pieces on the ground.  Follow that with some evil laughter and the Carlton dance. Let’s talk about body composition, shall we?  One-hundred and fifty pounds of muscle looks A LOT different than 150 pounds of fat.  I have a good friend who never lifts or exercises, and she weighs about 145.  Conversely, I am pretty solid with relatively low body fat, and I weigh 146.  If you compared the 2 of us, side by side, 100% of people would say that I weigh less.  Why?  Muscle doesn’t weigh more than fat (that’s a myth), but it DOES take up less space than fat.  So I can weigh more, but I can look smaller.  I wear a size 4; my friend wears a size 8.  These numbers don’t lie, lady friends.  Your jeans will fit better if your tush is full of muscle, not lard. At the end of the day, I always tell my clients the same thing I tell myself every time I am disappointed by the big, bold numbers that stare me in the face on a weekly basis: train for a look, not a number.  I don’t have to make a weight class.  No one is going to know, nor do they care, what I weigh on stage.  So why should I worry about anything other than how I look in my “glorified sparkly thong,” as I like to call it?  I see progress in the mirror and in my clothes every week.  For everyday women, how do you look naked?  This is what we’re all concerned about, right?  How we look in our bikini, how our significant others are going to view us when we’re getting down to business between the sheets…..  Don’t worry about measurements, horrible progress pictures in unflattering lighting, or body fat percentage.  Your self-confidence should NOT be dependent upon any of these things nor upon weighing 120 pounds.  How do you LOOK when you step in front of a mirror? How do your clothes fit? Feeling sexy should never be determined by a random number on some silly scale, so stop obsessing already!   Beth is an NPC and OCB figure competitor and has been competing for 3 years.  When she’s not rocking the stage in her stiletto heels, she’s either at work as Project Manager at a Pharmaceutical company in Durham, NC or she’s in the gym training clients or teaching spin classes.  In her very minimal free time, Beth likes to sleep, eat, play with her dog, and spend time with her boyfriend and friends (who also like to sleep and eat).