7 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE COMPETING IN A BIKINI COMP

Following on from my first blog around my experience with competing I wanted to touch on the 7 things I wish someone had told me before I dived head first into my bikini comp! Its a bit of a lengthy one so get some schnacks + get comfy!

1. Love the skin your in FIRST

Loving the skin your in first and foremost is potentially the most important thing to have under your belt before getting a coach, a nutrition plan, before doing anything toward your comp! This is something I did not have sorted before doing my comp and my body image and my mental health suffered big time for it!

Its so important to be SURE you have this down pat because competing is a seriously harsh sport. You are literally putting in months, sometimes even years of work exercising hard and dieting HARDER to pay good money to stand on a stage in front of a panel of judges asking them to judge you on nothing but the way you look – its tough! If you don’t have a thick skin it will be hard to deal with the critisicm from not only the judges but coaches, and other competitors too, and it will be hard not to compare yourself to the other girls.

For me competing without a great sense of self-love for myself at every stage of the journey meant I dug myself a pretty big hole with no way to get out. You get a glimpse of potentially the smallest, most muscular version of yourself + you get all dolled up and look extra pretty for the stage and this image of yourself gets imprinted on your mind. You'll get lots of praise from others about how great you look (if not, perhaps time to recruit new pals) and this praise and encouragement from other people can plant a seed in your mind, like it did for me, about how great it is to be so shredded and look so muscly. For me there was also a new found sense of confidence which came with this entire day, confidence which I then associated with having a certain body.

The weight gain which then follows this day becomes hard! Its hard to feel like you can be that confident girl you were on stage with this new weight and you question what people will think of you now that you have gained weight.

Trust me when I say it’s a tough mental battle – and one that is relatively avoidable. Having a sense of self-love regardless of shape or size is a quality that almost makes you unstoppable throughout this vulnerable time in the competing journey and one that I WISH I placed more value on before jumping head first into my comp.

2. You NEED to invest in good coaches

At the end of the day competing is a sport which has the potential to really hurt your health if its not done correctly. Without coaches who know what they’re doing you could end up dealing with some serious issues with your physical and mental health. I had a nutritionist coach and I also had a PT – if you’re not overly experienced in either, I would recommend both. Although a PT isn’t AS important perhaps, a nutritionist is SUPER important and something I would not skimp on when it comes to pricing. I chose to have both because I wanted to make the most of every single training I did, and I knew I didn’t have the knowledge to be creating the most beneficial workouts by myself, nor did I have the experience with the difference exercises to ensure I always had the best form to prevent injury – if this sounds like you then perhaps a PT would be beneficial.

In terms of your nutritionist you want to go with someone who first and foremost is qualified to be doing what they say they’ll do. There is that many people on social media today who will try and sell you their services with NO qualifications or experience what-so-ever so DO YOUR RESEARCH – it is literally your health, time and a lot of money at stake.

Experience is a good thing to look for also once you’ve found a qualified nutritionist, prepping someone for a competition is a bit different to just dishing out lifestyle diets, you need to look for someone who has prepped people before to avoid being a guinea pig and finding someone who has prepped people to success is also definitely a bonus!

Don’t be afraid to meet different nutritionists before committing or asking people about whom they’ve been with to do competitions, honestly its not a decision to take lightly!

There is a lot of science involved in prepping for a show, especially when it comes to plateaus in weight loss + when you get closer and closer to the show there are certain steps some coaches will encourage you to take which can get very scientific to get you looking “dry” and you best come show day – this isn’t something that just your average joe can do safely for you. This is a controversial topic and not all coaches will dehydrate you or manipulate salt (its dependent on who you go with and what YOU want) but its important to establish what different coaches plans would be because you want to be on the same page and you want to be in agreeance with your coaches before it comes to the final week. To summarise, this is a really big decision to make and one which you really want to do your research for!

3. Be prepared for all the expenses

Competing is not a cheap sport, there are a lot of expenses which I definitely did not think about before I dived in head first.

First of all there is the expenses which come with getting good quality coaches – this is not something that you want to skimp on. What I mean by that is you don’t want to get bad coaches because you cant afford good ones – if this is something your dealing with then perhaps competing isn’t the sport for you right now. I say that because having good coaches is IMPERATIVE to first of all doing well in the sport but more importantly coming out the other side healthy both mentally and physically. PLEASE do not place winning or doing well above your health under any circumstance – it is not worth it. Good coaches is probably the biggest investment when it comes to competing.

On top of this you will have your food. Healthy food can be very expensive at times, also when it comes to following a meal plan this can mean that you cant always get the cheaper brand/alternative, because it doesn’t fit the meal plan, so be aware of this.

Alongside this, depending on your social/home set up then it may end up being more expensive being on a meal plan because you will have to buy ALL your own food and may not be able to join In with other flat mates groceries and split it. For me I found buying so much meat was a big expense for me whilst on a meal plan.

A big aspect of competing is your posing. You can be seriously marked down for poor posing which is why when I did it I got a posing coach. This was another expense and obviously one which is optional, but one I would recommend. I was honestly like a baby giraffe in those stage heels and trying to pose in them was horrific so I needed all the help I could get!!

Another expense is your suit/bikini! This is one thing that can be made a bit cheaper if needed. My bikini cost me around $500 (from memory), which is quite expensive. I had mine made so if you were to buy one second hand then you’d be saving money but keep in mind that the different federations have rules and regulations around the fit of the suits people wear – you don’t want to turn up on the day and be disqualified because your bottoms were too small!

Stage heels – another expense. I think I spent around $120 on my stage heels. This was a one off price.

Stage tan and photos. The final week, AKA peak week becomes super expensive because all these things really add up in the final week. Stage tans (you get a few to build it up) for me was around $100-$150 (I have a terrible memory) and photos were close to $100 I think.

Some girls also like to purchase their own like tan top-up stuff so on the day they have that to fix up their tan if need be! Beware its very easy to pee on your tan and ruin it!!

Hair and makeup! Another expense and this one is dependent on who you go with. I think my makeup was $80 and my hair probably $150 to be dyed and then another expense of around $80 to be styled on the day! I also brought hair extensions which was another expense. Obviously this is something you can look into doing yourself if your wanting to save money but on the day of the show you have to get up at some un-godly hour just to make it all ready in time for pre-judging so make sure its something you’d be up for on the day – and don’t forget you’ll probably be next level exhausted after an entire peak week.

Nails is another potential expense during peak week.

Registration – not going to lie I cannot for the life of me remember the cost of registration but maybe around $100 (complete guess but its not super cheap).

Travel expenses – depending on where your show is you may have to travel for it so don’t forget to budget that in!

Not cheap is it? Writing that is actually very eye-opening to the amount of money I spent!!

4. Be ready for the isolation that comes with the sport!

Competing can be extremely isolating, which is something I, or my friends, definitely wasn’t prepared for. You will learn pretty quick that being on a strict diet and exercise regime doesn’t really leave a lot of room for social activity, and even if you find the time, 90% of the time you cant participate. Being social often means eating or drinking and this is something that you simply cannot do willy-nilly when prepping for a show. This was a MASSIVE struggle for me and it severely affected my relationships with my friends whom weren’t in the “body-building circle”. I went from the girl who went out with her friends often to the girl who stayed home ALL. THE. TIME.

This was probably the most heartbreaking realization for me, of course I tried to go out with my friends but trust me when I say its not the same when all ya girlfriends are sauced and your stone cold sober having to go home early so you can get up early enough for your cardio the next day (BIG FACE PALM).

Going away also becomes really hard and it can produce a lot of anxiety. I found when I would go away even just for the weekend I would have serious anxiety (and I’m not even an anxious person) around how I was going to eat all my meals, would wherever I was going allow me access to the foods I need and I would STRESS the heck out about ensuring I had all my meals packed (let me tell you its very hard to travel with meal prep, it goes soggy and I guarantee you’ll end up rather starving than eating it). It took ALL the fun out of going away.

Prep is relentless and you honestly need to be willing to put your head down and work and if I’m honest I wasn’t ready for that so I struggled with giving up the rest of my life for prep – make sure this is something you’re ready for.

5. Yeah, prep is hard but the work afterwards is harder

Prepping is HARD don’t get me wrong, you're tired constantly, diet brain is REAL and its hard to concentrate at times (so if you study make sure you consider this), you may experience decreased libido or mood swings, but having experienced it all for myself I definitely would say that the experience after the show is SO MUCH HARDER.

I covered this in my blog about my experience with competing so I wont go too much into it. The period after the show asks for a lot of inner work and mental toughness from you, especially if you decide to stop competing and get off the diets and just live your life again!

I struggled with binge eating, self-doubt and body image, all which were really, really, REALLY hard to deal with, so much harder than getting up at 4.30am to do cardio or doing a workout in the arvo after a long day of work.

All I can say is, really put work into having un-wavering self-love before jumping into competing and throughout competing continue this work on yourself!

Don’t fall victim to comparing yourself or placing so much worth on your physical appearance and don’t lose yourself throughout the process! Stay true to you, stay true to your values, stay true to the people you love and just be mindful of the huge toll competing can take on your mental health, awareness is the first step to prevention, right?!

6. Be ready for some potentially unwanted attention on social media!

I documented a lot of my competing journey on my Instagram and it gained a lot more attention than I ever, ever, ever thought it would. My followers grew a lot during this time, I mean I’m no influencer, but they increased a lot without me trying at all. This attention was all well and good until I started being offered different sponsorship for supplements etc and then it became a bit more real and I was being asked to post photos with supplements as advertising, essentially. Its all very exciting getting your first sponsorship on social media and I definitely dived head first into this, but I quickly learnt that with positive attention comes negative attention. This can be hard to deal with but it’s the nature of social media and putting yourself out there for people to criticize. Competing was, and still is, very much in the limelight so I imagine anyone getting into competing now would still get a lot of attention should they decide to document it all on social media, so my advice is just be aware that with all the positives comes negatives and social media isn’t going to go away very soon, and its very hard to escape in this day and age! Take breaks often and keep yourself grounded, just because you have 5,000 followers doesn’t make you the next Kim K and it certainly doesn’t make you better than anyone else, stay humble and just chill..

7. Stay true to you!

My last thing I wish someone had told me before I dived into competing is..

STAY TRUE TO YOU.

This point is pretty self-explanatory but competing is a very consuming sport and its very easy to get caught up in everything that comes with it, but just remember what your values are, don’t forget about your friends, don’t forget where you came from, don’t forget who you are! Stick up for your values and morals when it comes to your coaching and don’t settle for anything that doesn’t sit well with you or that you don’t believe in. Be you and let YOU shine through when it comes to show day and just enjoy the process! And lastly, LET IT BE A HOBBY! Competing after all, is a hobby! Try as best you can to not let it take over and be the forefront of your life, I know its hard but hang on to everything and everyone you love for dear life it will make a world of difference!

Anyway, that’s 7 things I wish someone had told me before I competed!

I really, really hope this helps some of you thinking of competing and I wish you ALL the luck in the world!!

Vaida xx