12 Weeks Posing Practice- And Why Women Should Weight Train!

Today was an intense session of posing practice. Posing on stage, walking, and stage presence are all very important pieces of a bodybuilding competition. If you look great but your stage presence is bad then you grab the attention of the judges in a negative way. Today I practiced the "T-walk" and hitting my posing points. Walking on the 6 inch heels aren't any more helpful in pulling off a confident walk, they can be very painful and by the time the night is over, your feet will ache!

This is my physique as of now, 11.5 weeks away from competition. I will continue to take pictures to show my progress. Part of me feels like there will be no more progress- that is one of my biggest fears. Most people would say "you look fine! Why do you need to get skinnier?!". The idea is not to get "skinny" which implies fat loss with no muscle mass, just stringy and malnourished, like a lot of models. What I do need to do is lean out. Think like a judge at a bodybuilding show for a minute, what do you want to see? What do you see on me? The thighs can be tightened and toned and so can my mid section, especially around my love handles. Right now I am in between a great "lifestyle" look, and a "competitor" look. The goal is to gain muscle and lose fat, the more fat lost, the more muscle is shown- that's the point!

Why Should Women Weight Train?

Cardio Addict?

Hear me out on this for a second. I have always struggled with my weight, since I was 13 years old. I have fluctuated way up and way down with my weight. The highest being 180, and my average around 135. When I was in my "average" weight range, I would go up in down a pound or two each day. I ALWAYS


wanted to lose more weight. I tried kickboxing, Pilates  aerobics classes of all kinds, killing myself on the elliptical and treadmill daily and then doing very spotty, light and uneducated weight lifting for about 5 minutes and be done. The truth is that I didn't know HOW to weight train AND I thought it would make me HUGE like those crazy bodybuilder girls who take steroids (which I didn't know at the time!). When my husband told me I should body build I was sure he was off his rocker. But he told me that he thought bodybuilding would get me the body I really want. So I looked into it. I found girls who looked like this:

and I said "YES!!! THAT'S WHAT I WANT!!" And then I found out HOW they got these bodies... THEY ARE ALL BODYBUILDERS!!! So much for the manly looking frame that I once associated with female bodybuilders! So I started bodybuilding immediately. I got a trainer who had done figure competitions and I learned from her the basics of bodybuilding. I also learned that women do not have enough testosterone to be able to build muscle like a man!
Bodybuilding is SO much fun and you see results IMMEDIATELY!!! Unlike cardio which takes FOREVER   to see results and you get burned out on it after a week.
I am telling you women!!! If you do anything for your body DO THIS!!! Your muscles are furnaces, the more you build them the more calories you burn throughout the whole day. You will speed up your metabolism and burn the fat you want to burn. TRUST ME. Cardio is a part of a well balanced program, but it is NOT the answer. I challenge you, try it for a month, eat well, and see the results.