Jim and I have been pretty busy and this past weekend was no exception. Our friends Rene and Jenifer Martinez put on the new NANBF show, The Max Classic in Norfolk, NE.  Our friend Jenni Brenner also was competing at this show. Jim was judging this show and I agreed to help out by doing the U/A tests for the women. Jim and I love this sport, so always have a great deal of fun being involved any way we can! Jenni hadn’t competed for a few years and at her prior comps was not nearly lean enough and didn’t do well, so this was her comeback and what a comeback it was!!! She dieted for this show for 16 long, hard weeks and her body just responded like crazy to the plan Jim put her on for diet, she made amazing and steady progress and came in just like we had planned for!  Jenni also drove 2 hours down here on occasional weekends and I worked with her on posing. She would go back home to Kansas and practice exactly what I taught her and she executed everything perfectly come show time….I’m soooo proud of all she has accomplished!!! She went from being in last or next to last in her previous shows to now taking 2nd place in both her figure classes at this show and winning best presentation…3 pieces of hardware this time!!! And not only was she second but it was actually very close between her and the winner…VERY close!!! Now we move on in prep to help her get ready to make her bodybuilding debut in Kansas City, or Bluffs, i’ve forgotten which one now! LOL!!! The point is she had a couple days of fun eating, and now she’s back on plan to prep for bodybuilding!

We all had such a great time of fun at this show and thouroughly enjoyed visiting with everyone, laughing and being silly! Jenifer treated us all GREAT!!! She and Rene own a gym called The Max Fitness Center and gave us a tour of the place…which i quikly fell in love with!!! omg!!! I told Jim i’d move to Norfolk, just so i could workout there all the time! They have the coolest old equipment and everything!! There was a shrug machine all loaded up with 6 plates(45’s) and Rene pointed it out and i jokingly said, “Oh yeah i can do that!” Then was like, “JK!!” Buuuuuuuuut, since i was feeling like having fun, i decided to walk over there and see if I could, fully expecting to have it NOT budge, but somthing funny happened as Rene was saying, “be careful, Tonia, don’t hurt yourself!” I was suddenly DETERMINED to give it an honest try……sooooooooooo I did it!!!!!! I completely lifted those weights, I kind of went into a partial squat, grabbed the handle and straightened myself up to standing, lifting that weight with me, and………. i did it twice!!!! I was STOKED!!!…Rene was shocked! 6 plates!!! …..On a shrug, by a 4′11″ 38 year old 102 pound woman! ) Now if my musculature would just match my actual strength! LMTO!!!

They also fed us REALLY well, and put us up in a GREAT room at the host hotel…well all the rooms were GREAT, it was this lodge type place and was soooooo comfortable and really nice! Of course Jim and i thouroughly enjoyed having some time alone together, so much so we turned down going to the after party gathering at the fair..any other time we would have gone, but we had a few rough weeks, so having some quality alone with my husband was a MUST!! God knew we needed that too! I’m glad we stuck to our guns!!! Oh but some of the funniest stuff that was said at the after party…oh my goodness at one point somthing happened that was so funny I nearly peed my pants…no joke i nearly did…can’t share but Jenni, Mark, Jim and Becky  and John plus an inncent bystander who observed all of us, shure know!! LMTO about it STILL!!!! Love ya Mark!!;o)

While touring the gym we also got the sneak peek of the trophey’s! They were super cool! Then we visited some more and I finally had to head back to the hotel to check up on Jenni! Jim couldn’t do much with prepping her once in Norfolk since he was a judge, so it was my first time going solo on making the judgment calls as to what to eat and everything worked perfectly so i’m thanking God in a big way!!! I did not want to mess her up!

Another cool thing Rene and Jenifer did was have their massage therapist who works in their gym come and give FREE 30 min massages to the judges….so Jim got his first full body massage there and then being the GREAT husband he is, chose to pay $30 for me to get a 30 min full body massage as well!!! That was just pure bliss…I loved ever minute of it and was sad when it ended! It was funny because when i got up, i was lightheaded and appaerntly that’s normal! I felt like a really relaxed ball of oooze for a while! LOL!!

They also had Bodybuilding Pro and MusleTech model Eddie Latoza there, signing autographs and talking with everyone at a table, sooooooo Dana Maney and i decided we would get our pic taken with him together, and we did!! It was great!!! He was super nice too!

Anyway lots of GREAT times of crazy fun was had all weekend, seeing many competition friends and such and just enjoying each others company, it was sad when it was over!

Now for the ANNOUNCEMENT………………………………..

The weekend started off a bit rough and very emotional and I knew I had a HUGE decision to make….a tough one and one which i was seriously wrestling with! As you all know i’d started my comp prep for the fall and was a few weeks into it and was seeing some progress but not nearly what i should be seeing. Last comp prep was pretty rough and my body had been quite stubborn and because of that i had suffered a great deal, still wasn’t where i wanted to be and my husband suffered a LOT as well….Well this time we had to take it a bit more extreme as far as my carbs, had seriously increased my cardio, and my body was acting funny…i should have been dropping bf, but was not and for the first time had this weird look to my tummy, in the form of a pooch bulging past my jeans…my moods were SUPER bad, i mean i was being downright mean to Jim at times…Ok…all this to say i felt like something was off  last comp prep, still felt like it throughout my off time and once i started this diet/prep, it became SUPER obvious that somthing isn’t right with my health and my gut is saying, hormonally…as i also had my gut confirmed with some research…I have a very strong God given spirit of discernment and I KNOW somthing is wrong…..I had a metabolism, a couple years ago that was screaming! Now……I’m really having a hard time dropping bf and not only that have recently and prior to this prep, have been plagued with MAJOR hot flashes. Somedays i’m cold, which has been my new norm for a few years  now, but other days or parts of the day..I feel like my body has turned into a sweltering oven…I’ll use clinical strength anti persperant, plus 3 other kinds and i’ll be soaking through my shirts…I have been abnormally fatigued..I’ll wake in the a.m all excited to accomplish various things and my energy levels just won’t cooperate,  plus mood swings and monthly wierdness, and a plethora of other issues, that are unsettling. I had a hysterectomy several years ago, and kept my ovaries, but my doc said even with keeping them, they could shut down prematurely and that just keeps echoing in my head…soooooooo I’m going to make a yearly appointmet, which i have not done since that surgery, and hopefully get some answers as to what the heck is going on with me! I cannot live like this…i just can’t, as healthy as i am, i should not even be as tired as i am. Sooooooooooooo…………

Between that, my not finding a job yet, the pressure that this extreme of dieting is putting on my marriage and the lack of time to be ready to compete in 8 weeks and the fact that somthing has really just changed with me, that i’m in a different place of feeling like i just dont want to collect trophey’s any more..i have so many already and i always want meaning to them, not just simply collect them…i am at a place that i want an honest shot at earning my pro-card…to do this i need to……

 1) firgure out what’s up with my health and

 2) build some more muscle, which i cannot build an appreciable amount of if i keep dieting!

Which leads me to…….

I’m NOT retiring!!!…God hasn’t told me that! I’m taking some extra time, getting my health straightened out and doing this RIGHT!! I need more time..i need to straighten out my health, get my metabolism regulated get to 10% bf and maintain it…this was my norm 2 years ago, and build some more legs and shoulders. As It stands for now, my hope is to be ready to do Liberty this coming April, then whatever else…if not ready then definately next August or September.

Some things, no matter how much we don’t like it, and no matter how much we may want to ignore and barrel through anyway, are just way to obvious and undeniable to ignore and this is what happened to me Friday morning/afternoon and after discussing it with Jim i made the decision on my own with his FULL support no matter which way i decided, to NOT do these fall shows, but to wait according to the above layed out plan of action. I CRIED and I CRIED….i’m crying as i type these very words here. It was SUCH a HARD decision to make, because i SOOOOOOOOO want to compete, but i’m also no dummy, and know what i MUST do…Ugh!! Lump in my throat now…I will miss it for now but know i have even more time to be at my absolute VERY best before i hit that stage again…this time truly going after my pro-card!

The journey continues and the prep continues and this time more gradually…I’m still tracking my prep here and will do so in detail, much more than previously..still ON plan. It’s just adjusted to be not as extreme as to build, and am still hitting it hard! I want this…It’s been my goal for a while and i’m NOT giving up!!! There will be progress photos including my dreaded starting point(fat came on MUCH quicker after last comp!), measurements, how the doctor appointment goes,my workouts and everything! Stay tuned, hang in here with me and share in my journey!

For now Jim and i are going to enjoy my lack of meanness…LMTO!! and we will plan to attend the fall shows to watch and support all those we know and love in this sport..i will still be VERY involved and of course enjoy helping our clients and friends with their preps and posing….good stuff people!!!!!

Love you all and thanks for reading my blog! xoxoxoxoxo

Tonia

Here are pics from the weekend!!! Enjoy! As usual click on each pic to see it larger! )

We were also busy this weekend with ur newest client/friend , Karen who also competed on Saturday in St. Louis, where she took 3rd place in figure there…here are a few pics from her show……

She looked great and i soooo wish i could have been there to cheer her on! We will be continuing to work with Karen for her next comp as well, and look forward to sharing in both her and Jenni’s journey! I’m so proud of the both of them!!!

Congratulations my friends!!!