CANADIAN PHYSIQUE ALLIANCE AUGUST || ISSUE 37 | Page 49

Photo Credit: Jayne Leong
I am heavily involved in the bodybuilding
community in Alberta and Canada and have
been progressively since 2000. Competing
in bodybuilding officially started in 2001
which soon partnered with backstage
volunteering, then stats, then judging, then
Executive, and now as the Alberta CPA
Director, event promoting under TNT Muscle
Productions, judging, and whatever else
goes alongside supporting the CPA and my
community, I do so willingly. I love it and yet
I am so uncomfortable when physically in its
presence. Why? Well, I am well past the
glorified after shot taken in 2012, a solid 90
pounds past! (I weighed in around 168 on
stage).
This discomfort has governed my life in one
way or another for as long as I can
remember, literally! Lack of self-acceptance
or self-love, a predisposition,
genetics, call it what you may, but I am rather
done with it. I am 45 years old and truly have
an amazing life, it is time to feel amazing in
my skin too and treat my body with the
respect I deserve. I no longer want to opt out
of an event because I don’t feel good in my
skin, or not be in the photo asked to be taken
with friends or community members. I have
done this countless times and way too
recently. They say “change happens when
the pain of staying the same is greater than
the pain of change”. It is well past the time
to embrace who I am, and put in the work
and be my best self not just mentally but
physically. I am so good at giving advice and
supporting others, it’s time I give that to
myself and I plan on doing so through this
column, with you the reader. I have always
said, when I achieve my “After” again and I
am “There”, I am going to share my story.
We all have a story and challenges.