This has been the year of stepping out of my comfort zone…..branching out to try new things. One such opportunity came to me in the form of a friend in February. She told me about her plans to embark upon program to prepare herself for a bodybuilding competition in June and wondered if she could hire me to document her progress. I thought it sounded like a great idea, and thanked her for thinking of me. In she came on week one, which was, as I mentioned earlier, in February. Those of you who live around here and know what kind of winter we had……….well, let’s just say, I would not have come within ten feet of a two piece bathing suit, but Betsy came in…….and frankly, I was really impressed by how good she looked on that FIRST session……..little did I know, how far she would progress. This past weekend, Betsy competed in the Carolina Supernatural bodybuilding competition, and took home first place in both the novice heavyweight category and the novice heavyweight posing category…….and yes, this was her first ever competition. She also ended up actually competing against her friend and training partner, Jill, for the overall novice championship title! Talk about a fun pose down! Jill went on to win not only the novice lightweight category and posing category, but also won the entire overall title in the women’s open championship, defeating a 20 something year old!!! I know I missed a couple of titles as between the two of them, they came home with a truckload of trophies. I cannot congratulate Betsy and Jill enough on the incredible will, determination, self confidence and discipline they exhibited in this journey. Their trainer, Anthony Tiller, of Underdog Fitness in Arden, obviously knows what he is doing…….he produced two amazing champions……while also winning his own mid heavyweight category. He coached them through a carefully thought out plan with a combination of diet, weight training and cardio. So. Enough of all of this wordiness. Let’s see some photos…..and then, I need to go for a run! ( ha) Oh, and did I mention that both of these amazing ladies are over 40 and have five children between the two of them?!?!?!
