My Journey to the Stage – From the Perspective of My Sister!

The following blog was kindly written by my sister – Suffering from a severe case of writer’s block (probably caused by insufficient carbs!) and not wanting to bore my readers with more talk of chicken and broccoli, I enlisted the help of my sister and best friend – She is a tad biased so it is to be taken with a grain of salt but it is quite funny and unfortunately, the Vegemite sandwich incident did occur! Hope you enjoy 🙂

The support person

“I’m going in a bikini modelling fitness competition” – many thoughts fire through the mind at this point.

• What the hell does that mean?
• Shit, that sounds really full-on, exhausting and scary!
• Wow, I wish I had the motivation and desire to do something like that.
• Am I going to be dragged into this?
• I hope she doesn’t overdo it
• She’s going to look so hot (in an envious tone J – normal for everyone I’m sure!)

So here we are at week 6 of the preparation. What a breeze it’s been! Winery tour in Melbourne, relaxing with one or three glasses of wine or cider or both, a feed of prawns with generous amount of delicious and slightly salty seafood sauce. Yum!

Oh right, hang on my sister is doing the hard slog – probably not the quickest or easiest 6 weeks of her life to date. At the end of the day however, I know she will look back at the preparation and feel that it wasn’t an eternity, it did actually fly by despite the fact it felt like trekking through molasses at times, and the results were DEFINITELY worth it.

I want to give you my perspective and share some of the views that Nerida may not have yet.

• It’s not easy
• Murphy’s law says that if you are ‘not allowed’ to have something, you immediately want it more than anything you’ve ever wanted in your life
• There’s nothing as exciting as seeing the measurements (muscle mass, weight, circumferences etc etc) all going in the right direction
• It’s time-consuming
• It becomes a bit of an obsession (so does drinking alcohol for some people, or working, or smoking, or watching My Kitchen Rules —I know which obsession will likely keep you healthiest and the happiest in the long run!)

It’s not easy

Despite the amazing, seemingly never-ending enthusiasm for this project, Nez has needed some encouragement at times like everybody does in the roller-coaster of life. It feels natural to immediately make an exception here: well except [insert someone powerful and strong and seemingly faultless here], they never have down moments, they are amazing! That is just not true. You would be amazed at the number of high-flying, famous and ‘powerful’ people who have had a ‘down’ moment. What I’m getting at is that no-one is immune to the pressures of life, the pressures of expectations, and the pressures of striving to achieve a goal. That’s what makes your support person/people so important 😉

Murphy’s Law

Whoever took a Vegemite sandwich for granted (not me, in non-Aussie style, I think it smells really bad and have never had it…. My fussy sister however LOVES it 🙂 ) ?

So the nature of this fitness modelling beast (if I only get dragged into writing a blog I think I’ve got off very lightly!) is that she would naturally beat herself up (and go to the gym an extra one or two times in a day (a DAY people, not a week or month!)) because the evil little devil took over and made her eat a Vegemite sandwich. In her bedroom. While the hubby watches TV blissfully unaware of the sins going on in the bedroom, until she comes and sheepishly confesses. ‘I had a Vegemite sandwich Nick!’ And the phone call- ‘oh no I have to tell you something’. So on the other end of the phone my immediate thought is- ‘shit Nez you should see what I’ve eaten by midday most days!’. But then of course my inner support person kicks my dimply butt out of the way and says – of course it’s not the end of the world and of course this isn’t going to mean that you can no longer take the stage on ‘D-day’. Who doesn’t look at some of those fitness models up there and think- ‘Geez that girl could do with some more vitamin B12, why didn’t she sneak some Vegemite into the diet somewhere!?!’

On the one hand Nezzy needs gentle encouragement, guidance and support to stay on the right track. And of course I want to say- ‘you are beautiful, inside and out; you are fit, healthy and strong; and you are already an inspiration to so many people out there wanting to strive for a goal, fitness-related or otherwise’. But I was lined up at the start of this as the Commando if need be. Nezzy asked me to refrain from assuring her that it’s ok if she doesn’t make it and people won’t be judgmental if she doesn’t get ready in time (and of course we all know this to be true). But refrain I did and she now knows that if she has another Vegemite sandwich in the next 6 weeks she will NOT be coming on our luxury girls weekend away on the Sunshine Coast after the comp 😉

The measurements

In short, Nezzy is going in the right direction and she is doing amazingly J Don’t be disheartened by a slower change in your measurements or progress towards the goal, this is a super-intense program intended for short bursts only—every goal and journey towards it is INDIVIDUAL. Take away the helpful points and don’t compare your progress with others; if you find looking at photos of super fit people is more discouraging than encouraging, don’t do it.

Time-consuming

I have been meaning to call my accountant for approximately 2 weeks. I had not found the opportunity until this morning when I forbid myself to do anything else until the call was made (ok so I had to finish breakfast, do a couple of jobs, emails etc first and then make the call). The call took about 5 minutes. Where is the mathematics in that!?

Nez has two small children and a husband (3 children?? Kidding Nick!). Where in the world does she find the energy and time to do what she does on top of that! For me personally (currently on holidays, swanning about and doing errands), looking after 3 people would be constant preparation for a bikini modelling competition (or super-mum comp at the very least). I mean, holy shit, you mothers, fathers and workers are BUSY!!

Can you remember the time when it was hard to find time to call the accountant for a period of 2 weeks? The relationship is exponential it seems, the more you have to get done, the more you get done. If anyone is an example of this it is Nerida. She has an incredible amount of energy which seems to keep growing in direct proportion to the amount of energy she expends. This wasn’t always the case; she might kill me but I remember the time when Max was just born and an amazing sleeper during the day- she had so much time on her hands that it was difficult to find the ‘time’ (motivation or energy) to take out the rubbish! I guess I’m saying that perhaps if you are time-poor and wonder how on earth you could fit anything else into the day, it might be an idea to start with a small walk during the day- you’ll be amazed at how much energy you have and how much MORE you can get done once the walk is done (it’s the solution to the age-old problem of ‘there’s just not enough hours in the day’!).

So there’s hard times, there’s encouraging moments, there’s the joy once it’s over and the pride in what has been achieved. Keep up the great work Nez and stay away from the Vegemite 😉 xxx