Over 40 Amateur Of The Week: Fitness Parenting

I have worked out off and on my entire life. As a child, I was a competitive swimmer, gymnast, cheerleader, and track athlete, but never specialized in any one sport. Most of my adult life, I went to the gym to out-exercise my poor diet. Of course, that never worked and I would get frustrated, bored and take time off.

After the birth of my fourth daughter, and feeling frustrated with the baby weight, I realized I had big shoes to fill raising my daughters. I wanted them to have a good understanding of health and fitness, and how food factored into their health and well being.

I made the decision that living an unfit lifestyle was not who I wanted to be or how I wanted to represent our family of all girls. However, I was not educated with all of the information provided on Bodybuilding.com and tried to cut portions and get back into the gym. I saw a little change, but nothing drastic.

My husband has been training for 20-plus years and is currently a competitive powerlifter in the SPF. After years of prodding, and hearing my complaints, he finally convinced me to begin strength/weight training. I had no intention to build muscle, get big, or masculine. I started looking over his shoulder when he was reading articles and training and eventually became addicted to expanding my fitness knowledge.

Turns out Bodybuilding.com was saying all of the exact same things my husband had been telling me. I made the decision to have my husband train me in the gym while I continued to absorb nutrition info. Once I dialed in my nutrition and started managing my daily macronutrients, and consistently (key to success) hitting the weights and HIIT, my physique began to change daily! It was truly a powerful feeling to finally have the knowledge and willpower to have that kind of control over my physique after all of these years.

I am completely blessed to have a fully-equipped home gym. I'm able to do my complete workouts from home with the use of both free weights and bands.

The biggest secret to success is to always have clean, healthy meals prepared in advance. The last thing you want is to be starving and staring into the fridge with nothing prepared. I prepare my lunches and snacks (grilled chicken, boiled eggs, hummus, turkey muffins, etc.) for the week on Sunday so it only needs to be assembled on that day. Additionally, I drink a gallon of water and green tea throughout each day.

It has become my chosen lifestyle; part of who I am.

My husband and I live this lifestyle together. We are able to motivate each other and realize that with this lifestyle, we have a much brighter, healthier, more active future ahead. We are pushing off that, holding hands in our rockers on the front porch era. Another 10 years to allow for an active lifestyle with our future children's children. We will totally rock the cool grandparent years!

Honestly, it started out with wanting to look better, and when I saw the trickledown effect it had on our daughters, I realized I needed to step up to be their health and fitness role model. I see, read, and hear about obesity with our youth and want to be ahead of the issues that revolve around teenage girls!

I competed in my first two NPC Figure Competitions in April and May of this year, placing in the Top 5 of both shows. One of those shows was the Pittsburgh Championships, which was both extremely overwhelming and motivating all at the same time. I'm currently training to compete again, this time on the National stage in Pittsburgh in July. I would like to continue to compete and take feedback from the judges and my trainer to tweak my physique with a goal of eventually winning my IFBB pro card.

I do not know if I am qualified to give other competitors advice, but I can surely advise anyone who is considering competing to get a good trainer who can advise you on what training and nutrition changes you need to have success.

Ava Cowan and Nicole Wilkins.

The Nutrition articles and recipes. I actually took an article and used it to build my weekly grocery list and stock my kitchen with the "clean staples" needed in the beginning of my new journey to set myself up for success. Additionally, I did not know anything about competing in the NPC and I used the articles written for competitors to find my way through the system. I learned how to manage my macronutrients and carb-cycle all from Bodybuilding.com. I could not have achieved my goals without the resources on Bodybuilding.com!