Nicole Shed The Pounds And Saved Her Life.

Vital Stats

Name: Nicole Gutierrez
Email: [email protected]
Bodyspace: Ms_NicoleRose

Before: Age: 19 Height: 5'7" Weight: 220 lbs Body Fat: 35%	After: Age: 24 Height: 5'7" Weight: 128 lbs Body Fat: 11%

Why I Got Started

In September 2006, I went to the doctor for my annual checkup. She told me that I was considered to be obese for my height and size; I weighed in at 220 pounds. She then gave me two options, either I change my eating habits or eventually I would end up on the same path as my family and have to get Gastric Bypass Surgery.

I was horrified, being that I was only 19-years old and had seen the drastic changes my family had to go through with this surgery.

Nicole doesn't stop traffic—she shifts it into reverse.

How I Did It

I was completely devastated and not sure what to do. I then spoke to my Godmother who was seeing a personal trainer and was gaining results. She introduced me to Ivonne Acosta, a national level figure competitor; and we sat down and began to map out a plan. While this transformation was a physical one, the emotional aspect of my journey was far greater than transforming my body.

I was constantly bullied my entire life for being obese, getting picked on for "looking pregnant," and suffered from a low-self esteem, and depression. My trainer at the time was able to look into my personal life and help me improve on every aspect of my life. She became not just a personal trainer, but a mentor and someone I could turn to for advice and guidance. While attending counseling, weight training, and taking spinning classes, I no longer looked at junk food as comfort for my issues and problems. Instead, I faced them head on, and used the gym as my outlet to get my frustrations out. I constantly set goals and achieved them one by one over the course of 5 years.

I recently joined Team Wolfe under the guidance of Nate Wolfe as my Coach and Nutritionist. I did this in order to attain new goals I recently set for myself in 2012, which is to do the newest category in the NPC - Physique. Although I did have help from my trainer and a few close peers, I was the one who decided to take this step and analyze every single aspect of my life, how I wanted to approach it, and what I would do to remain focused and driven. I would not give up, I put in the hard work, dedication, the sweat and the tears.

When once I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror because I was disgusted with what I saw, I can now look and see the same girl that believed in herself with confidence and gratitude that I have come this far in my life. This is just the beginning for me, I am looking to inspire and motivate others for as long as I possibly can, whether that be on the NPC stage or becoming a motivational speaker someday.

Now that she's cut, Nicole doesn't need to go under the knife.

Supplements

Diet

Currently I am in training for the new WPD in the NPC and putting on quality mass under the guidance of Nate Wolfe of Wolfpacknutrition.com.

We currently use a carb rotation consisting of high, med and low days depending on the body part we are training that day. So I will give an example of one of my training days (off-season mass gaining program):

Back Day Diet Sample:

• Meals 1-4: Protein: 30g, Carbs 40g
• Meal 5: Protein: 30g, Carbs 30g
• Meal 6: Protein: 30g, Fat 8g

Training

Suggestions For Others

Create realistic goals and never ever give up! That would be my advice to anyone out there, trying to accomplish what I did. I had low self esteem when I first began my journey. There were many times I wanted to give up. But I would remind myself daily, that this was for "me" and no one else.

Bodybuilding.com was actually recommended to me by a co-worker and was one of my guidelines. I also keep a daily journal with me in my bag, and every day I look at my before and after pictures to remind myself, how grateful I am to have come this far in my life. Surround yourself with positive influences. Unfortunately, I lost many friends along my journey, due to the fact that they couldn't relate to my daily routine and eating habits, but you learn to live with it, move on, and you meet great people in the fitness industry, and great people on this site as well, I met my fiancé on Bodybuilding.com.

Negative people are everywhere; some of my family was never 100% supportive of my weight loss journey. I had to keep a far distance from them, especially now that I am looking to continue creating new goals and compete for many more years to come. Always strive for what you believe in, create new goals once you've achieved old ones, dream big, and remember that positive change comes from our ideas of what we believe is possible.

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