The winner of this year's under 75kg, under 23 body builder Eastern Province Championship goes to...
It has been 9 years since a friend of mine decided to enter the Eastern Cape Body building championship in 2014. Although, he managed to impress us all with his amazing figure and took home the gold medal, he has never been the same since.
Ironically, last year I contacted him for diet advice to improve my own training. I was also contemplating whether to make this advice available to the public via my blog. However, instead of receiving good diet advice, he spoke more about the long-term consequences that body-building might have. I sensed more guilt, shame, and somewhat disappointment during the conversation than anything else. This took me by surprise as he never spoke about these negative emotions during his competition years. After gaining his permission I decided to write about the long-term psychological consequences instead. It should also be mentioned that he has nothing against the sport, however, it turned out to be a negative experience for him, but this is of course not the case for everyone.
The dieting: During this time he said he felt absolutely horrible and emotionally drained, his mood was very volatile, he was stuck in this over strict strict-diet, binge cycle, and he became very negative towards his partner at the time.
This is what he had to say:
"Before I start any explanation about bodybuilding or diet, I think it would be wise to define the word “diet” in the terms I understood as a young 20-22-year-old “bodybuilder”. The word “diet” had absolutely no health or longevity as a goal. A diet consisted of 16 weeks of torture eating only chicken, oats, sweet potatoes, brown rice, broccoli etc. All the “good stuff”. I would starve myself for 16 weeks, looking good, feeling like death. That was diet – which always ended after 16 weeks with a spree of cheat days, no consistency, spilling over with calories, feelings of guilt and self hate, back on a diet and then another spree of cheat days. It was a never ending brewing mental health and body-hating disorder. It was really difficult to feel like a normal human being without my 6 meals a day and constantly looking in the mirror. I really think it made me a super self-absorbed human being, and a very bad boyfriend at the time."
The training regime: A typical training schedule consisted of 20, 30, or 40 minutes of cardio in the morning, with an extensive muscle specific focus per week, twice daily for 1-2 hours. after week 4 he said he felt drained but pushed himself mentally and physically to attend his trainings. Although this would at first sound like he is doing great and really achieving with his fitness routine, the truth was he was in a horrible place.
In hindsight: The pressure of forcing himself to do something he did not really have the motivation to do accompanied by the hunger and substance effects he was slowly changing as a person and not in a good way. His self-identity became based on how good he looked and how much progress he made that week, thus, every time he had a moment of weaknesses and binged, his entire identity became threatened. His girlfriend at the time really struggled because of this, and found it very difficult to deal with his new self-centeredness identity. In hindsight, he is still ashamed of the way he treated her and the feelings of guilt persist till today.
This is what he had to say:
"Looking back now, 7 years later, I feel sorry for that unhealthy young man. I’m not sure what bothers me more, the mental health issues, low self-esteem, which might have manifested before bodybuilding, and only became aggravated as my bodybuilding journey became more of a thing or how difficult it was for me to get over that part of my life. I know that not everybody goes through bodybuilding, dieting, steroids, competing and living daily life the way I did, but looking back now, it was a terrible time mentally and physically. I try not to advocate for a specific stance by saying things like “bodybuilding is bad” or “bodybuilding diets are terrible”, because the thing that produced massive mental health issues for me, might be the one thing that changes someone who was on the brink of giving up in life a second chance."
His mindset now: Luckily, today he has recovered and managed to restructure his identity based on many other aspects of his life. However, his body building days, remain somewhat a trauma. As a final word of advice he told me that you need to be a special kind of person to do body building. Despite the really high costs involved in the sport and the use of illegal substances which dramatically alter your mood, the feeling when you win is amazing. However, if you see that during the preparation your mental health is declining and your are destroying your relationships stop, because the long term effects are not worth the five minutes of glory.
This is what he had to say:
"I think you should come to a point where you assess your relationships, your mental health and your physical health. If things are falling apart, and it's because of your lifestyle and diet, change it. If you have never felt better and you have your ducks in a row, who am I to give my opinion? Unfortunately, I just could not keep myself together"
In conclusion: Mental health and social relationships come first. If you know someone who is going through mental challenges because of strict dieting or competition preparations be sure to reach out to them.
During the Easter Province Championships, South Africa, 2014
During the Easter Province Championships, South Africa, 2014
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