I Little Introduction to my Journey to the NPC stage

  Hey there, I’m Edyn. I am currently 33 years old, I’ll be 34 in a few months and I am doing my best to achieve a goal I’ve had for years. Competing on the NPC Stage in Bikini. But, lets give you some history first. 

  I’ve always felt like a bit of an imposter. We moved a lot when I was young, still don’t have a direct answer as to why. I was always the new kid, always trying to get into something to make friends. But, I’m weird, I’m always trying to please. I’m hyper and ADHD and always searching for somewhere to fit in. Adjusting my likes and wants and personality to wherever we lived. For a while at least. By high school I had given up on trying to do what my mother hoped and be popular. It just wasn’t me. But I still wanted to make friends.  

 Throughout high school the easiest way to make this attempt was activities. I ran track, was an accomplished sprinter. But, we moved so often I sometimes didn’t have the option at all depending on the school. Many were very small. Sometimes my mother pushed me into things like Dance team and Cheer. Which I would often make the cut of but then of course we’d move again. So keeping up with my grades was the best I could do. 

  Fast forward to adulthood. I threw myself into work. Made the effort and eventually found myself doing multiple jobs as an independent contractor. Professional Makeup, Production Assistant, Dog Trainer, Doggy Daycare, Model, Actress and got awards nominations or more work because I rarely if ever said no to something, but ended up basically being the door mat of every job I took over time. I lost track of myself I think. Throughout the last 10 years I have wanted to compete. I always started to or tried to but didn’t really have the time or didn’t have the money or thought I could do it on my own. 

  I got close once, but knowing what I know now and where the sport has gone. I was nowhere near close. Yet, I felt I was years ago in 2016. I was getting ready to finally hire a coach and go into a real prep for a competition. Then I had an accident at work, got a partial tear in my left hip labrum. This injury left me lame for months and my fitness and physique suffered. Fast forward again to a year after that and I got into a car accident in 2017 and almost separated the brachial plexus in my right shoulder. This took me out of the gym again for nearly a year. I was also diagnosed with severe IBD and a Malabsorption Disorder after a blackout fainting and subsequent trip to the ER, followed by a 5 day stint in the hospital By that point I was working all the time driving from one 12-18 hour set day to another to another to another 5 to 6 days a week. I did this for the next few years on end and I completely fell off the fitness wagon. Finally at the end of 2019 I decided I wanted to get back in the gym and then the pandemic happened and everything fell apart. I lost all my work, spent all the money I had saved up to pay my bills and ended up jumping around from family home to family home with my then fiancé John who as a personal trainer also lost everything too. We ended taking some of the savings and spent 10 months at my grandmothers home in Colorado building out a school bus to live in. We decided we were tired of having to pay the crazy rent in places we’d lived and wanted to do something for us. We got married in October of 2020 in a small ceremony with a couple of friends. A far cry from the wedding we had been planning to bring everyone together. In hindsight we know we wouldn’t change it though. 

  In March of 2021 we were still in Colorado and were still working on our bus. I was invited to come out to model at a charity car show in Utah. One I had gone to multiple times over the years. Working with a local photographer also donating his time to take professional photos of vehicles and me with them in exchange for donations to the charity of choice that day. The photos always came out amazing and could actually end up in a magazine, but, not these ones. I got a real look at myself for the first time in years and I did not like what I saw. I also didn’t like how I felt and finally put 2 and 2 together. I needed to change things. 

  So, I started focusing on getting in better shape. At the time I was nearly 160lbs with a small amount of muscle mass and roughly 30% body fat. For my 5’5” frame that was a lot. So I adjusted my macro intake, starting documenting my food. I didn’t have access to a gym in any form at the time where we were at but I was pretty active daily putting 8 hour long days into the bus with John. 

  In the end of September 2021 we moved ourselves, our dogs and our Bus. Which was now housing everything we owned to a property his family owns in Virginia. It wasn’t done yet but we had to go. We got settled in and I started working in the gym more. I had john take measurement for me for the first time in forever and I had managed to get down to 145lbs and 23% or so body fat. I was so happy. We discussed me getting back on the stage and whether we could afford a coach for me. As even though john is an incredible trainer and brought me back from a injuries, as my husband, I have trouble being serious when I work with him.

  We came to the conclusion that it was time to make that effort. He is so supportive and helps me when I need it. I got signed up in mid-December on 2021 and here I am 2 months later with positive changes in my physique. I have days where I don’t make it to the gym often and need to get better at that if I want to really start seeing real changes or actually step on stage at the end of 2022 and I suppose journaling this will help me see my mindset and keep me on track. I want to step on stage, I want to not only compete but be competitive, I want to place and keep going. If it helps someone else out there then amazing, but it’s not really why I’m writing this blog. I want to track my progress and remind myself that I am the only thing standing in my way.