Jill Love, 24, has been looking in the mirror for a few months now and she hopes it pays off this weekend when she hits the stage at the Massey Theatre in New Westminster, B.C.
A fourth-year nursing student at UNBC, Love is taking part in the annual Sandra Wickham Fall Classic where she will compete in the figure portion of competitions that also include bodybuilding, bikini and fitness events.
“Fitness has always been a huge part of my life,” Love said during a break from practicing her poses.
Encouraged by the staff at Gold City Fitness, as well as family and friends, Love decided just over three months ago she would give the competition a try.
“It’s kind of something I’ve always wanted to do,” Love said.
“I just needed a little push to really get into it.
“I’ve always been into sports and have always been conscious of my figure.”
In the figure competition, participants take part in a morning and an evening session, with most judging taking place in the morning and winners announced in the evening session.
Participants, wearing made-to-measure bikinis and high-heeled shoes, are first asked on stage as a group so the judges can get a first impression.
Then, each woman is called back to the stage to do their turns, quarter turns of the body so judges can assess muscle definition and tone from the front, back and both sides.
During the posing, judges grade the overall look of the competitor, deducting points for an over abundance of muscle, but rewarding muscle tone and muscle definition, Love’s coach Tina Chuley said.
“Symmetry, narrow waist, broad shoulders and hips, but not skin and bones,” Chuley said to explain what the judges are looking for.
Beyond that, judges look for poise, how the women handle being on stage in their heels and bikinis and posing.
“It’s like the beauty pageant of body building,” Chuley said.
Once each competitor has completed their turns for the judges, they are called back as a group and the judges can ask some of the women to stand side-by-side and pose again for comparison.
“They can compare anything, arms with one competitor, legs with another, you really don’t know,” Chuley said of the final comparative assessments made by the judges.
Love’s commitment for the one-day event is no small matter.
Six days a week she spends time with weights and five days a week she spends two hours doing cardio training.
Add that to her school work and a job and it’s easy to see how there is little time for anything else.
In addition to spending time in the gym, Love’s training included a serious shift in diet in October, a diet limited to chicken, egg whites, green vegetables and potatoes.
Although the change in diet had the desired effect, noticeable changes in her body, it was also difficult, Love admitted
“The first couple of days were really hard,” she said.
“I watched my family eat Thanksgiving dinner and I had tears in my eyes.”
The restrictive diet also made training more difficult because she continued to work out at the same intensity.
“You shock your body with this diet and it’s difficult to keep up the intensity of the workouts,” she said.
The diet is specific to the figures competition, to enhance muscle definition and nothing else, Chuley said.
“It’s not a sustainable diet,” she emphasized.
The day before the competition will be the most difficult for Love as she will undertake a 24-hour period of dehydration and then rehydrate just before the competition to add fullness to the muscle.
“But you don’t want to hydrate too much to make yourself look puffy,” Chuley said.
Such details are key in a figure competition,” Chuley said.
Another detail Love has spent time working on is her left shoulder.
“I seem to have an issue with dropping my left shoulder without realizing it,” she said, a detail that alters the symmetry the judges are looking for.
In addition to the minute details of getting her poses exactly right, the training and the diet, Chuley also helped Love learn to stay focused on her goal and to focus on the now.
“She can’t get ahead of herself, otherwise she’ll be stressed and anxious, neither of which is good for dieting or training,” Chuley said.
“It’s a solitary sport, you can get all the advice and training you want but you’re the one that has to do it.
“So Jill needs to take a break now and then and enjoy what she’s accomplished with herself.”
Love admits she was doubtful of how well she would progress through the training, whether she could stick it out for the more than two months of training and whether or not her body would change.
But now, on the eve of the competition Love is pleased and impressed with the end result.
“I’m pleased with how much my body has changed,” she said.
By the sounds of it, Love is enjoying the moment and will enjoy the experience of being on stage and competing.
“I’m going into this with an open mind, more for the experience,” she said.
“It’s definitely something I would like to do again.”