Hello Everyone!

My name is Yvette Rowe. I am a personal trainer in New South Wales Australia. I am actually an American, from California, but married to an Aussie.

I am so excited to be sharing my journey to my first figure competition with you. I should give you a little bit of background on myself.

Wow where to start. Well the first time I remember being impressed with muscle was when I was about 10 years old. My mom had some books with pictures and some of those plastic weights with concrete in them. I loved reading the books and trying to do the exercises. I have always loved anything to do with health and fitness, although everyone told me I was going to get big and bulky. LOL

I was in ballet as a child and then gymnastics for about a year. My mom was a single parent and we could not afford to keep up with the classes.

As I got older fitness kind of just got put on the back burner, I started having children, and was just too tired or busy. I am also an emotional eater. I ate when I was happy; I ate when I was sad, I just loved to eat! Over the years I managed to get up to 119 kilos or 263 lbs.  I had a mysterious sore on my hand that was always cracking and bleeding. It hurt to stand on my feet in the morning. I was exhausted and I looked terrible. I was seriously depressed. I bought an Oxygen magazine and saw a pic of my first figure competitor and thought “wow I want to look like that!”

Years before my brother had shown me the Body For Life book and I had done it for a while with great success. I dug that book out, re-read it and decided I was going to get healthy again. I had my daughter take my before pics and nearly died from shock. None of the mirrors in my house showed below the waist so I had no idea how bad I actually looked. How could I let myself get this bad? This was going to take AGES! I literally just went to bed and cried, that was it for the day .

However I knew I had to get started on this or I was probably going to die. I had all the symptoms of diabetes which runs in my family, but I didn’t go to the doctor because I didn’t want them to actually tell me I had it.

I hired an online coach, stuck to my plan and managed to get down to 193 lbs. Meanwhile my life was in complete upheaval on absolutely EVERY level. I had LOTS of emotional eating sessions.

I set a goal for competition and got to work, in about 8 months I got down to 56 kilos.  I looked and felt great. I got to 9 weeks out and had to pull out due to finances. I was devastated and now dieting “for no reason” as I saw it.(read: pity party with cake) I had not wrapped my head around the fact that this is a lifestyle. I honestly thought I could eat “like a normal person” when I hit my goal.  I was shocked to see how fast the weight came back.

I decided to learn as much as I could about training and eating, I got my personal training certification and continued on my weight loss quest always with the hope that I could compete in a competition someday. I decided this year that this is it!

I started looking for a new coach.  Jo posted an article about helping the competitor get to the stage on Facebook. It is a great article. I was familiar with her site, I loved reading her blogs. I have always been so impressed with her, she has such symmetry and beauty, I told my husband man I hope I look HALF as good as her when I am 50, hell I wish I looked half as good as her NOW! 50 is not far off for me and I want to be in the best shape of my life when I get there!

To be working with someone I admire so much is just amazing! Thank you Jo!

So it took a few years to wrap my head around what this lifestyle entails and a funny thing happened along the way. I fell head over heels in love with training. Before, I did it because I HAD to. Now I do it because I WANT to. I never thought that would happen!

So I have a new plan! My competition is June 10 the ANBA on the Gold Coast. When I think about I feel slightly nauseous lol.  I believe if you can dream and believe it, you can achieve it. I hope to inspire other women to take back control of their life and health and live their dreams. You only get one life!

I did the leg workout the other night and OH MY GOD. I thought I was going to puke and then pass out and die! I totally loved it…. afterwards.  Haha

Well I really didn’t mean to write a book, but it is hard to give meaningful background in a paragraph or two!

You can request friendship with  Yvette on http://www.facebook.com/#!/yvette.rowe