I’m A Champion Bodybuilder and What Is Hard Work?

For those who don’t follow me on Bluesky or Mastodon, or do and missed the news, I am now a champion bodybuilder, specifically in Classic Physique. Go me! It was a great learning experience, giving me a necessary roadmap to tackle the competitions that matter to me: Natural regional qualifiers in September and if I place in the appropriate categories, Natural Pro Qualifiers in October.

While I got a first place in April, I will not be moving on the Pro Qualifiers in July for Open. The category I won in wasn’t a qualifier. Plus, there is no chance I’d win at a Pro Qualifier in Open because it means competing against dudes way bigger than me because they take performance enhancement drugs. I was way outsized during the April competition. Winning anything was not expected.

Anyway! When I announced my victory, I received a lot of comments that went something like, “Congrats! Your hard work on your physique sure showed.” Which leaves a legit question that I need answered so that I can properly define it in the anti-diet culture fitness book I’m writing.

Generally, what is hard work?

I ask because working on my physique is not what I’d consider hard work. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m no hard-working. Because you bet your butts that I am. I’m driven. I’m tenacious. I’m dedication. Once I set a goal, nothing can get between me and that goal. I will run over anything that tries without looking back.

Before my eyes are even open, I begin to countdown the minutes to my workout. I cannot wait to get to them! My entire day is structured so that I have enough in my tank to do them. I freaking love every second of pushing my body to its limits. Every week, I’m in competition with myself to see if I can beat last week’s performance. It’s exhilarating and calming and a stim. Whenever my trainer adds something that is beyond challenging, I get so excited and can’t wait to throw myself into and perhaps even fall on my face trying! GIVE IT TO ME! Even if I wasn’t competing against others, I’d have this drive because it’s about being better than I was the last time I tried.

To me, hard work means doing something that I may not necessarily want to do but showing up and doing it anyway. Hard work isn’t fun work. Hard work is boring and tedious and can be difficult to find the motivation to get it done.

My workouts, the actual building of my body, is fun work.

Preparing for show also wasn’t hard work. I never ate less than 2000 calories. In fact, most of the time, it was closer to 2400 calories. I had dessert almost every night until prep practice week. No flavourless, joyless food in sight. Proof of this can be seen in this series of posts I did that documented everything I ate until competition day.

If I were to apply the term “hard work” to any part of being on my bullshit, it would be taking rest days. I hate them. I hate that they are necessary. Wednesdays suck. (Those are my rest days.) The two weeks that I took off after competition to recover were the worst. By Day 10, I was so blue.

The other part that is hard for me is eating the volume of food necessary for muscle growth. It’s so much food. Even with a lot of calorie-dense foods. My body does not like being in a surplus. It shows signs of stress in the way of an elevated resting heart rate and my heart rate variability plummets. I have to take frequent breaks. (This is a post to come.)

But I’m not sure people are talking about rest days and eating at a surplus when they congratulate me on my hard work. I think they are referring to the lifting of weight and putting it back down again in a rhythmic fashion to music.

So, yeah. While I’m hard-working, doing the work is the easy part. Which is why I ask the question, what is hard work? I’m asking for a general definition that would fit any situation, not only fitness. Please let me know in the comments! It will help out greatly!

P.S. Please also check out my fundraiser to help offset my competition costs.