My First Bikini Competition – Part 4

If you missed the first part of my first bikini competition series, you can see them here.

As I stood underneath the bright lights in my teeny tiny bikini with 13 other bombshells, we awaited the judge’s to call out the top 5.

The announcer first called out #26 for 5th place. As soon as I looked at who it was, I knew there was no chance of me being ranked higher than her. As you can see in the picture below…she’s one of my teammates and is pretty damn ripped!

Then they called 4th place, #41.

Then the announcer said “Third place goes to #28”. ME!!!! WHATTTT??? I couldn’t believe it! I think my mouth literally dropped in pure shock and excitement. Seriously, I got 3rd place??!?!?

As soon as my number was called, I heard this crazy noise in the audience. It was the highest pitched squeal. As soon is I heard it, I knew what it was. I looked over and it was my mom screaming in excitement. It was adorable. You would have thought her daughter had just won Ms. Universe or something haha. My boyfriend liked to describe the noise as something similar to someone finding out they won the lottery at the same time they had their toe nail ripped off. haha. Let me tell ya..it was a strange noise and made me crack up on stage 🙂 Gotta love parents!

Before this competition, I did a post about how my goal was to just looked like I belonged on stage with the other girls and my ultimate goal (which I thought wasn’t realistic) would be to place top 5. I did it!! I got in the top 3!! I’m still on a high from this!

One of the coolest parts about the top 5 girls was that they were all my teammates! So awesome!!!

I don’t have my professional stage photos back yet from the photographer, so I’ll just have to post one that my boyfriend took from the audience.

Here we are. The top 5 at the Bikini America Midwest Championships Bikini Tall Class!

I’m the second from the right.

I can’t believe you can actually see a little bit of my abs peeping through. My abs have always been my biggest struggle on my body. I’ve NEVER in my life been able to see abs. I’m so proud of the picture above for so many reasons.

Here’s a look at the huge (and HEAVY) trophy I won.

I have no clue where to keep this thing though. Right now it’s on our mantle haha. I’ll have to find it a new home soon.

After the competition, my boyfriend and I. He was my rock through this journey of competing. He was always there to encourage me along the way and even ate clean with me at the end. He knew how hard the nutrition side of it was for me, so he made it easier by joining me 🙂 What a good guy. He was also there sometimes to kick my A$s in the gym.

I’m not going to lie though…he’ll hate me for saying this….but I put him through a couple of my workouts at the end of my prep and he said they were harder than any workouts he’d done in a while. Heck yeah!!!

20120928-141125.jpg

Here’s my cheering section.  Thank you guys SO much for coming out to support me!!!

After the show, I changed at the venue and then we went straight downtown Chicago to Giordano’s Pizza!!! I needed to get some of my Chicago pizza for my first meal!

We got a few appetizers.

Here’s my first bite picture. Gosh I was on top of the world in this picture 🙂 I was with my friends who supported me, eating delish food and just conquered a huge fear of mine and succeeded more than I would have ever imagined.

I looked really out of place at dinner. My friends said I looked like I walked straight out of Jersey Shore with my tan, hair and bling. I think they were right.

mmmmmm yummmmmm!

I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in over 2 months at that point. I gave it all up for this competition. I paired my pizza up with a nice cold 312 beer (A yummy Chicago beer) and I was in Heaven 😉

I also downed like 4 glasses of ice water at dinner because I didn’t drink much water at ALL on the show day and I was so very thirsty.

After dinner, my intentions were to hit the bars and celebrate. We went to a bar next door where I had 1/2 of a mixed drink and was sooooo exhausted that I ended up heading home. I knew it was either going to be a really long or really short night for me. Short it was!

I didn’t get sick from my first cheat meal after the competition, however I did get uncomfortably full. I hadn’t eaten that much or that type of food in a while so my tummy was just stuffed!

I slept like a frickin baby that night.

We woke up early and headed to my dad’s house to show him my new hardware from the competition.  My step-mom cooked us an awesome homemade breakfast and I even had a Krispy Kreme donut. Soooooooooo good. I forgot how good those things were.

My trophy may or may not have been the centerpiece to our breakfast that morning.

Now lets just hope I find somewhere to keep this trophy so it doesn’t end up holding something like this….

20120928-141100.jpg

haha…funny Dad!

I feel like my taste buds have a new life to them, it’s dangerous!  Everything tastes so strong and delicious. I hope I don’t have a terrible post-show experience/weight gain though. It’s going to be tough.  I know I will gain some weight back because no one can maintain their competition weight (which I wouldn’t even want to!), so I’m expecting some weight gain, I just hope I don’t spiral too out of control!  I’ve heard it happen to a lot of girls after they compete.  I just can’t let it happen to me.

Overall, I’m EXTATIC about my journey to the stage.  I couldn’t be happier with how much I learned throughout this process and how well I did 🙂

This was the most challenging yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life. 

I hope you enjoyed my series of My First Bikini Competition!  I’ll be doing another post to answer any questions you have, so feel free to leave questions, comments or email me directly at erinstaysfit@gmail.com.

<3 Erin

101 in 1001 Goals Completed:

  • #15. Train for and compete in a bikini competition
  • #26. Meet a blogging friend
  • #76. Do something that terrifies me

7 thoughts on “My First Bikini Competition – Part 4”

  1. Erin you are such an inspiration! That is SO exciting what you have accomplished! I may follow in your footsteps! Thanks so much for the updates, as I read along each time…keep it up!! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Hey Erin. I was looking back at some of your older posts when you first decided to compete. You mentioned that you might share your “competition journel” with us. Thought I’d mention it because I would love to know how you first decided you wanted to compete and how you went about putting together a plan for it. Like I mentioned in my last comment, these posts are so awesome that I’ve started to look into competing, but can’t really find that much information about it. Thanks!!

    Reply
  3. You look so beautiful — you have definitely inspired me to plan to compete! Do let us know what you end up doing nutrition wise in the wake of a competition diet…it’s always interesting to figure out what to do after cutting 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Comment