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Does BB'ing take you INTO yourself, or provide an escape from yourself?

SteelWeaver

New member
I was flying high on my bike this morning, feeling my legs pump, feeling the cool fresh breeze, the world clean after yesterday's typhoon, and thinking ...

By the end of this year, I will have spent more than 8 months of the year dieting. There's this huge tunnel vision thing that happens on a comp. diet - you just can't focus on anything else to much of an extent.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing or an indifferent thing? I feel I've learnt so much about where my limits AREN'T, and my over-riding feeling is that I've grown as a person in terms of my knowledge about myself, confidence, etc. But I also wonder if training and dieting so hard, and focussing so small, doesn't take one AWAY from oneself as well. When I train, I only think about the muscle pumping, contracting, releasing, resisting. The next move, the next rep, the weight, the SENSATION. When I ride I don't think a whole lot - it's so much more the SENSATION.

Are bodybuilders sensation addicts? Do you have a philosophy? Do you consider the socio-cultural ramifications of the way you make your body? How do you see yourself within the broader spectrum of society - both as a woman and as a bodybuilder?

Is it just how we FEEL and how we LOOK????
 
When I do cardio, I have to have music going - hard trance or heavy metal - and I just space out and hope that when I come out of my little space out that my time is done. Otherwise its a chore. Lifting, on the other hand, is like pure euphoria for me. Its a mental & physical release from my day, all my stress and gives me a chance to not think about anything but my reps. When I'm done, I feel refreshed & relaxed & energized all at the same time. And in general I have pursued lifting for the last 20 years with this in mind more than how I look. To get the "how I look" results, I also have to figure in diet, and I've only just figured out how to do that & not succumb to emotional / boredom eating in the last 5 years or so.

As far as how diet & bb can become all-inclusive - you bet. I've passed up plenty of happy hours in favor of my dinner time trips to the gym, but since I started competing, I've had significant impact on my social life. I think alot of people literally got bored talking to me because all I ever talked about was diet & training. Of course that's all I talked about when I was doing my first show because it was all so new. The second show I didn't obsess about it so much because the novelty was gone, but the intensity was doubled.

And here I am considering yet another show and I still look at all the skinnier girls in the gym w/ envy! LOL! And then I go home and flex in my own mirror and feel better! I suspect I will always be battling my body fat and wishing I could be skinnier, but when I'm old & gray, I think I'll be able to look back and even forward and say that I've got a strong body and won't be sacrificing quality of life because I can't get around very well.
 
SW - I think BB's know themselves better than anyone else - and I agree with Sassy - cardio is a chore - weights...aaahhhh. Release and energized all in one! But to each his own. I think it has to do with peace of mind and finding what makes us tick. BB (or competing) you are constantly finding your limits, what works/what doesn't, testing, listening or feeling your body respond ... I think that is putting yourself in touch as close as you can get. But does it take you away from others? It makes me more aware personally. I people watch & often ask myself what makes each of them tick. I also try to help my kids by asking them questions ... me? just more attentive to my body and others around me. IMHO. Very good question ...
 
I'll bet the answer is diff for everyone. For many I think that it's about setting and achieving goals, and if they didn't have BB, they'd find something else. These may be the 'workaholics' of the world. They do not always make the best of intimate, life-long partners! They will always be deeply focused on something...

For others there may just be some novelty value in experiencing what it's like to do a show (or two or three). When the novelty's worn off, they'll be on to the next sensation overload.

Others may be driven by fundamental vanity, or an addiction to the feeling of control over their bodies or other people. There's a lot of people with eating disorders or body dysmorphic syndromes in this class.

Others may get pushed into BB by peer pressure. These folks, in my experience, don't last long and often never make it on stage even once.

Others are just drug addicts looking for a way to justify their addictions.

Then there's the true naturals who are pretty much born to be muscular and lean.......

Then there's everyone else which prolly encompasses as many reasons and motivations as there are bodybuilders.

For me, I PREFER cardio in the sense that for me cardio consists of a variety of outdoor pursuits that are truly exciting compared to lifting a weight up and down and up and down. If my only cardio was on a treadmill/stepper/rowing machine then I'm sure I would dread it too. So I love cardio, I don't mind lifting weights, and I hate dieting (I'm pretty sure anyone who's ever done it can relate to the diet). So I would be pretty unhappy if I'd spent 8 months of the last year dieting!!!! For me dieting takes a lot of the joy out of the things that I ordinarily enjoy, including "cardio", weights, friends, work and recreation.
 
Geesh, I forgot to mention prolly the most important reason for taking up BB for many people:

Sex

Being perceived as sexually desirable (whether YOU feel sexier or everyone else perceives you as sexier) is a huge motvational factor for many folks. Again, I feel that a lot of this it's more about introspection (I feel better because of how other people see my body) and is not condusive to forming intimate, lifelong partnerships, but it's great in the short term satisfaction department. Whatever the reasons, I think that the well educated BB will realize that they cannot LOOK like a stud-muffin forever, and that ultimately you need to put energy into more lasting pursuits (I dunno, maybe personality, family, health, world peace LOL) unless you plan on the proverbial "live hard, die young and leave a good looking body" lifestyle.
 
I guess when I say FEEL, I mean it purely physically - the actual physical sensation, rather than the good, refreshed psychological feeling after a workout - although I suppose the two are entertwined.

"BB (or competing) you are constantly finding your limits, what works/what doesn't, testing, listening or feeling your body respond "

Well put. I've had body issues for a good part of my life - but everything that I did to my body took me AWAY from it, made it alien to me - made it separate from me. I longed for the day that medical science would free me from corporealism, but because of the issues I had with my body, I was never entirely free of it - the more I hated to be stuck in it, the more I WAS stuck in it and yet separate from it.

When I first came to this board and saw people saying things like - carbs/sodium bloat me, or, I have more energy on oatmeal or whatever, I was stunned. I couldn't understand how anyone could detect such tiny differences, and yet now, I'm right there, knowing stuff like this about my body, and still learning, tinkering.

The more I pump iron, the more I am aware of each muscle, the blood pumping, different types of pain, volumes/intensity of work that work. I have, in a sense, been reborn into my own body.

But at the same time, my world has narrowed considerably. I'm pretty sure this will change once I'm off the frigging diet for a decent amount of time, but I kind of feel I've lost some of the me I used to be - the funny, easygoing, spontaneous parts. I experience joy and love in ways I didn't use to, in different, more lonely ways. Mmm, hard to explain ...

It seems like now I'm IN my body most of the time - just feeling, not thinking so much - kind of spaced out, but connected. I suppose my question here is not so much why one would take up bodybuilding, but how one grows in and through bodybuilding, and how that affects/changes one's outlook, one's goals, one's perspective, one's character, one's place in/reaction to/understanding of society. Or if not changes, hones, or even provides an outlook for what's there already.

I know it's taught me how to set and achieve goals - and yeah, if I weren't obsessed with bodybuilding I'd be obsessed with something else, and that's exactly what I told my ex when we split - it's not the bodybuilding, dear, it's ME.

As for sex, well, I have to say I've had LESS sex since starting training and dieting seriously than ever before, LMFAO!!! Who has the energy?
 
"As for sex, well, I have to say I've had LESS sex since starting training and dieting seriously than ever before, LMFAO!!! Who has the energy?"................................Now listen up. THIS IS WHY SERIOUS BBs USE AAS. It's so they can slack off in the gym and have more time and energy for sex, have more sex drive, and also attract more sex because they have a sexy body.. .GOT IT??? You're doing it ALL wrong MWAAAAhahahahahahaha
 
Hummphh! VERY FUNNY :mad:

But actually, besides lack of energy, I've realised I've become much more picky about body type and what I find attractive.

AND I'm not into casual sex.

AND I'm not a slave to social pressures to continually be "getting it on".

AND ...... heh heh heh - research papers are thrilling enough for me

:)
 
WarLobo said:
I lift so I can get shagged more. I do cardio so when I do get shagged, I can do it more often.

Yah Baby

get shagged = get laid or = get really tired? I'm assuming the first. We actually say "get a shag" rather than "get shagged" - the latter implies you are on the receiving end of any penetration :-).
 
Im with sassy on the cardio thing..I HATE IT! I gotta have some tunes and its something i force myself to do when getting ready for a show...no enjoyment at all. Now as for training....its a different story...when I am in the gym I am totally focused...my daily problems are gone from my mind. im always ready to push myself harder than the day before and take my body to the limits..its my time for me and me only...

I think competition and the bodybuilding lifestyle can leave u solo a lot of times..but it just depends who you surround yourself with..most of my friends either compete or are into training...so there is common interest there...other people i know from work or even family members...call it obsesed..weird...and whatever..but for me i have to live the way that makes ME happy.. i have to live my life...they dont. so opinions dont mean shit to me....
 
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