My Life Before Fitness

 My Life Before Fitness

It has been 5 months since I competed in my second body building competition. My first one was only a month ago. I reflect on the last 4 months. The emotional roller-coaster I had. The ups and downs, the tears, blood and sweat. I realised that, this was only a small battle I had faced, which to me now, looking back on it, really wasn’t a battle. It was a challenge, yes, but nothing I would never do again. This is a sport I have now found a love and passion for. The real challenge is what we face nearly everyday. Life.

 

2015 - TM FITNESS

The real battle I had faced in the past, was where I was before I competed. Before I really had taken fitness seriously, or even life seriously.

My mum always jokes that I was a child that never sat still. I was always moving. I was loud, cheeky and drove my mother insane.

She put me into dancing lessons at the age of three and also acting classes to help improve my English and writing at the age of six. Soon I realised, growing up I wanted to be a performer. I loved the stage, I loved the emotions dancing can express when words can’t.

Unfortunately growing up my life wasn’t like everyone else. Mum was an AVON lady looking after two children, whereas my dad was a project manager who earned amazing money, but always gambled it. Mum was someone who would work extra hours at the dance school to help fund my school, so I could continue dancing and do the things I loved.

Years went on and the love and support I yearned that other children got from their families- especially financially, was something that was so rare for me. I remembered one day when I was in year 7, I came home from school and I tried to get into the house we lived in and the lock had been changed. Dad had owed that much money that the people owning the house we rented, changed the locks, took all our furniture to pay for the debt and we ended up on the street. We stayed for a few nights in a caravan park and people from the church would stop by and give us money and food. That experience, is something I will never forget.

I grew up, became a rebellious teenager once mum and dad split. I started drinking and taking drugs whilst hanging around a bad crowd. I look back at that now and I realised I was a typical teenage girl, trying to get the love and attention from my parents who were too busy dealing with their own issues.

Drinking and partying

Then a miracle happened.

I got accepted into Mcdonald College Performing Arts School where I studied acting for 2 years and completed my HSC there. Those two years were the best school years of my life. I was surrounded by artistic school kids who aspired to one day, be a phenomenal performer.

I graduated in year 12 having the lead role in my acting stream year, which to me was one of my most memorable moments growing up. I was ending my school life, doing what I loved and showing the talent I actually had.

Yr 12 Grad Play- 'The Visit'

Year 12 Formal

 

ACTT 2008

I then went on to study Musical Theatre at ACTT for a year and then auditioned the year after in 2009 for Ed5 International with my Brazilian best friend Paulo and got into the full-time dance program.

My background was acting, but I wanted to improve my dancing so much, I attended ed5. Compared to everyone else, I had a lot of work to do. I was behind in technique, I wasn’t familiar with all the new styles and I had to work twice as hard, as everyone else to be at the level of a professional dancer.

That was the year, my five year long boyfriend, decided to break up with me two weeks before I graduated from my college, leaving me homeless and no where to go. Not even my family. THANK GOD my best friend Holly, who is still my best friend to this day, had her own apartment available with a spare room. She let me stay with her until I was able to get back on my feet and start paying rent. I was only 20 years old. I finally graduated, kicked butt at the concert and scored an agent- my life long dream.

As any graduate at Ed5 may have felt, after you graduate from being in a college for a year, you grow so much confidence. You feel invincible at every audition and you start to believe that the next big musical will be yours within the first few months.

Well it wasn’t. And slowly, your confidence levels go down, you start getting rejected at most auditions, you then start self-doubting yourself and then spiral down into a hole where you feel worthless.

This happened to me. I started to question my talent, my look and even started picking at myself, especially my body.

I started to find quick fixes of diet trends, to even extreme measures like sourcing out Duromine which is a tablet that obese people use to lose weight (like speed) and Clenbuterol- an airway dilator for horses. It also has anabolic properties which led to its use in food-producing animals to increase lean meat yield. I was obsessed with losing weight the wrong way, I didn’t realise how much damage it was doing to my body.

I was also going to the gym, partying heavily again and mixing all my poor choices, plus working 10 jobs to support myself.

I became depressed, went to a councillor who put me on anti-depressants, and also a sleeping tablet called Stilnox, which down the track changed my life forever.

I knew things had to change. I was a zombie on medication and I was knocking myself at night, so I could numb the pain of my life- which in worse fact, made me sleep walk and sleep eat.

The day I quit Stilnox was the day I humiliated myself with a guy I was seeing. I had become extremely paranoid about this particular guy, wouldn’t hear from him when I texted and called so I knocked myself out with Stilnox and wine. To my horror, I woke up, not remembering the night I had. I had called him about 30 x on my phone, had taken more Stilnox when I was asleep and had long conversations to him on the phone where I was slurring my words and saying things that I actually regret. I don’t know how I didn’t overdose that night.

I stormed straight to the doctors and demanded that they stopped prescribing me Stilnox to me so I can stop getting addicted.

It was the wake up call I needed. I needed to change, to start fresh, get rid of all my bad habits. So I did.

Everything started to turn positive again. I worked hard for a top agent who I am still with now, getting good auditions and amazing jobs that I’ve treasured so much.

I then started to worry more and more about my future. I can’t keep having 10 jobs, where there was no stability or guaranteed work. How will my children survive when I have a family? I would never put them through what I went through.

Few years down the track, I studied Personal Training, I met the love of my life at college where he was one of the lecturers there and my whole life turned into a life I was proud of, a life of light, passion, love, dreams and motivation.

I learnt how to be the best personal trainer I can be and met my coach Michael Lee and Clinton Williams who introduced me to my new love of FITNESS MODELLING or BODY SCULPTING.

I went from someone who used drugs to get fit, to being all natural at the gym everyday, training nearly 3 hours a day eating as clean as ANYTHING sticking to a healthy diet. I stopped drinking, I stopped partying and I won my first competition and then placed top 6 in Australia in my second competition.

6th Place in Nationals

You are probably asking yourself: “Why is she sharing all of this? “She’s just asking for attention.” Well no, far from it. I have realised from meeting so many beautiful souls during my years as a Personal trainer, speaking to my clients who suffer from depression, eating disorders or any mental illnesses that, I want to be that voice. I was someone that had a bad life growing up, been through hell and back since a very young age, then made that decision of not being the victim of my past anymore. You have a choice. Sure it’s not easy, it’s easy to dig a hole of your painful sorrows and just keep yourself hidden from the world and hope that life will just get easier along the way. Life is hard, no matter what- It’s whether you choose to be a strong individual and make each day count, or choose to die. I chose to live.

This year, 2015, is all about helping others, being a mentor for those around me. I want to prove to people that you can have a good, healthy life by training regularly and eating well.
 

There are people that have entered my life now, who just by giving small advice along the way, have changed how I look at the world as a whole. Those people are the ones I want to surround myself with, so I can grow and stay positive.

I am always here for anyone that needs any advice on anything! 

To all my athletes who are competing this year, this is your time to shine, if you can get through LIFE, through the bull-shit of problems we go through every single day, then you know deep in your heart that you can compete. Because each day you get out of bed, you are living yet another day, you are surviving and fighting!
 

One quote I always will live by and will share with you now is: “Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.”

I am not a quitter and neither are you.

Tam x