I finally found a coach! Her name is Crissi Carvalho, and she's Australian and awesome. :D
This is her on Australian Ninja Warrior!
It's funny...because I had heard about her before, but I didn't know she did bikini competition coaching. When I did my initial search for coaches for some reason I didn't come across her page. But the few that I did email weren't responding to me...so I naturally started to freak out a little. I wanted to start on a program as soon as possible as I knew the more time I had to prep, the better. Especially for my first competition. But I did manage to post on a Facebook vegan bodybuilding page..and guess who responded to my post about finding a coach...Crissi! And she was even on vacation as well! So I took that as a sign. I decided to wait until the end of June when her coaching would resume and I purchased my program June 30th :D
Stuffed Peppers with Nutritional Yeast
I went with the Platinum membership which includes 16 weeks of coaching, as well as custom meal plans and exercise plans, posing critique, access to her membership club, 7 coaching sessions on top of an initial consult, unlimited updates, constant tracking and accountability, etc. Plus she was willing to let me stretch my program out to 18 weeks since I wanted to start early.
Before getting Crissi's program I may have gone a little too hard on my training..I was attempting to do heavy lifting 5-6 days a week, doing some workouts by accomplished vegan bodybuilders...so I was pretty sore to say the least... Luckily Crissi put me straight and gave me a more reasonable workout program. I also made her stuffed peppers recipe and they are awesome! You should definitely get her book here- www.veganfitnessmodel.com It has so many varied recipes that are filling and nutritious. What's really cool is that she has them all in Myfittnesspal as well if you're tracking calories like me :P It makes things super easy. Just a few clicks and you've logged your meals for the day!
Check out my video update with my before photos and subscribe to my YouTube channel :D
Most people laugh when I tell them I became vegetarian thanks to a cartoon. This particular cartoon - "BraceFace" is what ignited the vegetarian fire within me and gave me the courage to be the little animal activist I am. The lead character voiced by Alicia Silverstone, was an awkward preteen with braces that did crazy things at times. The particular episode I watched at summer camp included the main character Sharon walking through the city and hearing animals cry as they got ready to die. She made the connection between meat and where it really comes from, and decided to become a vegetarian. Although it wasn't very realistic to be walking by a slaughterhouse in the city, it resonated with me, and I decided to become a vegetarian too. That night I went home and told my mom I wasn't going to eat meat anymore. Because I was in a summer camp with meals provided and we were in the middle of the week, my mom responded, "Can't you at least wait until the weekend?" But I couldn't. I told her I could no longer sacrifice my principals for the taste of meat.
As I did more research on vegetarianism I became more and more passionate about it. I didn't mind telling my classmates at school and informing others about where I got my protein from. But over time, constantly having to justify my beliefs wore on me. In high school it got to a point that I was harassed so frequently for being vegetarian I made my friends promise not to tell anyone new. If they accidentally slipped, I would get mad at them. My senior year I remember being bombarded so much in a class that I starting tearing up in front of the boys bullying me, and it was humiliating. After that I was very careful about telling anyone.
In college I started to realize that there were more mature people out there that would accept me for who I was. I even found a club called Hilltop Herbivores for the vegetarians and vegans on campus. I still had moments where I struggled with people treating me poorly and disrespecting me for my beliefs, but starting learning how to effectively discuss it and change the subject when the need arose.
Even this year I tried to keep my veganism under the radar when I switched to working at a new Gold's. However, when one person knows about your veganism, it doesn't take long for everyone to find out- so I didn't get a chance to hide it. Although this kind of annoyed me at first, as I rarely get to inform people on my own terms, I've learned that I can't help others or shatter stereotypes if no one knows I'm vegan.
I want to represent veganism in the best possible way, and the only way to do that is to be proud and open about it. So I've decided to finally embrace my veganism and stop hiding! I ordered these tank tops from Spreadshirt (not a sponsor) where I got to design them completely however I liked. I'm super happy with how they turned out, yet still a little nervous about getting glared at while I workout tonight wearing one of them..wish me luck! ;)
You can see what they look like in the video below :D
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I finally found a coach! Her name is Crissi Carvalho, and she's Australian and awesome. :D
