It all started in June 2008. I was playing floor hockey at DU. Out of nowhere I suddenly experienced excruciating pain in my upper abdominal region. It literally hurt to stand upright and I couldn't muscle through the pain to run for more than 15 seconds. I almost went to the ER, but since I never go to the doctor much less the ER I decided to sleep it off. I went home, crawled into the fetal position and basically cried all night; the next day I made an emergency doctor appointment. They found internal bleeding, but couldn't explain why. Since they couldn't determine the cause, I was put on Vicodin (10 mg every 4 hours) and a ton of "let's just wing it" stomach meds.

A month and several tests later, I went to one of the best gastroenterologist in Colorado, Steven Ayres. He decided to do an endoscope, which ended up being 12 biopsies, and he found the root of the problem. I have a sphincter in my small intestine that doesn't shut properly. This is usually caused by a birth defect or a mishap during a gastric bypass. Neither applied to me; just one of those extremely odd things that just happen and you have to deal with it. Steven Ayres said he sees a ton of new patients each year, of which he diagnoses maybe 2 with "bile reflux disease". Basically because the sphincter doesn't shut properly, every time I eat fat (even healthy fats from almonds or avocado) bile goes the opposite direction and eats through the stomach lining. The medical fix is either medication or to surgically reroute my insides.

When I was first diagnosed I was on 18 pills a day. I couldn't stand taking that many pills and often forgot to take them. It was physically painful and the Vicodin only helped a little bit. Steven Ayres told me there are 3 things that can irritate my stomach; nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pills, alcohol and fat. After months of altering my diet I found that if I eat only 3 - 5 grams of fat per meal and less than 25 grams per day my stomach hurt dramatically less. Since 1 gram of fat is 9 calories, whereas 1 gram of protein and carbs is only 4 calories, this change in my diet was enough of a calorie deficit to start dropping pounds per week without working out more. I didn't want to be "skinny fat" so I started weight lifting on a regular basis.

A buddy of mine asked me to go to the local CytoCharge Rocky Mountain Bodybuilding Championships on Nov. 15, 2008. I sat in the audience and watched the fitness competition thinking, I could do that, that looks easy. In my defense, I came from a gymnastic background. However, the "simple" holds fitness competitors do might have been easy for me when I was 10 and had a great gymnastic physique, but now those holds are close to impossible.

Within weeks, Jamie Eason became my hero, and bodybuilding.com was responsible for most of my bookmarks. Shortly after the Rocky Mountain show I decided I was going to start training for a fitness competition and make the best out of my diagnosis. I found an amazing fitness trainer, Melena Marquez from Body Mecca in Denver, who further introduced me to Lauren Niehaus. Melena and Lauren made a commitment to kick my butt into shape if I committed to compete in the April 4 th NPC show. These two women totally changed every aspect of my life. I also started training at 5280 gymnastics, home of Olympian Alexander "Sasha" Artemev and with my choreographer Mikki Stewart.

What I didn't understand when I decided to start training is that this would be one of the most difficult life changes I've ever gone through. Not only does your daily routine change drastically, so does your diet and more importantly you state of mind. You go from looking at a person normally to inspecting every muscle group and their complete body structure. You start to appreciate the human body more than ever before and admire people who are more than just fit. Now when I go into a gym I look around and try to guess what each person is training for. I wonder why they are training; is it to lose some weight for a special occasion, do they do MMA fighting, or are they a fitness freak like me.

The difficulty of this journey cannot be explained on paper. My day starts at 4:30 at which point I get dressed in my gym clothes and head to Ballys or Flatiron Athletic Club every morning before work. I try to do 45 minutes of intense cardio, then super set weights for a specific muscle group, then back to cardio for 30 minutes of a "cool down" and then I stretch for 15 minutes. Then I put on my work clothes, go to my job and then I go back to the gym. I'm a network engineer, so my hours can be great or they can be horribly unpredictable. With my job things either work or they don't; if something breaks the outage can be any length of time and all maintenance has to be done during "off" hours. My training can and has suffered a lot from my job, but I love my career and my job so it's worth the sacrifice. My afternoon workout is usually just an hour and a half of endurance training. In the afternoons throughout the week I also have to fit in posing practice once, gymnastics at least once a week, routine run throughs several times a week, and some play. I still allow myself to play dodge ball and floor hockey through playcoed.com. I only allow myself two sports a week, which is down from 5 sport nights last season. I'm lucky to get into bed by 10 and then it starts over again the next day. Most days I wish there were at least 5 more hours in the day, but if there were I would only use 2 of them for sleep.

I'm sure my day isn't any harder than the rest of the fitness, figure or body builders competing. Other competitors have the added complexity of being a parent or working and being a full time student. This journey has been the greatest eye opener. I remember sitting in the audience at the first show thinking this would be easy. I was absolutely 150% wrong. Physically and mentally this experience has been exhausting to say the least, but I have gained more respect for the world of fitness than I thought was possible. I was in, what I thought at the time, "great shape" in late November 2008 when I first started training. I play almost every sport and have my entire life. I started at a pretty healthy 150lbs and 25% body fat. I now weigh 130lbs and am about 15% body fat. This experience redefined my definition of fitness, motivation, will power, self discipline, pain and respect! I can't begin to explain how hard each competitor works to reach their goals. What each one puts themselves through on a daily, weekly & monthly basis is nothing short of absolutely amazing.

by Eileen Thomas