Transform with Toni

4 weeks out from my 10th bodybuilding competition.

My 10th show.
My 2nd national stage.
Almost 8 years between these two photos.

The photo on the left was my very first show in September of 2018.

And honestly, I started bodybuilding from a place of desperate vanity.

I had Noah. I had Roman. My body had changed. I didn’t feel like myself, and I wanted my body back.

I thought bodybuilding was going to give me that.

And in some ways, it did.

But what I didn’t know then was that this sport would end up giving me so much more than a body.

It taught me discipline.
It taught me patience.
It taught me how to keep showing up through motherhood, anxiety, grief, stress, business changes, hard seasons, and the days where nobody was clapping.

Because bodybuilding looks glamorous for about one day.

The suit, the tan, the makeup, the stage lights, the photos.

But the real work is repetitive, boring, inconvenient, and very much not sexy.

The same meals.
The same cardio.
The same lifts.
The same check-ins.
The same promises kept over and over again.

That’s the part that changes you.

The woman on the left wanted her body back.

The woman on the right built something much bigger than a body.

I’m proud of the physique.

But I’m even more proud of the woman it took to build it.

4 weeks out.
10th show.
Second national stage.
And this one means a hell of a lot more. 🖤