First I would like to say hello to all of the FitGems Nation fans!! I am so excited to be contributing to this website. I have a huge passion for all things fitness, and this website happens to be one of my favorites on that front.
So by now I’m sure you’re wondering, who am I? My name is Lizzy Ostro, some may know me as Fit Lizzio. I was born and raised in Arizona and although the summers can be brutal, I love this state.
Growing up, I was definitely a tom boy. Sports have always been a part of my life. I dabbled in volleyball, soccer, and basketball, but baseball (yes, baseball, not softball) and flag football were my favorites. I was always the only girl on the team for both sports, and the first practice of every season was always the same. I got weird looks from my teammates and their parents. “A girl?!?! What is she doing here?!?!” By the time the first practice was over, the questions were gone. I had proven to them that I wasn’t your typical girly girl and that I could keep up with the boys with no problem. From age 11-14 I was the quarterback for my flag football teams, and from age 11-16 I was the starting first basemen on my baseball teams. I played with the same baseball team for 3 of those years and we became a family. We travelled together, had pool parties, and practiced our hearts out. Baseball was our life and it gave me a lot of the qualities that I still carry with me to this day. Many people will say that baseball is a lazy sport, but that wasn’t the case for me. I took practices just as seriously as games, and put my heart and soul into the sport. At the age of 15, I started high school and tried out for our nationally ranked baseball team. I made first cuts and was finally released as the very last cut. The team just didn’t know what to do with a girl as far as locker rooms, and travelling. I had the talent, but politics beat me. For the 3 days of tryouts, I can honestly say that was the hardest I have ever worked in my life. I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t keep up with the boys, so my 5’2, 98 pounds frame did EVERYTHING that all of the high school boys did. This includes 30 diamond pushups that I vividly remember. Previously I had barely been able to perform 10 of them, but I wouldn’t let myself give up and to this day, I remember the feeling in my arms and body. The effort I put into those tryouts was purely my heart’s desire.
So what does any of this have to do with a fitness website?? Well it brings me to today. After quitting baseball, competing in high jump on my high school’s track team, and eventually giving up sports all together after high school, I found myself as a lazy person. Fast food was a twice daily occurrence, and I didn’t know what to do in the gym. I tried to go every once in a while my freshman year of college, but looking back, the workouts were ridiculous. Treating myself to Coldstone and sushi after my half-ass elliptical sessions also didn’t do much for me. ;-) Luckily I had a fast metabolism and I managed to stay skinny, but it was more of a “skinny-fat.”
In the summer of 2007, I walked into a studio called Lifts and met my first personal trainer, Bret Contreras(The Glute Guy.) Bret changed my life. His belief was that women can lift weights, and they can lift heavy. He taught me how to deadlift and squat and I had finally found my inner athlete again. I never missed a workout, and 3 years later, I am now a bikini competitor, healthy living coach and advocate, and working my way into the fitness modeling industry.
December 2008, I had been working out for over a year, but wasn’t eating quite right. I ate a lot of processed foods and my physique wasn’t looking the way I wanted it to despite the workouts that I put in. I decided that I wanted to compete and immediately began eating clean and in better proportions. July 2009, I competed in my first bikini competition and placed 2nd in my class. It qualified me for a national show, and made me fall in love with the sport. The things I gave up and the work that I put in was HARD. For 6 months I worked out 6-7 days a week, ate completely clean, and completely transformed my body. When I stepped on stage on July 18, 2009, I knew that all of my hard work was worth it. I have never had a happier feeling in my entire LIFE than I did on that day.
I’m excited to share my journey to the national stage with all of you. I spent my off season putting on some quality muscle, and am now shedding the winter weight to reveal my new physique. I am now 15 weeks away from my first national competition and excited to see the fruits of my labor!
I am going to show you all that the bikini division is NOT “easy.” The division gets a pretty bad reputation from both those who don’t take it seriously and also those who take it a little too far with their “stage presence”, making it look like a T&A show. The serious and dedicated bikini competitors work JUST as hard as the figure and bodybuilding girls and I am determined to prove that to those who doubt it.
Please feel free to comment and share your opinions! If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will be sure to answer them all.
I hope you are all looking forward to her posts about the bikini division. For those with Twitter, you can follow her at http://twitter.com/lizzio36. Also visit her website at http://www.fitlizzio.com/ and her blog at http://fitlizzio.wordpress.com/. You can also view her FitGems Nation profile page at http://www.fitgemsnation.net/profile/LizzyOstro.
2 comments:
Yay Lizzy! I can't wait to read more!
Very cool! Love the pic.
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