003: Finding the Balance Between Physique Goals and Self-Care with Renee Gareau

“Enjoy every second of it whether it's the offseason where you're building to get to your first prep to start your cut. Don't feel like it's a chore because it’s a huge commitment. It's time, it's body, it's everything. It's all of you.” —Renee Gareau

Undergoing bodybuilding prep requires pushing our physical and mental limits. While the desire to improve and compete is motivating, truly listening to our body's needs is crucial for long-term success and well-being. Sometimes, we may have to make necessary adjustments to make progress without burning out. This awareness will help us better structure our training, nutrition, and recovery so that we can continually enhance our physique while also caring for our whole self in the process.

This week, we are showered with timely insights about better understanding our body's needs during preps and offseasons from our guest, Renee Gareau. 

Listen in as Renee opens up about the physical and mental challenges she faced during her first prep, the importance of support systems, the power of truly committing to the bodybuilding lifestyle and enjoying the process, and lessons learned about maintaining an active lifestyle.

Connect with Sherrie: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sherrie.massiakapach 

Instagram: https://instagram.com/mindbodysoul_hypnothetapist 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherrie-kapach-b5bb26243 

Email: skapach40@gmail.com 

Episode Highlights:

01:24 Challenges in Training and Off-Season Competition

04:38 Enjoy the Journey   

06:18 The Role of Support System for Bodybuilders

Transcript

Sherrie Kapach: Welcome to Beyond The Prep. I'm the host, Sherrie Kapach. I'd like to welcome Rene, and she's competing today. Are you competing this morning?

Rene: Yeah, in the bikini?

Sherrie Kapach: So welcome. How are you feeling?

Rene: Feeling excited, and it's all nervous deliciousness is the words that I know I've kind of always gone by that feeling. So I'm feeling good.

Sherrie Kapach: Good. Yeah. Good. It's wonderful. So what made you decide to get into bodybuilding?

Rene: I met a girl through horses, and she was into it. I went and helped her do one of her shows with all these women that were just from 18 to 65 that were competing and I'm like, this is something I can do. I love the structure of everything so it just kind of keeps pushing me and keeps pushing the moment.

Sherrie Kapach: Is this your first competition?

Rene: It's my second with the CPA, and I think it's best all together. Just been running with it.

Sherrie Kapach: So when you first started getting into it and started figuring out, what was all involved? What were your thoughts?

Rene: What did I get myself into? My first prep did not, honestly, I know everybody had tough preps in practice, just in general. But my first prep never went as planned. There was obstacle after obstacle. We push the stage regardless, but it is just a learning process every time and you just want to get bigger, better and leaner. It's crazy. You just never want to stop. I guess it's kind of addicting. And sometimes, a lot of people say that it's the shreds that are addictive. But I love the offseason and learning where you can improve and get better. Learn more about your body in the offseason.

Sherrie Kapach: Absolutely. Yeah. Because as you go along, you do learn. So obstacles, what kind of obstacles?

Rene: This prep was horrible. I work in the oil field, so kind of a rubber job. And then I also trained horses, which can also be a tackle. I took a few spills this year during prep. I partially dislocated my shoulder. I cracked some ribs. I've broken my toes all within the last two months. Let's talk about obstacles. Those are just the physical ones and let alone like the mental space and just, yeah, this prep has been extremely tough.

Sherrie Kapach: What kind of mental straits have you encountered? Because there's people out here that are considering getting on, and it's just good information.

Rene: I think you have to really want to be on stage. Someone to just come in and just be like, hey, I want to give a shot at bodybuilding. Once you start that prep, you have to have an amazing coach behind you. A support system that understands why and what you're doing because not all days are good. The glamorous days, sure. Prep looks like it's tough. And I mean that you have to be brutally honest with yourself during prep because if you're living on cloud 9 all the time, it's either gonna hit really hard and you will rebound, which a lot of athletes do. I think if you're honest the whole way through and you're talking about, hey, I'm totally depressed today, or I don't feel like going to the gym. You have to have that support system to be like, hey, this was your dream. This is your goal. Let's help you get here. To me anyway, I know I have my rocks that I lean on a lot.

Sherrie Kapach: Yeah, the coach. Definitely, yeah. That support like, I can't do this.

Rene: And to be able to talk to them about everything. As a female competitor, I can have a male coach like, you got to be open to all your PMS, and then everything else in hormones. We all body shame ourselves. We're our harshest critics so having someone that you can really talk to is very important.

Sherrie Kapach: Yeah, for sure. So for someone that I'd say is considering or thinking about starting out or wants to give it a shot, what's the best advice you could give them?

Rene: Honestly, enjoy every second of it. Because whether it's the offseason where you're building to get to your first prep to start your cut, enjoy it. Don't feel like it's a chore. It feels like it's a chore for me anyway if I'm being forced to do it. If someone says, hey, let's do a show together. I have to want to do it.

Sherrie Kapach: Yeah, it's a huge commitment.

Rene: It's time, it's body. It's everything. It's all of you. So yeah, it is definitely consuming.

Sherrie Kapach: Even for like, socially.

Rene: Oh, absolutely. Everyone talks about the glamor of prep and competing, but you do lose a lot on the way to the stage, and you find out who your friends are and who they're not. What's important to you and what's not. So absolutely.

Sherrie Kapach: That's a huge part of your whole environment, it will change. And they don't care if you understand. And those ones you don't need know what you're feeling, oh, well, there's the curve. What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you first started?

Rene: In the horse world, it's a pretty clicky industry. And I thought about coming to a world that is full of, wanna say, Barbie dolls, because that's what we see on show day, I didn't realize how big of a community and family that the bodybuilding world is. Whether you're ready to step on stage or you're deep in the offseason, that camaraderie and sport is always there. So yeah, that was the one thing that I wish I had known earlier because I was always scared to step in and be like, it's gonna be hard to find my way in there because everybody's just so there. But it's a huge family. And everybody just supports each other.

Sherrie Kapach: It's a very tight knit community. It's really nice to see that. When you come to one of these shows, you're all on the same wavelength. So we're all struggling. You're all hungry. You're all tired. So where you are, see where you live in things like that, do you have other bodybuilders around that you can communicate with, or are you kind of on your own in that aspect?

Rene: I do have a few of them. There's a lot of the virtual side of it. You find girls or guys that are somewhere in here in the area, and you talk a lot about prep. But for the most part, I find a loan and stuff like that just kind of my time. But reaching out has never been an issue. There's a lot of them that are there. They encountered the same issues or had the same tribes. So it's good. You can talk to them. Yeah, yeah.

Sherrie Kapach: That's good. Perfect. Well, on that note, we will let you go. It's a long day. You got lots of stuff to do, so good luck.

Rene: Thank you.

Sherrie Kapach: Maybe I can come out there and see you on stage. Very excited for you. Absolutely.

Rene: So thank you very much.