I was perusing Facebook a while ago and noticed a friend of mine had commented on a photo of a IFBB figure pro who was a few weeks out from her show (it was one of those bathroom shots, post-workout…you know the ones).

Whoa! This gal had an 8-pack, rock-hard abs, literally bricks, and a huge pump on her shoulders, veins bulging. She was ready to walk on stage today! Besides the incredibly sculpted body, what caught my attention were the literally HUNDREDS of comments on the picture.

As I scrolled through, I noticed many said things like, “She looks like a man” or “Is that you, Jeff?” and other degrading insults to an actual real person, whose page these people were a fan of.

What the??

Try as I might to get past the blatant rudeness and straight-up ugliness of the comments (social media etiquette is the subject for another time), I thought about female muscle and how depending on where you are personally in your own physique journey, you may or may not get it/want it/like it when it comes to women having muscle.

It brought me back to my own transition and how far I have come in the way I see it, and the point at which I have arrived now.

When I was in college, I loved reading magazines like Shape and Fitness. The women on the covers were skinny supermodels (with great lighting and professional hair and make-up). Who wouldn’t want to look like that? And all I had to do was do the workouts in those magazines, and I, too, could look like that, right?

Well, not short of growing a foot and being born in Brazil, ha!

Funny side story: Years ago I was in New York City on a work trip. I was a couple weeks out from my figure competition, and I happened to schedule a meeting with a top fitness modeling agency while there. Well, I wasn’t at the meeting but 5 minutes, when the agent (who hadn’t even seen my body as it was winter and I was wearing jeans and a huge winter coat) threw me in a cab for a go-see at Fitness magazine, meanwhile I was not even a signed model with the agency? Looolol.

Apparently one of his models had to cancel at the last second and I was right in front of him so I went. No comp card, no book, nothing. Oh well, what the hell! (PS a “go-see” is when a model goes to see/meet the client and they take some polaroids, look at the model’s book and chat. Then the client decides if the model is right for the job.)

I remember walking into the offices at Fitness and walking by literally a 6-foot tall rail thin Brazilian model who was getting some snapshots taken. I was like, hmmm, “I am 2 weeks out from a FIGURE competition, I seriously doubt they will like the muscles I have under this coat!” so I went, we took pics and needless to say, I did not get the job, but I will always remember having the biggest muscles in the office at Fitness Magazine. I’m proud of that that! Ha!

Anyway …

As I got more into fitness, I started picking up Women’s Health, and Muscle & Fitness HERS magazines, which then, where a step up in terms of muscle. Then I started picking up Oxygen magazine, and found the stage shots in the “Competition” section in the back incomprehensible. I couldn’t understand it, these women looked HUGE!! Whoa, I would never want to look like that!

Then, a year or so later I went to my first fitness competition to be a spectator and literally couldn’t believe how TINY the competitors where. Where were the hulks from Oxygen?? Lol.

Well, I soon learned that a “stage look” is very different (dark tan, oil, pumped up muscles, dehydrated, etc) from an everyday look for competitors and that they are, indeed, tiny, even though they have muscle like no other. WOW! More muscle and tighter? Who knew that was possible?

Well, with a new appreciation for those physiques--lean and with visible muscle like none other--I set out on my goal of competing, and I competed for years, as you know. And even though I struggled with over-dieting and too much cardio (see Food Obsession Boot Camp), I always loved the feeling of training with heavy weights and being able to literally “build a body” with the iron: add some delts here, chunk up my abs, add some width to my back, lean out my hips and thighs, add some separation to my quads, etc.

I was a sculptor, applying all my energy to create the body I wanted with my only tools being weights. And I did it. I loved the look of muscle on women (still do, obviously), despite friends and family calling it masculine. Of course everyone is entitled to have their own opinion.

Either you’re a woman who loves to lift, or you are a man who is into fitness. If you are not, then chances are you quite don’t understand it, or appreciate it, and it might even be unappealing to you. And that’s fine too.

Everyone has the right to work toward the “look” that they desire.

BUT, like Jen Sinkler said in our fitness roundtable the other night: