It's Not All Cuddling, Weights & Cheat Meal Dates

Written by: Alyssa (IG: @alyssa__jilly)

Prep with your boyfriend, husband, significant other… sounds like a great idea right? WRONG!! Just kidding! Prior to this year my boyfriend and I competed separately. While he survived 2 preps with me, I never experienced him on prep. We were not planning on doing a show together, but when he said he wanted to, how could I say no? We hired 2 separate coaches, had 2 separate diets, and 2 separate lift/cardio schedules. As you could imagine, this was extremely frustrating at times. We barely saw each other since our days consisted of: fasted cardio, work, lifting, meal prep, sleep. When we did see each other, we were either meal prepping or eating. I think the biggest struggle we faced was the fact that we would go to the gym and see our friends who were also on prep, talk about prep there and then when we got home the conversations were still focused on prep. We struggled being a “normal” couple or talking about things other than prep. While this all sounds like a lot of negatives, it sure did have its positives. Other than the cliché swolemate pictures and post show cheat date, we both went on this journey together and made it out alive. Prep is difficult, but it can be even more difficult without someone by your side supporting you. It’s was cool to share this interest with the one I love and have his support every step of the way. The balance between 2 personalities could make a huge impact on the success of your preps. When my boyfriend was frustrated or in a bad mood, I had to balance that out to try and make him feel better and vice versa. By going through this process with my boyfriend, I learned what’s worth being concerned about vs something that I am blowing out of proportion. To my boyfriend if you’re reading this, thank you for always being my number one fan and for supporting my prep feels every step of the way. If you ever plan on prepping with your significant other my recommendation is to make sure you sit down and create some ground rules (i.e. always put up more rice in the rice cooker if you used the last of it) LOL.  Communication is key. Make sure you have time set aside for YOURSELF, as well as time together as a couple.