Girlfriends And Powerlifting

If you’re a powerlifter and have a girlfriend, you may have come across some of these situations. This is my experience with being a competitive powerlifter while in a relationship.

So, on average I consume 4250 calories per day, give or take 100. For those of you who don’t know calories… this is a lot of food… of course, broken down into macronutrients for performance purposes. What you might be thinking is. what is the issue here?? Well if my girlfriend Jasmine was on 4250 calories this wouldn’t be an issue as we could eat the same foods all the time. We could both eat regularly and A LOT. Which would be an awesome scenario…. this is however not the case. Different goals and different bodies means that in my case Jasmine is eating a lot less food than me, over 3x less.

This means for every meal she eats I must eat at least 2 more. I wonder what goes on in her head sometimes when I am eating 400g of spaghetti Bolognese with Milo cereal before bed and she is left to eat 1 slice of cheese and 1 cracker for ‘dessert’. It makes it that much better when I weigh in the next day and am disappointed with a weight loss and she is almost starving to see the scales not budge. I will write another blog talking about calories and why there is a vast difference with some individual’s caloric intakes depending on goals.

Let’s get onto how this can affect a relationship. It may be seen as not fair that one can eat enormous amounts of food and lose weight while the other individual is starving and gaining weight. A big-time sacrifice is also made and prioritised- ‘wait I have to bring my prepped meals to the beach so that I don’t have to force feed tonight’. 30 mins at the beach is spent eating, followed by a quick trip to the shops for more food. Eating is hard when you must eat this much! Trust me.

Going on with the time sacrifice, let’s talk about time spent in the gym. On average I train 4x per week with sessions lasting 3 hours.That’s a total of 12 hours, sleep 8 hours for performance measures, eat 2.5 hours a day… I’ve timed it. All these things require time and that time is required to achieve your big goals. Big goals take time and consistency. Your doing it for yourself only and can this can be seen as a very selfish thing to do by the wrong person. Countless times I’ve had to leave Jasmines house when the sun is still out because I had to get my 8 hours sleep, or had to say no to a plan because I had to train at that time, or not even plan something because that’s training time. Even the food time adds up. This is all to benefit me and it could be seen as time that could be devoted to the relationship. Potential to cause issues if not communicated properly or both people are NOT understanding of each other’s goals and ambitions.

I’m lucky in the sense that Jasmine is a very understanding girl and we heavily communicate the things that go on in our lives. She knows what’s important to me and that all the above needs to happen to excel in powerlifting.

It’s not always a sacrifice or an issue. Ongoingly she loves to cook anyway so this is a BIG bonus seeing as though I must eat so much food. Just last week while my parents were in Japan (I pay my mum to prep my meals), Jasmine cooked me meals that lasted the rest of the week before our weekend getaway. Which brings me to another point. Jasmine helps relax my mind which I see as a very important aspect to becoming great at powerlifting.

As powerlifting is all about mental strength and the ability to KEEP GOING when it’s boring or not as exciting as the week before. Having someone to keep your mind at ease helps maintain your direction and consistency. It is a whole lot easier to maintain these two aspects when you have time throughout the week to recover (both mentally and physically) doing something relaxing with your girlfriend. It makes the process a whole lot more sustainable. Don’t forget about all that support!

So, there’s my view on powerlifting and girlfriends, the sacrifices, the common occurrences, the coping mechanisms and the great benefits associated. It’s doable and I’d say even though effort must go into the time allocation aspect, it’s greatly beneficial towards powerlifting greatly due to the mental clarity that girlfriends can provide. When you look at it in the long run with consistency being most important when progressing in powerlifting, it’s a plus in my eyes.