Beautiful Badass Profile – Molly Galbraith
Today is the second installment of the Beautiful Badass™ Profile series, and I have for you a story (or biography!) of my friend Molly Galbraith. She will share with you how proper training and nutrition allowed her to transform her body. Yep, heavy lifting does wonders for the female physique, as you’ll soon see.
Her story is quite long, but definitely well worth the read. Sit back, relax, and check it out.
—————————————————————————————–
Hey Guys! My name is Molly Galbraith. Some of you all might know me from Nia’s blog, my EliteFTS articles, Facebook, Twitter, my Youtube channel, or some other random places. I am a Strength and Wellness Coach from Lexington, Ky., former gymnast, cheerleader and figure competitor who loves lifting heavy and occasionally competes in Powerlifting when I get a wild hair. I have an online nutrition and training company called Red Point Fitness found at www.redpointfitness.com and my own studio gym in Lexington where I help run Group Personal Training Classes. You can find out more information on those here: www.j-mstrength.com (please excuse our website as it’s under construction). (Nia – if you’re in/near Lexington, go here!)
A couple of months ago Nia asked if I would share my story on her blog. We tried to think of a creative way to do it and I thought detailing my training, cardio, diet and life each year since I started lifting might be kind of cool. That way you guys can see how my “training life” has evolved over the last 8 years. I will warn you, it’s quite long… but it definitely tells my story – the good, the bad, and the ugly. I really hope you enjoy it!
We’ll kick things off with the “before” pictures:
2004
It was February of this year that I decided to start REALLY working out. I was frustrated that I had everything else in my life under control… except this! I worked with a local trainer for a while and thought I started eating better. Then at the end of the year I started dating a different Trainer from my gym and he started doing my programs.
Training: At the beginning of my journey I was working with a local trainer. The training ended up being mostly cardio-based since we mixed strength moves and cardio moves; the strength moves I was doing weren’t extremely heavy or challenging to my CNS. I saw some results from this, but only because I wasn’t doing anything before. =) Very late in 2004 I started dating a different Trainer at the gym and he switched up my routine. Come to find out, it was usually just the latest routine published on T-nation. Good routines… but not necessarily always good for me and my situation.
Cardio: I was doing some cardio on my own. Mostly elliptical or treadmill while reading a magazine or talking to my friend. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. Probably 2 days a week for 30-60 minutes. Saw minimal results.
Diet: Beginning of 2004 I tried to eat “better,” which means I switched from sodas and fast food to Gatorade, turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread and Yoplait yogurt. Again, I am embarrassed to admit it but it’s true. In October of 2004, I started dating a different trainer from my gym and I had him write me a diet plan (which was pretty much copied and pasted from the Beverly International No Nonsense Newsletter…but I didn’t know that at the time). It was VERY strict, but the weight started falling off.
Life: I was starting up my 4th year of college. Got a new boyfriend, starting working out, saw some results in the gym…Life was good.
2005
At this point I was under the, ahem, esteemed tutelage of my “Trainer boyfriend.” I did pretty much whatever he prescribed with minimal thoughts about why. I was getting pretty good results in terms of fat loss, but strength and muscle gains were minimal even though I was doing a good routine, because I didn’t understand the importance of progression.
Training: “Trainer boyfriend” was still writing my training programs. Since he was training for a powerlifting competition, and we usually did similar routines, I did some Westside Barbell-inspired routines. The funny thing was I didn’t understand progression at the time. I would just stay at the same weight as I used the week before and never thought about increasing the weight. However, because I was lifting relatively heavy and using an intelligent routine (albeit one that was probably way too advanced for me at that time) I still saw results in my body. I was shrinking!
Cardio: I was still doing some cardio on my own. Some walks outside, treadmill, elliptical, recumbent bike, maybe some occasional HIIT (high intensity interval training).
Diet: At this point I was still on my super strict “No Nonsense” diet. It was approximately as follows:
Meal1: 3 oz of lean meat, 1 whole egg, 3 egg whites and ½ cup oats
Meal2: 2 scoops protein powder
Meal3: 5 oz chicken, 1 cup vegetables, 4 oz potato
Meal4: 2 scoops protein powder
Meal5: 5 oz lean meat, 1 cup vegetables, 1 TBSP butter or olive oil
BOOOOOOOOOOOR-ING! But at the time it was more protein and less carbs than I have ever eaten in my life, so I lost body fat. I also usually took 1 cheat day on the weekend and every 6 weeks or so I would take a week off to eat what I wanted. I wouldn’t eat terribly, but I would have some cereal or a turkey sandwich here and there, etc. Just less structured and strict than my everyday diet. I did some variation of this diet the whole year. Sometimes I would get a PWO meal of 2 scoops of protein and a cup of rice or fruit. Sometimes I would get almost no carbs the entire day and two nights a week I would have a carb-up meal consisting of a banana, 6 oz of potato, ½ cup of oats, 1 cup green veggies, and 1 TBSP of a fat source. I believe this is also a variation of a Beverly International diet plan. Original, huh? 
Life: I was finishing up my 4th year of college, starting my 5th year (my victory lap as I like to call it!) I did an impromptu powerlifting Push/Pull meet in Zanesville, Ohio with only 2 week’s notice. I decided to only deadlift because it was my first meet and I hadn’t trained for it. I believe I pulled 265 on my first attempt, 285 on my second, then failed at 300 on my third. Caught the powerlifting bug a little bit… but had the Figure bug more. Decided I wanted to compete in Figure the following year.
2006
This was a life changing year for me. I finished college, started Graduate School for my MBA, trained for a figure competition, broke up with Trainer boyfriend halfway through the year, unexpectedly started dating someone new (who is still my boyfriend), competed in my first figure competition, and got introduced to the idea of a piece of revolutionary fitness software that would become my full-time job eventually. I also learned a TON about nutrition and training this year as I actually started doing my own research!
Training: “Trainer boyfriend” was still writing a lot of my training programs. I think I did everything from a shoulder specialization, to a leg specialization, to body part splits. Hell I think I even did some kind of weird program where you purposefully try to lift a weight you can’t lift and you just hold a hardcore static contraction for a long period of time. I was clearly a guinea pig for the “trainer boyfriend” who was still a slave to T-Nation programs (not knocking programs from on T-Nation… many of them are awesome, but there is a time and a place for them and that time and place is not typically with a beginner female, unless specified otherwise). While I had gotten pretty lean over the last couple of years and built some muscle, I still wasn’t carrying very much (which became very evident in my first Figure Competition). I continued to do his training programs until around November.
Cardio: Leading up to this year I usually did some type of cardio 2-3 days a week. Occasionally it was HIIT (high intensity interval training) and others it was LISS (low intensity steady state). As my figure competition prep went on, my cardio increased…and increased… and then increased some more. I think at one point I was doing 90-120 minutes of LISS most days of the week. I believe there was some HIIT in there as well, although not as much in an attempt to preserve muscle on a very low calorie diet.
Diet: At this point I was still on my super strict diet. I remember at one point eating my regular dinner of chicken and broccoli and vomiting because I was so sick of it. Sometime around then I decided to switch things up a bit and try some other foods…but not for long because I began training for my figure competition in July of this year. Around 16 weeks out (the middle of July) I received a “new diet” from “trainer boyfriend” that was supposed to help me get really lean and still allow me to cheat every two weeks, which was awesome because my birthday was coming up! Long story short it was a lower calorie Keto Diet where I only ate 4 times a day (it ended up being John Berardi’s Get Shredded Diet) and I saw great results with it, but I think I “blew my wad” too early.
In my opinion, low calorie Keto diets should be saved for the last few weeks of a competition diet if they are even necessary at all. After this super strict diet, I used more of a carb cycling diet, however my fat was never very high. Looking back my fat intake was entirely too low my whole prep. I believe on my low carb/high fat day it was probably less than 30 grams. I also remember developing a crazy relationship with food where I would chew up brownies and spit them out to get the taste without the calories… same with pizza and other treats. I also ate those Ice Breakers fruity mint things incessantly to where my mouth was sore, drank 2-4 BIG Diet Mountain Dews every day, and probably ate my weight in sugar free Jell-O. YUCK! I was not fueling my body, but rather eating just enough to get by and then filling up on useless garbage to keep from going too crazy. One of the many reasons competing in figure is probably just not for me. It took quite a while to re-develop a more “normal” relationship with food.
Life: I was finishing my 5th year of college with a double major in Finance and Marketing about to start my accelerated MBA program which was EXTREMELY time intensive. For some reason I also decided to train for my first figure competition. I have no clue how I found the time. My schedule resembled this: wake at 6 am to do cardio before school in the morning… school and internship between 7:30 and 5:30 every day… lift and more cardio from 5:45 to 7:45…homework from 8 until 10-10:30…shower and pack all of my food for the next day from 10:45 until 11:30…in bed by 11:30… back up at 6 am to do it all again. YIKES! But I did it. I competed in the Kentucky Muscle Show in Louisville in October of 2006. I didn’t do nearly as well as I hoped. In fact, I was at the bottom of the pack. I had lost a considerable amount of muscle from doing a ton of cardio and not taking my supplements as diligently as I should. And looking back I don’t think I was lifting properly to help retain muscle (I should have been doing lower volume and heavier loads). Either way, it was fun and I caught the figure bug.
I wanted to compete again in 2007 but I had a VERY hard time getting my eating under control. In fact, a week after my competition my skin was actually SORE from rebounding and adding back so much weight so quickly. I continued to struggle with my eating but eventually got back on track within a couple of months. By this time the “Trainer boyfriend” and I had broken up and I had actually started dating someone new which was not in my plans! Quick story of how we met: at this time I was doing cardio regularly with my buddy Michael Keck (yes, the Michael Keck from EliteFTS, husband of the lovely Jen Comas Keck). He was getting ready to compete in bodybuilding at the same competition where I was competing in figure. We only lived about a half mile apart so we did our cardio together in the mornings.
One morning I called Michael to do cardio and he was out of town and suggested I call his roommate Saxon to do cardio with me. I had met Saxon before and he had accompanied us on some cardio adventures but I didn’t think much of it. Well, after that particular cardio session with just the two of us (and yes, I do mean walking outside with a weight vest on – get your mind out of the gutter!) let’s just say I didn’t even notice that I never called Michael to do cardio again. The rest is history and 5 years later Saxon and I are going strong. =) And I thanked Michael for introducing me to Saxon by being an integral part of how he met his wife, Jen Comas Keck. She and I were both Figure Athlete devotees and then she became a member of Red Point Fitness (the site that myself, Saxon, and Michael are all part owners of) and she and Michael initially met on that site and became friends, and the rest is history with them as well! This was also the year that Saxon introduced me to a piece of diet software he had created. I loved the concept but thought it needed a lot of work. And so begins my work with what will eventually be called Red Point Fitness.
2007
Like I mentioned above, at this point I had stopped doing training routines prescribed by my ex-boyfriend and started working with a friend of my current boyfriend. I still had the Figure bug a bit and did another competition in March, but took quite a long break from competing after that.
Training: At this point, obviously “Trainer Ex-Boyfriend” was no longer writing my routines and I was on my own. Current boyfriend (who is not a Trainer by trade, but probably one of the most knowledgeable people I know in regards to ALL aspects of training, nutrition, supplements, hormones, etc.) referred me to Wesley “Iron Addict” Silveira for training help. Wesley put together a very basic push/pull/legs split for me. It definitely helped me gain back some of the muscle I lost training for my last competition and retain my muscle while getting ready for my next competition. It was lower volume, heavier weight and he convinced me that training 5 days a week with weights wasn’t necessary. He was a brilliant person and trainer and I learned a lot from him. I trained with him for a while (via email since he lived in Arizona) and after my competition my friend Jim Laird recommend that I try Westside for Skinny Bastards. I fell in love with that program and still use it as a template with a lot of my clients today.
Cardio: I believe I was doing 2-3 HIIT sessions a week and 30-40 minutes of LISS cardio 2-3 days a week.
Diet: Instead of writing a diet for me, IA (Iron Addict) would give me macros and then I would send him my diet and progress pictures. I was a little leery about dieting so hard for this competition and to be honest, I probably should have cleaned up my food sources a bit more as the competition came closer (I was still eating a lot of dairy right up until the competition). I definitely had more muscle at this competition and came in at the same weight… but looked smoother. Not sure what happened exactly… but I looked like I belonged in a Hawaiian Tropic competition more than a figure competition. I landed near the bottom of the pack again.
**I should also mention that this competition is run by a local supplement company and their “darlings” tend to place very high in all of the competitions. Granted, they usually look fantastic… but there are numerous times that it seems their athletes buying their supplements and doing their programs are favored over others. In all fairness it could be a subconscious thing where you tend to spend more time look at and/or give the benefit of the doubt to people you know. Either way… it’s political and it sucks.
Life: I was finishing up graduate school with my MBA and a had 3.98 GPA. Everyone in my class was looking for jobs and all I wanted to do was be in the nutrition/training industry as my own boss and make a shit-ton of money. Is that too much to ask? =) Saxon and I decided that I would work almost full-time on Red Point helping it get off the ground and not look for a “big kid” job just yet. I graduated in June of 2007… and Red Point was set to launch in August. The timing seemed perfect! I had my dream boyfriend, dream job, and dream degree. What could go wrong?
Double bodyweight deadlift:
——————————————————————————–
Okay, that will be enough for today. I’ll post Part 2 of Molly’s Beautiful Badass profile in a couple of days. You won’t want to miss the rest of her amazing journey.
-
http://GordonWatts.com/#health Gordon