All was going smoothly – until Mehan pulled out a sweet potato.
“You're not going to eat all THAT, are you?” Annese asked. “You're supposed to have one serving; that's about three.
“Don't start on me,” Mehan said. “You've been eating things like nut butter and Ezekiel bread, which I haven't had in months, so I don't want to hear it. Besides, look how skinny it is.”
Although their exchange was spirited, it was by no means nasty. If anything, Mehan and Annese have grown closer as their Las Vegas trip approaches. Mehan, 39, will be competing on Friday and Saturday, November 16 and 17, in the Ms. Bikini and Figure competitions, while Annese, 44, will compete in Figure only on November 17. They will be among 500 contestants who will be showing off the results of their hard work and sacrifice before a live crowd and ESPN International's television audience.
“This is my first competition,” said Mehan, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Fitness and Cardiac Rehabilitation. “I turned 39 over the summer, and I told myself that competing in an event this size was something I wanted to scratch off my bucket list before I turned 40.”
Trying something new was certainly not daunting for Mehan. She had a background in dancing, but had also been a personal trainer, hair designer, pharmaceutical salesperson and even director of a physician-referral program for people at high risk for heart disease at a North Carolina hospital.
The decision to compete at Fitness America 2012, however, meant commitment not only from Mehan, but from her husband, Steven, and their daughters Ruby, 7, and Daisy, 5.
“I talked to my husband about competing, and it was tough,” said Mehan, who, along with Figure, will compete in the Classic (age 35-plus) division of Ms. Bikini, where contestants will be judged on “poise and presence”; sportswear selection and appearance. “Fitness America is only a week before Thanksgiving, and it's a big expense before the holidays to go to Las Vegas. But my husband said that if this was something I really needed to do, that I should do it.”
“My family has been very supportive, and I need that. The other day, the kids had purple cabbage for breakfast. They already had their oatmeal, saw what I was having and they wanted some. They are not picky, and they are learning to eat healthy, whole foods. At the Schuylerville Health Fair, Daisy beat four, 10-year-old boys in a push-up competition, and when she was done, she started walking her feet up the wall to do incline push-ups. I was so proud.”
Likewise, Annese has gotten backing from her “kids.”
“I have about 90 students throughout the day,” said Annese, whose instruction includes geometry and finance. “They've been terrific about this. I've even had one student approach me about helping him to get fit.”
For Annese, the chance to inspire her students is one of her main reasons for competing in Fitness America 2012.
“Obesity is such a huge problem nowadays, especially with high school girls,” Annese said. “A lot of them don't eat right, don't get enough exercise and some don't know how to get and to give respect. They don't have the right role models.”
Annese certainly qualifies. Several years ago, while working out at a local gym, she was encouraged to pursue bodybuilding. She proved to be something of a natural, winning the Berkshire Classic in Massachusetts and the New York State AMBC at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs in 1997. It was an impressive start for Annese, who had once weighed 240 pounds. At 5-feet-6, she now weighs 146 pounds and, through, training, diet and isogenics, a body-cleansing program, has lost about six percent body fat since making her decision to compete back in August. She will compete along with Mehan in the Master's category (age 35-plus) in Figure, where body appearance is more athletic and slightly more muscular than Ms. Bikini.
“My wake-up call came when I was a graduate student at the University of South Florida and came back to Saratoga for a friend's wedding,” Annese said. “I had to get a dress for the wedding, and I was size 22. I told myself that when I went back to Florida, I wasn't going to be size 22 again.
“The Berkshire show was my first, and I didn't even tell anybody I was entering. The next one was big because my family and friends showed up. I really loved competing.”
Annesse, however, had a life outside of bodybuilding and as she pursued her Master's degree in Special Education, her travels took her from Florida, to Maryland and even to Florence, Italy. She remained active. Running, kayaking, hiking all found their way into her daily exercise routine.
It was while attending a fitness boot camp in Ballston Spa that she met Mehan.
The gloves were off.
“I looked over at this girl on the mat next to me, and I said `There's no way she's going to beat me in push-ups,” said the five-foot-two-inch Mehan, whose Challenge By Choice studio will be expanding to a larger, neighboring location in March. “Then, when we were running, I saw that Angela was the only one who could keep up with me. We became friends pretty quickly.”
Like all friendships, theirs is built on mutual respect. And the more they push one another, the more respect they gain. When Mehan announced her decision to pursue her bucket list item, Annese didn't need too much persuasion to join.
“Angela had experience as a bodybuilder, but that is totally different from what we will be doing in Las Vegas,” Mehan said. “Bodybuilding has more to do with muscle mass; our competitions will be judged by appearance, more femininity. We have already accomplished a lot, and we know we will be competing against a lot of 20-year-olds. But our goal is in sight and we are pretty excited about this opportunity.”
Their regiment is similar: up at around 3:30 or 4 a.m.; personal time for mental, spiritual and emotional preparation; weight and cardio-vascular training at various local gyms; small meals every two hours; and, hopefully, bed by 8:30 p.m. The schedule does not stray too far from Mehan's slogan at Challenge By Choice: “Sweat. Rinse. Repeat.”
In between, they sprinkle in their lives.
“It's hard to explain this to people who don't understand what it takes to do this,” Annese said. “There may be someone who will say, `Go ahead, Angela, have an apple.' Or, `Try a little bread.' They mean well, but don't realize that I can't have those things while training for competition. I have to stay focused. I train at 5 o'clock in the morning. I teach at the high school from 7:30 a.m. to 3:10 p.m., and I also do private tutoring, which will get me home on some evenings around six. Jodi trains, gets her kids off to school, teaches at her own studio, gets her kids after school, looks after her family and runs her business. But because we understand what the other one is going through, we've been able to support one another and share our experience. We've even gotten to the point where we text each other about everything we're about to eat.”
As if on cue, Annese received a text from Lauren DiNapoli, her coach from Cathy Savage Fitness. Both Annese and Mehan will be part of “The Savage Girls,” representing the Boston-based company that prepares individuals for such competitions by offering guidance on nutrition, sports specific training, music, modeling, suits, choreography and stage presentation.
“Lauren just changed my diet again: no dairy, no more nut butters. Only green veggies, fish, turkey, chicken or lean beef until we get to Las Vegas. One starch a day: oatmeal or sweet potato. A quarter cup of either grapefruit or blueberries every other day,” Annese said. “That's twice in the last few days that she's changed my diet.”
Polishing off the last of her sweet potato, Mehan dismissed the teacher with one of her looks.
“I don't want to hear it,” she said.
