Body Beats

How Sports Changed My Life – IFBB Figure Pro Briana Tindall

Editor: IFBB Figure Competitor Briana Tindall was a 1st-time competitor at the 2007 Arnold Figure International. Trained by the Fitness Factory’s Mike Davies, Briana logged many hours of hard training in Columbus, Ohio prior to her debut on the Veterans Memorial stage. She earned her Pro Card at the 2006 North American Championships by winning the Overall Figure Competition and placing 1st in Class B of the Figure Competition. Briana, a Worthington, Ohio native with a strong faith and background in sports and dance, is a natural athlete and performer who thrives on the thrills of competition. Briana is an inspirational personal trainer and a natural coach for those who aspire to a professional Fitness career. Briana was kind enough to share with us her own journey through competitive sports that has led to her personal path toward self discovery and personal fulfillment.

I became active in sports as a little girl when I was 5 years old, or maybe even 4, I began with dance, gymnastics and soccer. I had two older brothers who were very involved in sports and being the youngest of the three, I think I must have looked up to them and wanted to be just as involved. As I got older I also tried basketball, track, spring board diving, and cheerleading all the while continuing to play soccer and dance. It wasn’t normal for me to be inactive, in fact, I can remember roller skating through the house with my brother when it wasn’t nice outside just so we could do something!

Obviously back then, I had no idea what an important part of my life exercise and activity really was! Thinking back, I was just like most other kids who wanted to be playing sports with everybody else! Interestingly enough, I also had an innate appetite for “healthy eating”! I wouldn’t put sugar on my cereal, I only drank water and I was always trying to get my family to try different things to eat by playing “waitress”! My mom says now when she thinks back she can definitely see a foreshadowing of my future in health and fitness ….Who watches Denise Austin and Body by Jake as a kid in the mornings instead of cartoons?!

However, it wasn’t until I had a career ending injury in a preseason soccer game my junior year in high school that I realized the importance of activity and team sports in my life! Not knowing it at that point, but all of those years of a team atmosphere and a certain “sisterhood” that you gain from playing on a team of all girls had developed me into an athlete on and off the field mentally! For the first time in 16 years I couldn’t do anything!

I had to stop all contact sports and in doing so lost any chance to play ball in college, which in turn led to a loss of direction and ultimately my sense of purpose and self….unknowingly at that point! I slowly fell into a depression and developed eating disorders of both under and over eating, developed a fear of death that came with anxiety problems that didn’t allow me to sleep at night, so I would sleep during the day when I was suppose to be in school, which snow balled into my school work, where my grades went from B’s and A’s to D’s and F’s and then through lack of caring about anything at all started drinking and smoking….I know, in high school!!!!

Needless to say, everything about my life, my heart and my personality turned upside down within the course of a year and I almost ended up not able to graduate. During that time I had one attempt to change back to the “old Bri” when my friends and parents intervened and got me a personal trainer, dietician and therapist to try to help me, but my success was short lived, however made a lasting impression and ultimately a step in the right direction.

At the end of high school when my friends, who were truly my saving grace and support system, went away to college, I was left to figure myself out. Over the next year in a place that I would now consider my personal hell, I struggled through my weight issue and my lack of motivation to do ANYTHING! I remember so strongly feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and knowing that I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live, but I didn’t know how to get back to the girl who cared! I sat down on my front porch one night and asked – help me remember who I was when I was happy and healthy and who I was meant to be.

I closed my eyes to remember a time that made me feel fulfilled and it was when I was playing soccer and being the best I could be in everything that I attempted… that athlete mentality that doesn’t allow you to quit because you don t know what that word means! I realized that I lost my desire to live life when I lost my ability to compete! I wanted that zest for life back and a direction to pursue my purpose!

I started seeking out my foundation, my core, something to believe in. I realized that we have been given life as a gift. We were made to live a life, not survive it and to take the gift of life and treat it as a gift, not as something that we deserve, but something of privilege. I realized that the only way to get the most out of this gift was to get the most out of my body by treating it with the utmost respect by working out and eating as healthy as I could, the things I had been doing all along as an athlete by default, but had no idea what I was really doing for myself! I wanted to see and feel the full potential that I had. I started respecting and loving myself just the way that I was, whether I was a little over weight or in the best shape of my life, but knowing that I wouldn’t be overweight if I was treating myself right! And just like my depression and negativity overflowed into my life in high school and ruined it, my new love for myself and the life I had been given, overflowed into the rest of my life and I found my direction back into school pursuing medical dietetics and a personal training certification.

I knew that exercise HAD to be a part of the rest of my life no matter what! Exercise became a way for me to expend any negative energy that I had into a positive place that kept me mentally balanced and completely aware of my body and me. It was my time for me, that is so important to have to release any unwanted aggressions and also became a time of meditation and recharging! It was such an important piece to my healing and again one of the best ways to say thank you for this gift of life and health. Plus when I exercised, I had no desire to eat crap and drink because it made me workout times so difficult and unenjoyable, this is how I knew the two went hand in hand!

Through my first job as a trainer I was able to find figure competing, which was something that I had known was around for quite sometime, truly fitness was what I really enjoyed watching and this led me back into sports. I had circled back around to the beginning, a fresh start to be who I really wanted to be, an athlete forever! Through out this journey of self, I was able to find confidence, discipline, mind and body awareness and an empowerment through self actualization and preservation that has allowed me to accomplish anything that I set my mind to.

It is amazing the things that we discover about ourselves through our worst moments in life and how when start out as a child without awareness of who we are, we end up returning to our original passions but with awareness! Because of this new awareness I have decided to devote my life to exercise, nutrition and inevitably health by way of competing in figure and one day fitness because it is the vehicle that ultimately allowed me to find myself and get the most out of my life!

I feel so privileged to be able to use competing as a platform to share with others the best way to get the most out of ourselves is by putting the most into ourselves and in turn live life to its fullest!

Story from: Arnold Sports Festival Stories