Fit & Flirty
Relationships

I Tried Dating During Competition Prep. Never Again.

nah·

Let me save you some time. Don't do it. Don't try to date during comp prep. Don't try to start a new relationship when you're 12 weeks out from stepping on stage in a bikini made of rhinestones while judges evaluate your glutes under fluorescent lighting.

I did it. Here's how it went.

Week 16: The Match

I matched with someone on an app. Cute. Funny messages. Asked me to dinner. I said yes because I was still in the early phase of prep where you feel like a normal human being. Calories are reasonable. Energy is fine. You still remember what joy feels like.

We went to dinner and I ordered grilled chicken with steamed vegetables and no sauce. They ordered pasta with a glass of wine. I watched them eat pasta the way a dog watches you eat steak. With my entire soul.

"Are you sure you don't want to share some?" they asked.

I wanted to share ALL of it. I wanted to dive face-first into that pasta bowl. But I smiled and said "no thanks, I'm watching what I eat, competition coming up." They thought it was interesting. Asked questions. I was charming and articulate because I still had carbs in my system.

This was the peak. It was all downhill from here.

Week 12: Date Two

Went to a movie because I realized that any date involving food was going to be a psychological minefield. The movie was fine. But I'd done fasted cardio that morning plus a full training session and by the time we sat down I was so tired I almost fell asleep. During an action movie. With explosions.

They texted after: "Had fun! You seemed tired though, you ok?"

I am not ok. I am operating on 1,400 calories a day and doing two hours of exercise minimum. I am running on spite and chicken breast. But I said "yeah just a long week at work :)"

Week 10: The Meal Prep Situation

They came over to my apartment for the first time and saw my fridge. Six shelves of identical meal prep containers. Chicken rice broccoli. Chicken sweet potato green beans. Chicken asparagus rice. Are you sensing a theme.

"Wow you really plan ahead," they said diplomatically.

"Would you like some chicken?" I offered.

They declined.

We watched TV and I ate my pre-measured 6oz chicken breast and 150g sweet potato out of a container while they ordered pizza and I genuinely considered if prison was worth it for one slice.

Week 8: The Mood Swings

This is where prep gets ugly. The calories are LOW. The cardio is HIGH. Your body is running on fumes and your brain starts doing weird things. I cried because a commercial had a dog in it. I got irrationally angry because someone used my favorite treadmill at the gym. My emotions were a roulette wheel and every spin was a surprise.

Trying to be a pleasant, flirty, engaging dating partner when your hormones are in chaos and you're perpetually starving is... a challenge. They'd text me something sweet and I'd read it and feel nothing because all available emotional bandwidth was being used to not eat the bread on my counter.

I was not my best self. My best self was buried under layers of depletion and fake tan.

Week 6: The "Can We Talk" Talk

They sat me down and said "I really like you but I feel like you're not fully present. Like you're somewhere else all the time."

They were right. I was somewhere else. I was in my head counting macros and worrying about water retention and thinking about my posing routine and wondering if my shoulders looked symmetrical. I was physically sitting across from a person who liked me and mentally I was on stage.

I tried to explain comp prep. How it's temporary. How after the show everything goes back to normal. How right now my body and brain are just in survival mode. They listened. They were kind about it.

But the look on their face said: "this is insane."

And from the outside? Yeah. It kind of is.

Week 4: Peak Week Approaches

I was doing two cardio sessions a day. Training was intense. I was depleted. My skin was dry. I was getting my competition tan done in stages so I was perpetually a strange shade of orange.

They texted: "Want to get dinner this weekend?"

I texted back: "I can't eat out right now. Everything has to be weighed and measured. I could bring my food to a restaurant and eat it there?"

The typing dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

"Maybe we should wait until after your show."

Fair.

The Show

I competed. I did well. I was proud of myself. They came to watch actually, which was sweet. Sat in the audience surrounded by spray-tanned people in sparkly suits doing poses. A world completely alien to them.

After, we got food. REAL food. I ate a burger and fries and ice cream and I felt like a human being again for the first time in months. I was happy and present and fun and they looked at me like "WHERE has this person been?"

She'd been buried under 16 weeks of chicken breast. That's where.

The Aftermath

We tried to keep dating after the show. But the damage was done. Those months of me being a shell of a person had created a distance that was hard to close. They'd gotten used to me being unavailable and I'd gotten used to them being secondary to my prep.

We ended things amicably about three weeks after the show. No hard feelings. Just an honest acknowledgment that the timing was terrible and I probably shouldn't have tried to start something new during the most intense period of my life.

What I Learned

If you're already IN a relationship when you start prep — that's different. Your partner knows you. They know what you're like when you're not depleted and insane. They have context. They can weather the storm.

But starting something new during prep? You're asking someone to fall for a version of you that doesn't really exist. Prep-you is a temporary creature. A hangry, emotional, single-minded creature whose entire world has shrunk to the size of a food scale.

Wait until after. Be yourself. The real, full, carb-consuming yourself. Give someone the chance to know THAT person.

And for the love of god, eat the pasta on the first date.

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