Emily Chorley: Just a Normal Person?

Emily Chorley is a female bodybuilder from the south-west of England who has been training for about a year and a half. She has competed just once, in the Toned Figure class at a recent regional NABBA show. She finished in 8th place.


Emily (centre) on stage at the NABBA West 2014

Now, normally, despite our undying admiration for ALL women who train, and particularly those that put themselves through gruelling exercise and dietary regimes in order to compete, FMS wouldn't normally be devoting an entire post to a regional competitor with one contest and one eighth-place finish to her name.

So, why are we?



Well, first of all, there's the fact that we do love a good transformation.

In October 2012, Emily saw some images of fitness models. I was about 7 months pregnant and I was blown away – I knew there and then what I wanted to achieve and it was the perfect way for me to lose my baby weight. After the baby, her second, had been born she began training. It was the first time she had entered a gym, but it didn't take long for the proverbial bug to bite. After about four or five months of training I began to blossom and people started to compliment me on my new figure.


Emily, backstage before her first show

And 18 months on, give or take a year after she had started getting those compliments, Emily was preparing to go on stage for the first time at a bodybuilding show. Her husband had told her back in the summer of 2013 that a year from now you’ll be wearing a bikini, feeling amazing, looking awesome... And he was not wrong.

In a year she had lost over 2½ stone (about 35lbs, or 16kg), and completely changed her eating habits, her body shape and, in her own words, my entire life, for the better.

February 2014

So excited to post a pic of my abs!!! They're really there! Woo hoo!

Originally, Emily had been inspired by Olya Haidner. Then, last autumn, she and her personal trainer husband went to see the local Miss Plymouth amateur bodybuilding show. After seeing the female competitors - Miss Plymouth 2013′s routine was jaw dropping - I knew then that I wanted to be on that stage next year, she says. Then and there she vowed she would take part in Miss Plymouth 2014 this September, but by February her contest debut had been brought forward to June, and the NABBA West.


Backstage at the NABBA West, May 2014

After having her hair and make-up done, and a final coat of tan applied, Emily looks in the mirror. I could barely recognise myself, I felt amazing! she says. Her transformation complete, she takes to the stage for the very first time...


Emily is all smiles as she waits to go on...

I was either going to love it or hate it on stage, and it turns out that I loved it! I had such an incredible day regardless of placing. It was fantastic, and has certainly given me the drive to work harder, dig deeper and come back better next time!


...and after receiving her medal

But there's more, much more, to Emily than "just" her baby-weight-to-toned-figure transformation story, which, though remarkable, is by no means unique.


Emily's blog, Mrs Beast Within

What is unique about her is the fact that she has been writing all about her journey to change my body on her blog for almost a year now, motivated partly by the desire to encourage others to work for the body they have always wanted, but also to educate - to put straight some of the common misconceptions both men and women have about female bodybuilders and the sport in general, and to spread the word about the pleasures and, above all, the benefits of weight training for women.

The following extracts are just a taste...


Bicep selfie, May 2013

August 2013, on her favourite, and most responsive body part, her arms
They [her arms] got slimmer, stronger and a hell of a lot harder within only a few months. I revel my mornings at the gym when I train arms, there’s something incredibly satisfying about looking in the mirror and watching the muscles around my biceps and shoulders contract and extend. After only a few minutes of weights I can see my 'inner hulk' emerging, splits appear across my muscles with every rep and my veins start to show up like road maps... and I love it.

Selfie, July 2013

Awesome arms session this morning. I feel like they're gonna burst!

September 2013, on bodybuilders and vanity
If you had a hobby restoring cars and were incredibly proud of what you were doing and wanted to show everyone how hard you were working on a project then it would be perfectly acceptable to post photos and tell everyone about it... right? And when you had finally finished pouring all that hard work into finishing that beautifully restored car you’d want to drive it around the streets to show it off... right? Well, don’t you think the same goes for someone who has spent years sculpting their own body into the physique they have always dreamed of?


Back progress, March 2014

February 2014, after beginning her contest prep
I can’t lie to you, this first week has been a bit of a shock but I have still really enjoyed it. The change I have seen in just a few days is ridiculous and I know it isn’t just my imagination as one of the lovely ladies from the morning spinning class where I train even commented on how I’ve changed... I think I have already found the perfect piece of music to put a routine to, I’m pretty sure I know what colour bikini I’d like to find and I’ve even started learning to handstand and cartwheel (these are things I have NEVER been able to do before in my life!)


Two weeks out, April 2014

This blog is intended to be a record of my journey, an insight into women who lift weights and most importantly an inspiration to others, writes Emily. And it certainly does what it says on the tin. It's also intelligently and very candidly written. Emily doesn't, for example, hide the fact that undertaking contest prep means feeling, at times, like a complete wreck. But neither does she hide the fact that the rest of the time it makes her feel like a beautiful, living, breathing, and flexing work of art.

Mrs Beast Within, October 2013

Just for fun!

And as a result of her online presence - Emily is also on Instagram and Twitter - her stated wish to be an inspiration to others has been realised. People from all over the world have told me how inspired they are by my pictures, she has said. It's quite strange that all these people are being encouraged to get fit through me.

Selfie, January 2014

I'm determined to get these abs out before my 30th this year!!!

As far as this blog is concerned, Emily is very far from "normal", but it's exactly this "normalnesss" that makes Emily so inspiring to so many. There must be more than a few mothers of two with full-time jobs out there who would also like to get their abs out - whether they're hitting 30, 40, or toning up before going to the Med this summer - and in Emily they find a heroine they can identify with. She doesn't kid her followers that it's easy, but they can, she shows them, achieve it.


Emily (centre), NABBA West

The latest post on Mrs Beast Within finds Emily taking stock after her 30th birthday. She gets up 5.30, she goes to bed at 11. She works full-time, and she freelances in the evenings - It’s an exhausting road but I know that to get the rewards I want it’s the only way to get there. She is amazed at how far her story has travelled - It still seems so unreal, everything that has happened since I have started training. Bodybuilding has given her a sense of belonging, a community that is friendly, generous and humble and completely unlike what she had imagined. I’m at last comfortable in my own skin, she writes. She is happy, she is healthy and she is confident.


Plymouth Hospital Radio, May 2014

And since her first show Emily's word has reached an even broader audience, because she has become something of a local media star recently. An appearance on a local hospital radio station led to an interview appearing in the local newspaper, which is also going to run a feature on her weight-loss journey in the near future.


Mum, June 2014

I'm a normal person... I see myself as someone who is average, says Emily.

We, her local media, and most importantly her many followers couldn't agree less.


First posing lesson, March 2014

Emily will be competing next at the Miss Plymouth show in the autumn.