Woman vs Food: Will Flex for Food

First up I just thought the title was catchy. I'm not suggesting these lovely ladies got their food on condition that they flexed for the camera. I think they just like showing off full stop. Whether it's in the privacy of their own kitchen/dining room and just for the benefit of the photographer, or whether it's in a public eating place for the benefit of the photographer and several unsuspecting members of the public, having their picture taken with their beloved feed is as good an opportunity as any for a gun show.



One look at NPC Figure competotir Ashley Sneathen's face and you can see it's not all about the food, it's about the display, all about the pride. Although havng said that, this picture does make me want to munch on something, but that's besides the point. Actually, Ashley is attending the Olympia and getting married too, so if you are a fan of those flexing bride shots, I imagine you'll want to start following her Instagram in the near future. The (also food-based) shot of Ashley below is a more recent one.



Congratulations to her and the lucky fella. I bet he proposed over dinner.



And here's another Ashley from the NPC Figure ranks, Ashley Nordman, taking time to show off her gains before sinking her pearly whites into that (rather tasty-looking) burger. Sadly, Ashley has decided to quit competing - her last show was the Team Universe in July. She says that wasn't the reason she quit, but she finished last in her class at the show, which - if you check out her contest gallery - is just wrong.



Over here in Europe, Figure is known as Bodyfitness, but wherever the competitors hail from and whatever you want to call the division, the restaurant flexing is the same, it's just the food that looks different. This muscular beauty is Slovakia's Ela Stračárová. Si to, čo ješ... says Ela, which apparently means "You are what you eat". Mala som hovädzie... som krava? she continues. "I had beef... Am I a cow?"



Does that mean Tracy Weller is a pancake?!



And Andrea Giacomi is sweet, like sugar?!

[That's enough! - ed.]

You don't need anything nearly so refined to get gorgeous Hanah Jamroz pumping her bicep with delight. What you need is MEAT (and I mean the kind that you eat). Doesn't have to be grilled, roasted or barbecued. Doesn't have to be marinaded. Doesn't even have to be seasoned. Just chuck a pack of meat in her direction and watch those big beautiful eyes light up and that, well, rather meaty arm get busy.



Hanah, aka "Hanjam", aka "The Ripped Barbie", is well worth a follow on Instagram. To say it's an action-packed ride would be something of an understatement. And you can also find out just how good a woman can look in a purple "Lift Heavy Shit" vest.

DREAM DATE #1



A plate of steak and potatoes for each of Melissa Wee's pythons, and, er, a bowl of pasta and a salad for the rest of her (I guess). Just don't forget to say Grace...

DREAM DATE #2



Karolina Borkovcova (formerly Holubcova) has got me swooning all over the place. A double world champ in 2015 (NABBA and WFF) Karolina was absolutely nowhere near San Antonio and the Rising Phoenix. Just saying.

Get yourself more Karolina than is probably healthy for you on her Instagram. She certainly does know how to take an exciting topless back selfie. Just saying.

How to end?

The most food? The biggest flex?

How about BOTH!



Shannon - also nowhere near San Antonio - with about a week's worth.

Enjoy!

Woman vs Food: Feed the Beast

We warned you...



Does Natalia look like she's in the mood to pose for a photograph? Never, EVER make a female bodybuilder wait for her food. In fact, never EVER prioritise ANYTHING over food. Moments later Natalia's date learned his lesson the hard way. It only hurts when he breathes now, but please, don't make the same mistake.
FMS 22nd July 2015, "Hot and Hard: FMS Approved"

Feed the beast.



When she gets up in the middle of the night for one of her bi-hourly "snacks", be ready to get that protein on the table quick snap. This will make Nathalia very very happy.



Keep that kind of service going during the day and she'll start to look at you with more than a little love in her eyes. See? And in case you're wondering, it's all hers.



Indeed, get used to eating after her - and make it quick because you'll need to start prepping that next meal before long. However, few would doubt the pleasure to be had watching Natalia eat - all that inadvertent (or perhaps even vertent) bicep flexing as she shovels the protein into her hungry mouth. Besides, by the time all of the dishes Natalia has ordered arrive on the table there's so little room left that it's impractical for you to get your order on there too, so it's better to wait anyway. Wait your turn.



I think she's about to get medieval on that sushi.

And if you are in any doubt about whether being Natalia's chef on call 24/7 would suit you, in case you're wondering if going hungry and always getting the (considerable) bill would all be worth it - I don't expect many of you are, but just in case - well, think of those moments you'll have, there before your very eyes, right across the table from you. Those moments that'll make you forget about all the toil in the kitchen, all the hunger pangs and all the rubles you've been spending. Moments like this one...



Enjoy!

Woman vs Food: A Classic Updated

Remember this?



If you do, you've probably, like me, been into female muscle since the magazine years. Swedish legend Veronica Dahlin, leotarded, impossibly beautiful, and displaying her bronzed muscle-bound upper body while shopping at a greengrocer's (near you?).

This picture certainly got my teenaged arse enthused about the weekly trip to Safeway's for a time, thoughts of encounters with Veronica-like muscle goddesses in the fresh fruit and veg section. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, my dreams never came true.

I didn't forget the picture though, and coming across it again recently (courtesy of one of those heroic scanners) I was struck firstly by how very very 80s it looks, but also by how similar it was to a recent post I'd seen by Susanna Tirpak on her Instagram.

What do you think?



Late nite shopping, Susanna says. Nothing all that exciting. Well, not unless you were lucky enough to be another late nite shopper at Susanna's local supermarket (or indeed a late nite shift pulling employee). I imagine for them it was something exciting...

No leotard. And the local greengrocer's has been replaced by a giant supermarket chain. Lettuce for watermelon. And more muscle - remember Veronica was a bodybuilder, Susanna, these days, "just" has the muscles of a Figure competitor!

Signs of the times.

Woman vs Food: Cooking with Dani

BARBEQUE [sic] CHICKEN PIZZA

Dani cooks up a treat for herself on her 25th birthday. Unlike the vast majority of Dani clips there's no real flexing, but in her little red vest she can't help but inadvertently flex those beautiful shoulders and arms. Who cares if she can't spell "barbecue"?



Even more cooking with Dani here.

Enjoy!

Woman vs Food: Eating with Suzy

Whenever I see (those rare) images of Suzy where she's not actually flexing, we wrote in our Hot and Hard 100 countdown, it always seems to me she's either just been flexing or that she's thinking that the very next thing she should do is have a damn hard flex. We may have been wrong about that. New evidence suggests that when she's not flexing, Super Suzy is thinking about something different altogether. Food.



And if they don't hurry up and serve her, there's going to be trouble. Those who are behind her in the queue may just spontaneously combust for one thing. Messy.




It's because of incidents like the one described above that Suzy has been spending less and less time in pink hotpants in public, and more and more time perfecting her culinary skills in the safety of her own home. And flexing while she's at it.



But she does still get out and about from time to time. And any restaurant with Suzy in is almost guaranteed to be out of tables before she's cleaned her plate. This place was empty when the dude with the baseball cap walked in and plonked himself opposite the only other person in the restaurant at the time - Excuse me, is this seat free?

Enjoy!

Woman vs Food: Baby Want Beef

FMS fave Asha Hadley is a lady in the street, a beast in the gym, and obviously something like Lord Greystoke before he got all civilised in a restaurant...



At least she's using a fork this time.

Enjoy!

Woman vs Food: She Eats

I sometimes wonder whether female bodybuilders become female bodybuilders just so they can eat like a female bodybuilder. It seems no other women on the planet outside the catering industry itself spend as much time thinking, talking or writing about food as female bodybuilders do. And when they're not doing that they're cooking it.



And eating. Even my wife's woefully obese former colleague (the kind of woman who seeps under the armrest when she's sitting next to you on a plane) doesn't eat as much as a female bodybuilder does - and trust me, this woman eats a LOT.



But on top of that, female bodybuilders fantasise about food. A comfort eater like my wife's fat friend has fantasies too, but whereas she satisfies her cravings as soon as she can, the female bodybuilder has to be disciplined about it. And it's in that waiting time - counting down the hours to the next cheat meal, or (most disciplined of all) dieting before competition - that their cravings reach levels no comfort eater has ever abstained long enough to experience. Consequently - when it's time for her cheat meal, or when the competition is over - satisfying that craving is, well, rather satisfying.



And the more pleasurable the food seems, the more the female bodybuilder's subconscious associates food with pleasure, and so it continues. Lots of eating, a little cheating, extreme dieting, and then the reward of whole right side of the menu.



Do I know what I'm talking about? Of course I don't! But one look at Jodi Boam's reaction to that somewhat humble burger and chips and you know I'm right. Have you ever seen a woman look so happy, so ecstatic to be eating something so simple? I wouldn't be at all surprised if she's having a full-on foodgasm right there, the smell of it alone setting off joyful KA-BOAMs big and small that are spreading all over her beautiful, peaking body... Have another look. A good look. Don't you see that?



So does food hold the key to the female bodybuilder's heart? Perhaps it does. Cook me food, buy me food, bring me food or BE food is what they say. But we actually do have evidence in this clip starring Rene Campbell that - even if you won't necessarily win her heart - being prepared to carry her shopping and having a few skills in the kitchen will, at the very least, buy you some time with a female bodybuilder.



I doubt Rene shares her "soup gone a bit wrong", which is even better news for the dude who measures her cabbage. I doubt any female bodybuilders share. With all that attention they pay to what they eat (or, in Rene's case, drink) and how much of it they eat (or drink), nicking something off her plate is, I imagine, very verboten.



Go ahead, she's saying. Make my day.



We're gonna need a bigger kitchen...



Dry cereal?! For me?! I LOVE you!!!



Woman vs Food all week on FMS.

Enjoy!

Media Watch Special: Ugne Bakes

The televisual phenomenon that is The Great British Bake Off returned to UK screens this time last week, its ratings higher than ever. Now I've never been the biggest fan of the show, but for once, I was glued to it. All because of Ugne Bubnaityte.



For non-UK readers, I should probably explain. It's a baking competition. On TV. Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds, but like I said, I'm not the biggest fan. Anyway, since its inception a few years back, it's become one of the most popular shows on British TV. Even if you don't watch it, you can't help but be aware of it. People talk about it. The contestants become, for a while, part of the national consciousness.

And this year, one of the contestants is a female bodybuilder. Ugne Bubnaityte is originally from Lithuania, and now lives in Essex. And she got more than her fair share of the (considerable) press the show generates before the first episode airs.

All the national newspapers ran pieces on the show on or before last Wednesday. The Great British Bake Off has yet to start, said The Independent, but one of its contestants is already causing quite a stir. And they were just one of (at least) three nationals that featured the lovely Ugne as their "Bake Off" story. Given there are twelve contestants in total (now eleven after last week's elimination) that seems a pretty impressive percentage of column inches already. And that was before the show had even started.



Fair to say then that there must be something about Ugne. Could it be the muscle? Meet the Bake Off contestant WITHOUT a soggy bottom, ran the headline in the (female muscle lovin') Daily Mail, who went on to inform us that Ugne is carving herself a career as a body builder (their space) and describes herself as a 'fitness fanatic'.



As usual, the term "bodybuilder" as used by the mainstream media has a somewhat looser interpretation than you or I might give it. The Mail even claims she is a "professional bodybuilder", which was news to me, and, it turns out, to Ugne too. I really did not expect my training regime would turn me into a 'pro bodybuilder' with a bodybuilding career overnight. Having not put a foot on stage yet... got to laugh that one off, she told her blog followers the day the piece in The Mail appeared.



And there were her muscles again, front and centre (albeit for a blink-and-you-miss-it fraction of a second) as she was introduced to the viewers as the new season of Bake Off began last Wednesday evening. And as I watched (and thought to myself 'I hope there's more gym footage than that') I couldn't help wondering how Ugne mid shoulder press was being received by the millions in their living rooms up and down the country.

Well, as far as I can tell, she's become a bit of a sex symbol. One Welsh viewer and female muscle fan (not so closet) has even caused his own little media storm after the lurve poem he wrote to (and titled) Ugne and posted on his Facebook page went viral.

My Lithuanian love,
My weightlifting dove,
My Amazonian queen,
My cake baking dream,

Let us imagine our life,
Together you and I,
Going to the gym in the day,
Then home for cake and pie...

Read on if you dare.



So, what do we have so far? A woman who lifts and loves baking. Her successful application to the biggest TV show in Britain, and the resulting media interest based solely on the fact that she is a muscular woman. Her first appearance on said show setting male and female hearts a flutter all over the land. And Episode 2 is just hours away. I'll be watching and rooting for Ugne (and hoping she has to really knead some dough with those arms of hers this week). And I imagine I won't be alone.



Top capping from Bake Off Episode 1 (the last three images) courtesy of UK female muscle bloggin' legend and creator of the FMS Hot and Hard 100 2015 pdf, the much-admired PumpItUp. Apparently, his talents know no bounds.

Enjoy!

Grexit? Flex It!

TEREZA PANTELA



A former Bodyfitness/Figure competitor, stunning Tereza Pantela is now a Physique competitor - and with so much new muscle looks like one! She is, in fact, the female Greek phyzeek this year, having won the class at the national championships.



She's now sponsored by Scitec Nutrition, who can usually spot a woman with the potential to compete at the highest level - Larissa Reis, Suzy Toldi etc. So it would be a fair assumption that Tereza's star is going to be rising in the very near future.



Tereza says*: Just give me 15 minutes alone in a room with those bankers...

And you'll be able to follow Tereza's ascent on Facebook.

And for today's muscle in motion, not the best-shot clip in the world, but what it lacks in pixels, Tereza's posing - not to mention her posing suit - more than make up for.



You might also enjoy Tereza training shoulders from her Figure days.

Enjoy

*Tereza had nothing to do with this post.