Woman of the Week: FBBUK: Emily Brand

She's my current dream girl, my internet female muscle head friend tells me - he has a bit of a penchant for the younger ladies, you see. Her transformation pics are hot af!


Relax, Emily's 20 now

To be honest, I'd never heard of Lincolnshire's Emily Brand before my friend told me about her - me having a bit of a penchant for the more mature muscle ladies, you see. And, quite honestly too, I found her transformation pics more upsetting than "hot af", because her story begins with an anorexic teenager. Her weight: 5st 3lbs (just 33kg).



At 14, Emily spent a year as a child mental health in patient. The doctors tried to put me on a feeding tube, she says. I ripped it straight out. Then they tried to get me to drink these high calorie shakes and I would just sneak out of bed and tip them out the window. Though she did get well enough to return home, she soon relapsed, and at 17 she was readmitted. This time though some tough love helped her turn herself around. When you go into the unit you're not allowed weekend home visits until you've got to a certain weight, she explains. In the end, I ate my way out. I just did what I had to do to get home. I still hadn't completely overcome the psychological side of my anorexia but I was more determined to get better and I joined the gym.



It wasn't an instant cure by any means - to begin with, and despite the fact Emily plucked up the courage to enter some Bikini shows - she was, in her own words, "still trying to function on way too few calories". It was only when she met her current coach, Rob Reinaldo, that Emily truly began to overcome her illness. And he did it with a little more tough love. He said he would train me and get me into bodybuilding but he really put his foot down when it came to my eating, recalls Emily.



A year on, and she has gained 3st (almost 20kg!) of muscle - and it shows!



As a result, she's moved up a division or two in her competitive outings. Athletic Figure (or equivalent) is I believe where you will find Emily now. And the chances are she's competed at a PCA or WABBA show near you in 2018. She'd done seven by mid-August, according to the Mail Online, and "has consistently placed in the top four and been crowned champion three times". Since then, she's competed - and won - at least once more, and with the PCA British Finals not happening till October, I wouldn't be surprised if Emily got tanned and oiled for another two or three shows this year!


To the victor... (pick 'n' mix out of the trophy!)

I can't believe how much my life has changed, says Emily. It's amazing to think I was in a wheelchair just three years ago. People say that weightlifting hurts but what I put my body through with my anorexia was so painful that weightlifting is nothing...



I really love it, and I'm loving life.



Follow Emily on Instagram. Her story was first reported by Unilad, then picked up by the Mail, and also featured in The Sun. And if you do have a moment spare, perhaps a letter to your local MP, or whoever is in charge of the Department of Health in your government right now, asking them to read Emily's (or another FBB's) story and get weight training on the list of recommended treatments for anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. It will probably fall on deaf ears, but if you don't try...



Enjoy!

(More) Summer Lovin': Bumbum #1

Despite hot, hard and disproportionately developed competition from the likes of Suelen Bissolati and more recently Alessandra Alvez, Gracyanne Barbosa remains Brazil's bumbum #1. Heading towards 7 million Instagram followers - Suelen and Alessandra both have less than half a million, and even Eva Andressa Vieira with 4.6 million isn't in the same league - and, although not a competitive Bodybuilder, Gracyanne was in your Hot and Hard 100 for the fifth consecutive year in 2018.



Mostly, it's Gracyanne's spectacular lower body, her world-renowned bumbum and thunder thighs, that get all the attention - and rightly so. However, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that recently as well as adding definition to her prodigious size down below, Gracyanne has also been getting bigger and more defined up top.



This is all good. As a female muscle lover, more muscle is always good. But spare a thought for Gracyanne. Suddenly nothing in her wardrobe (that isn't super stretchy) seems to fit anymore. For a while I could still do my jeans up as long as I didn't have any underwear on, she explains. But now I can't even do that. Worse still, her ever-growing body has actually destroyed a fair portion of her wardrobe. Not that anyone's complained, but it's pretty awkward when your top just rips open in public, she says. And I'm having my lingerie custom-made now because everything off-the-peg bursts at the seams as soon as I put it on. Not that her husband's complaining...



Is her love of pole fitness responsible for this growth spurt?

Or is it - notwithstanding somewhat ridiculous accusations that she is the "Queen of Fake Weights" (ie. that in her training videos the amount she seems to be shifting is just a few actual weights plus a load of 0kg "fake" ones) - simply that she trains really hard?



Whatever she's doing, it's working.



Ai karamba!

[NB: Gracyanne Barbosa had nothing to do with the making of today's post, and all quotes attributed to her are completely made up - FMS Legal]

(More) Summer Lovin': That Intellectual Look

A few years ago an old friend of mine (real not online), very successful in his field of business, decided he was going to get himself some glasses. He didn't need to wear them, there was, and as far as I know still is, absolutely nothing wrong with his vision. He just felt he needed to look a bit more intellectual in meetings, where he was often up against guys who "just looked so f***ing intelligent" with their specs on.



There's quite a lot of him in C. Moore Glootz - the bluster, the sideways point of view, the egocentricity (not that he isn't a lovely guy underneath all that!). Strangely though, some recent research reported in the UK media has suggested that not only was my old friend correct in thinking wearing glasses makes you look smarter, but also that there may actually be a link between having poor eyesight and being intelligent.




Research commissioned by Scrivens Opticians & Hearing Care and carried out by OnePoll.com found one third believe spectacle wearers look more intellectual than those who don't have prescription eyewear. The research also found 32 per cent of glasses wearers think they are perceived 'differently' when they wear glasses.
[The Sun, 31 January 2018]


Built to last: Gaby Quiros is smart enough to find the Corinth Canal

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has found that needing to wear glasses is associated with higher levels of intelligence. In the study, the largest of its kind ever conducted, researchers from the University of Edinburgh analyzed cognitive and genetic data from over 300,000 people aged between 16 and 102 that had been gathered by the UK Biobank and the Charge and Cogent consortia. Their analysis found “significant genetic overlap between general cognitive function, reaction time, and many health variables including eyesight, hypertension, and longevity”. Specifically, people who were more intelligent were almost 30% more likely to have genes which might indicate they’d need to wear glasses.
[The Guardian, 30 May 2018]



Whether what's brought it on is the (sometime) glasses wearing Swoon of the Year Shannon Seeley, or my recent deep exploration of Amanda Machado's Instagram, or something else entirely, over the last couple of weeks I've been actively searching for and collecting images of bespectacled muscular beauties for FMS.


Jana Beeckman makes sure everything matches

Am I entering some kind of brawn plus brains period?


Rachael Chaskey has read at least one book

Anecdotal evidence on the forums abounds with suggestions that some muscle women are, in fact, just as "meat-headed" as (I imagine all) male BBs (to be). I've never seen FBBs as anything less than brilliantly intelligent simply because they've chosen right, chosen the correct answer if you like - a life devoted to Bodybuilding.



So I dismiss that kind of forum chatter. For one thing, there are the actually academically qualified and professionally high-achieving types (see below), but what about Cory Everson, who plotted a career into the mainstream that remains unrivalled? What about Denise Masino or Lisa Cross or Brandi Mae Akers, who have turned their talents to money-making via muscle erotica? What about Emery Miller, chatting away to her fans on cam and managing to be engaging and apparently knowledgeable across a wide range of subjects? The most popular Female Bodybuilders, more often than not it seems to me, appeal not only to our baser physical instincts, but can also reach the largest of erogenous zones - our brains.


Doctor Alex Mossbarger

In a thread called "Female Bodybuilders with a High IQ", Bettina Kadet (now Salomone) (optometrist), Kathy Connors (well-read, knew "an impressive amount" about a minor African conflict according to a head who met her), Cerra Aredia (lawyer), Dina Al Sabah (polyglot, BSc, MSc, MBA), Dr. Michelle Neil, Dr. Dena Westerfield, Heather Darling ("accomplished" lawyer), the late great Renee O'Neil (BSc, MSc, missile defence program director), Chris Lydon (did Neurobiology and French, then graduated from Yale Medical School before discovering Bodybuilding), and, of course, Kristy Hawkins (chemist) all get shout outs.



None of them - as far as I know - are famous for wearing specs though...




Neither are many of the women we've featured today, and some I was genuinely surprised to find wearing glasses - Cass Martin, for example, Michaela Aycock, Ashlee Potts, and Megan Elizabeth Colvin. Only one or two - Paige Sandgren being the obvious example - are more commonly seen with than without eyewear, and much of Paige's geeky-girl-next-door appeal stems from that very fact.



Do the rest of them know what my old friend worked out and the later research confirmed (sort of) - that glasses really do make you look more intelligent?



It's win-win as far as I can tell. If they really do need to wear the glasses then research shows they are likely to be have clever genes anyway. And even if they are wearing them solely for effect, well that just shows how smart they are too. Either way my suspicions are confirmed. Muscle women are as brainy as they are beautiful.



Enjoy!

(More) Summer Lovin': Stalker?

Saw "Not Emma Paveley" again today (time of writing). She's still got it, but this time it wasn't quite as exciting as previously (see Woman of the Week: NOT Emma Paveley, see Street of Joy, Street of Shame). Although I did one of my silent moans, for the very first time I resisted the urge to turn around and follow her (and her "normal" friend).

Now this may be because I've discovered a bit more self-control (as if!) but more likely it's because yesterday (again, time of writing) I sighted another muscular woman, a woman that "Not Emma" - for all her impressive muscularity - simply couldn't compete with. Probably the hardest, most ripped woman I have ever seen up close, and she was properly gorgeous - in a sultry Mediterranean way - too. There was zero debate in my head yesterday, just a voice, quickly rising to a kind of hysterical crescendo. "Oh my God! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!!!". I stared, I swooned, and I turned.

As she passed me I'd noticed a fair bit - olive skin, great round deltoids, huge flowing jet black hair, bicep veins, her powerful stride. All that in what must have been well under a second - I must have been gawping like a fool! She passed, I turned. I didn't walk after her, not at first anyway, I was kind of rooted. There was her super-tight bum in skin-tight black leggings, her angular calves, and - either side of her mane of hair - rear delts and lats twitching with every move she made. I may have moaned audibly.

She powered inside one of the shops further up the road from where I was, and only then did I start to zombie-walk towards her. New Look it turned out to be, not a shop I'd usually go into, but there I was. She was walking up the escalator to the upper floor I noticed, following the hair more than anything else. I paused, noticing that apart from a couple of bored looking boyfriends, I was the only guy in the shop, and even including the bored looking boyfriends, I was probably the only person over 30.

I stepped back towards the entrance and took stock. Despite all my protestations that at times like this I am not in my right mind, I was, apparently, fully aware of what I was doing on this occasion. She had to come out sooner or later, I reasoned, wouldn't it be better to position myself across the road and wait? I could hardly be seen snapping pics in the store - an older guy caught taking pics where young women shop... "Snap Perv Nabbed in New Look" would not be an easy headline to explain to the missus.

So I waited for her to come back out of the entrance, imagining that as I waited she was in the fitting room, trying on all sorts of revealing outfits, no doubt doing a bit of posing in the mirror, maybe the sight of her beautiful muscular body getting her a bit worked up. I imagined a lot. And I waited... And I waited... And I waited...

A full twenty minutes later I couldn't resist any longer and went back in. She wasn't on the ground floor, so I took the escalator up - turns out there's menswear upstairs, who knew? I could have gone up, looked at some ties or something. Fool! And then... OH MY GOD!!! I saw there was another entrance. Superfool! She was long gone.



To me it is totally inconceivable that I could be around a woman like that and not want to get a stalk on - even if some time later a wave of guilt stopped me. So, when I see some random dude in the back of a photo such as that of Australian WBFF deity Rach White, I can't help but project all my stalker tendencies onto him.

Look! There's nobody else in the gym. In my experience, that means it's either very early, or very late. Coincidence that he's there when she's there? Coincidence he just happens to be looking up as she proudly displays her beautiful rock hard muscle body in the mirror? Coincidence my arse! He's perving on her, and I don't blame him.

And he's doing a good job at keeping his subject in sight!

But I could be wrong. Maybe he just has a busy schedule, has to work out late (or early), and though he might be having a look, he might be admiring Rach, it doesn't mean he's planning how best to position himself to snap a cheeky secret pic later.

I could be wrong...

Enjoy!

(More) Summer Lovin' continues next week.

(More) Summer Lovin': Michaela's Mind

Just on the off chance you were in the mood for a bit more Physique freakery...



Erotic and genuinely disturbing in equal measure (which makes her even more erotic, the will to go to such extremes and revel in doing so!) is what I say. You say, among other things, that she is "amazing", and "awesome", and that "she's on another level now". That you look at this picture and all you can think is "I love muscle women! WOW!!!", and that "even a train would stop to look at that". "Look how happy you are!" exclaims one of Michaela's Instagram devotees. Exactly my point. What woman in their right mind would get so much pleasure from being so disgustingly muscular?!

Our kind of woman.

Enjoy!

(More) Summer Lovin': FBBUK : Hard All Over (Hayley Brylewski Turns Pro)

This is what Hayley's leg looked like the night before at "bedtime". How you sleep when your veins are poppin' out of your skin I know not - guess there is the exhaustion from depletion, but wouldn't you spend the whole night just looking at your freaky self?!

Maybe touching...



The next day - show day - and Hayley has a cheeky abs check in the hotel lift before breakfast. I wonder if she got her trousers back up and her jacket closed before the door opened? Wonder if she even bothered. Perhaps she just sauntered into the buffet with clothing arranged exactly like that, a treat for the early birds in the dining room.



She had, even by her own gnarly standards, been looking particularly hard in the lead-up to her show - her glutes in particular. As last weekend approached, she proudly displayed them in the gym (left), and by the time she'd arrived at the hotel (right), they seemed to have become harder still. I was reminded of her fellow Brit Corinne Ingman, and when it comes to peeled glutes, there is no greater praise than that.



I've thought about this long and hard, and I really would give up a body part to be the guy who gets to take the photo of Hayley lounging on the bed in her sparkly purple posing suit. I might even be prepared to give up a limb just as long as that guy is also the guy who can go back to worshipping (with body parts of his own choosing) those delicious walnuts right after he's posted said pic to her Instagram for her.



Anyway!

The contest Hayley was getting (as Corinne herself puts it) "truly, disgustingly peeled" for was something called the Ben Weider Worldwide Classic British Championships Pro Qualifier, and, as befits a contest with such a magnificent name, it was held in...

Coventry.



It is one of a series of shows "worldwide" - clue is in the name! - designed to make new pros. There's been one in Rimini, and after the Olympia there's another in Alicante... OK, so maybe not "worldwide" yet, but the concept is still young. The number of contestants vying for the coveted pro card hasn't been massive either. As in Rimini so in Coventry - just two Physique ladies: Hayley plus (also from the UK) Sandi Griffin.



Hayley got the nod, and the big red envelope.


Hayley, with big red envelope (and sword) and Jenna Beckworth

I’ve competed with Hayley for many years, Corinne wrote by way of congratulation. A genuine person with a lovely heart. FMS too, is genuinely delighted to be reporting one of the nicest, most down-to-earth UK Physique Dreams' dream has come true. Perhaps, as Corinne adds, Hayley has "set the tone" for more British Physique success. @linnyg_walnut [Linda Gartside] is up next, predicts Corinne. Then myself.

Amen to that.

Check out FitVids preview of their latest work with Hayley.

Enjoy!