Key Points
Elizabeth Smart is sharing how she got into bodybuilding in the first place.
The kidnapping survivor said she was looking for “a new challenge” when a friend called her about training together.
She jumped at the chance but now admits that she had no idea “just how much work” it would require.
Elizabeth Smart was on the hunt for a new challenge when she stepped into the world of bodybuilding.
The 38-year-old child safety advocate and kidnapping survivor recently surprised the world by revealing her participation in competitive bodybuilding. Now, Smart admits that her interest in the sport caught her off guard as well.
“I had been running for a long time, and I loved it,” Smart told Us Weekly in an interview published May 20. “But one of my knees was starting to hurt, and on the weekends, when I did my [marathon] training runs, it got to a point where they were just so long that once I finished them, I didn’t want to do anything the rest of the day. I just wanted to lie on the sofa and eat chips.”
She explained. “And I’ve got three little kids who don’t want to just lie on the sofa and eat chips. And also, honestly, I found out that you cannot outrun treat overload. There was a vanity aspect to it.”
Elizabeth Smart
Credit: Elizabeth Smart/Instagram
Luckily, an answer arrived in the form of a friend with whom Smart had trained years prior.
“She reached out and [asked] ‘Hey, do you want to train together again?’ I was like, ‘You know what? This seems serendipitous. I need a new challenge,'” Smart recalled. “She’d done bodybuilding in the past and made it to the pro level. So [I asked her], ‘Do you think I could do this? I’d kind of like to try.'”
Smart said that she was warned it would take a lot of training but admits, “I didn’t know just how much work it was gonna be.”
The hardest part? “It’s always the eating,” Smart admitted. “I like working out. If I don’t, I feel like something’s missing, even if it’s a rest day. [But] I really enjoy food. If a show is further out, my coach will be like, ‘It’s OK, you can have a fun meal or a treat with your kids once a week.’ The more consistent and the stricter you are, the bigger results you’ll see.”
The weight training and diet change was just one aspect of the challenge. Another was shedding her fears about the public perception of competing, given her fame.
Smart — who survived abduction and sexual abuse as a teenager and now advocates against sexual violence through her Elizabeth Smart Foundation — knew that her stepping on stage in a bikini would earn a reaction.
Elizabeth Smart performs in a bodybuilding competition
Credit: Mackenzie Paralee Holsombake/Instagram
“It’s very easy to sit back and judge victims and be like, ‘Well, did you see how she was dressed?’ I don’t even want to say it, but, ‘Clearly she’s just, you know… Asking for it,'” Smart said, echoing the negative sentiments she has heard about sexual violence survivors. “I have said for years, it shouldn’t matter how you’re dressed or what you’re doing, you could be walking down the street naked, and you still wouldn’t be asking for that. I believe that wholeheartedly. So I feel like this bodybuilding journey has made those words more true to me.”
Smart reiterated that publicly donning a bikini in competition is “not me trying to sexualize my body [or] inviting unwanted attention, it’s not an invitation sexually for anyone. This is me being, like, I have worked so hard on my body.”
In 2002, a 14-year-old Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom and held captive by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, who subjected her to daily sexual assault. Smart was found nine months later, about 18 miles away from her home, with her abductors. Since revealing her bodybuilding pursuit, Smart has opened up about how it has provided a unique way for her to heal from that traumatic experience.
Elizabeth Smart in ‘Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart’.
Credit: Courtesy of Netflix
“My captors could hurt my body, but my body always protected my spirit,” Smart shared. “I felt that way through my whole life; my body has carried me through every worst day… If it stopped protecting me, then I’d be dead. But here I am alive. So now I feel bodybuilding, for me, is honoring my body. Like, taking the time and the care and the attention that it’s deserved all along, because now it’s stronger. I’m healthier, I’m fitter.”
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Smart took some time before sharing her bodybuilding journey publicly, but has since embraced it fully. At her fourth competition, she placed first in her category and celebrated by sharing a photo of herself competing on social media.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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