From Couch Potato to Bodybuilder to National Guard

Bodybuilder Janet Seay

Bodybuilder Janet Seay flexed her muscles at a bodybuilding competition on October 25th in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when she weighed 133 pounds.

November 4, 2008

MARION — Now weighing 150 pounds, about what she did in high school, 5-foot-6 Janet Seay was off to National Guard training at Fort Jackson, S.C., this week.  And she feels fantastic.

For Janet, 32, watching her weight the past 15 years has been like tracking the stock market of late. Up. Down. Up.

148 pounds. Janet begins dating Dennis Seay at Cox High School, Virginia Beach. Va. He graduates in 1993, Janet in 1994, the same year they married.

217 pounds. Students at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va., both earn degrees. "My idea, when I was happy, I'd eat," she says. "You're in college. You eat pizza. You eat hamburgers."

175 pounds. Janet walks and watches what she eats.

220 pounds. "Then, boom, I got pregnant." Dennis Jr., now 8, was born.

180 pounds. Walking and watching what she eats.

225 pounds. "Ka-boom, I got pregnant again." Nina, now 5, was born.

Janet has become a couch potato. "I was growing roots, that's for sure," she laughs.

They move to Marion in 2004. Dennis becomes a software engineer at Rockwell.

"He never even said I was fat or anything," Janet says. "He'd just say we need to start going to the gym."

201 pounds. By February 2006, Janet finishes second in an exercise bike/walking competition at the Rockwell Collins Recreation Center where she works out. If she doesn't lose weight to reduce cholesterol and triglycerides, she could become diabetic.

180 pounds. By Easter 2006, she wins a 5K walk, jog. She eats fruits and lean meats.

"I was in good shape," she says. "I wanted to be in superior shape."

170 pounds. After seeing a body building competition in the fall of 2006 she says, "Oh my gosh. I can see myself in this." She sets her goal to enter in two years.

133 pounds. Oct 25, 2008, fit and trim, her body sprayed tan, Janet takes the stage at the Best of the Midwest bodybuilding show in Cedar Rapids. "I'm about to accomplish something big," she says. "This was my moment."

Posing for the judges, she proves friends who had called her "crazy" wrong. She finishes second out of three contestants in her division.

150 pounds. "That was awesome, for me to lose that much weight, to tighten up my body that good, to know I worked that hard. I couldn't have asked for anything better."

Because Janet had "cut" weight for competition, hydration and eating puts her back to 150. That's OK. She'll need it for basic training.

Last February, while training, Janet runs across a National Guard fitness test. Just for fun, she passes with flying colors. While 32 may seem old to join the Guard, it's the start of the rest of her life. Her family is behind her.

She will stay in shape, go to officer candidate school, help others achieve their goals when they think they can't.

"I'm really thrilled about what I'm about to do," Janet says. "It allows me to make a difference, to do something meaningful."

Source:  Iowa Gazette