Most people soon forget their New Year’s resolution but Kristi Tungatt turned hers into a world title.
The 26-year-old recently won the open section at the 2015 Natural Olympia in Las Vegas.
What made her effort special is that it is a form of body building that stringently clamps down on steroid use.
Cheats go on to a wall of shame and for Tungatt making sure she is clean has also meant staying away from supplements which often have hard-to-identify ingredients.
Winning the world title took a lot of hard work and given her relative inexperience was a great effort. Without steroids and supplements to bulk up, she relied on an exhaustive schedule at the gym
Originally from Upper Hutt, Tungatt comes from a family with a background in fitness.
Her father, Rob, taught PE at St Patricks College Silverstream and her mother, Jude, taught PE at Chilton St James School.
As a student at Chilton Tungatt played a wide range of sports including netball, volleyball and basketball.
Her rise to the top of the bodybuilding world started in early 2014, when she set herself the goal of doing a competition within three years.
Within seven weeks she had done that and found herself hooked.
One aspect she did not like was competing against athletes boosted by steroids.
“When I started I was a little bit naïve…I thought ‘why do they do that?’. I thought it would be natural but it was not really the case.”
The severe dieting- athletes often eat nothing but steamed chicken and broccoli for months – and that was also a turnoff.
Wanting to have a family and not liking the impact steroids and dieting have on a female, she aligned herself with a US-based organisation that does drugs testing.
She went for an alternative low fat, low carb /hight diet big on red meat, eggs, bacon and avocado.
Going on stage in a tiny bikini in Vegas did not bother her.
“I have worked so hard. I want people to see as much of me as they can.”
The judges were looking at overall presentation and for large muscle mass and to be chosen the winner was a huge thrill for her.
Courtesy of: The Dominion Post