A bodybuilder and a figure contender share what it was like to shave away body fat without losing their minds

From the second that Kanye West’s “Stronger” blares, a 5-foot-8-inch bodybuilder in tiny orange briefs commands all eyes. He tenses every chiseled muscle, then flexes his biceps and arcs back, teetering in a move fit for “The Matrix.”

The crowd at the Liberty Performing Arts Center cheers for more, and 29-year-old Darryl Olive delivers another pose to show off his hard, godlike body. His dark skin, pre-oiled for the show, glistens under the stage lights, showing no trace of imperfection.

To perfect his body for the judges and audience members at the Natural Southern States Classic bodybuilding competition held earlier this month, Olive first submitted to a gastronomical boot camp. All in preparation for these 70 seconds.

The day before, judges evaluated 25-year-old Allison Sizemore’s tiny waist, six-pack abs and toned legs. To get here, she endured hundreds of hours of sprints and cardio sessions and nibbled grilled chicken and plain salad while her friends enjoyed beer and hot wings.

For about three months, both athletes lived through a grueling program that required counting every gram of food and exercising, sometimes two hours a day. Meanwhile they both held fulltime jobs. For Olive, the new owner of a personal-training studio, that meant working about 70 hours a week on top of his bodybuilding schedule.

Winners in such competitions earn the right to compete professionally, along with money, trophies and glory.

The real point of it all? Proving to themselves they could do it.

The beginning: Allison

Jan. 25

Sizemore, an accountant from Kansas City, North, starts training today. The April 18 show is her second figure competition, which judges competitors on muscle tone and the proportion of their lower and upper bodies. Figure contests differ from bodybuilding competitions, where muscle size is key.

At 5 feet 2 inches, Sizemore weighs 119 pounds and measures 18 percent body fat — already below the 20 percent to 24 percent range of a healthy woman, according to the American Council on Exercise.

Her goal weight: 109 pounds. Goal body fat: 6 percent.

Sizemore does 30 minutes of cardio six days a week and lifts weights four days a week. Her new diet includes 150 grams of protein, 30 to 40 grams of fat and about 150 grams of carbohydrates. All that measures between 1,200 and 1,600 calories a day.

Feb. 13

Sizemore dips to 14.5 percent body fat, but she hasn’t lost much weight. Her trainer, Kristie Harbaugh, lowers Sizemore’s carb intake to 120 grams and forbids peanut butter, one of the last luxuries Sizemore enjoyed. Harbaugh wants Sizemore to lose 10 more pounds, so she increases the competitor’s cardio by five minutes a day and adds 10 sets of 30-second sprints three times a week.

Feb. 18

Harbaugh restricts Sizemore’s diet again. She’s tired, but she manages.

“I can’t think about wanting an apple,” Sizemore says. “I just gotta get through it.”

Feb. 22

Sizemore’s routine hits a bump. Her job sends her to Washington, D.C., this week.

She gets up at 5 a.m. every morning to work out before meetings. She requests a refrigerator in her room and packs oatmeal, tuna kits, rice cakes, veggies and protein-infused oatmeal pancakes she made in advance. If she must eat out, she orders plain chicken and vegetables or salad, no butter or oil.

March 11

Sizemore is on track to attain the goals she and Harbaugh set. Harbaugh says she needs to work on her legs, where most women hold body fat. Sizemore doesn’t complain — she just pushes on, Harbaugh says.

“Some girls genetically have great bodies, but I enjoy taking a normal girl, like Sizemore, and making a highly competitive athlete,” Harbaugh says.

March 19

Sizemore didn’t lose any weight or body fat last week, despite six days of 50-minute cardio sessions, a couple days of sprints and more. All that on 80 to 120 carbs a day.

“I actually almost cried,” she says.

March 24

Sizemore labors hard this week, but she’s nervous about weighing in tomorrow. She can’t stop pinching the skin on her stomach as she watches TV with her husband Craig.

Stop doing that, Allison, he tells her. You’re fine.

March 25

Weight: 114 pounds. Body fat: 9 percent.

The beginning: Darryl

Feb. 13

Olive, a personal trainer and yoga instructor, starts training hard for the April 19 men’s competition. Body fat: 4.4 percent.

Olive wants to put on muscle and cut his fat by 2 percentage points. He placed fourth in his class in 2006, the last time he competed. He knows he needs to work on posing and stage presence.

“I was leaner than the second and third finishers, but they presented themselves better,” he says.

Trainer John Arnold puts Olive on a low-carb, high-fat, high-protein diet.

“This requires less muscle-wasting cardio and ensures that you maintain and, most of the time, gain muscle mass,” Arnold says.

Olive eats five or six times a day, downing copious egg whites, turkey, protein shakes and veggies. Arnold allows him some fruit and cheese. Twice a week Olive sweats through 20 minutes of cardio. He lifts weights five days a week.

Feb. 19

A setback. Olive’s grandfather goes to the emergency room and is treated for pneumonia. Olive visits him all day between clients. He’s stressed, tired and hungry. He didn’t have an opportunity to pack food, and the hospital doesn’t have much he can eat without cheating on his diet. He finally leaves the hospital at 10 p.m. and heads to the grocery store to shop for healthy meals for the week.

When he gets home, though, Olive consumes “an entire jar of almond butter and a whole roasted chicken.”

Feb. 20

Olive doesn’t have time to eat five or six meals today. As one client leaves, he gulps down some chicken before the next arrives minutes later. He follows a pretty strict diet but sometimes eats more if he’s hungry. He carbo-loads every other day with complex carbs such as oatmeal, sugar-free dried fruit and yams.

Feb. 25

Olive’s weakest area is posing. The best competitors must look relaxed while flexing every muscle. Olive is supposed to spend a half-hour on that each day, but his body doesn’t always allow it.

“Oh my God, it’s tiring,” he says. “We did it for like three minutes Saturday, and I was exhausted. My back was so sore.”

Feb. 30

The flu keeps Olive out of the gym and prevents him from posing this week. He has a fever, a sore throat and nasal congestion. He’s exhausted but can’t afford to close his studio until he feels better. He forces himself to eat all his meals, though he tastes nothing.

March 22

Olive remains calm as the competition nears. He loves his diet plan, but client lunches present a challenge.

“I try to just order salads and lean meat with steamed vegetables,” he says. “I’ve got three lunches next week. That’s life. It happens.”

Crunch time: Allison

April 15

Weight: 111 pounds.

Sizemore constricts her diet. She’s allowed 150 grams of protein, veggies and flaxseed but no starchy carbs such as potatoes. And no sodium.

“Yuck! I like salt,” she says.

April 16

Two days to go. Sizemore and a few other competitors meet in the garage of their trainer, Harbaugh, to get their first coat of spray tan. Harbaugh sprays each girl with an airbrushing device for about 10 minutes until their bodies are evenly covered. The women can’t work out or shower until after they compete to keep the tan from streaking.

No veggies today — they’ll make Allison hold water. She drinks a dieter’s tea to keep her from feeling bloated and to lose a pound or two of water weight.

“It sounds gross, but it really cleans you out,” she said.

April 17

Weight: 109 pounds. Body fat: 6 percent.

Sizemore dropped 2 pounds overnight. She can’t eat anything but protein and some starches and only gets 1 liter of water the entire day. She’s a little tired, but excitement keeps her fueled.

She heads back to her trainer’s garage to get her final coat of tan.

Crunch time: Darryl

April 5

Weight: 172 pounds. Body fat: 2.3 percent.

Last week, Olive went heavy on carbs to gain weight, but he thinks he may have lost “some cut.” Tomorrow he goes back to carbo-depletion, taking in fewer than 100 grams a day. That’s less than 2 cups of pasta.

April 8

Olive’s diet has diminished his sex drive.

“That’s one reason I kept eating red meat, to try to keep my hormone levels up,” he says. “But you just get so tired.”

April 17

Women give Olive several weird glances as he enters a tanning salon.

“I obviously have dark skin and wouldn’t need to tan, but this is to even out my skin tone and make my body look better,” he says.

The big day: Allison

April 18

Sizemore wakes at 7 a.m. After breakfast, she gets her hair done and meets several girls at their trainer’s house for makeup. Scarcely clothed and naked women chatter about their bodies and compliment one another on their work.

Sizemore changes into her purple, rhinestone-encrusted bikini and has it glued down so it won’t ride up. She and the others work on posing until they head to Liberty for the show.

6:30 p.m.

Most of the women do last-minute push-ups and use resistance bands to make their muscles look more defined. A friend pins a number on Sizemore, and she balances on her “stripper” heels and takes her turn flexing in the mirror before her class is called for prejudging. She and her six opponents are in the novice class for women shorter than 5 feet 3 inches. The women enter one by one and form a line.

They’re off the stage in less than five minutes. Each girl aches from holding her body so tight.

9 p.m.

Sizemore walks onstage to do her individual poses. She appears calm and confident as she smiles and moves through her poses, tensing every muscle. She flips a flirty wave and leaves the stage knowing she did her best.

10:35 p.m.

The top five finishers in Sizemore’s class are called to the stage. Sizemore is one of two who isn’t called.

“I know I said I didn’t care about placing, but I’m pretty pissed,” she says.

She goes to dinner with friends and family and devours pizza. “Eating is so fun,” she says.

She says she probably won’t compete next year but aims to keep her body fat less than 15 percent and hit a stricter diet during summer months.

“I’ve learned a lot about my body and what I need to do to keep it healthy and in shape,” she says.

The big day: Darryl

April 19

Olive’s alarm sounds at 5 a.m. the day of the bodybuilding competition. He downs a protein shake, rehearses his routine and poses for more than an hour. After breakfast, he and his partner, Ken Johnson, double-check his supplies. Tanning lotion, oil, posing briefs and almonds for a snack. Check, check and check.

8:30 a.m.

Olive and the rest of the bodybuilders wait backstage for their turns. Olive competes against eight athletes in the short open division, which accepts men who have competed in at least two shows and who measure less than 5 feet 9 inches. Backstage, men lift light dumbbells and pump up with push-ups. Others brush on tanning lotion or oil to make their muscles glisten.

Olive and the rest of his class go on about 9:15 a.m. and perform mandatory poses for the judges, who evaluate them side by side for comparison. The prejudging ends in five minutes and Olive is relieved, tired and sore. He goes back to his home near Westport to relax until it’s time for his individual routine.

6 p.m.

Backstage, Olive snacks on almonds while Johnson helps him apply oil onto his body. He’s the second-to-last man in his category and looks confident as he takes the stage. The music starts.

8 p.m.

Olive is the first to be called as a top-five finisher. He struts to the front of the stage, still flexing.

Olive claims the fourth-place trophy. His trainer, Arnold, runs the Liberty show and travels to other contests. Arnold asserts that Olive would fall in “the top 10 or better, nationally, in his height class.”

Training won’t end here for Olive. He’ll compete again next month in Iowa for another chance to go pro. He’ll work on back definition, chest development and improving the proportions between his upper and lower body.

“This is also what separates the champions,” Arnold says. “The people that succeed work on their weakness and set aside their egos.”

Allison’s typical diet

7 a.m. — scrambled egg whites, veggies, oatmeal with Splenda and cinnamon

10 a.m. — tuna and veggies

Noon — salad with chicken, veggies, sweet potato

3 p.m. — oatmeal infused with protein powder

6 p.m. — fish and veggies

Darryl’s typical diet

5 a.m. — protein shake

8 a.m. — 10 eggs whites and two whole eggs, scrambled

11 a.m. — protein shake

1 p.m. — salad with 10 to 12 ounces of red meat

4 p.m. — two boiled eggs and string cheese

7 p.m. — 10 to 12 ounces of meat, 1 ounce of nuts, veggies

By the numbers: Allison

Personal training: $500

Food: $300 extra

Nutritional supplements: $300

Contest fee/ North American Natural Bodybuilding Federation membership: $95

Tanning: $105

Bikini: $50 rental

Shoes: $40

Hair: $50

Makeup: $50

Total: $1,490

By the numbers: Darryl

Personal training: $100

Food: $500 extra

Nutritional supplements: $400

Contest fees/North American Natural Bodybuilding Federation membership/polygraph: $165

Tanning: $60

Posing trunks, oil and tanning lotion: $60

Total: $1,285

Bodybuilding basics

The North American Natural Bodybuilding Federation hosts bodybuilding competitions for men and women and figure and fitness events for women. Stage presence is a factor in all contests.

Bodybuilding competitions

They’re judged on: symmetry, muscular development and degree of body fat and water retention. Each competitor performs an individual 70-second routine in addition to posing alongside opponents for comparison.

Women’s figure competitions

They’re judged on: muscle tone and body fat, not muscle size. Competitors take the stage together to hold several poses at a judge’s request. Then each woman performs a series of poses by herself.

Women’s fitness competitions

They’re judged on: the same criteria as figure competitors, plus a short routine featuring dance and gymnastics to demonstrate athletic coordination.

Polygraph and urine tests

The federation requires polygraph tests to ensure performers are free of a variety of drugs, including anabolic steroids, testosterone and the human growth hormone. The top two finishers in each class also submit their urine for screening.