Fitness / Bodybuilding Competition Preparation - How Hard it is? (My own story)

Hello everybody,

Today I want to share with you my experience with fitness/bodybuilding contest preparation.
First of all I want to say that nothing is hard if you love what you do!

When I decided for my first competition I was 18 years old. That was in September or October 2015.
First competition was in May 2016. so I had about 7 months to prepare myself.
First I needed to gain some weigh and work on "mass", becaouse I was still "skinny" for bodybuilding show.

This was me at the start of preparation:

Then, next 5 months I was on "bulking" period, eating a lot (but healthy). I gained about 10 kilograms.
But the biggest problem began in the 4th month of 2016. when I started dieting and working out 2 times per day.
It was easy for the first 3-4 weeks, but then it became more difficult becaouse I was hungry and tired... I even dreamed about food!!

First competition was on May 8. in Serbia. That was some national Cup.
It was hard but I won in my cathegory.

That was, lets say, easy competition. Competition was not strong enought so I entered without pressing in this.
But after this, the real thing was coming - World Championship.
World championship was at the end of June, so I had couple more weeks for preparation.

Now the preparations already become unbearable!
At least I have no longer dreamed about food, because, I didnt sleep!
Insomnia started 5 weeks before World championship. I didnt eat carbs, I trained 2 times per day (12x per week) and slept no more than 3 hours a day!
I was very exhausted and I almost gave up... My brain was no longer functioned properly.
But that's not the end...

One month before competition I looked like this:

How the end was near it became a little easier... at least mentally.
Three days before competition I stopped with training and I started to eat and filled myself with high dose of carbs (becaouse of muscle volumen)

So, one day bofore competition I looked like this:

At the day of competition I was really dehidrated becaouse i needed to throw out all water from body.
Becaouse of that I lost much on volumen and mass... My mistake.

At the end, I finished 7th on the world what was pretty good becaouse of that I was the younges competitor.

It was very difficult but worth it. I learned a lot about the body and have a lot more experience to continue!