For me at the moment, my body fat percent is just under 10%. And I want to get that down to about 3% ready for show day. And I’m really pleased. I’m really pleased. Put on some good muscle.

And the definition is coming through already. And I haven’t started dieting [Music] yet. The food that I eat and the way I prep it is purely functional. You need to know exactly how many calories you’re hitting in a day. You need to know exactly how many calories are in each meal that you’re eating.

I see my meal times as fuel times. [Music] My name’s Renee and I’m a professional female bodybuilder. When I’m on stage, the judges will be looking to see that I have a total package. So, they want to see what your presentation is like. They want to see what your condition is like, what your fat percentage is, how thin is your skin, is your vascularity coming through, and is your body in proportion.

So, they’re looking for [Music] symmetry. I was 32 when I started bodybuilding. Um, a group of friends and myself went to support somebody that was competing at a show. When the heavyweight woman lined up on stage, instantaneously I knew right then and there that that’s what I wanted to do. I went from somebody who was eight stone, so that’s 56 kilos to someone who’s now 89 kilos just on 14 stone.

In a day, I would consume about 4 1/2,000 calories, but that will slowly go up in the year according to what gains I want to get. So, it could possibly go up to about 5,000 calories a day. This is when I won the um amateur world title. Because of this trophy, I then was awarded my pro status, which is a very revered thing in the bodybuilding world. I’ve managed to do really well in my bodybuilding career, but that’s just down to the consistent hard work, hard eating, and um sacrificing so much.

At the moment in my off season, I train at least six days a week. These are my friends Sam and Will, my training partners. When we’re training together, we’re not friends. We’re friends after training. When we’re training, it’s very serious and it’s a sort of love hate relationship.

I hear Rene has a nickname. Yes. Captain Campbell. Why does everyone follow that? You just do as she says basically.

[Music] When I do my what I call my big cook, it’s um food that I prep up that will give me enough food for 2 weeks. Um I’ll have five cabbages. Um cabbage is a really good fibrous carb that you need to keep your system moving and everything flowing smoothly. Could I please have 10 kilos of chicken? Chicken breast.

Chicken breast. Yes. You want 10 kilos? 10 kilos? Yeah.

All right. If you do it this way, the food’s really clean. Um, it’s nutritious. It’s exactly what you need in terms for your muscle building, muscle repair. Um, and it’s quick and [Music] easy.

I would go through 5 kilos of rice when I do this big cook. Rice is a very good carbohydrate to have when you’re bodybuilding. Um, it’s a slow release carb and it’s what what we call a clean food. In a week, I have 150 eggs. I’ve got my meals out the freezer and I’m prepping them for the day.

Then I’ll add fresh eggs to each meal. I use the egg whites um because they’re really, really good source of protein, really low in fat. Um, of course, I don’t use the egg yolk cuz that’s where all the cholesterol is and the fat. How long have you been eating like this? I’ve been eating like this now for 6 years.

This is the beginning of my seventh year. It does get boring. Um, but what you do is you see it more as fuel for your body. Um, because I eat every 3 hours, it really does need to be quite plain. You need to get the nutrients that you want for your body, for your muscle growth, get it into the system as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Um, to prep enough meals for 2 weeks will pretty much take 4 to 5 hours. But if you think about it in the grand scheme of things, if you had to cook every day, it’s going to take you a lot longer. In my typical day, I’d have a breakfast um then three of these meals, a protein type meal after training, so that’s five. Then I’ll have a sit down meal at night, which I’ll prepare separately, so it’s more exciting. And then um a protein meal just before bed.

[Music] There aren’t very many um professional female bodybuilders in the UK. I think there’s at least three, possibly four that are still currently competing. For female is is such a hard sport for female. Even for male, but for female is even harder because of the natural of the the body. Yeah.

It’s um it’s a lot harder for a female to pack muscle on because we have naturally occurring estrogen. So you’ve got to work even harder than most guys. A diet and training comes first before anything else. I believe Ren is the best female body in the UK. She did work and she trained really hard.

I’m really proud of her as a friend. Um my personal experience is that it has been it has been really difficult to get to the top. You have to be prepared to sacrifice a lot. I’ve sacrificed going away on holiday with family. I’ve sacrificed celebrating my birthday.

I mean, there’s been years and years in a row where I’ve not spent time with family over um festive holidays for the very reason that I’m dieting for a show. Not being in a relationship, that’s been a big sacrifice because I need to be in a way quite greedy with my time, quite selfish, and I need to dedicate any time that I do have to the sport. So, in each one of these bags, I’ve got 130 g of rice and a 130 g of chicken. And the cabbage will be 50 g. That will be frozen.

In the morning when I prep my food, I will empty the bags into a blender, add water and blend it to a consistency that you can drink it. It tastes like um chicken soup gone a bit wrong, but you know, I’m so used to the taste. It is very bland and it can smell a little bit but um it’s really good for you. You got to ask yourself why you’re doing it is I imagine myself on stage. I imagine the end result.

What is it that I want? I want to build this physique that I can be proud of. I do get a lot of male attention. I have a huge fan base. I get a lot of male all the time from male admirers.

Um, and in the street as well, you get guys in the street whistling at you or saying, “Wow, you know, you look absolutely great. You got a great set of legs or, you know, really great ass.” So, you know, you do get comments like that. Very [Music] random. I absolutely love coming to the supplement store.

It’s like a candy shop to me. There’s just so much to choose from. You just want to try everything. What your goals are will determine what products you take. For me personally, when I’m offseason, I would use something like a mass gainer.

Okay? Fantastic for putting on some good muscle mass. Then in my competition season, I would use something with less carbohydrate in. So just those small differences can make a huge impact on your physique. These are my morning tablets.

These are my post-workout tablets. And these would be my bedtime tablets. That is a lot of tablets every day, but all of these play a specific role and they’re taken at very specific times. You put your body through a lot of stress when you train at the level that I’m training at. So, these are just going to ensure that you’re keeping yourself as healthy as you possibly can.

Talking about the use of steroids in a sport of bodybuilding can be quite a tricky subject. It’s something that you’ll find most athletes won’t discuss too much in much detail. I think everyone knows that this sort of thing does go on in the sport, but not just the sport of bodybuilding. It’s every sport. Um, you hear of tour to France cyclists, you hear of sprint runners, track runners.

Um, this all does go on. Are you allowed to do so to like a certain extent? Um, the federations would like to say that we don’t I will absolutely always keep my muscles. I’ll do my best for as long as possible. I think with this sport, what’s great is that I’ve seen some um elderly people in their 60s, even in their 70s, still training, still doing bodybuilding.

I’ll be walking along my Zuma frame doing a few curls at the post office, but absolutely I’ll always keep training. [Applause] [Music]