While most mothers these days fight the clock to incorporate fitness into their busy schedules, Sherry McBride has taken commitment to her health one step further.
For the past two years, this 43-year-old mother of three from Brewster, N.Y., has been a natural competitive female bodybuilder and has taken part in about half a dozen bodybuilding competitions in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
She competes through the World Natural Bodybuilding Federation (WNBF), a nonprofit organization that requires its athletes to be 100 percent drug free.
After coming in first place at the 2009 Natural Connecticut Bodybuilding and Figure Championships in New Haven, she earned her pro card, or professional bodybuilder status. This qualifies her to judge amateur bodybuilding competitions.
In June, at her professional bodybuilding debut at the WNBF Pro American in Massachusetts, she ranked six out of nine female contestants.
With all McBride has achieved recently, she sometimes finds it hard to believe just a few years ago she was in danger of losing her life.
McBride was born with an inherited cholesterol disorder called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolimia. Without daily medication, her total cholesterol has risen as high as 585, which places her at high risk for coronary artery disease.
To keep her condition under control, one of the most important things she has learned is to be very careful about her diet.
In 2008, with the help of a fitness coach, she began an intense weightlifting and diet routine, and in one month's time she completely transformed her body.
"Within four weeks, I was shredded," said McBride, who is 5 foot 3 inches tall and at competition time weighs 99 pounds.
"I was in show shape, and I decided I wanted to compete as a bodybuilder," says McBride, the mother of Bobby, 8; Brenden, 6; and Anthony Joseph, 5; and wife of Bob, 45, who works as a landscaper.
The best part about her diet and training routine is that she now only needs a fraction of the medication for her condition she was initially prescribed.
"It's so impressive that someone her age, with three young children, is able to become a professional bodybuilder. She gives it everything she has every time she's in the gym, and it shows," says Chris Muflahi of Danbury, a personal trainer and holistic health counselor who works out alongside McBride at New York Sports Clubs on Mill Plain Road in Danbury.
"She sends the message that if you want something badly enough, with hard work and dedication you can achieve it."
Todd Ganci of Massachusetts, McBride's fitness coach, says, "Sherry trains with more intensity than most men half her age. She also gets leaner and more muscular than most of them.
"She's incredibly strong for her body weight. She full squats 145 pounds for reps, uses 450 pounds on the leg press, and uses 75 pounds for dumbbell rows," says Ganci, a naturopathic doctor who has been involved in the fitness industry since 1979.
McBride says bodybuilding is especially a challenge for women. "Women don't possess testosterone like men, so we can never naturally get that bulky. But that's not the look I'm really after. I want to show other women that you can be muscular and fit but still look feminine," she says.
She stresses that those interested in bodybuilding should be sure they truly enjoy it and not just want to win.
"Bodybuilding is a very subjective sport. To one judge, you may look fantastic, but to another you may not," she says.
In the past few years, McBride has become a certified personal trainer, spinning instructor and nutrition counselor. She now wants to help others pursue their health and fitness goals, as well as coach those who are interested in becoming bodybuilders.
She hopes to keep competing indefinitely, as long as it doesn't interfere with being a full-time mother.
"I got started in natural bodybuilding as a result of my passion to adopt a lifestyle to enable me to live long enough to see my three beautiful sons become adults," McBride says. "And I am on my way."
