Woman of steel

Visitors to Yvette Wyatt's Port Royal Plantation home might find her vacuuming in a pair of 3 1/2-inch heels. Wyatt is breaking in the shoes for an upcoming female light bodybuilding event, or figure competition.
A few years ago, the 38-year-old wife and mother of two says she never could have imagined entering such an event. In fact, she had never even exercised regularly.

"I liked biking," she says. "But I did it more for pleasure. I tried different workouts, but they were contradicting, and that was really frustrating."

Wyatt grew up in Atlanta, married at age 19, and had her first child a year later. Although she never had a serious weight problem, she says she wasn't happy with her body as she entered her 30s. However, she was never inspired to stick with a fitness program.

Lately, though, she has gained a whole new look -- and it's not just the shoes.

"I found a passion," Wyatt says.

She has lost about 14 pounds of body fat, stopped her chronic migraine headaches, and sculpted her body into a chiseled work of art, complete with defined biceps and triceps.

Just two years ago, Wyatt, a former accountant and substitute teacher, began working out at a local gym and changing her diet with the simple goal of getting in shape. Now, she has become a personal trainer, and she won second place in her first amateur figure competition, the 2004 NPC Western North Carolina Figure Championships, last weekend.

She will compete in a second competition, The National Physique Committee's South Carolina Excalibur Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure Competition -- a qualifier for competing nationally -- on Monday in Charleston.

However, Wyatt says the mental transformation far outweighs the physical.

"It was life-changing for me," she says. "It makes you feel like when something new comes your way, you can approach it like, 'I can handle this.' "

Now, Wyatt says she feels like she also can handle her next challenge: Making the grade to enter national competitions.

At Monday's Excalibur competition in Charleston, she will walk on stage in a rhinestone-studded leotard and be judged on her body and personality.

The event requires each participant to perform a series of poses in front of a panel of judges.

"I'm not nervous," Wyatt says. "I like to be prepared and be my best, but it's just been exciting to get to this point."

To reach her goals, Wyatt started out exercising five or six days a week, with at least 45 minutes of cardio training, along with three weight-lifting sessions a week. Now, she does three strength training sessions each week, about one or two hours each, along with 20 minutes of cardio training three or four times a week.

In addition to improving her physique and learning poses, she also has had to rub on a tan and have outfits specially made for competing.

But for Wyatt, it's not about looks.

"I'm seeing what kind of door is opened with figure competitions; it's actually part of a path of helping people," she says.

Helping people, Wyatt says, is really her main focus.

"The whole idea is not to get attention," she says. "It's what you do with that attention. I love encouraging people and I love watching their quality of life change."

She became a certified personal trainer last year, and she says she uses her skills as an avenue for helping others.

"I can't imagine doing anything else," Wyatt says. "I love learning something and passing it. I feel like that's the prize in itself."

About four months after she started working out, Glen Carrigan, owner of the gym that she joined and now works at, approached her and asked if she would be interested in becoming a personal trainer.

"I saw a passion," Carrigan says. "She's definitely very gifted. She's quite a special lady."

While she was getting in shape and studying to be a personal trainer, Wyatt says she had to make several other life changes as well.

She had quit her accounting job a year earlier to be with her family more, and now she gave up her part-time substitute teaching as well. She woke up early five days a week to drive to the gym, begin her workout, drive home to take her children to school, and then return to the gym.

Wyatt says her husband, Jeff, who owns a local software company, helped her both emotionally and financially.

"He has totally supported me," she says.

She says her children, Justin, 17, and Marissa, 15, also help with dinner and do extra household chores.

Wyatt adds that the whole family also was inspired to get healthier.

"They are eating healthier," Wyatt says. "And it's nice, too, when your son says, 'Show me how you do your abs.'"

Even employees at the grocery store where Wyatt shops have encouraged her, she says.

"That's really funny, because they have kept up with me," she adds. "Everyone has been really supportive."

Wyatt recently attended her 20th high school class reunion.

"I look better at 38 than I did in high school," she says. "That was a really good feeling."

After Monday's figure competition, she says she plans to compete again.

"We'll see where the figure (competition) leads," she says.

And despite all her own hard work, she doesn't take all the credit.

"If I hadn't been in this environment, look what I would have missed out on," she says. "It is amazing, yet God knew the whole time."