The 26-year-old is about to set off for the gym for a two hour session before she begins her 12 hour work day.

She takes with her chicken and vegetables that she prepared in the microwave of her room in the remote work site the night before.

“You get organised to go to bed and try to get some sleep, but most of the time you don’t, and then you get up and do it all over again,” Ms Willersdorf said.

A FIFO worker by day, Ms Willersdorf is preparing for her next competition in September after being named overall bikini winner at April’s Australasian Natural Bodybuilding event.

But she says her physique – and mindset – is unrecognisable from where she was this time six months ago, when her world was turned upside-down.

“I was married, I had a seven year relationship and I left that,” Ms Willersdorf said.

“My journey started in 2019. At my heaviest I was 89kg and, at the time, I probably didn’t really know myself that well.

“I’d lost about 25kg (when my marriage broke down) and decided I wasn’t going to live my life in a manner of, ‘I want to do this, I want to do that’ – I changed my perspective to, ‘I will do this’.”

Ms Willersdorf found a professional bodybuilding coach and set off on the gruelling journey to stage, completely transforming her body in a matter of months.

“People underestimate what you have to put yourself through and go through in order to get that moment that you see captured on stage,” she said.

“I spent a lot of time building that, facing a lot of trauma, growing as a person and finding who I really was, and the gym helped me do that.”

That dedication paid off when, two months ago, the 26-year-old took home the trophy at her first competition.

“It’s euphoric. It’s overwhelming. When I got first place in my first category I was almost overwhelmed with tears,” Ms Willersdorf said.

“I fell in love - that’s the biggest emotion that people could relate to. It’s true love the moment I stepped on that stage.”

But personal growth and success came at a cost.

Ms Willersdorf said there were moments where the strict diet and exercise regime took its toll on her relationships.

“I definitely lost people. The reality is you do have to stop seeing people because you can’t just go out for dinner … but the people who I have in my life now are really supportive of it,” she said.

The 26-year-old hoped to challenge preconceptions around the sport, particularly when it came to the ‘why’ of what drove bodybuilders to compete.

“I really focused on my mindset. As much as people notice the physical change, it’s what goes on internally that’s the most powerful,” Ms Willersdorf said.

“It’s about loving yourself, not in a self-absorbed way but in a loving and trusting yourself way.

“I would take the mental growth that I’ve done over any physical, any day of the week.”

JESSIE TAFUR

Colombian migrant Jessie Tafur said she found herself in a lonely place after being separated from family by the Covid pandemic.

Unable to travel home for her 40th birthday in March, she decided to take the leap into professional bodybuilding.

“I couldn’t travel, I couldn’t have a big party in Colombia like I wanted, so I decided to invest the money in myself,” Ms Tafur said.

“I found a coach and said, ‘I just wanted to be in the best shape at 40’.”

Ms Tafur began waking up at 4am to head to the gym before work, adhering to a stringent meal plan with the support of her husband.

“It was hard, especially because there were times where I didn’t have motivation. What kept my mind into it is that I had a goal and I wanted to reach that goal,” Ms Tafur said.

“It was just revisiting the objective of what was there for me at the end.

“Visualising myself holding the trophy above my head and walking on stage in my bikini … that would make my heart go faster.”

Hold the trophy Ms Tafur did. The 40-year-old swept up at the ANB competition in April.

“I trained to win. I trained to be the best package I could be … but on the day I just had so much fun,” she said.

“When you go out there you are overwhelmed by emotions and how proud you are of the hard work you have done.”

Ms Tafur hoped to inspire other women, saying that bodybuilding taught her it was never too late to achieve what you want in life.

“I did a longer process because I wanted to be responsible with my body and give it time to grow in the most natural manner to be where it was,” she said.

“I had abs which I didn’t know I could develop, it was just insane.

“It’s something that has shaped my life in a better way.”

SAM MUSSARED

For father Sam Mussared, 33, his love of bodybuilding came from “great trauma”.

In 2009, Mr Mussared’s jaw was shattered at a nightclub when he tried to intervene in an argument between another patron and his friends.

“I got in the middle and told him we were just there to have fun … then one of his mates came over and king hit me in the head,” he said.

The 33-year-old was forced to eat through a straw for 10 weeks while his broken jaw was wired shut.

He decided to hit the gym and “get bigger” to protect himself once he recovered, and quickly fell in love with training.

“Some guy at the gym said to me, ‘you’re looking like you’re in good shape for a bodybuilding competition, you should give one a try,’ so I decided to give one a go,” Mr Mussared said.

A decade later, Mr Mussared is preparing for his next competition - but this time he has his wife Michelle Richards and sons Ryland and Kai by his side.

“Fortunately for me my wife used to also compete, so she knows how dedicated you have to be through the whole process,” he said.

“I do this because when I’m in my preparation mode, I’m more focused in every other aspect of my life … I’m more structured with my kids, I’m spending more time with my wife.

The 33-year-old athlete has maintained a vegan diet for eight years, which he attributes to his success.

In 2019, he won the IFBB ‘Arnolds’, a non-tested federation which allows competitors to use muscle-enhancing substances.

“That was a big win for me. There were 20 people in my line-up who were considerably larger than me … but I managed to win being one of the lightest in my division,” Mr Mussared said.

The fit father says he appreciates that, to other people, bodybuilding can seem like an odd pursuit but that it actually requires a huge amount of drive and dedication to the cause.

“It’s one of the weirdest sports you can do. You see the big, scary guys in the gym lifting heavy weights, grunting, looking massive,” he said.

“But when it comes to competition they’re in their sparkly jocks, covered in fake tan and they’ve got rid of all their body hair.

“It’s a really obscure, weird sport but it requires so much dedication and commitment that makes it one of the hardest sports.

“It’s a challenge like no other. You can’t have a day off at any day, at any moment. It builds a lot of character.”

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