TMMA: We are here with Fitness competitor Sara Evangelista, so Sara for our readers can you give us a little background on yourself?

Sara: I’m 35 and I have an 8 year old son named Gabriel and I am a person trainer, I have been training for about 5 years at a gym called Metrex in Costa Mesa, California, overall though I have been working out for about 10 years. Throughout the years I have always been in great shape and a lot of people would ask me if I have ever competed and I would always say “no”, and then from there I was asked a couple times to do a couple of modeling gigs and I just did them. After that people would always just tell me I should compete and so I did, so I have been competing in bikini for about two years now. Also I have been modeling different types of bikini and fitness modeling jobs for the last four years.

TTMMA: So I understand you will be competing soon? Can you give us some details on your upcoming fitness competition? What do the judges look at, what are you being judged on?

Sara: Well it’s this Saturday April the 16th at the Cooks Auditorium in Anaheim, California. Its bikini and it’s done with the NPC and basically we have a lot of different judges and each look for different things. A lot of it has to deal with symmetry and how your body looks up on stage. You don’t want to be too hard but then you don’t want to be too soft either, so it’s just trying to find that happy medium and balance. As a bikini competitor that is probably the most difficult is just finding that balance of being toned but not too toned or having a little bit of softness but just in the right places. That is what the judges typically look for as well as overall beauty, I mean it’s a beauty pageant and a lot of times who wins doesn’t deserve to win because there are politics involved. So you never really know?

TTMMA: So after this competition what are your goals? Is there a pro circuit?

Sara: What I am trying to do now is get my pro athlete card in bikini through the NPC, and what that is the National Physique Committee. It’s a huge fitness organization that does bodybuilding, does figure competitions, and does fitness and bikini, its all part of the NPC. So now I am trying to get my pro card and how I do that is by taking first place and once that happens I become qualified to compete in nationals. At that level that is when I am able to compete against others at that level and that is how I am able to get my pro card.

TTMMA: So in your opinion what would you say to the average person who decides to want to get in shape?

Sara: My big thing as a trainer, as a competitor, as a mother and also as a person who owns their own business the thing is to me is what I see in reference to people that drives me nuts is the fact is that if you want to get in shape, its just like anything else. It’s just like if you want to be a business owner, if you want to be an actor, if you want to be whatever the situation is, you need to not make excuses and just get things done. People tend to make excuses for laziness and they tend to not take any action, and in order for you to lose weight or gain muscle or become a better competitor or a better athlete you need to do what needs to be done to achieve that goal. It really doesn’t matter your age, I don’t care if you are 60 years old and you want to lose 50lbs it’s possible! Whether you are young, old or handicap in some situations, you can always get into the gym and find different ways to lose the weight. In my opinion people tend to make excuses way to much.

When they go to the gym they will sign up for a trainer and get a trainer and make the effort for about 2 weeks and after that they typically start to make excuses and they don’t accomplish their goal. This is why as a trainer and a competitor, it’s the biggest thing, and that is to not make excuses and do what has to be done.

TTMMA: So can you give us some insight on your diet?

Sara: Well basically it entails just eating healthy; you know there are all kinds of different diets out there it doesn’t matter which one it is, whether its Adkins or a hormone diet or even the blood diet or whatever the heck it is? They all work! The situation is once you get off that diet are you going to maintain a healthy way of living? In reality most people do not. You see with me the situation is I eat healthy, that just entails fruits, vegetables, healthy carbs like sweet potato and brown rice and a lot of protein. For anyone the biggest thing I can say to do is to eat every 3 hours and try to make sure the choices you pick for food are healthy choices, not Cheese-its or fast food or just the typical unhealthy food that’s out there. Prepare your food, cook it at home and package it and eat every 3 hours. As long as you are eating healthy foods you are going to lose weight. You can eat carbs all you want as long as they are healthy carbs.

TTMMA: Well we wish you the best of luck on the competition this weekend and we thank you for your time.

Sara: Thank you.