Move Over Jen­nifer Nicole Lee

Below is a guest post for Man­darich Mod­els Blog by fit­ness model Ali­cia Leombruni:

Alica Leom­bruni — Fit­ness Model

I started com­pet­ing thir­teen year ago when I was 24 yrs. old as a fit­ness model & fit­ness com­peti­tor. Before I got into the indus­try I use to go watch all of the fit­ness mod­el­ing shows to see what this craze was all about and after watch­ing I knew that this was the indus­try for me. Com­pet­ing in shows takes more then any­one can really imag­ine until one has expe­ri­enced it them­selves, it is not just get­ting up on stage pranc­ing around in some lit­tle bikini as some peo­ple may think. The biggest thing about com­pet­ing is you have to be self­ish as this is a sport all about you which means, mak­ing your food, doing all your work­outs & not going out with your friends at night to eat when your train­ing. Those are only a few of the sac­ri­fices you will give as there are more.

I’ve learned dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion, self con­trol, sac­ri­fice & mostly how to manip­u­late my body to get it look the way I want. When I com­peted in my first show I really had no idea what I was doing nor the sac­ri­fice I was about to be mak­ing in my life. It was long ses­sions in the gym for cardio/weights as well as a com­plete calo­rie restricted diet of only cer­tain foods. So I real­ized if I wanted to be on stage I had no choice but to give it my all & do what it took. My first show I needed to start out with a 12 week diet just so I could take it slow & lose the body fat the right way instead of crash diet­ing it off which is always no good. I learned to become a real good cook because I was con­stantly in the kitchen mak­ing my food since I needed to eat a meal every cou­ple hours. I would wake up every am at 4am and go train then come home pre­pare my meals for the day, go to the office & then on occa­sion go back to the gym for my sec­ond ses­sion if needed.

Fit­ness Model Ali­cia Leombruni

That became my life as a fit­ness com­peti­tor, always cook­ing, diet­ing & trav­el­ing all over the coun­try com­pet­ing in shows on the week­ends. When I look back the biggest sac­ri­fice was the years I gave up in my life not being a nor­mal human being because I was so con­sumed in com­pet­ing I iso­lated myself from the daily world. Don’t get me wrong I loved every minute of it but now years later look­ing back I see the big sac­ri­fices that I made.  As I con­tin­ued com­pet­ing the diet­ing would very for how long I needed to start out before a show to be ready, and that is why main­tain­ing is so impor­tant in com­pet­ing. Too many peo­ple say they have these on/off sea­sons well guess what no that is untrue. When­ever you hear some­one say they have an on/off sea­son unless they are an endorsed ath­lete mak­ing bank then in my opin­ion it is sim­ply an excuse for them to get fat. I do not see any other rea­son for these com­peti­tors to gain so much weight and not look them­selves once the shows are over.

I learned many years later after being in the sport how to main­tain my weight all year round so that when I wanted to com­pete, fit­ness model, go on a cast­ing call or what­ever job it may be, I wasn’t that far off & didn’t need to kill myself diet­ing to get where I needed to be.  Once I mas­tered that part the rest was so much eas­ier because I didn’t have to diet as long nor do all the car­dio. Like I said the biggest mis­take fit­ness com­peti­tors make is let­ting them­selves gain to much weight after a show. Then when show time rolls around again they have to take 3–5 months if not more to get it off and that to me is ridicu­lous. My motto has become “On sea­son all sea­son, there is NO off season”.

Fit­ness Model Ali­cia Leombruni

After com­pet­ing in my first show I got involved in fit­ness mod­el­ing. It only made sense that when I trained so hard to look so good that I should only show off my hard work thru my pic­tures. As with com­pet­ing its fairly sim­i­lar to doing a photo shoot because yes you have to diet to be lean, need to be tan & always have an amaz­ing hair & makeup artist. Hair & makeup for a shoot is highly impor­tant because it really does affect how your pic­tures turn out after wards. photo shoots are basi­cally like an invest­ment, if you put your time and money in to buy sexy gor­geous out­fits, get your hair and makeup done, make sure your body is on point then your pic’s will show all your images.

If you skimp out and don’t tan & pay for a pro­fes­sional hair and makeup artist then you will have poor qual­ity pic­tures & you won’t be happy with the results as I have expe­ri­enced that many times in the past. I also think one of the other most impor­tant things in fit­ness mod­el­ing is the pho­tog­ra­pher you are work­ing with. Research your pho­tog­ra­pher & if you don’t feel com­fort­able do not shoot with that per­son or bring an escort with you. Also watch what you sign some of these pho­tog­ra­phers have mod­els sign­ing all kinds of crazy stuff and the mod­els are not really even read­ing what they are sign­ing. I’ve been fit­ness mod­el­ing for many years & still to this day do it! I love being in front of the cam­era shoot­ing amaz­ing images & always com­ing up with new shoot ideas. It allows my port­fo­lio to be ver­sa­tile giv­ing peo­ple the oppor­tu­nity to see many dif­fer­ent sides to me & who I am as a person.

Fit­ness Model

When I pre­pare for a photo shoot now because I have learned how to main­tain my weight, I may just take the week prior to do a no to low carb diet the week of depend­ing on how I look. I also eat very clean & work­out daily. Then the day before I get spray tanned and usu­ally do a lit­tle shop­ping as I like to always have new out­fits for the shoot. I don’t like shoot­ing in out­fits I have already shot in at a dif­fer­ent shoot. Besides it makes it fun know­ing you have new cool sexy out­fits to be shot in..:) There is a lot of sac­ri­fice in com­pet­ing and in fit­ness mod­el­ing, there’s no magic pill to take off weight and be ready. It’s all up to you & how bad you want it as with any­thing you do in life! I have sac­ri­ficed many years of my life in this sport & wouldn’t change it for any­thing. I have met so many won­der­ful peo­ple & worked with some of the most amaz­ing photographers.

Women Fit­ness Models

So if your con­sid­er­ing being a fit­ness com­peti­tor or dip­ping your foot in fit­ness mod­el­ing make sure you are will­ing to give 100% of your­self or it’s not worth doing. It’s a sac­ri­fice of end­less work­outs, clean diet­ing, buy­ing clothes, hair & makeup, pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­phers, but in the end the results are all worth it. I’ve had the plea­sure of work­ing with one of the most amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­phers in the val­ley Tony & Char Man­darich & they exude pro­fes­sion­al­ism in all their work. If you check out my fit­ness mod­el­ing web­site at http://alicialeombruni.com you will see their amaz­ing pho­tos everywhere.

You get out of life what you put in to it-so do the work & reap all the great results. Com­pet­ing & fit­ness mod­el­ing is a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence & if you are will­ing to sac­ri­fice a lit­tle you will be sur­prised with the changes you can make to you body & have that body you’ve always wanted, I did!  Good luck to all of you who decide to ven­ture into this indus­try of competing/fit­ness mod­el­ing. It’s changed my life for the bet­ter & I find the older I get the bet­ter I look because I have learned the dis­ci­pline & sac­ri­fices it has taken me to get to where I am today..:)

Female Fit­ness Models

Female Fit­ness Models

Thank you Ali­cia for your guest post!
Char & Tony Man­darich ;~)

You can­not walk by a fash­ion win­dow dis­play this spring with­out notic­ing the black and white prints and black and white color schemes for sum­mer styles.

Sum­mer clothes are wind­ing the clock back to the glam­our images of the past where the mix and match of black and white were syn­ony­mous with the words, chic, ele­gant, and cool.  You see it in today’s clothes, bathing suits, shoes, hats, edi­to­r­ial spreads, and fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy images from all over the world.  Black and white is the num­ber one must have sum­mer trend of 2010, and you do not have to look far to find some­thing that rep­re­sents you.

A glimpse of the black and white trend was shown in 2009, but the look was more edgy, punk rock and in your face.

Black and White Fash­ion in 2009

Now the trend is mod­ern, clean, and a bit rem­i­nis­cent of Audrey Hep­burn era.

Black and White Fash­ion Sum­mer Trends 2010

If you would like a high fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy shoot with empha­sis on black and white fash­ion, con­tact a fash­ion pho­tog­ra­pher today.

Bikini Pho­tog­ra­phy

90210’s own Anna­Lynne McCord struts her stuff in a recent bikini mod­el­ing ses­sion.  She is the new break­out star of the CW hit show, 90210.

In the Coral Bikini 90210 Anna­Lynne McCord

Anna­Lynne is a per­fect exam­ple of how to do bikini mod­el­ing right.  She has var­i­ous pic­tures reflect­ing sexy, play­ful and girl-next-door looks.  She pro­vides the pho­tog­ra­pher with a wide array of dif­fer­ent shots to choose from while show­ing off her assets perfectly.

AnnaLynne’s Secret to Great Bikini Mod­el­ing?  The Styling

Take note of how the styling for each shot is in-sync with the mood each pic­ture is try­ing to por­tray.  For instance, in the play­ful pic­ture on the left, her hair is flow­ing, she is wear­ing a fun neck­lace, and her pose is noth­ing serious

90210’s Anna­Lynne McCord Bikini Modeling

Then, in the sul­try black bikini pho­to­graph, her look changes com­pletely.  The hair is styled dif­fer­ently, the look on her face and body posi­tion change and her eyes are look­ing dead on at the cam­era.  The black bikini is much more sex­u­ally allur­ing than the one on the left.  The sub­tle change in jew­elry adds to the image.  This is a great exam­ple of how a suc­cess­ful bikini pic­ture is pos­si­ble to attain with the right styling, pos­ing, acces­sories and background.

If you would like to take a page out of AnnaLynne’s photo shoot, try emu­lat­ing your own bikini model poses at a bikini pho­tog­ra­phy ses­sion made just for you.