Fit to be eyed

A Lake County teenager is muscling his way onto the bodybuilding scene.

Cameron Vansant is busy working on a lifelong sculpture project: himself.

Posing on stage at the Ormond Beach Performing Arts Center, the 16-year-old high school student with green eyes, shiny black hair, and a Herculean body is cheered on by the crowd.

This is his first body-building competition, but he calmly and confidently wears a smile throughout his 60-second routine.

His tanned, golden-oak skin is clad only in the briefest of metallic brown briefs. He clenches every bulked-up muscle tightly as possible, making his biceps, quadriceps, abs, and deltoids sparkle in the spotlight. Then, he faces away from the audience to reveal his back, which is an inverted triangle of muscular mass.

As he flexes through a variety of poses, judges carefully examine his body for strengths and flaws.

Once his posing routine is complete, he and other bodybuilders gather on stage for an awards ceremony.

The announcer speaks, ending suspense for both contestants and fans.

“First place goes to…” Maybe we should stop there.

To appreciate the end of the story, we should start from the beginning.

Muscling in on bodybuilding

The average American teenager typically competes in football, basketball, baseball, and soccer.

But bodybuilding?

Cameron, a sophomore at Tavares High School, was bitten by the bodybuilding bug as a child. He often ventured into his father’s home office to read “Arnold Schwarzenegger Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding.” The pictures of perfectly sculpted bodies captivated him.

“Their bodies were picture perfect,” he says. “I was amazed at their great overall physiques and how buffed they were.”

But this is Florida, where football reigns supreme. Cameron participated in youth football and dreamed of scoring game-winning touchdowns and making hard-hitting tackles on the high school level.

In fact, as an eighth-grade student, he joined a soccer team solely because he wanted to be in peak shape to play on the Tavares High School junior varsity football team as a freshman. Unfortunately, he found himself watching from the sidelines.

“I asked my soccer coach when I could get in the game. He looked back at me and said, ‘Never.’ I told him I was done playing for him because he never let me play. I went home and cried.”

That did not dampen Cameron’s desire to play football. Instead, he used the setback as motivation. To ensure he would be in tip-top shape, he implemented a six-meal-a-day regimen, ran three miles each day, and lifted weights religiously. Becoming toned, buff, and in superior physical condition felt natural. The hard work paid dividends by the time summer football workouts rolled around.

“The team was working in the hot sun, and some of my teammates were throwing up. I wasn’t tired at all. In fact, I was running laps around everybody.”

After each practice, coaches urged players to go home and watch football videos to help them master fundamentals.

“Instead, I’d go home and watch bodybuilding videos because that really interested me more,” he says.

When his football coach unexpectedly changed practice hours, it threw a kink in Cameron’s eating regimen.

“I could no longer eat my 6 p.m. meal, and I wasn’t going to be taken away from my regimen. I had no control over my eating anymore and did not like that feeling.”

He hung up his football cleats, hit the gym, and started concentrating exclusively on bodybuilding.

Striking a pose

Cameron quickly realized bodybuilding is an arduous, full-time job. Healthy eating, protein drinks, and intense workouts are part of the lifestyle.

And bodybuilding is a lifestyle.

“Serious bodybuilders create a lifestyle where you eat differently than other people and you exercise in a more dedicated fashion. It’s very time-consuming and a big part of your daily life.”

So much a part of daily life, in fact, that Cameron skipped the school’s homecoming dance, quit watching television, and stopped texting friends.

Girlfriends?

Forget about it. “I don’t want to be with a girl,” he says. “Girls are a distraction.”

It’s hard to blame him. After all, achieving a Herculean look requires laser-like focus, unimaginable willpower, and strict discipline. Simply going to the gym and lifting weights does not help build the dream body.

Bodybuilding is a science. That means knowing what exercises work the part of the muscle competitors are trying to bulk up and performing them in a correct manner to achieve a symmetrical physique. They must also know what exercises do not work, how long to rest between sets and workouts, and be aware of overtraining or undertraining.

Similarly, the dieting process is a like solving a complicated jigsaw puzzle. Consuming too many calories causes competitors to put on fat, while eating too few calories results in muscle loss. Through countless hours of research and experimentation, Cameron formulated a meal plan that best helps him achieve muscle growth.

He carefully calculates and monitors not only his daily caloric intake, but also the calories received from each of the macronutrients—carbohydrates, protein, and fat. In addition, he must receive the right combination of macronutrients for his specific body index. “

It’s not easy. I always remind myself I’m eating for a purpose. I also tell myself I eat to live rather than live to eat.”

Willpower is also a key player. For eight months, Cameron followed a strict diet regimen consuming only these foods—oatmeal, egg whites, protein shakes, yogurt, jasmine rice, white potatoes, chicken breast, and broccoli.

During the final week of training—known in the bodybuilding world as peak week—he eliminated carbohydrates to reduce fat surrounding muscles. Less body fat reveals muscles under tight skin and helps achieve the competition look. Five days before competition, Cameron consumed only 37 ounces of fish daily and drank a limited amount of water to lose water weight. In five days, he went from weighing 162 pounds to 149 pounds. “

I remember being on the treadmill at night and crying because I was so hungry.”

Why put his body through so much strain for one day of competition? Because much like a potter molds clay, Cameron enjoys sculpting his body.

“I knew all along this sport is about starting something and finishing it. It’s all about how badly you want to succeed.” For Cameron, failing was never an option. In fact, to avoid becoming sick, he wore a mask to school for six weeks before the competition. Illness would have seriously derailed his training regimen. “

My classmates gave me a tough time. They said I was stupid. I responded by saying, ‘Am I stupid or am I smart?’ I didn’t work so hard just to get sick and miss the competition.”

It’s ShowTime

It’s Oct. 1. For Cameron, the moment of truth arrives when he steps on the stage at the NGA 6th Annual Florida State Natural Bodybuilding Qualifier in Ormond Beach.

All his hard work and sacrifice come down to this. It’s his time to display his awesome physique and express himself from the heart, much like a musician does at a concert or a dancer does at a recital.

He has 60 seconds to impress judges, who score him on appearance, muscularity, pose, and music. As Cameron flexes each group of individual muscles, the crowd hoots and hollers and delivers a thunderous round of applause.

“First place goes to…Cameron Vansant.”

The first-time bodybuilder takes first in the “Teen Division” and “Debut” categories. He also finishes fourth in the “Open Lightweight” category.

“I always say if the mind can conceive it, you can achieve it,” Cameron says. “I felt very proud that I did so well in my first competition.”

His father, Kendall Vansant, is equally proud.

“This sport teaches you who you are and what you can endure as a person,” said Kendall, a Realtor at Re/Max Realty Center in Eustis. “Watching him go from Point A to Point B was so painstaking because he had to get his weight down, undergo constant cardio workouts, and learn when to eat food and how much. It wasn’t easy, but I’m so proud of him for hanging in there and never giving up.”

One thing is certain: The sport helped Cameron develop more than muscles. He also learned the importance of hard work, determination, discipline, and focus. Going forward, he hopes those attributes help him raise the bar in the sport of bodybuilding.