Victoria Creighton knew, a little over a decade ago, that she wanted to commit to a greater level of fitness. Exactly what that would look like was anyone’s guess.
The 59-year-old mother of two had pretty much always remained active, transitioning from flag football, basketball, volleyball, softball at Lasalle Secondary School to a little intramural hockey while at university.
And like many who are not prone to spending a great deal of time on the couch, Creighton and some friends had taken to golf — though an offset for the winter season was rapidly becoming an area of interest.
“A girlfriend had tried to get me into Zumba, but I hadn’t really done anything like that,” said Creighton, now busy preparing for her second bodybuilding competition, the 2023 Canadian Physique Alliance (CPA) Classic Open & Natural Championships in May – not at all what she envisioned even as this journey started in earnest.
“I thought Zumba was a little too dancy,” Creighton said, a notion that is a tad ironic given her innate love of both music (she is a Grade 8-trained pianist) and general affinity for just getting out on the dance floor. It’s tough to say what ultimately prompted her to give in to the urgings of her golfing friend, but she is thankful she did.
“Zumba has a lot of fitness built in; after a year and a half, I became an instructor,” said Creighton. She still conducts classes at the Parkside Centre downtown, even as the shape of her body began to morph.
“It all started there; we started getting fit.”
But it was the onset of the pandemic that would cause her to tangent one more time. Attending on-line sessions with Madalene Aponte, a Zumba education specialist based out of Puyallop, Wash., who also enjoys a penchant for all things fitness and strength related, Creighton began to broaden her scope well beyond cardio.
“It started with three- and five-pound weights and just went up from there,” she said. “I actually enjoyed that kind of working out, lifting weights and stuff, even more than dancing.”
To be clear, the notion of taking that final step, competitively speaking, never really crossed her mind. Rebuffing the initial urging of her coach and instructor, Creighton eventually conceded, venturing into a world that is vastly different from the in-home training to which she was initiated.
“This took me way past my comfort zone,” said the now retired woman who spent the bulk of her life working in the field of cytogenetics after pursuing a specialty course at the Michener Institute in Toronto.
“You get all tanned up, up in front of 500 people you don’t know and 10 people that you do know.”
Such was the ice-breaker of her first formal event last November in Toronto.
“It was scary, but it wasn’t scary,” Creighton said. “I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t. The hardest part for me might have been to learn how to walk in those shoes (with two- or three-inch heels). I am a running shoes / barefoot person.”
Now committed to a meal plan that sees her eating perhaps five times a day, but cutting out salt, sugar and alcohol completely, Creighton has a much better appreciation about how the foods that one consumes work hand in hand with a specific training regimen, all geared towards a specific outcome when it comes to the look of her body.
“It’s actually quite a science,” she said. “As soon as I change my food, even if I change nothing else, I can see the changes in my body.”
There was, understandably, learning beyond simply the appropriate use of the footwear that Creighton would take from her first steps on stage. “I am pretty lean so I need to get a bit bigger to be more competitive with the other women that are in my category,” she said. “They are judging the upper body, judging across your back (hips to shoulders), and the top of your legs.
“I need to increase those muscles in size.”
For that to be noticeable, it requires competitive outfits. And while her two sons are completely supportive of her competitive pursuits, they’re not so comfortable with the skimpy outfits that are part of the endeavour.
“There are specific suits for the different categories, but there are standards, a certain amount of material that must be part of the suit,” said Creighton, noting the Canadian standards are definitely more conservative than those that are seen in Europe, for instance.
Fine-tuning her presentation to “get my body in a better position to judge my muscles”, Creighton has been working weekly with local pro and CPA Classic co-organizer Cindy Van Empel-Popowich.
“I would like to place and get a medal,” she added.
It’s all part of the better vision of fitness that Victoria Creighton can now conceive in her own mind, one that makes her more than comfortable with the woman that she is.
Randy Pascal is a sportswriter in Greater Sudbury. Pursuit is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
