Jacqueline Zediker’s journey into health and fitness started
her freshman year of high school. Her
parents had just got a divorce and she was new at a small school in northern
Indiana. To pass the time and give her
something to do she picked up cross country running. She would run, run, and run. She was running to control some aspect of her
life since the rest of it seemed to be out of her hands. She also learned that she could control
something else by not eating. She found
this was a way to lose weight, and if she would eat she would go straight
outside and run for miles and miles to burn off the calories. Jacqueline had zero control of her parents’
divorce but at the age of 14 she learned that she could control her weight, but
did so with anorexia and exercise bulimia.
Throughout high school Jacqueline was homecoming queen, the captain of her basketball and cross country teams, earned high marks in and out of the classroom and from the outside looking in had it all together. She even won an Eli Lilly Scholarship for college, all the while battling her devastating eating and exercise disorder.
In college the anorexia turned into purging and the exercise turned into binging. She would not eat for as long as possible, and then she would lock herself in a room and eat all that she could, fall asleep, and repeat this until she was back on her next phase of purging. Jacque’s body did not look and feel the way that she wanted it to. She would read her magazines and look at the pictures and wonder why she could not have a body like that. Why couldn’t she have the discipline to starve herself all the time like the models did?
Her first semester of college was at Indiana
University. She made no friends there
and was completely miserable. Finally
she left and transferred to Ball State University to peruse a nursing degree.
Once she was accepted into the program she began to make friends. She was also now going to the same college as
her boyfriend so that allowed her to feel more comfortable. Their relationship was rocky, much like any
young college relationship. Finally in April
of 2006 they called it “quits” for the last time. This depressed Jacqueline and she just wanted
to stay at home and sleep all the time.
Eventually her friends got fed up with her depression so they dragged
her out of bed, got her dressed and made her attend the 2006 Mr. Ball State
bodybuilding competition. She was
hooked! There were very well built men
strutting their bodies all over the stage, flexing and posing. They had so much muscle so they couldn’t have
been starving themselves, but they also had so little body fat. Jacqueline wondered how they could do
that. She circled a couple of her
favorite muscle men from the pamphlet and decided that one of them could
probably help her. That night she found
her favorite bodybuilder Austin Dossey and wrote him a message on Facebook,
asking him for diet and training advice.
She was truly interested in taking charge of her body and making it look
“hard” like the bodybuilders, but she also just thought he was cute. After a summers worth of random e-mail flirts
and instant messages, Austin asked Jacqueline out on a date. They went to Buffalo Wild Wings and then went
back to Austin’s apartment and watched Pumping Iron! What an amazing first date!
From that day on Austin and Jacque were inseparatable. However, being in a relationship with a
strict bodybuilder did not cure Jacqueline’s eating disorders. She knew that eating small frequent meals a day
would help her look lean and muscular, but she just didn’t have the discipline
for all that. She continued to binge and purge for 3 years. There were good days and bad days and moments
of knowing she could eat well, and weeks were she did. None of that stuff took. It wasn’t until Austin’s last bodybuilding
competition that she really took charge of her health and fitness. Austin had used a very well known diet coach
to help him prep for this contest.
Austin was very displeased with how his physique turned out and was very
emotional about not just doing it himself, like he always had. He had placed 3rd in his class at
the Mid-America Pro/Am and could have easily won if he had just done the
nutrition himself. On the drive back
home Jacque and Austin stopped into a Subway, where Jacque watched Austin start
to cry. She wondered what he was crying
for, and why he felt so upset to have worked so hard and to come up short of
his dreams. She wanted to know what that
was like. So she said, “I want to
compete in the Buckeye Classic in April next year.” “When should I start dieting?” Austin looked up at her and said, “are you
serious… you need to start yesterday!”
Something during that conversation clicked with Jacque because she had
said that line many times before and would diet for two days and give up.
On the drive back home they discussed what the time line of
her contest prep will look like and how they need to start on that very next
day. In the eyes of the Universe
Jacqueline’s direct route to her destiny started that day.
Austin wrote out a plan for Jacqueline to follow and she
would plug it into fitday everyday to track her macronutrients and
calories. She worked out daily with as
much focus as possible and her body started to transform. Jacqueline was starting to take control of
how her body looked and it was looking the way she had always dreamed it to. She dieted straight through Thanksgiving,
Christmas, and New Years. She was a
machine when it came to preparing her food and scheduling her workout
times. Her hard work was paying off, and
she was gaining a ton of recognition from the other members of her gym. Jacqueline was the “go-to” girl for workout
and diet motivation. Her natural
charisma that won her homecoming queen and her natural leadership that made her
a team captain drew people who were seeking emotional support through
controlling their exercise and nutrition to her.As the contest date in April drew nearer her body started to tighten up even more, she was working with a client of Austin’s on designing a suit, and they had designed a stunning black suit with gorgeous rhinestones the final day of the design about two weeks before the contest Jacque tried on the suit and that was the day that Austin realized “holy crap…she was going to win!” he was later quoted as saying.
On the day of the contest April 17th 2010
Jacqueline walked on stage painted on tan, hair and makeup done, peaked
perfectly, and stood next to every figure competitor on the stage and fulfilled
her destiny. She won her class and the overall championship. Jacqueline and Austin have a silent system of
communication which is taps, or squeezes.
Two tabs means “thank you”, three taps means “I love you”, four taps
means “you are beautiful”. On the day of
the contest Jacqueline’s competitor number was 34, “I love you, and you are
beautiful”. The universe works in
mysterious ways and on that day is set into motion a chain of events that will
lead Jacqueline to the top of her sport. A couple weeks later she was named
transformation story of the week on bodybuilding.com and offered a sponsorship
by the best supplement company in the world Optimum Nutrition/ABB. In her pro debut at the same place on the
same date that her journey started 12 months before Jacqueline was top five,
and then at the Pro Cup on September 18th 3 days after Jacqueline
and Austin’s 4th anniversary of being together Jacqueline stepped on
stage and placed a very close 2nd and solidified her professional
status. Currently Jacqueline is a part
time trainer for Dossey Training Systems, a sponsored athlete for ON/ABB, and a
full time respiratory therapist.
She is truly an amazing, energetic, and
inspiring individual, who draws everybody around her closer to their true
potential.
