Raechelle Chase, Model Mum

Raechelle Chase

When I saw Raechelle Chase at the NABBA North Harbour on 3 Nov 07, it was her beautiful bikini that caught my eye (yes its a girl thing!). After getting the bikini discussion out of the way I discovered she had other eye opening revelations to tell me too! Its hard to believe seeing her on contest day with her contest bod and tight abs that this youthful 29 year old only had a baby 10months earlier! and that she has 2 others at home, 8 year old Annalise and 2 year old Carlos.

a year earlier

Making her story more interesting is that Raechelle, who's occupation is fulltime mother and part time model, lives on Denarau Island in Fiji. She flew especially over to compete at the show!. So I thought she'd make a great candidate for Wonder Woman, read on:

Where do you train?  Ocean's Edge or The Hilton Resort & Spa (depending on what I'm training) or if I'm training legs I train at The Kennedy gym where the Fiji rugby team train.

I think it's the oldest gym in Nadi you have to be careful you don't fall through the floor, there is no air ventilation at all, I have to go to the window to get some air between sets or I feel like I'm going to pass out. And the equipment is so ancient allot of it is unusable, but it's the only gym with a squat rack & leg press so that's where I train legs.

Have you always been into health and fitness - weight training? Yes, I started working at World Gym when I was 16 and it was then I started weight training as well. I decided to have a break from training when I got pregnant in 2005 and didn't start weight training again till Dior-Rose was 6 months just 4 months before North Harbour's.

Why did you want to compete in a figure comp? I just thought it would be such a great personal achievement if I could get on stage before Dior-Rose turned 1. I had actually competed in 2002 in figure, but I did the day show and hated it so much I never turned up for the night show so I felt I needed to finish what I had started!

Did you gain much weight during your pregnancy? With my son I put on 16kg's we had planned for another one quickly but I wanted to loose all my pregnancy weight first, I got pregnant with my daughter when he was 9 months, we lived in Fiji for the last trimester so we could relax, all I wanted to eat was kitkats or ice-cream surprisingly I only put on 6kg's with her. I did allot of walking during this pregnancy, no weight training at all but allot of walking and to be honest looking after my young baby who was an insomniac was exhausting.  

I was 57 kg's after I had my last baby and I weighed 54.4 kg's on the day and 59kg's a week later. I would like to be 57kg's on stage next year so I have alot of work to do!

What advice would you give to other Mums who want to lose the baby weight? Firstly I couldn't shift any fat until I had totally stopped breastfeeding, my body held onto everything for the baby and feeding my baby was my priority so that was cool with me, However once Dior-Rose decided at 4 months to stop my body was my own finally and it was time to see what I could do with it.

I was in the worst shape I had ever been in, but I thought ‘wow I've just had 2 babies in 18 months give yourself a break' and started slowly trying to do something that would make me feel good about myself. We all know what a selfless job motherhood is but as my husband says ‘if mummy's not happy nobody's happy'.  

It was very exhausting, my baby girl was teething constantly for the last 6 weeks before the show which ment she woke 5 or 6 times during the night then she would wake at 5am to start the day, it was alright for her she got to sleep during the day yet I still had to train. Then because I was so tired I would crave sugar more than ever which led to cheating which led to more cardio, which made me more tired and so it went on. left: Annalise, Dior Rose and Carlos

My husband suggested I stay in a nearby resort for the last week so I could get some sleep, I literally could not continue all this training and dieting and cardio on 5 hours of broken sleep. So that's what I did!

Sleep, wow the things we take for granted my body responded very well to the extra zzzz's and my mind stayed in tack long enough to compete thanks to him.

The other thing about living here that makes you want to train is that you are always in a bikini or a dress so you want to look and feel good.

I had no idea what my bodyfat was and still don't which I think turned out to be a good thing, otherwise you just get caught up with numbers that really don't matter, I just trusted the mirror.  

What was your typical contest diet? I was on a keto diet for the last month with a high fat/protein diet for 2 days then protein/veggie diet for 3 days. On my high fat days I had to eat allot of peanut butter and I hate peanut butter! I ended up just eating salted peanuts. Pretty hard core diet hence many unscheduled cheat days and make up cardio sessions!

How much cardio did you do?  For the last 4 weeks I was doing and hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening. This is not typical but I didn't do that well sticking to my diet so I would compromise with myself, if I ate this ice-cream I would do an extra 45 mins cardio stuff like that so I just did so much cardio in the end. It was hard being around my husband who is a junk food addict. My split was Quads/abs, Back/biceps, Chest/triceps, Shoulders/hamstrings.

Did you have any ideas of what being on stage and competing would be like?  I had an idea from the show I did in 2002 but the experience wasn't a good one so I was pretty nervous.  The stage is pretty familiar to me but I always found the posing to be the hard part. I made sure I was prepared this time, the other girls were really friendly and overall it was a great experience.

Think you'll compete in another show?!! Definately, I have already decided I will do it again next year.


and we look forward to seeing you on stage again soon!
Lisa, Go Figure