Sharon Brodie is tough, competitive and focussed. It's how she sticks to her strict 3000-calorie diet with no cheat meals, not even a piece of chocolate.

Her sweet craving is fuelled by chocolate-flavoured protein powder and Pic's Peanut Butter.

Tauranga's Sharon Brodie. Photos: supplied.

It's what you have to eat when you're training for the National Bodybuilding Championships on October 11. Sharon qualified for the nationals after placing second in the Bay of Plenty Bodybuilding Championships on August 1. It started as a bucket list challenge and now she's addicted.

'I just want to get better and better, and bigger and bigger,” says Sharon.

She's what you call an ectomorph, which means she has a super-fast metabolism that burns calories almost too efficiently.

So to maintain and build her petite 55kg frame, Sharon eats every two hours.

'There's never a cheat meal in this diet,” says Sharon. '24/7 it's diet. But I can cope with that because I eat a lot of food and I'm never hungry.”

Before she started training in February, Sharon admits she'd start a ‘diet' on Monday and be eating chocolate by lunchtime.

'It's only when I found this bodybuilding thing that I became 100 per cent dedicated to my diet and my training.

'I absolutely love it. When you start seeing results you become addicted, and it didn't take long to start seeing results because you're eating totally clean. Its 80-90 per cent food and the remaining is training.”

Sharon trains four days a week with coach and former international bodybuilding competitor Marise Balogh at The Gym on First Ave. She'll wake up at 5.30am to complete a workout including 14kg dumbbells, assisted pull-ups, cable machine work and the row machine.

Sharon then perfects her 'poses' with Marise, who's also her nutritionist. "Marise is amazing," says Sharon. "She's confident I've got what it takes."

In the week before a competition, it all changes. There's more cardio, smaller weights and faster repetitions. Sharon calls it "beast mode".

No ‘carbs' are allowed, except for two days before the competition when she'll have to ‘carb load'.

She'll drink up to 5-6L of water before dehydrating herself for the big day.

'You're dehydrated on the day of the competition so your skin is thinner so you can see the muscles more.”

Sharon heads to the national championships in October with fellow bodybuilder Ania Gratkowski, who placed first in the BOP championships.

Sharon has been invited to attend the National Amateur Body Building Association Internationals in the Philippines in November. She hopes to 'go international” with her new found sport and is looking for sponsorship.

If you'd like to sponsor Sharon, email her on [email protected]