Lauralie Chapados remembers the date: Nov. 3, 2014. That’s when the 17-year-old walked into Club ProForm in Montreal and signed up for a membership, determined to get back on track.
Growing up, Chapados had played soccer, took jiu-jitsu, and skied, but in high school, her activities faded. “I ended up pretty sedentary and went out with my friends instead,” she recalls.
Through fitness, the French Canadian aimed to “feel better in my own skin,” scribbling down workouts and nutrition tidbits from magazines and websites.
“I remember forcing myself to eat 10 eggs for breakfast before going to school,” she says, laughing. “My parents were freaking out. My body was drastically changing, and I loved it.”
As Chapados gained experience, she started training twice a day, cardio and abs in the morning and her body-part split in the evening. By 2015, she stepped onstage at her first bikini contests, winning the first and overall at two local shows before moving on to a national bikini event in Toronto. There, she again topped her class but came up short for the overall, narrowly missing out on the accompanying pro card.
“Returning home from that show, I made it my mission to work twice as hard and get my pro card the next year,” Chapados says. She enlisted the help of her boyfriend, Maxime Caron (now her fiancé), as coach, and that goal became a reality with her overall victory at the 2016 IFBB International Events Qualifier.
Since then, the 22-year-old has competed in six IFBB Pro League bikini events, winning three back-to-back in 2018 in Toronto, Chicago, and Tampa before earning second at the Olympia. “Finishing runner-up was an absolute blessing; I still have all the feelings from that day,” she says. “I can’t wait to do it all over again in 2019. And now there is only one more step to reach my biggest dream.”
