Louisville Magazine

AUG 2017

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 8.17 69 hermit. So I played video games," he says. His health was bad. He was having chest pains. Every day, he downed a 24-pack of Mountain Dew. He lost himself in World of Warcraft. "I played that thing for 10 years, and I played it all day. at became my world," he says. "My kids would go to school or daycare, and I would play anywhere from eight to 12 hours, nonstop." He'd get home from work and play all night, getting only an hour or two of sleep. He'd play all weekend. "Looking back, it makes me sick because of all that I missed," he said in a text. e end of his marriage brought a major reassessment. "I didn't want to be the bald fat guy with kids. I decided to go ahead and get things in gear," he says. He started doing the rigorous P90X workout twice a day, every day. is 90-minute fitness program hits every part of the body, with punches, kicks, jumps, pushups, pull- ups — you name it. "I was doing it twice a day until I either passed out or threw up," Kingery says. "What I did was not recommended." In 45 days, he lost 30 pounds, even though he barely changed his diet. "I was like, I will just not eat so many cheeseburgers today." But eventually, his diet also evolved. Now, he's fit enough to play with his kids Haley, 13; Cole, 10; and Quinn, 2. "I can do things. I can outrun them now," he says. He wants his kids to learn to take care of themselves from his example. "at's my big thing: teaching them. Start now." After Kingery finishes posing at the Derby Festival event, he heads to Jeff Ru- by's for a 10-ounce steak before stopping to nap in his room at the Galt House. Napier and her husband go to Los Aztecas on Main Street, where Pamela eats a cheese-covered steak burrito. "en I sat in my car and chowed on chocolate," she says. "I haven't had chocolate in months." In fact, she's been hoarding it for weeks. When the Easter candy went on sale, she bought bags of the stuff. While she snacks, her husband races home to pick up anoth- er babysitter to tend to the kids. Two will watch their crew tonight. is pack of children wasn't part of the couple's original plan. Eddie wanted one child, Pamela two. ey compromised at six. "Brandon was such a good kid, we felt like, he needs a sibling," Pamela says of her firstborn. But her second son, Hunter, was stillborn at 35 weeks due to an often fatal chromosomal mis-arrangement called trisomy 18. ree miscarriages followed. (She also miscarried once before Brandon was born.) Six years ago, they began fos- tering children. "We get kids sometimes for as little as five days. I've had them stay with me as long as 18 months," she says. en the couple adopted, first the three boys — Brock, who came to them at six months; Braxton, who arrived at 14 months; and Bradley, who they brought home from the hospital — and then, when Napier was 45 and pregnant with Cheyenne, the couple's "miracle baby," Camilla joined the crowd. She's 54 days older than Cheyenne. One day not long after the competi- tion, she'll take her troop to McDonald's. e cashier will ask if she's running a summer camp. As evening falls, the competition is easier for most competitors, as judges announce height category winners and decide who among them is the best overall in his or her division and best overall for the show. Jimmy Hornback put together the 10-judge panel for the Derby Festival show. He's qualified to judge state competitions like this one, as well as national and professional shows. Six-foot-three and 320 pounds, Horn- back has been part of bodybuilding for 25 years, although he has not competed in a while. "Some people love it. ere will be girls and guys who do every single show. ey love competing. I never had that. I'd just as soon go to the gym, work out real hard, go home and eat pizza," Hornback says. But he remains devoted to the sport, serving as a competition judge for the last dozen years. Although 10 judges are assigned to the show, only seven are judging at any given time. e three extra judges allow others to take breaks during a day of demanding concentration. Every time a group walks onstage, each judge ranks the competitors from one to 15. If there are five women onstage, each judge ranks contestants as places one through five; if there are 20 competitors, judges pick places one to 15, with everyone at the tail end in 15th place. e scores are based on muscu- larity (that is, muscle mass), condition- ing (taking leanness into account) and structure (more to do with genetics than how hard you work). An example of the latter: Some people have a thick waist or big shoulders, and no amount of exercise is going to change that. Individual judge scores are averaged to determine rankings before the evening show. In the evening, judges compare winners in each height or weight class to identify the overall winner in each category. So for top competitors, the evening event matters. "If you have even a remote chance of winning your class, you don't want to go out and eat something ridiculous," Hornback says. Like chocolate. Napier gives a little jump when the judges announce her name as a winner in the bikini open division. "I was like, 'What?!' I really didn't expect that. I did not expect that whatsoever!" She takes fifth place in her height class, which means, like other winners, she'll take home a large metal sword. Moments later she places fourth in the over-40 division for her height, which means another sword that will be displayed well out of the reach of children. Kingery doesn't place. And he doesn't mind. "Even if I never do another competition, I will stay fit and I will stay active. My life will be as if I'm training to compete," he says. "I'm never going to allow myself to turn back into the guy I used to be." Still, he does take a little rest. "e day after I went out and ate a very large pizza. I ate a whole bunch of doughnuts. at was about it as far as bad food. I can't get out of shape, but for about five days, I took it easy and didn't go to the gym." Two weeks after the competition, he is on his way to Australia to meet with a producer to talk about a role in Aquaman. en to Las Vegas, to talk to more people about even more roles, including one in which he wouldn't be a bad guy. "I've got a short film coming up about a guy who lost his wife," Kingery says. "We're going to see me cry," he says. "I'm looking forward to that." "I'm never going to allow myself to turn back into the guy I used to be," Kingery says.

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