I was in complete shock when I received Rockwell's feedback: "Your pictures look great." Then came the next jaw-dropper. Her game plan was for me to eat more -- a lot more.

To kick my metabolism into overdrive, she prescribed six meals a day, which meant I was chowing every two to three hours. Every meal contained a protein and a huge portion of vegetables. Two also included a serving of carbs and a healthy dose of fat. (Trading my usual cheesy omelet breakfast for spinach and salmon was a true ugly cry moment.) I toted my food scale everywhere (including to the beach on weekends), so that I could measure every ounce, gram and teaspoon of my meals. Guesstimating food portions was a strict no-no.

Then there were the supplements -- multivitamins, fish oil, digestive enzymes, L-carnitine (a fat-burning booster) and yohimbe (a stimulant that also helps burn fat) -- which required a geriatric-style pill organizer. I was dropping $200 per week on food and pills and struggling to keep it all down. But Rockwell assured me that my lack of appetite wouldn't last long.

After two weeks of forcing myself to swallow cups upon cups of spinach and chicken, my metabolism kicked into overdrive. Now that my body was used to a constant stream of energy, I was ravenous all the time -- just as Rockwell had promised. I couldn't go more than 30 minutes without thinking about food. As my workouts became more intense and my metabolism sped up, my obsession with food worsened.

After just two weeks of disciplined eating and training, I was the slimmest I'd been since high school. Still, my thinner figure came at a price. I could not go five minutes without thinking about food, and by week four, it was physically painful to be in the same room as someone with pizza. My mood swings were out of control --like, I would cut a b*tch for cake and I screamed at a friend for telling me to turn right instead of left at stop sign...

"This is normal," Rockwell assured me. Basically, I was burning more calories than I was eating. My body was shedding fat. And my hormones were out of control.

For weeks, I agonized about a wedding I'd committed to attending with my boyfriend. It was the first time I would meet almost all of his extended family, and I had to be on my best behavior (which is difficult when you're ready to murder your beloved for eating a a French fry).

When it finally arrived, it was every bit as painful as I'd expected: I avoided the open bar, buffet-style dinner and cake table all night and instead choked down food from the premeasured Tupperware containers that I'd smuggled in.

To distract me from the fact that I was one of the few sober people at the party, I hit the dance floor hard. But after almost two hours straight of dancing, my body begged for food and I'd already finished my allotted food for the night. There was nothing else to do but dance through my hunger and exhaustion.

Finally, my boyfriend announced we were heading back to the resort/casino where we were staying for the evening. I couldn't wait to crawl into bed. But instead of going back to our room, we hit the slots with the other wedding guests. Everywhere I looked, posters of mouthwatering dishes taunted me. Even the overwhelming scent of cigarette smoke couldn't drown out the kitchen's fumes. I felt pathetic as I fought back tears and begged my boyfriend to return to our room so I could sleep through the hunger. Without judgment, he escorted me back to our room while I shielded my eyes with my hands the entire time.

If there's one thing you become when training for a bikini competition, it's a hermit. Restaurants play host to temptations, and bars teach you that soberly watching your friends get sloshed is not that much fun. So while my friends hit the Hollywood bars, I stayed home and prepped my meals for the week.

In the beginning, everyone was supportive. My friends would tell me how proud they were, and how much they admired my commitment -- especially when I started to dramatically slim down. While going out wasn't necessarily a huge part of my life before, suddenly I was much more aware of how much I was missing out on. And so were my friends. "We're so over this," a girlfriend said to me as I skipped out on yet another girl's night out. "We want fun Jess back."

Five weeks into my training, the loneliness set in. Friends no longer called and suddenly they were more annoyed by my dedication than proud. My dwindling friendships took a serious toll on my mental health, and there were a few nights I regretted ever committing to this.

When I wasn't at work or prepping meals, I was at the gym. To slash my body fat, Rockwell had me doing 40 minutes of fasted cardio in the mornings before work, plus an hour of strength training every day. My usual wake up time of 8:30 a.m. turned into 6 a.m. -- and I am not a morning person.

At week 13, she added high intensity interval training (HIIT) to my daily workouts, in the form of 25 minutes of treadmill sprints, to really get the fat cells burning. I was now hitting the gym three times a day, five day a week. Needless to say, the fitness center's staff and fellow gym rats became my new best friends.

Every night, I fell into bed exhausted, dreading my morning wake-up call.