Being six weeks out from my second bikini competition is both exciting and a little bit stressful, there’s been a lot of progress I would have liked to record, but haven’t been able to because yet again I have a prep with a lot of chaos affecting me, my mental state, my time and my finance.

Last prep was nothing like any normal bodybuilding prep, it was my first and managed my myself as a coach, in the middle actually around this time 7 weeks out I was forced to live on the street and everything was chaos for some time, but I stuck to the plan, did not break the diet and made it in shape for the competition, which also was chaos but thats another story. You can read about the chaos prep here & the chaos debut here.

What about this prep, why is it chaotic? I moved back to Sweden in november, lived at my parents for a bit while renovating this apartment that I recently moved in at by myself (finally 🙏🏽), I work 8 hours per day at a warehouse driving a forklift and packing boxes and items. My online coaching is sleeping a bit while I’m rebranding, but I still do some work on social media and the website when I have time left over after work, meal prep, workout and renovations.

The chaotic part is that due to many unforeseen circumstances in my life I am quite sensitive to stress, meaning that a text can trigger some anxiety in me and having an employer that doesn’t give me any chances to plan around work is quite chaotic I’d say. I get a text the day before normally it’s not a problem because there is work, but in in my case I can work 05.30 to 14.00 monday, then 14.00 to 23.00 from tuesday to friday. Not long ago, was sent to a completely different warehouse out of the blue, but no need to go in on the details I think you get the picture.

I had some unhealed issued with stress eating, indigestion & I was not feeling comfortable being out of shape because of this and not due to proper bulk phase

When I say out of shape, I mean it’s because I was at 67 kilos (heaviest I’ve ever been) and because I didn’t plan it. While most of it is muscle there’s also a lot of unwanted fat because of unhealthy eating habits that unfolded due to stress. So the main goal is actually to just reduce body fat percentage & heal my gut. I thought I’d make it a plan to prep for the competition as I am goal oriented.

→ So the main goal is to get 10% body fat & maintain about 90-99% muscle mass.
→ The secondary goal is to heal my body & gut from cortisol, intolerances & bad eating habits.

If I make it to stage lean in the 13 weeks that I planned for, great I’ll step up on stage again. If not, ok I’ll just pick another date. However, I will not push the diet to the point of risking any muscle mass just to reduce weight. I lost about 8-10 kilos in the last prep and looking back at it, I lost a significant amount of muscle mass.

So how am I doing this prep differently to the last one?

Well for starters, last prep was easy because my life was pretty simple for the most part just sitting at home when I wasn’t at the gym. I started with carbcycling at 8 weeks out which I’ve implemented on this prep as well, but with a few extra steps. Why make things easy when you can just make it as complicated as possible?

There’s a reason why I've made things a whole lot more complicated actually, that being my work.
Working in a warehouse sure burns a few more calories than working from home, I googled and it can be up to 300 calories per hour, so to begin with I started the prep at a very high calorie intake around almost 3000 per day but since then I’ve made it down to 1800 per day which actually isn’t a lot more than last time.

Here’s the thing that makes it complicated: I don’t really go by calories per day, I calculate my calories per meal based on on many calories I’ll burn per hour until the next meal because it varies depending on what activity I’m doing and your body doesn’t burn fat at the end of the day like the tax office steals your tax at the end of the year.

You burn calories minute by minute, how many depends on what you do. You body requires energy to keep you alive and to make you move around or lift your arm.

So I pretty much calculated how many calories I burn per hour by taking my TDEE, minus calories burned while sleeping (because we burn less) and divide by the hours I’m awake. I scratched the whole part of burning extra calories at work because it’s hard to predict how much, some days it’s a lot of heavy boxes and some days is almost just cruising around on the truck. So I’ve seen it as cardio, the extra calories burned are just that, extra.

The macros look like this:

Protein: Based on how many hours until next meal, we absorb around 10g per hour so if I have 3 hours in between meals 30g of protein last, it prevents muscle breakdown and keeps me satisfied.

Carbohydrates: Eat some while working to have energy, but most are ingested around and intra workout since I need energy to be able to keep up the strength. Lifting lighter weights may signal to the body that they are not as required and may lead to muscle loss as it’s easier for the body to break down muscle tissue than fat tissue. Also saving some for bedtime as majority of muscle recovery happens at night and muscles need carbs.

Fat: Keeping it as low as possible, but still not over-restricting it as fat are needed for normal hormone function. Hormones are very important as they regulate your metabolism.

As if prep restrictions aren’t bed enough, I have developed some food intolerances since last time and had to make it low FODMAP.

I’m intolerant to mostly fructose & sucralose, which means I’ve had to cut out banana, broccoli, green beans, protein powders, artificial artificial sweeteners. Meaning no sugar free drinks at all, not even cordial. I’ve also cut out gluten because I’m not sure, I go by the low FODMAP list and try and see what works and what doesn’t.

Food intolerance means that my digestive system can’t break down the molecules properly, so they ferment in the intestines and creates gas and constipation. Having a functional digestive system is very important when shredding because the nutrition is so limited and you might end up malnourished and develop ever greater problems down the road.

I’ve already got digestive issues due to stress, so it’s extra important for me to manage my digestion well.
I have supplements to help me and to optimise my nutrition, that I’ll post in a separate post.

So the plan, get as shredded as possible without shredding an inch of muscle mass in less than 6 weeks, I may be delulu but I say its possible.

How much weight loss? I don’t know, I weighed 55-53 at stage last time, but since I sacrificed plenty of muscle, it would be stupid to aim for same number again. I will simply use the scale as a tool to se how progress is being made, but tell by the looks how fast and how close I am to goal. Seeing striations means that I’d be on under 10% body fat, but since it’s bikini fitness and Swedish NPC level, it’s not necessary.

Calories are setting me at a -502 calorie deficit on Monday - Wednesday.
Thursday is rest day, meaning, less calories out and less calories in at a -674 deficit.
Friday & Saturday’s are HIGH CARB days at maintenance calories 2414.
Sunday is a LOW CARB day at a -900 deficit.

Sundays start with a 14-16 hour fast, this to boost HGH, normalise leptin & other hormones and also to remove one meal so the others doesn’t end up being microscopic.

I eat 6 times per day all other days of the week.

The workout plan is simple, many compound movements and lift as heavy as possible because mama raised no b**

If I work daytime 5.30 - 2PM, I go straight after work, but if I work afternoon I’ll train before work at 11AM because I finish work at 11PM. The only pre-workout I use is food. Chicken breast, pineapple & basmati rice 30 minutes before.

Intra workout 30 gram of maltodextrin.

Normally I park the car for 2 hours, so that’s the time I get. But lately I’ve been adding more time if required, especially now that I’m adding cardio in to the routine.

I haven’t done any cardio until now because work on weekdays and renovations on weekends, plus posing practice have been good amount of calorie burners. But as of now, I decided to add it to the plan.

Because here we are at 6 weeks out and not as shredded as I aimed to be.
Metabolic rate have slowed down lately, and I can’t reduce food any further because I need to be able to work.

So, Monday-Friday I’ll do 30 minutes of incline treadmill or strairmaster after every workout.
Oh except for Thursday, when I’ll do 45-60 minutes.