Failed reverse diet, too much weight, slow metabolism— how will I fix this?
I took these photos yesterday, would you believe me if I said this is the heaviest I’ve ever been? I’ve never been overweight, always been underweight and skipping meals as a teenager.
You might think, “oh she’s lucky”, but in my perspective not so much. It’s hard to grow.
I had one good attempt att bulking up last winter before I decided to step up on stage for the first time and start my career as bodybuilding athlete. I gained some size and I think my heaviest was 65 kilos before I started stripping off in prep.
The problem was that I wasn’t as invested in nutrition planning for performance and hypertrophy then as I am now, so the bulk was like any other person would have done it; eat whatever whenever and just focus on adequate protein. Eating more + training harder will result in some growth, but also a fair amount of fat because that’s the only way to store all that extra the body doesn’t need. This isn’t bodybuilding.
Bodybuilding is about understanding biomechanics, nutrition and metabolism, then apply the knowledge for results.
Getting lean for the competition was easy, fat loss is simple especially when you’re already training on an athlete level.
Eat less + increase protein + cardio = fat loss & muscle maintenance
Having a fast metabolism due to adaptations during teenage years was a bonus.
My stage weight ended up at 55 kilos, most of that weight was stripped of fram waist, back and upper body as I had some fat left on my legs the day of the competition.
Bikini fitness isn’t about seeing muscle striations, in fact you get marked down if the judges can see your ribs, you’re meant to look conditioned but soft. Judges look for proportion, hip to shoulder ratio, thin waist, rounded glutes and so on.
I knew this was not going to be the last time I step up on stage and as it was my first time, I got some insight as to what needed improvement. Shoulders need work, they’re definitely my weak spot. Glutes got a bit lost in transition, I had good tapers until about 8 weeks out, I had some on stage but could definitely do with some more. Quads, legs overall.. I want to be bigger ok.
I told myself to do a reverse diet after competition, because I know my gut is sensitive to a lot as well. Reverse diet helps your digestive system get used to the increased amount of food, carbs and fat as it’s all adapted to starvation mode pretty much, to keep this article focused on bulk I’ll do reverse diet in a separate post. I never made a plan for the reverse, so it never happened, because I need a plan to be strict or dedicated and I think I’m not the only one like this.
So I gained a lot of that weight back quickly, and the comp was in spring so I had all summer ahead of me thinking I’d be really shredded then go on a lean bulk in winter and stay shredded. I had to deal with a lot of stress during summer, so I went in between restricting to eating uncontrolled due to emotions which messed up my metabolism and digestive system to max.
Constantly bloated.
Bloated for eating just about anything.
Restricting even more because of the bloating.
I did get everything under control for a while after I took control of everything towards autumn. I started getting shredded, started losing some fat and growing muscle, but I had hunger and constantly cravings. There was a lot of food and things I’ve been telling myself I can eat whenever I’ve got back in shape again.
The shape never happened, but I decided to move back to Sweden. Having a slow metabolism and life being a total mess I decided to give the restriction a total break for once. I allowed myself to eat anything I wanted to feed all my cravings.
If you haven’t tried these icecreams…you have to. It’s worth the useless calories.
So I made a plan, eat whatever I feel like until my birthday about a week later.
I’ve been eating like a horse this week, there was no limit. My hunger signals are so messed up I don’t know when or if I’m hungry and I don’t know when or if I’m full. Me and my family ate at an Italian restaurant on my birthday, had bread, starter, a whole pizza even with the crust plus dessert and I could have had another pizza after that 🍕
So, that was the backstory to how I gained this weight.
What’s my plan from here?
→ Aiming to compete again at NPC Sweden, in April. I want my revenge, this time gold medal in both Novice (yes, I will not miss novice this time) and PRO of course, we are taking that PRO card.
Like I said, I need bigger shoulders, glutes and a bit of quads.
This shape that I am in now is making me uncomfortable because I know it was unintentional. I don’t train as well if I’m uncomfortable which means I won’t grow as much as I can.
We don’t need excess fat to grow muscle.
We need carbs from food to fuel blood sugar and glycogen stores to grow muscle.
You can be at 10% body fat and grow just as good as if you’re at 30%. Better in my case, because of the motivation from looking shredded.
So the plan is to use this time of speeded metabolism from enjoying food to cut down body fat a few percent until I feel better, it’s about 4 weeks until Christmas so either go on lean bulk after Christmas or a few weeks after. Plan nutrition so that I don’t gain a lot excess fat during the bulk so I can do a short cut for the competition.
Now until Christmas: Cut, 500-700 deficit
Christmas: Take a break and evaluate shape
January: Cut another 4 weeks, or go onto lean bulk