FINDING BALANCE & REVERSE DIETING

Good morning! I have so much to say on finding balance and that will continuously be the underlying theme in most of my posts on my blog (I believe balance within this industry is the hardest thing one can strive for and therefor think it is very important to address). The following photo and post is a re-post from June 19th after prepping for my Oxygen and Ironman photoshoots, but I believe it is an important piece I wrote on reverse dieting and I will add a current update here as well:

As many of you know I have just gotten done with my prep and am now in the process of reverse dieting. Some people dont even know what that means. Basically you strategically and slowly bring your calories, carbs, and fat intake up from the deficit you were in previous to reaching your goals in order to avoid extreme fat gain/weight fluctuations and try to maintain a lean physique even while eating a more maintainable level of macros.

First I want to say that if you haven’t read any of my articles on post competition/prep struggles, I am extremely guilty of being that person who falls into a very dark/depressing place post prep. I have put on 10lbs in a matter of days after shows in the past. I have been miserable, disgusted with myself, not able to see my abs just 48 hours post show. A lot of you who have never been through what I am talking about wont have a clue as to why that is or how it feels, but those of you who do know very well that it is an absolutely miserable and depressing place to be in and even harder to get out of. I wont go into that more here but if you are interested in reading my article you can find it here:

http://www.cutandjacked.com/Competition-pre-vs-post-show-finding-balance

Regardless, this post is to explain how I feel I have finally found balance and am reverse dieting the correct way, which I am soo soo beyond happy about. This morning I weighed myself and I was 124.8lbs. Honestly I was absolutely shocked to see that number. Why? Because my prep low before I left for Oregon and my photoshoots in LA two weeks ago was 124.5lbs. So essentially today (6 days post shoot) I am up 0.3lbs from the lowest I had seen on the scale (I stopped weighing myself in Oregon due to not having a scale). This is absolutely amazing to me, as I have never been able to maintain my prep physique post show/shoot.

So how am I doing this?
Those of you who have been following me for a while saw that through my prep this time around I was not nearly as strict as in the past. I continued to use Walden Farms (and a lot of it), Sriracha (I used to tell myself this had too much sodium and sugar lol), I would eat things I never would have touched with my past preps such as arctic zero, peanut butter, ezekiel bread, fat free whip cream, etc. I didn’t really tell myself anything was off limits, I just made sure to track my macros. So those who are familiar with it… yes I was implementing an IIFYM approach to dieting and allowing myself a lot more flexibility and choice. Another key factor was I was implementing fasting windows. I have written about this before so I wont go into depth here about why I fast except say the main reason I was doing it was more mental than what I thought the physical benefit was. You see, in the past I was so caught up on thinking I had to eat every 3 hours that when I was done with a prep I would be eating ALL the time because I told myself I HAD TO. I was overeating constantly and eating all the time which is a terrible combination for weight gain. Fasting allowed me to view things differently. Change your mindset, change your actions, change your outcomes sort of thing. I implemented fasted essentially to prove to myself that I controlled when I ate, rather the other way around.

I will say I still allowed myself to indulge quite a bit in LA after shooting all day. We had In-N-Out, cookies, wings, etc. Friday, we had Krispy Kremes, pizza, wine, frozen yogurt Saturday, and even Sunday I had some carrot cake. However, I listened to my body and made smarter choices regarding food and also didn’t overeat every meal, allowing myself the ability to eat more calorie dense food for the planned outings. We arrived home Sunday night and I had already mapped out a plan in my head about how my week would go.

Monday morning the first thing I did was fast. Why? Because I wanted to again take back the control aspect around food. I knew I would be at home where I would have tons of options around me. All those yummy things I dreamed of for breakfast would be starring me in the face with nobody to watch me and tell me I couldn’t have them. Typically after dieting for a goal and being home without “constraints” I would have made a giant plate of protein pancakes with bananas and tons of peanut butter or something of the sort. But instead, I made nothing but coffee. Again, this is MY way of controlling my reverse diet mental aspects, and I am by no means saying this is the way for everyone. Either way, I fasted until about 2pm Monday when I had my first meal which was my usual oats and egg whites. I didn’t feel the need to overeat and honestly felt full from my normal portion sizes (I contribute this full feeling to my leptin levels being more balanced this time around from my strategic refeed days through prep).

Since Monday I have tracked all my macros. I gave myself a macro threshold which was about 40G higher in carbs than I was the last week from my shoot. From here each week I will up my carbs and fats slowly while I try to maintain or slowly gain weight. I would be perfectly fine maintaining even at 128-130 as I think that is still a comfortable weight for me. I have to admit though this week I have been abnormally tired and I haven’t had the strong desire to “kill” my workouts like before. So I have continued to work out but have been taking it easy. I haven’t been doing more than 30-45 minutes of cardio a day and have continued to lift more circuit style just to get my body pushing carbs into muscle tissue. I have allowed myself to sleep in a bit more than normal and obviously my body is thanking me for the rest right now.

One more aspect I have to add is that I obviously have my wedding in 9 days. Yes this has been a contributing factor to my desire to stay lean, however, even in the past knowingly having other goals on mind, I wasn’t able to find balance as I have now. It is all about mindset though and I highly recommended to set those accountability mechanisms in place post prep as well.

Current Update:

7 weeks ago (125.4lbs) Vs. Last week (129lbs) Pictured Below

Since I wrote this article above 2 months ago I am pleased to say I am currently sitting at between 129-130lbs. I have continued to increase my calories and carbs and have also had some weekends where I haven’t tracked at all due to all the celebrations and normal “life” events we have had over the summer. One thing I have been missing is an accountability goal however and that is something I have been going back and fourth with needing at this point.

The Olympia expo is in 5 weeks which has definitely been in the back of my mind. I would like to go to the Olympia feeling good about myself of course but the idea of only being 5 lbs up from my prep low  has made me feel as if I don’t have much to work towards and I therefor have self sabotaged myself in a way with the type of mentality that says “I can get away with this” sort of thing. I have noticed myself becoming more relaxed with my eating habits and the desire to “live normal” has been eating at both Brandan and I as we try to enjoy our lives as a newly married couple outside of the fitness realm. I do contribute some of how I am feeling towards not having a set goal or timeline as I did previously for different events like our wedding and my birthday. So just today I contacted a photographer to possibly set up a shoot in Vegas during the weekend of the Olympia, more so to hold myself accountable in that aspect. I have been very torn on doing this as I know setting constraints and timelines on leaning out can also have the opposite affect on people and cause more binge eating or rebounding with the “I better eat it all now because I have to get back into prep tomorrow” mentality. I love the fact that for the most part I feel balanced with my food choices and intake so I am torn on forcing this type of an accountability goal for myself right now. I will continue to update everyone on my mindset with this and plan to write on the subject more moving closer to the Olympia.