This week the ADOFitness trainers will be addressing how they have handled off season/gaining weight/ body composition changes and their best tips on accepting yourself at every stage. Coach Trista Anderson shares her story.

Whether you’re a competitor or someone who has made significant progress with weight loss, you will undoubtedly face challenges in maintaining your transformation. For competitors, as I have previously discussed, you have S very hard time accepting the additional weight that is put on post-show. Of course as always, we need to remember the stage look is not sustainable. Sure, You can stay within 8-10 lbs of your stage weight and still be lean. However, There ARE going to be times when life makes other plans and you begin to see the scale creep up or visually you may see you’re carrying a bit more “fluff” than you had thought. Busy weeks, work, school, stress, vacations, family events, social gatherings, you name it life will still continue to happen and calories in versus calories out may not always be in your favor.
But this is part of the balance, you have to be accepting of maybe not seeing that oblique line in exchange for a great time with your kids or partner stress free and not counting calories. Yes fluctuations will occur but the problem when this happens is many will find themselves in the mindset that they’ve “already blown it” and keep digging themselves further into a hole until they’ve gained back all the weight they’ve lost in the first place. When you do find yourself off track create a plan to hop back on and in control, it’s okay if you had a couple “bad” days or even a week it’s fixable. We need to keep in mind the balance that is so important when it comes to a weight that allows you to enjoy your life and a weight that restricts you from life.
Yes competing is fun but it is no longer worth it or enjoyable when you are sacrificing the rest of the year just for one moment on stage. I would far rather carry around 7-10% more body fat and put the macros to work in offseason than try to maintain a look that is damn near a full time job and unrealistic. And in my opinion letting your body “re-set” by putting a little bit more body fat on (reasonable amounts of course) will keep your hormones in check and your body responding to future preps.