RECAP

The diet break was over and it was time to get BACK into the trenches.

Although last cutting block was fairly successful, it was quite apparent that I may have seen some negative adaptations to dieting and subsequently, there may have a bit of stalling amidst the fluctuating data.

“Digging”: While diet breaks can help these negative adaptations that make dieting harder, they will not completely alleviate all the symptoms. At some point, you may just have to “dig” to get to a new level with your physique.
Extreme Sport: Contest prep dieting is an extreme sport. At the tail end, you are not physiologically setting yourself up to be healthier than you started. NOT standard dieting, but more so the last leg of prep.
- The stage that is only there for getting to exceptionally lower levels of leanness. Therefore, there are elements of prep that are going to be a tradeoff of:

Getting Shredded and looking good VS your overall Mental and Physical health.

Ideally, for a successful prep, you want AS LITTLE of the Digging and extreme predicaments AS POSSIBLE considering contest preps are a marathon in terms of the sheer length.

wHAT’S MY GOAL?

For me, being a first time competitor I value the EXPERIENCE and sanity of MAKING IT to stage over the PLACEMENT that I achieve. I also would love for it to be a situation where those who supported me over the course of the diet could travel locally to see me.

Therefore, I am about 95% set on doing a show:

in NYC in the Bronx on June 22nd (about 8 weeks out).

hOW MUCH TO GET THERE?

In terms of where my physique is NOW, my coach put me at somewhere between 5-10 lbs away from a respectful look.

This means, that with 8 or so weeks, we will not have more of the luxury to sit back and hope the scale weight and physique changes are being “masked” by the stress of a diet.

SO to be safe, coach Steve:

Cut my macros by 100 calories to start
Added 500 calories of steady state cardio

Here are some pics of the new physique shots that I took during this week for my new starting point going forward.

Nutrition

cALORIE CUT

1.whY? the facts

Current Pace: My pace last dieting phase appeared to be a shade under 1lb/week looking back (slghtly under projections).
Long time dieting: Considering I am OVER 20 lbs lighter than when I first started the initial diet AND I have been on/off dieting since November, it is inevitable that I will need less and less calories to keep making the same amount of progress.
Less of Me: When you lose over 20 lbs, your weight loss can stall because of negative adaptations to dieting as well as the fact that since you are lighter, there is LESS OF YOU and your basal metabolic rate (which is a function of weight) ends up decrease slightly.

100 calorie decrease for my macros starting this next phase as well as 500 calories of additional cardio

Not to mention that in addition to theory, the DATA we have been tracking is what has guided us to this assessment. (THIS is a reminder of why data in macros is important).

2.HOW?

To start tipping the scale, we made a 100 calorie deficit decrease/day.

Food: for macros, my coach took from Fat and Protein first. This will probably be the lowest my fats have to go. You need a baseline of fats for essential body functions. For protein, we still have a tad to spare before we approach the 1g/lb amount (I am currently around 172-173 lbs), so we could afford a 10g decrease.
- The goal here was to keep Carbs as HIGH as POSSIBLE to promote productive training sessions to retain lean muscle mass.
Where I made the cut:
- In this case, the cut was as simple as eating slightly less beef at dinner. 8 oz to ~7oz. Which works out because the packages I buy my ground beef in are portioned about 21oz at a time instead of the usual 16 oz.
- I also was buying slightly smaller avocados anyways, so I was able to reduce some fats in my normal lunch which is usually chicken, rice, peppers, spinach and an avocado.

A common theme: The change was simple and subtle.

CARDIO APPROACH

The other avenue to create a calorie deficit is from your activity. In my opinion, a greater portion of the calorie deficit you create should come from food because of the:

Advantage in tracking food vs tracking activity
Compensation of actvity seen at extreme levels
Interference effect of your cardio impairing recovery in your resistance training sessions

(more detail on this in benefits of tracking macros).

Therefore, a common philosophy on contest prep is to do the LEAST amount of cardio as possible. Initially, all of my “cardio” was just hitting a step count each day, which usually meant going on walks for about 30-45 minutes every day when in my normal routine.

One tradeoff aside from the many benefits of this approach, is that it can be a large burden of TIME if your step count has to climb higher and higher.

IMPLEMENTATION

Steady State Cardio: A solution to this is to add a mixture of steady state cardio into your routine. Again, our mindset was to start with a minimum dose for insurance to get the scale moving in the right direction.

Therefore, we programmed in 500 calories of steady state cardio. Now, how can that be done?

Time: for convenience sake, the goal above all is to adhere to it vs doing cardio at an “ideal” time. When possible, I try to do cardio in 2 sessions of 250 calories a piece, preferably on rest days.
- But if I am feeling good or have a time slot that is convenient to myself I could also do it then.
Measuring: Cardio machines are not always accurate when documenting how many calories you burned. BUT, they can be fairly accurate as a standard compared session to session. For cardio, if possible it is wise to choose the same type of machine.
- That way if you have to INCREASE or DECREASE your total amount, it is still relative to the baseline that you were initially doing and therefore, will still be a practical change to track and evaluate.
No Leaning: The goal of cardio, is NOT to make it as easy as possible, but to hit your calories.
- Because your body gets more efficient over time with cardio, you have to hold off as much as possible with making it unintentionally easier. The way you can subconsciously do this is by leaning over or holding onto the supports when doing the stair climber or stationary bike. You are just conserving more energy which is NOT the goal of cardio in this case (although it is for training for racing competitions).

For this week: I did one session after my push day on the weekend where I had more time and the second one on my second rest day in the afternoon so it was 10+ hours spaced away from my leg training in the AM. I like to do it on the stairmaster for consistency, but at times my left adductor flares up and therefore, a stationary bike is another avenue I will take to get my cardio done.

Training

With the beginning of my next cutting phase, I also turned back up the volume and training intensity to combat the hypocaloric conditions and help preserve my muscle mass.

Some changes:

Smith Machine Squats: I’ve had in Barbell Back Squats for a decent length of time in my training. That fact, in combination with my body leverages being very different, has made squats uncomfortable. I’m more worried about my form or not hurting myself as opposed to stimulating the muscle and putting effort towards pushing it closer and closer to technical failure.
- The solution then was to implement a similar, but more stable movement: Smith Machine Squats. I figure to include these in my programming for a bit. Even AFTER my prep, just until my leverages start to feel normal again, which could be a while.
Increasing Rep ranges: If using a periodized approach to your training, it is wise to increase the volume that you do mesocycle to mesocycle. One way to do that is to increase the rep ranges slightly for some of the movements you’ve already been doing. Not to mention that when doing higher rep ranges, it's harder to progress via load and therefore, you will practically be adding more reps to progress, which is the safer route for short term stage aspirations.
“Layering”: In some cases, increasing a prescribed rep range for a movement may not be practical. If you do squats for sets of 20, the axial loading or central nervous system fatigue will probably kick in before your quads actually tire. Therefore, a reasonable solution is to add “layers” to your program.
- One example of doing this is doing Leg Press for sets of 12-15 in meso 1 and then in the next meso start off with slightly less volume on your 12-15 leg press, but also did leg extensions for sets of 15-20.
- That way your overall stimulus to the quads is more direct, but you totally aren’t doing an “either or” mindset with the exercises that you are picking.

Mindset

It's easier to set up an approach to your nutrition and training when dieting. The harder task becomes implementing tools to deal with your ever-changing psyche.

A common theme in my prep is the continuous mood swings from:

Happy/Motivated😁: Everything is going according to plan and I feel invincible when training and approaching the diet. I feel like I have a greater purpose and that I could keep doing this forever!
Confusion/Doubt🤔: Other times, I’ll question “why am I even doing this? Is this normal? Is this what I really want? Do I even have what it takes to get to stage?
Sadness/Depression😥: From there, it can turn into a self-loathing of my perspective of prep and life in general. I’ll end up just wanting to be alone and feeling like no one understands me. There are some dark times where nothing is enjoyable about prep.
Anger/Bitterness😡: Little things will irk and annoy me. Simple problems at work or frustrating people I have to deal with will make me want to throw hissy fits. I don’t want to talk about any of it and I’ll end up bitching/venting a lot to my coach and other people I’m close with.

The truth is, this is a VERY common reality with Contest prep and dieting in general. Mood swings are something that is often seen when pushing yourself through intentionally stressful situations. Often it's seen the longer you go, the crazier you get.

Dealing with it:

For me, I have struggled a bit with dealing with all the emotions. Here’s what I have been trying to do to help combat it:

Implemented gratitude walks (see here)
Being open and honest about my situation. “Diary entries” essentially make it easier reflect and realize what I am going through.
Venting and talking: Being able to relate back to my coach or others who have gone through the same thing is important to remind myself that I am not the only one to ever go through this and the changes are NOT permanent.

Conclusion

The tail end of this week I could start feeling the inevitable.

Very soon, days were going to be harder and harder. And because of that, I was going to need start using more and more of my “last resort” dieting tools to make sure adherence was still on point.