So you’ve just finished dieting down for a bikini competition. You’ve worked with a coach with little to no knowledge about nutrition and he’s driven you into the ground with 500 calories per day and 3 hours of cardio to get you “in shape”. You starve your ass off then gorge yourself after your show, put on 10-15 kilograms of fluid and fat. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “metabolic damage” so that’s your new buzz word as to why you’re a tubby.
Does the above sound familiar to anyone? With Fit-X and FILEX just passing and shows being done and kilos stripped off and piled back on, if I see one more woman (or man) facebook post something along the lines with “woe is me I have metabolic damage” I am going to flip.
Where did this come from?
Any coach, personal trainer, dietician etc worth their salt KNOWS that metabolism slows down as people get leaner and leaner and calories are restricted {1}. This is no new phenomenon. ATP production becomes more efficient and resting metabolism starts to drop. Hence why we need to drop calories lower and lower as we get leaner and come into a show.
Dr Layne Norton can be attributed to coining the term “metabolic damage”. In some recent videos he describes the issue, basically as I wrote in the first paragraph (not as blunt as I J). What he also talks about is the fact that weight loss (or gain) can be disproportionate to their calorie intake eg. 2 hours of cardio per day with an intake of 800 calories and weight loss stalls.
What’s my opinion?
First of all I applaud Dr Norton for bringing the issue to the forefront again. With the emergence of the internet guru bodybuilding coach we have seen it become common for prescriptions of hours of cardio with little to no calories being bandied about. A girl does a bikini show, copies and pastes her diet to give to “clients” and when they don’t lose weight she cuts their food further and ups there cardio. Ultimately they come to a point where all fat loss stalls and there is nowhere to move.
Problem 1: Calories are too low to begin with.
It’s common now also for people to hit show after show. We KNOW that calories need to be reduced to get into shape. We KNOW that metabolism slows down to meet expenditure. So we KNOW that at the end of the diet a person’s metabolism has adapted and is slower. It takes time for this to be reversed and for the metabolism to be built up again.
Common example: A female started a competition prep on a healthy 2200 calories. Gradually reduced it and got into shape with decent cardio and food management and finished up on 1200 calories. Gorged herself for two weeks (I’ve seen competitors put away over 5000 calories in sugary SHIT straight after walking off stage), packed on 15 kilograms in a couple of weeks and her metabolism is still in the gutter. She cuts back again to 1200 calories, does cardio to try and maintain a decent bodyweight. Then a few months later it’s comp prep time again. She is MAINTAINING on 1200 calories PLUS cardio. Where do we go from there? She hands this diet to me and I say “No we need to rebuild metabolism again or you are going to starve and suffer”. Alternatively she hands her current diet to some muppet who takes her 1 hour of cardio, ups it to 2 hours and reduces her 1200 calories to 1000 calories in week 1. See where this is going?
Problem 2: Gorging after show
I mentioned this earlier. I’m no hypocrate. I will put my hand up and say year after year I tell myself I’m going to be good after a show. But year after year I eat my ass off and gain 20kg in weeks (sometimes days). However I then pull it back in and start to increase calories again in a precise manner. This is what I recommend:
After the show take the diet you were on and increase total calories from everything (protein, carbs and fats) by 10%. Every week add another 10% until calorie intake and expenditure become congruent with what you started on (assuming that was correct). In this way you will gradually increase metabolism and minimalize fat gain as you are not creating massive calorie excesses due to slow metabolism. Cardio should be reduced in the same manner instead of stopped completely the day after a show. Ultimately we want maximum food being taken in with 0 fat gain with no cardio being performed. This puts us in a great position to kick start a diet again!
I will add to this that Charles Poliquin states that it take 6 months for a complete cell turnover cycle and 3 cycles to create a change on the genetic level ie: If you can stay lean for 3 cycles (18 months) then you adapt genes to want to maintain a genetically lean body! Guys in Australia like Jim Kotantonis and David Nazaroff have achieved this and it clearly shows in their conditioning. I’ve seen Jim come in at 2.7% on a DEXA scan with 0 cardio and just under 4000 calories of food with supplementary fat burners.
Final words:
I disagree with every woman (and some men) running around telling the world they have metabolic damage that’s why they are fat and now they can’t get in shape. All that has happened is that their metabolisms have slowed down to meet expenditure and they have tried to maintain off of that. It’s their own fault and it’s an easy fix. Take the time and care to work on building your metabolism up. You will make your next diet easier by not having to bury yourself in the ground to get in shape next time.
And for god’s sake stop using it as an excuse. It’s nothing new. It happens to all of us.
1) Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2011 Sep;301(3):R581-600. doi: 10.1152/ajpregu.00755.2010. Epub 2011 Jun 15.
Biology’s response to dieting: the impetus for weight regain.
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Hey everybody, Luke McNally from mass nutrition and build my body here. Today I’m going to talk to you quickly about Creatine, and specifically Creatine Monohydrate.








