Metabolic Damage- Know it, fix it & use it to get shredded.

 This post is an extension of my previous post called ‘Eat your cake & get lean too: Using IIFYM as a fat loss tool’

 

If you’ve jumped on the MelVFitness bandwagon with all the other legends you’ll be aware of my fitness journey. In short, I spent about 6 months of my life choking down chicken and chugging egg whites in order to get a six pack, I tainted friendships, socially isolated myself and morphed into a food snob. A month after I finished my 6 pack quest I had put on 6kg- BOOM right back to where I started. The interesting thing about that is that I never once binged on chocolate or went to town on a bread stick, I was secretly still eating chicken and broccoli & exercising more than ever… so why was I doing more, eating less and still gaining the kgs?

chug chug chug chug...

After crying a small river one night I decided to turn to my Dr, Councilor, Psychologist, Entertainer and Mentor- A guy called Google.  Through the haze of fat loss supplements, weight loss shakes and diet pills a person emerged… LayneNorton, like a body saving jesus he glided from his YouTube videos onto my computer screen ..full of knowledge, hope and glorious food choices.

 

 

Through his videos and reading blogs from people who have experienced the same thing I had ah ah, huh moment. “Holy fat cells Batman” Mel cried. ‘Ive royally damaged my metabolism!!’

 So, through more research I figured out how to restore my metabolism by using an IIFYM approach termed ‘Reverse Dieting’. Reverse Dieting is your ticket to a rocking metabolism and if done correctly can help you to get lean for life a contest or some other totally important shirtless events like Stereosonic/Summerdayze.. (BTW: why is it spelt like that? #sh*tcrayze)

 

The idea behind a reverse diet is to slowly increase your calorie intake over a number of weeks. This is done by increasing carb and fat intake by approximately 10g per week, by slowly adding in more calories you will be able to increase your metabolic capacity and be able to eat more food whilst maintaining your current weight. My long term plan is to now restore my metabolism, currently I am eating around 1300 calories per day and at the end of my 20 week reverse diet I hope to be eating around 2000 calories (Hells yeah, I cant wait for this! Ill be an eating machine!) Whist working to restore my metabolism, Ill be visiting my old mate Jim to grow some much needed muscle. Once I’m slamming 2000 cals a day, I will only need to slightly reduce my calorie intake in order to facilitate fat loss. And if my plan works, I may just conceder smothering myself in fake tan & entering  a fitness modeling comp.. maybe ;)

 

Don’t think my plan will work? Well I have been lucky enough to receive a sponsorship with Natural Physique Sciences with the awesome trainer Joey who has worked with broken individuals like me before, I thought I would let him shine some light onto the topic & give you some advice/tips on how to make it work for you

 

Joey:  Mel, firstly thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my perspective on this topic.

My thoughts will tie in with a lot of the current info out there which I have learned from other great coaches, such as Layne Norton who I have also worked with. There is so much to discuss on the whole; diet, restriction, binging (what I call rewards syndrome), guilt, train harder and longer, repeat cycle, but I will stick to the reverse dieting, or more so the importance of it.

 

Reverse dieting is no newbie term, yet we all still see people sway away from such a beneficial concept. It requires patience, perseverance and persistence, along with some good understanding of the process.

 

Restoring metabolism, following a deliberate restriction or low calorie diet can serve several benefits for THE LONG TERM. I say this in scream font, as LONG TERMshould be the main focus here.

The objective is to increase your metabolic capacity over time therefore making it A LOT healthier, easier, and more efficient to begin a deliberate "shred". By this I mean increasing calories over time, whilst minimizing excess fat and weight gain. You want to add in food (calories) at the rate that suits your metabolism based on various data points such as weekly weight, previous weight, girth measurements, activity levels, visual monitoring etc. Everyone is going to need individual bumps for their progress depending on these variables.

 

It is important to keep the pendulum of the recent extreme dieting from swinging back just as hard. I have personally had this happen to my self after my first time competing, where I ate myself into a food coma and put on 10kgs in 3 days. I was so depressed that it took several weeks to bounce back emotionally, not to mention all the fat I had just dumped onto my body. I had learned my lesson! Come post second comp and after working with Layne, my mindset was so much better. I did want to binge however I remembered how I looked and felt last time this happened, and my metabolism loved me for it. Currently I can maintain at 450g carbs, 200g protein and 85g fat at 75-77kgs,something I would not have been able to do if I jumped straight from restriction to these calories. I would have ended up in a worse position than when I started my ‘shred”. I must say that reverse dieting is in my opinion so much more difficult than dieting down. The mental toughness required significantly outweighs the opposite, as it screams discipline! There are ways to get through this tough time a little easier, and a good coach can instruct how. Eventually calories will increase, and things become even easier. Again as I say, “The 4 P’s.. Patience + perseverance + persistence = progress”

 

“Metabolic rebuilding” as it’s also called is so beneficial in the recreational gym goer. I have found some of the clients I work with, did not follow low calorie diets deliberately; it had just become their lifestyle. Once they begin training in conjunction with a specific macro nutrient plan (and to their initial confusing reaction), calories are on the increase, and BOOM, we hit another metabolic gear. In beginners such as these clients, I tend to see body recomposition ie losing bodyfat, gaining muscle for a few months, while continuing to increase calories respectively. This needs to be seen as a bonus. There will come a point where we hit a plateau, a few to be accurate, where weight loss may stall, or even slightly gain. Again, data points and variables are referred to, and if all is on track, we continue to shift through the metabolic gears by slowly increasing calories. Until we hit a point where we see a progressive weight/bodyfat gain, or weight and metabolism has reached a limit that I feel is adequate, client x is entitled to start a “cut”. Here, their calories would be much higher, their metabolic cushioning to use will be greater, and their overall mental and emotional state will be enlightened, as they will realize dieting down to their goal physique is going to be much easier on 2500kcals, than would be on 1000 kcals.

A matter I tend to see is the difficulty addressing the concept of reverse dieting to people (mainly women), who have been pounded by mainstream media and their blasé messages of success. I have yet to see one commercial or add on TV promote metabolic rebuilding in correlation to success. So when I, the great coaches I work with at Natural Physique Science, or frankly anyone, can alter the current mindset of an individual looking to achieve a goal (again pushing long term success), I can’t help but feel I have just hit a personal record in a Squat!

 

A few examples:

 I have is one client (steve olsen seen here) of mine recently competed at 64.5kgs (around 1550kcals pre peak week), and a waist of 72cm. His reverse diet plan and consistency has been so good that 4 months later he is just 900 grams heavier, a 1cm waist gain at 73cm waist, and eating 2700kcals! Eventually he will put on weight more rapidly once he hits a certain threshold of calorie surplus, however when he is ready to “shred” back up for his next comp, it is going to be much easier.

Another case of a recreational gym goer, who I am extremely proud of (Raylene Sargent), average hard working mum of 2 teenagers who did not intentionally diet, came to me on 900kcal weighing 118.9kgs (135kg at her heaviest). 5 months later, she is 106.1kgs, and consuming 1950kcals! This is just freaking awesome!!

 

 



Here are a couple other client who are currently working with me in the reverse diet stage.

 

In short, work on building up your metabolism with a well-planned training protocol and macronutrient protocol to set yourself up for success in the LONG TERM.
#Sciencebitch

If you think this may be you and are after some more advice or a specific plan, feel free to email Joey or get in touch with him via his facebook page. Otherwise you will find links to how to calculate your macros on my previous post.

Feedback? Questions?
Send them through, id love to hear from you!

melvfitness@live.com.au

Mel xx

 

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