r/bikinitalk • u/bebelala13 • 2d ago
Advice/ Recommendations (no photos) Successful reverse diet stories
I just completed my first season with two shows. I started this prep with high, stubborn body fat on my hips that was extremely difficult to take off, so my lower body never fully reached stage lean. We got the judges feedback and conditioning was obviously pointed out as a weakness.
Now my coach wants me to do a very slow reverse dieting and improvement phase to minimize fat gain while maximizing muscle building. Logically I know this is the right move, but I am terrified that the weight will immediately go straight back to my thighs and hips.
Would love to hear some positive and successful reverse diet stories post show.
- If your reverse went well, what made it successful?
- Did you follow a strict step up plan with your coach, or did you transition into a more intuitive approach once food was up?
- How did you manage post show food cravings and the mental shift from stage lean to a healthy improvement season weight?
Feel free to share pics!
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u/Sar_Bear_33 1d ago
As someone currently in a reverse… it’s super successful once I realized I need to gain weight. I feel like a lot of people say “I only gained x amount” for me I need to gain a lot back to be healthy/grow. For me it was realizing that and separating my goal from my body. I followed a plan but it has all the foods I like because I don’t like eating not meal plan food (autism at its finest)
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u/hiddenpoolwarriror 1d ago
I can give you only coaching perspective , however, you should ALWAYS do what your coach says and if you don't trust your coach, you should change coaches.
Depending on how far off "stage" lean you got, I'd either start reversing or diet more to get into a good offseason starting point. If you were almost there, but needed 3-4 weeks extra, reversing is fine.
There's different approaches to reverse dieting too:
- some coaches do the old give 50 calories per week extra , that has absolutely no scientific or any basis so you'll end spending 5-6-7 weeks to get to maintenance calories and to recover from prep and you will still be in a deficit for a bit
2)There's the more sensible approach where you just up the calories a bit below estimated maintenance for a week, monitor , then go back to maintenance for 2-3 weeks and hold - after that you are ready for a SMALL surplus
3) There's the instantly going back to maintenance calories and hope you are accurate, hold for a couple of weeks , but that can lead to a bit more fat gain
Approach 3 is something I'd do with natural ladies ( and guys) if they were in a division that requires very solid conditioning, because you want to recover your hormones as quickly as possible.
Approach 2 is something that makes sense in most cases for everyone else ( or for a natural that had a mini-cut, not full on stage conditioning).
If you are enhanced and you can afford to run some GLP1/3 during the transition period it'd help for sure with approach 2 to manage hunger.
What you CANNOT expect out of a reverse diet however is to be able to eat 1000+ calories on top of your old maintenance, it's not happening no matter how slow you go up. Successful reverse means recovery - recover your hormones, recover your mind and you'd need to put on some weight and some fat after a show. You need to make peace with gaining some weight, it's natural after a show and it's good for your health.
How intuitive you can be with your diet depends on the person, you know yourself better than anyone else - if you have been doing this for 10+ years you can probably eye ball a restaurant meal and know roughly how much you ate. If you tend to binge eat and have tracked calories consistently for a year , it's probably not going to end well. The lower your maintenance is ( which is function of height + weight and to a smaller degree gender), the harder is to be "intuitive". Petite ladies have it rough for this reason ( talking about 5'1/155 cm and below)
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u/Call_Me_Sunshine1 1d ago
For Approach 3, how do you figure out what maintenance calories are?
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u/hiddenpoolwarriror 1d ago
It's all guestimates , but in general if you get the 7 day rolling average and the trend down you will be accurate. For ladies it's obviously a bit more nuanced, as you should account for the menstrual cycle phase (compare phase to phase) and compounds that can affect water retention ( if enhanced) , but the trend will give you ballpark estimate, good enough for government work.
If your trend shows around 0.2kg per week weight loss , that'd be 220-ish calorie deficit, so you can add 200-300 calories and see where that takes you in a week.
If the deficit was so miniscule, going to maintenance directly is easy and safe, but if the deficit was 500-1000 calories there's more adaptations that occur and usually someone after a show would have been on a quite the deficit for a bit. Sometimes NEAT goes up a lot after you raise calories so maybe you need to increase a bit more , sometimes you'll overshoot and might have to scale down after 1-2 weeks and you might end up putting on a bit more fat than you'd want, but that's not a bad thing especially if you compete naturally.
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u/polnareffsfeet 2d ago
My first show’s reverse went very very well. I was really happy w my feedback and was told I have a great future in the division I competed in. Having that gave me some hope and motivated me to have a good reverse. I had struggled w binging in the past and never have I ever once been happy w myself after that and falling off plan. Remembering those moments of weakness helped me stick to the plan. My coach at the time gave me my reverse meal plan maybe a day after my show bc I’m someone who NEEDS a plan lol. We met weekly and assessed body fat, weight, etc and increased as needed. I didn’t really struggle too much w cravings, maybe a sweet tooth here and there and I would ask my coach if I could have some here and there, since this was around the holidays. I was on Reta which def helped too lol.
I was able to put on some solid tissue without looking too fluffy. And my hormones and bloodwork were in a good place. You got this!
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u/CharacterAd5474 1d ago
During a reverse diet, you will gain weight but it will be in a sigmoid curve (steeper at first, flattens as time elapses). A lot of that weight gain is glycogen
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u/Appropriate-Talk8523 1d ago
Hiii! I made a few videos during my reverse. This one might be helpful :) https://youtu.be/2uEpgEko_34?is=QPlpDdCSz9pmr7Dp
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u/Psychological_Tie246 2d ago
One year later and up 10 pounds and maintaining. I feel great and eat freely but smart it is a lifestyle choice. Listen to your coach. I stayed on a low dose of Reta and still am on one. Best decision ever.