It may sound so cliche to say that weight training, cardio, and good nutrition leads to sculpting your body. As your body starts to make progress, you find that it's true. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about recomposition, the process, the mental state, the effort, etc.
On June 1, 2024, I was in a local non-competition show called the Wine & Muscle Showcase. It’s fun to do and it helps get you ready for any actual competitions down the line. There are posing clinics where you learn what to do for the show and form local camaraderie, there is access to a bunch of local talent, and people just share training tips and stuff. I don’t know if other locations really have anything like this. We do it as a way to promote a few different local fitness things (primarily bodybuilding, dance, and boxing), increase awareness and interest, and it's always run as a charity event.
Last year was the first time I did the event and I was told by a suit-maker that I was too fat and they would not make a suit for me. That’s okay. I’m not blind. I was pretty overweight, but I was putting in the effort. It was just a slap to the face. Anyway, with it being a relaxed event, I just wore a sports bra and booty shorts.
This year, I ordered a blue bikini from Etsy and I got my ass on stage in what felt like next to nothing…and a spray tan.
In 2023, I was working out 9 times a week (twice a day M-Th, once on Sunday). I was eating a lot of lean meats and big salads. I had a hard time burning the fat. For comparison, I was a size 10/12 with a weight of 194lbs.
As you can see in my 2024 photo, I’m not totally where I want to be, but I’m getting there. I went through some fairly rapid weightloss so I had some sagging skin. I figured out that triangle tops look terrible on me. I have a little more to lose in my hips and belly, BUT here is what you can see: serratus muscles along my ribs, increased arm and shoulder muscles, and an increase to my leg and glute muscles (to the point where I was asked to do wellness instead of bikini). Wellness division is more leg-dominant in muscularity and is the only asymmetrical bodybuilding division. I’m next to Vianne in the red bikini and I’m not too far from her size. At this point, I was a size 6 with a weight of 180.5lbs.
I actually recomped about 35-40 pounds of fat and muscle - mostly in a 6 month time span.
What did I do?
Got a trainer (twice a week sessions for 8 months)
Went to the nutritionist (where big changes started to happen)
Stuck by my schedule and diet plan
TRAINERS
Working with a trainer twice a week did a few things for me. It helped me tweak a few things that I didn’t realize were off. It gave me some new exercises to try out and kept my workouts varied. It kept me accountable for being at the gym on a regular basis. I cannot express how important that was. If you have to meet up with a trainer, you do not want to be that person who says “I didn’t really feel like it, so I didn’t show up for the last two days”. Trainers might drop you if you are just going to waste their time like that. I also very much looked forward to my body comp tests, which were included as part of the training.
What is a body comp test?
There are a number of ways to have this done. My gym uses a medical-grade bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) scale. For this, you stand on the scale and hold two electrode handles. It takes about 30 seconds for it to perform its analysis. It gives you a nice printout and your results are stored in the gym’s database. DEXA body comp tests are supposed to be more reliable, but they are fairly bulky and expensive. Other methods are either fairly expensive for a gym to have (BodPod, TOBEC, MRI, etc) or they only produce limited information (fat calipers, etc).
From a body comp test, you would want to get readings for: overall body weight, body fat percentage and weight, lean body mass percentage and weight, intra- and extra- cellular water, waist to hip ratio, and there might be a few other things. My body comp results listed my current basal metabolic rate (or base amount of calories required) and lean body mass per body area (left arm, right arm, trunk, left leg, and right leg).
NUTRITIONISTS
When I started going to the nutritionist, I brought her my last few body comp results, a print out of what I was eating for a whole week (tracked and printed from MyFitnessPal), a list of current vitamins/supplements, and a recent blood test (which my doctor had me do a few weeks before I booked my nutrition appointment). Apparently this was a pretty solid foundation of information for her.
She put me on the carnivore diet with check-ins every couple of weeks, for 3 months. It's a strange diet, but I responded very well to it. After those 3 months, I was allowed beans, lentils, and 1 cup of vegetables daily. This was pretty nice because it was the end of December and I could start making chili. I’ve pretty much been on this same diet ever since.
Getting the nutrition figured out was a big deal. BIG DEAL. By the time I realized I needed new pants, I was on my way to needing smaller new pants. My feelings weren’t hurt. Lol One of the biggest issues I currently have with this fairly fast body recomp is my body dysmorphia. Every single bodybuilder has it. I also feel totally clueless as to my actual size right now.
SCHEDULES & STRICT PLANS
If there is one thing I am regularly told by “my crew” (doctor, nutritionist, trainer, etc) is that I am excellent at staying on schedule and being strict with my diet plan. I’ve always been a creature of habit and will self-regulate by implementing a schedule - whether I need one or not. If I want to be clueless, just ask me where to eat for lunch. I don’t know. I almost never go out. Do I even know the name of restaurants? Do I trust any place to make food for me? I stick with a strict plan because it gets easy. I get limited groceries because it's always the same thing. I know what I’m going to have for every meal. The big question of the evening is going to be: what sauce will I have with this turkey?
If you want a good tip for remaining strict on a diet plan: don’t buy other things. You may want ice cream, but if you don’t have it, you can’t eat it. I’m lazy when it comes to grocery shopping. I make a list, get what is on the list, and that’s it. I don’t have someone else get my groceries. I don’t use an app to order food or groceries. Also, it’s me and two dogs. There really isn’t anyone else to cook for - which helps. If you have other people to cook for, they might be willing to eat how you’re eating. Also, you might be able to plan a “cheat meal” each week - not a cheat day, just a cheat meal. That means it is a meal outside of your ordinary dietary plan. This can help mitigate the holidays for sure. If you have a family to cook for, this could be a way to plan a Friday night meal or something. You could even make it a family game night to destress everyone. You get the idea.
My current dietary plan is:
1 Pea Protein Shake with 1 scoop Creatine (before am workout)
1 scoop BCAA with 8oz water
1 Egg + ⅔ cup Egg Whites
1 handful Leafy Greens (spinach, arugula, kale, chard, etc)
3 strips Bacon
1 IQ Protein Bar (eaten after my vitamins)
1 can Turkey Chili
1 Pea Protein Shake with 1 scoop Creatine
1 scoop BCAA with 8oz water
½ cup Beans or Lentils
1 cup Ground Turkey, 93%
1 0.87oz bag Pork Rinds (if I want a snack)
At the grocery store, I usually pick up:
2-3 3lb Ground Turkey, 93% (love this big container)
18 pack Happy Eggs
3-4 Egg Whites
2 packs Kirkland fully cooked Bacon (from Costco)
1 container Leafy Greens
7-9 cans Turkey Chili
4-5 cans Beans and Lentils
I order my protein powder, creatine, BCAA, pork rinds, and IQ bars online. I do have some variables like dog snacks and vitamins. Obviously, I'm not eating all of this in one week. I make my dogs mutt-loaf for dinner, which is turkey based. One dog gets eggs in the morning and is totally off dog food. That's a whole other thing.
Anyway, as you can see, I don’t really get snack food. I have a box of pork rinds in my kitchen, but I don’t always have them. If I do make something for dessert, it’s probably sugar-free jello. It’s one of those items where you buy a few boxes and they sit in your cabinet for a while, so they aren’t always on my shopping list. Some things I also just cycle through for a while. Like, right now, I’ve been adding crystal light peach mango green tea (sugar free) to my giant water bottle. If it's cold outside, I want hot tea; if it's hot, I want iced tea (usually green and unsweetened).
RECOMPOSITION
Before, I mentioned that in 2023 my stage weight was 194lbs and in 2024 it was 180.5lbs, so why did I say I recomped 35-40 lbs? It's based on the increase of lean body mass and fat loss. That is why a regular body composition test is a good idea. That’s why we stay strict on our workouts and nutrition. Dropping the 14lbs in total body weight over 1 year doesn’t sound like much. If you tracked the lean body mass and body fat numbers, you could totally see changes occurring throughout the year. While I dropped body fat (from the previous year), I also increased my muscle mass (from the previous year). This is why my change in size was pretty substantial. Body fat dropped by ~20-22lbs and my lean body mass went up by ~16-18lbs, which is roughly a 40lbs difference.
I've revamped my own workouts to make them more challenging and to increase my cardio. The additions I've made are my way of sculpting my body. Over the past 5 weeks, I've noticed an increase in my shoulders, fat loss in my butt and hips, and a decrease in fat around my midsection (front and back). If you're a little bit inspired or if you gained some nugget of knowledge, let me know. Sometimes I feel like I'm just talking to an empty void - which I'm also okay with.
If you have any questions on all this, please ask in the comments. I'm here to help!
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