Across the ~16 months from around the time of my first bodybuilding competition in 2017, my body underwent a series of changes that I did not understand at all. Now having learned much more about biology and metabolism, these changes are very easy to understand. With the current article, I want to use myself as a case study to explain a little about metabolic adaptations and how they affect weight and physique changes. Although the present example is fairly specific to bodybuilding, it should also shed some light on the process of metabolic adaptation in general and, so, will be good for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of this topic, which in turn will equip them to diet more effectively.
Photo 1 shows me days before my first competition. The photo to the right (2) of that is just a few months after. The photo in the bottom left (3)is around 6 months after that, and then the final photo (4)is around 16 months after the first photo. Although the photos are in different lighting and circumstances, it can be seen that the level of fat and visibility of the physique changes drastically during this time.
As you might expect, I’m very lean right before the show. Then, even though it had really only been a matter of weeks after being the leanest I’d ever been, I looked pretty (comparatively) out of shape. Not a great deal changes between the 2nd and 3rd photos. I look bit tighter (with less fat and more muscle), but it’s not drastic. Then, in the final photo, I’m pretty shredded again. However, an important point to mention here is that I do not try to look like that in the final photo — quite the opposite, in fact. I was trying to add muscle and get bigger but somehow ended up pretty shredded. I was not “dieting” with low calories, and actually, my calories were sufficiently high to be adding muscle (so I thought). My calories were pretty constant for most of the time between the 3rd and 4th photos.
This sequence of events led to various points of bewilderment for me that I thought about for a few years before I deepened my understanding of physiology and finally felt able to explain this process. My points of confusion can be summarised across the next few questions, the answers of which will form the structure of the current article:
1) Why did I look so much worse in the second photo than the first, despite only a few weeks elapsing?
2) Why was there very little change between the 2nd and the 3rd photos, despite training and trying to progress basically every day?
3) How did I then suddenly end up so lean in the last photo, despite my calories remaining roughly constant between the final two photos?
I hope you enjoy the article and manage to learn something about metabolic adaptations that occur during dieting.
1) Why did I look so much worse in the second photo than the first, despite only a few weeks elapsing?
This really hurt my ego at the time. It is quite psychologically challenging to go from loving how you look and being your best ever, to looking truly unexciting only a few weeks later. It was something I really not did not expect but something I now not only know the answers to but also can probably fairly reliably expect after any future competitions. In fact, at the present time of writing, I am 7 weeks post-show of this year, and I am going through a similar process. However, on this occasion, I am more prepared to deal with it because of the knowledge I am about to share.
First off, at the time my bro-science brain still thought that because I was so lean, I would be able to tolerate a decent amount of calories before seeing much fat gain. Quite the contrary, however, is true. Getting stage lean requires a lot of digging and calories will probably have to get pretty low to make this happen. When body fat and calories drop to such low levels, the body begins resisting hard to prevent further fat loss. The perspective of the body is that fat is a valuable storage resource, something that has been true across history and is the reason we are all here today. This resistance occurs in the form of hunger, low energy, food focus, and all the other signs that dieting is famous for.
These signals are underpinned by physiological changes that tip the balance away from fat loss/energy expenditure/reduced appetite to the opposite. This means the body is primed for fat gain. Any excess calories are much more likely to be retained and stored as fat, in contrast to the normal situation where the body is more likely to expend those calories.
But I’d done many diets before, and this didn’t happen to me then?
Well, first off, it probably did happen, but to a much lesser degree. On top of that, you’d never gotten so lean in those previous diets, which means that it was a lot less noticeable. Imagine, a 1% gain of body fat when you’re at 7% body fat versus 15% is MUCH more obvious to see. Next, exactly because you didn’t get so lean, the metabolic adaptations deployed by the body were less aggressive, leading to less storage of excess calories as fat. Finally, the severity of a diet to prepare for a bodybuilding competition leads to more muscle loss. And if we relate back to the adaptations of the body earlier, whereas regaining fat back is a priority for the body, regaining muscle is not.
So, in summary, we go from our leanest and best ever to suddenly eating a bunch of excess calories whilst the body is primed for fat regain and in a poor physiological state for muscle regain. Mystery number one solved.
2) Why was there very little change between the 2nd and the 3rd photos, despite me training and trying to progress basically every day?
At this period in my life, I was much more attached to my body image than I currently am. In response to the rapid “deterioration” of my physique during the post-show period, I tried to “keep things under control” by not allowing my calories to get too high and by trying to avoid additional fat gain. In fact, I remember doing a minicut (a short but aggressive 4–8-week diet phase) approximately 5 months after the competition, despite my body fat not being high enough to warrant this. This minicut did not result in much fat loss and visual changes, which was also a little confusing for me at the time.
Ultimately, what was going on here was the following. My body required additional fat to normalise itself. The metabolic adaptations discussed in the first part occurred precisely because my body fat and food intake were low, and the reversal of them was dependent on body fat regain and more food intake. However, because I was reluctant to do this due to body image concerns, these metabolic adaptations lingered for a long time. I usually tell people it took approximately 8 months for me to feel normal again after my first ever competition. During those 8 months, I was hungry all the time, very food-focused, my sleep sucked, I had no libido, and training progress was slow. Of course, with my body in such a physiological state, I was in no position to be gaining muscle, so this solves the second mystery and explains why we see little progress between the 2nd and 3rd pictures.
Learning from this, this time around during the post-show period I have increased my calories much more quickly. As a result, only 7-weeks (instead of 7 months) after my final competition this year, I already feel much better, with less hunger and food focus and I am already seeing decent training progress. I am confident that I will be close to normal in another couple of months, which means I will be in a position to gain muscle again much more quickly.
3) How did I then suddenly end up so lean in the last photo, despite my calories remaining roughly constant between the final two photos?
Eventually, after such a long time after the competition and in a calorie surplus, my body began to realise that food was not so scarce as before and that regaining fat was not of such high importance. The metabolic adaptations that occurred in response to my competition diet were basically reversing, and now the body was more willing to regain muscle and expend excess calories rather than store them as fat, basically meaning my metabolic rate was higher. So, although my food intake was roughly the same throughout this time, my metabolic rate was gradually increasing itself. If intake remains the same but expenditure increases, then the net balance of calories in the body is now negative, meaning fat loss will occur. This is basically what happened between the 3rd and the 4th photos.
Even though I considered myself to be eating enough, I clearly was not.
But I seemed to have gained muscle and lost fat at the same time, what’s wrong with this?
We say that you can’t gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, and this is largely true. However, there are some circumstances where this can occur, and one of these is when lost muscle is being regained (note that this is not the same as building new muscle). It is highly likely that this was occurring here. The normalisation of my metabolism was now facilitating the regain of muscle lost in the preceding ~year or so, whilst also permitting the loss of fat.
In answer to the sub-question, there’s nothing “wrong” with this per se, but it was not in line with my goals at the time, which were to gain muscle. However, I wasn’t complaining because I loved the way I looked and being so lean again, so I turned a blind eye to this and kept things as they were. The result of this was simply a stall in progress for the following year or so, until I eventually realised I was spinning my wheels, finally increased my calories and body fat to obscene levels, and eventually gained some real muscle and saw some real progress.
Wrapping Up
Once you understand how metabolism works, the apparently “mysterious” changes in physique and weight that occur around dieting soon become very logical. Hopefully, the information provided here has provided some education on the mechanics and this process, and hopefully, you can apply this knowledge to your own weight management approaches for better success.
In terms of practical takeaways you can glean from this case study, I leave you with the following:
· If you undergo a severe diet, expect to look a little worse for a while afterward before looking better again. Don’t despair, just focus on getting to a healthy weight again and allowing your body to normalise.
· If your goal is long-term progress and muscle growth, then don’t try to hang on to a certain physique aesthetic. Instead, get to a body composition that allows you to best gain muscle and make progress. Otherwise, you will run the risk of wasting years of potential progress, just like I did. Detaching yourself from body image and focusing on progress will do you wonders in this regard.
· Again, assuming your goal is long-term progress, don’t be afraid to push your calories high — sometimes much higher than you’d expect yourself to require — to gain muscle.
· Alternatively, if your goal is to achieve a leaner physique you want to maintain, try to do this with a modest deficit over a long period of time as I did between the 3rd and the 4th pictures. It was very manageable for me to maintain this physique because I wasn’t trying hard to do it. If something like this is your goal, aim to do something similar, since you’ll need a sustainable approach.
