female bb feeling fat

[BOLDENOMINATOR]

I just need to vent - maybe just need to hear another female bb who has felt the same.

I did my first bb show in May and won the entire show. I then entered another national qualifier and won my wt class. The point is I do know what hard work can accomplish and am not a "whiner."

After the honeymoon is over, I have gained a lot of weight and weigh what I did pre-contest. I am supplementing now and training hard - the diet part I can't seem to be as disciplined,

My problem is that I feel unmotivated and FAT. I thought I was depressed, so dr. prescribed Celexa. What is my deal? My husband is a national bb too and he thinks I look fine. Has anyone post contest felt like this? How do you get out of the funk?


I just proofed this and sound like a self-absorbed baby - I promise I am really not!!!!!

 

[SuperWoman]

I thought I was the only one! Yes, your not alone. Last year I competed like you, won the shows, life was great. No one ever told me about what happens to your body (as a natural) after the show.
I started eating again and just could not stop myself. Like a mad woman stuffing her face! I gained so much weight and so fast that I even got cellulite. Going from a ripped bb to a fat cellulite ridden out of control person took it's toll on me. I had a closet full of tight sexy clothes that didn't fit. I was uncomfortable every where I went. I was miserable. So, I gradually cleaned up my diet and tightened up my training and cardio. I lost most all of the weight but it took many months like 5 or 6.


I learned a few things from this which I share with any new female bb's I meet. The way you get so lean for a show is by starving your body (in a nutshell). When you start eating again your body holds onto every morsel and you can gain fat at an astonishing rate if your not careful. So, you must have that off season plan in your hand, the food cooked and in the fridge for what your going to eat the second you step off that stage. If you go nuts pigging out your going to end up fatter than hell and miserable.

What I'm doing in the future is I'm going to very gradually over the post contest weeks just add in a bit more clean carb foods, protein and fats. The key is to do it gradually and keep up working out and doing cardio to keep it in check. Then you'll get back up to a diet where you feel good and look good.


I remember my trainer and friends all said take a week off from the gym, eat whatever. Well I listened and got fat. Don't do it! Treat being "off season" like you did when getting ready for your show. It has just as much importance. Do a search for offsean dieting/training on the web and come up with a plan.

I will say that it is possible to keep the offseason body year round. My friend competes in figure and fitness and she is ripped and lean all year round. How does she do it? She does about 2 hours of cardio a day plus another of weights. She eats only clean foods and mostly organic. She's not on AS or clen or anything. She's the only person who I know has kept that stage body. She is a personal trainer and teaches spinning so she really does live in the gym.

Well I hope that helps. Your not alone!

 

[BrickGirl]

My last contest I weighed in at 114lbs, 8 weeks later I was 151.2 and I Loved it! it felt great, so much power, I felt like a monster and I love that feeling, I'm leaning back down now and am at 134lbs, hopefully I can get down to 118 and not any lower for the next contest. I guess everyone is just different but next time, I will go back up to about 130 and not any higher But I think I can live with that It's all just a state of mind, when I was 114, 135lb bench was a bitch, weighing in at 151.2 I could get 12 reps with 135lbs like It was nothing, it's all a give and take thing

 

[Torchy]

You are not alone...I finally see that I am not alone. It is a scary feeling thinking I could never kick my self in the ass again to diet like I used to. I fear that I will never have the willpower i once had

Wow, I feel like I just stood up in front of the class and expressed myself. Thanks!!

We will get back on track. We all will get back on track. These things take time. Plus, you just finished a show not too long ago. You can't go around in contest shape all the time

Again...you are NOT alone. We should start a support group, LOL

Take Care, Torchy

 

[JJFigure]

I totally relate SuperWoman - you spend all this time dieting, creating the body you want; why blow it the first week post-comp just because your friends are telling you to eat? I plan on having one day (Sunday) where I can eat something I've never had before (B&J Chunky Monkey ice cream), and then I'm eating clean again. I'll ditch the diet log, quit weighing everything, but I actually like how I feel so much better on a clean diet, it's not worth it to me to just drop it. It'll just be nice to quit COUNTING THOSE DAMN CALORIES!! I really start to hate my diet log.

 

[Sassy69]

Been there, done that as well and frankly its been close to a 2 year battle since. My weight is better but its still no where near where I want. I've had a few additional ups & downs (mostly downs) in my life over the last 6 months, but its all coming back.

I think we all know how the body responds --- you take away something it needs or is used to having - it will respond by eating at something else or make your body chemistry (i.e. electro-chemical reactions that trigger food cravings, etc) make you hungry. I was always told I could eat whatever the hell I wanted the DAY after the comp, but immediately clean it up after that. Yes, take the week off from the gym because your body is so depleted it needs a break, but you can only slowly reintroduce carbs, salt, etc back into your diet so your body can adjust itself as it goes, as opposed to a full on rebound. And does anyone notice how it seems harder to lose the same amount of weight each time you try to do another show??? Probably another metabolic/protection response your body is developing when you repeated put it through these "starvation" periods.

Welcome to body building.

The ideal way to handle things would to just avoid major swings in diet, give yourself those little things your body craves as you go along -- one thing I notice about the typical bb diet is the lack of variety --- variety in the form of fruits and vegies provides the enzymes your body needs to "clean itself out". I'm a strong believer in at least doing some sort of "cleansing diet" every 6 months if you are following a very restricted diet. In general if "off season" weight could be no more than 15 lbs away from "on season" weight, imagine how much less the swings in cravings would be...

 

[SteelWeaver]

It took me a mere two months to slam back up to my pre-contest weight, but WOW did I look different. Much denser. And my lifts went up so fast I could hardly keep track! Was wonderful.

12kg in 2 months, now I'm trying to take it off again for another show - seems to be going OK. Up to about 10kg felt fine, looked fine, then I thought I was starting to look sloppy and was getting too far away from getting back down. Luckily I had this other contest to focus on, because frankly, without a concrete goal, it's REEEEALLLY hard to say no to sugary junk when you've deprived yourself of it for months on end.

I also just ate whatever for a week or so post-comp. - blew up like a huge water balloon. I cleaned it up 95% after that, but I think calories were a bit high. I'm going to be much more careful this time around - add more calories and more carbs slowly. And I'm going back to the gym that same week. And the following couple of weeks I'm going on some 4-5 day hikes and not taking any crap food with me.

The post-comp. diet will be all planned out before I even hit the stage. Just takes planning and willpower. And off-season, I don't see why one shouldn't eat "bad" stuff now and then. My plan for next year is to cycle periods of hyper and hypocaloric diets. That way I can gain muscle and keep fat manageable.

Maybe you need another show BD? Sure helps one focus

Superwoman - has your 2-hour cardio a day friend gained any muscle since her show?

 

[Cheetarah]

Another GREAT thread and nice timing, I can relate! Very helpful information, thanks bunches ladies!!

I don't even compete but just thru the dieting on my own, I've experienced how quick you put it back on after depriving yourself for so long and also the part about it being even more difficult the second time around getting back down to where you were.

I'm really hoping I'm doing things correctly and won't have a really hard time getting back down to 15% come March. I'm hoping to stay at my current 18% body fat while gaining strength. I'm all paranoid that I'm gonna somehow gain only fat and not muscle. I've been increasing calories nice & slow and keeping my carbs fairly low (only 25% of my calories) so that I will NOT put on a bunch of fat! But gosh I already feel so damn pudgy in the belly! It's nice to come here and read that other women feel the same way with the same trials and tribulations!

 

[ATrollFromTheFatBoard]

This is probably not the perspective you were looking for, but ...

"Before we urged people to abandon dieting, however, we took a good look at what it is about diets that ensures their failure. Why, we asked, does dieting inevitably lead to binging?

Every diet is premised on two beliefs: that you are not okay the way you are and that food is an enemy from which you need protection. ...

In a culture that avidly supports dieting, it is easy to see why most women regard their inability to keep weight off as a personal failure. 'If only I'd had more willpower,' the standard lament goes ...

We view the failure of diets from a very different perspective. Instead, we see binging as a sign of healthy rebellion against the two beliefs on which all diets are based. We recognize that each time a woman binges, she is rebelling against the idea that there is something inherently wrong with her. Binging is also a rebellion against the restraints of diets, all of which declare certain foods off-limits, thus creating an exaggerated yearning for the forbidden foods. Indeed, dieting is the main cause of compulsive eating."

-- Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter


You have 18% body fat, and you're yelling at yourself????? Girl, please. How do you think I got to be 225 lbs and a size 18??

You are doing fine. You are a perfectly OK person now, and if you never competed in another show again, you would STILL be a perfectly OK person.

The harder you are on yourself, the HARDER IT WILL BE for you to stick to ANY kind of diet or exercise regimen.

Congratulate yourself for what you've done and BE GOOD TO YOURSELF. By this I do not mean, go and pig out if you want to. I mean, ENDING THE YELLING about how bad you are. None of it is true anyway. Look how dedicated you ladies are and what good shape you're all in! You take better care of yourselves than 90% of America and you deserve to feel good, not bad, about that.

Plus, one Cosmic Truth I've learned about yelling at yourself: It doesn't help you do one damn thing.



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Also, as a side note, thank you all for reminding me how difficult this is and how much work it really is. People like to tell us fat folks that it is no big deal, just a few minutes of work a day and you will be thin, you must really be lazy if you can't even do that! If someone works in a gym and wants to spend 3 hours a day exercising and likes to do that, that is good because it all works well for them. Actually, that sounds something like how I used to live when I was thin (except I didn't know anything about weights then and wouldn't have touched one with a ten foot pole).

But, having spent all but the past year or so of my life living a life I hated, with jobs I hated, school I hated, and an exercise regimen I hated, basically doing things I did not want to do 100% of my time, I have to restructure my priorities. I personally would be miserable if I spent my life the way your friend spends hers, and I can't make myself do that. If it doesn't happen with what I'm *willing* to do and *like* to do, without all this yelling and misery, then it ain't gonna happen at all.