Post Contest Rebound

Pharma / TRT
1

A female fitness competitor I know has been struggling with the effects of rebound after her show in October. She’s told me that the weight gain (mostly water, I’m guessing) has caused her to go from a size 0 to a size 6 in one month. I know that rebounding can’t really be avoided but does anyone out there with experience have any tips/strategies to deal with it? I’d like to help her out as much as I can because I know self-esteem can be an issue.

She’s told me that she’s always thirsty and her appetite is ravenous.

Thanks in advance.

RM

2

She should have come off her contest diet gradually. Now she needs to go back on a diet - reduce her carb intake, as it is the carbs that are pulling in the water. I prescribe a low carb diet and plenty of cardio. As she leans down again, gradually increase/ adjust her carb intake so that she is satisfied with it, yet isn’t gaining water.

3

first off, i recomend a complete series of blood tests. many different things can affect the water balance of the body so i am not going to speculate as to cause with so little info. i agree with p22 about the carbs, they should be kept low, w3hat i tell my athletes is that they should not bother counting carbs, instead, they can eat as much fruit as they want as long as their vegtable intake is about twice their protein intake (by this i mean if you eat 100g of meat, then eat 200g of veggies with that meal along with fish oil and olive oil or nuts). should not go more than 3 hours without eating animal protein and the new Low-Carb Grow! is perfect for before bed, the shift in metabolism from storage in adipose to storage in muscle is quite amazing, in short eat before bed for fat loss.

training should consist of lower reps and more sets and cardio should be sprints, if fat is stored centrally then run for the sprints 50-400m distances, if it is stored more evenly or ‘peripherally’ then sprints of 30s on a bike are better.

also for during and post workout nutrition unless otherwise counter indicated, use Surge. i went to a workshop with john berardi in toronto and in the lecture he showed us quite a few graphs that show the difference between different types of during and post workout nutrition, normal whey doesn’t cut it, hydrolyzed is required. this was advice for fat burning, also creatine and green tea are recomended by JB.

another thing is if her metabolism was really shut down by dieting, then she can actually be training hard and consuming too few calories, so protein is 2g/lb, carbs - don’t matter if from fruit or Surge during and after workouts, fats - fishoil - 10pills a day, use olive oil to cook, eat mixed unsalted, unflavoured nuts and ground up flax seeds - 2 tbsp/day, round out the rest of fat intake from meat, a little saturated is ok, if grass fed can be afforded, then it is recomended (as a side note, there are healthy saturated fats - read the new cressy articles).

i want to point out that she may actually be not consuming enough calories (quite likely) and increasing calories will improve the metabolic response to exercise and reverse the problem if that is what it is.

PM me if you have any questions

4

Thanks for the help guys, I’ll pass it along to her. However, she has since told me that she will be using a low dose of GH. I’ve read that gh is only effective in high doses and if used in conjunction with insulin but this is not my area of expertise.

Is she barking up the wrong tree by using this stuff. I assume it’s to help her add muscle and shed fat.

5

When I’m about 4 weeks out pre-contest, and am looking to ditch the last bit of h20 retention, I implement something that I like to call chinese water torture. It goes like this:
Start off by pre-heating the sauna for 30-60 min depending on how long it takes to get hot. Next grab a bottle of h20 and head into the sauna for 7 min. While in the sauna I either practice my posing routine or just hit some mandatories to get my heart rate elevated, but you can just sit there if you want. When the 7min are up, IMMEDIATELY head to the shower and rinse off in ice cold h20 for as long as it takes to get your body temp. back to a normal range. Then hop back in the sauna for 7 more min, followed by an ice cold shower. Repeat this process one more time. Throughout this process, drink an adequate amount of h20 to prevent dehydration.
For me, this works wonders, as I previously would just hop in the sauna and bake for 20-30min.
I only do this e5d for the 4 weeks before a show to get the shock effect, as you’d reach the law of diminishing returns if you did this every day.

MK

6

That was me before guys. Zell’s an old friend and I was at his place when I read your responses. Thanks again.