Ditch the “Get Ripped Quick” playbook and learn not only how to get the physique and strength you want, but also what it costs to get them.
More than a how-to, this is a cautionary tale.
And I’m calling it that because I don’t think there’s a lot of people out there that will tell you how to get leaner and stronger, but also talk about the hurdles and pitfalls of having such an audacious goal.
So before we jump in, let’s back up for a little bit of context:
In June 2022 I was competing in a WRPF sanctioned powerlifting meet in Indiana.
The plan was to weigh-in at 56kg/123lbs, cutting from about 135lbs, and put all of my best lifts on the platform the next day.
Long story short, I failed the cut by a pound, recovered from that cut like shit, and bombed-out of the meet on deadlifts.
My wife asked what I had planned after this meet, and I had jokingly told her “I’ll probably bulk to 150.”
Well, the joke was certainly on me after just over a month when I had found myself sitting at 150, the heaviest I’ve ever gotten, and about 15 pounds away from the weight I usually walked around at.
I guess it’s an easy thing to do when the thing you crave most in a cut are donuts, your wife is an amazing baker, you’re an avid backyard BBQ enthusiast, and you work part time at a local burger and ice cream shop and get a free meal on your shift.
It’s not all bad though. I got my fill of foods that I didn’t ordinarily have, and I feel that I put a lot of it to good use in the gym – and continued to do so after this month of accumulating mass.
With the exception of deadlifts, all my lifts were feeling amazing (there’s always one, right?).
Now some people in the powerlifting community would see someone like me, 150lbs at 5’3″, and say “you’ve got room to grow”, but I like being as strong as I am at my usual size and not having sleep apnea.
Besides that, I have some goals to accomplish in these lighter weight classes, so I plan on sticking around here for a while longer.
Now eventually a meet got planned that was important enough for me to want to get to my ‘normal’ weight.
The Twin Cities Barbell Spring Showdown II in Eagan, MN.
The folks at Twin Cities Barbell usually throw two ‘money meets’ a year, spring and winter ‘showdowns’ where athletes can win $1500, $1000, or $500 for placing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd respectively.
The cool thing about these meets is that they pit tested lifters against untested lifters, and raw against classic raw and equipped – and they use a coefficient that sort of evens the playing field throughout those divisions.
So an athlete like myself, tested and classic raw, totaling 1200ish at 132lbs, fairs pretty well against another athlete who might be untested, multi-ply equipped, totaling 2000ish at 198lbs.
With the meet taking place May 6 of 2023, I had plenty of time to prepare by starting some dieting and training on September 1 of 2022 – 36 weeks to be exact.
Alright, that’s it for context, so lets get into some detail:
Obviously to lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit. So I prioritized mostly lean proteins at every meal, and ate enough to lose about a pound a week (~3500 cal/wk deficit).
For the first six weeks or so of my diet I wanted to experiment with something I hadn’t tried but was curious about. Carnivore diet.
For literally no reason other than that I think I could actually live off just meat and fruit. Besides, as an avid backyard BBQ enthusiast I could get plenty creative with flavors and have some of my most favorite, fattiest foods.
I had taken a bit of a ‘hard carnivore’ approach, with very little carbs. Honestly the first few weeks were great as it didn’t seem to negatively impact my training…
Until it did.
We couldn’t have that, so after those six weeks we went with a more balanced approach.
By the end of October I had reached 144 lbs, averaging about 146 for the month.
During the months of November and December I was working a temp job at UPS on their receiving sort line. It was an incredibly active job that would leave me feeling like someone mopped the floor with me.
So on heavy lifting days I would supplement with a single scoop of a mass gainer just to fuel workouts.
Mid-December I ended up getting sick, just a nasty sinus infection. It put a little damper on training and life in general but nothing terrible. Still moving weight and dropping weight.
By the end of December I was down to 140 lbs. Only 8 lbs. to go, 16 weeks out, no problem.
Or so I had thought.
My temp job had come to an end in December and I had taken a new position as a store manager for a local nutrition shop.
This job had an entirely different level of activity, but I made do and got plenty of steps in during the work day.
I would also have to go on extra walks outside of work to help burn calories so I didn’t have to cut any out of my intake, shooting for about 16,000 steps minimum a day.
I tried maintaining the intra-workout mass gainer shake for training days, but ultimately while training was feeling good, I wasn’t making progress on my weight. So now my intake was consistent across all days of the week.
Mid-January, I got sick again. Another sinus infection. Whatever, keep grinding.
By the beginning of February I’m down to about 137 and twelve weeks out from the meet.
I had just come off of a deload, feeling very strong, and ready to start really hitting things hard for the next twelve weeks.
But my body had other plans I guess.
Twelve weeks out, I tweaked my back on an accessory day.
I honestly did really well recovering from this injury within about four weeks.
I dropped the load on squats and deadlifts, had a lot of chiropractor appointments, and did a lot of mobility work.
But then I got over-zealous and re-tweaked it in March (and got sick AGAIN.)
After four more weeks of the same recovery protocol, I felt nowhere near where I was after the first four weeks from initially injuring myself.
By the end of March I was four weeks out from the meet, still 137, injured, and feeling like I was f*cked.
This seems like a good point to pause and talk about this goal of getting lean and peaking for a meet – and also the downside of deep and prolonged caloric deficits.
When you’re in a calorie deficit, you’re usually not getting the amount of micronutrients that you need.
When you’re training really hard on top of that, the lack of calories and micronutrients makes recovery more difficult, and makes you more susceptible to both injury and illness.
Fun, right? But it gets better.
There’s also the psychological impact that needs to be accounted for.
This is all the stress from not being able to join others for meals, being in environments where food is present that would throw off your progress, not getting as much enjoyment from your own meals, feeling worn down and hopeless from lack of progress, lack of recovery, and subpar training performance.
Your boy was feeling it all.
I wasn’t giving up, but I needed a break.
And I’d get the break that I needed.
I had a cousin getting married in North Carolina on the 1st of April, and I’d be damned if I tried to continue this bullshit when I should focus on time with family.
I treated it like a little mini-vacation.
I ate some food that my aunt had prepared for our arrival, we later had Indian food for dinner, and we got ice cream for dessert afterwards.
My wife and I woke up early the next morning and made breakfast for ourselves, then I got a small kettlebell workout in while everyone was still sleeping.
From there, my wife and I went into town to explore, where we got some coffee and pastries at their local farmers market.
After that we went on a small hike with my brother and sister-in-law, and while we were leaving a man approached me to sell me gourmet popcorn – I got a jalapeño kettle corn flavor.
From there we headed to the wedding to spend time with family.
We drank (no alcohol for me), snacked, and had a great time, then after the ceremony dinner was served – I had two servings and almost two slices of cake to myself.
We tried to meet the afterparty out at a bar, but we had to leave early because we flew out early the next morning. That didn’t stop me from having one ‘real’ drink and getting a pizza that I ate just over half of.
Once we got back to the house I continued snacking here and there until we went to bed.
On our way back home, I got a massive breakfast rice bowl on our layover, and even finished my wife’s food.
When we got back into town, my wife and I got ice cream because a local place had just opened a new location that day and we happened to be in the area just as they were opening.
Reading all of that, it probably sounds like I binged… and binged hard.
And honestly, I sort of went into the weekend with a ‘f*ck it’ mentality, just wanting to enjoy myself, and enjoy my time with family. I gave myself permission to do these things and not feel guilty about it.
But something that should be addressed about the stress of hard training and dieting is the very real possibility of binging on the way out of the diet.
Without a solid plan and good support it’s easy to fall into old habits or cave to cravings that can hold us back from our goals.
The behavior I exhibited was certainly a bit of binging, but I was also letting go of some very real stress and very serious anxiety over my progress and injury status.
I was coming to the realization that if I’m struggling to make weight at this point, I’m going to have to cut water to make weigh-ins, so whats the harm in enjoying the weekend?
I thought to myself “how bad am I really going to throw off my progress by letting loose a little over the weekend?”
The answer to that was “not at all.”
Sure, when I got back I was 140 again, and a little less defined. But I felt so much better.
I was able to think more clearly, which allowed me to formulate a game plan for success.
I only had to weigh 132, which was certainly possible with a little dieting and cutting some water a day out from weigh-ins – even if I had to spend some time in the sauna.
I just had four weeks to train hard as hell and do the damn thing.
Three weeks out, down two pounds, with training going as well as it could at this point.
Two weeks out, down to 135. Training could be better, but I’m moving heavy weight and my injury is staying at bay.
One week out, still 135, and I’ve gotten through training. From here I hit openers and start water-loading four days out from weigh-ins.
For those who don’t know, water-loading is part of a water manipulation protocol wherein you overload the body with water, flushing out electrolytes and tricking the body to continue to expelling water once you’ve stopped drinking water.
One gallon on Monday, normal diet, no extra sodium.
Two gallons on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some might do more on day three, but I’ve learned that someone at my size doesn’t really need it.
Thursday morning I weighed myself at 135, had a solid breakfast and a couple cups of coffee – then I was off to Eagan, MN.
It was a 5.5 hour drive, over the course of which I didn’t eat and only drank enough to take three rounds of diuretics and some milk of magnesia.
By the time I reached my destination the milk of magnesia was ready to do its thing, and continued to do so for the rest of the evening, and a little bit before weigh-ins the next day.
We carry quite a bit of weight in our intestines with digested food and fluid, so using a laxative like magnesium citrate or milk of magnesia can help empty you out. While it’s definitely not the most comfortable thing to do, it certainly is effective.
My final weight on Thursday before going to bed was 132, right on the dot.
By the time I had woken up in the morning I was down to 129.5.
This was a major relief.
For weeks I had been dreading the idea of possibly needing to use a sauna in order to cut excess water, but I managed to sail right passed my mark almost effortlessly – and felt pretty great, which might not have been the case if I had to hit the sauna.
I mean, my scale isn’t a calibrated scale, but it definitely wouldn’t be off by such a wide margin that I’d need to worry about my official weigh-in.
I was able to enjoy some coffee, go on a walk, and grab some post-weigh-in donuts before finally weighing in at 128.8, securing my place in the 60kg/132lb weight class.
Now all I had to do was recover from an easy water cut, eat well, sleep well, and put it all on the platform the next day. And that’s exactly what I did.
Eight weeks of recovering from an injury, four weeks of gruesome meet-prep while still recovering, and several weeks of dieting that limited my recovery and performance – and I nearly had a perfect meet, only missing my final bench attempt. You can check it out here.
Now let’s address the impermanence of everything I worked for, and what it means for others who want to get “shredded” and as strong as they can.
As far as getting strong in general goes, progressively using more weight over time will do the trick – even more so if you’re fueling yourself appropriately and getting adequate rest. This part isn’t rocket science, but is still very often overlooked.
But the act of getting as strong as you can, to be the strongest person in your weight class, or even the strongest person in the room (relatively speaking), specifically for one day, takes a tremendous amount of consideration and preparation.
It requires the prioritization of training and recovery above almost all else, budgeting your time to figure out when you can train and how you can prioritize rest.
Throughout training, weights are getting progressively heavier, fatigue is getting greater, and recovery becomes even more important.
With limited calories, you need to plan meals that will help fuel training sessions and to help you recover from those sessions, and time them appropriately to do so.
Near the end of your training program you’ll need to taper fatigue in order to peak properly.
This is usually done by only going as heavy as your openers about a week out from the meet, after weeks of progressively heavier training loads. This is followed by days of absolutely no training leading up to the meet.
Without nerding out too hard, the long and short of the taper it is that you allow yourself to maintain your strength adaptations while greatly reducing fatigue, which leads to greater performance on meet day.
Then the day comes, you perform, and it comes to an end.
The strength you worked so hard to achieve diminishes within days, everything feels just as heavy as it used to, if not heavier, it all sucks, and you hate it.
But that too, doesn’t last forever. By staying dedicated to the process of building strength, you can find yourself moving greater and greater weight overtime.
Now, the process of getting “shredded” is going to have and similar story and ending unfortunately…
The visual changes through the process of cutting from 150 to 138, then to my final weight looked like this:
At 150 I was strong, felt happy and full of energy, got to enjoy plenty of different foods, and had a decent level of fitness that I didn’t really prioritize.
Aesthetically, you probably wouldn’t be able to see any midsection definition without perfect lighting. But I filled out all my clothes very well, and got a decent amount of remarks regarding how ‘jacked’ I looked.
I think there's a decent amount of people out there who would be perfectly happy having a physique like that, so they should know that it's perfectly possible and easy to maintain.
At 138 I was still pretty strong, even though the way I felt during training might not have reflected that.
I was still happy, but a little stressed, and certainly not as full of energy.
I got to enjoy certain foods here and there that I otherwise wouldn’t as a way to maintain my sanity in all the stress of training, dieting, and trying to achieve my overall goal.
My level of fitness had definitely increased here, after including three 20-minute HIIT sessions per week, with a lot of daily walking.
Aesthetically I was more defined, and most people guys would give their left nut to look like that. But the way I did it wasn’t sustainable.
I included the HIIT to help improve my level of fitness, and ultimately aid in long-term recovery. But the majority of my training was very heavy, and a huge stressor that requires a lot of energy (calories) to maintain long-term. And of course I was limited on calories, so that aspect of recovery was limited.
If I wanted to, I could have changed up the training stimulus, started adding calories back slowly, gotten to a reasonable level of intake and still maintained that physique fairly well.
But that wasn’t my goal.
So anyone trying to achieve a physique like that should know, that while it’s possible to achieve and maintain, it’s a lot of work.
You likely wouldn’t be able to hyper-focus on a super stressful training stimulus for too long.
You would need to have a high level of daily activity, and you would need to have your nutrition pretty dialed-in.
You could probably have an outing once every two weeks or so as long as you didn’t gorge yourself or drink too much.
Maintaining a physique like that can be a full-time job, and I think the effort it takes is probably too stressful for most people.
This could also lead to a handful of psychological issues like disordered eating patterns, a poor relationship with food, body image issues, and negative feelings regarding how one might be performing.
Now I shouldn’t have to tell you that the physique at 128.8 isn’t sustainable.
I had to go without food and water for about 24 hours and manipulate water to achieve it. But that sort of physique is often times what we see in movies, on social media, magazines, or television.
This can really warp our expectations for realistic physique goals and what it takes to reach them. So it’s important to know that those people we see getting paid for the way they look, really only look like that during a small window of time.
Granted, they still have to keep their nutrition very well dialed-in and stay fairly lean to be able to use water manipulation as a way to accentuate that leanness.
This is definitely a full time job to maintain and incredibly unsustainable for the vast majority of people.
So how long did the weight stay off?
Not very long at all.
At the time of writing this it’s only been a month and I’m back to about 145.
I’ve got plenty of things going on in my life that I didn’t want to worry about tracking and timing food, and religiously training for a specific goal.
Now I can eat what I want within reason, train how I want, focus on other things, and feel significantly less stressed.
If and when something comes up in the future that I want to compete in, I can take solace in being strong, healthy, full of energy, and ready to tackle another round of intense training and dieting.
So here's the takeaway for anyone reading this:
You can get shredded and strong as hell at the same time, but it takes total imbalance in your lifestyle to pull it off, and maintaining the results means more devotion to the imbalance.
A balanced approach will not likely get you absolutely shredded like everyone you see on Instagram.
A balanced approach will not likely make you the strongest person in the gym.
But there is a happy medium to be found in approaching your dieting and training with balance.
You can look great and progressively get stronger overtime without hyper focusing on it, wearing yourself down, and going insane from cravings.
If you’re interested in learning how you can leaner and stronger with a balanced lifestyle, or how you can pull off a solid cut and peak for a meet, head over to the coaching page, submit an application, and let’s talk about how I can help you make that happen.
