What Metabolic Adaptation Actually Is
This post is part of The Ultimate Bikini Prep Guide – check out the full guide for more!
Previously I’ve written about hormonal changes and fluctuations during prep, and as we broaden the discussion here to talk about the wider topic of metabolic adaptation, it’s worth revisiting that if you haven’t read it previously:
So what exactly is metabolic adaptation? This is the very natural and largely unavoidable process of your body adjusting it’s metabolic rate (calorie burning potential) based on what it’s being asked to. It’s adapting to the circumstances it finds itself in.
What It Looks Like in Practice
In the context of prep, metabolic adaptation means your metabolism slows and you work harder and get leaner, forcing you to work harder still if you want to continue to lean out. This of course has obvious limitations, and most people in the course of their prep will hit that wall where their progress has slowed, they feel stuck, and they don’t have a higher gear they can shift in to.
Basically you’ve painted yourself in a corner.
Slower rate of fat loss
The key driver here is your thyroid, but also your insulin sensitivity and your leptin (as described in the hormonal adaptations post linked above).
Your thyroid slows your metabolic rate as a protective mechanism based on what it perceives to be a threat – reduced intake which to your body means a lack of food security. Your body instinctively worries that the next meal isn’t guaranteed, so your metabolism slows to preserve vital organ function so you can stay alive longer while “starving”.
This means fat loss and gym performance stagnate while energy drops. Basically you end up doing less, seeing fewer results, and you’re more tired at the same time.
Kinda sucks.
Reduced spontaneous activity
This is due to the cumulative fatigue effect, but is a big driver in weight loss plateaus as well. You get tired, the body slows down..and you just move less. If you wear a fitness tracker and keep an eye on your step count you can counteract this to some degree and FORCE yourself to maintain similar output levels, but the signs on the wall still need to be read and adjustments need to be made, especially if this slowdown happens earlier in prep when it’s only going to get worse.
Also your body preserves energy by reducing non-essential activity. If you routinely pace or fidget, you’ll do less of that on prep which, while not huge, DOES have an impact on caloric burn as well.
Increased fatigue at the same intake
Consider also that, paradoxically, your sleep can become dysregulated in prep due to these adaptations so not only are you MORE tired, but your sleep quality suffers so your recovery tanks further.
This creates a perfect storm of issues that all feel very different and disconnected even though they come from the same root cause.
Why Plateaus Are a Normal Part of Longer Preps
Again a plateau really is a feature of running a deficit for fat loss, not a bug. This is the system (your body) working as it was designed.
What we need to do for contest prep is hack the system a bit and find ways to circumvent the natural order of things.
From a 30,000 foot view, the easiest course of action is to track your output (steps and cardio burn), maintain that, track your weight and gym performance, and use strategic refeeds as needed which helps the body and brain feel less “starved” and keep them in a more cooperative state.
Note also: not everyone is going to experience this in the same way. I’ve taken clients all the way through prep without the need for a single high carb day, and other times we need to start implementing these very early in the process.
The important thing is not to follow boilerplate guidance but learn about what variables to watch, monitor them closely, and take decisive action with the right intent.
Confirmation Before Correction — Why Reacting Too Quickly Is the Real Problem
Of course the real issue here is that you can’t just carb up randomly all the time or you’re going to introduce enough days above a deficit that suddenly you don’t have enough time on the calendar to get lean enough to hit your mark for show day.
To start, always give yourself more time on prep than you think you need. Better to be stage-ready 2-3 weeks out vs. scrambling at the last minute or, worst of all, missing the mark entirely.
Use blood glucose readings to help determine the frequency and magnitude of carb ups. You may need none, or a small one every 10 days, or largely ones twice a week. We need to have good data points here to monitor these trends.
This means also that being dialed in during the off-season to collect good baseline data before prep starts is a huge leg up as well. If your off-season is sloppy and you clean it up for prep, it’ll take a couple weeks to get baseline data you can act on and that’s time where you could instead benefit from acting on new data compared to the growth season baseline.
Knowing When to Push vs. Pull Back
Prep isn’t all carb ups and refeeds of course. Sometimes the answer is simple: push harder. You sometimes do just need to increase cardio or ramp up your deficit.
A lot of this has to do with time (weeks left), intake (how high your calories still are), output (low cardio vs. already high), and gym performance for starters.
It’s a complicated web to untangle but I teach this in Bikini Blueprint and we discuss this on our weekly Q&A calls also within that course, using your real-life scenarios and gaming out plans of attack based on those, and not just hypothetical situations.
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