Eating bread and losing weight…yes you read that right!!!

I’m going to get somewhat personal here…Everyone has their own story and I am going to be telling you a few chapters of mine. Brace yourselves…just kidding 🙂

Last year was one hell of a ride…I got married, I started powerlifting and well…I decided to start Pull ups and Peanut butter again…

Let’s start with the wedding-

The thing with powerlifting is- you must weigh yourself. You are put into a weight category according to what you weigh on the day of weigh in’s. The competition revolves around 3 lifts: the squat, bench press and then deadlift…your goal is to squat/bench/deadlift the heaviest you possibly can…and if you can compare that to a lower body weight, your total at the end of the comp (bodyweight divided by total weight lifted) is obviously going to be higher.

With things like ‘The get bride ready guide’ or ‘Don’t quit until the dress fits’ circulating, I think it was very normal that I felt some form of pressure to get ‘Wedding ready’. I’m sad to say I didn’t even know what ‘Wedding ready’ actually was- I just knew I had to look better than I did on an everyday basis..sooooo I started training more, which is tricky when I was already training twice a day…I cut my calories- in fact I didn’t know too much about calories so I just cut back on carbs and made my portions smaller…I lost weight and I felt comfortable in my dress…My wedding was in April, a gorgeous and sunny Durban day. It was a dream come true. We went to Bali on honeymoon and it was absolutely incredible- we ate and drank and soaked up every minute…I came home…ummm…heavier…

Next on the agenda was my first powerlifting comp which was going to be in August- so I did the same thing…I started training more and I started eating less…but I just wasn’t losing weight. Has this ever happened to any of you???

The thing with powerlifting is- you must weigh yourself. You are put into a weight category according to what you weigh on the day of weigh in’s. The competition revolves around 3 lifts: the squat, bench press and then deadlift…your goal is to squat/bench/deadlift the heaviest you possibly can…and if you can compare that to a lower body weight, your total at the end of the comp (bodyweight divided by total weight lifted) is obviously going to be higher.

Sooooo back to what I was talking about- After Bali I weighed 60 kg’s…I needed to get to the 56 kg class, but I just wasn’t losing weight. No matter how hard I tried!!!

I then learnt a bit more about food and macros and micros, I cut back on the training and closer to the comp I cut back on carbs and lowered my water intake…I weighed in at 54.9 kgs. Was this weight real? Hell no! As soon as I ate and drank again I put the weight back on. I’m now walking around at 56 kgs and yet I do eat bread, I eat all my baking and I don’t kill myself training hours upon hours- HOW???

I reversed dieted, that’s how. After years of dieting, after cutting calories for the wedding and then trying to get to my weight class, I managed to damage my metabolism. Your body isn’t designed to lose weight. It doesn’t want to…so sometimes it will just fight back- which is exactly what happened to me!! So, what did I do??? I slowly started upping my calories, by as little as 50 to 100 calories a week…I ate carbs- with every meal- and slowly my body started to trust me again…I also fed it nutrient dense food. And lots of it!!!

I did an experiment- For an entire week I ate something I baked as a preworkout meal and as a post workout meal- something high in carbs, high in protein and with a good portion of healthy fats- Every damn day…and you know what- my body just absorbed what I had eaten!!! I was honestly shocked to find that every morning when I woke up…I WEIGHED LESS!!! Even though the actual calories of what I had eaten was pretty high!!! How did that happen???

Well, once you have a metabolism that’s firing like it should, your body is literally going to act like a sponge and absorb all the goodness that you feed it…now would I have gotten the same results had I eaten fried chicken and donuts??? Probably not….

The moral of this little story is- Eat food people. Eat nutrient dense food!!! Yes calories count, but they don’t all act in the same way!!! Your body would rather you feed it a kidney bean brownie that has the same amount of calories as a jam donut; than well…eating a jam donut!!!
So get into the kitchen, get your bake on and know that your body is going to love you for feeding it unprocessed and clean treats- Trust me!!!

As part of my teaching degree, as well as my Personal training qualification, I studied Nutrition, and am wanting to study further in it, as its definitely where my interests lie, so please feel free to ask me any questions (if you have any). I, however, have the best training and nutrition coaches guiding me through life and everything that comes with it. They both come highly recommended so send me a message if you would like their details 😊

I will be posting some of my favourite ‘macro friendly’ (a.k.a low calorie) recipes on the website this week, including…

The healthiest ‘cheesecake’ on the planet
Lil’s ‘brinjal’ protein bread
‘Weight watcher’ friendly mini muffins

Yours in Peanut butter
Jo
xxx