Nikki approached me back in December looking for diet help. Actually, her trainer Jon Merkley, a former co-worker, initially approached me and asked if I thought Nikki could do a show in May.

Given that Nikki is an attractive, fairly lean young lady who spends a lot of time working out, I felt she was already coming from a reasonable base and could do well if she applied herself. But as you can see from her pre-picture, like a lot of people she has a few problem areas. Specifically, Nikki needed to add some upper body mass, while cutting down through the hips, abs and legs.

Nikki January 2010

For those of you unfamiliar with female figure competitions, athletes compete in height, not weight classes. Although achieving a specific weight goal is irrelevant, Nikki was starting around 150 lbs and we figured she’d need to get down to the 132-135 lbs range to have a realistic shot of doing well.

But her plan wasn’t a “lose weight at all costs”. In figure, the judges are looking for perfect proportions and symmetry. Not only must you give the appearance of perfect symmetry, but you mustn’t forget that figure is not bodybuilding. To do well in figure, you must still have a feminine look, without being overly muscular. Therefore, prior to tackling the excess body fat issue, we needed to focus on building some additional muscle in the shoulder region.

Why tackle the shoulders before fat loss? Simple: the wider Nikki’s shoulders, the narrower her waist appears. Since Nikki has feminine hips, we figured it’d be easier to bulk up her shoulders rather than ask her to magically shrink her pelvis.

Prior to starting with Jon (they worked together for about a year before deciding to attempt a show), Nikki, like so many females was managing her weight primarily through excessive amounts of cardio training. A former runner, Nikki was accustomed to doing 1-2 hours of cardio a day.

Thankfully, Jon turned her onto the benefits of doing more resistance training, but she still was doing a lot of cardio when we started working together. Therefore, the first change we made: no more cardio.

By no more, I meant ZERO. There would be no “just ten minutes after my workout” or “a light workout on weekends”.

For a cardio junkie, this is more painful than telling them to swallow a handful of thumbtacks. But as I mentioned earlier, if the only way you can stay lean is with an hour+ of cardio a day, then your diet is wrong. Plus we needed to get Nikki into a slight energy surplus so she could build some muscle and additional cardio was not going to help with that goal.

Once Nikki was convinced to drop her cardio (which was a challenge. At the time she had put a lot of blind faith into this recommendation, since it ran counter to everything she’d ever done before), the next challenge was figuring out an appropriate diet.

Normally, knowing what to change in someone’s diet is my specialty, but Nikki was a special case. It turns out she’s quite allergic to whey, doesn’t like chicken breast and bloats like crazy after eating vegetables like broccoli.

Awesome. No whey protein, chicken breast and broccoli? Nikki had left me without three physique athlete staples!

Nikki also has an extremely finicky digestive system, so the first month we worked together mostly consisted of trying different foods to see which ones she could eat without bloating like a balloon.

After much trial and error (including additional probiotic and digestive enzyme supplements to help her), we came up with a reasonable diet we both were happy with.

For the first 6-7 weeks, the focus would be on bringing up her shoulders. Consequetly, she didn’t lose any weight during this time. For anyone getting ready for a show, not seeing the scale move is a tremendous source of frustration and Nikki was no exception. But kudos to her, she faithfully stuck to the plan.

Then with about 9 weeks to go, Nikki had to transition out of her shoulder sculpting phase and into a fat burning phase. At this point we pulled out all the stops and the training, diet and supplementation were all geared towards aggressive fat loss. Not only would her calories come down, but we were going to gradually re-introduce cardio as well.

Now you might be asking why, since I’m an anti-cardio nazi, cardio got put back in. Well my personal view is that cardio can be useful for weight loss, but only when it’s: i) a shock to the system, ii) is used for brief periods, and iii) paired with a cutting diet. Any other time and cardio is mostly just a way of occupying your time.

By this point, Nikki was dialed in on a pretty good diet for her. Like most of my physique clients, I had her follow a calorie-cycling diet. All this means is that 4 days a week she ate a low amount of calories (1100-1200 kcal), 2 other days she was allowed to eat a moderate amount of calories (1500-1600 kcal) and then one day per week, her favourite day, we eased her dietary restrictions and she got to indulge in several “cheat” foods, with the only requirement being that she had to eat at least 3000 kcal.

Strategically implementing cheat days is a great way to keep metabolism from down-regulating during a diet. Additionally, allowing some “forbidden foods” provides a welcome mental break from the monotony of contest prep dieting. But cheat days only prove beneficial if you have the discipline to be strict the other days of the week, and Nikki did an excellent job following her meal plan.

Truthfully, Nikki was an ideal client. She’s a hard worker, asked a ton of questions to make sure she understood what I wanted her to do, communicated with me with progress/set-backs she encountered along the way, and best of all trusted my advice.

As the date of her show neared, I did have to clamp down more and more on the foods she got for her cheat day. Because even though the goal is to boost metabolism, you can totally stall progress if you go hog wild.

However, even as we approached her May 15th show date, unlike a number of other coaches, I rarely prescribe the popular “green vegetables and white protein” type of diet. While it is easy to follow, I fail to see how eating a red pepper or having a tuna steak is really going to cripple someone’s progress. Plus using a wider variety of foods, I don’t subject my clients into any potential low-grade micronutrient deficiencies in the long-run.

As I’ve mentioned before, although the contest prep period is restrictive, I want to take an athlete through it in the healthiest fashion possible. Of course, many people still assume that all physique athletes have dangerous or unhealthy diets, but to those people I invite them to look over the list of foods Nikki ate in the final 2 weeks leading up to her show and tell me what is unhealthy:

• Proteins: lean ground beef, eggs and egg white, egg white protein powder, tuna, smoked salmon, some chicken, deli turkey, BCAA powder
• Fats: almonds, natural peanut butter, olive oil, coconut milk/oil, fish oil capsules, chia seeds
• Carbohydrates: oatmeal, coconut flour, berries, spinach, onion, mushrooms, zucchini, celery, romaine lettuce, bell peppers, tomato, dextrose power

Maybe it’s just me but that looks like a “who’s who” of the most nutrient dense food you can find on the planet. Funny how people who eat McDonald’s for lunch have no problem criticizing figure athletes for their “unhealthy” practices…

Anyway, the week leading up to the show, it was time to get her set up on a water depletion protocol. In short, it involves drinking copious amounts of water early in the week, then gradually tapering off, while concurrently adding more carbohydrates back into her diet as well as a herbal diuretic to help her expel water.

A week of this, followed by night of getting tanned up and it was showtime!

Obviously show time is an incredibly nervous time, but Nikki did great. In her first ever show, the IDFA competition in Mississauga, Nikki placed 3rd in fitness model and 4th in figure, awesome placings for a first ever competition!

But Nikki isn’t happy with moral victories. In fact, she had booked herself another competition 3 weeks later in London, the UFE Showdown event. So while most physique athletes can relax after a big show, Nikki got to “enjoy” another 3 weeks of dieting.

Obviously we made a few tweaks to address some of minor issues that she noted from her first show, but for the most part, we kept it business as usual.

Finally, three weeks later in London, the competition was fierce but Nikki did great. She placed 4th in a very tough fitness model category… and wound up taking 1st place in figure! This tremendous achievement won her a big trophy, some cash, helped her land a job as a product rep for Allmax and also got the opportunity to be in a promotional video… not too bad for someone with only 1 previous show under her belt.

Her first round of shows now over, Nikki gets to enjoy a few months of summer before she’ll start her preparations for UFE championships in November. Here’s wishing her the best of luck, but given how hard she works, I’ve got no doubt she’ll be tremendously successful.

I’d also like to acknowledge the fantastic work of her personal trainer, Jon Merkely of The Athletic Club North and Emily Zelinka, her posing coach. Both key members of the team and fantastic resources for anyone looking to compete in a figure show.

Related posts:

1. So you Want to be a Figure Competitor?
2. Seriously Shredded Physiques: CBBF Competitor Emily Zelinka
3. Coconut Flour: A Figure Athlete’s Best Friend
4. Making Exercise More Effective
5. Ladies, Cardio Sucks For Weight Loss