Ep 164 – Comparing Bodybuilding Preps With Bikini Pro Alice Robeson

Dani:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of vegan proteins, muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Dani.

Alice:

And I’m Alice.

Dani:

And this is episode 164. All right, everybody, welcome back. So we have Alice on the channel. What was the last pod? What was the last podcast you were on? Like, what were we talking about?

Alice:

Oh, I don’t even remember.

Dani:

I know. I know you were on. I just can’t remember what exactly we were talking about. But anyway, I’m happy that we have you back. So it is just starting to get warm here. How is it where you are?

Alice:

I can’t make up its mind. Uh, it’s Virginia. That’s normal. So we’ll have a couple of days of warm, and then a couple days. It’s right back to winter, and it’s fine. I like to change up the wardrobe. Some people annoy so much, but I’m like, you just get all the various seasons, like, jumping around, you get to wear all the different clothes. I’m not going to complain.

Dani:

Yeah, yeah. I wish it. I wish it would get warm. The. Today, I was like, giacomo, is it, like, extra cold in here today? And he was like, it is extra cold in here. And then I went outside, and I was like, I think it’s warmer outside than it is in our house right now. So hopefully this is a sign of good things to come, because we were, like, flooded for, like, the last two weeks here.

So miserable. We have what we call fake fake spring here in Massachusetts. Is this week usually where it’s, like, gorgeous outside and everybody is like, it’s here. It’s here. And then Mother Nature’s

like, psych. And then we get snow. Terrible.

Alice:

Snow is a four letter word for me. I cannot. But it’s because we don’t get snow. Well, if we. If we get snow here, then it’s so little and it doesn’t stick. When it does stick, the whole world shuts down. And even then, it’s only a couple inches. And so I just. I hate it.

Dani:

Yeah, I always like the first snow, and then after that, I’m over it. Yeah. But also, it was just Easter. Did you do anything fun for Easter?

Alice:

Just went to go visit with my family. We wanted to go to Busch Gardens, but it just didn’t work out. But it was great. It was great seeing my family. And when dinner was done, I went out with my sister, and we went and played Pokemon go for, like, hours and hours and hours.

Dani:

That sounds super fun, actually, to me. I got this crazy idea in my head on Friday night. The kids were here this weekend, and I was like, what can I do for them that would be, like, fun? Usually I go into every weekend with a plan of something fun we can do, but I didn’t have anything this weekend. And then on Friday night, I was like, I have an idea. I’ll make an escape room scavenger hunt for them all over the house. And I spent all day Saturday making it, and it was, like, super, super cool.

And it ended, like, in the shed with them getting bikes. So they were. Yeah. I was very pleased with myself. I don’t often do stuff just for the sake of doing it, just because it’s fun. Like, if it’s not productive, it feels like a waste of time for me sometimes. So I was really proud of myself for doing something just because it sounded fun.

Alice:

So were the bikes like, new bikes?

Dani:

hmm.

Alice:

What a fun, like, way to do, like, an Easter gift, and it’s right before spring. That’s so timely. And that’s. So. That was a good. That was a good idea.

Dani:

Yeah, it was. It was super fun, except Daisy’s flat front tire was flat, and I couldn’t fix it because everything was closed. So it’s, like, duct taping the tube and trying to blow it up. I’ll get it fixed, though. She was still excited. Yeah. So this. This episode is actually a requested episode. So Alice just wrapped up her prep new bikini pro with the OCB.

Congratulations. Very, very exciting. Thank you. And you had made some posts on Instagram, like, some reels, about how, like, how your prep was easy and smooth because of the setup and things like that. And some people were like, hey, I want to hear, like, I want to hear both sides of this, because I have heard both sides of this from, like, other people. But I thought it would be a really interesting discussion to have because we’re both kind of coming at prep from the same sort of

philosophies. So to see even with the same philosophies, like, how different they could be, I think, is interesting and people want to know. So, first of all, how was your overall prep experience, if you want to elaborate on that?

Alice:

Well, it started out of, like I said, it started out. I thought, this is going too easy. When is it going to get hard? I just. My body was primed for weight loss we had been trying to gain for so long, and at that point, my body was resisting gaining any more. So that had gotten a little bit frustrating. My strength was continuing to go up, but otherwise, weight was not budging.

And so it’s, like, body was super happy to put things in reverse. And I had so much support from my boyfriend, who is also like, a vegan muscle head. He knows how to cook and he knows how to cook high protein. He makes his own mock meats. It’s amazing that I found him. And so I’ve been getting a lot of support from him getting, oh, my gosh, it was great. Everything was going so well.

It wasn’t until probably like a week or two before my first competition of this season that it started to get really difficult to see changes. The scale wasn’t necessarily moving, but body fat was changing and finally got the tie ins to show. I had a lot of stress about my tie ins. Nothing coming in, not showing in time, but I hadn’t learned to chill out about that.

Dani:

It’s hard. Everybody has a spot. Everybody has a spot that they are just, like, laser focused on it happening.

Alice:

But I got there and I got super lean for, I’d say, two out of four of the competitions and got very close. And the third, it was really just one. One competition out of this season that was really a struggle and really couldn’t see hams or tie ins very well at all. But it was at the tail end. It was my last show.

Dani:

And your first pro show also, and you still placed. Yeah. But it seemed like an overall good experience for a first prep. I would say, um. I would say unusual, like, just from having coached so many people through competition preps that it’s unusual for it to kind of be that smooth. I mean, some of that is of your own doing, you know, some of that is because of how much you did nail the off season.

Like, you weren’t estimating your food in the off season. You weren’t kind of half assing stuff in the off season. Like, you were super dedicated all the way through that. And I think that was part of it. And then the other part of it, I think, is just people genetically being different from one another, which I don’t. On the one hand, I think people use genetics as a way to sort of limit themselves, I guess, is the best way to put it or justify why certain things aren’t happening.

Like, I certainly see people doing that who are not giving it their all. They’re like, well, genetics. When maybe if they were just a little bit more disciplined or fine tuned, they might get further. But also, there are definitely genetic differences between people and where their bodies kind of want to be, if that makes sense.

Alice:

Certainly high level of dedication because I have OCD, personality disorder, and it’s almost an obsession. It’s almost a problem sometimes. So almost too far in the other direction. And as far as, I don’t know if it’s necessarily genetics, but I blame, like, my health conditions, because if you look at the rest of my family, they’re all either average to overweight, to obese. Honestly, it depends on the person. So that’s a little harder to peg down, I guess.

Dani:

Yeah, it is harder to peg down. And your lifestyle, like, growing up, I think, also plays a big role, sort of regardless of somebody’s genetics. Like, if they grew up very active, I think that that really pays off later in life versus if somebody grew up really sedentary, I think that also shows up later in life. So I guess if we’re going to sort of compare our prep. So, obviously, yours is very recent. Mine was, the last one I did was in 2018. So I had to, like, literally dig through the

archives to find the information of, like, how long it was and, you know, my starting weight and my ending weight and all, like, my starting calories and ending calories and what was I doing for cardio, etcetera. So not all of this is fresh in my mind, but I remember the feeling like, that is still burned, like, seared into my memory what it felt like. So that point you were talking about where, like, okay, you felt

your body turn that corner, right? Like you felt when it happened.

Alice:

It was a hard corner. Yes.

Dani:

Mine started to turn that corner, I guess, in June, and my first show was in September. So, I mean, it was, and my last show was in November, so I spent about five months in that place.

Alice:

Wow.

Dani:

And it was ugly. It did get really ugly in terms of my mood, my sleep, my energy, my strength, certainly, as well, my mindset, you know, you can’t stay like that for very long and not have your mindset sort of take a hit. But, you know, like you, I was just, like, laser focused on getting there. Like, I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, so I did it. I did everything I was supposed to do, but it felt like death after a certain point, you know?

Alice:

Now, since you had, you know, longer time frames between shows, did you have sort of, like, a little bit of a calorie increase and then, you know, cut back down, or did you just maintain, maintain, maintain the entire time?

Dani:

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I actually had one, two, three diet breaks before June. So I started on January 1. This was a 48 week prep, like, from start to finish, and I had three diet breaks. So one was ten days, one was seven days, and one was nine days. So thats just like, basically a full week of high days in that time. So that helped throughout one.

Mentally it helped, but after that point, there were no more. But I did always have refeed days in, and because I had 12345 shows in that period, I had five peak weeks. So I had five carb up situations as well. That is kind of like a little mini diet break, kind of. So. And then, right. Going into the very last show, we did start to walk my calories back up, for which I was incredibly grateful.

It’s a long time. Yeah, I was looking at yours, actually. I didn’t look at this part. While you explain it, I will go and double check. But why don’t you talk about, like, sort of where you started your prep, like, weight wise and calorie wise and where you ended it?

Alice:

Yeah. So we had done officially, we started early November after plant built vegan strong competition in Mister America, and we started there. My weight was 132, and first competition of the season was February 3. And stage weight was hovering around 122. Before that, I had had a series of mini cuts and just sort of lull time frames in between. But, like, my highest point in my bulk, where I could not, could not gain any more weight, was about 141 pounds of.

Dani:

hmm.

Alice:

Um, what else did you ask? Sorry.

Dani:

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s. That’s super helpful. So your highest weight was 141. We kind of did a diet before the diet, before going into prep. So you started your prep nine pounds lower than your light, than your heaviest weight in the off season. Right, right, I get that. Right. Okay. And then you ended while your first show, you said, was 122.

So, like, you know, stage weight kind of changes from show to show a little bit, but it was around 122. Right. Um, so if we look at the total from the height of the off season, I guess, to your stage weight, that’s 19 pounds. Um, but because of that little diet before the diet, it ended up being sort of ten pounds in twelve weeks, give or take. Right, okay.

Um, and I just looked to see, like, what kind of changes we made throughout prep. How many changes we made throughout prep. I believe we made, like, we made three changes, and one of them was to cut cardio out completely. So we’ll talk more about that later. But diet changes. We only really made two diet changes throughout, which is pretty impressive for that span of time to only have to do that. So, I mean, you’re completely right. Like, your body was, like, totally 100% ready for

this and I think a lot of that did have to do with the fact that you were pushing. You were pushing the limits of how much your body could eat, how much your body could gain, which is the part that I think most people, but especially women, are, like, not willing to do if you want to speak to that, because, you know, I’ve talked about an ad nauseam, why it’s important, but maybe hearing it from somebody else will be helpful for someone.

Alice:

You know, I just. You never know how much muscle is underneath all of that, and you never know how strong you can get, how quickly. But pushing that progressive overload was just always, I was very, very hyper focused on that. And I guess just, you always worry, like, what’s it gonna.

What’s gonna happen at the end of that? What’s gonna happen when you get that competition lean? Like, am I gonna have the glutes I want? Am I gonna have the arms I want? And for me, a lot of the, am I going to have the quads I want? I was really worried about quads early, early on.

Dani:

Yep, I remember.

Alice:

And so I was just determined to do everything by the book and trust the process, because I didn’t want to look back and have any, like, what if I had done ABC? Any regrets? So it was just a full, like, complete trust in the process and, like, dive in headfirst and working really hard at lifting. Very heavy. I was really, really proud that, like, I got my back squats to 185, you know. Awesome.

Dani:

So you found that, like, focusing on your strength during that period versus necessarily what your body looked like right then was helpful to. To kind of. No pun intended, but, like, muscle through that.

Alice:

Oh, I loved the way my body looked. It’s funny because I don’t. I look back at pictures, and I remember not liking how I look in pictures, but looking in the mirror, I was happier with my body almost more so than ever before, which is so weird, because I could tell, like, I’ve never had this shape before. I’ve never had muscle before. Um, I have ulcerative colitis. And before this, it was always very, very hard to get any shape on me.

I was always just a twig and not in good ways. It was a sickly kind of thing. And getting my health under control, getting my mental health under control, and learning how to build muscle was just, like, completely groundbreaking for me and just so exciting. I was so. Just happy. There’s no other way to put it.

Dani:

Yeah. But I love that. I love hearing that because so many women, especially that, you know, we talk to. Don’t want to go through that part. They want to skip right over the part where you have to gain weight. And for most people, which I’ll talk a little bit more about my kind of opposite experience to yours in a bit, but it’s kind of, it’s uncomfortable to gain weight past a certain point for, for a lot of people, especially women, and they want to just skip right over that and just get

to the shredded part. And there is no amount of times I can say it. If you don’t do that part, you will not be shredded, because there ain’t nothing there. There’s nothing to shred to. It’s just not there. And you’re going to be disappointed. But it’s a hard sell.

Alice:

I’m so happy just having a butt.

Dani:

Yeah.

Alice:

For the first time. Because everyone, my entire life, would always tell me, you just have no butt.

Dani:

Well, jokes on them now. Now you’re bikini pro, so. Yeah. Oh, man, that’s awesome. And the. Your starting calories were so you had refeeds also all the way through, right? I can’t remember. Did we do, did we do a full diet break at any point? I don’t think we had to. Really? Nope. Yeah. So starting calorie low days were 1732, and high days were 2030 calories. And then the absolute lowest that you got was 1605 during the week in 1952. On the weekends.

Like, to put that in context for other folks, that’s nuts. Like, that’s really high, especially for somebody in the bikini category, which of all the categories is kind of like the smallest category in natural bodybuilding, the differences in weight between the categories is, like, basically nothing. But, you know, theoretically, it’s the smallest category. So, I mean, I know you’re not short. You’re 5758, right?

Alice:

Almost five eight.

Dani:

Okay. So, yeah, I mean, it’s not like you’re five foot two, but still, I’m five foot seven. And I was telling you before we even started this call, like, you, you, uh, ended higher than I started my prep in 2018. So our weights actually were not that different, though, like, our physical weights, which is why I think this is such an interesting conversation.

We’re almost the exact same age. I think you’re a year younger than me. Right, right. We’re the same height, and your highest weight was 141. My highest weight was 146. And your stage weight was 122. And my stage weight was 124. So, like, very close in a lot of ways, but the preps themselves, like, look, there are a few similarities because, like I said, we have the same philosophy, but they look totally different, like.

So I started with a really aggressive three weeks, I think because like at that point, like you’re not hungry yet, you’re just coming off of like a surplus. And like you said, your body is just ready to start losing weight at this point. So I started really aggressive. But if we skip that three weeks there, when we got to like the real sort of numbers, I started at 1510 during the week and the weekends were 2000.

But I ended the absolute lowest days that I had, which I didn’t have many of them, but I had a few were 1196. I do think my weekend stayed around 1800, which is pretty okay. But I mean, anything sort of below 1500 and I am not feeling great.

Alice:

Yeah, I can imagine.

Dani:

But the other thing is, I didnt end up as lean as you. Those weights may be the same, but I mean, maybe if you stuck us in a dexa, maybe the number of percent body fat would be similar. But it did not look the same on me as it did on you. Like your abs looked like they were shrink wrapped to your body.

Alice:

Now that’s genetics. My entire life, I told you, growing up, being a bean pole, having twigs for arms and legs, I always, always had abs.

Dani:

Well, I guess that’s a benefit of being a bean pole, but. So I grew up the opposite. Like you grew up active and very, very thin, albeit for probably health issue related reasons. Cause you know, ulcerative colitis makes it harder for your body to absorb the food you’re actually eating. Right. I imagine that was probably part of it. Even though you didn’t have symptoms when you were like a kid kid, right?

Alice:

Oh, I did.

Dani:

Oh, okay. You just didn’t get diagnosed until you were older.

Alice:

I was 19. The symptoms didn’t get severe enough to get diagnosed because you don’t really get diagnosed until there’s blood.

Dani:

Gotcha. That’s. I remember you telling me that conversation, but I don’t think I realized that you had some of those symptoms when you were a kid. I guess also, if you’re a kid, how do you even know you’re having those symptoms if that’s all you’ve ever known, you know?

Alice:

Well, it’s funny, my mom will tell stories, like now that we, you know, after we learned about bolster colitis, my mom was like, so many things are making sense because she used to have to take me to the emergency room as an infant, screaming, crying. Not normal infant screaming, crying. And then, you know, doctors would take x rays and they’d be like, she’s just extremely constipated.

Dani:

Right.

Alice:

And that’s, like, the sort of the first thing that happens in the whole stream of, you know, what it takes to get a flare.

Dani:

hmm. Interesting. Which brings me. I mean, this wasn’t even something I was going to talk about, but, like, you didn’t have any of those flares during prep, right?

Alice:

No, I’m on a wonderful medication right now, and just eating so many whole foods and eating such a balanced diet and having stress so low, um, it just. When all the. When all the ducks are in a row, I can control. It’s not. It’s not a problem. It’s completely in control of my life, and that’s been the whole way through this prep. Thank goodness.

Dani:

Yeah. Because that’s actually really common in prep. Like, once you pass a certain point, like, some degree of constipation creeps up in almost everybody because you’re just eating so much less, you know, there’s just. It’s moving through you slower. So that’s kind of, like, amazing that that didn’t happen.

Alice:

Well, I think I had a little constipation right before. What was it? I think my second.

Dani:

I remember us talking about that. But, I mean, it was like, it was like a day, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually it’s like, I always joke, like, my clients, like, eventually they always start like, okay, I know this is TMI, but. And I’m like, oh, just you wait, honey. You are going to be talking to me about your bathroom habits every week. Don’t worry. But, yeah, no, that’s really cool that that didn’t happen.

I never have the, like, crazy, crazy digestion problems that some other people have on prep. But still, you know, as a vegan that eats a lot of whole foods, you’re used to going pretty regularly. And, like, towards the end of prep, it’s like, maybe every other day or something, instead of, like, some of my clients are like, I go, like, three times a day, and I’m like, that will change.

Alice:

Yeah, yeah, I I think, you know, my hydration hadn’t changed, but I think at the end, you know, it just takes so much liquid fluids for your body to continue breaking down fat. And there at the end, that’s what was happening. Like, you know, the scale wasn’t moving, but I was still burning fat. And I think I just got so dehydrated at the end that no matter how much I drank, I couldn’t keep up with it.

Dani:

And when you have much fewer carbohydrates than your body is used to having, like, you can be drinking a lot of water, but not like, holding on to a lot of it like that. And the electrolytes, but

carbohydrates are one of the things that make you hold onto some water in your body and, yeah, water just absolutely goes through you, literally.

Alice:

Yeah, that’s actually why I started having more soups as the prep went on, in an attempt to help me absorb more fluids.

Dani:

Yeah, that’s a good idea. I usually just keep my salt pretty high all the way through, because if I don’t, I will faint. My blood pressure is normally low. Get, like, really lean and very conditioned from so much movement. And it’s like the kind of blood pressure that scares the doctors at that point. So salt is like my very, very good friend all the time.

Alice:

That’s funny, because I used to have that problem when I was much younger, in my twenties. But after I, after I started building, I got, my blood pressure went into normal ranges, and then as I got lean, these, these times, they haven’t gotten, they haven’t dipped back down to those, like, too low, scary levels. So it’s almost like bodybuilding got rid of that for me.

Dani:

That’s pretty cool. Didn’t do that for me. But, you know, that brings me to talking about cardio a little bit. We never, like, put in any formal cardio for you, which is also. Yeah, because I started with it and like, a low amount, like a thousand calories a week. And as it turned out, we just didn’t really need it. But also quite unusual to go through a whole prep without, like, formal cardio.

But I mean, I think it can be done because even looking at this prep, this was kind of similar between me and you. Mine was steps all the way through, like, just steps. No, no, added cardio until like, late July, I started adding some in and it was, it was like 20 minutes of, of like, lower, medium, steady state a few times a week. It was not much, whereas a lot of people kind of start there. But I think part of the reason that so many people end up having to start there is because of how much

cardio they’re doing in their off season, which is tricky because cardio is good for your health. So it’s a good idea to keep some in. But when it comes to bodybuilding specifically, it can kind of be setting you up for, okay, well, if you start here, you’re going to have to end here. And so I always try to keep my cardio low in a, in a definitive bulk or build or leading up to a prep. If it’s just like regular life, keep it in. But, yeah, I also kept mine as steps for the most of it.

Alice:

FYI, I was doing 10,000 steps a day. I don’t think we actually mentioned that.

Dani:

No, you’re right.

Alice:

And that was, yeah, the entire time. Now, at first, I was really good at splitting it up in the day, but at the end there, or really about halfway through, it would reach like six night and it would be like, oh, I have 2000 steps. Let me just get on either my elliptical or my treadmill. Well, actually, Carson’s treadmill. When I’m over at Carson’s house, there’s a treadmill that folds under the sofa. And when I’m at my place in Yorktown, I have my really nice elliptical that I use and

that’s it. And I’m not, and I wasn’t tracking heart rate or anything because I despise that. I was very, very anti cardio. I was even to the point where I was like, danny, if you’re, if we’re going to do, like, cardio, like, I would rather buy a weighted vest and continue walking with weights than start cardio. I was desperate. We didn’t get to that point.

Dani:

No, we didn’t. And I also think that’s a perfectly fine thing to do, like walking with a weighted vest on or something is super smart, actually.

Alice:

Well, I saw it on Ben Carpenter’s instagram. He was talking about a study that proved that you can do that. And I was like, all day?

Dani:

Yeah. It’s also really good for your bone health, too, to do that. You know, it’s, it’s weight bearing cardio exercise. So, uh, yeah, no, I think, I think that’s great. But I think a lot of people are just because I was looking at your steps. Yes, 10,000 straight through. Mine was, I started at 8000 and then three months in, I went to nine, and then two months later to ten, and then two months later, then we started to add in regular cardio and that would be in addition to my 10,000 steps.

So it really depends on who it is that I’m coaching, which way I’m going to go with their cardio, because some people are not going to do steps like, they just don’t have the time or they have no interest in tracking the same way you have no interest in, like, the heart rate thing. They have no interest in tracking their steps, so they’re not going to do that.

Or, um, some people, like, if you give them steps, they won’t do anything else outside of that at all. Or if you give them cardio, then they’re just going to do that much fewer steps without even realizing it. So there’s so many different ways to do cardio and track cardio. Um, yeah, I just think that’s very interesting stuff. Oh, but back to what I was saying before, like, I looked nothing like you at the end.

Like, I still did very well. I didn’t win my pro card. I went out for it. Like, of these five shows, I went out for it for four of them. Devastating. But, you know, it is what it is, and a big part of the reason, I think, is because I used to be, like, 210 pounds for a while, and it’s such as, it’s such a heartbreaking thing to say, not just to myself, but also to others, because it’s such a bummer that somebody can make such an incredible life change, like, their life.

To lose, like, 100 pounds, like, your life is 100% different and your health is so much better. But when it comes to aesthetics, most of those people are never going to be able to achieve that real, what I call, like, a shrink wrapped look. You know, like, you could be very lean. And I think. I think my dexa at the end of prep had me, like, 14%, which is lean, but it didn’t look like super shredded tight to the skin.

I still did very well because of my shape. That’s genetic, you know, like. Like, your abs are genetic. My shape is almost unbeatable on a figure stage, which is why I’m able to do so well. Um, but if, when they do that conditioning round, like, I’m never going to win that particular round, but I will say to anybody listening, don’t let that stop you, because there are multiple rounds, right?

Like, they’re not just looking. They’re not just looking for conditioning. They’re looking for muscularity. They’re looking for shape. They’re looking for presentation. And you might not win one of those rounds, but if you have the other three, you could walk away winning that class. So, and depending on who’s there, you absolutely can win a pro card.

It just was not my time, but I think that’s an important distinction to make, and I always hate saying it, because when you’re working with somebody that’s a. In that position where they’ve lost a ton of weight, they’re going to have loose skin. They’re just going to. Unless they go get it surgically removed, which I did after this prep, actually, just.

Just for my stomach and my chest. I would thought I’d do it everywhere. And then I realized I don’t actually care that much to do it everywhere. Um, but I did place well with that skin. So keep that in mind, folks, if you’re in that position. Um, but again, yeah, this is why I get so frustrated when I see kids that are, you know, like, people think it’s cute to make these little overweight kids, and it’s not, it’s not like, I mean, they’re cute.

Kids are all cute regardless of what they look like. But, like, it can very easily set them up to one, be bullied, which is awful. But much bigger than that, I think, is the fact that you can never get rid of fat cells ever. Like, once they, once they have grown, you have them forever. So it’s better to just avoid having too many in the first place. And then, of course, the skin issue, like, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, I just think it’s different. And a lot of, Mike, this is something I’ve

noticed anecdotally. Folks that grew up as bean poles, like you said, they are like the perfect candidates for bodybuilding comparatively to everybody outside of that category. Um, I don’t know why. Um, probably because they do not, like, really have the propensity to put on too much body fat. So, but also they’re hard gainers, so harder for them to build muscle generally. If you want to talk about that.

Alice:

A little bit, there’s also, you know, being, being a bean pool, like you said, but also, like, you can give yourself even more advantageous if you are an athlete during puberty and young adulthood and putting on that muscle while your hormones are just like, basically like you’re taking steroids, right?

Dani:

Yeah. Without your body is just producing them.

Alice:

Exactly. And so you get that foundation. So that’s the next thing that’s like, what can we do to make this completely optimal?

Dani:

Yeah, but it’s like, what kid is thinking of that? You know? Like, no kid is thinking of that.

Alice:

But maybe the football players, right?

Dani:

Yes, exactly. That’s it. I actually mentioned it on the Steroids podcast that we did a few weeks ago. Like, I remember taking the drug classes, like, in your health class, and they’d talk about, you know, marijuana does this and psychedelics do this. And it was a weird class. It was like they were trying to sell me on a good time, really. But by the time they got to the steroids, I was like, why would anybody take a drug just to run faster?

Like, I don’t understand. And now it’s like, that’s the drug that. Those are the types of drugs I see the most now. So weird. But yeah, kids aren’t thinking of, oh, well, I don’t want to have a really. I don’t have to deal with poor health for the rest of my life. So maybe I should skip this dessert tonight. Like, find me a six year old that’s going to do that. Not possible.

Alice:

For sure.

Dani:

Yeah. So that. That could be a whole other podcast talking about kids and kids health. And everyone’s going to be like, you can’t talk about it because you don’t have kids. And be like, I’m still going to talk about it. I know that this is, like, really close because we’re just coming off the tail end of your preponderance, and I didn’t

even ask if you were interested in talking about this beforehand, so if you don’t want to, that’s fine. But coming out of your prep so far, like, what has that been like for you?

Alice:

It’s been challenging, I guess just because I was able to get so lean. I didn’t get a Dexa scan, by the way. I thought about it, but we don’t have anything around us that’s like, they offer Dexas for athletes. We just have doctor’s offices. I’m too rural, right? But according to, like, measurements and, like, doing the math and stuff, body fat percentage was probably about 13%. So however accurate that can be.

Dani:

Yeah, I think that was probably based on your pictures, I think that was probably pretty close. If you’re ever in California, that was just how I got mine done, because they don’t do them here either. They’re like $50 in California. You could just walk in and get it.

Alice:

It’s amazing. Yeah, I wish I had that, but that’s all right. I still think. Yeah, like you said, I still think it’s pretty accurate. But coming off of that, you know, I’m a person who we all think, you know, we get through competition prep and we think we have the most amount of willpower and control when it comes to those things because you have been so severely restricted for so long.

But as soon as, you know, coming off of being that lean, going to the point where it’s like, all right, leash is, you know, a little bit looser, we don’t have any goals immediately hovering over our heads, it’s like your body takes over and you don’t have a choice but to continue eating. That’s been the experience, and it is getting a lot better. I’d say, you know, we’re two weeks out now ish.

A little more than two weeks out. And I’m just feeling like in the past, maybe four or five days, like, all right, my head is back where it needs to be. But until then, it was very much like, yeah, had had probably two binges, box of cereal kind of bitch. And it was disturbing. But, you know, I just tried to, I just tried to forgive myself, I guess.

Dani:

Yeah, it’s, and it is, it is the hardest part. It’s the hardest part of prep is actually not prep at all. It’s coming out of prep and trying to, like, re acclimate to, like, being a normal person again. Even if that’s a normal person who loves bodybuilding. Like, it’s still so, so, so hard. It’s like you said, your body just takes over. It’s like, it’s like, kind of like a, like a primal urge to put food in your body immediately.

And it’s fascinating to me because of the amount of discipline and willpower that you’re able to exercise up until that point. And then all of a sudden, it’s just like, okay, game over. It is so hard. It is nice to start feeling better, like, every day, pretty much. You wake up and you feel a little bit better, and you feel a little bit better. But, yeah, your weight hasn’t, like, jumped up, like, a really high amount in this past couple of weeks. I didn’t actually look to see what

happened with my weight right after. I mean, I’m pretty sure I remember definitely seeing, like, low one hundred thirty s the day after the last show, which would be like a six or seven pound gain, like, overnight. Um, obviously, that’s not real. Yeah, but, but within, like, a month or so, or six weeks, that number was real number at that point. Um, but again, my body, yours didn’t start suffering until you were like, what would you say? Like, 125 or so pounds?

Alice:

Yeah, 125, 124.

Dani:

Really?

Alice:

It might have even been like, more like 123, because, again, I didn’t actually continue to lose weight at the end. It was more just recomping.

Dani:

hmm. This is what I find for most people, is that there is a weight, there’s a weight that your body hits, and past that point, your body is just, like, telling you, please stop. Please stop doing this to me. Can we please stop now? Um, and maybe yours is like 123, 124, something like that.

Alice:

Um, calories, though.

Dani:

No. Nope. Actually, truly, it’s not. It’s, it has more to do with, um, body fat. Body fat is the number one driver of that. And which is why when people tell me they want to come out of a prep, but they want to stay super lean, but also they want to feel better, I’m like, you’re not going to feel better until we get some body fat back on. You don’t have to go crazy or anything, but we need to get back up to that place where you didn’t feel like death during prep.

For me, that’s usually around 133, which means the remaining ten pounds I have to lose, which is like, half my prep weight, is in that crappy place. And that’s just, like, what my body can tolerate. So if I want to be a bodybuilder and I want to step on stage and be competitive, that is the sacrifice that I have to make. And there’s, I would say, more people.

Well, just based statistically on the United States, right. If we look at the fact that almost 70% of people are overweight, more people go into prep are like me, then we’re like you that were very thin or even a healthy weight, and then go into bodybuilding. So it’s not for everybody. That’s what I’m saying. I’m trying to say, like, bodybuilding competitively, it’s not for everybody.

And don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you’re going through hell but somebody else seems to be having a really easy time, some of those factors could very well be your own damn fault, but a lot of them could be completely out of your control, you know?

Alice:

Yeah. And also, like, a real, specifically saying, like, you don’t want to be bodybuilder lean. And here are all the reasons. hmm.

Dani:

Yeah. It’s not, it’s not. I mean, it looks super cool. Like, don’t get me wrong. If I could look like that and not feel shitty, like, I would totally do that. But having looked like that many times in my life, I realize I don’t, I don’t actually want to look like that most of the time. And I have a couple of clients that I can think of specifically on my head that had to get to that place to learn they didn’t want to be in that place.

And I’ll say who they are because they won’t care. Alex Payne, who got super, super, super lean, won his first show ever, and he’s super muscular, and he actually grew up overweight also, and has lost a ton of weight, which is very interesting. So it was like hell for him getting there. And as soon as it was done, he said he felt completely free because now he knew he would never have to wonder, oh, what if I could just look like that?

Now he knew what it takes to look like that, and now he can just let it go. He doesn’t need to look like that anymore. And I think that that’s really cool. And the other one is Brittany. Brittany? Brittany Billings, on the powerlifting team is also a figure pro. She became a figure pro, like, on her second show or something, and then was like, and I’m done.

I don’t ever need to. I don’t ever need to get to this place again. I’m going to be a powerlifter. And now

she’s strong as hell. So I don’t know. I always feel kind of strange talking about bodybuilding in general because I love it so much, but I also recognize how problematic it can be. Do you know what I mean?

Alice:

Yeah, it’s like, but be careful. Yeah, I sound happy and excited, but.

Dani:

Yeah, it’s because I do feel like there’s a lot of coaches out there that are just, like, dying to get people on their bodybuilding roster, and sometimes it’s people that don’t even know what they’re getting into. Like, they’re just regular gym goers that somebody walked up to them in the gym, and we’re like, hey, have you ever considered competing? And suddenly they’re in a prep, and it’s like, I don’t think that’s a.

Alice:

Good idea for sure. I think Carson’s going through that a little bit right now, having walked me through all these competitions. And of course, he’s going to all these shows and he’s not, he doesn’t hide his veganism at all. He has all of the goofy vegan t shirts, and he’s always got a tank on. So I say t shirts, they’re actually tanks.

And, you know, people are constantly asking him, do you compete? Do you compete? And he said, oh, actually, no. I’m just here supporting my boyfriend or my girlfriend, my boyfriend. And they’re like, oh, well, you should compete. You should compete. And he’s like, well, you get the.

Dani:

Bug when you’re going out there. A lot of people I know got into competing because they went to some shows and even myself, like, I started coaching bodybuilders before I ever stepped on stage. And I had one show, it was in 2013, like, where I had five athletes in that show, and I went out there to watch the show, and while I was watching them, I was like, maybe I can actually do this.

Maybe I could give it a shot. And that’s when I, like, actually committed to doing. It was in 2013. But, yeah, you go out to watch other people, and I think people have this idea in their heads that everybody is flawless at these bodybuilding shows until they go to one and they realize that’s not true at all. Like, everybody looks amazing, but there are scars, there are stretch marks, there are unbalanced physiques.

There are people who didn’t get perfectly shredded or who, you know, don’t have the greatest XYZ body part. And that’s one thing I do love about natural bodybuilding is, you know, you do see a lot of different people, different ages. You know, every show has, like, somebody that’s over 60 years old up there just rocking it, and I hope to be that person someday.

Alice:

No, you’re totally right. Going to a show, and it’s human nature, we’re going to start comparing, right? And so I don’t have my phone on me when I’m backstage in a competition. Like, not until I’ve at least gone on stage and I have like a long break will I go and even check it. But I’ll come back every time and I’ll have like twelve messages from him. Oh, I could, I could totally be up there with these men’s classic physique, you know, men’s physique, you know, and so he just compare

himself and he see himself up there. But you’re right, going to a natural show, seeing, like, people’s legitimately natural physiques, it’s beautiful to me, you know, because it’s not what you see all over the Internet, really. It’s not what you see on people’s instagrams. It’s like, oh, this is what real bodies look like. And I love seeing how different everybody is. And it’s clear that people are natural, you know?

Dani:

Yeah, yeah.

Alice:

And it feels good.

Dani:

Yeah, it does feel good. I mean, there are some shows that you go to. Mister America is a great example. The pro show at Mister America is like, jaw dropping. Yes, like truly jaw dropping. I don’t want to say those are like normal physiques. Cause they’re not, but they are natural physiques. But what we see on the Internet usually are NPC competitors or IFBB competitors that, you know, 95% of the time they are not natural, natural. And then Instagram photos do not translate to the

stage. And that is something I try to tell people that have maybe gotten a little, like, insta famous because they look really good or they have great abs or whatever, they post sort of, like, influencer shots online that get a lot of attention. So they think they’d be great at bodybuilding. But bodybuilding, there’s nowhere to hide on that stage. There’s no angle. They’re not going to see, like, so you have to have it from every angle, and you don’t see that on Instagram.

Alice:

You know, that was my biggest lesson learned from being backstage with these competitors. Even at my pro show, seeing people backstage, you think, hmm, I don’t know how well so and so is going to do or so, you know, that person, that person, that person. But they get on stage and they know how to pose and they know how to, you know, stand to get the light to hit them right. And it’s like a completely different person.

Dani:

And that’s me backstage. I’m that person that nobody is worried about backstage usually. So first of all, I cover up, I put my headphones on. I don’t look at anybody until the last second. But I know I’m that person. And I’m grateful for that because I don’t want to get mean looks from people backstage all day. But, yeah, some people just kind of look like normal, fittish people, and then they get on stage and they just pop and they have that sort of like, what I just referred to as like

an it factor. It’s very hard to explain what it is, but it’s like a presence. It’s a confidence. It’s a look like you need to be able to look at somebody on stage and say, oh, that is bikini, or, oh, that’s figure. That’s what figure is supposed to look like, or et cetera. Whatever the category is, it can’t just be like, oh, that person is the sum of a lot of good body parts. Like, that’s not enough.

Alice:

And once you see them in the lineup and seeing like, is every, you know, what group of people are similar? What group of people are sort of the outliers. It can, and that’s why the shows can go any which way, and it’s shocking. But, you know, I feel after, after a certain amount of time, I just feel like it’s sort of about taking turns.

You have the people that sort of place very well at shows and whatever the set of judges are looking for, you know, they’ll choose, and you just sort of take turns on who’s placing the best.

Dani:

hmm. Yeah. And especially in the natural circuit, like, it’s not that big. Like, you’re going if you compete multiple times in the same season or even, like, for several years in a row, you’re going to see the same faces. You’re going to be up against the same people over and over and over again. And sometimes they might beat you, and sometimes you might beat them.

And. And I think that’s, that’s pretty cool. And I think it usually means the judges are, like, doing what the judges ought to be doing, which is nice. So, yeah, let’s see. Is there anything else that we wanted to touch upon here in terms of prepse, anything else you wanted to mention about them?

Alice:

I don’t think so. Not without getting into nitty gritty stuff.

Dani:

Yeah, I guess another thing I wanted to say is just if somebody is having a quote unquote smooth prep, don’t get that mistaken for, like, it’s easy for them, because once somebody hits that place of where you turn that corner, that’s the only way I can describe it. Everybody feels the same kind of

shitty. So even if they’re eating more than you.

So, for example, there have been several people that I’ve known that are eating more than I am, but they turned that corner. They are past that point with their body, and it doesn’t matter if they’re eating more food than me. Hunger is only relative to that person. Like, somebody could be starving on 2000 calories and somebody could be feeling fine on 1600 calories.

So just if somebody, if a bodybuilder in prep is telling you, like, ugh, I feel like I got hit by a truck. Like, it’s hard. Like, they’re in that place. Even if they’re eating what you think should be an easy amount of food in a non bodybuilder world, um, people are shocked at how much I eat. Like, in especially in the off season, you know, if I’m eating 22, 2300 calories, be like, I can’t believe you eat that much.

And I’m just like, what? And then, you know, in prep, I’m eating 1600 calories or 1500 calories, and they still think that’s a lot. And I think I’m ready to eat my arm off, you know? Did you experience that, too?

Alice:

Oh, every time I go out to eat with anybody, there’s always some kind of comment like, oh, there’s no way you’re going to be able to finish that. I’m like, I’m like, I could order another plate, actually.

Dani:

Or, like, I can’t believe you can get away with eating that.

Alice:

Yeah, I’m staying away with saying, if you lift heavy.

Dani:

Yeah, yeah, that’s true.

Alice:

You know, that’s what that’s what I really want to make some content about is like, you want to eat. Feel so sorry for these girls who are just eating nothing to try and lose weight or doing all this cardio, all, you know, all this running. Running is a big thing around here. We have a lot of runners. So we go out and we see that and it’s like, oh, if I could just get you lifting.

Dani:

Well, you actually just, you just made me think of, like, a big thing, actually, that I think I is worth talking about. The lead up into a prep like you, if I don’t even know where to begin this. You can’t just always be dieting and expect it to work. It’s not going to work if you are always dieting. Like, give your take on this.

Alice:

Yeah, we spend our lives dieting, and I feel like for most people, you know, in their, at least most women in their thirties, they reach this point where it’s like, all right, now my dieting history, you know, my previous habits are no longer working for me. And that’s the time when they start to look for help. But they’re still, you know, continue the process of just diet, diet, diet, diet.

And your metabolism is going to be so down regulated, and you’re just not, you’re just making it harder and harder for yourself. You don’t ever give yourself a break. You don’t ever eat at maintenance and more activity, you know, doing something, like lifting, you know.

Dani:

Doing something, even lifting and still not eating enough, which that’s what I did. So I almost follow that exactly what you just said when I, so I was 19, like, I literally had no idea what I was doing. That’s when I lost, basically lost almost 100 pounds from, through extreme dieting, um, and lots of cardio because that’s the only thing I, that made sense to me at the time after that. So I reached my, quote unquote goal weight. Hated how it looked because it looked nothing like I

thought it was going to look. And that’s when I started lifting, but I was still eating very little. And it’s my one, it’s my, probably my only, like, fitness regret is that I didn’t, right at that point, start eating, like, a decent amount and just stop trying to get smaller and smaller because that was like the newbie gain phase, right? And I kind of blew it. I kind of blew it on just dieting through it. And, I mean, I had my own different kind of new beginning phase later.

Alice:

But, yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I’m like, you can have it again.

Dani:

Yeah, but it was just like, you know, probably like two years of me lifting. So I had really good form, but I wasn’t really strong and, uh, I was probably eating like, under 1500 calories and might be like, why isn’t my body changing? Because it couldn’t, like, it literally couldn’t change.

Alice:

Yeah. So, yeah, we have so many conversations just about, you know, women trying to lift heavy, especially for lower body. Right. Trying all these new fitness programs, like month after month, you know, you don’t get the opportunity to start to really, really lift heavy, like, try to get to lifting your body weight, you know, in your squats and your deadlifts and go up from there.

That’s when you see those gains come and it’s like, and it’s shocking and it’s beautiful and it’s so much, you gain so much confidence. And it doesn’t have to be weightlifting. You can figure out what kind of sport, what kind of activity, you know, you’re happy with.

Dani:

Yeah, but if you want to, if you want to have muscles, like, you’re going to have to do some kind of resistance training, something like, you can’t just do like just, just yoga or just pilates and eat very little and expect to actually build, like, substantial muscle and then be disappointed with yourself when you don’t have the kind of look that you wish you had, but you’re like, not doing the things that you need to do to get there.

Katya actually described it as, like, you wouldn’t hire a construction crew to come build a house, but not actually buy the lumber and the stuff that you need to do it. When you’re lifting really heavy, but you’re not feeding yourself enough, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You can’t, you cannot get the job done, you know?

Alice:

Well, that’s something else to talk about. You know, I didn’t really feel like strength was going down until peak weeks started happening. I was able to maintain and I feel like even gain definition and a lot of my prep, so it was going very, very smooth, and then peak week hit and things were just like completely, completely different story again. You turn that corner, all of a sudden you reach the point where it gets hard and there go your gains.

Dani:

Yeah, the good news is they do come back quickly afterwards. But, yeah, my prep, I don’t remember exactly when it happened, probably right around that point that I turned that corner. But I know for a fact that by the end of my prep, my squats, my barbell back squats, my working sets were what my warm up weight was at the beginning.

So 135 was like a warm up for me at the beginning of prep, 135 was my absolute gun to my head. Do as much as you can working weight at the end of my prep. And I would remember being so pissed about it, too.

Alice:

Yeah, yeah, but.

Dani:

And that’s, like, you’re, like, sitting down in between sets, like, bargaining with God. Like, please, goddess, just let me get through this. Yeah.

Alice:

For me, it was bargaining just to go into the gym. And a lot of times it would end with me taking a little power nap before, like, get into the parking lot, be like, I want to leave. I want to go home. And I’d be like, all right, why don’t you take a nap right now?

Dani:

Yeah. It’s so weird. And, like, out of context, everything we’re saying sounds super disordered.

Alice:

I know. That’s why you don’t want to be a bodybuilder.

Dani:

Exactly. That’s why you really, really need to consider, do you want to do this? But I think a key of it not being disordered. Right. One of the main keys of it not being disordered is that when it’s done, you can turn it back off. All that sort of, like, neuroses and just absolutely feeling like crap like that will.

If it doesn’t get turned off, it’s going to get turned way, way, way down once the prep is over. And that’s the important part, because if you try to stay in that 100% prep mindset all of the time, that’s not a healthy place to be mentally, I think, no, you’re not even going.

Alice:

To be able to have a job because you can’t. Your brain doesn’t work. You literally just feel like an idiot the entire time. You do things in prep that you never thought you would have done before. And it’s like, why am I. How could I be such an idiot? How could I let this happen? How could I lose this? How could I drop that?

Dani:

Oh, I remember. This wasn’t in 2018. This is probably in, like, 2015 or 2016. I remember leaving my apartment and going outside to my cardinal, and the keys were in it. It was on, and the door was open. Like, I had literally just, like, walked out of my car and gone. And this was, like, not my house in my driveway.

This was in, like, an apartment complex parking lot. And it had been that way, like, overnight. So. Oh, yeah. So many things. Like, your brain just. It’s like two little brain cells rubbing together, trying to do the job of a full brain.

Alice:

I dropped, I shared this with you, but I’ll share this on the podcast. I dropped my trophy, broke my trophy. That’s how like, and I am the most careful person in the world. I keep touching my mic. Hopefully I’m not messing up sound. I’m normally the most careful person in the world. I never drop things. I never break things. My phone is always like freakishly perfect with like a pitiful little case on it. I dropped my trophy and broke it. Tears.

Dani:

Yeah.

Alice:

Ruined my day. Right?

Dani:

And then you’re so emotional about things that normally wouldn’t make you that emotional. I wish I could think of a really good example, but, oh, God, when me and Giacomo were prepping at the same time, which, this is the reason we don’t do that anymore, like, one of us would say something that would, it would just be like so small that it would get under the other person’s skin so much that it would just be this super bitchy, passive aggressive little argument and we’d have to just

like, go into our separate rooms and like, in a fed state again, we’re like, that was so stupid. What were we even fighting about? And it’s like we were just fighting about the fact that we were hungry. Like, that’s literally it. So. But yeah, one of us needs to have the, like, mental wherewithal to run the business while the other one is dieting.

Alice:

Right.

Dani:

That’s the other reason. So anyway, I think that, I think this is a good, good podcast. I think if we go on longer, it’s going to be like 2 hours. But yeah, I think this was really good. If you guys have any questions about prep, I know a lot of people ask us, like, why do you, if you have so many bad things to say about it, like, why do you guys do this?

We did record a podcast answering that exact question several years ago, but maybe we should redo that podcast at some point because it’s very hard to explain, but there are a lot of awesome things that do come out of bodybuilding as well, for sure. All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of vegan proteins muscles by Brussels Radio. If you are interested in any kind of coaching, whether that’s lifestyle coaching or bodybuilding coaching, you can

find us@veganproteins.com dot. We have an application on there. You can hit the contact button. You can just email us coacheganproteins.com. feel free to follow Alice on Instagram. It’s veganproteinsalis. Pretty easy to find there. And yeah. Let us know if you have any questions. We love getting requests for the podcast. So once again, my name is Dani. I’m Alice, and we will talk to you soon.