I sought out help from Pete & Amy back in March 2016, after having a pretty horrible post-competition rebound experience with previous coaches in August 2015. Pete’s name was given to me by a highly respected individual in the field of nutrition whose work I had been following for years. One of the first things that stood out to me about Pete was that he responded very quickly and he answered every single one of my questions thoroughly, even sending along research articles to further explain things. I always thought the whole flexible dieting approach was too good to be true, which is why I didn’t follow it for my first competition – man, do I regret that!

I came to Pete, 20+ lbs heavier than my previous stage weight, exhausted, depressed, frustrated, and at my wits end because nothing I was doing seemed to be working anymore. Yet, I still expected to be able to compete in summer or fall of 2016. Right off the bat, Pete told me what I NEEDED to hear rather than what I wanted to hear. He told me that I was in no position to start a prep and that we would first need to take a significant amount of time reverse dieting and building my metabolism up before any plans of prepping for another show could be discussed. I’ll admit, I was pretty upset about this but he was 110% right.

So, Pete got me started on my first ever reverse diet which lasted from March-September 2016. At this point, I had built my calories up a significant amount (eating way more than ever before) and I was ready to start the prep process, which ended up looking so incredibly different from my first prep experience. Being able to choose what I ate (including things I was craving which I had previously deemed “bad” or “unclean”) and maintain my creativity in the kitchen was a HUGE game changer for me. I honestly didn’t even feel like I was dieting until we got much closer to show time.