Bodybuilding - WFF Pans 2025-09-20 Weight Loss

Overview

You’ve seen the competition photos — I posted them everywhere 👍. I’m proud of what I achieved. What you probably haven’t seen is where I started, and how long it took to build the physique in those photos.

It was definitely not a walk in the park.

Weight loss

You might be thinking — ah, easy, I could get into competition shape with training alone. Think again.

The photo above shows my physique at around 100kg, after consistent training over the previous three years — and with roughly two months of dieting already underway.

To get into true competition shape, you need to start paying close attention to your calorie intake on a day-to-day basis.

For non-competitors, daily tracking isn’t always necessary — but you do need to monitor your weekly intake and ensure you’re below, above, or at maintenance depending on your goal.

Maintenance Calories

Maintenance calories are the amount of energy you consume day in and day out without gaining or losing weight over time.

Daily fluctuations are normal — what matters is the long-term trend.

Muscle vs Fat Loss

The danger of aggressively restricting food intake is that it can lead to muscle loss. When calories are too low, the body may turn to muscle tissue for energy.

That’s terrible — not just because muscle makes you look good 😎, but because it allows you to move well and stay resilient. Without sufficient muscle mass, you become frail, and something as simple as a fall can lead to serious injury — think of the elderly.

There are only a few reliable ways to minimize muscle loss during a cut:

1. Resistance training (strength training).
2. Supporting hormone balance as best as possible through intelligent food choices.
3. High protein intake — quite high.
4. Probably others I don’t know about.

Coach

I didn’t do this alone. As mentioned in Bodybuilding - WFF Pans 2025-09-20, I had a support system.

Leanne Simays (my calorie counter and coach) is the best. She made this process significantly easier and gave me a plan I could follow to the letter, without overthinking every decision.

Results

These measurements were taken using calipers over my 40-week prep (yes, you read that right - 40 weeks) leading up to PANS 2025.

What this shows:

1. I started my journey around 105kg.
2. I stepped on stage at around 85kg (losing roughly 4kg in the final week).
3. The weight lost was almost exclusively fat — which is the gold standard (even better would have been gaining muscle simultaneously).
4. My muscle mass remained relatively consistent.