So You Think You Can Be in Bikini Shape Year-Round?

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We’ve always thought it was funny when women told us that they can stay in bikini shape year-round and still make gains in their physiques. We would sit there and ask them, “So how exactly do you plan on doing this?” They always replied with, “Oh, just be strict on my diet, low calories, low carb it, lots of cardio, and stick to my high rep training to stay toned.” We kid you not, every answer was something along those lines. We didn't critique their responses because we knew that these were the type of women who wouldn't listen to a word that came out of our mouths and would just nod their pretty little faces and go on about their business in their Lululemon yoga pants. So we decided to do some research on this; ask some fellow experts in the field; use our real world practice, experience, and results from our female clients; and write this article. We want to inform you whether or not this is safe, smart, realistic, healthy, and then some. Are you ready to find out if you can stay in bikini shape year-round and still make progress on your body? Well, turn off the Snooki and JWow show and give us your undivided attention por favor.

Crashing your metabolism

Let’s start this off with crashing, or a better word would be “damaging,” your metabolism through excessive calorie restriction and excessive aerobic training volumes. What’s metabolic damage, you ask? It's when your metabolism is permitted from losing body fat unless you starve yourself. A common example of this is a bikini or figure competitor. She would be on an extremely low calorie diet, anywhere from 600–1,000 calories, and doing a high volume of cardio, anywhere from two to three hours a day and up to five to six times a week. Eventually, she would end up not being able to drop body fat. The reason why she can’t drop body fat is because her body adapts to the low calorie intake and the high calorie output so much to where she doesn't get any caloric burn from exercise. She also has very little thermogenic effect from foods and low basal metabolic rates. Her metabolism is so damaged that she doesn't have any type of metabolic capacity to work with and thus her metabolism crashes. When you’re in a severe caloric restriction and doing high volumes of aerobic training, which 99 percent of the time means you're trying to attain low body fat levels so that you can fit into that polka-dot bikini, you have to understand that maintaining this shape is very difficult, unhealthy, and, most of the time, unrealistic.

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Unless…

Enter reverse dieting

Notice how we said 'unless.' Well, what we meant by that is there are only three ways that you can realistically stay in bikini shape and still improve your physique.

1. You must be genetically gifted and have all the right things going for you.
2. You must have an ectomorphic body type with a greyhound type (very fast) metabolism
3. You must reverse diet...because we all aren’t genetic freaks and don’t have skyrocketing metabolisms.

Let’s focus on the last one—reverse dieting. You want to focus on improving your metabolic capacity so that you can handle a higher level of calories for gaining muscle mass without putting on excessive body fat. When you can fully maximize your metabolic capacity, this will play a key role in dropping body fat when you’re in a caloric restriction (i.e., dieting for that bikini). So what you want to do is restore your metabolism to a more suitable rate for your body. In order to do this, you must slowly, deliberately, and in a controlled fashion add in calories to your diet. This is called “reverse dieting.” Reverse dieting could possibly help lose body fat because your metabolism becomes stimulated. If you want to drop fat, you have to have the metabolic capacity to do so, and if you’re constantly maintaining your weight in bikini shape around 1,200 calories, you aren’t going to have the metabolic capacity to lose fat nor will you have the caloric intake to gain muscle mass.

Is it safe to be in bikini shape year-round?

Prolonged dieting and severe calorie restriction isn’t a very smart thing to do, and if you want us to be frank, it’s pretty damn stupid to attempt this just to fit into a sexy leopard bikini all year-round or hop on a red eye to Vegas any time of the year. We know this is a big deal for some of you ladies while for others it isn't. However, there are serious psychological and physiological health implications from doing this. Allow us...

• The high volume of training, the low energy intake (calories), and stress hormones produced by psychological stress may lead to a physiological alteration in the endocrinological control of the menstrual cycle (loss of periods).
• Low energy levels over a period of time can cause higher concentrations of growth hormone and cortisol and lower concentrations of leptin, insulin, and triiodothyronine. These are all hormones related to metabolism and thus to nutritional and metabolic status.
• Some female athletes have a classic eating disorder, potentially driven by a need to maintain a low body mass for performance (i.e., bikini body).
• You could potentially develop osteoporosis (thin and weak bones) from malnutrition and low energy intake.
• Your mental health state can become a real issue when it comes to relationships, social events, and work.

That sexy leopard bikini and Vegas trip can wait until summer.

Plumping up that booty

Now, we know you don’t want to have a flat booty in your sexy bikini year after year, right? So how do you expect to get your booty to improve if you’re constantly low calorie dieting with tons of cardio? The answer is you can’t. You will have a flat behind in your sexy bikini all the time, year after year, unless you do one of the three things we discussed in the earlier part of this article. You just can’t make improvements to your physique if you’re low calorie dieting all the time. You simply won’t have the calories or energy to build muscle or even train hard. On the contrary, if you have more calories in your diet, you’ll have more energy and strength, you’ll train harder, you’ll recover better, and you’ll make more gains in your physique, especially the booty.

Wrap up

As you can see, it was very hard to sit there and critique these pretty ladies' responses to staying bikini ready year-round in a quick conversation. Hopefully, we’ve informed you on why it just isn't safe and smart to try and stay bikini ready year-round. It may look cute and feel good, but the cons outweigh the pros, and we personally would never want to be complacent and look the same year after year.So unless you’re one of the rare and gifted ones out there, don’t think you can just stay in bikini shape all the time and still make improvements in your physique. Put in the work, señoritas! Special thanks to Layne Norton and Alan Aragon for their thoughts and comments on this subject. References:

1. Birch Karen (2005) Female Triad Athlete. BMJ.Accessed at:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC546077/.
2. Johannsen, et al (2012) Metabolic Slowing with Massive Weight Loss Despite Preservation of Fat-Free Mass. J Clin Endocrinol Metab.
3. Norton Layne (2012) Metabolic Damage. Accessed at:
   
   http://youtu.be/QHHzie6XRGk.
4. Sports and Women Athletes: The Female Triad Athlete (2004) Am Fam Physician. Accessed at: http://www.aafp.org/afp/2004/0401/p1734.html.
5. Wong, et al (2012) Caloric Restriction Induces Changes in Insulin and Body Weight Measurements That Are Inversely Associated with Subsequent Weight Regain. PLoS one.