My experience after one year of training like a bodybuilder! 💪
I recently hit my 1-year coachversary with my bodybuilding coach, @alexarukstela!
Looking back, I’m struck by two things:
- how much small shifts add up over time
- how, even after all that time, the overall change can still look surprisingly subtle 😆
Last September, I was wrapping up an extended fat-loss phase after about a year of following Build with Becky, tracking macros, and eating in a slight deficit.
When I started working with Alexa, we flipped the goal.
At 40, I felt great, but I was curious what my body could do. I wanted to build muscle heading into perimenopause , learn more advanced training/nutrition strategies, and challenge some lingering ideas about aesthetics and who I was “allowed” to be.
So, we started a reverse diet: gradually increasing food while training hard, recovering well, and getting comfortable watching the scale go UP instead of down.
Over six months, we added 600+ calories/day and my carbs climbed above 300g/day (quite the plot twist for a former keto gal 😂). I got stronger, and my physique slowly shifted.
Then Justin and I moved across the world for 4.5 months. 🫠
The challenge became less “How perfectly can I execute this?” and more “How well can I keep showing up when life looks completely different?”
Training stayed consistent. Nutrition got more flexible. I learned what matters most when perfect tracking isn’t practical.
Now we’re home, food is climbing again, and I’ve got one more push to grow this season before we re-enter a fat loss phase to uncover what we’ve built!
A few takeaways:
Counter to what I feared, so far, training for a particular physique has actually made me less sticky to the scale. It’s very neat to see your underlying structure change as you build muscle. That said, building muscle naturally is incredibly hard and takes a very long time. Most of us could probably train harder than we think. And you are almost certainly stronger than you think you are.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned is to sit down and honestly ask myself:
Time will pass no matter what. So, when I’m on the other side of that time passing, what do I really want, and who do I want to become?
When progress takes months or years instead of days or weeks, enjoying the journey matters. Aligning your identity with your actions makes the process much easier and more enjoyable. Also, having a trusted and caring coach in your corner helps with accountability.
A lot can change in a year—inside and out—when you keep showing up, even when the day-to-day changes feel too small to notice.
Will I make it to the stage next spring? Stick around to find out! 👀