Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto, savage.com. And in today's episode I'm going to be going over the overview of the world's competition, which is the competition I just finished and it is the last of the five competitions I've competed in this season. I'm going to do a little overview of the competition itself, talk about the peak week, talk about the nutrition, talk about the the show itself, talk about the judges, the posing, all that good stuff.
Just kind of give you an overview of what this show was like and also talk about the celebratory meal post show and what that's like from a psychological standpoint and a physiological standpoint and kind of how I do things differently with this ketogenic approach. But before we dive into that, let's roll the intro. OK, so we are live. This is an overview of Worlds, so Worlds is the largest competition in the Debut NBF Federation. This is pretty much the Super
Bowl of natural bodybuilding. The Debut NBF is the most prestigious of the natural bodybuilding federations, and this is the behemoth of that federation. There were literally 54 countries represented at this competition specifically, so pretty big deal. Before we dive into the competition itself, do I want to talk a little bit about peak week? So when it comes to this week's peak week, we basically, let's
talk about travel first. So we drove to Dallas from Arkansas. We had a direct flight from Dallas to Seattle, and we had all of our camera gear with us. It was just a little bit of chaos there. But we got to Seattle on Tuesday and then we get checked into our Airbnb, get all situated, settled in, and get ready to rumble for the week. I had my media guide Chip and good friend Greg. They flew in on Thursday, so we started creating content with them at that point.
When it comes to this peak week specifically, I did opt to increase my intake with the extra pound of ground lamb and 30 grams of ghee. There was not any duck fat at the Whole Foods that we went to. So I was using ghee for a fat source and I had that extra pound of lamb and 30 grams of ghee each day this week apart from the refeed day in addition to the normal macros that I've been consuming, you know, throughout this prep as it pertains to, you know, this
point in the prep. So the whole point there was that I started incorporating that extra pound of lamb on Monday instead of later in the week because I wanted to ensure that I would fill out properly and peek for this show. Because there were going to be some bigger guys on stage and I wanted to make sure that I was fully filled out and looking like I should and peeking properly. So that was the the manipulation from a nutritional standpoint
there. On Friday, I had the traditional ketogenic caloric refeed pizza made with almond flour topped with lamb every single day had a Bell's Brown Aikido brick so had that dialed in as well. So the nutrition was pretty good from an electrolyte standpoint. I was holding my sodium constant at about 11,500 milligrams of sodium throughout the entire
week. So that's what we've got going on from a electrolyte standpoint, potassium probably about half that and I can, I stayed consistent about two hundred 225 ounces of water throughout the peak week with the training. I basically maintain training throughout the entire week except for the day before the show. This show, since it is a pro show, took place on Sunday instead of Saturday.
So my training was dialed in and I was training pretty much the traditional, you know, full body split that I've been doing.
This whole prep going pretty heavy honestly, up until about Friday, started to reduce the intensity a little bit on Friday. And then on Saturday all I did was 20 minutes at level 12 on the Stairmaster and kind of like a light pumping circuit with full body just to push all of the nutrients from that refeed meal on Friday into the tissue and make sure that I was filled out properly.
I was posing every single day, practicing my posing, getting that dialed in. This week, I was holding each pose for 60 seconds so everything was just totally crisp. Like my posing is on point.
I've been really putting in the work with the posing throughout this entire prep, so and that's pretty much what I had going on from a posing standpoint every single day this week, 62nd holds, I've been increasing that incrementally every week from, I don't know, I probably started like 15 second holds and I'm up to about 62nd holds. So that's what we had going on from a peak week travel, nutrition training and cardio
and posing standpoint. Again, this was a massive show so I didn't really know what to expect. This was my first time ever even attending Worlds, much less competing in it had gone pro at the Washington show earlier in October. I had my pro debut at the Boston MA show two weeks prior, and then I went to Worlds for this weekend show. I had no idea what the competitor class was going to look like, and let me tell you,
it was incredibly stacked. There were 16 competitors in my lightweight class alone, to give you an idea that, which is by far the biggest class I've ever competed in. And oftentimes when you compete in the class, you know, you get your lightweight, middle weight, heavyweight classes. There's going to be a couple competitors that just aren't conditioned, aren't, you know, lean like they should be. They haven't got their posing figured out. They just aren't really ready for the show.
That was not the case here. Everybody was professional. I was competing against professionals, everybody was 1000% dialed in. So it was a totally different caliber competitor, but I look like I belonged up there. I was dialed in as well, so I have no regrets from that standpoint. I woke up on the morning of the show at a weight of 152.3 lbs, which interestingly enough is the lightest I've ever competed. At my very first show in 2012, I
weighed 153 lbs. So if you stop and think about it, I was less weight than I was 12 years or in 2012 on the bodybuilding show Dame. But I'm much bigger and more developed, so I've got a lot more lean tissue now. But I was just so much leaner at this competition than I was at my first show that I came in at that lighter weight of 152.3,
which again is just crazy. My first show of this season, I think I competed at 1:59, so I've continued to drop quite a bit of weight and lean out even further for you know these these next shows. But yeah, it's just kind of crazy that I got down that low in the 1st place. I didn't anticipate getting that low at the onset of the prep, but I'm pretty wild when you're that lean, how low your body fat go or how low your body weight goes as a natural competitor.
So I woke up that more like I said at 152.3, did a quick little physique, check everything was 100% peaking properly. I had vascularity like crazy. I was seeing veins in places I've never seen before. So I feel really good about how I had gone into the peak week to really get everything optimized from an electrolyte standpoint, from a nutrition standpoint, from a training standpoint, I
wasn't holding any excess fluid. Everything was perfectly in place, as it should be, and all the factors that I had control over were accounted for. The morning of the show, what I've been doing is just simply having a fatty coffee. So I had that. That morning I had two cups of coffee. In the total canister of coffee There was 6 tablespoons of heavy cream, 4 tablespoons of a nut pods Creamer and one tablespoon of butter. So that's what I had from a nutrition standpoint in my
coffee. I had one keto brick at about 8:30 in the morning and then I when I got my touch up I got a second coat of tan, basically the tan. The color look great. I got my first coat the day prior. They put a coat on there and then I got my second coat the day of the show, the morning of and the color looked perfect. The last show, the Boston show, they got me a little too dark and that washed out my
definition. So I was a little worried about that happening, but that was not the case with this one. The color was on point when it comes to the backstage area at Worlds. Everything was super crap. There were so many competitors there and it was a very crowded room. They were doing the tanning and they had the competitor backstage area in the same spot. So they had, you know, a wall set up for tanning. And then all the competitors were just kind of milling about
in that same room. So everybody had their blankets down. Everybody was snacking on the rice cakes and peanut butter and Jelly. There was literally one guy that was, you know, sipping out of a container of syrup like Aunt Jemima syrup. He was just down in that drinking it, basically. It's crazy what people do during peak week and show day to fill out, to manipulate electrolytes, to cut water, carb load, things
of that nature. So definitely very different from what I'm doing from a ketogenic prep standpoint. But again, that's what they were doing. I had my one keto brick right there at about 8:30 when I was getting my first or second coat rather of tan.
After that I had a second keto brick about two hours later or so and we started pumping up. So that's when they took us into a separate room for pumping up, which is basically just to force some more blood into tissue people will use like resistance bands, push ups, some light dumbbells, things of that nature. And that room was also incredibly crowded. It was like standing room only you couldn't even do push ups. So I kind of went out in the
hallway, did some work there. I brought a little space heater with me to keep warm. It's usually pretty cold backstage, so I brought a little space heater to keep warm and keep the the Vascularity flowing. So that's what I I was doing. I had some bands with me, it pumped up and then we all went out on stage. There was again 16 competitors in my class and everybody brought their a game. And what was interesting is because there were so many competitors, the judges decided
to randomly break up the lineup. So they had the the competitor group more or less cut in half and then they had the first half going through other poses while the second-half stayed not backstage but behind that first group. And we just held our our relaxed pose that entire time. Which I honestly think was pretty unfortunate because I was
randomly in that second group. Which means that for the longest I was just sitting back there in this front relaxed pose, not going through the actual poses, but just holding that relaxed pose, which, if you've ever done a bodybuilding show, is not a truly relaxed pose. You are still flexing everything. So I was doing that the entire time until they called me up, obviously. But they were, since there's so many competitors, then they
broke us up like them. It's like they almost gave more attention and time to that first group. And then when they did call me up, I went through all my poses. Everything was looking great. My posing was dialed in. That was composed. I wasn't fatigued, I was filled out. So the vascularity was there. Everything was good. But they had already spent so much time on that first group that I don't feel like I really got as much stage time in front of the judges as I would have
liked. But it just kind of is what it is when it comes to, you know, a class that big. So kind of unfortunate in that regard. But again, what I I have no control over that. So I did what I could and I brought my best package, which is all anybody could do. Yeah, so that's what we had going on there from how they broke up the the large class for
the judges. Now the way they do worlds is you have the different weight classes in which I was a lightweight and the lightweight class goes from 150 lbs up to 165 lbs. So I was definitely on the
lighter end of my weight class. Everybody in my weight class that outsized me and then obviously everybody that was in the middle weight and heavyweight class and certainly outsize me. But when it comes to the individual classes, they only award the top five competitors and only the top five competitors get to showcase their individual choreographed routine. And I was not in the top five with this show, ladies and
gentlemen. I was not in the top five, which is unfortunate, but it is what it is there too. I mean, you never know what the judges are looking for. This is a subjective sport, as I've said multiple times, and I likely was counted off for not simply having enough size. I mean, I'm never going to be the biggest guy on stage, so I can just focus on being the leanest, which I feel like I
certainly accomplished. But you know, again, the judges, depending on what they're looking for, that it is what it is. So I did not have the, I do not have the knowledge of knowing what my actual placing is because they only award the placing for the top five. So I did not get to do my routine. I did not get to battle it out for the overall in this
competition. Everybody that was on stage looked amazing and I was honored and proud to step on stage with them, but just was not in my cards for me to take away a trophy with this competition. So I don't actually know what my placing is or was because they only again award the top five their their placements. So I I think I would probably be in the middle of that line up more or less.
That's kind of what I would gauge based off of the size that people were bringing, the the condition that people bring. I would probably be in the middle of that class of 16 from a judging standpoint. There were I believe 8 or 12 competitors in the middle weight class and 10 competitors in the heavyweight class and the winner of the heavyweight class was actually the winner of the overall. So they were definitely again looking for, you know, total package obviously, but size for sure.
It was rewarded at this competition And interestingly enough, the gentleman that won the heavyweight class and the overall title, Brian is his name. He was the one that competed with me in Boston and won that overall title as well. And he's got I think 40 lbs. And I was talking to him backstage at Boston and he's 192
lbs at that show. I don't know what his weight was at this world's competition, but he's got 40 lbs on me, so a much bigger guy than me. He also looked great and I'm super happy for him, super excited for him, super proud of him man. So Congrats to Brian there I was at the end of the day, just incredibly honored to step on stage with all these guys. They, like I've said multiple times, they all are professional athletes. They all have their posing dialed in.
Their conditioning is on point. They have shot size, they have shape, they have symmetry, they have proportion, they have, they have everything, they have the full package. So to be able to step on stage with such an elite class of competitors from people literally all over the world was an honor in and of itself. And I was blessed to be able to grace the stage with these other competitors. They had a judge's feedback time allocated after the competition
at about. It was like several hours after the competition. Basically they they ran the whole competition the the judges came back to the host hotel to give feedback. However, they were running quite a bit later than anticipated because the show ran longer than anybody expected because there were so many competitors. So we at there when they were supposed to arrive at 6:00 PM and they had not yet come at 7:00 PM, so we had dinner
reservations made. And unfortunately I did not get to get the feedback from the judges, which is very unfortunate. But at the same time, I have gotten feedback from all the judges at the prior shows. I'm assuming they were going to say something similar because many of them were the same judges. So I don't feel like I missed out too much there.
And because I was not in the top five, they likely weren't going to give me much specific feedback because they weren't looking at me the majority of the time. Once they'd kind of narrowed that down South, I I did talk to somebody who did talk to the judges and what they told me was them. They had more or less had me pegged in the middle of the the line up. So I was probably somewhere in the 8th or 9th place if I had to
guess. And then obviously the feedback was just Simply put on more size. So I need to put on more size from a judging standpoint to be more competitive at this elite level. So there is that, which I fully intune to do when it comes to what I have control over. Obviously I'm going to build more in this offseason coming up, but from a competition prep standpoint for this specific competition season, I feel incredibly good about everything that I did going into it.
I brought my best level of conditioning hands down, no questions asked. I brought my best posing hands down, no questions asked. The nutrition was on point. I did not deviate once from a macronutrient targets, did not deviate once for my training or my posing or my cardio. I mean, I'd literally put in the work every single day without fail for 33 weeks. I lost 30 lbs in the process, went from 15% body fat down to three something.
So with all the factors that I personally had control over, you know, again, I can't control who come competes. I can't control who other who, what other competitors show up. I can't control the judges. I mean they they've got their own subjective desires and what they're wanting to see in a competitor. I can't control those things, but the things that I can and should control I controlled to the best of my ability and I have no regrets.
Nothing to hold my head down to Bound and I feel very good about the package that I brought to the stage. At the end of the day with bodybuilding, the goal should always be to just simply look better than you have at prior competitions. Every time you step on stage should be better than the the time prior. And I feel like that has certainly been the case with this season. Certainly when you look back at prior competition seasons, I mean, I got leaner than I've
ever gotten before. My whole goal with this was to be the leanest man alive and I feel like I'm pretty competitive in that regard. Like my my body fat is lower than it's ever been, lower than anybody I know is. So I feel pretty good about the goal of being the leanest man alive, and I'm going to get some updated DEXA data to Y'all soon so we can get some tangible markers on that. But when it comes to the competitions, I did everything
that I could. I feel very good about everything that went into it. I feel like I've dialed in this prep protocol. I feel like the peaking went perfectly and I was really just happy with the outcome through its entirety. Like I have never had this level of just peace with the competition prep. Like, I felt great throughout the whole thing. I was able to maintain all my responsibilities as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a husband, as a
friend, as a employer. Like I I didn't let anything slip as I went through these 33 weeks of prep. And I feel like that in and of itself is a tremendous accomplishment. So I feel good about that. I never got really crazy, irritable or depressed or just zombie status, which you see a lot of competitors do. So this was a very sustainable prep for me in that regard and I I appreciate that fact. My hormones have definitely become down regulated as a result of the low body fat and
low intake. So I'm going to be working on bringing that back up to a more healthy sustainable level post show. But this is literally been the most successful competition prep I've ever taken part in without question. So again, at the end of the day, there's nothing that I could have would have or should have done differently from what I've done.
I feel like I've proved that this ketogenic prep protocol certainly works from a bodybuilding standpoint, from a conditioning standpoint, from a sustainability and health standpoint. So I feel very, very good about that as well. So yeah, I'm at peace with the judges feedback. I mean, I need to put on more size for sure, which I will. But you know, considering my age, this is this bodybuilding, natural bodybuilding specifically. It's like an old man's sport.
Like a lot of these top level athletes are older because they've had more time to put on, more muscle over time, and you can do that with natural bodybuilding. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to put on more size and I'm going to come back bigger and better than ever before the next time I step on stage. So I feel really good about the outcome of this in its entirety. When it comes to the post show celebratory meal, let's talk
about that. So after we realized the judges were not going to be getting there anytime soon, we went ahead and headed to our Brazilian steakhouse. Novios was the name of it. And I took my wife and son, I took my meaty guy, Chip and I took Greg out to eat, and we had an amazing meal of all you can eat meat from all different cuts of meat. We had pork, we had beef, we had lamb, we had chicken. And it was all incredibly
delicious there. You'll probably all eat in a Brazilian steakhouse before, but basically the way it works is there's a salad barn. You can pretty much pick whatever you want from that, of which I did not really get anything other than one deviled egg or two deviled eggs, a couple pieces of cheese and a couple pieces of salami. And then you sit at your table and they bring out these skewers of meat and they just cut them off for you.
And they'll keep keep them coming until you tell them to stop, basically. So I enjoyed all different kinds of meat, and that was the entirety of my celebratory meal. Most competitors after a show will go out and they will eat just crazy amounts of food that are all coming from sources that they have not had during the prep. So lots of sweets, lots of sugars, lots of carbs, lots of fats, lots of lots of everything. And it's oftentimes not healthy foods.
It's it's pretty typical for people to just binge on desserts post show. And I certainly don't want to participate in that because for one, from a physiological standpoint, your body just has not had those foods for so long and then you just overload it with them and then it's going to respond poorly. You're going to see a massive spike in blood sugar and you're going to feel terrible. You're going to have some incredible GI distress.
And it's just not good from a psychological standpoint. People often times, well, they'll gain a lot of weight afterwards because the fluid retention, they'll step on the scale the next day and then it'll shock them at how much more they weigh and then often times they'll start binging and purging. It's just not good. That's what happened to me my first competition and I did not ever want to resort back to that again.
I don't think that would be the case with these competitors because these are professional athletes. So hopefully they have done this a time or two and know that that's not optimal. But again, they probably all went out to eat and had a bunch of food that they would not have benefited from in an optimal, ideal situation. I did not do that. I stuck with the foods that I know that I I know my body responds well to, which is
quality meats. And I took a blood sugar and blood ketone test before that meal, and after that meal everything stayed totally stable. So that was good. I did not track the macros myself, but out of curiosity I had Greg bring a food scale and he was just simply tracking the weight of the total food that I'd consumed because I was curious to see what that would be and I wanted to be objective as how I felt and not really
worry about that. So I had him track it and I just simply ate and I ate 3 lbs of meat, ladies and gentlemen. So I had two bricks that day going into the show to fill out properly and peak. And then I had 3 lbs of meat post show and no crazy deviations in blood sugar ketone, which was pretty impressive and I honestly felt totally fine. I felt pretty full. By the end of 3 lbs of meat I felt full, but I felt like I could recognize that sense of satiety.
A lot of people they their their leptin is all screwed up at this point. Their their ghrelin is all screwed up. They have no touch of reality with with regards to what their true satiety signals are. And that was not the case for me. I ate 3 lbs of meat and I felt full, but I I felt like I was. I had a good pulse on that the whole time. Like I knew when my body had had enough.
So that was that. And then I came home to the back to the Airbnb rather and Crystal had prepared for me a ketogenic brownie which she made with half of a keto brick. She put 2 tablespoons of almond flour in there, 2 eggs and a little bit of baking powder to cause it to rise. And then we topped it with two tablespoons of peanut butter and that was pretty much it. A little bit of a mascarpone
cheese. And those are all foods that I've had throughout this prep as well, so I knew my body would respond fine to it, which it did. There was no crazy deviation in blood sugar or ketones after that, and I went to bed full satisfied and totally content with the foods that consumed. And I woke up the next morning at a whopping increase in weight of 153.1.
So I literally did not even gain an entire pound overnight, which I I feel very confident saying No other competitor can probably say that because they're all going to have a ton of fluid retention as a result of the increase in carbohydrates. So I woke up 1 LB heavier after eating 3 lbs of meat and that brownie. I think we roughly calculated the calorie intake of that entire day and it was north of
7000 calories. So pretty significant increase in food, but all quality foods, all foods that I don't have to feel guilty about eating and all foods that I know my body responds well to. So I basically was able to eat that and not have any guilt associated with it. And then just hit the ground running the next day feeling totally fine, totally normal, totally satisfied and get right
back on track. Tracking my intake for going into this reverse diet, which I'm now in the middle of or not the middle of, but I've just started. So I'll be strategically reverse dieting up from there and everything will be tracked and accounted for. And I'll have a plan and a protocol with that as well to ensure that my body returns to a healthy hormonal state, metabolic state and all is well post show and post deficit.
So very, very important to have a plan with reverse dieting and I'll do a whole podcast on that in detail and I'll be documenting my reverse diet in detail just as I have the With This prep going forward as well because that is a topic that is often times misunderstood and not talked about enough. I'm actually recording this podcast the Monday after that competition, so this is all fresh content.
I woke up this morning at that 153.1 and today my main goal was to simply spend some time relaxing with Crystal and my son Rigel and just simply be present in the moment. The day after the show and we did just that. We spent the day today relaxing and we actually had a hot tub at the Airbnb, so we finished out the day with us sometime in the hot tub. We went training at a local gym here and brought Rigel with us and we just had a great workout.
I would do a set and then Crystal would do a set and I would hold Rigel while she was doing her set and we would swap back and forth. We trained hard, we trained heavy how we fully enjoyed it and it was just great to disconnect for a little bit and have just the three of us and train and enjoy each other's company and enjoy the hot tub and then just relax a little bit after that competitive season and that competitive grind and the world's competition.
So today has been a great day. I've been hitting all of my target macros for the reverse diet starts today and have not felt deprived, pleaded or any issues whatsoever. So today's been a great day ladies and gentlemen. This entire prep has been a great experience, a great prep and I'm just excited and incredibly grateful for all that has transpired over the past 30-3 weeks. There is a lot coming in the pipeline that I'm also very excited about. The reverse diet being one.
Lots of stuff with the business, lots of stuff with the bodybuilding endeavors from a building standpoint, the reverse diets, the content I'm creating around that, this competition prep is going to be, we're building an online course that documents how to do a competition prep like this in incredible detail. So anybody that's interested can do it as well. And I'm going to be working on that with all the content that we've captured from this competition prep. So lots of exciting things.
We've got Thanksgiving this week, I'm going to go see my family spend some quality time with my loved ones and it's just going to be great. There's a lot of a lot of good things in the near future and I have nothing, nothing but positivity thing, positivity coming my way. So I feel very grateful. I feel very blessed and I'm just incredibly appreciative of all y'all support. This podcast, like I said is going to be just a has has been just an overview of this last show, this world show.
We are still traveling right now so I'm recording in the Airbnb. The audio quality is not great. We've all kind of lost our voice this week, so my voice is not that great. I'm exhausted right now, so my apologies there, but hopefully this little recap of the show itself has been a value to you. I'm probably going to do an entire competition, season wins and losses, Part 2 for the pro show specifically, so I may or may not make that into another solo podcast at some point.
Honestly, I think would be a great podcast, just simply talking with Crystal about what her perspective has been like with me alongside me going through these past 33 weeks. So we've got that in the pipeline as well. But again, I appreciate y'all dealing with these shorter episodes here lately with all of our travel schedule and chaos
with these competitions. We will resume the normal featured guest style podcast as soon as I get back in town and settled back down from these competitions. But I do appreciate y'all holding in there with me until that point comes. So again, thank you all for tuning in. Thank you all for listening and we will talk to you next time.