Lift Free And Diet Hard with Andrew Coates #374 Ava Cowan - Lessons and Risk of Fitness Competition Dieting
Jun 19, 2025
Ava Cowan, a Pro Figure Champion and Coach with over 20 magazine covers, offers a candid look into the world of fitness competition dieting. She discusses the dangers of extreme diets, highlighting health risks and red flags to watch for. Ava emphasizes the importance of guardrails for sustainable fat loss and shares valuable lessons from her own competitive journey. The conversation also touches on the psychological challenges of competition dieting, calorie tracking errors, and the necessity of maintaining a balanced approach to nutrition.
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Risk of Continuous Deficit Dieting
- Fitness competition diets become dangerous when there's continuous deficit focus without off-season recovery.
- Prioritize health before repeated competitions to avoid harm to the body and mind.
Metabolic Impact of Dieting
- Calorie deficits impact metabolism, thyroid, sleep, and sex hormones negatively.
- Prolonged dieting diminishes metabolic capacity, making fat loss increasingly difficult.
Red Flags: Refusing Calorie Increase
- Watch for resistance to increasing calories after dieting as a red flag of unhealthy behavior.
- Refer clients out if they refuse to exit the deficit or accept normal body fat increases.
