Stephan du Toit Nutrition

When you start cherry-picking 👉🏻
• You break the causality chain. If results are mediocre, you can’t tell whether the original plan was flawed or if your “improvements” ruined it.
• You erode trust on both sides. The coach can’t coach effectively if the athlete is half-in.
• Cognitive dissonance creeps in. Every minor plateau becomes “maybe I should try what my buddy’s coach does…” instead of doubling down or communicating with your coach.
This isn’t just bodybuilding—it’s true in any high-stakes skill domain with long feedback loops (powerlifting, marathon training, even business ex*****on under a mentor).

I’m not saying blindly trust your coach, I’m saying soend time looking at the results over a long period of time and track record before you choose. And ask questions for clarity, but do NOT disregard or change your plans yourself. I’ve never had a successful client who did this. Often it’s pretty embarrassing for both me and that client because neither of us want to use that half-baked peak as an example of what we are capable of. Just speak up, you’ll never regret asking but you will regret the show photos online where you look like a ball of fudge.

Another transformation - this time not the usual “how do I get smaller” type. Sheva wanted to add a lot of muscle to her lower body for her division.

We strategically took cycles of a few months off upper body training to give her a better chance of growing legs rapidly, and also to maintain the upper body without growing it too much. Periodisation is important to make “gains” faster in strategic ways.

Transformations come in various forms- losing a lot of bodyfat is almost the easier type, whilst gaining a lot of muscle mass is a much more time reliant one.

So patience and doing the same things relentlessly (eating - sleeping - training ) all the time and not just for a quick 16 weeks… is something that requires a lot of perseverance and pushing through boredom and pain

You really have to make it a routine and not rely on external validation because you won’t get through a building cycle if you need to hear “good job” every week. It’s an internally focused process of getting it done without someone clapping for you often

As requested, I’ll do a few more before and afters.

For talented athletes, the word “potential” is often thrown around. But potential without action, means never reaching what you are capable of. Never putting your talents to good use. I almost can’t think of a worse tragedy. Even the Bible has a parable about being given a hand full of golden coins. Some people with one coin will go make that into two coins and some will bury their hand full of coins. It gets taken from them and given to the less talented ones who took action…

This exact scenario happens very often in our sport.

You have control over realising this often despised word, “potential”. Find those people around you that will help you turn your potential into action

Chené changed this much in ONE season, because she took her potential seriously.

The mad thing is, once that stone gets rolling, when potential turns kinetic… it will almost certainly not be stopped.

Ready to turn your silver medal into a ProCard ? Talk to us.

Andrew and I have been working together since the end of November. In that time he’s lost over 40 kilos, and built a solid amount of muscle too!

When we had a gap in our video chats for a while when he was doing major renovations on his house in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿- I had a shock at how much his face changed when we resumed video chats a couple weeks later.

What’s fun about working with Andrew is that he is an ex-chef, so how he interprets his meal plan daily is so delicious- he’s had exactly TWO plans from November till July, but he prides himself in his creativity to make good food for the whole family out of the meal options I gave him .

Structure and discipline with a little bit of freedom in interpretation, along with occasional treat, to me, is simply the quickest way to get to your goals. He snapped that very quickly, and the results are undeniable - great work

First NPC Fitmodel show for Kara, with class wins in Novice and Open and an Overall win 🥇🥇🏆

Her attention to detail is impeccable and she’s got a very high standard.

Apart from that, for a mother of two, a business owner and an athlete in her 40s, I find this to be very inspiring.

It gives you a sense of possibility - she shows you that it can be done, if you put your all in, like she does

For the ladies still sleeping on fitmodel, I’ve been saying, all it will take is a few aspirational women to step into this division and it will blow up, it’s already happening in the USA when Ashleigh and I was there, with some bikini PROs choosing to do fitmodel instead. The class is small in South Africa - but at New York and Pittsburg it was so packed with some of the most talented women you can imagine.

If you’re not a densely muscled Bikini athlete yet, I suggest you chat to Candice Giselle Whitehead and give Fitmodel a go even if your future dreams are in bikini -

The stage suits are more affordable, the conditioning is for many girls (who have a bit more muscle) will be maintainable too, Kara literally walks around like this permanently (I had to even over feed her at some points)

It’s a gorgeous look, it’s not “skinny bikini” like some other coaches and athletes say.

I hope it takes off big time and to coach many girls in this division

20 highlights from visiting 📍New York.

It’s a little crazy to believe that the ‘Night of the Champions’ that I followed each year in the magazines in the late 90’s, I’m now attending, and not as a spectator! What?

This was my first Pro show in the United States and although it’s always a whirlwind in peak week, we got to collect some memories for a life time.

I’m genuinely excited to share this with more and more of my amazing clients and help them realise their dreams.

These trips take a lot out of all of us, but give so much back at the same time too.

Already working on the next one 💪🏼

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