@ Ashley, Yes ,Paleohacks is a tough crowd for anything out of the "Paleo" ordinary. It is as tight assed/closed minded as any Amish web site would be (if any even exist :)). I would look at a Kruse's Ketogenic+ cold thermogenisis approach. It has been very useful for me and I am making almost no effort to cut.I've been a personal trainer for twenty seven years and a Physical Culture "guy" since 1969.(With absolutely no genetics for it I might add!) It takes my breath away how easy and effective Kruse's "wacky" plan is....................Edit: I'm rethinking my "no genetics" comment. I'm beginning to seriously consider the theory that I was just overwhelmingly warm adapted. Right now I have no idea what my "genetic potential "is. I always thought I was just an enthusiastic pencil neck/triathlete. At 56 years old, I am suspending all opinions about the past, present and future.

The link I've provided gives an example paleo meal plan for getting stage ready. I hope this helps. It looks brutal though so good luck.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/female-transformation-danielle-reutter.htm

I am an avid IFer, mostly leangains style, but the occasional 24-40 hour fast is a good way to increase weight loss. Emphasis on occasional. I combine that with low carb when I am cutting. Also, a really good trick is to be in contest shape a few weeks before your goal and then spend a couple weeks doing a clean bulk. This will make sure your muscles don't look weak and deflated from weeks of dieting and will give your skin the "shrink wrapped" over the muscles look

You are looking to sculpt your body to the shape you want. That's the purpose of bodybuilding. Paleo's purpose is to gain/maintain health. Unfortunately competitive bodybuilding and health have very little in common. This site is probably not what you are looking for.

I wish you luck! I don't yet have any experience competing, but I do have aspirations. I can only share what I've learned since becoming interested in physical culture. (Also, I can direct you to http://suppversity.blogspot.com where you can look up the journey of Adelfo Cerame, a wheelchair bodybuilder who takes a real and whole food approach with fantastic results.)

I would strongly suggest you suggest you continue a daily eating window, a la Leangains. Just to reiterate, do the typical Leangains stuff, BCAA pre/intra workout, and some whey/carbs after. As a side note, a blend of milk proteins is actually better...and more natural. Go figure. A great post-workout, in my opinion, is bananas,honey,whole milk (if tolerated) with whey.

Dietary Considerations

There is the typical cyclical dietary approach. Focus carb consumption around workouts, which makes your non-workout days basically low carb. It is practically impossible to put on fat with carbs post-workout, so eat enough to refill your glycogen stores. Also, don't be afraid of some simple sugars from fruit. The fructose alarmism is mostly faulty, and fructose can actually improve blood sugar in reasonable amounts. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18996880) Usually look at around 100-150g of carbs on workout days, and maybe 50-100g on non-workout days.

Also, I think its possible to over-do it on protein, despite the general attitude in physical culture. 1.5-2 g/kg should be more than enough. If your body is deriving glucose from protein, it generally thinks something funky is going on, make sure it has enough fat and carbs to turn to.

I would also recommend starting your cut as far away from the competition as you can manage it. 16-20 weeks would be ideal. If you take the dieting slow, and keep up with IF, you can avoid most of the severe dieting funk accompanying typical bodybuilder approaches. Prof Doc Andro of Suppversity recommends not cutting more than 20% of daily calories. This will give you fantastic retention of lean mass, while slowly burning off the extra fat and still feeling great.

You're paleo, so I don't have to say this, but eat real whole food. The less stuff your supplementing, the healthier and better you will feel throughout this.

Exercise Considerations

Avoid over-training like the plague. Because for a bodybuilder, it is the plague, especially while dieting. I think one of the best indications of whether you are training too much is how you feel post-workout. If you get cold, start yawning and get tired, you are in the overtraining zone. If you dread going workout and your body doesn't want to get moving, you are probably overtrained. It is much better to undertrain than to overtrain.

Add in a high-intensity interval training(HIIT) session or two. This would be something like 5-7 full effort 30s sprints with 60-90s walking rest in between. Does great things for insulin sensitivity, and even increases satellite cell proliferation, which primes your muscles for future growth.

Experiment with a heavy lifting protocol while dieting. It seems to be the case for most people that lifting heavy (a la 5x5 routine) will retain mass better than a high volume/highly damaging hypertrophy plan. A calorie deficit is a recovery deficit, so be mindful of that.

Prof Doc Andro at Suppversity has a ton of fantastic information, and hes in the middle of doing a step-by-step guide to workouts. Check out what he has in the series so far, and read through some of the guest posts done by Adelfo Cerame. You can't go wrong there, I promise!

If you want references for some of the stuff above, I can get them for you. Just in a rush to post this answer before I have to go to work and didn't want to go study hunting :).

PS. I don't know what the hell is up with the negative responses. If you don't agree with the question, go away, don't answer! Paleo should not become a dogma guys. I'm sorry, but pull your heads out of your asses. Who cares what the hell is Paleo?

if you can manage the money, hiring a coach is the best option. Of all the available option, I believe John Meadows is most closely aligned with a paleo approach. 8 weeks is really rough even if you're already pretty lean. Don't most coaches advocate a much longer prep period?