this was taken last year I was probably eating 1800 cals per day. I don't think I lost any muscle

If you had any to begin with, then surely you lost it all. I see no appreciable muscle in that photo.
It was admitted in a thread that the "principles" were all a joke. How it was missed by so many is beyond me. Perhaps it was because it was posted on a low traffic forum.
Regardless, all one has to do is look through Adonis' posts to see the type of diet he actually follows.
The joke isn't that bodybuilders are dumb and think they need to eat shitty tasting food to get lean. The joke has always been that people are so urged to follow something that they'll latch on to even the most absurd idea.
Case in point: the "principles."