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Bodybuilding Program
Lesson 8-Diet
Diet: The Hardest Part of Bodybuilding by
Scott Jameson
I have often said the training is easy, the diet is hard. Why is that? I think by nature we prefer greasy, sweat junkie food over drained can of tuna or a broiled chicken breast. You know what I mean! Secondly, eating is not something you can just give up. You can live without smoking cigarettes but you cannot quit eating.
Eating right (dieting) is as important as training. If you have Intensity Trained as described in previous lesson, you need to feed the muscle the proper nutrients to rebuild size and strength back.
Muscles stay sore longer when we fail to feed them.
A few years ago, I did something really stupid. Funny thing is that I know better but thought I could get by. I had picked up a few extra pounds. I hadn’t competed in sometime and was unmotivated to stick to strict diet. I felt I had a fairly fast metabolism but as I have gotten older, the weight came anyway. I was probably 10 pounds over weight.
I started what I call the typical world diet. I was skipping meals, adding ephedra to my diet and was way down on what I ate. Well I lost weight alright but picture was not pretty. I continued to work out of course. I whipped off 10 lbs in no time…unfortunately it was mostly muscle. The body is funny. It will strip the muscle along the fat. Doesn’t make sense does it?
I took some time but eventually wised up and returned to the basics of bodybuilder’s diet.
Let me give you a quick disclaimer here. First I am not dietitian, so I will not be laying a exact intake program. Check with your doctor. Secondly, if I did lay out my diet, that which specifically works for me generally does not work for someone else. Lastly, yes there are fundamentals of eating that work for all bodybuilders. So let’s dig in here.
Most of these fundamentals are not new. I heard an old preacher say one time, “We really don’t need a new message, we just need to be reminded of the old one ”. Well ditto here.
Diet Fundamentals (non contest or off season):
- Food content should be high protein, medium carbohydrates and low fat. This is different than what the USDA recommends but hey look at the rolls of fat flopping around on the typical American. We need the protein to rebuild the muscle. A rule of thumb is that you need 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight. Do this and this will reorganize the carbs and fats.
- Eat often and smaller meals. As a kid I was told, don’t eat too close to a meal or you will ruin your dinner. So we abstained from eating then pigged out at dinner. This is backwards. You want to eat about 6 small meals a day. Actually, I would not call some of these meals but rather snacks. I frequently snack on nuts or a protein shake between meals.
- Eat Fresh foods before frozen, eat frozen before processed foods. We live in a world where food is loaded with preservatives, artificial coloring and is bleached, and stripped of its original nutritional value. Eating fresh peas over canned peas is a huge improvement.
- Eat fish, foul before you eat red meat. When eating red meat, find the leaner cuts. Pork gets a bad rap, but it is easy to trim the fat most pork. Pork tends to have the fat layered on the outside of the meat. On beef, the fat tends to marble through the meat. It is difficult to trim out. A juicy steak means a fat enriched steak. The fat on both beef and pork are saturated, the worst of fat.
- Broil, bake or grill. Avoid fried anything in saturated animal or hydrogenised fat. These are saturated and trans fats and are bad for your heart and circulation. Any fat that is solid at room temp is generally saturated.
- Even though we often eat too much, fats are an essential part of your diet. Be sure you eat right fats though. The best fats are unsaturated. Use olive, peanut and vegetable oils in that order. I love peanut butter. It’s sad how an excellent food can be trashed by processing. Peanut butter was originally, peanuts ground into paste. If you leave this natural peanut butter sit for a period of time, the peanut oil will separate to the top. Jif and Skippy, take natural peanut butter, strip off the good oil, put in hydrogenated fat then add loads of sugar and salt. They have the nerve to say “tastes more like fresh peanuts”. That’s crap. Nothing taste more like fresh peanuts that pure peanuts ground into butter. Thankfully you can now buy again natural peanut butter from Smucker’s. Keep in mind most of these have a good amount of salt. The best place is to go to a health food store and buy fresh ground peanut butter. It is delicious.
How do I stay on a diet year round? Stay balanced by adhering to a clean diet 90% of the time but occasionally let loose and enjoy the other stuff? No one meal will ruin you.
The Clean Period-Sunday evening to Friday noon
I stay strict on my diet, Sunday dinner through Friday noon. That means all these meals will be clean. By clean I mean no candy, cake, cookies or anything else that is remotely sweet. No fried foods, butter, margarine are allowed. A bit of oil may be used in some fish preparation. Meats are lean and vegetables are fresh. Limit your breads to mostly in morning. Any bread should be whole grain. Fast food is always a no-no with the exception of salad….and they are that great at these places. I can’t think of any snack food, potato chip or the like, that is good for you. Get rid of them. Show your discipline.
Protein shakes are a must along with protein bar snacks to boost your gram per pound of body weight. Milk is okay but skim. Nuts are great snack food.
Maximize protein and limit your carbs.
Generally meals prepared at a restaurant are prepared for taste, in quantities as if you haven’t eaten in weeks. Don’t go during the Clean Period!
The Loose Period-Friday Dinner to Sunday Lunch
Don’t think this is going to be a pig out time. But you can relax a bit. A meal prepared at restaurant is okay but order as if you were in your clean period. You’ll get more enough fat and sugar in these supposedly "good for you" meals. Bake potatos are to be eaten without butter or salt. I know many places will let you substitute steamed veggies in place of fries or a baked potato.
Order the grilled instead of fried. Watch that endless basket of bread that is borderline cake….it’s pure trash. Drink water. No soft drink is good for you.
All alcohol is catabolic, the opposite of anabolic. The reason being drunk is called intoxication is because alcohol poisons the body. That is why the word toxic appears in the word intoxication. Simple, don’t drink and body build.
Occasionally I will share a dessert with my wife. I know it adds a ton of calories with almost no nutritional value. This is a really letting loose but actually I can turn it to a positive. I feel guilty and that means tomorrow I will be watching my diet all the closer.
Once Sunday evening rolls around, I am back on the clean diet.
Keep in mind a contest diet is cleaner yet and there are no loose periods.
Again I must emphasize the diet is critical to building lean mass. In all my lessons, I have not told you any of this would be easy because it is not.
Bodybuilding is hardest sport I know requires so much to succeed. You can do as many have. Check out the inspiration pics of those that have.
"Sweat eventually hardens to Muscle"…. Scott
This article is property of Bodybuilding Program Zone and may not be reproduced without written permission from Scott Jameson. Besides it wouldn't be right....Scott
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