Bodybuilding Nutrition Basics

It is possible to train full-bore on squats, dead lifts and a few other great exercises, but if you are not adequately consuming the building materials your body requires, you can rest assured that you will not achieve the gains you desire.  If you can’t get the necessary combination of training, ordinary food and adequate rest to deliver good steady gains in muscle and might, you should not even think about taking any non-nutritional bodybuilding food supplement.

The studying of  practical and effective nutrition and training is not only great, but it is necessary.  However the purpose is to help you build a stronger and better developed physique, not just to educate you for the sake of doing so.  You should aim to apply the learning with every ounce of drive and desire that you possess.

Vitamin and mineral supplements, unless you find you are seriously deficient in something, cannot make an immediate impact on your training, other than the placebo effect in some cases. However, what they do if taken in the long term, is benefit your health which will then allow for an increase in training longevity.  A good potency and well-balanced vitamin and mineral formula taken all the time not only will benefit bodybuilders, but would benefit everyone.

However, when it involves bodybuilders, taking a multivitamin and mineral supplement may not always be enough.  There are micronutrients which are not available in supplement form, and it is therefore vital that you eat a well-balanced diet.  You must ensure that you consume daily green leafy vegetables, yellow/orange vegetables and fruit, and regularly eat seeds, such as, pumpkin and sunflower. It is also necessary that you eat a significant amount of raw food daily.

The basic bodybuilding supplement to experiment with, and one which is easily digested, is that of a good quality protein supplement. This is especially good when you are training hard.  If you are on a strict or tight budget, you can make your own protein drinks by adding skim milk powder (if you can digest it) to milk.

Be sure to watch out for weight-gain products.  They may provide a big boost of calories – some of which come through protein – but they can often be difficult to digest. It is even the case that some of these products overdo things and can then be more accurately described as “fat-gain” products.

It is always important to remember that no matter how nutritious anything is, if you can’t digest it easily and comfortably it is not going to do you any good. And this applies no matter how expensive or hyped up it may be.  It is always best to experiment with small purchases of any food supplement to test how well you are able to digest it. It is often the case that most people find skim milk powder stirred into fresh milk easier to digest that expensive protein powders.  The easiest protein supplement that most people find the best to digest is an increased quantity of fresh milk spread out over the day.

Bodybuilding Nutrition Principles – Stop Megadosing

The fifth of our bodybuilding nutrition principles encourages you to stop megadosing. It is a misconception amongst bodybuilders that nothing succeeds like excess.   Meaning that if something is good for you, then twice as much is even better, and that too much is never enough.  This is a motto which is prevalent in bodybuilding and strength training, and this is particularly the case when the subjects of protein and supplements are mentioned.

It is for this reason that bodybuilders and strength trainers tend to megadose on supplements and foods in the mistaken belief that the more they eat and take, the more muscle they will build.  However, nothing could be further removed form the truth.  You require a certain and specific amount of nutrients for muscle building based on your individual needs.  If you eat more than you need it will just turn into unsightly fat.  If you megadose on bodybuilding supplements, the extra will only be excreted or at worst, can be toxic to your body.

Later in this series we’ll look at this subject in more detail and provide guidelines to help you calculate exactly how much protein and other supplements you need to consume in order to build lean muscle.

Bodybuilding Nutrition Principles – Eat Frequent Meals

The fourth of our bodybuilding nutrition principles encourages you to eat frequent meals. If your aim is to achieve a superb shape and obtain maximum performance, then you should forgo the usual three square meals a day approach to your diet.  Athletes, including bodybuilders and strength trainers, need to fuel themselves throughout the day and that means frequent small meals and snacks every two or three hours.

There are numerous studies which have been carried out into the benefits of eating small, frequent meals and snacks.  It has been shown that thermogenesis, the production of  heat by the body as it digests and absorbs food, increases by eating multiple meals a day – four or more. During the process of thermogenesis, metabolism steps up and your body will process nutrients more efficiently.  Eating more frequent meals will also serve to improve fat burning, improve the body’s use of protein, preserve lean muscle and reduce the appetite.  A further advantage of eating multiple meals is in mental performance. By eating regular, timed meals they will help you to think and process information more effectively, and will aid in increasing your attention span and help to boost your mood.

The questions therefore to ask yourself are what should you eat and when is the best time to eat it? The best advice is to time your meals around your workout routine.  It has been proven that exercise and food intake work in concert to build lean muscle, and this is what you as an athlete and bodybuilder are aiming for.

Bodybuilding Nutrition Principles – Consume Enough Calories

The third of our bodybuilding nutrition principles encourages you to consume enough calories. To feel energized enough to complete your workout, you will be required to eat the right amount of calories.  A lack of calories will assuredly make you feel like a limp piece of lettuce by the end of your workout routine.

It is a proven fact that less than 1600 calories a day will not contain all the vitamins and minerals that you will require in order to maintain a healthy body, prevent disease and perform well in your chosen sport, or for that matter your daily living.  A very low calorie diet, continued for a period of two weeks, can have a very serious effect on your health.  They will not provide you with the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) of enough of the nutrients needed for good health.

The Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) were the national standard for the correct amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and vitamins and minerals that we need in our diets in order to maintain health and growth and to avoid certain deficiency diseases.  In recent years the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI), were set up to bring the RDAs up to date and are based of more functional criteria.  Under certain conditions, for example, stress, illness, malnutrition and exercise, we may require a higher intake of certain types of nutrients. Many studies have shown that athletes in particular need to increase their uptake of DRIs during these times.

Of course how much you need will depend on a number of factors including your age, sex, how hard you train and whether or not you train competitively or recreationally.  It is found that bodybuilders and strength trainers are required to eat more carbohydrates and may also need to take some form of supplements with antioxidants and certain minerals.  If your aim is to gain muscle and lose body fat, then you should ensure that you eat enough calories and take in enough nutrients, and you will find that by doing so it will make the difference between succeeding and failing.

Bodybuilding Nutrition Principles – Eat Enough Carbohydrates

The second of our bodybuilding nutrition principles encourages you to eat enough carbohydrates. Generally not enough of the primary food fuel – carbohydrates - is eaten by many athletes, including bodybuilders and strength trainers.  In the majority of athletes’ diets, only half of their daily total intake of calories come from carbohydrates, when in fact 7 to 9 grams per kilogram of body weight daily should be consumed as carbohydrates.

This may be because a lot of bodybuilders are under the impression that a low carbohydrate diet promotes faster weight loss.  The main problem with these diets is that they cause a depletion of glycogen, the body’s way of storing carbohydrates.  Once the glycogen supply is depleted the body starts to use up protein from tissues, including muscle tissues, to meet its demand for energy.  The result is that you will lose hard earned muscle.

Many fitness minded people and athletes steer clear of carbohydrates, particularly bread and pastas, as they believe that these foods will make them fat.  This belief is the main reason why there is an unbalanced proportion of carbohydrate, fat and whey protein in bodybuilding training diets, which in general are much too high in protein.  The truth is that carbohydrates are probably the most important nutrient for losing fat and helping to build muscle.

We’ll look at the role of carbohydrates in building muscle later in our series looking at bodybuilding nutrition principles.

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