Dieting for Bodybuilders

Adjust Activity Levels Adjust your activity level when getting ready. Don’t overdo it if you aren’t taking in enough calories to maintain muscle. Also, don’t overtrain. Most guys try to do too much. They add more sets while eating fewer calories. You do this, and you’ll lose size.

Give Yourself Time Give yourself enough time to get ready for the show. Don’t short change yourself when it comes to time. Better to diet longer and be ready early than try to crash diet and get ready in a week. You should be ready to get on stage one to two weeks out from the show date, maintain things, and then just walk right in.

Eat Right  Try to eat at least 1 – 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight while dieting for a show. Don’t go nuts eating too little or too many carbs. You need to establish a baseline where you’ll lose only about a pound or two at most in a week.

Eat Frequently  You want to eat small meals, at least six maybe seven a day. Again you need to adjust to what works for you-more or less food, more or less protein and carbs. Trial and error and enough time to find what works for you are the keys. Don’t expect miracles the first or second or maybe even the third time you do this. I’m not saying you may not get lucky and hit it right the first time, but chances are you won’t. Look at all this as a learning experience cuz that’s exactly what it is. You may want to keep a food journal. Now I’m not saying run around the gym with a little notebook like these goofballs in some of these gyms these days. Just keep a running tab of calories, proteins, carbs and fats. This way, you’ll know exactly what you’re doing.

Cardio  Let me get to my favorite activity, cardio. We all know cardio sucks. I hate cardio, I really do. But it is a necessary evil for almost all of us who want to compete. Be smart. During the diet phase of training, do the least amount of specific work to initiate change involving cardio training. What I’m saying of course is that more is not always better.The body can adapt rapidly to exercise, making this paramount for continuous body fat reduction. Again more is not always better right at the start. My suggestion to you would be to start some type of cardio activity four days a week, thirty minutes a day with moderate intensity (let’s say about 55% to 65% of maximum heart rate). See what happens. If you’re happy with the changes, that’s cool.