Dieting and nutrition strategies to get results in faster weight loss

AS BODYBUILDERS we have to pay close attention to the food we consume and,
more important, when we consume it. By scheduling our meals around our strength
training, cardio workouts, and recovery, we can maximize the weight-loss process and
stimulate new muscle growth.
Our bodies naturally produce both anabolic and catabolic hormones that can either work with us or
against us in the dieting process. Anabolic hormones stimulate rebuilding and repair reactions in your
muscles. Catabolic hormones stimulate the breakdown of carbohydrate, fat, and protein for energy.
Through the proper nutrient timing we can allow our bodies to utilize more naturally occurring
anabolic hormones and avoid the breakdown of tissue and, more specifically, muscle associated with
catabolic hormones.

Meal Timing
Bodybuilders of the past ate three or four meals a day, never the five or six that are common today.
But we now know much more about nutrition than those early muscle-men did.
As a bodybuilder training for competition, you will become keenly attuned to how your body feels
and when you need to eat. You will learn how to plan your meals around your work and your
workouts and when to fit in the all-important meal preparation. Much of this will come through trial
and error. Your routine will become easier and more finely honed with each competition you train
for. Many bodybuilders find that the biggest lifestyle change to get used to is meal preparation.
Shopping for the right ingredients, planning the ideal macronutrient mix, preparing and cooking the
meals, measuring and weighing out the portions, and packing meals can be very time-consuming and a
lot more involved than what you are used to. But it is one of the big keys to your success.
Once your preparation is complete the next steps are to plan out the times of your food consumption
based upon your body type and meal-spacing needs.

Pre-Workout Nutrition

Post-Workout Nutrition
Your post-workout refueling is critical, too. You should consume carbohydrates in liquid form to
speed the sugar delivery into your bloodstream and to your muscles. Make sure you drink it within 30
minutes of finishing your workout.
A post-workout shake containing a simple carbohydrate like dextrose will resupply muscle
glycogen that has been depleted during training and spare muscle tissue by absorbing into the
bloodstream at a much faster rate than a low-glycemic carb would. A high-glycemic carb will cause a
very large insulin spike. As the insulin ushers the glucose into muscle tissue, you can experience a
hypoglycemic (low-blood sugar) feeling.
To combat this feeling, follow your post-workout shake with a post-workout meal within another
hour. This meal should include some low-glycemic complex carbohydrates that will counteract this
negative effect by helping stabilize your blood sugar levels. The complex carbohydrates will also
encourage protein synthesis, retard the release of catabolic hormones, and spare muscle tissue.

Raise Your Anabolic Hormones

No, I have not gone performance enhancing on you. Instead I’m talking about boosting the naturally
occurring anabolic hormones in your body that stimulate rebuilding and repair reactions in your
muscles. Your body also produces catabolic hormones that stimulate the breakdown of carbohydrate,
fat, and protein for energy. We as bodybuilders often associate the word catabolic with bad news for
muscle building, though these catabolic hormones can also work with us in our pursuit of a perfect
physique for competition day.
Our anabolic hormones include testosterone, growth hormone, IGF-1, and insulin. Through diet and
exercise we can release these anabolic hormones to spur on muscle growth and make the dieting
process easier. Let’s take a look at these helpful hormones.

Spark Protein Synthesis with Insulin

Insulin might very well be the most misunderstood hormone among men due to its association with
carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes. When insulin levels are high and there are also high levels of
carbohydrate intake, studies have shown a resulting increase in fat synthesis and a decrease in fat
breakdown. But even with its association with fat synthesis, insulin is highly effective in promoting
carbohydrate fuel storage and muscle–protein synthesis.
Your muscle cells are especially insulin sensitive right after exercise. This is important because
the more insulin sensitive your muscle cells, the more insulin will act to promote muscle glycogen
storage and protein synthesis, exactly what we want occurring after an intense training session.
Making glucose and amino acids available at this time is important to allowing insulin to work with
your body to synthesize muscle proteins and muscle glycogen at a high rate. At the same time very
little fat will be synthesized or stored away.
You can take advantage of insulin, through timed carbohydrate consumption following strength
training. Studies have shown that insulin not only increases protein synthesis but increases amino acid
uptake into your muscle and reduces protein degradation.
Insulin can be classified as the most anabolic hormone and the most important hormone in relation

to muscle growth. Insulin may not be friendly to sedentary individuals or to those on an unbalanced
high-carbohydrate diet, but to a bodybuilder who trains and diets intelligently, insulin can lead to
muscle and strength gains and very low body-fat percentages.
Insulin’s Benefits to a Bodybuilder:
• Increases protein synthesis
• Increases glucose transport into the muscle
• Increases amino acid transport into the muscle
• Increases blood flow into the muscle
• Increases muscle glycogen storage
• Suppresses the release of cortisol
• Reduces protein degradation

Tap Your Natural Testosterone

Testosterone is a bodybuilder’s natural ally. In bodybuilding we associate the main male hormone
with the term anabolic or building up. Testosterone has a number of effects that can classify it as
anabolic, the major effect for a bodybuilder is its ability to accelerate the growth of muscle.
Testosterone is believed to be anticatabolic because it can block cortisol (the stress hormone
associated with belly fat). It’s because of this characteristic that increased testosterone in the body
leads to an increase in muscle recovery. This alone is a major reason why drug-using bodybuilders
use anabolic steroids to help them train harder, recover faster, and ultimately grow muscle faster.
These effects can be short-lived because as cortisol release is blocked, even higher levels of cortisol
are produced shortly thereafter. So when a drug-using bodybuilder stops taking an anabolic steroid,
the catabolic effects of cortisol increase lead to a rapid loss of muscle strength and size.
Natural testosterone production can be increased through proper protein intake, intense strength
training, adequate rest and recovery, and increased consumption of cruciferous vegetables such as
broccoli and cauliflower.

Build Muscle with Your Body’s Growth Hormone

The role of growth hormone in the sports world is highly controversial. Athletes have been using
synthetic growth hormone to get ahead for years. But to natural bodybuilders, that’s cheating big-time.
They know that they can naturally trigger their bodies to secrete more growth hormone through
strength training.
Growth hormone stimulates muscle growth, increases the breakdown of fat, and inhibits
carbohydrate metabolism. To a male, growth hormone is the body’s natural liposuction. Growth
hormone’s role in exercise is not well understood, but we do know that it rises during exercise and
drops following exercise. Because it rises during exercise, growth hormone can play a role in
maintaining muscle throughout the dieting process.

Squeeze out More IGF-1

IGF-1 stands for insulin-like growth factor, and its primary effect is to stimulate protein synthesis in
bone, cartilage, and muscle. IGF is responsible for the muscle growth that occurs during puberty. It

boosts amino acid and glucose transport into cells. It also makes muscles more sensitive to insulin’s
effects and increases the number of muscle cells in your tissue, which can grow larger and stronger
through weight lifting. IGF-1 is controlled by the intensity of muscle contraction, leading to an
increase during exercise and a decrease afterward.

The Phases of Dieting

Getting lean for a bodybuilding competition can seem overwhelming. But there’s an effective way
to approach the task: Break it up into manageable chunks, as I did when I wrote this book. If I look at
the book as a collection of parts rather than a complete volume, and then I attack the writing one
chapter at a time, it seems much less intimidating. The same goes for contest preparation dieting. If
you build a step-by-step plan, a course of action that is well defined and manageable and achievable,
hell, you can do anything. And dropping body fat while sparing muscle will be a goal for which you
can see a clear path.
I learned this valuable lesson from my mentor in contest preparation coaching, Joe Klemczewski,
PhD, a World Natural Bodybuilding Federation (WNBF) professional bodybuilder and nutritionist.
Dr. Joe specializes in intensive nutritional consulting and works with the highestlevel professional
bodybuilders, models, and members of the general public through his nutritional program and Web
site TheDietDoc.com. Before Dr. Klemczewski organized the contest prep dieting process into welldefined
phases, bodybuilders had no clear structure to contest prep nutrition or understanding of the
changes in body and diet that bodybuilders endure as they train.
Dr. Klemczewski’s “phases of dieting” have made the contest preparation journey of many
bodybuilders, including myself, much easier to follow by providing an understanding of the physical
changes the body endures—including the way the metabolism changes—and the need to be patient as
the process moves along.

TRANSITIONING PHASE (2 TO 4 WEEKS)

This is your starting point in the journey. You are beginning to transition from an off-season diet
surplus of calories and carbohydrates to dieting mode when you have to get serious about caloric and
carbohydrate restriction. Although dieting to lose body fat can be fairly easy, dieting to lose body fat
while retaining your muscle can be a challenge. Begin by creating a good diet plan based on what you
learned in the previous chapters. Map out your macronutrient intake for every day in a solid meal
plan. If you try to eat right on the fly, that is, without a plan, you will without a doubt fall into a
pattern of eating the wrong foods at the wrong times. Planning is one of the key tools in breaking
down this monumental task of contest prep into achievable pieces.
Thanks to your preseason indulgences, your metabolism is jacked up and ready to start your total
body transformation. Your time spent with a surplus of calories and carbohydrates has you primed to
lose body fat fast. During the first 2 weeks of training, glycogen and water will constitute a good
amount of weight lost and you will continue to lose at a better-than-average rate. Do not be alarmed if
you are one of those people who needs to drop your caloric deficit lower than initially projected in
order to lose the weight you are targeting

CORE PHASE (8 TO 12 WEEKS)

The core phase is the longest period of dieting and when the real work begins. The program is taken
to a new level. Weight training is ramped up, and your cardio program increases, too. You may need

to work in different types of carbohydrate cycling to keep your body losing 1 to 2 pounds of body fat
per week. During the core phase a bodybuilder may notice the greatest amount of weight loss, but it feels
like the slowest, most drawn-out process of his life. How long it lasts really depends on the length of
your dieting, how much your metabolic rate slows, and your energy levels before entering the grind of
the set point phase.


 SET POINT PHASE
During the set point phase, your body begins to resist you. At this time your body is approaching a
level of body fat where cells have lost enough volume so that you body feels as if it’s starving.
You’re really not starving at all; instead, your body has become more efficient. It is smaller now,
lacking all that fat, and therefore it doesn’t need as many calories as it once did. It is during this phase
that many competitors become frustrated with their bodies. The once noticeable and consistent scale
change has ground to a halt, and it’s time to once again change things up. During this phase, the diet
must become tighter. You will likely need to further reduce the amount of food you eat, lower
carbohydrate intake even more, and increase your cardio. You will begin to recognize an overall
hardening of your physique.
Often enough, many bodybuilders will stay within the set point phase right up to the show, whether
they find their physique ready or needing more time. When a bodybuilder reaches the level of
conditioning that’s contest ready, with time remaining in the dieting process, they can enter a step
neglected by bodybuilders for years—the metabolic building phase.
You’ll be able to increase the level of food consumption, and your body will react not by gaining
weight but by losing it, while hunger increases. This is when you enter the metabolic building phase.
 METABOLIC BUILDING PHASE

During the metabolic building phase you’ll begin to increase your food quantity by small amounts—
10 grams of protein here, 10 grams of carbohydrates there. This will boost your metabolic rate, which
is exactly what you want to happen during this last phase of the dieting process. As food begins to be
added, you’ll notice changes in your body. You will notice changes in your body temperature as it
will become warmer more often, and you’ll keep losing body fat and seeing the weight loss on the
scale.
As you keep losing weight, you’ll continue to eat more food (usually an increase in carbs) to
balance the increases in your metabolic rate. In turn your body will become less catabolic and farless carb sensitive.
The small increases in food will not only result in higher energy levels, strength increases, muscle
fullness, and slight increases in body weight, but body-fat levels will also continue to decrease. The
metabolic building phase can continue into your off-season as you return your intake back to
maintenance levels of consumption.

FINE-TUNING PHASE
At this point you’ve been dieting longer and have given your body plenty of time to build your food
intake. This allows your skin to become thinner and has your body ready for a show.Since muscle is roughly 70 percent water, being well hydrated during peak week is critical for
show preparation. If you’re dehydrated, your muscles will look smaller and your skin may look
saggy. Drinking lots of water will fill your muscles up like air in a balloon, making them fuller and
harder. What’s more, full, well-hydrated muscle tissue results in better definition by increasing the
separation between muscles.
Don’t make the mistake of many bodybuilders who still adhere to the old strategy of carb depletion
during peak week. What did we learn in the previous chapters? It is crucial that you eat carbohydrates
after your training sessions. So, why would you stop doing this during the week before competition?
It’s crazy. Your body needs the glycogen, otherwise catabolism sets in, exactly what you don’t want
to happen. A better strategy is to take in higher amounts of carbs during the beginning of peak week
training and gradually reduce carb intake as contest day nears.
What about protein and fat? I typically keep my protein intake constant to maintain lean body mass.
It’s the fat I’ll reduce, keeping it low so the carbs can do the heavy lifting. Of course, as I’ve said
numerous times, every bodybuilder is different. You need to know your body and how it metabolizes
these macronutrients so you can tweak your intake appropriately for best results on “game day.”