Australia - Bodybuilding .com

 Click here to go back to Australia-bodybuilding.com's main Article Section

Chris Aceto has a bachelors degree and is most known for his writing on nutrition matters through books and his columns for Flex Magazine. Also a very well known trainer, his most high profile bodybuilding clients include multiple IFBB Mr Olympia winner Jay Cuter, Arnold Classic Champion Victor Martinez as well many other IFBB professional bodybuilders. Below are some of his articles covering aspects of bodybuilding nutrition.

Scroll down to view all, or click on a link to jump to:

• Troy Alves detailed contest diet
• 10 Biggest Bodybuilding Errors
• Protein Power: 9 Simple Guidelines
• 10 Quick Tips to Increase Muscle Size
• 11 Carb Guidelines To Follow
• Ephedrine Free Fat Burning: 7 Ways to Boost Fat Loss Without Ephedrine

Beginning contest diet for IFBB Pro Troy Alves

• Meal 1: 8 egg whites, 1 cup oatmeal or medium bowl cream of wheat
• Meal 2: 40 grams whey protein, 1 small bagel
• Meal 3: 40 grams whey protein or 8 oz chicken, 2 cups rice
• Meal 4: 6-7 oz turkey breast, 1 cup rice
• Meal 5: 6 oz chicken, 1 cup rice
• Meal 6: 45 grams whey protein

At week 6, I started having Troy drop his carbohydrates a little to facilitate the burning of fat. The menu changed to this, Menu B:

• Meal 1: 8 egg whites, 1 cup oatmeal or medium bowl cream of wheat
• Meal 2: 40 grams whey protein, 1 small bagel
• Meal 3: 40 grams whey protein or 8 oz chicken, 2 cups rice
• Meal 4: 6-7 oz turkey breast, 1 cup of vegetables
• Meal 5: 6 oz chicken, medium salad with no carb dressing
• Meal 6: 8-9 ounces chicken breast, 1-2 cups of vegetables

Chris had Troy increase his carbs to nearly twice what he was eating one day a week when starting the diet. His menu – just once a week changed to this. Menu C:

• Meal 1: 8 egg whites, 1 ½ cups oatmeal or large bowl cream of wheat, 1 banana
• Meal 2: 40 grams whey protein, 1 1/2 bagel with a little jam or jelly
• Meal 3: 40 grams whey protein or 8 oz chicken, 3 cups rice
• Meal 4: 6-7 oz turkey breast, 2 cup rice
• Meal 5: 6 oz chicken, 1 cup rice
• Meal 6: 45 grams whey protein

Last week before the bodybuilding contest on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, Troy followed this menu

• Meal 1: 8 egg whites, ½ cup oatmeal
• Meal 2: 40 grams whey protein
• Meal 3: 40 grams whey protein or 8 oz chicken, ½ small bagel
• Meal 4: 10 oz chicken
• Meal 5: 9 oz chicken, large salad
• Meal 6: 45 grams whey protein

While he was on this diet, Troy performed a full body workout where they did one or two exercises per bodypart. The purpose was to get rid of as much stored muscle glycogen as possible. After 3 days, Troy was fairly weak- flat, but in the whole scope of things fuller or bigger looking then he had ever been. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday he followed a higher carbohydrate menu to re-fill his muscles with glycogen resulting in better definition. The menu he used from Wednesday on looked like this

• Meal 1: 8 egg whites, 1 cup oatmeal
• Meal 2: 40 grams whey protein, 2 cups rice or 1 large yam
• Meal 3: 6 oz chicken or steak, 1 ½ cups rice
• Meal 4: 6 oz chicken or steak, 1 medium yam or potato
• Meal 5: 6 oz chicken, 2 slices sodium free bread
• Meal 6: 45 grams whey protein

Troy was drinking about a gallon of water during his depleting process – on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and reduced that to ¾ of a gallon on Wednesday and Thursday with ½ a gallon on Friday.

Here are the 10 biggest mistakes to avoid if you want to fulfill your bodybuilding potential.

1. Dieting impatiently

Many bodybuilders jump from one diet to another without ever giving the initial program enough time to work. It takes at least three weeks for your body to adapt to dietary modifications. If you start a high carb, moderate protein, low fat diet with reduced calories, and your goal is to lose fat, expect to notice visible changes after approximately 21 days. Don't anticipate immediate changes in your physique.

2. Failing to Accurately track calories

 Be sure to count not only calories but carbohydrates, proteins and fats as well. Because they don't keep a record of what they're eating, many bodybuilders don't lose fat at the rate they expect, while others fail to gain weight. Don't make the mistake of miscalculating your calorie intake. Successful bodybuilders keep precise records; they don't guess or estimate. Consult the Nutrition Almanac or a comparable source for food values and buy a scale.

3. Eating haphazardly

 Whether you're trying to lose fat or add lean body mass, consistency is key, and sporadic eating is anathema to making progress. If you're a hardgainer or you have a difficult time getting ripped, the five times a day meal plan is best. This approach (a meal every two or three hours) inhibits storage of fat and increases lean body mass by enhancing nutrient absorption.

4. Depending on the scale to gauge progress

Don't depend solely on the scale to fine tune your diet. When bodybuilders try to add size, they often become discouraged when their bodyweight doesn't increase rapidly. They frequently jump the gun by adding too many calories to accelerate their progress. Similarly, precontest competitors striving to get down in size sometimes subtract too many calories. While the scale and other measuring devices like bodyfat calipers are effective tools, it's better to rely on photos and an unbiased eye to measure your progress. After all, bodybuilding is a visual sport. If you look leaner and fuller, then your fat loss diet is probably working - even if the scale and bodyfat calipers don't agree.

5. Overeating (especially carbohydrates)

Athletes who try to add mass often go overboard and eat an excessive number of calories, which are then converted into bodyfat. Then there are bodybuilders who eat a very low fat diet but still gain too many bodyfat because of an extremely high intake of carbohydrates. Sure, carbs are required for hard training, and they aid in recovery, But once the body absorbs what it needs, the excess will be quickly deposited as fat.

6. Failing to personalize your bodybuilding diet.

There's nothing wrong with learning from what the pro bodybuilders do. However, Dorian Yate's diet is vastly different from Nasser El Sonbaty's. What they have in common is an individualized, or customized approach. Dorian's diet might not work for Nasser's, and vice versa. Maintaining detailed records of what you eat and how you react to those foods can help you customize a diet that's ideal for your needs.

7. Viewing supplements as a magic bullet

Some bodybuilders try to shed fat by taking carnitine and chromium, yet they fail to initiate the fat burning process by lowering their caloric consumption. Others use creatine, glutamine or branched chain amino acids to beef up, but fail to consume enough calories and proteins to stimulate a positive nitrogen balance. Supplements work to enhance a nutrition program, not to make up for poor planning and nutritional mistakes.

8. Becoming a slave to canned tuna

To be successful, you have to eat the right way all the time. I've known athletes who burn out from the boredom of eating nothing but plain chicken breasts and tuna straight out of the can. Laura Creavalle's cookbook, The Lite Lifestyle, contains 150 fat free and sugar free recipes designed for precontest bodybuilders. These recipes allow you to stick with your eating program for the long haul, which produces substantive results.

9. Eliminating all Fat

Cutting fat from your diet is helpful in controlling total caloric intake, but removing fat completely from your diet and relying exclusively on very low fat or fat free proteins like turkey, fish and protein powders can lead to a decrease in fat metabolism and/or retard growth. A low fat diet that includes essential fatty acids found in meat, chicken and fish is useful in promoting optimal recovery growth and fat metabolism.

10. Making enormous changes all at once

When adding or subtracting calories from your diet, try to make very small incremental changes to allow your body to adapt these dietary manipulations. Severe reductions in calories will cause the body to hoard fat; an abundant increase will stimulate fat storage

1 - Rely on Protein for Anabolism

It is a no brainer: Total protein intake and total caloric intake will determine whether or not an anabolic (growth) state can exist. If you eat a lot of calories, carbs and fats without eating enough protein, you can kiss muscle growth goodbye.

2 - Meet Minimum Protein Requirements

You must consume at least one gram (g) of protein per pound of bodyweight daily. A 200 pound bodybuilder needs a minimum of 200g of protein per day.

3 - Be Aware of Maximum Protein Guidelines

This tip applies to hardgainers with fast metabolic rates. If you are blessed - or cursed - with a metabolism that forces you to burn protein for fuel, then increase daily protein intake to 1.5g per pound of bodyweight. Under these conditions, a 200 pound bodybuilder would consume 300g of protein per day.

4 - Consume Complementary Carbs

Carbs are not complete anathema to a bodybuilder in pursuit of mass. Take in 2g of carbs per pound of bodyweight daily, unless you're dieting strictly. This will provide your body with sufficient carb stores to draw on for energy, instead of tapping into protein stores that should be reserved for muscle building.

5 - Eat More Protein When You Diet

To get ripped to the max, you have to cut way back on dietary fat while reducing carb intake. This double whammy forces the body to burn more protein as fuel, which will put your muscle tissue at risk. Dieting bodybuilders should increase protein intake to 1.5g per pound of bodyweight to compensate for the reduction in carbohydrate.

6 - Count Protein Grams

When calculating total grams of protein, include only complete sources, such as meat, fish and eggs. Disregard incomplete sources like oats, rice, bread and other grains.

7 - Ignore the RDA Advice on Protein Intake

The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) for protein are inapplicable to bodybuilders, as are studies recommending .75g per pound of bodyweight. Such figures are typically calculated by experimenting with university students - a.k.a. recreational bodybuilders - and are well below the requirements for hardcore bodybuilders in training.

8 - Use Protein Powders

I recommend protein powders that include fast acting whey, which is naturally dense in branched chain amino acids; slower acting casein, and immune system enhancing soy, which is also high in glutamine. These three sources combined will yield a better net increase in mass than a single source powder such as casein alone. As a rule of thumb, try to get 50% of your protein intake from powders in order to accelerate absorption into muscle tissue.

9 - Keep It Simple

The over complication of bodybuilding nutrition is ridiculous. Here is a simple edict to follow in pursuit of mass: Fix you protein intake at a minimum of 1g per pound of bodyweight, with a max of 1.5g for those of you with a fast metabolism or who are dieting like crazy. Then eat at least 2g of carbs per pound of bodyweight, and avoid all excess fats that are not already contained in your protein sources. If your bodyweight does not increase, add more carbs to the mix.

Muscle mass is the straw that stirs the drink in the sport of bodybuilding. Talk all you want about symmetry, shape and definition, but in the final analysis, muscle mass is the defining element of a physique. The mass building equation has three components: a correct diet strategy, hardcore training and high tech supplementation. It's not rocket science, but there are tricks to it, nonetheless.

To save you time and trouble, I've complied 10 tips to jump start anabolism and create a positive nitrogen balance - to increase muscle mass, you need to take in more nitrogen

via protein and training than you excrete through the natural metabolic process.

1. Emphasize the Negative

Muscle growth is the logical byproduct of muscle contraction. Much emphasis is placed on the concentric phase of a lift where the muscle shortens as it contracts. But the stretching of the muscle during the eccentric, or negative, phase where the muscle lengthens while maintaining tension can directly cause muscle hypertrophy, too. Emphasizing the negative is an easy technique to overload muscles and promote radical gains in mass.

2. Eat Fish

Fish containing higher amounts of fat - salmon, for instance - provide us with the ever popular omega-3 fatty acids. Why is this important? The omega-3s make the muscle more sensitive to insulin; hence, they fuel glycogen storage and amino acid entry into muscles while also preserving glutamine stores.

3. Increase Sodium Intake

I'm not kidding. Sodium is an essential mineral that is an absolute must for muscle growth. Sodium has a bad rap because it can cause water retention - anathema to contest ready odybuilders. On the plus side, sodium enhances carbohydrate storage and amino acid absorption while also improving the muscle's responsiveness to insulin.

4. Stop All Aerobics

Aerobic exercise has a detrimental effect on mass building. Aerobics interfere with strength gains and recovery while burning up valuable glycogen and branched chain amino acids (BCAA). Adding mass is the best way to upgrade your resting metabolic rate (RMR); is the RMR is elevated, more calories are burned and it is easier to stay lean.

5. Lift Explosively

The amount of force a muscle generates is proportional to the amount of muscle growth you'll be able to create. Force is defined as mass (the weight you use) multiplied by acceleration (the speed at which you push a weight against resistance). To generate more force, then, progressively increase your poundages while lifting explosively - in this context, you actually increase speed during the second half of the rep.

6. Dramatically increase your calories for three days

You will never achieve a positive nitrogen balance with a low calorie diet. It takes raw materials - carbs, protein and fats - to build new muscle mass and support recovery. Increasing your calories by 50% (from 3,0000 to 4,500 per day, for instance)

for three days can spur growth while adding little if any bodyfat. The key is to limit the increased calories to a designated three day period; you'll be able to stimulate growth by improving muscle sensitivity to insulin and by providing more carbs for glycogen storage. If you are in a overtrained state - and if you're not gaining any new muscle mass, this is probably the case - the additional calories will promote anabolism before fat storage is able to kick in. That's why you want to limit the 50% increase to a three day period. After that time, return to your typical intake of daily calories; you'll have stimulated new growth without adding unwanted fat.

7. Rest

Many bodybuilders are unable to pack on mass because they are always training and, therefore, always recovering from those grueling workouts. Taking a couple of days off can restore glycogen, increase anabolism and allow hormonal indexes such as testosterone and cortisol to return to optimal levels.

8. Eat in the Middle of the Night

Anabolism depends on an excess of calories. As you are well aware, bodybuilders eat four to six times per day to increase the absorption of nutrients and to provide a steady influx of carbs, protein and fat. Expanding on the four to six meals per day plan is to include a protein drink in the middle of the night that can encourage additional growth.

9. Increase Strength Through Powerlifting

Your muscles respond to training in three ways. When you train with high reps (more than 15), there is an increase in endurance with no substantive improvement in size or strength. The six to twelve rep range - the range that all big bodybuilders rely on - promotes an increase in both size and strength. Powerlifters generally stay with low reps, two to four per set, which supplements strength with slight variances in size. However, if you set aside one week of training to pile on the weights with low reps the subsequent improvement in strength will make you stronger when you return to the six to twelve rep routine. Here's the formula: More strength equals more tension on the muscle equals more growth.

10. Supplement with the Big Three: Glutamine, Creatine and BCAA

Glutamine is known as the immunity amino. If you are overly stressed from dieting or training, the immune system kicks in, releasing glutamine into the bloodstream. Having low levels of glutamine will inhibit muscle growth - that's why supplementing with glutamine is important.

Creatine is associate with added power and the ability to produce more adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - the chemical fuel source for training and growth. Supplementing with creatine allows bodybuilders to raise creatine levels in the muscle - therefore enhancing strength and ATP - without the unwanted fat that you'd be saddled with by getting all your creatine exclusively from food.

1- Eat Complex Carbs

Carbohydrates should comprise the bulk of your daily caloric intake because they form muscle glycogen - the fuel for arduous training sessions. Focus on unprocessed complex carbohydrates like yams, potatoes, whole grain breads, oatmeal and brown rice. Why? These natural complex carbs are made of long chains of sugar and are digested very slowly. Slow burning carbs promoted consistent blood sugar levels, which help to offset fatigue while promoting the release of insulin - the body's principal anabolic hormone. Men can project daily carb intake, in grams (g) by multiplying their bodyweight by three; women should multiply bodyweight by two. For example, a 200 pound man should consume 600g of carbs daily, while a 125 pound woman should consume 250g.

2. Eat Fiber

Benefits of fiber include making muscle tissue more responsive to anabolism by improving sugar and amino acid uptake, and aiding in muscle glycogen formation and growth. Beans and oatmeal are two excellent sources of fiber.

3. Stagger your Carb Intake

Divide your carb meals into six distinct servings throughout the day. This divide and conquer approach stimulates a steady release of insulin to create an anabolic (muscle building) state. If you eat too many carbs in one sitting, the net effect is that fat-storing enzymes kick into high hear and you lose than lean and hard look.

4. Eat Simple Carbs After Training

Honey, sugar and refined foods such as white bread and white rice - typical simple carbs - are digested quickly and easily. The resulting insulin spike is a double edged sword, however. After training, it can prevent muscle catabolism while promoting anabolism. If you have not been working out, the intake of simple carbs can stimulate fat storage.

5. East More Carbs After Training

This edict is the corollary to tip #4. A high carb intake at your post training meal will have less chance of being stored as fat, as carbs must replenish depleted glycogen levels before they gain the ability to stimulate fat storage. Eat about 25% of your daily carbs at this meal.

6. Eat a Carb-loaded Breakfast

Besides the post training meal, breakfast is the other golden time to ingest carbs, because blood sugar and muscle glycogen levels are low from your overnight fast. Your body must replenish these levels before stimulating the fat storing machinery in the body.

7. Use Supplements to Assist Carbs with Insulin Utilization

Chromium, Omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin E and Alpha Lipoic Acid all increase a muscle's ability to use insulin. Supplement your breakfast with 200 micrograms of Chromium, four grams of Omega-3s and 100 milligrams of Alpha Lipoic Acid.

8. Minimize Fruit Intake

Though low in calories and rich in vitamins, fruit is problematic for dieting bodybuilders for one reason: it contains fructose, a simple sugar, which is converted into glycogen in the liver. There, it can be readily used as a building block for fat synthesis.

9. Avoid carbs after hours

 Unless you are blessed with a superfast metabolism, you should forget about eating baked potatoes late at night. Late night carbs interfere with the release of growth hormone and promote fat storage while you sleep.

10. Mix carbs and protein in the same meal

Combining carbs and proteins minimizes the risk of carbs being stored as fat. Eating protein with carbs facilitates the transport of amino acids from protein foods into the muscles to trigger new growth.

11. Rotate carbs for fat loss

Bodybuilders who rotate their carb intake tend to lose more fat than bodybuilders who maintain a steady flow of carbs while dieting. For example, instead of eating 600g of carbs every day (the typical daily total for a 200 pound bodybuilder), try varying the volume of intake. Eat 50% fewer carbs (300g) for two days, then the standard 600g for the next two days, then 50% more (900g) for the next two days, The total carb intake is the same, but this schedule works because it lowers muscle glycogen in the first stage (promoting fat loss), and then increases insulin levels (ensuring no loss of muscle) on the final two days. Carb rotation gives you the best of both worlds: decreased fat with no loss of muscle.

The standard equation for getting lean is to keep "calories in" lower than "calories out." In practice, as long as you're burning more calories than you need to maintain your bodyweight, you should get leaner. The two easiest ways to affect this balance are to decrease the number of calories you consume, generally by taking in fewer carbohydrates, or to increase the number of calories you burn, ordinarily via aerobic exercise.

Another way to burn more calories is through the use of supplements called thermogenics, which help raise the amount of heat your body produces and, thus, the number of calories burned. Ephedrine is one thermogenic choice, but many bodybuilders prefer not to use it. If you'd like to boost your thermogenic potential--that is, your fat-burning capacity--without using ephedrine, try these seven alternatives.

#1 Take In Multiple Meals Each Day.

Every time you eat, your body burns calories when processing that food. The irony of dieting is that reducing calories can reduce your metabolic rate, causing you to burn fewer calories. Eat less and the body's calorie-burning capacity often drops. The solution is to change your daily meal scheme to seven or eight meals a day. Although that means eating a small snack every 90 minutes throughout the day, it can prevent a drop in metabolism and perhaps even result in a mild increase.

#2 Eat Spicy Foods.

No kidding. Spicy foods can increase your metabolism. Red peppers, cayenne pepper, hot sauces and other red-pepper spices amp up your nervous system, resulting in an increase in calories burned. Most bodybuilding diets are high in protein, but dull in the flavor department. Crushed red peppers, Thai red chilies and Tabasco sauce are not only an insignificant source of calories, but they help kick your metabolic rate upward while adding some zest to chicken breasts.

#3 Use Garlic.

For the want-to-get-ripped bodybuilder, garlic can work like a thermogenic. In Ayurvedic medicine--the same ancient science that gave us ephedra--garlic is recommended for weight loss. Animal experiments demonstrate that garlic increases metabolism. Garlic also helps keep blood-sugar counts stable, preventing swings in energy levels and keeping sugar levels from skyrocketing. Avoiding elevations in blood sugar tames the release of insulin, which helps maximize the burning of bodyfat.

#4 Use Caffeine Appropriately.

Caffeine increases metabolism by stimulating the nervous system. That's why virgin joe drinkers claim it provides a jolt and helps them stay awake. One problem with continued use, though, is that the thermogenic effect fades as the body adapts to it. If you drink it year-round, the fat-burning effect may be reduced, and you'll have to consume considerably more to get the same effect. The heavy use of caffeine or coffee ought to be reserved for cutting phases.

Also, avoid simultaneous caffeine and carb consumption. When you drink coffee without taking in carbs, the caffeine drags fatty acids out of fat cells, facilitating the burning of bodyfat. But when you down coffee with carbohydrate foods, such as bagels or even oatmeal, your body's insulin response may override the fat-liberating effects of the caffeine. For best results, have your morning coffee and then wait at least an hour before eating breakfast. Consider performing cardio during that hour.

#5 Drink Tea.

You're probably aware that vitamins C and E are highly touted as "antioxidants." You may not know that all teas contain antioxidant properties. Any way you look at it, tea is just plain healthy. From a ripping-up aspect, tea is also helpful. Tea contains small amounts of theobromine and theophylline, cousins to caffeine, which increase thermogenesis. Three or four cups a day while dieting could prevent a drop in your metabolic rate.

Green tea is a good source of catechin polyphenols, compounds that may increase the total amount of calories burned in any given day. Although black tea lacks catechin polyphenols, it would be wise to alternate between drinking green and black tea, because some weight-loss experts note that the two forms work by somewhat different mechanisms. Tea is also a mild appetite suppressant.

#7 Use Tyrosine.

Tyrosine is an amino acid supports the body's production of adrenaline. This is a stress hormone that directly affects the liberation of bodyfat. Although tyrosine in and of itself probably does not cause a direct increase in the amount of adrenaline released, other substances do--notably, those discussed in #2 through #5 of this article. Tyrosine in combination with any one of those would probably act synergistically to increase thermogenesis. Tyrosine is also involved in the production of thyroid hormones, which help keep your metabolism up.

#7 Include Overeating Days In Your Regimen.

When you eat more calories than you require for maintenance, not every single excess calorie is stored as fat. Some of the excess calories cause a strong increase in thermogenesis, resulting in an elevated metabolic rate.

One way to take advantage of this effect is to stick to a modified low-carb diet for three days followed by a single day of high-carb intake. During the low-carb phase, eat one gram of carbohydrates per pound of bodyweight and one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Keep your fat intake low--limited to the fat naturally occurring in your protein foods. On the high-carb day, eat two and one-half to three grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight, keeping the protein fixed at a gram per pound of bodyweight. That single high-carb day pumps up thermogenesis. When you return to the modified low-carb days, there's a carryover effect, keeping your metabolic rate elevated for 24 to 36 hours. For cutting, it's guaranteed to help you shed fat.

Put It All Together

Boosting thermogenesis can be an excellent way to burn bodyfat, especially if it's combined with reduced total caloric intake and increased aerobic activity. Here's how to put all of the foregoing strategies together. Take two grams of tyrosine with coffee or tea. Perform your cardio during the hour before you eat breakfast. Shake a few drops of Tabasco and toss some chopped fresh garlic on an egg-white omelet at breakfast and on chicken breasts at lunch for increased thermogenesis (and for flavor). Drink tea on a regular basis, eat seven or eight meals every day, and increase calories significantly every fourth day. These tactics should help make your diet more effective and easier to follow.

©  2003 Weider Publications, 2008 Gale Cengage Learning

©All articles copyright Weider Publications and first appeared in Flex Magazine written by Chris Aceto.

Click here to go back to Australia-bodybuilding.com's main Article Section