Written by Ron Harris
01 January 2018

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Bodybuilding Nutrition: 50 Secrets of the Pros - Part 2

 

 

We went back over the last decade and unearthed 50 nutrition tricks of the trade from a wide range of pro bodybuilders. Since nutrition is equally if not more critical toward your ultimate success in reaching your personal physique goals, this insider information will greatly enhance your gains. In the first of a three part series we highlighted the first 17 nutrition secrets. In this second part we reveal secrets 18-32.

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18. Johnnie Jackson

Dieting was never a “fun challenge” for me. Honestly, dieting was an excruciating process for me from day one, and it still is. It was a little easier in the early days because it was still so new to me. After a while, I knew what to expect, especially in the brutal final weeks before a contest, and I started to dread it. But I do it because it’s part of being a pro bodybuilder, and it still is cool to see what you look like with all the fat and water stripped away. But fun? Come on, now. Anyone who says dieting is fun is out of his or her mind, or else they enjoy suffering.

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19. David Henry

Usually when I hear someone say they “eat like crazy and can’t grow,” I ask them to write down a day’s meals and find out that either they are eating a lot of junk, or they think they are eating a lot more food than they really are. You should be eating every two and a half to three hours, with an emphasis on quality proteins like ground beef, chicken, turkey, eggs and fish, and complex carbs like rice, oatmeal and potatoes. A couple of your meals can be whey protein shakes along with a piece of fruit or some nuts.

 

20. Dennis Wolf

In the off-season, I usually alternate eating chicken for all my solid meals one day, and then the next day I have all red meat. I seem to grow very well from doing this. Once I am dieting, I cut back on the red meat because of the fat content, but I don’t stop eating it. There are too many good things in there like creatine, iron and B vitamins that are very beneficial to bodybuilders. I actually start feeling flat and weak if I don’t eat any red meat for more than a few days. So when I am dieting, I have chicken for all my solid meals except one— and for that meal, I like to have a nice steak. In the very last few weeks of my diet, I eat more fish because it’s lower in overall calories and helps me tighten up that last little bit.

 

21. Chris Cormier

The rule when you’re trying to gain weight is to never get too hungry. It’s OK to let enough time pass to work up an appetite, but if your stomach starts growling at you, chances are you waited too long.

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22. Toney Freeman

Aside from not eating frequently enough (every two to three hours is ideal), the other huge mistake guys make when they aren’t gaining weight is insufficient calories. Usually the solution, if you are already eating 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean bodyweight, is to increase your intake of healthy fats. I get mine from raw nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts and Brazil nuts, as well as fish oil, olive oil, whole eggs, salmon and red meat. People mistakenly assume that eating fat will make you fat, but I have been getting leaner than ever lately, eating as much as 50 grams of fat per meal. I just keep my carbs low. If you’re trying to gain, you can combine the fats and carbs.

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23. Markus Ruhl

One day a week, it’s OK to have a couple of meals when you can eat whatever you want: pizza, fast food or ice cream. That will be good for your recovery, your body and your soul! Without a treat once in a while, you might go crazy. Don’t make the mistake that so many bodybuilders do, which is to boost their calories just by eating a lot of junk. I guarantee you that if you eat too many things like pizza, cookies and cake, then you will gain a great deal more fat than muscle. Maybe you don’t care about that right now, but I guarantee you there will come a day when you want to get lean for whatever reason. The less fat you have to get rid of, the less you will suffer on your diet and the more muscle you will keep as you get ripped.

 

24. Ben White

You’re sittin’ there eating your plain chicken breast and raw broccoli while dieting for a show, and then you read about how some Joe Pro eats at McDonald’s every day up to his contests, or some such nonsense. I know Mike Lockett talks about eating two big bags of Twizzlers every week. I don’t know if some guys actually do have metabolisms so good they can get away with eating crap like that and still get ripped. But I do know this—nobody gets shredded without cardio! It’s just not possible. I think I have a pretty good metabolism, but I still need to do 90 minutes of cardio a day toward the end of my prep to get peeled.

 

25. Melvin Anthony

No matter what type of diet you choose, there are two keys to retaining as much muscle as possible while you drop fat. The first is to never let yourself get too heavy and out of shape. Arnold used to say that if you can’t see your intercostals at all, you’re not a bodybuilder, just a bulky guy who lifts weights. The second is to diet gradually. Any time you go on a crash diet, you will lose muscle mass along with the fat. It’s inevitable.

 

26. Charles Glass

The GI (glycemic index) determines the type of carbohydrate in foods and its potential to raise blood glucose levels. Most of the carbs bodybuilders eat are in the low range, such as rice, oatmeal, Cream of Wheat (though not the instant-flavored types of both), yams and potatoes. But the GI doesn’t tell the whole story, because bodybuilders don’t eat carbohydrates by themselves. Instead, we combine them with protein and often high-fiber vegetables like broccoli, green beans or cauliflower. Each of these slows digestion and blunts the release of insulin, the hormone responsible for raising blood glucose levels.

 

27. Gustavo Badell

Dieting isn’t easy for me, or for anyone except a rare few genetic freaks who are always ripped no matter what they eat. And dieting gets a lot tougher as you get leaner and leaner. Bodybuilding isn’t for everyone, because few people will want to tolerate all the cravings and feelings of hunger. That’s why it’s a special accomplishment to get into contest-type condition. If you want it badly enough, you will learn to deal with the sacrifices involved.

 

28. David Henry

No fat burner will make up for a diet that’s loaded with garbage. You can’t eat like that and expect to get leaner, so either commit to eating cleaner, or just accept that you’ll never see much muscle definition. There is no need to eat like a bodybuilder, but the tendency to eat like a regular person will have you looking like a regular person, bottom line.

 

29. Gustavo Badell

You can do so much better if you only start to understand how important nutrition really is. Think about it this way. You can work very hard to build a house, but if you don’t have enough wood, concrete and other raw materials, you won’t be able to build it. Protein, carbohydrates and essential fats are the building blocks that your body needs (especially protein) to recover and repair from training, and increase the size of your muscles. And because muscles need a constant source of protein to do this, you have to eat a minimum of five times a day.

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30. Chris Cormier

When I hear that someone is bulking, I know that 9 times out of 10, it’s really an excuse to eat a bunch of junk and not do any cardio. There is no reason to get way out of shape. Most bodybuilders, especially at the higher levels, stay much leaner now than in years past. For one thing, it’s so much easier to diet down into contest condition when you aren’t so out of shape to begin with. And you have to take into account that it’s much healthier overall. A bunch of fat isn’t going to help you get stronger or gain more muscle mass— it’s just going to slow you down, make you look sloppy and put you at a higher risk for everything from heart disease to diabetes.

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31. Ben White

My best advice is to literally flood your body with nutrients every two hours, making sure you get at least 1.5 to two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight every day. If you want to get that tape measure moving and see bigger numbers on the scale, you also have to take in plenty of good carbohydrates to fuel muscular contractions and get your muscles pumped-up full of glycogen. Low-carb diets are fine for cutting up, but I don’t think they make much sense at all for anybody trying to add muscle and bodyweight in general.

  

32. Markus Ruhl

I know this is going to sound strange coming from one of the biggest and heaviest pro bodybuilders in the business, but I don’t advocate trying to gain weight very fast. Unless you are just beginning to train and have awesome genetics, most of the weight you gain quickly is going to be fat. It’s very rough on your body and especially your heart to put on a lot of fat in a short time. Even gaining a lot of muscle mass very fast, not that most people will ever have to be worried about that happening, will put extra strain on all the organs and systems of the body.

 

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