The Ultimate Bodybuilder Diet

2/1/2010 – Arvada, Colorado USA
Nick Andrade’s Body Transformation Log – Day 6
Objective: To Burn Fat Gain Muscle And Transform My Body In 12 Weeks

Today I want to talk a bit about the style of bodybuilder diet that I feel will help me to achieve my goal of packing on a ton of muscle mass while stripping off  body fat at the same time.  While this style of muscle building diet is extremely effective, it’s definitely not for everybody. Ok enough with the disclaimer – on to the diet…

When ever I need to strip off body fat and build muscle mass at the same time, I like to rely on carbohydrate cycling in order to make it all happen quicker and easier than it would otherwise.  Specifically I like to follow along with Dr. Mauro DiPasquale’s Anabolic Bodybuilder Diet. His approach to bodybuilding nutrition is very simple on the surface but extremely effective for building muscle mass and burning body fat without having to resort to steroids or other dangerous substances.

The way that carbohydrate cycling works is simple.  You limit your intake of carbohydrate to a certain value (which depends largely on the individual) and cycle the carbs in and out of your diet throughout the week in a systematic way.  Now that said you need to focus on eating high quality low glycemic index carbohydrates anytime you eat carbs, but it’s critical while you’re carbohydrate cycling.  If you ingest poor carbohydrate choices like white bread and sugar in excess anytime carbohydrate cycling or not, you’re just asking for trouble.

Now where the Anabolic Bodybuilder Diet differs from most of the other methods of carbohydrate cycling diets is in the fact that you have to restrict your intake of carbohydrates to 30 grams or less for 5 consecutive days.  If you’ve never tried to restrict carbohydrates form your diet in this fashion before, you’re in for a shock.  It can be really tough to stick with it for a few weeks, but after that it’s really easy to follow along with the plan. So on the anabolic bodybuilder diet, after the 5 day 30 gram carbohydrate restriction, you’re basically allowed to eat what ever you want for the remaining 2 days of the week.

If you can learn to work this out like I typically do, it will allow you to eat whatever you want on the weekends but require you to get it back on track during the week.  In my opinion, this is a great way to go.  While you’re out with your friends and family on the weekends you can drink beer, eat onion rings and basically live like a normal person and while you’re stuck in your cubicle for the rest of the week, you just need to make a few small sacrifices  ( but it’s usually easy to do this because your focused on working and not partying).

All that said, even if you implement the anabolic bodybuilder diet into your life, you really need to make an honest effort to keep the boozing and partying down to a minimum or you just won’t be able to achive your goal of building muscle mass and burning fat.  Remember that anything worthwhile in life requires some sort of sacrifice, so be prepared to make a few sacrifices along the way (especially if you have really aggressive goals). If you’re more laid back about what you’re trying to accomplish then you can let loos a bit more – just stick with the 5 days on 2 days off schedule and you will stay lean and muscular, just not as lean and muscular as you would if were really getting serious.

Here’s My Basic Anabolic Bodybuilder Diet Outline

It’s simple, clean and easy to implement but it is paired down a bit…

1. Learn how to estimate your specific muscle building calorie requirement.
2. Begin to track what you eat each day, paying attention to see if you’re consuming enough calories to build muscle mass.
3. Begin to plan out your meals. Eat 5 – 6 meals spaced out every 2 -3 hours throughout the day. Take control of what you eat and when you eat it!
4. Make every effort to consume a muscle building meal within 20 minutes of completing your weight training workouts.
5. Eat a minimum of 1.5 – 2 grams of protein per lb of body weight per day.
6. Limit your carbohydrate intake to no more than 30 grams each day for 5 consecutive days. (Typically weekdays)
7. Make sure to incorporate vegetables and fiber into your diet.  With only 30 grams of carbohydrates a day, nearly all of your carbohydrates will come from veggies. Here’s the exact breakdown: 40% protein, 60% fat, 30g carbs
8. Drink a minimum of 1 gallon of water each day.
9. After 5 consecutive days of eating less than 30 grams of carbohydrates, eat: 15% protein, 25% fat, 60% carbs for a 2 day period. (Typically the weekend) Use one of these days as your “cheat day”.

Like I said this is a really simple outline for following my version of the anabolic bodybuilder diet – not an exact copy of what is outlined in the anabolic diet book.  This is how I’m going to implement carbohydrate cycling during the next 12 weeks. It’s a bit of a compromise as I’m allowing 1 day each week to eat whatever I want, in what ever quantity I want – After 17 year of training I just know myself better than to think that I can stay on a rigid bodybuilder diet 7 days a week for 12 weeks.  It’s going to be hard enough to lay off the carbs during the week while my wife and kids gorge themselves on tortillas, chips and bread  right in front of my face, I’m going to need a day to pig out and get it out of my system.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

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