Eat Right: Grow Faster

A Scientific Approach to Maximizing Food Absorption For Muscle Gains

My twin brother, Tony Prisk, recently came to me with a very common problem. He can’t seem to get his legs to grow. Now, being that we are twins and I was able to build legs to win an IFBB pro card [Dr. Prisk obtained his pro card by winning the welterweight division at the NPC Nationals,] I know that his legs can grow. So this leaves the question, why aren’t they growing? Is it histraining? His recovery? His diet? His supplementation?

      I asked him about his training in the gym. He said he was doing all the mass movements like squatting heavy, leg press and deadlifts. He was utilizing mass-building techniques like drop sets, negatives and undulating volume. His form was spot on. He was getting enough sleep. He was getting enough rest between leg-training sessions. He was taking a myriad of GNC supplements that I sent him. It turns out that everything was right, except he wasn’t “eating to grow!”

 The Concept

      First, you have to determine just how many calories you actually need to maintain your weight with regards to total daily energy expenditure. Log your dietary intake for a couple of weeks, weigh yourself first thing in the morning twice a week and see if your bodyweight fluctuates. If it stays the same you need more calories to grow, if it decreases you need even more calories, and if it increases you’re on the right track, but may even then want to add more calories.

      Then you need to consider how active you are in the gym or on your job. One way to get a sense of this is to use a wearable calorie-counting device or phone app. Again, these aren’t very accurate so you will have to adjust as you go, but they give you a starting point. Add your extra calorie burn to your caloric needs and then add up to 500 calories. This will ensure you that you are never energy deficient. More calories will help with gaining weight, but you will run greater risk of storing fat.

      Second, you have to adjust your macronutrients (carbs, fats and protein) to meet your individual needs. All proteins, fats and carbs are not created equal.

 Not All Proteins Are Created Equal

      We all know that bodybuilders need more protein than the 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight that the RDA recommends. The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) and American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) also agree with this, recommending nearly 1 gram per pound of bodyweight for strength-training athletes.1,2 However, some believe that this may still be insufficient for maximizing gains from heavy resistance training.3 In fact, I believe that counting the absolute number of all grams of protein may be a little misleading, because all proteins are not created equal.

      Once we have verified that we are getting the majority of our protein intake from complete proteins, we must also realize that all complete proteins are not created equal. Each protein has different ratios of the essential and non-essential amino acids. Some proteins such as the dairy proteins are particularly rich in the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs; leucine, isoleucine, valine). It turns out that this difference in BCAA content is an important distinction.

      A recently published study has shown that when we consume protein in a skewed fashion (like most Americans) with the majority of our protein intake at dinner and much less at lunch and breakfast, we do not maximize our muscle growth potential.4 This study looked at the difference between eating ~10 grams, 15 grams and 65 grams of protein for breakfast, lunch and dinner, respectively, versus eating 30 grams for each meal. By increasing the protein content of the first two meals, it is theorized that a threshold was met whereby muscle protein synthesis was turned on at each meal.  

 Healthy and Unhealthy Fats

      There are essential fats that we can’t live without. Even though recent studies suggest that saturated fat may not be as evil as once thought, if you eat too much when trying to grow you will probably not be at your healthiest. That being said, restricting your cholesterol and saturated fat intake excessively can cause reductions in testosterone production, potentially hindering muscle growth.6 So, if you are not a “hormone supplemented” bodybuilder, extreme limitations of your fat intake can be detrimental to your goals. By maximizing the polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially the omega-3s from fish oils, you are more likely to see some health benefits from eating to grow. I would recommend keeping your fat content above 30 percent of your total daily calories and strictly avoid toxic and inflammatory trans fats. As for all of the macronutrients, getting the majority of your fat from whole (unprocessed) foods will help you to avoid unhealthy fats.

 Carbohydrates

      Carbohydrates stimulate the release of insulin, your body’s most anabolic hormone. By consuming more than adequate amounts of carbohydrates with each meal and around your training, you can maximize strength-training performance in the gym to attain the most adaptive responses for muscle growth. Carbohydrate-deficient diets can limit testosterone production8; whether this is significant enough to limit muscle accretion is not known. Regardless,low-carbohydrate diets can limit strength as glycogen fuels weight training.

      The American College of Sports Medicine recommends consuming 2.7 to 4.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound bodyweight per day.2 The amount required is very dependent on energy requirements after calculating your protein and fat needs. The more endurance or high-volume training you perform, the more carbohydrate you should consume. Additionally, 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound bodyweight will be more than enough in a post-workout meal to restore muscle glycogen stores. Again, whole foods such as yams, potatoes, rice, quinoa and others would be recommended over sugars.

      The data about the “anabolic window” has become muddied in recent years. There is data to support consuming protein and carbohydrate within an hour before or after your training. However, other studies have shown that if you are consuming adequate amounts of protein throughout the day the timing around the workout doesn’t matter.9 Essentially, if you are consuming your protein (and thus leucine) every three to four hours as we previously discussed, you will have some protein fairly close to the start of your training and after. Because the research is so muddied, I still recommend having half of a 40- to 50-gram whey +/- carbohydrate meal before and after your training when “eating to grow.”

 Vegetables

      Another, often under recognized, aspect of “eating to grow” is the importance of vegetables. Vegetables are not only important for their antioxidant vitamin, mineral and fiber content. Veggies, especially green leafy veggies, are rich in nitrates. Nitrates act as nitric oxide donors. This is just like the arginine- and citrulline-rich supplements used to boost your pump in the gym.

      Foods like spinach, celery and beets are rich in nitrates and boost nitric oxide. Researchers have found that beetroot juice supplementation results in better tolerance of the intense exercise and better metabolic handling of oxygen than beetroot juice that was depleted of nitrate.10 The subjects on the nitrate-rich beetroot juice took longer to fail at a high-intensity sprint than those on a placebo-nitrate depleted beetroot juice. With higher intensity training you can imagine this could provide greater potential for muscle growth stimulus. With the added antioxidants, you may even recover from that training faster. Do what your mama told ya: eat your veggies!

 Diet Essentials

 In summary, there are a few things you need to be certain your diet contains:             

      1. Whole food sources of quality proteins, fats, and carbohydrates

      2. 0.05 grams of leucine per kilogram bodyweight per meal

      3. Nitrate-rich veggies

 Dr. Victor Prisk is a board certified orthopaedic surgeon and IFBB professional bodybuilder in Pittsburgh, PA. Dr. Prisk is an active member of the GNC Medical Advisory Board and creator of the “G.A.I.N. Plan.” He is an NCAA All-American gymnast, champion swing dancer and 2010 NPC Welterweight National Champion. For week-to-week updates on his app and books, check out his blog at www.YourGAINPlan.com and Twitter posts @victorprisk

What Happens to Body Fat When You Cleanse?

Ah, the visual joy of weight loss—your face is more defined, your belly no longer protrudes over the waist of your pants, and parts that used to jiggle are now toned. On the outside, fat loss seems like a fairly simple process. However, what happens in your body during weight loss involves an intricate web of metabolic changes that include structural transformation of fat cells, the breakdown and use of fat for energy, as well as changes in hormone production.

Performing Isagenix Cleanse Days—a combination of intermittent fasting with herbs and vitamins that support detoxification—is an effective approach for weight loss, especially for targeting fat loss. In fact, the UIC study using Isagenix products found that those who follow the Isagenix system had more fat loss and twice as much visceral fat loss than those who followed a “heart healthy” diet.

How does fat loss occur when you incorporate Cleanse Days into your routine? To understand, we’ll have to start with the basics, or Fat 101:

Getting to know fat

Adipose tissue—or body fat—is comprised of millions of fat cells, also called adipocytes, with the average adult having around 40 billion. The weight of adipose tissue is about 20 percent of body weight, making it one of the biggest organs in the body.

Fat can be defined by where it’s found in the body: subcutaneous fat is located just below the surface of the skin while visceral fat is found in the abdominal cavity, surrounding the internal organs. Furthermore, there are two types of adipose tissue: white and brown. White adipose tissue is primarily used as an energy reserve and brown adipose tissue functions to generate heat.

Adipose tissue is a metabolically active organ rather than just an inert mass as many may have guessed. In fact, each depot of the organ even receives its own vascular and nerve supply.

Adipose tissue has been identified as an endocrine organ because of its production of hormones known as adipokines. These signaling proteins influence several important functions including glucose and lipid metabolism, blood coagulation, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and steroid hormone modulation (1). Excessive adipose tissue has been shown to disrupt the normal endocrine functions of fat cells and can negatively affect health through insulin resistance, abnormal blood lipids, and even increased cardiovascular disease risk.

Leptin is an adipokine that regulates hunger and appetite by telling the brain, “I’m full!” Although intuition may assume that leptin levels would be low in obese individuals due to chronically excessive food intake, the opposite is true. Leptin has been shown to be tightly related to fat cell size: the bigger the adipocyte, the greater the expression of leptin (2).

This would mean that obese persons are constantly feeling full, right? Wrong. Obesity is associated with resistance to the effects of leptin on the brain appetite centers, so they actually end up having an impaired response that doesn’t indicate fullness. This exemplifies how complex the relationship is between adipose tissue and the endocrine system.

Fat cells increase in size, then in number

When energy balance becomes positive (meaning there are more calories consumed than burned), the adipose organ increases, particularly in the amount of white adipose tissue. White adipocytes undergo hypertrophy (increase in volume) followed by hyperplasia (increase in number).

It’s been proposed that adipocytes have a maximum volume, referred to as “critical cell size” that may be genetically determined (3). This means that fat cells can only get so big. Once they reach their critical cell size, they trigger production of new adipocytes. In other words, your existing fat cells are filled until they reach their capacity (much like a balloon) and then signal the body to make more fat cells.

You are more likely to make additional fat cells at certain times in your life. Research has shown that the natural production of fat cells steadily increases during childhood and levels off in early adulthood (4). Although more research is needed, this could indicate that children who are obese are more likely to be obese as adults and experience greater difficulties in trying to achieve weight loss.

How the body burns fat

When energy balance is negative in the body (meaning there are more calories being burned than consumed), the hormones that access stored fuel are increased, namely glucagon. In short, the body flips from an energy-storing state to an energy-burning state.

First, the body will burn stored carbohydrate, also known as glycogen, which is found mostly in the liver and muscles. Once the glycogen energy reserve has been exhausted, the body breaks down fat in a process called lipolysis.

What happens to fat cells during weight loss?

During negative energy balance such as on Cleanse Days, the body will use the fat for fuel causing the fat cells to shrink in size. As fat cells decrease in size, so too does the amount of signaling molecules produced. Over time, this reestablishment of normal endocrine function can be immensely beneficial for health including decreasing the molecules that induce inflammation.

Additionally, fat loss accompanied by adequate intake of optimal nutrition—such as  vitamins (B vitamins, vitamins C and E), minerals (selenium, zinc, copper), and other bioactive nutrients including coenzyme Q10 and polyphenols—support the detoxification systems of the body in the removal of toxins. (Read more in The Basics of Detoxification.)

It is interesting to note that fat cells have the ability to shrink but rarely decrease in number. However, during fat loss, cells can decrease as much as 400 percent in size! For many, this morphological transformation supported by dietary interventions such as Cleanse Days means more than just a slimmer appearance; it can improve health and even add years of quality life.

References

1.    Rossmeislova L, Malisova L, Kracmerova J, Stich V. Adaptation of human adipose tissue to hypocaloric diet. Int J Obes (Lond) 2013;37:640-50. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2012.80

2.    Skurk T, Alberti-Huber C, Herder C, Hauner H. Relationship between adipocyte size and adipokine expression and secretion. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2007;92:1023-33.

3.    Cinti S. The adipose organ at a glance. Dis Model Mech 2012;5:588-94.

4.    Spalding KL, Arner E, Westermark PO et al. Dynamics of fat cell turnover in humans. Nature2008;453:783-7. doi: 10.1038/nature06902

How to Get Fiber Healthy

Insoluble Fiber

Insoluble fiber is undigested and not absorbed into the bloodstream. Insoluble fiber passes through our intestines largely intact.The primary functions of insoluble fiber include:   

• Moving bulk through the intestines
• Controlling and balance the pH (acidity) in the intestines

Soluble Fiber 

Soluble fiber forms a gel when mixed with liquid. Soluble fiber is not digested and therefore is not absorbed into the bloodstream. Instead of being used for energy, soluble fiber is excreted from our bodies. The primary functions of soluble fiber includes:  

• binding with fatty acids
• lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (the Bad cholesterol)
• prolonging stomach emptying time. 

Fiber Health Benefits

Populations that eat greater amounts of fiber-rich foods are generally healthier. Fiber provides many health benefits that can reduce the risk to several diseases, help improve body composition,improve our quality of life and even extend our lives. Some of the many benefits of fiber include:   

• Lowers cholesterol. Fiber also helps transport cholesterol out of the body, reducing the risk for heart disease.
• Lowers blood sugar levels. Fiber stabilizes blood sugar level, reducing the risk for diabetes. 
• Reduces the risk to many diseases. Fiber helps to keep our bowel movements regular and ward off certain diseases. 
• Improves quality of life. By keeping the bowel movements regular fiber helps prevents constipation, hemorrhoids and diverticulosis.
• Reduces the risk to cancer. Fiber helps move toxins through the colon. The more quickly these toxins move through the body, the less rick there is for developing certain cancers. Because carcinogens in our intestines bind to fiber it is believed that by adding fiber to our diets there is a reduced risk for developing  colon cancer.
• Helps with weight control. Fiber makes us feel full sooner and stays in our stomach longer than other substances we eat, slowing down our rate of digestion and keeping us feeling full longer. Fiber also moves fat through our digestive system faster so that less of it is absorbed.This makes fiber an important part of any weight lossprogram.

Recommended Amount of Fiber

The recommended intake of fiber is 25g per day. If you eat at least 5 servings of fruits & vegetables as well as at least 6 servings of grain products per day (at least 3 of which are whole grains), you are very likely meeting the fiber requirements. 

 How to Increase Your Intake of Fiber

 To increase your intake of fiber, eat more whole and natural foods, and fewer processed foods.  Some good examples of fiber-rich foods include:  

• Legumes (lentils, dry beans and peas)
• Vegetables such as green beans and dark green leafy vegetables
• Fruit skins and root vegetable skins
• Fruits (see below)
• Brown rice
• Whole grains (wheat, oats, barley) 

Choosing the Right Type of Fiber

When making a food choice decision, don't worry about choosing a specific type of fiber. Many foods such as oat, oat brans, flax seed and  psyllium husk are rich in both soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Just focus on getting enough total fiber and you will be fine. 

Important Notes about Fiber

Adding more fiber to your diet will likely help you lose weight and improve your health, but do it gradually. Rapid increases in consumption of fiber may result in gas or diarrhea. 

And be sure to drink plenty of fluids when adding fiber to your diet. While fiber is normally helpful to your digestive system, without adequate fluids it can cause constipation instead of helping to eliminate it. 

Green Calorie Food Labels Misleading People Into Thinking Bad Foods are Health Foods

Those all to familair green calorie food labels appear to mislead people to see nutrition-poor foods as healthy food according to a new nutrition study appearing in the current issue of the journal Health Communication.

A Cornell researcher says that consumers are more likely to perceive a candy bar as more healthful when it has a green calorie label compared with when it had a red one – even though the number of calories are the same. And green labels increase perceived healthfulness of foods, especially among consumers who place high importance on healthy eating.

"More and more, green calorie labels are popping up on the front of food packaging, including the wrappers of sugary snacks like candy bars. And currently, there's little oversight of these labels," said Jonathon Schuldt, assistant professor of communication and director of Cornell's Social Cognition and Communication Lab. "Our research suggests that the color of calorie labels may have an effect on whether people perceive the food as healthy, over and above the actual nutritional information conveyed by the label, such as calorie content.”

Schuldt asked 93 university students to imagine that they were hungry and see a candy bar while waiting in a grocery checkout lane. The students were then shown an image of a candy bar with either a red or a green calorie label. Schuldt asked them whether the candy bar, compared to others, contains more or fewer calories and how healthy it is. The students perceived the green-labeled bar as more healthful than the red one, even though the calorie content was the same.

Schuldt repeated the experiment with 39 online participants who were shown candy with either green or white labels. The participants were asked to what extent the healthiness of food is an important factor in their decision about which foods to buy and eat, on a scale of 1 (not at all important) to 7 (very important).

The more importance the participants placed on healthy eating, the more they perceived the white-labeled candy bar as less healthful – a pattern that was eliminated when the candy bar had a green calorie label.

"The green calorie labels buffer relatively poor nutrition foods from appearing less healthful among those especially concerned with healthy eating," Schuldt said.
The green calorie label study has implications for nutrition labeling, given that front-of-package calorie labels have become increasingly common in the food marketplace in the United States and Europe. For example, Snickers and M&Ms have green front-of-package calorie flags that are particularly conspicuous to consumers at points-of-purchase.

"As government organizations including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration consider developing a uniform front-of-package labeling system for the U.S. marketplace, these findings suggest that the design and color of the labels may deserve as much attention as the nutritional information they convey," Schuldt said.

The article, "Does Green Mean Healthy? Nutrition Label Color Affects Perceptions of Healthfulness,” is available online athttp://alturl.com/j6vez.

Keep Building Muscle as You Get Older

I’ll soon be turning 50. After more than three decades in bodybuilding, it’s my reality that I simply can’t train the way I did when I was 20. My body doesn’t respond the same way, I don’t recover the same way, and I can’t lift what I used to lift. I don’t quite look like I did (a lot less hair!). Even so, I don’t let that become a source of discouragement. The truth is that I’m now much more intelligent about my training, in touch with my physical limits, and far more attuned to my body. These advantages have helped me stave of the aging process. I continue to add density and definition to my physique, maintain my strength, and promote and enhance my quality of life. So, with attention to some important points about building muscle as you age, it can be done. 

To begin with, the body changes as we age. It’s a hard fact we all have to accept. Again, that doesn’t mean you stop improving your physique and start circling the proverbial drain. But it does mean you have to make some adjustments. One must adapt a new style of training to accommodate a changing and aging physiology. I’ve found that a man or woman can continue to improve and sharpen the physique well into the later years, providing the mind is flexible when it comes to change. I underscore this point first because we are all such creatures of habit. We resist change with the stubbornness of religious zealots. As humans, we instinctively want to keep things the same—it’s in our wiring. Our mammalian physiology compels us to strive for homeostasis, or a condition of sameness. Change makes us uneasy. Fear of the unknown can be scary, and familiarity, on the other hand, breeds security. So it’s not so easy to start changing things up, especially when you’ve been doing them a certain way for many years. On the other hand, while our nature and even genetics do their best to keep us locked in a pattern, our bodies, ironically, change and start to fail. 

For most, the body starts to significantly push back at about age 35 in that we no longer put on muscle mass as readily as we used to. Recovery between workouts takes longer, it’s not as easy to reach a high level of intensity, sleep-wake patterns change, and even digestion and appetite are influenced. There are, however, positive changes associated with aging. One such change I’ve noticed has been the ability to recover more quickly, and not between workouts but between sets. This change has allowed me to speed through workouts with greater efficiency while having reached a very high level of intensity. This, in my opinion, is connected to a deep-rooted neuromuscular conditioning born of years of toil. In addition, I’ve also noticed an increased amount of vascularity throughout my body. I’ve always been quite vascular, but as I’ve aged it has become more pronounced. Just as with my outward appearance, I’m convinced that this also holds true within my muscles. So an increase in both age-cultivated neuromuscular adaptation and deep-tissue vascularization from years of bodybuilding training has allowed me to work more efficiently under the weight. As a result, I can work with much lighter weights, do far fewer sets, and emerge with just as good a pump as ever. 

In my “glory days” I was deeply focused on the numbers I’d move. Like the other young, hungry meatheads I trained with at the time, I was engrossed in how heavy I could lift. These days, in sharp contrast (although I am cognizant of my strength changes), I pay much more attention to what the weight is doing to me rather than what I am doing to the weight. So the first and foremost major adjustment that must take place is to back of testing the limits of ridiculously heavy poundage in training and instead make the training itself the focus. As I like to say, “train, don’t strain.” If you don’t follow this advice, you are almost guaranteed an injury. 

A wiser goal is to focus on refining the physique, adding better lean muscle shape, and improving muscle density and quality.  If you have the self-control to do this, it pays of in a big way. I personally have found that the years from my 35th until now have been my most productive years by far. So while I haven’t been putting on massive amounts of muscle due to age as well as to engaging in other types of training (like MMA), I have in my bodybuilding training been more attendant to the quality and refinement of my physique. My training routines, as a result, have become much shorter and more efficient. I’ve been less focused on the poundage moved and more on the “feeling” of the muscle contracting.

For instance, I came upon a key adjustment in terms of the speed with which I lower weight, also known as the “eccentric” movement. While I have always tried to maintain a brisk concentric contraction (referring to the force of pushing or pulling the weight), the eccentric lowering of the weight differs. In my younger days I was reckless by comparison in the way I lowered the weight. Now I lower the weight relatively slowly in a tightly controlled path before exerting the contrastingly explosive concentric force.I started doing this instinctively because I felt that my joints, ligaments, and tendons simply couldn’t handle weight crashing down they way they could in my relative youth. 

This is not to be confused with the rate of eccentric motion in ultraslow training or eccentric-only training. Rather, while my eccentric motion contrasted with the concentric component, it was still performed at a high enough rate to significantly load and activate muscle fibers. Some call this eccentric stretch shortening.  The truth is that I had tried ultraslow eccentric and eccentric-only training in the past and felt it wasn’t particularly effective, that it actually left my muscles feeling fat and not well pumped. Thankfully I revisited a modification of this technique to help protect my aging body.  I still did a contrasting slow eccentric, but modified it by speeding up the stretch cycle enough to keep my muscles stimulated, followed immediately by a brisk “upstroke” of concentric contraction. 

Amazingly, what began as a simple instinctive adjustment to the cadence of my repetition in order to protect my body began to produce tremendous new development for my age. As a result, I adapted the controlled, slow, eccentric form followed immediately by a brisk concentric contraction in all my motions.

But that wasn’t the end of it. I began working the slower eccentric while maintaining a vigorous and explosive concentric in the routines of the non-bodybuilder athletes I work with. The results were equally impressive, as they put on significantly greater muscle mass and improved their athletic performance. Soon we adopted this technique in the physical therapy and injury rehabilitation component of our clinical centers. Perhaps most astounding of all, we noticed that the older and elderly patients were also responding.  It almost appeared that the much older patients had the biggest response. While this was merely observational at the time, we now have published science to confirm what we were seeing.

Get the best supplements for your training goals at GNC Live Well >>

One clinical trial recently published in Experimental Gerontology provides scientific support for this approach. While the growth-promoting effects of eccentric training have been well documented, this particular study examined whether the rate of stretch influences muscular response. They tested exercise training of the quadriceps muscle with low-rate eccentric versus high-rate eccentric stretch-shortening training in healthy males age 60–70. While both training programs produced improvement, only the high-rate eccentric stretch-shortening training produced a statistically significant increase in torque development: 30%. So the high-rate eccentric stretch-shortening training was uniquely effective in improving the ability to produce force rapidly. This component of physical movement is the key deficiency of aging muscle.

In conclusion, bodybuilding-style weight training is now a well established and fundamental part of sports training and athletic enhancement. Mountains of research prove that weight training is a profoundly effective adjunct to building strength, power, jumping ability, speed, durability, and resistance to injury among athletes. We also know that the benefits of a solid weightlifting regimen are not restricted to the jocks of the world. The reduction of muscle loss, or sarcopenia, as it is known in scientific and medical circles, is absolutely critical in order to promote longevity, reduce the incidence of illness and injury, and generally enhance quality of life. So as we wait for peer-reviewed clinical research to reveal the secrets of how to best unlock the benefits for all, at least we know a little more than before, specifically that high-rate eccentric stretch-shortening training stimulates a significantly greater development of muscle and power, especially as we age. 

A Scientific Approach to Contest Prep

The sport (or culture) of bodybuilding is older than much of the nutritional and metabolic science we take for granted today.For decades, traditions have been passed along during small talk between sets and, perhaps even more significantly, through bodybuilding magazines. In this day and age, however, with scientific information just a click away, I thought it would be good to address some of the critical aspects of preparing for a bodybuilding contest—namely diet and supplementation, from a research-based perspective. 

A recent paper published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition did an excellent job of addressing the important questions that come up when preparing a precontest diet. One of the biggest questions, and the first that must be addressed, is how many calories should be consumed. Obviously, this is going to depend on your body size and body composition, but regardless of your size, the same principles apply. The first principle is that the greater the caloric deficit you impose, the more muscle you will lose. Aggressive dieting that results in sudden and dramatic weight loss can lead to equal amounts of muscle and fat being lost at the same time. Keep in mind that the body can break down muscle tissue five times faster than it can build it, so you want to do everything you can to protect all your hard-earned muscle as you prepare for your contest. Research on the subject indicates that a rate of weight loss equaling no more than 0.5–1% of bodyweight per week is going to reduce the loss of muscle mass. For most bodybuilders, this means no more than one to two pounds per week. 

The second principle is that the leaner you are, the greater the percentage of muscle you will lose as you drop weight. There is a limit to the amount of energy your body fat can supply. For example, it has been estimated that each pound of body fat can supply no more than 31 kcals per day. That’s a maximum of 31 calories, with the assumption  that conditions are perfect for fat mobilization. In the real world, things are seldom perfect, so the reality is it will be a little less than 31 calories in most cases. Let’s look at an example: If you have 100 pounds of body fat, like the folks who compete on those weight-loss competitions on TV, your own fat can provide 3,100 kcals per day. That means you can create a 3,100-calorie daily deficit without really forcing your body to tap into your muscle mass for extra calories. If, on the other hand, you only have 20 pounds of body fat (e.g., a 200-pound bodybuilder at 10–11% body fat), your own fat can at best only provide 620 calories per day. So if you create a caloric defcit larger than 620 calories, be it through diet, exercise, or both, your body must use protein for fuel—it has no other option. I know some of you are saying, yeah, but that’s all fat calories—doesn’t your body also need some sugar for fuel? Yes, it does, and we’ll get into that in a moment, but for now, understand that the leaner you get, the more difficult it is to keep from losing muscle as you diet because there is a limit to the rate that your body can release fat for fuel. 

The third principle is that the longer you keep the body in a caloric deficit, the more it will adapt by slowing the metabolic rate (i.e., calories required per pound of body weight). In those studies that have been done, the metabolic rate has been shown to fall as little as 80 calories per day to as much as 500 calories per day! This tells us that adjustments will need to be made along the way to account not only for a reduction in caloric requirements due to body-weight loss, but also because your metabolic rate will  slow, making weight loss slow down with it.

Of course, not only calories matter during a diet—the source of those calories is very important. Protein intake is critical if your goal is to retain as much muscle as possible during your diet. The usual recommendation of a gram per pound of body weight may not be enough to minimize muscle loss. Eating a gram per pound of body weight can still lead to as much as one half to one pound of muscle loss every two weeks depending on the size of the caloric deficit and the level of body fat you have at the time. A recent review of results from studies involving lean weight lifters shows that 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight will likely be required to reduce muscle loss the closer you get to the day of the show. 

Everybody is in agreement when it comes to protein recommendations, but when it comes to carbohydrates, opinions vary quite a bit. Some say you can’t get really lean without going ketogenic, while others say that simply reducing calories is a better strategy. Regardless of current fads, if your goal is to keep as much muscle mass as possible, keep your carbs as high as you can while still being able to lose body fat. I know a lot of guys and gals who jump right into a low-carb diet and add cardio all at the same time. This is the worst thing you can do if you’re trying to keep your muscle. Add the cardio first while keeping carbs where they are. Then, in a stepwise fashion, begin to drop your carbs. Carbohydrates regulate substrate utilization. 

In other words, carbohydrates are preferentially used as fuel  when both carbs and fat are present. The utilization of fat for fuel will be in proportion to the carb defcit. There is a threshold, however, below which lowering carbs further does nothing to hasten fat loss while greatly increasing muscle loss. So getting fanatical about avoiding carbs is not only unnecessary but quickly becomes detrimental, especially for a drug-free bodybuilder. Research indicates that if one is able to keep carbs at around 50% of total calories, along with adequate protein intake, muscle loss can be adequately minimized. 

Last but not least, fat. Current fat-intake recommendations stem from maximizing testosterone levels. Compared with insulin and IGF-1, however, testosterone is not as potent at preserving muscle mass for the natural bodybuilder. Insulin and IGF-1 are related to total carbohydrate intake. Again, if the goal is to preserve muscle mass, reduce fat first if it means carbs or protein would be reduced below ideal ranges. A fat intake of 15–20% of total calories would be appropriate.

To summarize, total calories should not be cut below the amount that results in one to two pounds of weight loss per week. As you get closer to the contest date, you will want to reduce weight loss to one pound per week to save more muscle. That should help you plan how many weeks you need to diet. Protein should range from one to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight. Carbohydrates should stay as high as possible, while protein should be kept in the ideal range and still allow for one to two pounds of weight loss per week. Fat can make up the rest and should fall between 15-20% total calories. All of this will give you a starting point. Careful adherence to your diet will make adjustments more effective as necessary. 

And last but not least, give yourself plenty of time to get into contest shape. It’s better to be contest ready at least two weeks before the show, then give yourself time to increase your calories slightly and fill out a little bit. You will be fuller and have better control over water retention

5 Commandments for a Sick Leg Day

Dennis Wolf's 5 Commandments for a Sick Leg Day

1. How you do it matters most.

 “Too many people don’t think there is a difference between weightlifting and bodybuilding. The biggest mistake I see in the gym is with form. Guys go too heavy and cheat, or don’t use a good range of motion. They just want to impress the other guys and girls at the gym or to be able to say they can squat x amount or lift all the weight the leg press machine holds— and none of that matters if your legs look like a chicken’s.”

2. Divide ‘em or don’t? A personal choice.

 “Whether you should train the whole leg at once or split up quads and hams depends on the person. If your hams are very bad, train them first or on another day. If your hams are pretty good, you can probably be OK training them with quads. Actually, only recently did I realize this is advice I need to take!”

3. Fill the tanks, but don’t top them off.

 “You should adjust your pre-workout meal portions depending on how large and demanding the body part is, relatively. I eat a little more carbs than usual before a leg workout, but not too much. I don’t think it’s good to have a huge meal of any kind before leg training. Then you feel sick to your stomach and that ruins the workout. I think it is also a reason you hear about so many guys throwing up from squats!”

4. Leave the maxing-out for powerlifters.

 “I have never tried to see how much I could squat or leg press for just one rep. I am a bodybuilder. I think that’s stupid and a good way to get hurt for a bodybuilder. I don’t even know why so many bodybuilders talk so much about how much weight this or that guy uses— our sport is all about the physique, so how weak or strong you might happen to be doesn’t even matter.”

5. Respect the need for recovery.

“Your muscles need time to recover from a workout, and I believe bigger muscles like the quads and hams need more time. Usually my legs stay sore for at least three days after I work them. I don’t think they would be recovered if I tried to work them at that time. Maybe every five days would be OK, but I give them a whole week between workouts.”