Bodybuilding Workout Routine – Diet Recommendation

I will cover this in more detail in another article, but for now I’ll give this advice: it is best to consume a diet consisting of approximately 50-60% carbohydrate (mostly complex carbs.), 30-40% protein, and around 10% fat. Try to stay away from junk food, and drink plenty of water. To stay fully hydrated is very important to building muscle tissue – remember, muscle is 70% water. Protein sources should come from white and red meat, fish, eggs and other dairy produce. Good carb sources are rice, pasta, potatoes etc.

If you are also trying to lose body fat, you must eat in the above way, but you must also create a ‘caloric deficit’ i.e. take in slightly fewer calories than you burn up each day, while training, and keeping you’re protein intake high.

In order to work out your maintenance caloric intake, i.e. the number of calories you need to take in each day to maintain weight, add up the calories from everything you have eaten in a seven day period, and divide by seven during a week in which you’re weight has not changed.

This is you’re maintenance caloric intake. In order to lose fat, consume about 300 calories less each day than this figure. In this way, you will lose body fat while maintaining, or perhaps increasing, your current muscle mass. The addition of some mild aerobic exercise a couple of times a week will also increase the fat burning process. Once you are happy with you’re body fat level, you must then increase your caloric intake in order to gain muscular bodyweight.

If you are initially just trying to add muscular bodyweight, then it is obviously important to eat slightly more than your maintenance level number of calories per day. Increase slowly, eating good food, and in so doing, determine how much you need to eat to progress, without putting on large amounts of body fat. Remember, though, that it is not possible to put on large amounts of muscle without adding some body fat in the process, which can be periodically removed with alterations in training and diet, revealing your hard-earned new muscle.

What rate of progress is to be expected?
In the first six months or so, if you do everything right, you should experience quite rapid progress, especially in terms of strength. However, sooner or later you will hit a plateau where you will have to experiment with your training and diet in order to make further progress, which is where determination and patience come in. Make no mistake about it, there is a law of diminishing returns in bodybuilding where the bigger and stronger you get, the harder it is to add further strength and muscle mass.

This is why so many trainees lose interest and give up training, because they lack this determination and drive. The greatest battle that you have in bodybuilding or other strength sport is not with the weights, but with yourself; quite simply put, if you don’t have the guts to push yourself, and the will to be consistent, you won’t reach your training goals.

In future articles, I’ll cover more advanced training for strength in specific exercises, and dietary considerations. Until then; go for it!