The Pre-contest Diet

We hear a lot of terms like ripped, muscular, six pack, deep cuts, thin skin, posing and many more. Where does all this lead?
All roads lead to the contest. Most of the bodybuilders put their whole life, their likes, dislikes, parties, functions and many more for one thing. Its all for few hours of glory. We bodybuilders peak up for few hours of contest for about 60-90 days or even more. Bodybuilding is not just a sport, but a lifestyle. Before writing any further I would like to say that am so damn proud to be one among them.

Today I am gonna take you through few of the most important aspects of peaking up and shedding those final ounce of fats and appearing in the top condition. I wont write on a meal chart claiming that it is gonna make you lean in few weeks. I will just guide you on how to frame your diet.

Give a man a fish; He will eat it up in a meal. Teach him how to fish; He will eat for the rest of his life.

Assessment:
The most important aspect of a pre-contest preparation is the Diet. So let’s analyze about the pre-contest diet. But before going into it, we need to find out exactly how long a person needs to diet for the contest. The step one would be assessment of your body. Before starting up the diet, asses yourself truly and honestly, find out your flaws and strengths, and about how long you will need to get in shape.

If you carry around 25 lbs of fat to lose, you cannot lose it in 10 weeks and retain your lean muscle mass. Don’t get carried away by the crash diets. Aim to diet slowly. We know that we have to impose a negative calorie diet to induce fat loss. The sensitivity of your diet determines how much muscle mass you will retain while on diet.

As a general rule of the thumb try to lose 1 lb per week. Setting such realistic goals will allow you to work towards your goal with retaining maximum muscle mass. But instead if someone tries to push further and goes for losing 2 lbs per week then he starts experiencing muscle loss along with fat loss. If you plan to lose more fat, then adding a couple of weeks of diet would be helpful rather than pushing yourself in a short period. If you are dieting for the first time then provide yourself with an extra week so that you can be sure about your condition a week prior to the contest and can maintain the shape for a week and compete.

Diet:
Diet is the most important word in sports and in healthy living. So what should be the goal of a bodybuilder preparing for a contest?
• Retain the lean muscle mass
• Completely lose all the visible fat under the skin
• Should not lose the intensity in the workout


 Being a bodybuilder everyone knows that you have to consume high protein meal.
 The meal should be low in carbs.
 The diet should contain little quantity of the Essential fatty acids (EFA's).

How much protein should I consume?

• A Mesomorph should consume 1.2g of protein/lb - 1.3g of protein/lb.
• An Ectomorph should consume 1.4g of protein/lb - 1.6g of protein/lb.
• An Endomorph should consume 1.4g of protein/lb - 1.5g of protein/lb.

More than just the macronutrient ratio, there are two more interesting and important aspects of dieting while preparing for a contest.

1. Carb cycling and Carb tapering
2. Metabolic boost

Carb Cycling and Carb Tapering
As a general thumb rule Carbs & Fats = Energy, Protein = Muscle building material. So we need protein throughout the day and there should be no scarcity of protein as the body might go into catabolic state by deriving energy from muscles or you might even end up with incomplete recovery for the next workout. Being bodybuilders we know that fats are hidden in almost all the protein sources. So we don’t take special attention to take in fats, except for the EFA supplements or few caps of fish oil, flax seed oil or olive oil.
As a general human sleep pattern, we sleep at night so we won’t need much energy towards the night. Cos eating carbs before bed could make those carbs get stored as fats. So let’s reserve carbs for the active hours of the day. Generally we can consume a moderate high carb meal in the breakfast, and slowly taper the carbs towards the evening. We call this sensible approach towards diet and carbs as Carb tapering, i.e., we taper the quantity of carbs towards the evening.

Eating an All low carb diet throughout can actually make you appear flat due to incomplete reserve of the carbs. So a logical approach would be to keep your glycogen stores filled and at the same time this should not reduce your fat burning ability by even a bit. So generally some bodybuilders evenly plan a high carb day, a medium carb day, a low carb day and a no carb day in cycles.
For example,
Day 1 - High carb day
Day 2 - Moderate carb day
Day 3 - Low carb day
Day 4 - No carb day
Day 5 - Cycle repeats.

But this approach does not suit for everyone. A better approach would be to watch yourself on the mirrors always. If you feel that your pump is not lasting long, of if you feel that your muscles are becoming flat, its time to kick in a high carb day. A high carb day does not mean that you should pig out with carbs. It should be still in the calorie frame that you planned. But cut out a little of protein and fats and fill in the calories cut from other sources by carbs. Mind you, these carbs should not be sugars. The carb sources should be starchy carbs. Cos insulin spike due to sugar is desirable only in post workout and highly undesirable on the other parts of your day.

Calorie requirements based on body types
• Mesomorph - bodyweight in lbs x 15.
• Ectomorph - bodyweight in lbs x 16-17.
• Endomorphs - bodyweight in lbs x 13-14.

Metabolic boost
To keep the metabolism high and to provide the body with constant supply of protein and out of anti-catabolic state you need to feed yourself frequently. During my contest preparation I took a protein meal every 2 hours. That would be about 8 meals for the day. And I would get up in middle of the night and take in a No-carb-protein shake. Cos while in dieting for a contest you can not take chances. By providing small meals frequently you can ensure that your body is out of starvation and wont store food for fuel. And we can be sure of retaining the lean muscle mass.

Here is a guideline of how frequent you should eat (a basic minimum to follow frequency)

• Mesomorphs should eat every 2.5 - 3.5 hours.
• Ectomorphs should eat every 2 - 3 hours.
• Endomorphs should eat every 3.5 - 5 hours.

Negative Calories
We know that fruits and vegetables are the main sources of vitamins and minerals. Other than that the green leafy vegetables have an added advantage. They have negative calories... What? Yeah Negative Calories. Vegetables carry very few calories and a lot of fibers. The body needs to spend some calories in digesting our food. The body needs more calories to digest fibers. So by eating a vegetable salad with our meal we can have two advantages,
• We can have a filled feeling with our meal
• We expend a lot of calories by eating these

Below is a few of those negative calorie providing fibrous foods:
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Broccoli
• Green leafy vegetables

I have just provided you with some of the powerful tools to frame an excellent pre-contest diet. Make use of it and attain the best contest

conditioning of your life....

All the best..