Critics question whether this practice is healthy. More
will be said about that later, but let me just get this
off my chest right now before I explode: Yes, it's true!
I admit it! I confess! We bodybuilders are all guilty; we
eat entirely too much protein before competitions. And perhaps,
if sustained for a long period of time, it might not be
the healthiest of all diets. I can't argue that a diet with
higher fiber content and more variety isn't healthier than
one that is mostly protein.
But guess what? We do it anyway - knowingly and on purpose!
We do it for a reason - because it works! This goes beyond
a mere health and nutrition lecture; this is about the competitive
nature of an athlete. Bodybuilders are highly competitive,
and competitive athletes will do whatever it takes. They
are willing to put greater strains on their bodies in order
to achieve the rock-hard, dried-out look that is necessary
to win.
This phenomenon is not isolated to bodybuilding. Take a
look at the training regimens of any Olympic, professional
or world-class athlete in any sport. You will find that
extreme training or nutritional practices are par for the
course. Is it "normal" to train or work out for
6 or 8 hours a day like some Olympic athletes do? Is it
"normal" to run 10, 12, 15 miles a day? Is it
"normal" for a wrestler to lose 20 pounds in one
week to make a weight class? Is it "normal" to
practice your stroke or swing for hours and hours and hours
every day? Who is to judge what is healthy or what is normal
anyway?
The fact is, competitive athletes are never "normal."
You could easily argue that the training and preparation
for any sport at a high level is "unhealthy."
Competitive athletics is an extreme arena and competitive
bodybuilders are the most extreme athletes of all. Putting
your body under abnormal stresses and strains is part of
the business.
This is not to say that you should throw all caution to
the wind and adopt unhealthy nutritional practices as part
of your lifestyle just for the sake of a trophy. A key distinction
must be made: A pre-contest bodybuilding diet is temporary.
Diets should be cycled just like training programs. Bodybuilders
wouldn't train for power and strength all year round and
neither should they diet the same all year round either.
After the contest is over, an intelligent bodybuilder will
cycle back to a much more balanced diet that contains a
wide variety of foods, with more carbs and less protein.
Let me give you an illustration:
Suppose you are a male bodybuilder and you weigh 195 lbs.
Your minimum protein requirement would be approximately
1 gram per pound of bodyweight or 195 grams. But remember,
that's the minimum - As a bodybuilder, I'd rather err on
the side of too much - I'm not waiting around for some new
study to confirm what I already know from experience.
In the off-season, your baseline diet for gaining muscle
should be high in calories and high in carbs. It would look
something like this:
Bodyweight 195 lbs.
Calories 3800
Protein per pound of bodyweight = 1.4 grams
55% carbs = 2090 calories = 522 grams carbs
30% protein = 1140 calories = 285 grams of protein
15% fat = 570 calories = 63 grams of fat
Now, suppose you decide to compete; you'd begin phase 1
of your contest diet simply by reducing your calories and
adding in more cardio. No change is made to your nutrient
ratios. This kick starts the fat burning process. If you
have good genetics and you are not carb-sensitive, you might
not need any other changes; you could get very lean on this
diet, just from the cardio and the calorie deficit:
Bodyweight 195 lbs.
Calories 3200
Protein per pound of bodyweight = 1.23 grams
55% carbs = 1760 calories = 440 grams carbs
30% protein = 960 calories = 240 grams of protein
15% fat = 480 = 53 grams of fat
As the show gets closer, you enter phase 2 of your contest
diet; this is where you start to reduce your carbohydrate
intake. You also increase your calorie deficit, but to avoid
letting your calories drop into the dangerous starvation
zone, you increase your protein intake. This is the phase
where you will do most of your dieting and where you will
lose body fat the most efficiently:
Bodyweight 190 lbs
Calories 3000
Protein per pound of bodyweight = 1.6 grams
40% carbs = 1200 calories = 300 grams carbs
40% protein = 1200 calories = 300 grams of protein
20% fat = 600 calories = 66 grams of fat
Phase 3 is the last leg of your contest prep. At this point,
you are already lean and you want to go from lean to "ripped,"
so you reduce your carbohydrates even further (never eliminating
them completely). To avoid metabolic slowdown, you carb-up
at regular intervals:
Bodyweight 181 lbs.
Calories 2700
Protein per pound of bodyweight = 1.8 - 2.0 grams
25% carbs = 675 calories = 169 grams carbs
50-55% protein = 1350 - 1485 calories = 337 -371 grams of
protein
20- 25% fat = 540 - 675 calories = 60 - 75 grams of fat
You're now ripped to shreds, you weigh 181 lbs. and all
you have to do to make middleweights is lose some water
a few days before the show. Your protein intake is now up
to a whopping 1.8 - 2.0 g./lb./bodyweight.
1.8 to 2.0 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight? That's
an awful lot of protein, and I know what you're thinking...
"Holy Chicken Breasts, Batman! Isn't eating all that
protein bad for you?"
I knew this question would pop up. This "high protein
is bad for you" myth never seems to go away, so let
me squash this ugly bug right now once and for all.
At one time or another, you've probably heard the myth
that high protein diets are bad for your kidneys, they dehydrate
you and give you osteoporosis.
Well, here's the truth: It's a medical and scientific fact
that except in the case of pre-existing kidney disease,
there is no documented evidence that a high protein intake
will cause kidney damage in a healthy kidney. In fact, there
is not a single study that has been published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal using adult human subjects with healthy
kidneys that has shown any kidney dysfunction whatsoever
as a result of consuming a high protein diet.
In the textbook, "Total Nutrition: the Only Guide
You'll Ever Need," from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine,
the authors, Victor Herbert and Genell Shubak-Sharpe, had
this to say about protein and kidney disease:
"High-protein diets have never proven to be a serious
hazard for healthy people, although processing excess protein
can overburden a liver or kidney's that are damaged by disease.
That's why individuals with kidney or liver disease are
often put on protein-restricted diets. Likewise, very high
protein formulas can also be detrimental to very young or
premature infants whose kidney function is not fully developed.
Some nephrologists have also speculated the eating a high-protein
diet throughout life may be the reason for the 'slight'
decline in kidney function that usually occurs with age,
but this connection is still under investigation."
What about the claim that high protein diets cause osteoporosis?
In inactive people, some studies have shown that increased
protein intakes lead to elevated calcium excretion. This
is because high protein intakes increase the acidity of
the blood, and the body must "leach" calcium from
the bones to buffer the acidity. The researchers theorized
that this calcium loss could lead to accelerated osteoporosis,
especially in women.
While this phenomenon has been observed in sedentary individuals,
there is no clearly established link between high protein
intake and osteoporosis. Women with risk factors for osteoporosis
should be more cautious, but if you are athletically inclined
and participate in aerobic and resistance exercise, you
will probably have few risk factors. Here's what Herbert
and Shubak-Sharpe had to say on the subject:
"Our typical high-protein, high-meat diets have also
been implicated as a factor in the development of osteoporosis,
but these claims may be the results of misinterpreting scientific
research. Studies have shown that adding purified protein
supplements and amino-acid mixtures that have had their
phosphate removed do increase excretion of calcium by the
kidney in both animals and humans. However, several long-term
controlled human studies carried out by Herta Spencer, M.D.,
at the Hines VA Medical Center in Illinois have shown that
high intakes of protein from natural protein sources such
as meat, which have their phosphate intact, do not significantly
increase calcium loss."
A post-menopausal sedentary woman would not be well advised
to go on a high protein diet, but if you're a bodybuilder,
or even if you just train with weights recreationally, then
you will have denser bones than someone who doesn't work
out. Therefore, extra protein should not be a cause for
concern.
Probably the only legitimate problem created by a high
protein intake is dehydration. Metabolizing protein requires
more water than fats or carbohydrates, so it is very important
to consume extra water if you increase your protein intake.
The standard recommendation is 8-10 8 oz glasses per day
(64 - 80 oz). However, the higher your protein intake, the
more water you should drink beyond the standard guideline.
For bodybuilders on high protein diets, a gallon a day (124
oz) is more like it.
I sincerely hope that this series of articles has helped
to clear up some of the mystery, confusion and controversy
surrounding bodybuilding and protein. If there's a single
take-home lesson in all this, then here it is: Never do
anything at the expense of your health, but understand this;
in bodybuilding, the bottom line is the results you produce.
If a diet works for you, then it works, period. So forget
about what the critics, the conservatives and the textbooks
say; if bigger, harder, leaner muscles are what you're after,
then try increasing your protein intake using the guidelines
this series has suggested. If it works, stay with it. If
it doesn't, then throw it out and try something else; but
you'll never know if a high protein diet will help you get
leaner or build more muscle unless you give it a try.
>>
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