NUTRITION FOR THE ATHLETE

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Listed below are some suggestion to follow, for good athletic eating habits, whether you're trying to lose fat, gain muscle or simply maintain your already polished physique.

Let's get specific about the most important part of your growth program - your nutritional regimen.  When you say you want to get big, what you really mean is that you want to put on more muscle without putting on any fat.  Similarly, when you say you want to lose weight, what you really mean is that you want to lose fat.  Right?  So, you have to follow some simple rules of good bodybuilding nutrition.  These rules will aid you in fitting your caloric intake to your training and lifestyle needs in a precise manner.

Rule One:

Always eat at least 5 meals a day balanced of good carbohydrates, proteins and minimal healthy fats.  Two or three meals simply isn't ofter enough.  If your body doesn't get the calories it needs, it gets those calories by cannibalizing its own muscle tissue for energy supply.  That's the same muscle tissue you just spent hours and much sweat in getting!

Rule Two:

Remember the 1-2-3 rule.  In each of your 5 meals, approximately 1 part of the calories should come from fats, 2 parts from protein and 3 parts from complex carbohydrates.

Example:  Let's say you eat 600 calories five times a day.  That's 3,000 calories.  If your following the 1-2-3 rule, each meal is broken down like this... 100 calories from fat, 200 calories from protein and 300 calories from carbohydrates.  That's how you get lean and muscular!

Rule Three:

When you sit down to eat, ask yourself, "what am I going to be doing for the next three hours of my life?"  Then, if you're taking a nap, eat less;  if you're planning on a training session, eat more... and so forth.

By carefully manipulating your caloric intake like this - meal after meal, day after day, week after week, and month after month - pretty soon you'll look in the mirror and see something you've been waiting to see for a long time... lean and cut up!

Rule Four:

If you're trying to put on muscle mass without also putting on fat, never try to gain more than 2-4 pounds of lean muscle mass each month.  Your body simply cannot "biosynthesize" muscle tissue any faster, even under the most ideal biochemical circumstances.  Here's how it's done:

1.  Add 2 calories per pound of body weight to your daily caloric intake.

2.  The added calories should be mostly protein and some complex carbohydrates with no added fat calories.

3.  Spread these added calories equally among your 5 meals per day.

4.  For example, a 150-pound person should add 300 calories per day to their diet;  over 5 meals, that equals about a 60 calorie increase per meal.

5.  The additional 300 calories will, with intense weight training, result in a gain of approximately 1-2 pounds of added muscle per month.

Rule Five:

Another thing to remember when you're adding lean muscle mass to your body weight is to "zigzag" your caloric intake.  For example, if you want to go to 240 pounds (and under 10% bodyfat), and presently weight only 190 pounds (with 20% bodyfat) now, you should increase your calories - as described in Rule Four - for about 4-5 days, then back off for one or two.  That way, your gain a pound of muscle and fat, then lose the fat.  You are left with muscle.  Continued like this over months of time, your muscle mass will increase to elite proportions.

Rule Six:

The final rule of thumb for serious athletes is that no matter how hard you try, no matter how good a cook your mamma is, or where you buy your food:

1.  You can't always eat perfectly balanced meals.

2.  You can't always eat 5-6 times daily.

3.  There are many instances where you body requires certain nutrients in greater amounts than what can be derived from diet alone.