Diet Fundamentals: Final Thoughts

My 'Diet Fundamentals' blogs have covered a lot of territory, and it's about time we start putting it all together to create our own meal plans. My thinking was to provide a sufficient amount of background information on diet and nutrition, so that those new to physical training and bodybuilding could be made aware of the importance of a meal plan, and be willing to design and follow through on a meal plan on their own. It would also serve to remind more experienced individuals, and suggest some alternatives that may not have yet been considered.

But that, amigos, is next week...or perhaps the week after. I wanted to conclude the fundamentals chapter with a few final thoughts.

Remember that no matter what your body type, you will lose body fat if your energy expenditure is consistently greater than your energy intake - if you burn off more calories than you consume. In other words:

1. your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) + calories consumed in activity = calories expended


2. food eaten during the day = calories consumed

So, when 1 is consistently larger than 2, you lose body fat. And when 2 is consistently larger than 1, you gain body fat. The more active you are - the more you walk, run, ride a bicycle, ski, swim, play sports - the more calories you burn and the more easily you are going to be able to control your fat weight. This is why most serious bodybuilders increase their overall level of activity over that involved in their gym training by doing some kind of cardiovascular or aerobic exercise.

But what you eat is also important, along with how much. The more you restrict your calories, the more certain you have to be that you are getting the most nutritional density possible - the most "bang for your buck" (or English version, "punch for your pound"). A bodybuilder who consumes 3,000 calories a day of mostly lean protein and a variety of vegetable, fruit and starch carbohydrate sources is going to be able to train more intensely and build more muscle than somebody whose 3,000 calories intake consists mostly of processed fast foods, high in fat and sugar, all adding up to too many empty calories devoid of much nutritional value. "Eating clean" is what the bodybuilding diet is all about. "You are what you eat", is the old saying. And if you eat junk your body will become - well, you get the point.

When you eat, you take food energy into your body. All of those food calories - whether from protein, carbs, or fat - will make you fat if your body doesn't use that energy for some specific purpose. What your body does with the food you eat depends a lot on what kind of demand you create by the amount and type of training you do. For example, aerobic training tends to burn a lot of calories, and therefore depletes your body of glycogen - which is the primary source of energy for physical activity. As a consequence, when you eat carbohydrate after an endurance training session, the body turns that carbohydrate into replacement glycogen as quickly as it can, and little of that carbohydrate is likely to be diverted to become stored body fat.

On the other hand, intense weight training - working your muscles against heavy resistance - creates a major demand for replacement protein. Protein eaten soon after a workout, or on the same day as an intense gym workout, will be used by the body to rebuild muscle tissue at a much higher rate than on days when you are not doing that kind of training. Again, when the body is in this high state of demand, it is unlikely than non excessive amounts of ingested protein will be stored as body fat to any great degree.

So, in general terms, when your goal is to direct protein into your muscles, you need to train with weights. When your goal is to burn off excessive energy, you need to do increased amounts of aerobic training.