In this article I will discuss eating correctly for bodybuilding and weight management goals, this includes weight loss for aesthetic and health reasons.   Eating guidelines for weight loss and bodybuilding may sound like the opposite sides of the diet spectrum but they both share the same fundamental principles.   I will also discuss the key benefits of post workout nutrition as well as giving the example nutrition plan for the 3-hour window after a workout courtesy of Ian Duckett.   Finally I will look into the consequences of low calorie diets and the problems with malnourishment with today's dieter.             

Eating Smart

Eating a well-balanced healthy diet can become a bit of a chore, fitting all the nutrients into a busy day can be difficult even for the most dedicated individual.   Most people know that eating frequently is essential to weight loss programmes or bodybuilding goals because it is impossible to lose weight and keep it off while cutting calories and impossible to build muscle without the right amount of calories. The more calories you cut, the more stress it is, the more your body will eat itself, the more your hormones will be out of flux, the more fat storing hormones are released in order to keep fuel (fat) for the body, and the more you tell you thyroid to slow down as a protective mechanism in order for the body to keep
what little fuel it has to live on.   The same can be said about building muscle; you have to eat just the right amount of surplus calories above your daily maintenance level to create the environment within your body allowing muscles to feed and grow.   Therefore eating frequently is essential for both goals.        

The choice of foods is just as important as well as the amounts, but time constraints and practicality can cause a person to live on processed junk food.   So what is the best solution?   Planning the next day's meals is the key, preparing the night before if necessary and using the convenience of food supplements in your daily diet.   Having a meal replacement drink mid morning and mid afternoon with a piece of fruit whilst at work is more convenient and quicker for just about anyone.   That way you are getting the nutrients your body needs and the calories to keep the metabolism fire burning, these are best used when time doesn't allow you to eat a solid meal, food is more thermogenic than liquid meals but always favour a liquid meal over skipping a meal or heading for the vending machine.      

When planning meals careful selection is necessary with food quality and the amounts you eat.   The ratio of protein, fat and carbohydrate per meal is dictated by the individual's response to that meal and how they respond to it afterwards.   Unwanted side effect such as feeling tired, bloated or hungry should be recorded in a food log so adjustments can be made the next time.   Fine-tuning is required from meal to meal to sense what works best for your body.   Everyone responds differently at a biochemical level to the same foods, in his book The Metabolic Typing Diet, William Wolcott explains the many adverse effects foods can have on the individual and how to modify the diet in view of that for optimum health.  

The key is to try and eat a wide selection of foods every week, eating the same meals day in day out can be boring and detrimental.   Careful selection of foods that suits your digestive system is recommended.    Become familiar with the glycemic index and eat protein with every meal, this will maintain blood sugar levels and elevate the metabolic rate.       

Post workout nutrition
and why it is important for you

The right types of fuel have to be taken in; the body needs those nutrients, and fast. So with this in mind we have to use fuel that will enter the system quickly otherwise the uptake of those nutrients will be lost and the benefits will be only minimal.   So what are those right types of fuel?   Well they need to be fast acting, by this description I refer to how fast they enter your system, and this all starts with the meal you have before you train and the nutrient types you choose after.   Here is what many weight trainers do wrong and what typically goes on around the gyms all over the world. The athlete-bodybuilder-figure girl will eat a meal that will actually take too long to digest prior to a workout, in which case it will be still in transit after the workout and impede the fast acting fuel we need to gain the right of passage. After the workout, the weight trainer will normally have a protein drink- made with a cheap protein milk formula, or maybe a meal replacement. A meal replacement drink is fantastic at all other times throughout the day but will cause a complete and utter shutdown of that window of opportunity for the chance of gaining an edge on your workout and to provide the chance to aid in muscle recovery and to also stimulate fat loss and all just because it's the wrong fuel at the wrong time.

Ok, so we need to eat something or drink something with a quick transit time, to fuel the workout and the muscles to leave a clear run for that post workout meal to do the job it was intended for.   Working on a three-hour window of opportunity after with workout has finished will give fantastic results in muscle fullness and in definite fat loss.   After some research with AST and following their lead with three post workout meals. One immediately after your workout, one an hour later and then another an hour after that, research has shown that the uptake of nutrients, amino acids and carbohydrates in this three-hour window gives a high anabolic response and aids recovery two fold and stimulates the metabolism to burn even more fat. Wow, you cannot lose with this, it's a win- win situation, you can eat more food, gain
muscle and lose fat. 

The ultimate nutrition recovery plan

One hour prior to training.
Have a meal that is fairly fast acting and a serving of VP2.
Oats and egg whites or toast and honey, keep the fat away from this meal.

Immediately after the workout.
2 scoop of AST creatine HSC, two servings of VP2 and two
t-spoons of glutamine with two rice cakes.

One hour.
One serving VP2 and two rice cakes.

One hour.
Nytro pro 40 and oats mixed as a pudding.

Two to three hours later.
Three hours later follow with a normal meal e.g. chicken, potato and vegetables and continue with the muscle building fat burning process.

Make sure to adjust the servings suggestions above to suit your calorie needs.   In summary, following a plan similar to the one above will drive your metabolism to produce fat loss and create the right environment to build muscle.

The true cost of low calorie diets

You have to eat to lose weight, you need calories to burn calories or your metabolism will slow down!   Low calorie diets cause many people to be MAL-nourished, even obese people.   You have to detox for healthy weight loss, living on processed foods will make the body toxic.   Building health to achieve your optimum weight is the only way that works long term.   Following are consequences associated with skipping meals and not eating enough calories.         

•  You don't learn anything from dieting. All you learn is how to imprison yourself for months and even years.   Nutrition is a lifestyle that needs to be taught so it can be applied for a lifetime!

•  You create more fat storing enzymes each time you diet.  

•  You decrease the number of fat burning enzymes each time you diet and create an increase in the size of fat cells.  

•  You decrease lean body mass and basal metabolic rate.   Each diet makes it harder to restore normal basal metabolic rate.  

•  You create insulin and blood sugar handling problems, which most of the time creates fat storage and hypoglycemic symptoms = cravings!  

•  With dieting which is a stress, more cortisol is released. When cortisol goes up, insulin goes up to protect the body. Both of these are converted to glucose into fat = fat storing hormones.  

•  Most people decrease the amount of good fat when dieting. Fat deficiency causes fat cravings, the kinds of fat you find in junk food.  


Malnutrition due to low calorie diets

Society today is after the quick fix. When it comes to weight loss through starving the body it loses out by not getting enough nutrients to be healthy.   If skipping meals and restricting foods from the daily diet is the norm for you, who are you fooling; the result will be linked to more weight gain and eventually disease.   The body does best on a variety of quality nutrients from natural sources at regular intervals and counting calories won't be a concern if this occurs.   Eating the largest amount of your daily calories at the end of the day when your body doesn't need them will do nothing in helping your body shape either.   A typical day might start with getting up and rushing to get to work and grabbing a quick coffee on the way.   Constant deadlines at work prevent you from eating before lunch, which then probably will be a sandwich from the shop.   This will likely to be highly processed and full of additives and preservatives.   You continue to drink coffee throughout the day to prevent you from nodding off.   By mid-afternoon when you can no longer keep your eyes open and your stomach is rumbling like an earthquake you go over to the vending machine and grab a chocolate bar.   This will keep you ticking over till you get home and you have that massive evening meal where you will probably reward yourself with a glass or two of wine in recognition for your stressful day.   By this time it will be time for bed to repeat it all again the next day.   Does this sound familiar?   As you can see with this eating plan there aren't enough quality nutrients and mostly bad calories going in the body at long intervals, eventually resulting in malnutrition that can lead to both health problems and weight gain.   With a little planning and preparation all this can be reversed in your favour to achieve the health and body shape you desire.