The Ultimate Cutting Diet - Devised By Pro Natural Bodybuilder Layne Norton. Pre- Contest Dieting: Obviously the most pertinent issue regarding pre- contest preparation is the diet aspect of preparation. It is not enough to just clean up what you eat, it must be far more drastic than that. When you see the winner of a bodybuilding competition onstage, rest assured they tracked their calories, carbs, proteins, fats, and never missed meals. If you want to do well in a bodybuilding competition, you should expect to do nothing less.
Before I begin talking about a proper pre- contest diet, we need to examine exactly how long a person should diet for a contest. The first thing that should be done is an “assessment” of your body. Look yourself over and be honest about your faults, strengths, and about how long you think it will take for you to get into stage shape. Importance Of Slow Dieting. Keep in mind that if you think you have around 2. Aim to diet as slowly as possible. The severity of your calorie deficit will, to a large extent, determine how much muscle you retain/lose. The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook A Scientific Approach to Crash Dieting. Package Includes: The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook: 93 pages Home Exercise Handbook (PDF). Short periods of high severity dieting (more than 1. As a general rule of thumb, losing 1 lb of bodyweight per week will allow one to retain most of their muscle mass. One can probably lose up to 1. Dieting Too Fast? If one tries to push their body to lose more than 2 lbs per week for any length of time, then they will begin to experience quite a bit of muscle loss. It is for this reason that I usually try to give myself enough time so that I only need to lose 1- 1. If one is naturally ectomorphic (has an easy time losing weight) however, they may want to diet for a shorter period of time, and I would recommend a time period of 1. If one is naturally endomorphic (has a hard time losing weight), then they may want to lengthen their dieting time to 1. If this is the first time that you have ever done a contest then you would want to also give yourself an extra week as you will probably experience a hitch at some point along the way. Diet Information. The diet that one follows for their contest will be the single most important determining factor of how well they will place in the competition. A person can have all the mass in the world but if they do not come in razor sharp on contest day, then the mass will mean little. Judges almost always go for conditioning over size. To design a proper diet one should give themselves adequate time to lose the necessary body fat to achieve that aforementioned shredded look. Being said, what kind of diet is optimal for a person to follow? Well The Diet Should Have Three Main Goals: Spare as much muscle mass as possible. Lose as much fat as possible. Not cause the person to lose intensity in the weight room. Unfortunately, these goals all seem to contradict each other. When the body is in a starved (calorie deficit) state, muscle loss can occur although a calorie deficit is required to lose fat. This calorie deficit will also cause one to feel less energetic. Before I get into the details of the raw vegan diet, itTo get around the negatives, there are small adjustments and little tricks to aid in the accomplishment of the positives. Before discussing the diet, it is important to discuss the three macronutrients and their roles. The DASH Diet Weight Loss Solution by Marla Heller MS RD (2012): Food list. Protein. Protein is probably the single most important macronutrient for the purposes of maintaining muscle on a diet. Dietary protein is hydrolyzed (broken down) into it’s constitutive amino acids during digestion. These amino acids are released into the bloodstream where they may then be taken up by cells (usually muscle cells). Dietary protein is also very important as amino acid availability is the single most important variable for protein synthesis to occur. This means that protein synthesis increases in a linear fashion (directly proportional to plasma amino acid concentrations) until the plasma amino concentrations are approximately twice that of normal plasma concentrations. To generalize for the less scientifically inclined, ingesting enough dietary protein is very important for someone who is looking to gain muscle, or maintain it while dieting. Dietary protein spares muscle by helping increase protein synthesis (and thus induce net muscle gain) and by acting as a muscle sparing substrate as it can be used for glucogensis (synthesis of glucose). Dietary protein however, is not as muscle sparing as are carbohydrates when used as a substrate for glucose synthesis. Protein is also a very “expensive” molecule for your body to use as energy. The body would much rather store amino acids than oxidize them as protein oxidation yields less net ATP produced per amino acid when compared to fat or carbohydrates. Therefore, it can be stated that dietary protein has a thermogenic effect on the body. Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates have probably gotten the worst reputation of the macronutrients due to the ketogenic dieting rave. Ketogenic dieting refers to reducing carbohydrate intake to practically nothing, while simultaneously raising fat and protein intake. With little glucose for the brain to utilize for energy, the body will begin producing ketones. Ketones are by- products of fat oxidation and the brain can use ketones for energy. This does indeed have a potent fat burning effect, as insulin levels will be severely reduced due to lack of carbohydrate intake. Low insulin levels correlate with high rates of fat oxidation. Indeed, the ketogenic diet may be the single best way to lose the maximum amount of body fat in the shortest amount of time. However, if you will quickly refer to our goals during a pre contest diet you will notice that maintaining muscle is number one on our list, with fat loss second. If one has not properly scheduled enough time to lose body fat and they are in need of drastic measures, then using a ketogenic diet may be their only choice in order to become contest- ready in time. Unfortunately, they will not maintain an optimum amount of muscle mass. For those who have given themselves ample time to prepare, I do not suggest using a ketogenic diet. Instead, I recommend reducing carbohydrates, but keeping them high enough to possess the muscle sparing benefits of carbohydrates while still losing body fat. Importance Of Carbs While Cutting. There are several main reasons that I recommend retaining carbohydrates. The first reason being that carbohydrates are much more muscle sparing than fats during times of stress when glucose becomes a primary source of fuel (i. The muscle sparing effects of carbohydrates occur via several different mechanisms. When the body is in a low energy state, it may try to produce energy by converting amino acids to glucose. Carbohydrates prevent this since they can be easily broken down (and converted if need be) to glucose molecules. Carbohydrates then spare dietary protein from oxidation and these proteins can be stored rather than oxidized. Carbohydrates are also very muscle sparing during exercise. When one lifts heavy weights, the primary pathway that is used to produce ATP (cellular energy currency) is the anaerobic or glycolytic pathway (as the name implies this pathway operates in the absence of oxygen). The only substrate for this pathway is glucose, which can be obtained from dietary carbohydrates or by breaking down glycogen (the cell’s stored form of glucose). If one is on a ketogenic or extreme “low carb” diet however, the body will need to utilize another source to synthesize glucose from. Since glycogen levels are low on a ketogenic diet, the body will actually convert amino acids to glucose and this glucose will be used in the anaerobic pathway to produce ATP. These amino acids will come from dietary protein, amino acids from the cellular amino acid pool, and from muscle tissue. The latter situation is where one would experience muscle loss. Dietary protein would be sacrificed for ATP production and the depleted amino acid pool would not bode well for protein synthesis rates, thus causing a net loss in muscle mass. Muscle Sparing Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are also muscle sparing because they are a cause of insulin release. Now I know your thinking, “but Layne, you just said in your intro that low insulin levels were great for fat burning!?”Yes, you are correct. I did indeed say that low insulin levels are good for fat burning. Insulin inhibits lipolytic (fat burning) activity and must be kept low if one wishes to burn a maximal amount of fat. However, the pesky re- occurring theme of maintaining muscle prevents us from totally excluding insulin from our pre- contest diet arsenal, as insulin happens to be one of the most anabolic/anti- catabolic hormones in the body. Insulin binding to the cell membrane causes all sorts of reactions in your body that are beneficial to maintaining and gaining muscle tissue. Insulin inhibits protein breakdown and amino acid oxidation, thus promoting muscle maintenance or gain. Insulin also has an antagonist (inhibitory) affect with regards to several catabolic hormones, including cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that is released during times of stress such as dieting, lifting, injury, etc. Cortisol produces glucose by breaking down proteins, including muscle tissue. Cortisol is the primary catabolic hormone that is released when one lifts or does any kind of activity. Insulin release inhibits the activity of cortisol by preventing its release from the pancreas, thus sparing muscle tissue from cortisol’s catabolic effects. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that long- term exposure of cells to ketones (i. This causes one to become extremely sensitive to carbohydrates when they begin ingesting them again after they finish dieting and could lead to an undesired post diet fat gain. Carbohydrates act to maintain muscle mass while dieting by maintaining cellular osmotic pressure and cell volume. Cell size is an indicator of the “state” that the body is in. When cells are of large volume, it signals that the body is in a fed state. When cell volume is low it signals that the body is in a starved state.
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