The diet came in the form of multiple sheets of menu plans, supplement lists and just more lists inside of lists; a lot of precise weighing to be involved. One of the traits of human nature seems to be the existence of completely opposing and conflicting behaviours, which unfortunately makes understanding others and indeed oneself really rather difficult.
One of my main conflicting characteristics is the ability to be quite obsessive compulsive with routine, yet I have a distinct aversion to weighing things. Having worked in Molecular Biology labs, you would think I could weigh out a substance to some degree of accuracy, yet my weighing or measuring of volumes was quite often done on visual estimation and my complete disregard for health and safety issues was not commendable. However, extraordinarily my success rate for experiments was quite high. I fear times are changing as I may not be able to get away with that kind of maverick attitude with this diet.
EVERYTHING on my menu list has precise measures and it sends me into a cold shiver.
Staying "Clean"
I made the decision to compete naturally (i.e no drugs) in my first show in June, but it was not an easy decision. I will fully admit to being tempted and I think that temptation is sometimes a product of the environment you are in. I train in a proper bodybuilding gym, so it is completely accepted as a means to an end. I don't even think it is a short cut, as you still have to train hard but you also have to tolerate even more unpleasant side effects. I laughed at the below quote:
Somehow the rationale to take drugs just because others are doesn't seem to sit very well with me. This whole experience is most definitely an experiment and I think I would be more interested to see what my body can do naturally. I also have a distinct feeling that some side effects from taking anabolic steroids may not be reversible. I wonder if you could ever be truly certain whether your body would "regress" back to pre-steroid physiology. The other more serious element of taking steroids is the psychological impact. Keeping a sense of perspective and fun is important, but it becomes increasingly difficult when hormones are on the run, as any PMS-ing female can contest. The body on "roids" also becomes a very unsustainable physique. I fear that will not bode well for long term confidence, so I think I will be veering from this path. I'd also like to keep on good terms with my loved ones!! One of my criteria for success is to give my all, but retain friendships and balance and not lose everything I have in the process. So I think I owe it to myself to stay true to my designated standards.
This decision does however mean, I will probably have to follow this wretched food plan to the letter T. This sport is by far the hardest that I have done. Physically there are no easy days and psychologically it is relentless. Because the transformation required is so extreme, it also requires an extreme accompanying diet. Precision in amount and timing of food is really important to success.
Ten years ago, I could train hard, not eat very well and get away with it. My recoverability was good and if any weight loss or gain was required for weight divisions, it didn't really matter where that "mass" came from. It could have been fat, muscle, water or all. Body building is about manipulating body composition extremely precisely; to get as lean as possible and retain as much muscle as possible to almost unhealthy limits. It is not a sustainable appearance and will be limited to 1-2 days either side of the show.
Carb Cycling
Looking at the many different diets out there, carb cycling seems to be the most sensible and effective route for obtaining this goal and is advocated by pretty much all the competitors that I have spoken to.
According to "wiki" :
"A cyclic ketogenic diet is a low-carbohydrate diet with intermittent periods of high or moderate carbohydrate consumption. This is a form of the general Ketogenic diet that is used as a way to maximize fat loss while maintaining the ability to perform high-intensity exercise"
For my particular diet plan, we have incorporated low, medium and high carb days. An example of the split, illustrated by my very average Excel skills!
 |
| Carbohydrate (blue) Protein (Red) and Fat (green). All in (g) per kg body weight |
Monday - Low
Tuesday - Low
Wednesday - High
Thursday -Low
Friday - Low
Sat -Medium
Sun - High
Roughly speaking this is: (all measures (g) per kg body weight.
Low days: 1.0g carb: 3.9g protein: 1.2g fat
Medium days: 1.5g carb: 3.5g protein: 0.96g fat
High Days: 2.9g carb: 3.1g protein : 0.63g fat
There are some fairly good apps and on-line calculators for working this out such as "my fitness pal".
The supplements
What gets me however is the the list of supplements. It's endless!!!! I am not an authority on nutrition. Unfortunately I think it is a very tricky discipline to do proper evidence based science and therefore much information does end up being anecdotal. Its also a trial and error experiment to work out what works for the individual.
My opinion on the value of supplements and in fact nutrition as a whole is not fully formed yet. I am presently of the school of thought that they are of little more use than eating a plastic bag. I also believe diet should reflect the goal. Just as a very crude categorisation, there are different levels of functioning and health: survival, basic functioning so you can get to and from work! good health, peak performance/ fitness. I do believe there is a difference between surviving and performing well. From looking at global nutrition studies, we know people can survive and function on a terrible diet without any supplements. The issue with the body building diet is the goal is actually an unhealthy level of body fat and a high level of dehydration, so consequently the diet is restrictive. Getting in enough nutrition then becomes a challenge and this is the rationale of incorporating a bucket load of supplements. It is a way of minimising the bodies rebellion to the process.
I have to just put faith into that being the rationale for inclusion of a lot of very expensive supplements which I would not be taking if I was on a normal healthy balanced diet. There is however strong evidence that caffeine and creatine have ergogenic effects (Pubmed!). I will most definitely be taking these! but to the best of my knowledge the jury is out on most other things. One of the other compounding factors of nutritional studies and personal nutritional interventions is of course placebo effect. So herein lies my conclusion to survival: Ruminate less and get more into the spirit of things!!
Clean and mean, way to go!
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