"Give me a 64-ounce steak, double-baked potato with extra sour cream and an
apple pie for dessert. No, not a slice - give me the whole pie, please."
If you have ever had the opportunity to go out with a bodybuilder for dinner, you
would be familiar with that kind of order delivered to the distressed waitress.
These high-carbohydrate, high-protein, and high-fat diet meals were the popular
method for packing on muscle and climbing the scale. "I'll pack on all the
weight I can now, then melt off the fat later," was the common motto.
Many bodybuilders put a lot of focus into the details of their nutritional strategy.
A small food scale, calculator, note pad and pencil are common items found in their
kitchen. Some competitive bodybuilders go to the extreme of weighing and measuring
everything wherever they go and scribbling numbers into their notepad after every
meal.
Obviously, not every skinny guy has the same aspirations, desire and determination
to live the life of a bodybuilder. Skinny guys will be more successful today if
they have a quick and convenient plan to follow that involves minimal measuring
and minimal number crunching.
The See Food Diet Is NOT The Answer
The reality is that many skinny guys' nutritional level does not exceed the
See Food Diet, that is, 'see food' and eat it. Not a bad option if you can avoid
getting a potbelly in the process. If this is you, then consider yourself blessed
with a Lamborghini-style metabolism. Go right ahead and eat whatever and whenever
you want until you're ready to audition for Rambo IV.
For the most part, the See Food Diet is typically not the most healthy meal plan
since it puts zero restrictions on any food categories and is more a concept to
shift a skinny guy's mind-set than anything else. These days, the majority
of readers should know the fallacy of a See Food Diet. Sure, you can eat a super
high calorie diet, like the See Food Diet, and add some muscle, but you'll add even
more fat. And from personal experience, and I'm sure many of you can personally
testify, putting the fat on is much easier than taking it off! Conveniently, bodybuilders
now have an "off-season shape" card to flash year-round to excuse themselves
of looking like a pregnant powerlifter.
Muscle-Building Nutrition Principles
Mastering the principles of nutrition should be like mastering the principles of
training - simple. Master the basics and execute them consistently. Think
about the 80/20 rule. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your knowledge.
Taking what you already know and putting it into action consistently is the magic
formula. Let's go over the most important nutrition principles you'll need to practice
to get your body growing.
Principle #1: Eat Often - Every 2.5 to 3 Hours
Don't expect to pack on quality mass - muscle without body fat - on
three square meals a day. This would lead to massive quantities of both protein
and carbs at each meal. Your body can only store so many calories per meal, so guess
what this results in? Bloating, poor digestion and unwanted body fat.
Your first meal should be consumed within 15-30 minutes of waking up and consumed
every 2.5 to 3 hours. Set your stopwatch to beep until you get something in your
body. Don't view these meals as burdensome but as opportunities to fuel and grow
your muscles. Look at them as
growth surges. Think of the next meal as
a fuller chest, broader shoulders, bigger arms and rock-hard abs!
And if you miss a meal, visualize a sea of piranhas eating up your muscle tissue
like it's an all-you-can-eat buffet. And those deadly piranhas are eating
up your CURRENT muscle that you are not even satisfied with. They are actually making
your muscles
smaller. No, you will not lose an inch on your arms if you miss one meal, but once
you start averaging 3-4 instead of 6-8 meals a day, don't be upset when people
look surprised when you tell them you work out with weights regularly!
So how many meals should you be eating? That's easy
- just divide the time you're awake by 2 or 3. I would
suggest mastering eating every 3 hours before you consider every 2 hours.
So if you're awake 18 hours a day, eat 6 meals.
What if one of those meals falls right before bedtime? Then eat up! Take the opportunity
to eat. If we went to the extreme we would eat every 3 hours throughout the night
as well. No matter what you have heard on this (never eat after 7 P.M. garbage)
ignore it. Trust me!
Also, don't view these feeding opportunities as 'snacks.' This
is a wimpy word mentality that should not be in your vocabulary if you are trying
to build muscle. Do you think Ronnie Coleman says, 'Hey, I think I'm
going to go eat a snack?' Every 3 hours you should be eating decent size meals
that will make your body better.
Principle #2: Eat A Variety Of Foods
It is easy to get into a robotic state of nutrition where we eat the exact same
foods every day, ingesting the same breakfast, lunch and dinner and the only time
we eat differently is when we go out for dinner or someone else cooks for us. It
is easier to choose convenience over variety.