A beginner bodybuilder is any person who has just started bodybuilding training, that is, training with weights. Even if you are a beginner, the subject of your diets to follow should never be neglected, since even if you gain muscle mass at first, it is better to do things right from the beginning.
Bodybuilding diets are not like normal diets. Bodybuilders are not people who are on the couch all day or people who are just looking to lose a few kilos for the summer. A bodybuilder will always look for the maximum possible muscle results in their diets, both in volume and muscle definition, here we leave you a good article that explains
Professional bodybuilders often know how to diet well, as they have hired trainers for the role. They guide their diet in such a way that they achieve exactly the goals they are looking for, whether it is preparing for a competition or being unemployed for a year to gain the maximum muscle mass possible.
In contrast, a beginner who has just started lifting weights does not yet know much about diets. It is important to learn to do the diet as soon as possible, to make the most of that magical state of beginner that we all have when we start training, thus maximizing the results.
The bad thing is that the internet is full of myths, contradictory information and others that will not help us. Nutritionists tend to prefer other more classic methods and a personal trainer may be too expensive for your goals. Therefore, you need another type of advice, an advice that is free, but that is effective for you.
For this reason, I have prepared this article for you about the best types of diet for bodybuilders, whether they are definition diets, volume diets or maintenance diets to keep us at our ideal weight for a short period of time.
Instructions
- Clean eating diet:
Let’s first talk about what is called the clean eating diet, a diet advocated by many industry experts who say they have had great results with it. In this diet, you choose to eliminate all processed and poor quality foods, leaving only clean foods free of preservatives, sugar and other junk. Calories are not counted here, as they believe that results are achieved by hormonal response, not by the number of calories consumed. Foods such as eggs, chicken, fish, and vegetables are eaten… and foods such as sugar, sausages, alcohol, pizzas and fast food restaurant hamburgers among others are eliminated. We have three types of this diet depending on the goal we want to achieve.- Definition:
A definition diet is a diet in which we seek to lose weight in the form of fat. Thanks to this diet we will be able to look good aesthetically, since the muscles will be seen. If you are eating a very dirty diet, with sugar and others, surely just by eating clean, you will lose a lot of fat, since it will greatly improve your hormonal response and you will not need to stop eating, just change junk food for clean food in the same amount. - Volume:
Muscle is built in the kitchen and in the gym, therefore, it is necessary to do a volume diet to gain muscle mass. It’s almost inevitable to come up clean (gain only muscle without fat), but with the clean diet you can achieve something similar. Here you should eat a lot, without counting calories, but eat a lot of complex foods that contain slow carbohydrates and proteins such as rice and chicken. This will favor the hormonal response to create muscle mass and glycogen. - Maintenance:
The maintenance diet is a diet carried out after defining, which consists of maintaining our weight without losing muscle. This is done to go from one competition to another or to stay the same all summer. In the case of the clean diet, what we should do is eat normal, not too much and not too little, without forgetting the rule that you can never eat processed foods, because if you do, we will have a negative hormonal response that will make increase body fat.
- Definition:
- Flexible dieting:
Now we are going to talk about the opposite of the clean diet, the flexible diet. This diet, which is also defended by some well-known members of the sector, tells us that what really matters are the calories we eat, no matter if they are from processed foods or clean foods. Here it is simple; we must have a kitchen scale ready to weigh food and software like My Fitness Pal to calculate the calories we have eaten. We also have three types of this type of diet, to gain mass, to define and to stay in the same state for a long time.- Definition:
The definition of flexible dieting is quite simple, but hard to do. This diet makes a slow definition, of losing half a kilo per week, in order to avoid muscle catabolism. To define yourself, you must eat 500 fewer calories than you need. Keep in mind that the metabolism slows down, therefore, you will have to eat less and less if you want to continue losing weight at the same speed, since in the end you will stagnate. - Volume:
The volume here, as in the clean diet, should be slow, only 500 calories above. This way we are going to gain muscle mass instead of fat(some gain but little), doing it slowly but surely. To perform a volume diet, you must eat 500 more calories of food, increasing that amount when you plateau (your metabolism speeds up), in order to continue gaining weight at the same speed. - Maintenance:
Now we come to the so-called maintenance, which is extremely simple. Eat just the calories you need, because by eating these calories, your body will stay balanced on the same floor, without gaining or losing weight. This is ideal for being on the beach looking the same for some time.
- Definition:
- Loading and unloading of carbohydrates:
Surely you have ever wondered how professional bodybuilders can arrive at competitions with such a low percentage of fat and at the same time with such enormous muscles. This is due to the loading and unloading of carbohydrates, which serves to make the body eliminate all water from the body, except from the muscles. In this way we manage to have very swollen and aesthetic muscles, but we also manage to make everything stand out, since we have a low percentage of fat. This diet has three phases and is done just before competing:- Preparation:
In the weeks prior to the competition, we are going to prepare the body for the competition and for the loading and unloading of carbohydrates. In the first place, we are going to eat a lot of carbohydrates during that period, since in this way, we are going to get the body to retain a lot of liquids (I will explain the reason later). We are also going to eat a lot of carbohydrates, so that the body is loaded with them and we have the hormones in our favor to unload. - Download:
The download phase is done the week before the competition. In this week, you stop drinking water and eating carbohydrates all at once. Since the body is hyper hydrated, it will have the hormones ready to release all the glycogen in the body. As for training, we are going to train with low weight and high repetitions, in order to use up all the glycogen in the muscles and once again have the upper hand in terms of hormones. We will do this during the first 5 days of the week before the competition. - Load:
Now we go with the load of hydrates. Now we are going to drink a lot of water and eat a lot of carbohydrates during the two days before the competition. In this way, we will ensure that the body is filled with glycogen, only in the muscles. This is because since we have left the muscles empty, the hormones are going to fill the muscle with glycogen, which is not going to go to the body because it still has the effect of the preload of not absorbing water in certain parts. Now we are ready to compete.
- Preparation:
- Intermittent fasting:
Intermittent fasting is a doctrine that tells us that if we spend long hours without ingesting calories, the body obtains benefits when it comes to gaining muscle mass and losing weight at the same time. Among the benefits obtained, we have improved insulin response, greater hormone secretion, hunger control, tissue repair, less stress, better use of anabolic windows (read section 6) and promoting weight loss by eating less. Calories (in 24 hours).- 16 hours: The 16-hour fast is done every day and is the most basic of all. It consists of eating all the calories of the day in a period of 8 hours, usually between 2 and 10, to fast the rest of the day. This fast serves to prepare you for the 24-hour fast and helps many people control hunger and avoid unnecessary eating.
- 24 hours: This is the star fast, which has almost all the benefits mentioned above. Once a week, we will go 24 hours without eating. When we have been 22 hours, we will notice how psychological hunger becomes real hunger, in addition to feeling great calm in the stomach. Remember not to eat any calories, although you can drink water.
- Mixed diet:
The mixed diet is an intermediate diet between the flexible diet and the clean diet. This diet was created by people who believed in both hormonal response and the importance of the number of calories when eating. This diet tells us that we should eat as many calories as we need, but with at least 80% clean calories. In this way, we will achieve both the caloric goal and a correct hormonal response, thus maximizing the results you want to achieve. This is the diet that I recommend and it is the one that almost everyone in this world does. The reason is that it is the most effective of all and rightly so. - Eating in the anabolic window:
The anabolic window is a state of the body that you have after training. Although this is not a diet, it is important that you know it. When we finish lifting weights, the human body has a 45-minute period in which protein synthesis in the muscles is favored. Simply put, whatever you eat in the anabolic window is going to go to muscle and not fat. Try to make your meals after training and you will see how you have satisfactory results when it comes to gaining muscle mass and losing weight, but yes, do it together with a diet that we have explained here today.