Post 33: The Best Diet for All Athletes

          Whether you're a bodybuilder/physique athlete, strength athlete, individual or team sport athlete, or a weekend warrior; you should consider that diet is the most important aspect of your training. End of story. I tell people all the time - as much as it pains me to say this - that your training plan is only going to account for (optimistically) about 20% of your progress. No matter what your goal is. Whether you're aiming to bulk up, lean out, or just get stronger, what you eat is going to be the rate-limiting step in your progress. Your training planning and methods have the potential to accelerate the process, but only if you're providing the right "fuel" for it to work magic. I will talk briefly about a few of the common "diet" plans people ask me about here on a regular basis, expose their premises and shortcomings, and deliver the key to successful dieting at the end.

You should eat 6 or 7 small meals per day right?

If you want to do this, and it makes you feel stronger and look better in the mirror, then by all means do it. The belief behind this is that six or seven small meals per day, or eating every two hours, liquid-solid-liquid-solid etc. will speed up the metabolic process and keep your muscles busy consuming nutrients so fat starves. Remember: Muscles need to be made hungry before they will eat. While I have mixed feelings about this, it still takes a unique lifestyle to accommodate 6+ feedings per day, and it can be stressful preparing food to go for the whole day - every day. I know some people personally who have seen great results using this type of plan and swear by it. I also know some people who have been more than diligent about it and seen nothing in terms of progress. Again, the "logic" (and I use that term loosely,) is that increasing the number of meals you consume daily increases your basal metabolic rate. In other words, BMR is the amount of energy you use up to continue to exist, Basal = Base. I don't wear a lab coat, but I'm pretty confident that the only thing that truly increases your energy expenditure - and therefore - requirements, is exercise.

Carb Loading the night before a big game or race.

Muscle glycogen is the stored form of glucose that provides readily available energy to the working muscle. There is also liver glycogen, but for now let's stay basic. Muscle glycogen exists in the myocyte (muscle cell/fiber) and is used in acute response to glycolytic exercise like full sessions of resistance training, sprinting and mid distance running practices, etc. Anything that is relatively short (about 45s - 1m:30s) in duration, repetitive, and intense in nature. In this case, the "answer" to the question is that carb loading starting a few days/nights before competing will result in topped up muscle glycogen levels. Simple in concept, but not necessarily in practice. When glucose enters the blood, there is a process that takes place where all tissues are equally prepared to reach out and grab it as needed. Readiness of tissue-regulated blood glucose clearance is dependent on the state of the tissue. Most relevant to this discussion is that unless the muscular system is taxed before the carb feeding, it will not only be muscles that are clearing the glucose and storing glycogen. Fat cells will also be prepared to clear the glucose and store it as... fat. Remember what I said earlier: muscles need to be hungry before they will eat. So, unless you're carb loading right after practice - you might not be carb-loading at all.

I should take protein right after I work out.

Sure, knock yourself out. Protein is always a good thing, but is not necessarily the first thing you need right after you lift. As I said in the last paragraph - muscle glycogen is the first thing that gets depleted during shorter, more intense bouts of exercise. With this earth-shattering news in mind, it's important to consider that your closest meals before and after training should be a higher carb:protein ratio than people typically assume. I said "closest" instead of "immediate" for a reason, carbs are great preworkout, you would be safe to go for a 70% carb, 30% protein meal about 90 minutes before training, and almost a 100% carb meal acutely following. In actuality, protein resynthesis isn't going to be mitigated to any appreciable degree by lack of protein ingestion for at least an hour after training.

So what is the best diet advice?

          You're going to absolutely hate me. I've talked about three of the most common nutrition-related notions I hear on a regular basis, and haven't given you the key to amazing body composition yet. So here it is: The best diet is the one that YOU can stick to. I'm not joking. I would wager that probably 90% of failed diets are due to a lack of compliance from the people using them. Sure there are other ones like ketogenic diets, paleo, etc. and for the most part, they have a sound premise. The question you need to ask yourself is: which one of them fits MY lifestyle best? 

          In a world where people can get what they want quickly - adherence and compliance are lost in the mix. This is one thing that drives me absolutely mental. I've seen people give a diet or a program about a week trial period and say "I'm not seeing any results." The problem with this is they didn't even give it enough time!!

          Seriously people, give yourself time to adjust to a diet. Your decision should not be based on whether you see results in the first 20 minutes, but if it coincides nicely with your schedule, lifestyle, and goals. I've seen people shape their lives around their diets, and shape their diets around their lives. The number one goal should be adherence and discipline. THAT is going to get you results.

-Alex