Bodybuilding FAQ - How to Fix Common Diet Problems?
By Lee LabradaDialing down your bodyfat percentage can be a frustrating experience. There you are, making great progress from your bodybuilding dieting efforts, when all of a sudden it grinds to a halt! Do you feel like you’ve reached an impasse in your bodybuilding training and nutrition program?
If you’re like me, you’ve probably encountered numerous obstacles and frustrations on your road to a lean body. Or perhaps you’re one of the lucky few who can eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, or Kentucky Fried Chicken and still look like a Greek god, carved out of stone!
But for the rest of us (myself included!), the challenges of the daily bodybuilding diet can be overwhelming at times. In this article, I’m going to identify some of the common problems that arise during the dieting process. I’m also going to show you how to troubleshoot your bodybuilding program and implement solutions that work.
Do Not Get Frustrated
The most important thing to keep in mind is to not get frustrated and blow your program completely. The natural response when you come to an impasse is to say, “The heck with it. I’ve already blown it, I’m not making any progress and I might as well really blow it.”
Well, as my friend, world renowned nutritionist Keith Klein, is fond of saying, “Don’t shoot all the tires off the car when you get a flat.” If you’re driving along the freeway and you get a flat tire, you pull over to the shoulder of the road and you change the tire. You don’t get out of the car, pull out a gun and shoot out the other three tires in frustration.
A similar analogy can be drawn to the frustrations of a trainee that blows his diet or reaches an impasse in his physique goals. Let’s say you blow your diet. O.K., well you’ve made a mistake. But the best response is to fix it. Acknowledge that you’ve made a mistake, and get back on your diet as quickly as possible. Don’t throw the diet out the window entirely, keep bingeing and destroy your physique. Psychology plays a big part in the dieting and training process.
Now, let’s look at other common obstacles that you may encounter as you diet and train towards your lean body.
Obstacle 1: Body weight is not going down.
If you are on a proper bodybuilding diet, i.e., adequate amounts of protein and complex carbs, your body weight may not go down at all. In fact, it may actually increase. This is because you are dropping fat and building muscle at the same time. Hence, the scale may not move.
Instead of worrying about the scale, pay close attention to your body composition as measured with body fat calipers or another reputable method, pay close attention to your pictures and your image in the mirror, and pay special attention to the way your clothes are fitting.
When first embarking on a bodybuilding diet, your body weight may actually go up while your body fat goes down, especially if you have never eaten properly before. If your body weight stays the same or it goes up and you’re getting leaner at the same time, you’re on the right track. Don’t reduce your calories further.
Obstacle 2: I’m not hungry at the three-hour intervals at which I’m supposed to eat every day.
A bodybuilding diet calls for 5-6 small meals per day. It may sound a little strange, but with proper nutrition you will not be hungry most of the time, even though you will be losing body fat! In order for your diet to work properly, it’s important that you eat all of your meals on time and in their entirety.
You should consume an adequate amount of protein and complex carbohydrates at every meal. Don’t drop off parts of the meal and don’t save some of the food for a later meal. You should eat all of the food that you have scheduled at each meal at the designated times. This is important to keep your muscles bathed in growth-producing nutrients and to keep your metabolism well stimulated.
Obstacle 3: I don’t see any changes in my body.
As I mentioned before, dieting is a psychological battle of perception. Many people have a problem keeping a handle on their self-image. So what I recommend is that you start any diet by taking pictures of yourself and getting your body composition measured by body fat caliper method or some other reputable method by someone who knows what they’re doing. Learn how track your progress to single digit bodyfat with The Get Lean Kit.
This will establish a benchmark that will help you to objectively gauge your progress. Once you have the proper benchmark established, then it’s just a matter of tweaking the diet and implementing the correct aerobics program to strip away body fat.
Some advice: If you’re not getting leaner, then increase your aerobic time slightly. For example, if you normally do aerobics for 20 minutes, add an additional 10 minutes for a total of 30 minutes of aerobics. I will caution you however, that aerobics should not be overdone. If you do too many aerobics, you may start burning valuable muscle tissue, and you’ll end up stringy and flat looking.
After increasing your aerobics by 50% for one week, drop 200 calories from your daily caloric intake and see if this creates the desired changes. If you don’t get the appropriate response within two weeks, repeat the process again.
Obstacle 4: I seem to be holding fluid.
A little water retention should be of no consequence to you unless you have a physique contest coming up. Most people try to rid themselves of excess body water (fluid) by limiting their sodium intake or restricting water. Both of these techniques fail over the long term because the body is very good at maintaining a balance of sodium, electrolytes and water, and will compensate for any adjustments that you make.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s O.K. to limit your sodium to a healthy level, but radical sodium restriction will only result in bloating as the body adjusts. I think the best policy is to drink lots of water and to consume foods without added salt.
