Read: The Foundation of Bodybuilding

**BBisLife** · 09-02-2002, 01:45 PM

The Foundation of Bodybuilding
by BBisLife

If I had to come up with a ratio, bodybuilding is 80% diet/nutrition, 15% training, and 5% AAS, give or take. Diet is the infrastructure of bodybuilding; it and BB should go hand in hand. Does everyone getting into BB realize this important reality? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Sadly, many people overlook this aspect and come to a disappointing failure. This voluminous amount of people, usually consisting of newcomers to the sport, begin to heavily rely on AAS in their quest for packing on slabs of beef. Instead of relying so heavily on the “gear”, they need to remove the inhibitive blindfold from their eyes and begin to favor diet more than anything else in their arsenal to achieve maximum growth. Not even all the AAS in the world will not work to their full potential nor be efficient if the diet is not first concrete. It is like throwing your hard earned cash down the drain for “half-ass” results, if any. Food/calories is the single most anabolic substance that you can put into your body.

As I stated above, bodybuilding should be built around one’s diet. I like to use the analogy; diet is to bodybuilding as the foundation is to a house. In order to build a house, you first need the concrete foundation built underneath. Without the foundation, the house simply comes tumbling down. Same holds true for diet/nutrition and bodybuilding. Take away the diet aspect of your program and your gains come crashing down. Conversely, if one hits a plateau, the person can up their daily caloric intake by 500 calories/day, and gains suddenly start to emerge again, breaking through that pesky barrier. A bodybuilder’s diet can make or break his/her goals.

Let’s face it. We all fail one time or another. You just got your goodies and plan out the entire cycle and training regime. Planning on gaining a solid 20 pounds in ten weeks, you go as hardcore as you can, training balls to the wall. At the conclusion of the ten weeks, you are disappointed by the newly acquired 10 pounds that you have worked so hard for. As a result of you coming up short, you go back and overlook your entire program. The failure didn’t lie in your training, you knew that the gear was legit, and even were able to sleep 8 hours every night of the week. Then it finally dawns on you, aaahh the diet! The cornerstone of your program was overlooked. On the contrary, if your goal is to cut, and calories are not below BMR levels, you are going to have difficulties burning bodyfat. Unfortunately, I’d say that 90% of all failure lies in the nutritional guidelines of one’s course.

I can now breakdown the importance of fat, carbohydrates, and protein and how the body utilizes them but I will leave that for a different discussion. I will cut it down to the simple question “How much should I eat to grow?” One thing you have to realize is that as individuals, we are very diverse. Different body types, different metabolisms, different room for growth, etc, etc. With that being said, it is a good idea to aim for around 25 x each pound of bodyweight, increasing the amount as you gain. This number changes slightly lower if you are an endomorph and higher if you are an ectomorph. Spread the calories out into 6-8 meals per day as well for better absorption and digestion of the nutrients as well as staying in an anabolic state. Breaking the calories into this many meals along the day will boost your metabolism as well by expending energy for the digestion process.

Athletes have increased protein requirements than sedentary(non active) individuals. For this reason, of those calories, it is wise to consume between 1.5-2.0g of protein per pound of bodyweight. This will keep the body in a positive nitrogen balance, which is critical in the quest for obtaining muscle mass. Consume to little protein, and you could very well possibly lose muscle mass. Protein is the building block for our muscles.

From reading this, I hope that you understand a little bit more about the basics of the diet and how crucial of a role it plays in packing on muscle. Without this knowledge, you are destined for failure. In a nutshell, growth requires calories, and lots of them. I GUARANTEE that if your diet is not up to par as of right now, and you refine it, you WILL grow. Now go raid your fridge and grow beyond recognition, will ya?

~BBisLife~

Bodybuilding and your physique revolves around your diet!

**kizer_soce** · 09-02-2002, 01:55 PM

SO TRUE!!!! Surely a post to keep bumped for a GOOD while.

**inertia** · 09-02-2002, 01:57 PM

my god the diet is soooooo improtant!!! thx bbislife,good read

**MeatHead03** · 09-02-2002, 02:08 PM

bump this way up, even maybe put it in the educational threads

**Bigk** · 09-02-2002, 02:27 PM

I always kinda cringed when people said things such as 'bodybuilding is 80% diet/nutrition, 15% training, and 5% AAS" I mean it's impossible to compare diet and training in %'s they just can't be separated like that. Think about it. If you didn't train, but had a perfect diet would you grow? If you trained your ass off, but didn't eat worth a shit would you grow? Of course not either way, you arn't growing!! Thats why I've always said 95% training/diet, and 5% AS

I strongly agree with you that most people take the easy way out and rely almost 100% on gear to get them where they want to be which just isn't how things work. Without your diet and you training in check you'll get nowhere.

Great post though, and I definetly don't mean to dog on you man.

Peace

**kizer_soce** · 09-02-2002, 02:37 PM

Well I am sure he was referring to BB"s not the avg person. And ALL BBer's TRAIN, that is what we DO. What he is referring to IMO is TRAINING STYLE, not whether you do indeed train or not. Whether it is HIT, German Volume Training, 3x3 or whatever it is is useless without a proper diet.

**BBisLife** · 09-02-2002, 03:28 PM

The %'s were just to get the point across...nothing literally.

~BB~

**BBisLife** · 09-03-2002, 04:43 PM

bump

~BB~

**iron4life79** · 09-03-2002, 05:33 PM

this is a truly inspirational post bro.............nice job.

peace bb79

**BBisLife** · 09-03-2002, 08:59 PM

Thanks barbells.

~BB~

**babi** · 09-04-2002, 12:56 PM

i couldnt agree with you anymore,for everybody reading this post the numbers shouldnt be taken so literally cuz ther is no way in proving that, but the writer has the right idea when he implies that food is the most important thing in building muscle.