Get Your Body Back

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Nutritional Strategies

Getting your body back will require more than a few hours of gym time every week — you'll have to do your part on the diet front, too. Here are four guidelines to help you get your meal plan in sync with your workouts.

1. Track your calories. Some people make calorie counting a daunting and complicated endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. At the most basic level, your body will store calories it doesn’t need, which means you should concentrate on controlling the excess — nothing more.
   Here’s a simple formula: To figure out how many calories you should be averaging per day to drop pounds, multiply your body weight in pounds by 12. A 180-pound man would aim for no more than 2,160 calories daily. Give it two to three weeks, and see if you lose 2 to 5 pounds per week — if you find you’re losing more than that (which means too much muscle mass is slipping away) bump your total intake up by 100 to 200 calories.
2. Seek out quality sources of protein. It has been written a million times in fitness magazines, but that’s because it’s true: Protein is the building block of muscle, making it absolutely essential for crafting a muscular, lean physique. When ingested and digested, protein is broken down into amino acids, which in turn serve many purposes in the body, including the rebuilding and repair of muscle tissue.
   For every pound in bodyweight, you need at least 1 to 1.50 grams of protein per day — the 180-pound man we mentioned would need 180 grams per day minimum from sources such as beef, turkey and chicken breast, fish, low-fat dairy products, egg whites, and high-quality protein powders, which are especially valuable because of their convenience and nutritional content.
3. Keep the carbs coming. While there’s a place for carb manipulation in the arsenal of a bodybuilder looking to lean out, it’s not practical or particularly healthy when taken to the extreme. Indeed, carbs provide the body fuel, and thus without them, your workouts can suffer. In fact, your body, when faced with an energy shortage, will pilfer protein directly from your muscle tissue and burn it as fuel. To counter that, at least half of your total daily calories should come from high-quality carb sources such as vegetables, beans and whole grains.
   You’ll also find that many meal-replacement supplements provide complex carbs as part of their ingredient formulations, which makes them a handy alternative to a whole-food meal.
4. Eat five to six times per day, spaced two to three hours apart. This helps keep your metabolism elevated throughout the day versus following a common cycle of skipping breakfast, having a big lunch and then an even bigger dinner. In that latter scenario, your blood-sugar levels rise and drop precipitously throughout the day while your body struggles with periods of hunger and periods of heavy calorie intake it can’t possibly keep up with. Eating more regularly evens out the highs and lows, allowing you to more efficiently process calories and keep your energy levels on an even keel.
   As part of your day, be sure to have a small preworkout meal or supplement about 90 minutes before training that includes complex carbs and protein, and a postworkout meal or supplement no later than 30 minutes after lifting that includes protein and fast-acting carbs, because that’s when your muscles are ready to soak up nutrients.

The Get-Your-Body-Back Stack

You can also add others supplements as you see fit, including testosterone boosters, herbs and advanced muscle-building formulations, but the following is a solid basis of supplementation for the next six weeks.

Get Your Body Back Weeks 1-2 Weeks 3-4 Weeks 5-6 Nutritional Strategies	Prev • Page 5 of 5