MIRROR IMAGE
“FOR SOME REASON, BODYBUILDERS can be really silly when it comes to scales. It affects your thinking, because you can look absolutely perfect, but if you see the numbers are down on the scale, you may feel like you need to eat more. You start questioning things. By looking only at the mirror and trusting my instincts, I’m staying true to my game.
“I know by looking in the mirror what my body is doing on a daily basis. At the beginning, it’s really about feel. You’re not going to notice anything visually right away. If I feel right — if I feel more energetic and I’m getting good pumps when training— then I know the diet is working the way I want it to. The first couple of weeks, it’s feel. After that, you start to see things happening; from that point on, it’s pretty much all visual. You might see something subtle, like little hints of striations or separations, and you know you’re on the right track."
PHENOMENAL FATS
I wanted to try something different, because I had been doing what everyone else was doing: keeping carbs at a certain level and dropping them at the end. I wanted to see how my body responded to fat, so I went with a high-fat diet all the way through, eating foods such as steak, lean hamburger, chicken, cheese, olive oil, eggs with yolks, avocados and peanut butter.
“I had been competing for three or four years by that time. I was returning from my honeymoon and I was in good shape, so I thought I might as well jump on a six-week diet and do a show. I wanted to eat things that kept me feeling full longer and kept my muscles full at the same time. High fat did that for me. I always felt like I had a great pump; my muscles felt dense.
CARBS UP AND CARBS DOWN
“I STAYED WITH A HIGH-PROTEIN, high-fat diet for another couple of contests but as you grow, your body inevitably changes. I got tired of eating red meat.
“I stay pretty lean year-round and I have a fast metabolism, so I introduced more quality calories and balanced my intake of fats, protein and carbs. My body always worked well with carbs; it was just a matter of getting in enough protein to keep me full without eating as much red meat.
“During that time, I ate a lot of brown rice, potatoes, oatmeal, chicken, turkey, fish and egg whites. I had a steak every other day. I’d play with the carbs: go really low or really high. I went up to 350 grams of carbs per day for one diet and I still was in great condition. I have been on diets that included around 125-150 g of carbs daily. All of them have been successful for me.”
JUNK SCIENCE
“BEFORE I MADE THE DECISION TO manipulate my carbs and reduce my fat intake, I would eat junk food during the offseason, especially hamburgers and cheeseburgers. I finally woke up and realized that the more quality food you eat, the better your body is going to respond and utilize it. Once I started eating better in the offseason I was able to put on 6kg of quality muscle. I never got fat, and I saw exactly what my body was doing during the offseason based on the quality of food that I was eating.
“I eat a lot of pasta for my carbs during the offseason now, but I didn’t eat much pasta at that time. Potatoes, rice and oats were my main sources of carbohydrates throughout the year. Of course, I would have junk food here and there, usually on a weekly cheat day, but it was chiefly those three carb sources at that time.”
