Nutrition

As I mentioned in my last blog, nutrition is the most important element for successful weight training. You can workout as intense as you want, but without proper nutrition your gains will literally be cut in half. It has been proven that workouts can be up to twice as effective if followed with proper post workout nutrition. So how do you eat properly for weightlifting? Well there are two main types of diets, a cut and a bulk.

A cut is when you eat less calories than maintenance (maintenance being the amount of calories you can eat without gaining or losing weight). The purpose of cut for weightlifters is to lose as much fat as possible, but retain all the muscle. It's virtually impossible for an experienced weightlifter to increase muscle and strength during a cut, so the goal is simply to not lose any of it. Beginners do have this luxury though, they can add muscle and lose fat. The most common way to go about a cut is to limit carbohydrates to less than fifty grams per day, sometimes even close to zero, while keeping protein intake at normal levels (The normal protein intake is one to one and a half grams of protein per body pound). Some simply lower calorie intake, lowering carbohydrate and protein levels proportionally, but for most people this is less effective.

On the other hand, a bulk is when you exceed your calorie maintenance levels. There are two types of bulks, a dirty bulk and a clean bulk. A dirty bulk is when you eat virtually anything that has protein, carbohydrates, and calories. On a diet like this the goal is to gain as much weight as possible, even if a good portion of it is fat. Mostly the only people who do these types of diets are football lineman or other types of athletes that are required to be big. A clean bulk is when you eat good clean foods as opposed to anything (Whole wheat bread as opposed to white bread, brown rice as opposed to white rice, etc). It's inevitable to gain some fat during a bulk, but a clean bulk limits the fat while still adding plenty of muscle and strength. It's not uncommon for bulk diets to exceed 4,000 calories per day.

A popular way of implementing these two diets is to bulk during the winter and cut during the summer. This way you add the most strength and muscle during the winter, then during the summer cut you retain that muscle, but lose the fat. It's important to note that whether on a cut or bulk, it's essential to eat at least four times a day, preferably six or seven. Just to give you an idea of how effective proper nutrition can be; my weight has varied from roughly 180 during a cut, to about 225 on a bulk. All the while I changing very little between my workout programs, and simply changed the dieting. Unfortunately there is so much to discuss about nutrition, such as macro nutrient timing and management, supplements, what your actual calorie maintenance level is, and more. This is just a very general description of two of the more popular types of dieting, but there much more information, too much to write about in a blog, covering every little facet of nutrition.