19. The nutrition component of bodybuilding is as important as lifting weights hard with good form, followed by rest.
Let's review nutrition. The Merck Manual is a good resource on nutrition and exercise. Their overview of nutrition in concise.
Protein, carbohydrates, and fats are called metabolic fuels. The common term is "food."
There are 10 essential amino acids that must be eaten from food because the body cannot make them. This can be done by combining the protein in foods like (beans and rice) or (beans and corn). There are two essential fatty acids: linoleic acid and linolenic acid. Glucose (sugar) is not considered "essential" but the brain must have a constant supply of glucose and the best way to get glucose is from [ideally whole grain, low glycemic index] carbohydrates. Excess carbohydrates, just like excess protein, ends up stored as fat.
Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrates = 4 calories per gram
Fat = 9 calories per gram.
Metabolic fuels provide energy to do work and to simply survive. To make a familiar analogy, the body's energy need is like a cup of water. This cup has a small hole in the bottom, a drip, so the cup needs refilling throughout the day. Pour too much water into the cup and it simply overflows. Likewise, excess metabolic fuel leads to an undesirable result: storing surplus energy from overflow, as fat. Snacks (mini-meals) do not fill the cup but add more water (energy) to it. When the cup is empty (no food) for long periods (skipping meals), the metabolism begins to slow in preparation for famine, and the body begins storing as much fat as it can.
Learn to fill your cup throughout the day without overfilling it.
I can tell you that a double cheeseburger with bacon with super-size fries and drink does not fit in the cup, no matter how much you weigh.
The goal then, would be to learn to fill the cup throughout the day (6 meals, some are mini-size) without it overflowing. Some foods lead to greater feelings of "fullness" and these foods have a higher satiety index: "If you've ever wondered why you fill up on a bowl of oatmeal but can eat three doughnuts before feeling satisfied, the reason is the comparative satiety levels of these foods."
Protein should make up around 25% of the day's total calories, and so carbohydrates (and lesser amounts of fats) make up the other 75%.
Bodybuilders should consume 0.7 to 1.0 grams of protein per lb. of body weight, per day. Too much protein is harmful if one has existing kidney problems. But let's agree that 1.5 is a lot of protein, maybe like eating 2 entire chickens in a day. 1.0 is the upper limit among dieticians for protein.
If you visited a registered dietician, one of the activities you would do is a nutrient analysis, that is, to record everything that you eat in the course of a single day, writing down what each food is, and how much of it you ate. You would do this for at least a week, to get an idea of your nutritional trends.
The sooner the analysis is done on the journey, the better. There are helpful sites like this one that can make it easier. Especially monitor the amount of protein you're eating; keep track of it so you can know what daily quantity of protein worked well and what didn't. There are also fee-based services to do the same thing.
Many bodybuilders say that they didn't see big (or any) benefits from training until they figured out the nutrition part for themselves. I'm included. I didn't realize that I was supposed to be eating almost 3500 calories a day; I was eating much less than that.
If you haven't seen big benefits, even after months of lifting, the nutrition component of your training needs attention.
More resources:
Nutrition, Wikipedia
the Nutrition Source web site maintained by the Dept of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health
The American Dietetic Association
What are negative calories?
Recent scam using irrelevant scientific jargon to make their product seem legitimate.
"Refugees taught how to eat American food" Are Americans taught how to eat American food?
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