Contest Season is Over, but Why Still Eating as You’re Competing?

Here is something I need to explain and write about to others. I have gotten a few comments here and there from others on Facebook on some of the meal photos I’ve posted recently asking why am I still eating diet food, now that I just finished the Sacramento Pro 2012 contest. So let me dive into this topic….should be enlightening.

When a fitness competitor, bodybuilding, etc finishes a contest prep, it would be assumed that they would go right away to eating exactly what everyone else in society eats (basically crap all day, and not enough calories to grow at all), but that is 110% completely false. What do you think got that individual to that elite physical level in the first place? [A proper nutrient dense nutrition plan]. So, just because that competitor is done with a contest, does not mean that their daily nutritional plan stops. Sure, a junk ‘fun’ food meal maybe implemented here and there, but the foundation of that persons diet is still intact. The goal for a bodybuilder is to consume nutrient dense foods all day, everyday. Do you think a bodybuilder will get the same amount of nutrients from a bagel with cream cheese that eggs, oats, peanut butter and fruit provide? no; not even close. The goal in the offseason lifestyle of a bodybuilder is still to eat clean, just more of it, with some more freedom for condiments, sodium, and a few cheat meals here and there. But the main thing is to stay on a SOLID nutrition plan, just eat more of it to grow properly in the offseason to come-in better and bigger then next time a contest prep comes around.

Plus, we feel better physically eating healthy foods, rather then processed crap all day. The body is a finely tuned machine when your a competitor, and thus it needs the proper fuel to keep running. When your body needs 100 Octane unleaded gas, 87 unleaded won’t cut it. You’ll just run like a slug.