The 10 main dieting mistakes
My goal is to share the knowledge I’ve gained from observing the eating habits of top bodybuilders. I hope these tips will help you fix and avoid nutrition mistakes and speed up your progress. Here are the 10 biggest mistakes to avoid so that your progress is maximal.
The 10 most common dieting mistakes
1. Inconsistency in dieting
Many bodybuilders jump from one diet to another without letting the previous one take effect. It takes at least three weeks before the body can adapt to a changed eating regimen. If you start a high-carbohydrate, moderate-protein, low-fat diet with the aim of reducing your body fat percentage, don’t expect visible results before 21 days. Don’t expect instant changes in your physique!
2. Failing to track calories
Keep in mind not only calories but also where they come from – carbohydrates, protein or fat. Many bodybuilders fail to lose as much fat as they’d like because they don’t keep a training log of what they eat. Others, in turn, fail to achieve the body weight gain they want. A successful bodybuilder keeps an exact record of their food quantities – they don’t guess or assume. Find a food composition table to help you and buy a scale!
3. Irregular eating
When you’re trying to burn fat or add lean muscle mass, consistency is key, and spontaneous eating holds back progress. If you’re a hardgainer or find it hard to get “lean”, 5 meals a day would be optimal. This approach (a meal every 2-3 hours) makes fat storage harder, makes nutrient absorption easier and adds lean muscle mass.
4. Relying on the scale as a measure of progress
You can’t manage a diet by watching weight alone. Some bodybuilders get discouraged when body weight doesn’t rise quickly during a mass-gaining phase, so they draw premature conclusions and increase calories to speed up development. Some athletes follow the same principle in the pre-contest period, fearing they won’t reach the desired condition in time for the competition. Although the scale and other measuring tools, such as a body fat analyzer, are effective aids, it makes more sense to base decisions on photos, the mirror and an impartial observer – bodybuilding is, after all, a visual sport. If you look “lean” and your muscles are sufficiently “full”, your diet is probably working, even if the scale and other measuring tools say otherwise.
5. Overeating (especially carbohydrates)
Athletes who try to add mass at any cost start overdoing food quantities, which in turn promotes fat gain. There are also bodybuilders who follow a low-fat diet but still add a lot of fat because of too many carbohydrates in their food. Of course, carbohydrates are needed for hard training and they also aid recovery, but as soon as the body gets the amount it requires, the excess very easily turns into fat.
6. Failing to build a diet that suits your own needs
There’s nothing wrong with learning from professional bodybuilders, but Dorian Yates’s diet, for example, differs considerably from Nasser El Sonbaty’s. What these diets have in common is only an approach to dieting based on one’s own needs. Dorian’s diet may not work for Nasser, and vice versa. If you’ve written down everything you eat and how your body responded to certain foods, then most of your personal diet is already in place.
7. Hoping supplements will work miracles
Some bodybuilders try to keep their body fat percentage low without reducing the calories in their food, but take carnitine and chromium constantly. Others try to use creatine, glutamine and branched-chain amino acids for muscle building, but don’t consume enough calories and protein. Supplements work together with your diet; they don’t make up for eating mistakes and poor planning.
8. Becoming a slave to canned tuna
To succeed, you need to eat right all the time. I’ve known bodybuilders who burned out from the weariness that comes from eating nothing but plain chicken breast and canned tuna. For example, Laura Creavalle’s cookbook “The Lite Lifestyle” contains 150 pre-contest food recipes for bodybuilders. Such recipes make it possible to eat the same foods for a long time without developing an aversion to them.
9. Cutting all fat from the menu
Reducing fats in your menu does help keep the calorie content of your food under control, but removing fat from the menu completely and eating only very low-fat or fat-free proteins, such as turkey, fish and protein concentrates, can reduce fat synthesis and/or inhibit muscle growth. A low-fat diet that includes the essential fatty acids found in meat, chicken and fish is beneficial for optimal fat synthesis, muscle growth and recovery.
10. Making too many big changes at once
When increasing or reducing the number of calories in your diet, try to make small changes at a time so that your body can adapt to them. Sudden changes in calories can cause fat gain.
The article first appeared on the Fitness.ee website on 3 February 2000
Author: Chris Aceto, translated by Kristjan
Source: WHO – physical activity.
Come and train! ArtGym
