As we explained in the overview, you are what you eat. There is nothing with the same ability to make or break a physique like your diet can.

How can I gain muscle? How can I lose fat? Read on… the answers are within…

At its most basic, diet is about In versus Out - balancing the food you eat with the energy you spend:

• The amount of food you need is called your “maintenance level”.
• If you eat more than this level, your body stores the leftovers in case it needs them later on. Handy, except that it stores them as fat.
• If you eat below maintenance, your body takes what it requires from your stores to make up the shortfall.

But don’t forget – your body’s not stupid… If it realises that sometimes the wait between mealtimes is too long, it will make sure it stores something in its “reserves” to keep it going until you feed it again. To avoid putting yourself into this fat-storage mode, make sure you don’t miss meals.

By eating five to six small meals a day (that is, a meal every two or three hours), you reassure your body there’s no need to worry about a “fuel” shortage, and it achieves a balance and consistency that both your digestive system and your muscles will love.

All of these meals should include each of the three macronutrients – protein, carbs, and fat.

Protein
Your body uses protein to maintain its existing muscle. Those people trying to grow muscle will require even more protein than normal, since they also need to repair the damage done to it during workouts. Without enough protein, your body has no material to build with. So where do we find protein? In foods like meat, chicken, fish, eggs, and milk products (cheeses, whey, etc). It’s also found to a lesser degree in nuts, seeds, pulses (beans, chickpeas, etc) and grains.

While nothing can beat real food, for the sake of convenience, bodybuilders often rely heavily on protein powder supplements.

These different grades each have pros and cons. Use a slow protein as a meal replacement, when you want a longer sustained release to take you through to the next meal. Use a fast releasing protein immediately after a workout, when your body is primed to suck up all the protein it can get.

Fats
Contrary to popular belief, dietary fats do not necessarily make you fat. Some fat is essential in the diet – certain vitamins and minerals can only be absorbed through fat. So what is the link between dietary fat and body fat? Simple – each gram of dietary fat packs far more calories (a measure of energy in the food) than the other macronutrients do. So when eating lots of fats, it’s easy to go over your body’s maintenance level of energy. And as we explained before, when this happens you store the excess as body fat.

As a basic rule of thumb, eat fats in moderation. Try to steer clear of the saturated fats found in meat, butter, etc, since these can increase the risk of heart disease. Instead, opt for unsaturated fats – either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated. These “good fats” can be found in vegetable oils, nuts, olives, avocados, and fatty fish (e.g., salmon, and tuna).

Carbohydrates
This is your body’s preferred source of energy. Carbs come in two forms – complex and simple. Complex carbs are starchy foods like potatoes, rice, flour (which includes any breads, pasta, etc), and beans. Simple carbs are the sugars – they include sucrose (common sugar), glucose, fructose (fruit), dextrose, and lactose (yep, there’s even sugar in milk!).

Here’s how it works… Carbs are broken down by the body, and stored as glycogen. If protein is the material to build your body, glycogen is the fuel that’s used to power it. Simple carbs are much easier to digest than complex carbs are, so they’re absorbed into the bloodstream much quicker. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but with a little knowledge on the subject, you can get the best of both worlds...

And that’s the end of Diet. Well done to those who made it here without skipping – your persistence will pay off. To those who did skip (go on, admit it!)… shame on you! Go back to the top, and read it properly.

Finally, if you’re not completely cross-eyed yet, you might want to take a quick peek at the Workout Routines article.