Bill Roberts Dieting Reccomendations...

Bill, what are your reccomendations when dieting for getting shredded while maintaining muscle mass. Do you prefer any ratio of protein, carbs and fat in particular? How do calculate calorie intake? Any tips or tricks in particular? I always read your great advice about cycles, supplements and other stuff but haven’t read that much about your dieting theories. Thanks, and keep doing the great work!

Just thought I’d send this to this top in case Bill hasn’t seen it yet.

Erniko, I really don’t have any novel dieting theories. And I’ve never written on the subject because I doubt I could even stretch one article out of it. Here are my dieting thoughts in a nutshell:

For the natural lifter, no androgens or thyroid hormone, fat intake should be around 33-36%. If fat intake is low, T levels drop. So this makes the isocaloric kind of diet, or a cyclic ketogenic diet with moderate calories on carb up days, the ways to go.

The natural lifter should, especially for the
longer term, consume no less than 12 calories per lb LBM per day. Having a week at 15 calories after each 2 weeks of dieting is a good thing, else thyroid levels drop. The overall fat loss, over a longer period of time, seems about the same as when calories are always held down, and certainly the diet is far easier to stay on for months on end.

If thyroid hormone is added in, then there is no need for these maintenance calorie weeks. This is true even if the thyroid use is low, only 12.5 mcg/day.

If cutting calories more extremely than this and if concerned about muscle mass, androgens (pharmaceutical steroids or an effective prohormone product) should be used, else LBM
loss can be pretty bad.

The user of androgens need not consume as much fat and can cut it very low, although EFA’s are still needed. Following John Berardi’s recommendations with regard to fish oil is a good idea too. The androgen user will benefit more from carbs and protein than from fat calories. He will also be able to cut calories far more drastically if he desires, while still retaining LBM reasonably well.

Lastly, many small meals are good, and no one meal should be more than half, preferably no more than 1/3, of the planned total calories for the day. All the meals should have reasonable macronutrient composition: e.g., none of them should be fat/carbs/no-protein.