I’ve always admitted that I wasted a lot of time early on with either lack of correct information, or simply a misunderstanding of real information. Nutrition and dietwise, I was as guilty as anyone else of doing things… I don’t want to say ‘wrong’, because I’ll get crucified by people with different goals, but not the way I should have to optimally reach those of my own.
Things I did or believed incorrectly - relatively of couse
-I thought calories were the be all end all. If I ate enough and made it to the gym regularly, I’d look like Arnold when I eventually cut up. Sorry, it’s not that simple. Macronutrients are more than a fad word, and they need to be understood if you want to make the most of your pursuit.
-“Eat big, train big” was the best way to look like a bodybuilder. If I ate more than I needed and constantly tried to lift heavier progress would come (this kind of gets into the whole “chasing #s” thing I’ve written about in the past.)
-Definitely overestimated how many calories I ‘needed’. When I finally dieted down smartly for the first time, and made myself track everything on a daily basis, it made me understand just what I needed to maintain, to lose, and to gain (relative to my body composition at the time, as well as my training volume, split, etc… of course!)
-Thought that if I underate for a day that the couple of lbs I lost were actual muscle, and not just the usual amount of crap working its way through my intestines -lol
-Believed that if I missed a meal, I’d instantly lose muscle, and so I’d find myself in Penn station or at corner bodegas in NYC downing some pretty poor choices for nourishment at times.
-Always had to order more food than anyone I was hanging out with. I was a bodybuilder after all (or so I belived at the time), and one burger couldn’t possibly be enough to satiate my growing muscles! Sure I had eaten two hours earlier, but damnit, this is what all the really ‘big’ guys in the gym must do.
As none of my friends at the time looked like competitive bodybuilders (just very serious, fairly large gym rats), no one was in any position to call me out. We’d all hit the gym, shower up, head out for the night, and make sure we all shoveled in tons of food so we’d continue to look like the local wrecking crew hanging in the corner of whatever bar or club we were at. We’d joke about how easy it was to get cut, all you had to do was a few hours of cardio every day for a few weeks,… right? But who has time for that? and besides, I’d rather be huge! Anyone can be ripped at 150 lbs right?!
As much as I loved telling people what I weighed, especially considering that I started training in college weighing all of 150 non-shredded lbs, I knew that I didn’t feel great losing my shirt at the beach. Sleeveless shirts are a favorite of pudgy gym rats for a reason. Tight acorss the back? Shoulders stretching the XL fabric? Triceps hanging like smooth hams from the sleeve holes? Check, check and check! Plenty of material to hide the belly, love handles and back fat? Thank goodness yes.
S