The bodybuilder may end up gaining 10 pounds or so from the extra sugar and water, but
the high fat/low carb diet will find him dropping the water weight quickly as the week progresses.
By Friday, he’ll have increased weight to a strategic degree but won’t have overdone it, and the
increase will be maximum muscle and minimum fat.
That’s one of the real plusses of this diet. You can gain the weight, but you’ll find yourself staying
around the 10 percent bodyfat level if you’re comprehensively following the diet. In the old days,
you’d find guys bulking up to 300 pounds, only to find themselves packing 17–20 percent bodyfat.
They’d feel great, but by the time they’d cut all that fat, they’d be back at 200 pounds for a contest.
On the Anabolic Diet, you can stay around 10 percent bodyfat while still making the gains.
You don’t want to do these huge weekend calorie increases very often, but it’s something
that has worked for a handful of bodybuilders, and certainly a modification you may want to
experiment with yourself.
LOW PROTEIN WEEKENDS
After being on the diet for awhile, you may want to begin to look at the weekends as a high
carb/high fat experience while paying less attention to protein. Some bodybuilders who have
been on the diet for an extended period have found that a weekend diet of around 40–45 percent
fat, 50–55 percent carbs, and only 7–10 percent protein can produce excellent results.
The added fat aids in slowing the release of glucose in the blood, thus avoiding sugar rushes
or crashes that can leave you feeling spent and irritable. By using lower glycemic foods with
increased dietary fat, you’ll also be able to extend the length of your carb load and not smooth
out as quickly, if this is what you desire. As for the protein, you’re getting enough during the
week that a sufficient store is available to get through the weekend with no problems.
INCREASING CALORIES BEFORE A CONTEST
If you’re not sure where exactly you are in your preparation for a contest and haven’t had a
lot of experience getting down to a particular weight in time, it won’t hurt you to make sure
you’re at a 5–6 percent bodyfat level 3–4 weeks before the contest. That way you can increase
your calories. You’ll find you won’t gain any appreciable fat but, keeping on the diet, you’ll
gain muscle. You can continue to fine tune then. If you gain too much, you can lose a bit and
play around with your weight in a 4–5 pound swing.
FOLLOW THAT INSTINCTIVE VOICE
Bodybuilders may find themselves cutting calories drastically if they’re coming into a contest
with a lot of weight to drop. 12 weeks out you should aim to be within 15–20 pounds of your
show weight. Unfortunately, there may come times in a bodybuilder’s career where he finds himself
30 pounds or more overweight at this time. He’s going to have to cut calories to make his weight.
If that’s so, it is doubly important that the bodybuilder pay attention to what his body is
telling him about eating. On a minimal calorie diet, you’ve got to listen to that instinctive voice
in your body and do what it tells you to do. If it says eat, EAT. As minimal as your caloric
intake may be, you’re trying to manage it, not starve yourself.
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