Hey guys, hoped you enjoyed my last post, now I'm going to shine some light on what an off-season diet is and what a pre-contest diet is. This is a topic, where I have been asked many times by people who don't really know what these diets are about. Now let me start with, what an off-season diet is.
An off season diet, is where someone, generally a competitive athlete (not necessarily a body-builder) takes some weeks or months off to significantly improve his physique through strength and resistance training. To further improve his performance, a calorie dense diet coupled with a good supplementation regime is needed to make significant improvements to his or her physique. But unfortunately from my experience if these individuals do not have a mentor/coach, or do not understand nutrition in general, or by simply following "bro science", they usually tend to make the wrong choices in picking their food. So why is a sensible OFF season diet so important? Here are my reasons:
1) A good off-season diet increases the chances of muscle growth and recovery through good quality food and supplementation.
2) You reduce the risk of injury through a good off season diet.
3) It gives you an opportunity to eat good food in greater quantities, thus increasing the chances for muscle growth. I know of a very good friend who drank up to a gallon of milk a day!!!
4) It enables you to train harder, thus leading to greater degree of muscle tear.
5) Its helps you to relax and chillax and be a bit liberal in your off-season diet (thus having 1 or 2 cheat meals a week)
6) It gives you a break from your pre-contest diet. YAY!!
8) You would have put on significant lean muscle tissue
9) You need less time to diet for a comp
10) Your recovery between sets are a lot quicker
11) You will put on minimal body fat.
12) You will enjoy eating food which is actually good for you!!!
Here are some of the reasons for not having a good off-season diet;
1) By eating rubbish; you are robbing your body of vital nutrients needed for growth
2) It may lead to injury, which can potentially keep you away from your goals
3) It can weaken your immune system from eating too much junk
4) You wont enjoy the pizza or burger as much as you would, if you had a good off-season diet
6) You will become way too fat and end up looking like daffy duck
7) your testosterone will potentially decrease, due to eating too much processed food
8) oestrogen build up will now be your friend
9) You would have loss muscle and increased body fat
10) Lean muscle tissue growth would be minimal.
so you see my friends, having a good off-season diet is equally as important as having a pre-contest diet. Eat well and grow BIG!!!. Below is a sample off-season diet which I use;
Meal 1: oatmeal,cooked in water, 1 Medium sized banana, a few raisins, a packet of splenda all mixed with a dash of almond milk (unsweetened) and 2 scoops of Whey protein
Meal 2: 1x protein bar and a cappuccino
Meal 3: 4 slices of burgen rye bread with 2 grilled chicken breasts with a fresh salad and a dash of djionaise
Meal 4: 1 cup rice with some stewed beef usually 200g (but this can vary)
Meal 5: 1 banana, almonds and protein shake
Meal 6: 1.5 cups rice with chicken or beef stir-fry, my wife is an expert in stir-fries.
Meal 7: a small bowl of cereal with almond milk. I usually use Vogels Oat clusters and a protein shake.
Treat meal is usually a small bowl of ice-cream. this is usually my reward for the day yay!!
On Saturday I have a small meat pizza and on Sunday night I have a burger and chips (this meal depends).
My POST WORK OUT SHAKE is usually 30g Vitargo, 5gm Creatine, 10grams glutamine and 40grams of whey isolate.
*remember how I told u the importance of whey, here you can see,it does have an significant role in my diet*
As you can see, there is enough calories to grow and not look like daffy duck!! and remember, you can train like there's no tomorrow but if your diet is shit, you will still end up looking like shit. its 80% nutrition and 20% training.
I would like to thank my mentor/brother Eddy Tannourji from NextGen Supps in becoming a better bodybuilder!!
There you go guys, I hope I was able to shed some light in what is an off-season diet. Part 2 will explain in what a pre-contest diet is, so stay tuned!!! Thank you
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