Let’s be honest… Dieting is the worst! We train all year using a surplus of everything. We train using a lot of sets. We rest using a lot of sleep and ‘couch time’. We eat a lot of food. Our off-season growth occurs when we have an excess of calories and rest, as well as an elevated level of training stressors which facilitate muscle fiber damage which leads to growth.

Then, the pre-contest phase of our bodybuilding regimen arrives and suddenly the surpluses are gone! Our bodies are expected not only to function, but to maintain our levels of muscle mass, while our surpluses of training, rest, and calories are suddenly lessened. They’re replaced with a surplus of caloric demands, namely in the form of cardio. We don’t have enough calories to maintain our body weight, so the scale begins to drop. Ideally, it is fat and muscle that leave our body, but it’s never 100% certain. Muscle is always lost. The deficit that is dieting almost always results in our hard-earned muscle disappearing. It has to be this way, right?

Not exactly! Many bodybuilders, particularly in the last five years, have found great success using low-carbohydrate dieting. This sort of dieting allows the bodybuilder to maintain a fairly high amount of calories in his daily diet, and it also includes a good amount of fats. The weight loss arrives as a result of carbohydrates in the diet. Proponents of the low-carb dieting style claim that it not only promotes fat loss, but that it also decreases hunger requirements. The variances in blood sugar levels that occur with traditional dieting do not take place, as the dieter maintains low carbohydrate levels most of the week. Digestion isn’t affected too negatively after the initial adjustment. You may be voiding less waste, but you are allowed a great deal of leafy greens and other net-loss carb sources, which actually burn more calories to eat and digest than are contained in the food.

Bodybuilders who use the high-carbohydrate diet most often suffer from massive energy fluctuations. They will feel incredibly powerful following a meal, but will level off very quickly afterwards and end up feeling worse than they did before the meal. Alternatively, people using the low-carbohydrate diet soon enter ketosis, at which point their energy levels become remarkably constant.

Bodybuilding nutrition gurus including Dave “Jumbo” Palumbo have recently been recommending the low-carbohydrate style of dieting to their clients. Evan Centopani recently won his pro card using this diet, and Toney Freeman is a notable example of an IFBB Pro bodybuilder who went from third-tier to top-6 at the Mr. Olympia show. He claims the use of high-protein, low- to no-carbohydrate dieting is responsible for the change. The results are hard to argue. In today’s chemical sport that is bodybuilding, with all the advances in technology and pharmacology, the best results are beginning to be seen in athletes who restrict carbs and allow more fats. See if it is right for you the next time a show rolls around!

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