Lean Body Diet Plan - Get Shredded!

by Bill Willis, BSc

Fail to plan…….Plan to Fail

Beginner bodybuilders and advanced lifters need a nutritional plan to get-and stay in shape year-round. We’ve all slacked on diet, but the haphazard diets of most college guys who lift weights just won’t cut it. We need 5-6 well planned meals/day, custom designed to hone and refine your physique to a razor-sharp edge. A 12 pack of beer and then Taco Bell 2 nights/week may get you a fat drunk girl at the end of the night, but forget about being lean.

When I talk diet with prospective personal training clients who are interested in bodybuilding or fitness modeling, I get the same response over and over again “ I have to eat how many meals?... I can’t do that…” as soon as I hear this response I know it is hopeless. To get huge and bang the ladies, you need to be fuel your muscle-building.

Being in shape is your life.

This is the price we pay; no binge drinking followed by fast food on the weekends and a disciplined, consistent diet 7 days per week. Although this may sound unenviable, it is a small price to pay. The benefits to being a “sex-symbol” are limitless. Give up Taco Bell, your beer gut, and the fat chic at the bar!

Diet Fads Do Not Work. Muscleheads Aim For the Long-haul

While low-fat diets certainly work, a moderate fat, lower carb diet is ideal to get shredded while maintaining as much muscle as possible.

Forget the generic diet plans that are outlined in South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, etc.- these are all basically the same concept presented in a different way designed to sell books to lazy guys looking for an easy way out. You are (or aspire to be) huge - you could care less about gimmicks and B.S. - you realize there is no “secret,” other than hard work and a well executed plan.

Burn More Calories Than Take In

The fundamental rule of dieting is that to loose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in. To get it right from the start, you need an estimate of your maintenance calorie intake (the amount of calories that your body requires to maintain your current body weight).

There are a number of ways to estimate this-follow this link to ESTIMATE YOUR BMR. For example, if your maintenance calorie level is 2750 calories. You need to reduce your daily calorie requirement by 250 calories to 2500 for fat loss. Generally, if you have been following a typical low fat diet, you are most likely eating 50-60 percent carbohydrates with variable levels of protein and a low percentage of fat. You need to reduce this number, while increasing fat intake and keeping protein intake an ideal level.

Too Much Protein

The typical active male does not get enough protein if they follow USDA guidelines. Most “muscle-heads” such as weightlifters or bodybuilders tend to eat way more than they need. Too much protein just gets converted to fat- there are much more fun ways out there to gain body fat than overeating on protein- i.e. drinking!

Calculating Calories From Protein

We will use protein intake as the starting point to determine how many calories you need from fat and carbs. Once the protein requirement as a percent of calories is established, we will then move on to fat and carbs. My recommendation is to get 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass- lets assume you weigh 200 pounds with a lean mass of 160 pounds. This would mean your protein requirement is 160-240g of protein. We will assume you are doing lots of cardio and intense weight training as part of your fitness program, so we will go with 1.5 grams per pound of lean mass, or 240 g protein. Stick with lean meats and protein supplements such as whey protein to meet this requirement.

Doing the math, 1 g of protein is approximately 4 kcal (I have referred to kcal-which is actually 1000 calories, simply as "calories" up to this point- for simplicity I will continue to use the term "calorie").

240g x 4kcal/g = 960 calories.
(960 calories of protein/ 2500 total calories) x 100 ~ 38 percent calories from protein.

Carbohydrates

With 26 percent protein in our diet program, we now need to determine how much many carbs to eat. The important thing here is that we have an overall reduction in the percent of calories from carbohydrate sources. To get totally shredded we need the carbs to be low; a range of anywhere from 15-40 percent carbohydrate could be ideal, depending on the individual. Some will loose fat at a dizzying pace on 40 percent carbs while others will only do well on a very low carbohydrate diet.

A good approach is to start on the lower end to jumpstart your fat-burning machinery and then to slowly increase carbohydrate as you become more insulin sensitive. (Consulting with a good personal trainer who is also an expert in nutrition for a custom-designed approach would be a good idea; dieting is a very individual matter- who has time for trial and error?)

As an example, we will assume that we want to eat 30 percent of our calories from carbs. If you have been following the typical low-fat diet this will be a significant reduction. Like protein, carbohydrates have 4 kcal/gram so we do a similar calculation:

30 percent calories from carbs = (0.30 x 2500)= 750 calories.
(750 calories)/ (4 kcal/gram) = ~ 188 g of carbs.
According to our calculations above, we need 188 g of (low glycemic) carbohydrates to satisfy our 30 percent carbohydrate requirement.

Fat

Last but not least, we need to calculate how much dietary fat to eat. So far we have 38 percent of our calories coming from protein while 30 percent are from low glycemic carbohydrate sources. This leaves us with 32 percent of our calories coming from fat. Unlike proteins and carbs, fats have 9 kcal/gram:

(0.32 x 2500 calories) = 800 calories from fat.
(800 calories)/(9 kcal/gram) = ~ 89g of fat.

Most guys who are accustom to eating the lowest amount of fat possible in their diet are shocked at this recommendation. No worries, your calories are controlled so you won't get fat. You will loose fat and build muscle.

As far as fat sources, there are many choices, I personally like to use walnuts, salmon, flax seed oil, olive oil, and fish oil as fat sources while keeping the saturated fat from animal proteins as low as possible.

As an example, 1/4 cup of walnuts has 20 g of fat. Most oils have roughly 14 grams per tablespoon. Many like to add a tablespoon or two of olive oil or flax seed oil to their salads giving and additional 28 grams of fat (use more/less oil depending on your individual requirements).

A 7-ounce serving of broiled or baked salmon has around 6-9 grams of fat. Fish oil tabs generally have around 1 gram of fat /tab ( I take 10-12 every night before bed).

Don't forget to factor in the trace fats you are getting from certain carbohydrate sources and from animal proteins.

Following these recommendations will get you shredded in no time- when your ideal condition is reached, simply use similar calculations to increase the calories a bit so you are no longer loosing weight, but maintaining weight to stay in tip-top condition.

While I have provided you with a good place to start, all of this must be coordinated with diet and training. Because this can only be addressed on a case-by case basis, it is recommended that you consult with a competent personal trainer on this matter. Often for a reasonable fee an entire diet, supplement, and weight training program could be mapped out in a 30 minute to 1 hour phone or email consultation. This will save you tons of money you would have wasted by seeking to find a plan that works for you by trial and error.

Read this story on Spending Money on a Personal Trainer if You Already Have Muscles.

Bill Willis, Bsc is based near The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio and offers diet plans and online fitness routines to both beginners seeking to gain muscle and advanced weightlifters who are advanced in their training. Visit this page to sign up for low-cost, one-on-one personalized fitness advice from a Campus Men fitness trainer..

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