NABBA England 2014 Training Diary: Nutrition

This journal follows junior bodybuilder Brandon Allsopp as he trains for the NABBA England 2014 contest.

You can read the introduction to the series here.

This week’s entry in my NABBA Training Diary will give you an insight into my diet – what I do day in day out and my take on the whole nutrition thing.

I’ll try and keep this one simple and just give you my basic thoughts on nutrition, as there will be more in-depth articles on this subject to come.

How important is nutrition?

As a lot of you will know, when it comes to training, diet is perhaps the most important part.

It doesn’t matter what sport you do, whether you’re a bodybuilder, rugby player, cyclist – it doesn’t matter.

If you want to perform and make it to the next level your nutrition programme is absolutely key.

Many people train, go to the gym every day, yet a lot of these people stall and never quite get to that next level.

Why?

NUTRITION.

I can’t stress to you all enough just how important this is.

My top nutrition rules

1) Keep things simple

When it comes to diet, too many people overcomplicate things.

Ultimately, what’s worked in the past will still work today.

If it’s not broke why fix it?

If you’re an elite level athlete at the top of your sport then, yes, it’s understandable why you would take a more scientific approach to your nutrition.

But I’m afraid most of us aren’t – so keep it simple, stupid!

2) Knowledge is power

You’ll never be able to design a sufficient nutrition programme for yourself without some knowledge of the nutrients that we put into our body and why we need them.

I’m not saying go and read books upon books about diet, but a basic knowledge of why we need fats, carbs and proteins is needed.

So many people I talk to are completely wrong about the basics when it comes to nutrition.

For example, one thing that I hear on a constant basis is, “I don’t eat fat because I don’t want to get fat”.

Educate yourselves more and things will change!

3) Learn about your body

We are all unique in our own way and this applies to nutrition.

And because we are different we all react differently to different foods, digest certain foods better than others, utilise certain foods better than others.

So listen to your body to find out what foods work best for you.

4) Stay away from the fads

Now this is just my opinion, but there seems to be a lot of people bringing out new diets looking to change the world.

This subject annoys me – don’t get sucked in to the BS that these people talk.

Very few are actually backed and proven by science to work.

Eating for purpose

At the minute I’m in the latter stages of my offseason.

It’s been pretty fun as I’m eating tonnes of food, which of course is always good.

Do I get tired of eating?

Yes I think I do.

Eating so much food isn’t always fun but I chose to do this and don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love it!

But the phrase “eating for purpose not pleasure” springs to mind when it comes to this sport.

We do what we have to do to be the best we can be.

I’m quite lucky in a sense that I seem to grow and put on muscle generally quite well.

I wouldn’t say easy because nothing in this sport is easy, but I’ve been lucky enough to have better than average genetics.

So when I’m offseason I don’t have to kill myself trying to stuff food in my mouth to gain size.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still eating a lot of food, and as I progress that intake will keep increasing.

My diet

So what do I eat?

Well, like I said, I keep things simple and do what I have found works the best for me.

My diet looks like this pretty much every day.

There’s nothing special going on here – just a lot of good quality clean food.

• Upon waking: 20g protein
• Meal 1: 6 eggs, 120g porridge oats
• Post workout: 50g protein, 100g dextrose
• Meal 2: 200g chicken, 100g basmati rice
• Meal 3: 250g Greek yoghurt, 50g protein, 2 tablespoons cashew butter
• Meal 4: 200g chicken, 100g basmati rice
• Meal 5: 250g Greek yoghurt, 50g protein, 2 tablespoons cashew butter
• Meal 6: 2 whole eggs, 6 whites, 100g cottage cheese

This is what my diet looks like on a daily basis, and as you can see there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on here, which is what I find works best for me.

There is a good amount of food here adding up to around 400g protein and around 370g carbs.

I don’t worry too much about fat intake in the offseason, as I feel like I get enough without really adding too much in – apart from the cashew butter.

Cheat meals

There’s always been a lot of talk about cheat meals/cheat days – should we have them and why.

Well first things first, will one cheat day/meal really speed up your metabolism?

No, I really doubt that.

I think more than anything else cheat meals/days are more of a mental break from eating chicken and rice all day every day.

Do I have them?

Of course I do – I love to eat!

So when cheat day/meal comes around, depending how I feel, I go hard.

Ice cream and brownies seem the favourite at the minute, and last week I went for blueberry pancakes with nutella topped off with a box of brownies and a tub and Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream!

Signing off

So, there you have my introduction on nutrition – I kept it simple!

If you have any questions and want me to talk more in-depth – or have any requests for future posts about anything nutrition related – then please just leave me a comment!