Pre-Contest Diet Approach

As I mentioned in a previous post, I realize I’m doing this backward and should have posted this stuff as I was approaching my competition, but I didn’t do that.  So here is what I did:  On January 1, 2008 I began cleaning my diet up.  By this I mean I cut out junk food and began eating 6 meals per day.  I started drinking at least two protein shakes per day and drank only water.  I was not completely exacting with my meals at this point and did not weigh any of my meats.  My objective was to re-condition myself to cooking regularly and eating “diet food”.  I ate fish, ground turkey, egg whites, and chicken breast as my main meat source and rice and the malrtodextrin in the meal replacement powder as my carbohydrate source.  In the second week of February I tightened things up substantially.  Here’s what the diet looked like by Feb 15, 2008:

Meal 1: 2 scoops Biotest Metabolic Drive, 1 Scoop Biotest Grow Whey Protein Powder

Meal 2: 4oz. lean meat 1/2 c rice 1/2 c mixed vegs

Meal 3: same as meal 1

Meal 4: same as meal 2

Meal 5: same as meal 1

Meal 6: 9 egg whites and one yolk

I followed this plan up until about April 4.  At that point I cut out the rice from all meals.  Added 2 cups of oats to meal 1 and 2 more egg whites to meal 6.  I also upped my cardio significantly at this point so I became very hungry and the fat burning went into full effect.  To counteract my hunger, I began eating salads (mostly all lettuce) to slow digestion.  I did this mainly at the end of the night before bed so that I could sleep and my stomach would stop growling.  For the last three weeks before the competition, I cut out all the meal replacement and protein shakes and ate all whole food meals.  Here is what that looked like:

Meal 1: 10 egg whites, 1 egg yolk, 2 servings oats

Meal 2: 4 oz lean meat, 1 cup broccoli

Meal 3: same as meal 2

Meal 4: same as meal 2

Meal 5: same as meal 1

Meal 6: 2 cans tuna, 2 cups lettuce

The last three weeks are pretty grueling and restrictive.  For the lean meats, I rotated from Turkey Breast, London Broil, Chicken Breast, and Talapia for three days each.  During the last week, I used Turkey Breast for 6 days and then London Broil the last three days.  I was drinking 3 gallons of water from week 3 until 4 days before the show when I cut back a half a gallon each day down to one gallon the day before the show.  Tomorrow I’ll review supplentation.