Diets are a crucial part of a bodybuilder’s life. With each calorie in, the amount of it burned would vary. For someone like Chris Bumstead, who needs to maintain an aesthetic physique, having a well-charted diet is necessary. He recently opened up about it.
In a conversation with Jordan B. Peterson, Bumstead elaborated on his philosophies surrounding food, calories, and a planned diet. He revealed the secret to his title-winning physique, which is surprisingly not as complicated as one would imagine.
Peterson brought up the subject of his diet while talking about how bodybuilding was a gradual process. However, instead of listing down a planned structure, Bumstead revealed that he followed a basic principle: shifting the amount of calories through the year.
He typically began with the maximum amount of calories at the beginning of the year. However, once he knew that he needed to start chiseling down, he reduced the intake of calories and increased his cardio workout sessions.
“So let’s say in my offseason, when I’m at my heaviest, I’m eating about 5,500-5,000 calories. And at my lowest, at the end of my prep, I’ll be eating about 1,500 calories.”
This technique worked in two ways: the input grew consistently less compared to the output. But apart from shifting the amount of calories throughout the year, did Bumstead have fixed numbers or ratios for specific food elements?
“There’s like a set amount of protein people will eat, and it stays around. So I’ll eat about 300 gm of protein in a day, and as my calories come down, I’m normally pulling away my carbs and my fats and keeping my protein.”
Therefore, the ratios do change. But that’s mainly because of his caloric intake. This idea is similar to the late icon Mike Mentzer’s philosophy. Since he believed that a calorie is a calorie, to lose weight, one needed to cut it down, no matter what form it came in.
Mike Mentzer’s diet ideology resembled the current diet principle of Chris Bumstead
Mentzer had taken the bodybuilding world by storm with his heavy-duty workout regime. However, he also talked extensively about effective ways to lose excess fat. One of the techniques he swore by was journaling the amount of caloric intake regularly to work on it later.
He believed that a calorie was a calorie, no matter what the source was. Maintaining a journal and using a calorie-counting book to note the amount of calories consumed every week helped him cut down efficiently. Combined with his heavy-duty plan, Mentzer guaranteed optimum results.
