6 Common Dieting Mistakes of Beginner Bodybuilders - Part 2

4. Inconsistency 

    Probably the most common mistake of all beginners. The only way to truly reap the benefits of your diet is to stick to it. Deviating from your diet, and sneaking in a snack here and there all adds up. As the great Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit".

Dieting can be hard, but selecting a variety of
whole foods for your diet can make the task a lot easier

    The best way to stay consistent is to have two structured diets, with all your calories and macro-nutrients counted up, and simply eat according to one of the two diets, and switch as you feel to maintain variety. Also, not relying on 1-2 main sources of protein and carbs, but rather diversifying your food choices, will also aid in helping you stick to your diet in the long term.

5. Crash Dieting


    More of a problem during the cutting phase than the bulking phase, is when people try to diet down too fast, and launch head first into a diet, in order to get as lean or as big as possible, in the shortest amount of time. While you may achieve your goal of leanness or mass, odds are you will sacrifice a lot of muscle mass or add a lot of unnecessary body fat in order to reach that point.

    Dieting to add muscle or dieting to cut fat, are both gradual processes which require not only consistency, but patience. You must be patient in your approach, and not attempt to add muscle or cut fat too fast. The result will either be you gaining excessive amounts of bodyfat (useless to bodybuilding) or you sacrificing your hard earned muscle gains.

All good things take time.

   A good way to overcome this is to track your progress with a log and progress pics. This way, you can see how you are progressing in muscle mass or leanness, and not be tempted to go on the freight train equivalent of a diet, as both of these tools easily illustrate your progression over time.


6. Over-reliance on supplements

    Up there with crash dieting as one of the more common mistakes, over-reliance on supplements is a trap that many beginner bodybuilders fall into.

Add 410% more muscle mass than
regular creatine monohydrate in 2 weeks!
(not at all srs)

    Supplements are exactly that - supplements. They are there to supplement your diet, when your diet has already done all the work it can do. Supplements will convey little to no benefit if your diet is not on point. Furthermore, most supplements will only garner a few percentage point increase in results, at best.

Supplements that are proven to work (and that you should use):

• Creatine -aids in adding muscle by supporting the ATP energy system, which in turn allows for increased explosive movement within training.
• Whey Protein - helps to boost your protein intake. It is not some mythical powder that will instantly grant you muscle mass. Whey protein is derived from whey, which is a by-product of the production of cheese, which is in turn derived from cow's milk. Basically, the protein within whey protein, is exactly the same as one of the proteins in regular cow's milk (the other being casein). The only difference is, is that whey protein is not a whole food (it is just the protein, amino acids and trace micronutrients, fat and carbs only) and milk is a whole food (more or less unprocessed, outside of homogenisation and pasteurisation)
• Fish oil - A supplement with a myriad of health applications, inside and outside of bodybuilding. Proven health benefits in supporting the cardiovascular system, leanness, as well as being an anti-inflammatory agent.
• Multivitamin - Bodybuilding diets are generally lacking in a range of vegetables, and thus lots of the nutrients associated with them. A multivitamin is useful in aiding in filling any potential micro-nutrient gaps that your diet may have.

Supplements that sorta kinda work, but aren't necessary:

• Caffeine Anhydrous - mild stimulating, thermogenic and hunger suppressing effects.
• Green Tea extract - mild stimulating, thermogenic and hunger suppressing effects.
• BCAAs - completely unnecessary during bulking phases, as complete/animal proteins will contain sufficient BCAAs, but has some application during strict cutting dieting periods.
• 1,3 Dimethylamylamine - it's a stimulant, and it stimulates, but is not necessary.

Supplements that have benefits that are negligible at best, or probably don't work at all, completely unnecessary:

• Just about everything else on the market.

    Supplements (whey protein in particular) should not be your main focus in dieting. You should not use a whey protein powder as a caloric crutch, because you can't be bothered preparing a chicken breast or some eggs. All supplements do is give you a slight edge in results, whole foods and a good diet will ALWAYS be superior. Always remember that.




Thanks for reading! Tune in next time when I cover the roles and function of the 3 main macronutrients - fats, proteins and carbohydrates.