Why Eating A Pro Bodybuilder Diet Won’t Make You Look Like One

This article is addressed to the people who aren’t as muscular as pro bodybuilders (99.9% of humans), but are still grinding day in and day out to gain as much muscle as possible.

The most logical conclusion most amateur bodybuilders and gym rats come to is that if they want to look like their favorite pro bodybuilder, they simply have to train exactly like him, and eat exactly like him.

However, even once they replicate their diet and training to a tee, they are baffled when they are left with a fat, soft physique that is a far cry away from the pro they sought to emulate.

There are a few reasons for that, and they all too often go completely overlooked.

Muscular Demand & Progressive Overload In Your Diet

Most people understand the progressive overload principal, where you must slowly taper up the weights you use as your strength adapts to the increased work load.

However, what most don’t understand is that the progressive overload principle not only applies for training, but it applies for dieting as well.

Muscle requires a lot of protein and calories to grow, however, any excess calories that aren’t being put towards muscle growth are shuttled right into fat storage.

If you have a 260 pound pro bodybuilder, and a 150 pound teenage kid, who’s body do you think demands more nutrients and calories to grow?

Clearly, the 260-pound bodybuilder.

The reason being that muscle burns calories and requires more energy in general to function and grow.

As you gain more muscle, you have more muscle on your body burning calories and expending energy, consequently increasing your body’s energy intake demands.

When your energy intake demands increase, you need MORE calories and protein to grow muscle than you did when you had less muscle on your frame.

The more muscle you gain, the more calories your body will demand to continue growing.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have a 150-pound teenage kid who wants to get huge like his favorite pro bodybuilder, and after reading an article on the pro’s diet, he decides to replicate exactly what he is doing.

So now you have a 150-pound teenager eating the same energy demand that it takes for a 260 pound pro to grow muscle.

When you eat such an excessive amount of calories, anything that’s not utilized for muscle building goes right to fat storage.

So, if you don’t have pro bodybuilder size, you are simply eating an exorbitant amount of calories for no reason, as your muscle demands haven’t progressed yet to a point where you could even utilize all those nutrients efficiently.

The end result is an out of breath; fat, confused kid wondering why he isn’t jacked.

Been there myself.

Eat what you need to grow, and that’s it. Any extra calories above and beyond that are simply wasted and are counter productive.