The fundamental goal of any athletic nutritional approach is to support continued performance gains. Depending on the sport in question, performance-oriented nutrition may or may not be optimally supportive of health. Endurance sports with their demand of enormous quantities of dense carbohydrate sources—at least within the context of a traditional endurance sport nutritional approach; arguments against that are far outside the scope of this article—are probably the least conducive to health and longevity, surpassed perhaps only by bowling. By coincidence only, the nutritional approach that best serves the competitive weightlifter is also one that supports long-term health quite well. Super-heavyweights are an exception in most cases because the remarkably great demand for total calorie intake reaches beyond what can be achieved in an entirely healthy fashion; in addition to this is simply forcing the body to carry significantly more mass than it was intended to.

There are three basic components of nutrition: quantity, quality, and macronutrient composition. None can be neglected in the pursuit of optimal performance, but as specific goals vary during different periods of training over the long term, the importance of one may temporarily eclipse the others.

Quantity is the simplest value to understand. It refers to how much food is being eaten in a given period of time, measured in calories, or more accurately, kilocalories (kcal). This gives us a measure of the amount of energy being taken in, and can be considered a kind of gross adjustment tool, the manipulation of which can produce the most dramatic changes in the body such as weight gain and weight loss.

Food quality is a more nebulous value than quantity, with widespread and occasionally vehement contention existing, regarding in particular foods such as grains and dairy. Much of this argument can be dismissed because of the forthcoming macronutrient recommendations, which will eliminate the need for the very foods in question. The guiding principle in food quality is remarkably simple: natural foods are superior. This leaves us with meats, vegetables, fruits, tubers, nuts and seeds, and possibly milk. A discussion of the depth required to fully explain the science behind this perspective is far beyond the scope of this article and better left for more appropriate channels and those of greater expertise on the subject. The take-home point is that processed foods—which includes grain products; yes, even whole grains—cannot compete with the nutritional density of natural foods, and have no place in any legitimate nutritional program. The quality of foods is what will supply required micronutrients and support long-term health.

Our final basic element of nutrition is macronutrient composition: the relative quantities of protein, fat and carbohydrate that produce the total caloric intake. With the total quantity acting as our gross adjustment tool, macronutrient composition provides us a tool for generally more minor but potentially dramatic adjustments.

Protein should be considered the first priority in terms of macronutrients, particularly for strength athletes. Recommendations for protein intake vary from extremely minimal to quite epic. The numbers on the lower end of the spectrum are put forth by most of the medical community and government organizations, neither of whom are experts on nutrition, and are reflections of absolute minimal intakes to support life, not optimal intakes to support athletic performance, health or longevity; considering these recommendations anything else is a mistake.

A good guideline for protein intake is 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. This is an essentially arbitrary number, but its efficacy has been well demonstrated for many years in the strength training world. From this starting point, adjustments can be made as needed for each individual.

The quality of protein varies with its source. Meat, fish, eggs and high-quality supplements will provide protein of the greatest bioavailability. The protein content of nuts and seeds, grains (which should be avoided anyway), and legumes is negligible in terms of both quantity and quality and should not even be considered in the total. Soy has been pushed for years as a source of quality protein, but the claims are unfounded, and research on soy’s effects on health are producing frightening results; soy does not belong in the diet of any human being, and certainly not in that of an athlete. Supplemental protein will be discussed in more detail in the Supplements chapter.

Fat is next in the macronutrient priority line behind protein. Although it’s been thoroughly demonized by misguided doctors, researchers, government agencies, and the bumbling media who disseminate inaccurate information as well as manage to misreport accurate information, fat is not only not a threat to health, but is absolutely necessary to support it.

Mono-unsaturated fats should make up the bulk of fat intake. This will be supplied by foods such as nuts and seeds, avocado, olive oil, and about half the fat content of beef. Poly-unsaturated fats such as vegetable oils—exactly the kinds of fats being so heavily promoted as healthy—should be avoided as much as possible. The poly-unsaturated fat is a very unstable molecule and is easily damaged, creating extremely unhealthy substances such as trans-fats and lipid peroxides.

Saturated fat like that found in meat should not necessarily be sought out in great quantities, but as a stable molecule among other features, it’s very much preferable over poly-unsaturated fat. Saturated fat is widely associated with cholesterol, which is widely associated with heart disease. The fact is that no research to date has conclusively demonstrated any causative relationship between dietary cholesterol and heart disease, and the very studies used to support claims to the contrary have been manipulated to produce false results. This again is well outside the scope of this article, but the reader is strongly encouraged to do some homework. Keep in mind when encumbered by the fear of saturated fat and cholesterol that’s been instilled in most of us that cholesterol is a structural component of every single cell in the body, and, among many other things, required in the production of steroid hormones. It is absolutely essential to life, and the majority of cholesterol in the body is produced by the liver. This is why efforts to lower cholesterol levels through the extreme reduction of dietary cholesterol invariably fail—the body simply manufactures what it needs to take up the slack.

Omega-3 fatty acids are an essential fatty acid largely absent from most individuals’ diets with the rare consumption of organ meats and only somewhat more common consumption of O-3-rich fish. Omega-6 fatty acids are also essential, but their consumption is typically sufficient if not excessive due to their presence in common foods such as meat, eggs and nuts. Few are willing to add organ meats to their diets and increase fish consumption adequately, so other sources of Omega-3s are usually necessary. Eggs enriched with O-3s are a wise choice since this will help balance the naturally high levels of O-6 in eggs.

Flaxseed and its oil are often sold as sources of supplemental Omega-3s, but their use as such is misguided. The body requires Omega-3s comprised of 22-24 carbon atoms; flax provides 18-carbon Omega-3s. The acids can be converted to the necessary form, but the process is inefficient and very little DHA and EPA are actually received. Worse, flax produces systemic inflammation, one of the primary problems we use Omega-3s to prevent. Omega-3 supplements will be discussed in the Supplements chapter.

In addition to supporting optimal health, fat will be used to supply the bulk of daily calories for reasons that will be made clear in the following discussion of carbohydrate.

The third and final macronutrient is carbohydrate—intentionally placed last in the list with some disdain—which continues to be promoted as the cornerstone of great health as much as fat is vilified. This again is a subject demanding a venue other than this article for its due; suffice to say claims of carbohydrate’s role in health are exaggerated at best and wholly untrue at worst.

Before proceeding, it should be made clear that the physical demands of the sport of weightlifting do not by any stretch of the imagination require anything greater than baseline carbohydrate consumption, super-heavyweights excepted as noted previously along with athletes gaining weight in some cases. Unless in a training cycle utilizing unusually high reps, the demands on muscle glycogen are insignificant—the work of heavy, low-rep training is fueled by the phosphagen metabolic pathway, the substrate stores of which are replenished through oxidative metabolism, which functions most efficiently with fat as its substrate. There is no considerable demand on the glycolytic pathway, meaning very little muscle glycogen is required to perform the work of training, in turn meaning there is no great need to refill glycogen stores through dietary carbohydrate. These fundamental physiological circumstances allow the weightlifter to excel in training without the threats to health that accompany regular consumption of dense carbohydrate sources in large quantities.

This leaves carbohydrate sources to function largely as micronutrient suppliers instead of energy suppliers. And no carbohydrate sources are more nutrient-dense than vegetables and fruits, which is why they will make up the totality or nearly so of carbohydrate intake in ideal cases. Tubers such as yams and sweet potatoes can be considered supplementary during times when carbohydrate needs increase slightly, such as during a higher-rep training cycle, during periods of weight gain when increasing total calories proves extremely difficult otherwise, or simply to provide a little nutritional excitement on occasion.

So how is all of this assembled practically into an actual diet? First we need to know that protein and carbohydrate provide approximately 4 kcals per gram and fat 9 kcals. The net calories retrieved from protein is actually less than from carbohydrate, but this for now is not a concern. Next we need to determine the athlete’s approximate daily caloric needs. To do this, we can use any number of formulas, none of which are ever remarkably accurate, or we can use a food journal to track food consumption and bodyweight for at least a week. Using online or other resources, calorie content can be determined for the food in the journal and daily totals can be calculated, from which a daily average over the period of the food journal can then be calculated. This average will be the starting point for daily calorie consumption (This assumes bodyweight is presently static—weight loss, gain, maintenance is covered in more detail in following sections).

Since we’ve made protein the first priority and defined a clear quantitative guide for its consumption, we can determine the daily protein requirements of the athlete: 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. So with a 200lb athlete, that gives us 200 g or 800 kcal of protein. If we’ve determined through assessment of the food journal and subsequent calculation that the athlete’s total daily calorie requirements are 3000, that leaves us a gap of 2200 calories to fill. Eating vegetables and fruit throughout the day may give us about 100 g or 400 kcals, which narrows the calorie gap to 1800, which we can achieve with 200 grams of fat.

This takes care of the quantity and macronutrient composition elements—these must simply now be fulfilled with food of the appropriate quality.

There should be no need to make a case for the importance of adequate hydration here—make it happen. A starting point for determining how much water is needed daily is:

Bodyweight (lbs) X 0.6 = oz/day

For our 200 lb athlete, we would end up with 120 oz/day. This is a baseline intake and doesn’t take into account water loss during physical activity. Before, during and after any activity, water should be consumed according to the intensity and duration of the activity and obvious loss through sweat. For more accurate re-hydration, replace every pound of bodyweight lost during activity with 16 oz of water.

In the next issue, we’ll continue on to strategies for maintaining, gaining and losing bodyweight.