[ Q ] You once said that you can maintain your massive size on as little as 100 grams of protein per day. How exactly do you do this and not lose muscle mass?
I have been in this sport for over 25 years now. And as I mentioned before I have been on diets – strict pre contest diets – for 18 years. I should maybe sit down one day and make a crazy calculation of how many chicken breasts I have consumed in all these years, obviously during dieting more than while training off-season. I just got tired of forever eating protein to keep my size up or building it.
If you are on a high protein and low carb, low fat diet, then you have to bump your protein way up (at least up to 300 grams per diet day; and if you are a very big bodybuilder like myself, then you have sometimes/or at least should take about 600 grams of protein per day) otherwise you shrink too much and the uses its own muscle as fuel.
Because I am so sick and tired of protein as a food source, as amino acids and as supplement drinks I decided to eat more carbs off-season in order to compensate for the lack and the lower amount of protein I am taking in. But again, pre contest I just force feed my body to get the highest possible amount of protein into my system. But off-season I do intentionally neglect my daily protein intake.
If you have no problems taking protein in, just go ahead. The more protein, the better the muscles will build up. My off-season weight goes up to 330 pounds. With a higher protein intake off-season, I probably would be even bigger. Also I do have a so-called mesomorph type of body and was very athletic from beginning. And my metabolism is not too fast and not too slow.
If you are for example more an ectomorph type of person, your metabolism is very fast. You have to then eat way more calories than I do and you have to also eat way more frequently than I do.
