Interesting views on Nutrition, taken from an interview he did with IronMan Magazine
Theoretically, you can become highly defined eating nothing but ice cream'as long as your daily total calorie intake is below your maintenance need of calories. Then you have to resort to bodyfat for energy. I'm not advocating that because it's not a well-balanced diet. Eat a well-balanced diet'60 percent carbohydrates, 25 percent proteins and 15 percent fat'but eat a reduced number of calories. It doesn't have to be all protein. I know the majority of my fellow Mr. Olympia competitors woke up every morning during their training period grumpy bastards because all they had to look forward to was tuna fish and water. I woke up in the morning always looking forward to breakfast because I had bran muffins and often cake and cookies, fruits and vegetables.
I ate a wide assortment of carbohydrates; often I would have just carrot cake and coffee for breakfast because I knew I needed that sugar for the workout. But I didn't do it recklessly; I knew what my daily maintenance need of calories was and as long as I stayed below that every day'I kept a daily record of my calorie intake'I could eat that cake with impunity and not get fat. I was getting ripped, as a matter of fact.
I was eating ice cream at least four days a week before the Mr. Olympia contest'again, not recklessly. I knew that I had to get under 2,500 calories a day. I was averaging about 1,800. So I was burning about 700 calories a day in fat. And I was actually burning more than that because I was so active. I was riding my bicycle up to 40 miles a day. And I was getting cut up before my very eyes. Every day I would wake up and see more definition'and the night before I had just had an ice cream cone. I mean, it's ridiculous eating nothing but protein or tuna fish and water to get cut up. Not only is it not healthy and no fun, it's just ridiculous.
You've got to have carbohydrates to build muscle, and you've got to have carbohydrates to maintain muscle. If you're looking to build mass, you've got to have a large amount of carbohydrates in your diet. Not an untold number'again, 60 percent of your daily maintenance need of calories. And, when you're trying to lose fat and maintain muscle, you need sugar in your diet. As long as you're eating a reduced calorie diet, you can eat as many carbs as you want and still get ripped.
Theoretically, you can eat pure table sugar and be as ripped as a Mohamed Makkawy. I've gone beyond the 60 percent that I mentioned. Before the Olympia I was eating almost 80 to 90 percent carbohydrates. Tom Platz, who looked unbelievable at this year's Mr. Olympia'he was probably around 2 percent bodyfat. In the last three days before the contest he stayed at my home in Palm Springs to get some sun, and I couldn't believe my eyeballs when I saw him: His skin was like tissue paper! He was eating 400 grams of carbohydrates a day, but he was performing a lot of aerobics, and he was getting fewer calories than he needed to maintain himself. It can be done.
