Johnnie Jackson: OffSeason Diet

Diet and Nutrition
21

[quote]Scott aka Rice wrote:
What’s so hard to understand about this? Even the T-Nation’s beloved Stan McQuay has admitted to going to fast food joints often to gain mass. Getting the necessary calories at that level of weight is an astonishing feat in itself. You do what you have to do to become the best of the best. It’s not as if McDonald’s burgers have no protein at all, and nobody said top IFBB competitors have the healthiest hearts.[/quote]

OF COURSE hardcore bodybuilders hit up fast food joints in the off-season and have much more freedom to eat what they want. But the original post of this thread is clearly implying that the off-season diet for J.J. revolved around McDick’s. Come on. I’m not gonna believe that.

22

Oh, and regarding Lee Priest, he definitely comes across as very honest. In regards to his diet he talks about all the crap he eats in the off-season. But he also seems to get fatter than any other Olympia competitor in the off-season.

But then again, He’s also one of the biggest guys on stage when you consider how much muscle he’s carrying at his height… maybe there’s something to this!

Time for me to start killing the Burger King specials!

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Apparently, you’ve never seen his ‘before’ (read: offseason) pictures in said muscle mags.

Exactly. That was from a guest posing. OBVIOUSLY, most people aren’t going to take half nude pics when in their worst shape as a bodybuilder…unless they happen to be governor of California.

He, like many of these guys, gets much heavier in the off season.

The pic above is Lionel Brown before he dieted down last spring.

Just because we don’t have tons of pics of these guys in the off season doesn’t mean they all stay in contest shape year round.

It is a little silly that so many seem to think otherwise.[/quote]

I’m not saying he’s in contest or near contest shape year round. But, the op implied that this is his daily meal plan, and no one is going to put on mostly muscle eating like that.

24

[quote]huey.ot wrote:

Again, all I’m saying is that I cannot believe that an off-season diet for an elite bodybuilder is going to revolve around rubbish food.[/quote]

Let’s go into detail about “rubbish”. One quarter pounder has 510cals, 29g Protein, 43 Carbs, and 25g Fat. He eats two of those which is how bad exactly? For someone his size who is possibly trying to get down in excess of 6-7,000cals a day, you are saying he should avoid that ratio because…why?

The point being made to you is your body will not reject the nearly 60gr of protein and the 1,020cals from two quarter pounders and cause them to NOT go to muscle mass. It will use that food just like if he had cooked the stuff himself in his kitchen with the same ratio. What I am trying to get you to do is look a little beyond “junk food” and start thinking of what “food” really is without the stereotypes.

The doughnuts? Garbage. I won’t even go there. But even they have calories and for someone gaining with a very fast metabolism and above average genetics, that is often much more important than all else.

25

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

I’m not saying he’s in contest or near contest shape year round. But, the op implied that this is his daily meal plan, and no one is going to put on mostly muscle eating like that.
[/quote]

That would be based on their genetics and effort in the gym. I already wrote how I ate in college and most of that was muscle mass. It wasn’t ALL muscle mass but then, if you think you are going to gin at the fastest rate and avoid any gain in body fat, you probably won’t make it very far very quickly.

I would imagine it is much easier for someone to eat much “cleaner” if they only require 2,500cals a day. A couple of protein shakes and they are in the clear. For someone much larger with a much faster metabolism, trying to stuff down in excess of 4,000cals from sources like lean chicken breasts is one major time consuming task.

The point being made is you can’t correctly state how much muscle someone with better genetics than you will gain from their diet. Their effort in the gym and genetic ability will decide where those calories go…not you or some constant concept of the ideal diet.

The bad thing is, dummies will take that to mean that I recommend eating that way to most people. But then, they are dummies so who cares what they think.

26

[quote]Professor X wrote:
huey.ot wrote:

Again, all I’m saying is that I cannot believe that an off-season diet for an elite bodybuilder is going to revolve around rubbish food.

Let’s go into detail about “rubbish”. One quarter pounder has 510cals, 29g Protein, 43 Carbs, and 25g Fat. He eats two of those which is how bad exactly? For someone his size who is possibly trying to get down in excess of 6-7,000cals a day, you are saying he should avoid that ratio because…why?

The point being made to you is your body will not reject the nearly 60gr of protein and the 1,020cals from two quarter pounders and cause them to NOT go to muscle mass. It will use that food just like if he had cooked the stuff himself in his kitchen with the same ratio. What I am trying to get you to do is look a little beyond “junk food” and start thinking of what “food” really is without the stereotypes.

The doughnuts? Garbage. I won’t even go there. But even they have calories and for someone gaining with a very fast metabolism and above average genetics, that is often much more important than all else.[/quote]

The more I think about, I’m inclined to agree with you. The only thing I can really say about what’s ‘bad’ about the fast food is the quality of the protein. The meat products used in fast food are of the lowest quality: connective tissue, scrap organ meats, cartilage, ligaments, tendons, etc… There’s nmo prime rib or sirloin or ‘meat’ as most people think of ‘meat’ in those burgers. We all need quality protein to build muscle, quality protein that’s rich in essential amino acids.

But as I just said, the more I think about it, I’m inclined to agree that these guys probably do get away with a lot more than I thought they could.

That’s not to say I didn’t realize that these guys eat FAR differently in the off-season than when pre-contest, but I never would’ve thought tha the backbone of an Olympia competitor’s diet is fast food.

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[quote]huey.ot wrote:
Again, all I’m saying is that I cannot believe that an off-season diet for an elite bodybuilder is going to revolve around rubbish food.[/quote]

Define “rubbish”.

And after doing so, tell me how you would personally go about getting in the 5-, 6-, even 7000 calories a day that some of these guys need to keep adding mass in the off-season.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Let’s go into detail about “rubbish”. One quarter pounder has 510cals, 29g Protein, 43 Carbs, and 25g Fat. He eats two of those which is how bad exactly? For someone his size who is possibly trying to get down in excess of 6-7,000cals a day, you are saying he should avoid that ratio because…why?

The point being made to you is your body will not reject the nearly 60gr of protein and the 1,020cals from two quarter pounders and cause them to NOT go to muscle mass. It will use that food just like if he had cooked the stuff himself in his kitchen with the same ratio. What I am trying to get you to do is look a little beyond “junk food” and start thinking of what “food” really is without the stereotypes.

The doughnuts? Garbage. I won’t even go there. But even they have calories and for someone gaining with a very fast metabolism and above average genetics, that is often much more important than all else.[/quote]

I’m glad you have the patience to explain shit like this to people. I don’t.

[quote]huey.ot wrote:
The only thing I can really say about what’s ‘bad’ about the fast food is the quality of the protein. The meat products used in fast food are of the lowest quality: connective tissue, scrap organ meats, cartilage, ligaments, tendons, etc… There’s nmo prime rib or sirloin or ‘meat’ as most people think of ‘meat’ in those burgers. We all need quality protein to build muscle, quality protein that’s rich in essential amino acids.[/quote]

Quality of protein…are you serious? Meat is meat. McDonald’s uses 100% beef in all of their patties. The FDA lets a lot of shit slide, but there is no way they would let them advertise that if it were completely false.

And therein lies the problem with this “industry” (if you can call it that). People believe that these guys actually eat the bullshit chicken, rice, and veggies meals that all of the magazines print, and when something like this comes along, they flip out, claiming there’s no way it could be true.

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  1. The IFBB guys have the kind of genetics that let them get away with things no one else can. That goes for getting big and getting into contest shape.

  2. I remember seeing an interview with JJ in one of those ‘other’ mags where he talked about this very diet. He said that he was eating donuts in the morning while training his customers. When they saw him eating donuts, those guys thought that was the secret to getting into shape. Eventually, their wives came to complain to him that their husbands were doing all this training but gaining fat. And he admitted that while he was indeed getting bigger, he was so fat that he got dizzy tying his shoes.

So 3) While those guys do eat ‘dirty’ to get that big and then cut down for contests, there are limits to even what they can do. Even Olympia guys would get too fat on the diet posted here day after day, as JJ himself did.

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[quote]Captain Glanton wrote:

  1. The IFBB guys have the kind of genetics that let them get away with things no one else can. That goes for getting big and getting into contest shape.[/quote]

I’m glad at least a few people around here realize how big of a role genetics play for guys at that level.

I think this was best summed up in Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, by Sam Fussell.

When Sam was feeling like garbage during his first pre-contest countdown, his roommates responded, “What do you think this has anything to do with health? …[T]his is about looking good, not feeling good”.

Like I said before, I don’t think these guys do it all day, every day. But again, I think it’s something fairly similar, in terms of calorie numbers and food choices, a majority of the time.

Good post.