February 1, 2008

How I Trained Chantal Dicaire to Win the World Qualifier in 12 Days – Part Three: The Nutrition

This is the last installment in my series about how I trained Canadian fitness star Chantal Dicaire to win the CBBF National World Qualifier in just 12 days, but it has also been the most difficult to write. The reason is that it is about nutrition and I've found that when people ask me about this topic, they often expect me to hand them a diet sheet with some kind of magic formula on it that will allow them to tone up and/or slim down. Basically, they’re looking for a miracle, and I suspect that is what some people will be looking for in this article.

However, I don’t believe in miracles and I don't feel it's wise, or ethical, to write out some diet plan so nonchalantly even though others without proper qualifications feel it's a safe thing to do. I'm not a nutritionist or a dietician, the people I feel are most qualified to do something like that.

Furthermore, despite the dozens and dozens of diet books on the shelves, usually promoting some great "new" weight-loss technique, I’ve never met anyone who has had much long-term success by following that sort of advice, and I certainly haven’t seen anyone who has been able to use one of those books to prepare for a physique show. In fact, as far as I can tell, most of those diet books are only good for one thing: taking your money.

So I tend to focus my energies on getting real information, and that’s not usually found in books or magazines promoting the latest fad diet. Instead, you have to dig further and, when you do that, you realize that it's not something that can be written out on one sheet of paper, and it's usually not something that you'll find in just one book. On the other hand, I've also learned that applying proper nutritional principles doesn't need to be complex or mysterious either.

The way I approach dieting is to use no-nonsense, commonsense eating principles that I learned from the late, great trainer Vince Gironda, a man I’ve referred to often in my articles because of his unique, intelligent way to train people to achieve quick results. I trained with him about 20 years ago, learning more in that short time than in the many years that followed. I’ve also read everything he’s written. Gironda authored numerous books and articles on training and nutrition, all containing valuable advice delivering reliable results.

For Chantal’s special case, I mostly used the information in the booklet he wrote in the ‘80s called How I Train the Movie Stars, the title of which might surprise some people. Why a booklet about movie stars? Simple: Vince not only got physique competitors into shape, but actors and actresses as well. His gym was located near the major film studios. This course of his, which outlines training and nutrition, employs his sometimes "radical" methods to improve the way someone looks in as little 10 days! Therefore, it was the ideal resource for the challenge I faced with Chantal.

Now, before you say I’m a hypocrite for slamming certain books and then recommending what Gironda wrote, understand this: Gironda never pretended that he invented any kind of diet or was privy to any real secrets. Instead, his knowledge came from reading the research available at the time and experimenting with it, often using himself as the guinea pig. And after trying every so-called "diet" out there, he found that the best results came from employing what he called "stone-age nutrition," which refers simply to basing his diet on natural foods – the kinds our ancestors ate. This means a diet primarily made up of meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. And from my own experience, I found he was right. When the people I coach structure their meal plans around these kinds of foods, avoiding all the processed food products so readily available today, their body functions optimally and their fat level rarely ever fluctuates. Furthermore, with just a couple of tweaks to this kind of diet, you can get yourself into the kind of shape that a topflight physique competitor needs to be in. So, this "stone-age nutrition" diet was the basis for Chantal’s 12-day turnaround.

We built her meal plan primarily around meats, eggs and green vegetables, making sure she consumed these foods in even intervals throughout the day. That meant that she ended up eating 5-6 times a day, spacing each meal about 3 hours apart. For the most part, we cut out starches (e.g., potatoes, rice, etc.) to get the fastest results possible – these kinds of foods are rich in carbohydrate and hit Chantal as if they’re raw sugar, adding body fat in the process. So we wanted to restrict them, but we didn’t completely eliminate them.

If you reduce carbs too much for too long, it will result in a state of carbohydrate depletion with symptoms that include fatigue, dizziness, weakness, and a loss of muscle tone. That’s one of the downfalls with carb-restricted diets that’s often overlooked, but was something Gironda recognized as an issue decades ago. Therefore, as Gironda often recommended, Chantal periodically "carbed up" when she felt depleted. Usually, she simply ate half a potato.

We didn’t count calories or weigh anything. Instead, Chantal lived by this rule of thumb (or fist!) that I learned from my friend Ron Kosloff, a nutritional consultant who lives in Detroit, Michigan, USA: the maximum amount of food eaten at any one time should not be larger than the size of two of your fists. In other words, when Chantal balled up her hands and looked at how big that was, what was on her plate should be no bigger than that. Also, within that "two-fisted" meal, the portion of meat she would eat would be no bigger than one fist, and the amount of vegetables she would eat would be no bigger than the other. Furthermore, if she wanted to eat less than the size of her fists, that was also fine – after all, she was eating many times per day, so she wouldn’t go too hungry for too long if one meal was a little smaller.

One of the reasons Ron prefers that portion size is because two fists approximate the size of what the stomach should be. So, it’s the right amount to consume at one meal without stretching your stomach. I also like it because it gives ideal portion control, particularly for protein. A piece of meat the size of one of Chantal’s fists ends up being about 4 ounces, which provides about 20-25 grams of protein. For her, that’s optimal.

So a typical day for Chantal would look like this:

• Breakfast: 2 whole eggs and ½ tomato and vitamins
• Mid-morning snack: chicken and broccoli or ½ potato (if carb-depleted)
• Lunch: lean beef and small salad with oil and vinegar dressing
• Mid-afternoon snack: small portion of raw almonds or cottage cheese
• Supper: chicken or lean beef and broccoli or asparagus or small salad with oil and vinegar dressing

It’s important to realize that she did not eat like that every day. This is only an example of what one day might look like. For instance, although her diet consisted primarily of beef and chicken, she would sometimes substitute fish. And although she ate broccoli or asparagus quite often, she would also eat green peppers or something similar from time to time. So the idea in this example is not to try and follow that particular menu, but, rather, to take home the idea of how she ate in terms of the food types, portion size, and meal frequency. In addition, it’s important to also realize that this diet was specifically laid out for her contest preparation. If she was in her off-season, she’d eat similarly, but she’d also eat fruits for good health, and she’d consume starchy vegetables far more often, since they are rich in carbohydrates and provide vital energy for training.

But that wasn’t all. At the very beginning of this short cycle, we employed a clever little trick that comes from Gironda’s How I Train the Movie Stars booklet. For the first days of his 10-day program, he’d often kick-start the person into weight loss by employing a vegetarian-type diet. In other words, no meats whatsoever. He found that doing so had a "cleansing" effect on the body, which helped promote weight loss right off the bat. But, admittedly, a radical change in diet like that is difficult for some, and that’s why he also wrote in that booklet, "You must motivate yourself by thinking how good you will look in only ten days." Gironda realized that not just training and nutrition were vital, but that the person’s mindset was important too, and is also necessary for successful weight loss. I knew that Chantal had that kind of focus to do it.

So Chantal eliminated meats for the first few days, surviving mainly on salads that were made up of lettuce with mixed vegetables, usually topped off with a small portion of oil and vinegar dressing. However, I made a slight modification to Gironda’s method. Since Chantal is a fitness competitor who needs to carry quite a bit more muscle than the average person (or Vince’s actors and actresses), I increased her protein intake on these "vegetarian" days by having her eat two eggs with each salad she consumed. This isn’t a tremendous amount of protein, but eggs are a top-quality source of protein and by adding them it was enough to maintain her muscle mass through that initial dieting phase.

Those are all the basic nutritional elements to Chantal's 12-day turnaround. However, as you probably noticed, what I’ve outlined here isn’t a diet or anything close to one. Instead, what I’ve described are the nutritional principles I’ve learned and have instilled in the people I coach, including Chantal Dicaire, Natalie Waples and various others. These are all commonsense eating principles, something Gironda liked to call "stone-age nutrition." It’s primitive, but effective.

However, I suspect that some who read this will wonder if something so basic can really work that well. After all, it isn't like some "miracle formula" that you find in one of those new, expensive diet books. From what I understand, Gironda battled the same criticism decades ago despite his experience and success. But, if anyone doubts that it can work, I encourage them to look at the results I’ve achieved with it – I trained Chantal for 12 days last June and she took home the Overall title at the 2007 CBBF National World Qualifier.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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