Bobybuilding Diet

Unlike many traditional diets, the bodybuilding is for weight gain rather than loss. The diet focuses on healthy ways to build muscle while losing body fat. It emphasizes the importance of nutrition in an athletic regimen, suggesting that it accounts for more than half of a person's success as a bodybuilder.

Moderate Protein

• The bodybuilding diet recommends starting your dietary consumption with 1 g of protein per pound of body weight per day and increasing consumption slowly as necessary. The diet points out that excessive consumption of anything --- even protein --- can be stored in the body as body fat. Protein should consume about 35 percent of your diet.

The Right Carbohydrates

• The diet stresses the importance of consuming carbohydrate sources that are filled with vitamins and nutrients, recommending that you eat carbs mostly found in fruit and vegetable sources. Carbohydrates should equal about 50 percent of your diet.

Healthy Fats

• The diet suggests that saturated fats be avoided and replaced with fats from olives, nuts, avocados, seafood and other sources that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Fat intake should be about 15 percent of total caloric consumption.

Caloric Needs

• Caloric needs on the bodybuilding diet will depend on whether the athlete is looking to get leaner, maintain his body or bulk up. To get daily caloric needs for bulking, multiply your lean body mass by 23; for maintenance, multiply by 19; and to lean out, multiply by 15. Lean body mass is your weight minus your fat percentage.