NANBF User Forum

I am starting this thread to see how many competitors still cut water.
How many times has this actually worked for you or does it only sometimes? IMO it does not, but I still would like to know what some of have experienced. I can tell you that with my contest in 14 years I have had 3 people go the hospital because of dehydration. So I am not a proponent.

I cut water for my 1st show in 2007 didnt work and if it dont work i wont do it not to mention the fact that it is dangerous i learned from that and moved on. Water is the main ingrediant that fills those muscles up if you have no water you have no fullnes. Water depletion is best left for those NPC guys LOL!

Looks like I go against the consensus, but I cut water. Have done it every show...it works for me, but everyone and every body is different.

I don't cut water. In fact I drink more day in the days leading up to the contest and even day of show. By the time I stepped onstage for the open class at the Mr. Natural Minneota I had almost a gallon of water down and I ended up winning the class. Furthermore, water is regulated by the hour. If you keep water coming into your body, your body will keep excreeting it, if nothing is coming in, nothing will be excreeted. Its a basic physiological negative feedback loop.

Here are some pics from my photoshoot last spring where I also didn't cut water.


http://good-times.webshots.com/album/563165057rVPjyD



Chuckles

Hi John,
I increase my water, then slightly decrease before a show. Water has never been eliminated. Here's my week of contest water consumption:
Mon-Wed (up to 2 gallons per day)
Thurs (1.5 gallons)
Friday(1 gallon)
Sat (1/2 gallon)

Larry Burt, WNBF Pro

So far the it looks like the consensus that know one just eliminates it completely. This is good info for rookies.

Cori, do you completely eliminate it? And if so how far out?

I have tried both pulling water and leaving it in. Being a 6'5", 225lb competitor, I have a pretty large carb load so need the water to react well with the carbs to get full affect. I did a show in 2004 where I cut water down to a liter the day before the show and i felt i really did not fill up when I loaded.
aaron wnbf pro

John I cut completely around noon on Friday. I may sip here and there, but only when I have to. Or I use ice chips, sparingly. Like I said it works for some but not for others....I will not change a thing. ~Cori

Why would you ever cut out water? Your muscles are over 80% water. If you cut it out, what do you think suffers? LOL.

Water depletion is a horrible myth from the steroid users in the sport. They require dieuretics to get rid of massive amounts of sub-Q water caused by thier drugs. The incredibly WRONG assumption made by many naturals is that you need to cut water like they tend to do.

Your body needs X amount of water to function and it will do everything in its power to maintain that water level. So if you stop drinking it, it pulls water from non-essential tissue(MUSCLE!) so if can keep the essential systems working (renal, ect). The body regulates this literally every minute. Sodium, potassium and other minerals are regulated with the same level of accuracy. So when it comes to cutting water or sodium, its quite literally the worst possible thing you can do. Your body will happily release aldosterone to maintain serum blood sodium levels. This actually causes sub Q water retention...hence the soft look people get when they cut sodium. Some make the mistake of tyring to add potassium. Thats just as bad as cutting sodium. Excess potassium intake causes aldosterone release as well. So rule #1: dont cut water. Dont cut sodium and dont add potassium.

As for water, if you are looking to be full and hard on contest day, it takes a carefully controlled combo of carbs, water and even some electrolytes to make that happen. Your muscles are very adept at storing carbohydrate in the form of muscle glycogen. With every gram of glycogen you store, you store 3 grams of water with it. So when the carbs are in the muscle, so is the water. When that happens to a person who is truly lean, the muscles are full and hard. They press tightly against the skin and you can actually see the fibers wanting to burst out. But when you carb deplete, watch what happens. The muscles flatten out and your skin looks thicker. Traditionally, people run into this when they prep for a show the last week.

They listen to some dude who has no physiology training and decide they need to carb deplete. So they stop eating carbs and they start to flatten out as thier body harvests the carbs in the muscle to be used for energy. Well you only store 400ish grams of carbs in the muscle and so you deplete them somewhat rapidly. The uninformed competitor sees this and decides that he looks smooth. "Must be holding water! So I'll stop drinking it!". Wrong again...he just made the problem worse. Now not only does he lack all the muscle glycogen/corresponding INTRAcellular water, but now his body is going to start pulling whatever else it can from the muscles in an attempt to keep your vital systems running. Rule #2: Don't do anything radical the last week before the show. Your body is like a pendulum. It likes to live life in the middle. And if you swing too far one way, its going to overcompensate because the endocrine system works on what is known as "negative feedback pathways"...meaning hormones (insulin, aldosterone and millions of others) are released when they are needed. When the hormone(s) has done its job, it keeps acting until the oppostie switch is thrown by the body telling it to release an antagonistic hormone (think insulin vs. glucagon). So you see, if you go too far one way, the pendulum will swing back har the other way and literally ruin you. You want the pendulum to not be moving at all on contest day. You want a state of homeostasis...a state of stability. One that is easy to predict.

One of the most common things I see are competitors who think they are lean enough but that "its just a little water". The truth for these folks is that it is not water, but body fat. If you are truly lean...and by that I mean nasty, grainy and hard as nails like the Brian Whitacres of the world, you will see the difference between what most think is lean enough and what is REALLY lean enough. Until you are that body fat, you just are not hard enough. And I assure you, its not the water. LOL.

Email me at sean@thedietdoc.com if you have any questions...this is a big topic, guys.

Guys and Gals Great information!!!
I would have to agree with Sean and the others that are pro water. I know that Cori drops it, but everytime I have done this I lose all my fullness and vascularity. Whenever I speak to a competitor at check and this comes up I will wait to see what he or she looks like the day of and almost always they look flat and without vascularity. I have also noticed that allot of the competitors maybe 70% look better at the evening show after they have drank water and most likely ate up (fat and carbs) after prejudging. Of course being a lady it maybe different but I doubt it. I think possibly Cori your are so well muscled you get away with it. I have noticed your legs are not as vascular and hard as your upper body at times so you may try to keep drinking it for another contest to see? The later contests you really leaned up and that is when you may have wanted to try it on dry runs. Or have you? Even at my age and experience I listen to the Sean. LOL!! We are always looking to get better aren't we? We are a crazy lot aren't we?

The thing is, just like many folks that may have drank plenty would blame looking smooth on water retention but were really a couple of percent to high in fat. When you are super contest lean I believe you actually see it work. I really believe bodybuilders many times misconstrue what actually is causing less definition.

You are right John! And in defense of most competitors who don't realize its fat and not muscle, I have to say that the vast majority of competitors have never been truly lean. I just got back from Worlds last week. When you are standing next to a Brian Whitacre, you quickly realize what is lean and what is not. LOL. To see all the detail on that dude is amazing. When a competitor is truly lean, it looks like the skin has been removed and Dream Tan has been applied to the muscles. LOL. To get that look, you need to diet intelligently in such a way that you can spare muscle and then on peak week, the right combo of carbs and water.

"Whitacre Lean" is what everyone these days compares leanness to now it seems. It used to be Clarence Bass lean. Old School LOL!
It is Freaky. "Joe Quinlin Lean" although less known I think falls in to that catagory as well. The "Diet Doc" Lean is pretty darn close however.

WATER IS GOOD! WATER IS GOOD! (Saying it in the Dumb and Dumber way like during the restaurant scene giving the guy the rat poison pills.)

so as the question goes what are all of us out here doing wrong on our diets I was bruoght up old school npc low carbs high protein cut water and sodium at the end what does one do to get that type of lean??

delka99 wrote:so as the question goes what are all of us out here doing wrong on our diets I was bruoght up old school npc low carbs high protein cut water and sodium at the end what does one do to get that type of lean??

One thing you have to remember about the NPC is that if you are able to use anabolic drugs you do not have to worry about your testosterone levels. Without synthetic hormone manipulation a natural bodybuilder you have to rely on keeping your God given hormones as high as possible. This is the problem with old school diets that do not use fat as an energy source. Even if you do a ton of Protein you cannot sustain muscle mass with out fat as your energy source. When you drop fat you also drop cholesterol which is a main contributor to your testosterone levels. When you are going low fat and low carb but high protein you will still not hold onto your muscle mass because of low testosterone and GH and this goes for male or female. I have spoke to many men that experience a low sex drive an even impotence. I had experienced his once and it scared me enough that I quit bodybuilding afterwards for about 2 years. I however stumbled upon an article by Jay Robb about this Low carb diet thing. That for me turn everything around and I have been an advocate if this approach for 17 years. Higher fat diets keep your fatty acids high and your cholesterol higher in order to keep a healthy hormone level.

Once you use fat as an energy source your body will also start burning adipose fat (on your body) as well. As long as you eat fat with low carbs it will do this without using your Protein and your lean muscle as fuel .

The water thing is just another offshoot of the drug culture as well. Unless you can monitor your Sodium to Potassium levels on an hourly basis this usually spells disaster. Even with the guys using drugs this does not work most of the time. I knew a NPC bodybuilder that would look almost like Lee Labrada 2 weeks out and destined to win a KC contest 2 years in a row. Then he would do a diuretic and come in soft and not even win his class. Water is a must to keep you fuller and vascular. As I have mentioned competitors consistently look better in our evening awards show and overall competitions because they eat up and hydrate themselves.

What ratio of fat, protein and carbs would you recommend? I am 5'7" , 46 weigh 195 and need to get down to 165 for a show. And when you do water, is it the same at contest time as it is during preparation? If not, how does it change-appreciate any help you can give me.