It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to gain or lose weight; your diet plays a massive role. For elite bodybuilders, it’s even more important to micromanage the diet. Hence, during his prime, eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman memorized the portions of everything he ate to support his 300-plus-pound frame. While the bodybuilding legend cut down on food intake during his cut, he ate an insane amount of food while bulking.

In 2013, Coleman gave advice on how to gain weight in a YouTube video by Howdini. While speaking about the fundamentals of weight gain, Coleman recounted how he ate during his competitive bodybuilding days to gain weight. The King told what he ate and, more importantly, how much he ate to give viewers a better idea of how calories work.

The insane diet of The King, Ronnie Coleman?

Since Ronnie Coleman’s goal was to gain as much muscle as possible, he ate a lot of protein.?“I keep my protein real high… Every pound of body weight… 2 grams the protein,”?said the mass monster during the interview. While protein helped Coleam put on muscle and recover from tough workouts, The King also needed carbohydrates for energy.

Increasing carbs helps you put on weight. Hence, the Arnold Classic winner didn’t miss out on carbs. In fact, during the bulking phase, he pushed his carb intake to the extreme.?”Instead of taking in like 250 grams of carbs a day, I can now go up to about 500-600… all the way up to about 1000 grams a day,” said the bodybuilder, who touched 330 lbs during the offseason.

Coleman named his go-to carb sources.?“Basically, a lot of rice, baked potatoes… I have just a little bit of bread, two or three slices if I’m eating a sandwich,”?Coleman said. Finally, the bodybuilding icon said he ate?“every three to four hours, six times a day,”?to keep up with the intense training. Coleman’s immense diet forced his biggest rival to adopt a similar diet.

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Jay Cutler had to make similar dietary choices

Jay Cutler dethroned Ronnie Coleman after placing second to The King four times in a row. After failing to beat Coleman multiple times, Cutler realized he would have to turn into a mass monster himself to defeat the former Texas cop. So the three-time Arnold Classic winner added to his already expensive diet.

The four-time Mr. Olympia bulked up to at least 295 lbs during 2006. While Cutler later said that he didn’t beat the best version of Ronnie Coleman, the former champion finally matched the mass monster. Hence, despite initially not wanting to put on too much weight, Cutler had to compromise to dethrone The King.

What did you think about Ronnie Coleman’s insane diet? Tell us in the comments.

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