Diet and discipline

Date: 13-05-2007 Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamUnited States

Local gym owner wins 1st place in his 2nd bodybuilding contest
The first thing Marc Anderson did after winning his weight class at the Metrolina Bodybuilding and Figure Championships in Kannapolis was drink a liter of water.

He went home and ordered a Domino's pizza. Then he went to Harris-Teeter for some Edy's ice cream.

The pizza and ice cream were the first luxuries he had allowed himself in 10 weeks. The water was to start replenishing what he had drained from his body over the previous 72 hours.

The competition on April 21 was the second for Anderson in bodybuilding. In 10 weeks of training, he took no days off and progressively restricted his diet, down to the final three days when he lost 12 pounds of water weight.

Pass him in the gym in the two weeks before the show and his first word was "Grumpy." The question? "How are you, Marc?"

A more accurate word might have been "disciplined" because that's what it takes to compete as a bodybuilder, from diet to workouts.

"You have to eat clean year-round, but officially for 10 weeks," said Anderson, 5-foot-11, who restored his body weight to 215 pounds within two days after getting to 200 for competition.

His wife, Danielle, does the grocery shopping, and Marc, 36, does his own cooking. She doesn't eat what he eats.

"No fats, no sugars -- any fat you eat is like peanut butter fat or olive oil. Your carbs are all real clean -- complex carbs like sweet potatoes and brown rice," he said.

Then you cycle through the weeks.

"The first four weeks you just completely clean up your diet. If you haven't been doing cardio, you start doing it," he said. "Then each week after that, you bump your cardio until you ultimately get to two one-hour sessions a day.

"At the very end, your carbs are almost completely out. There's zero fat. Then the last week, you purposely dehydrate your body to bring out the vascularity and muscular definition -- the veins and the striations (to show) the etchings in the muscle."

He realizes that last part isn't healthy, but considers it more of a hardship than a hazard when it's done for such a short time period.

Of course, there's tons of weight training too -- also very regimented.

"The lower your body fat gets, the less weight you use and the more repetitions you do, because when your body fat's that low, you're very susceptible to injury," he said.

Anderson got interested in bodybuilding after he bought a gym, Mountain Island Fitness in Coulwood, two years ago. Some of the members were bodybuilders so it was a natural progression for him, and now he also trains bodybuilders.

Five from Mountain Island Fitness competed in the Kannapolis show, and three -- Pam Hudson, Rodney Chance and Anderson -- won their divisions.

Anderson's discipline goes way back. A graduate of Oak Ridge Military Academy in Greensboro and a five-year Army veteran, he was in the first Desert Storm as a member of the 82nd Airborne, where he was in artillery, "blowing things up." He grew up in Lincoln County and attended East Lincoln High.

He's gotten so wrapped up in the gym business that he's expanding Mountain Island Fitness.

Before then, he'll be training for another competition, the Mountaineer Bodybuilding and Figure Championships on Sept. 22 in Boone.

"My mom always told me I had a bulldog-like intensity and it would either get me in a lot of trouble or take me far," Anderson said. "So far so good." People Like Me