Arnold Schwarzenegger (Image via schwarzenegger/Instagram)

"Leaving the dieting hamster wheel" - Arnold Schwarzenegger shares best diet for recovery

Modified Mar 13, 2024 12:33 GMT

Arnold Schwarzenegger retired from professional bodybuilding a long time ago. Despite quitting professional bodybuilding, he continued to maintain an impressive physique through his workouts.

He currently does easier work outs due to age and health-related issues. Schwarzenegger follows a strict diet as well.

Since retiring from bodybuilding, he has gone from strength to strength. The Austrian Oak has acted in several high-octane action films and has served as the Governor of California as well.

Arnold Schwarzenegger often encourages his fans to work out, eat healthy, and stay fit. He shared a checklist for a healthy diet and best practices to optimize recovery in the most recent edition of The Pump Daily newsletter.

"Many diet books and experts will try to convince you that there's a 'best' diet. But that's a game you can't win, and a big reason so many people struggle with their weight. If you want to leave the dieting hamster wheel, it's helpful to look for common trends instead of specific style of eating.

"A 10-year study looked at more than 17,000 people and found that good health can be determined by a few common eating habits. The study found - regardless of your genetic risk - there are eating behaviors that lead to less body fat, more lean mass, and better overall health, and it has nothing to do about cutting carbs, avoiding gluten, or trying to detox your body."

The Daily Pump newsletter contained further information about healthy habits to follow.

Healthy habits according to The Daily Pump newsletter by Arnold Schwarzenegger

The healthy habits, as mentioned in The Daily Pump newsletter, according to Fitness Volt, are attached below:

Eating more than 400 grams of fruits and vegetables per day (for reference, this is about 3 pieces of fruit and 2 cups of vegetable)
Keeping total dietary fat to less than 30 percent of your total daily calories (if you're following a 2,000-calorie diet, this means you could eat up to 65 grams of fat per day)
Limiting saturated fat to 10 percent (or less) of your daily caloric intake
Keeping sugar to less than 10 percent of your daily total calories
Eating 25 grams (or more) of fiber each day
Consuming more than 3500mg of potassium (potassium is found in many foods, including potatoes, avocado, bananas and oranges, green veggies, dairy, cashews, beans, lentils, and salmon)

Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote that diet habits provide us with some good recommendations without telling us exactly what to eat.

"And that's a great reminder that the best diet is the one that you can follow. So don't overthink the need for one style of eating and instead focus on the bigger picture categories."

Best practices for recovery according to Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger shared some of the best practices for recovery in his The Daily Pump Newsletter. He started by asking how much time off we needed between training sessions. Schwarzenegger stated that if we're not beginners, then we need very little time than we think.

"One of the most commonly held beliefs is that your body needs at least 48 hours of rest before you train the same muscle again. So if you trained your chest and back on Monday, you’d want to wait to hit those muscles again until Wednesday, at the earliest. Researchers recently challenged this belief by seeing what happens when training four days in a row at a high intensity but with limited total volume (not doing too many sets and reps)."

Arnold Schwarzenegger further continued:

"The results? Despite working out multiple days in a row, training every day did not harm performance and even led to some improvements. In the study, participants performed just 2 sets of 11 different exercises. The first set consisted of 10-12 reps, and the second focused on doing as many reps as possible (with one small important limit we’ll cover in a moment). By the end of the four days, many participants actually did more reps on day 4 of the workout than day 3."

The seven-time Mr Olympia title winner said the study was focused on advanced lifters. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote that if we're a beginner or intermediate, our body needs more time to recover.

"Additionally, the participants were not taking each set to complete failure. Instead, they were instructed to leave at least 1 rep in the tank. The combination of more lifting experience and not pushing to failure made it possible to train more often, recover, and still stay strong."

Schwarzenegger further added that the said study also shows that one doesn't have to do "endless sets" in the gym. Regular work outs, even of a lesser intensity, are very beneficial.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has provided his fans and followers with several tips across a wide range of topics. The seven-time Mr Olympia title winner believes being consistent is important.