As you get closer to competition day, you should be adjusting your workout sessions and getting even more fanatical about your diet.

Recreational bodybuilders can get away with a less knowledgeable approach, but you need to know your diet inside out so you know exactly what you need to do to perform your best.

The way to be in total command of your diet is to:

You also want to stay anabolic in the final weeks before competition. That means you should eat constantly, with small meals throughout the day. Your body should never feel deprived or starve at any time.

Try to avoid creatine in the weeks leading up to competition. Other than that, consider adding these to the core bodybuilding supplements you’re probably already taking during the weeks leading up to competition:

Finally, the last few days before the competition are obviously NOT the time to try something new with your diet!

When you’re tired and hungry is a bad time to be deciding what to eat.

On the other hand, preparation decreases temptation—that’s why it’s smart to plan out your meals for the week.

Meal planning also makes it easier to shop for groceries and make sure you have everything you need on hand, so you don’t just reach for the take-out menu when you come home at night.

Try to eat 5 to 6 times per day before competition season and then 6 to 7 times a day in the 10 weeks leading up to a competition.

Of course, these are just a few quick examples. The point is your planning doesn’t have to be elaborate—you just have to do it!

You want to eat differently after training than you do at other times. After an intense workout, the blood used for digestion is displaced into your legs and arms.

Since the digestive tract demands a lot of blood to do its job, you want a meal that is easy to digest. Try something easy like a whey protein shake mixed with a banana. This will help fuel the recovery process and is absorbed quickly into your system.

In this sport you have to make sure every nutrient counts and “pulls its own weight” by:

In short, a meal plan will not only keep you from eating the wrong things—it’ll also help you map out your nutrient intake and make sure each meal is getting you closer to your main goals.

We’ve talked about the importance of diet and nutrition as you get closer to competition day. But you also need to pay attention to your diet the rest of the year as well.

So, we’ve put together 6 diet no-no’s to follow anytime:

Since muscle weighs more than fat, gauging your progress with a normal scale will be a disaster. Many competitors add too many calories to their diet to get fast gains on the scale. And some competitors who are trying to reduce weight make the mistake of cutting their caloric intake too much.

It is much better to rely on body fat calipers, a series of photos, or the objective eye of a training partner or other observer than the numbers staring back at you on the scale.

Many athletes do not eat enough during hard workout weeks. When you are working hard to break down muscle tissue in order to build it back up, your body relies on calories to increase your overall mass.

In short, you must eat more to get bigger. But you can’t just eat junk all day and expect it to work out well. You have to eat right nutrients that your body needs, which is why diet is so important.

Some people get so intense about getting bigger that they eat too many carbs—thinking that they’re adding massive amounts of calories they can work into muscle. What ends up happening though is a good proportion of their carb-loading gets converted into body fat.

This happens even if you are following a low fat diet. Once your body gets enough carbs, it directs the excess over to fat stores. So regardless of the type of diet you’re using, you need to monitor your carb intake.

Making substantial changes to your diet in a sudden manner is bad because your body needs time to adjust. Large drops in caloric intake will backfire—causing your body to retain fat. The same is true for sudden increases. It’s better to make small changes over time.

People go crazy in trying to eliminate fat. Cutting down on fat is important, but don’t go overboard. The body needs healthy fats to maintain vital organs, improve “good cholesterol” levels, boost immune functions and give you healthy skin and hair. They also moderate insulin levels and promote a full feeling after meals.

The trick is to keep fat to an optimum percentage. For example, keep fat consumption at around 30% of total caloric intake—and most of that should be unsaturated fat.

It’s important to use supplements that actually work as intended. Many supplements are more sizzle than steak. Limit supplements to a core group meant to achieve important overall gains in your workout goals. Taking minor supplements that have little benefit will only make your wallet smaller than your muscles bigger.

You run into problems when you begin to believe every claim made by every supplement manufacturer that comes down the pike. It’s more important to stick to the same diet and training program over time. Supplements should enhance what you are doing in your core program, not make up for holes in it.

As you probably noticed, you can do too much of a good thing just as you can a bad. So when in doubt, go for moderation!

While the physical work of training gets all the glory, diet and nutrition play a huge role in meeting your goals. In fact, some experts say that mastering nutrition is 70% of the overall contest-preparation challenge.

And the first step is figuring out how much you should eat a day to reach your goals.

It really is simple to determine what you need:

To lose weight, take your current weight and multiply it by 12 to lose up to 2 pounds per week. So for example if your weight is 200– multiply that by 2 pounds per week for a total of 2400 calories. This is your daily total caloric intake.

To maintain weight, multiply your current weight by 15 (in our example: if your current weight is 200 pounds, multiplied by 15 it would be 3,000 calories).

To gain weight, multiply your current weight by 20 (in our example, the result is 4,000 calories to gain 2 pounds per week).

Once you know your target total caloric intake, the question is: what is the proportion of carbohydrates proteins and fat you should have?

Generally, we like to have proteins equal 50%, carbohydrates equal 20% and fat equal 30% of total calories. So, if your total caloric intake is 2,400 calories, you need to have 1,200 calories in protein, 480 calories in carbohydrates and 720 in fat calories.

It’s pretty easy to determine the number of calories in each category. However, most food labels have the information in grams. Unfortunately, this means we have to do little more math to figure out the calories from the food label.

Once you have this information, be sure you carefully watch your portion sizes for each of the 3 main components. Finally, you should always eat with your goal in mind. But at 10 weeks out from the competition, you should start become very diligent and exacting about your diet.

Fitness expert Darin Steen says to look for foods with ingredients you can pronounce, “The more chemicals, ingredients, or words listed that you can’t pronounce, the worse it is for you.”

Even if you can pronounce the crazy ingredients, avoid things like trans fats—usually indicated by words like “partially hydrogenated,” “fractionated” or “hydrogenated.” Also, steer clear of high fructose corn syrup and monosodium glutamate.

Instead, get the “good” fats—monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. For example, use virgin olive oil in food preparation and choose fatty fish.

Many seeds, nuts, dark leafy greens and flaxseed oils are good polyunsaturated fats. They are a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids which lower blood pressure, beat back bad cholesterol (LDL), and help the brain and nervous system to run nice and healthy.

Also focus on good carbs—whole grain breads, fibrous fruits, and veggie like squash, apples, and sweet potatoes. Get enough protein from beans, whey, chicken and fish. Kick processed sugars and white bread to the curb—they will spike your blood sugar and be stored as fat.

Don’t limit fats so much that it makes you want to overindulge. Also, schedule a “cheat day” where you get to eat a favorite food like pizza or a cheeseburger. After all, you have to some fun!