Phil Heath is sharing his secret to diet success.

Eight to nine weeks out from Mr Olympia 2018, the reigning champ Phil Heath visited a police department and broke down his nutritional blueprint. Massive Muscle was generous enough to release the footage.

In the video, Phil says that 8-9 weeks out, he usual wakes up around 5:00-5:30am and does around a half hour of cardio on step mill or treadmill. He uses a heart rate monitor and wristwatch to aim for 145-150 bpm. This ensures that he is in an efficient fat burning zone. Then he heads home, showers up, and eats breakfast. For him this consists of about 8 oz of ground chicken, 1.5 to 2 cups egg whites and around 60 grams of carbs – usually from cream of rice or oatmeal. Phil says oatmeal has the fiber to “help push everything through.” With breakfast he takes a multi-vitamin, fish oil, and vitamin c.

Throughout the day he eats every 2-2.5 hours. His meals total to around 6400 calories a day, which tapers a little towards the end of prep. Meals include 12oz of cooked weight chicken, lean beef, ground turkey, or white fish. These are his main proteins outside of egg whites. He ingests around 500 grams of protein daily, and recommends that serious athletes get at least 1.5 grams per pound of bodyweight. For fish he prefers tilapia:

“I do like orange rough, but as much as I can eat of it, it doesn’t work out so good. You end up smelling like fish and it will drain out your butt. And It’s really disgusting. When you’re wearing white shorts and you might squeeze one off and next thing you know your like…not again. I’ve done it and I’m not too proud to say it.”

Phil emphasized that he prefers tilapia because it’s low in mercury.Towards the end of prep he’s eating almost all fish as his protein. And 8-12 pounds off food a day towards the end of prep means a lot of tilapia.

Phil says, “you don’t want to get mercury poisoning. Ever. And a lot of the different fish available have a higher count of mercury.”

Closer to the show, Phil says he reduces the amount of carb meals to slim down and stay big. Out of 8 meals he will only do four carb meals.

He says this makes him, “zombie style towards the end because those carbs do help a ton.”

He eats through the night to maintain a constant flow of amino acids.

“Every 3-3.5 hours you should be putting in protein.”

The champ also gave a helpful tip for dieters dining at places like Chipotle or Qdoba:

“They actually have like regular rice in the back. So if you’re on a diet and you’re trying to lose a little bit- cause what they do is they throw a lot of sodium in it, and they put like you know butter in it and stuff – if you wanna eat a little bit cleaner just say, ‘Hey I want the rice in the back with just the cilantro on it,’ and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy and you just say, ‘No, I know you have it…’ and they’ll be like ‘okay.’”

As for water, Phil consumes a gallon to 2 gallons a day, but in the last week of prep only a large bottle of water over a couple days, still eating 10-12 pound of food.

“That’s how we get that shrink-wrapped, vascular, shredded look.”

A ton of information from the champ. He is sure to put on an outstanding show for the fans at this year’s Olympia!

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