The Diet of a 50 Year Old Weight Lifter

So how does my diet differ from that of a 30 year "weight lifting machine"?

This is a bit of a trick question. "Because the answer is not at all."

I eat exactly the same kinds of things that hopefully successful muscle building younger men and women eat. The difference is in how much of it.

Protein, protein and more protein. It is the building block (actually the amino acids contained in protein) of muscle building. The analogy I like to make is you can spend all the time and energy you want on building your "muscle car" but without fuel in the tank, what have you got? Not much muscle, eh?

Protein is THAT fuel for your bodies muscle building efforts. So this means that I start with determining how much protein I need in grams. From there I multiply that by 4, the number of calories in a gram of protein.

Now I calculate my daily calorie needs using BMR. Subtract from this number the amount of protein calories that I MUST consume, and the remaining amount I take split between carbs, fats and sometimes more protein.

My diet is made up of basically 5 foods: chicken, tuna fish, peanut butter, beans and the only weightlifting supplement that REALLY matters, whey protein.

I NEVER eat a meal, or snack for the most part, without 1 of these 5 as the largest portion. And yes I do eat about 1600 calories a day in vegetables, some bread, fruit and occasionally sweets.

For the record based on my size, age, gender and activity level I consume 190 grams of protein a day and 2600 total calories.

20 years ago almost daily after work I ate a small bag of doritos (840 calories) drank 2 beers (360 calories) and had a shot (180 calories), for a grand total of 1380 calories.

I was not benching 330 but I did weigh 175 lbs with a 33 inch waist as I do now.

I wasn't a 30 year old "weight lifting machine."

But I wasn't 52 either. So except for the bench part my weight and waist haven't changed that much. What would happen NOW if I ate that everyday, all else equal?