- Bodybuilder Mark Taylor ate a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet for decades.
- His career never reached the heights he wanted, but everything changed when he started eating carbohydrates.
- Taylor now eats six servings of potatoes a day and is on track to win Mr. Universe in 2023.
As a competitive bodybuilder, Mark Taylor has been training hard and eating a strict low-carb diet for decades, but he just missed out on the top prize in his native Scotland.
That was until he made a drastic change. Taylor began eating large amounts of carbohydrates, many of them in the form of potatoes.
Suddenly, Taylor, then 42, was able to grow the muscles he had always wanted and started winning the tournaments he had always dreamed of.
In 2023, Taylor won the Mr. Universe Masters Over 45, one of the world’s biggest bodybuilding competitions.In the past 10 years he has been crowned Mr England, Mr Great Britain, Mr Britain and Mr World.
While there’s no denying Taylor’s dedication to training and nutrition, much of his late success can be attributed to potatoes.
This may come as a shock to those who have been led to believe that carbohydrates are the enemy of fat loss. The anti-carb movement has been around in various guises for decades. The low-carb Atkins diet was popular at the end of the 20th century, and the high-fat, low-carbohydrate keto diet gained attention in the 2000s. Currently, there is a growing movement to stir up fear about “spikes” in blood sugar levels caused by the following causes: Additionally, eat carbohydrates.
But as Taylor discovered, carbohydrates are an important part of our diet, and while they’re not inherently fattening, they play a key role in building muscle.
Carbohydrates help replenish energy stores within muscles
There’s no denying that protein is important for muscle growth. Protein contains amino acids, which are the building blocks of muscle. But carbohydrates are also important.
Carbohydrates provide the body with energy and are stored in muscles as glycogen. Exercise depletes these glycogen stores, so eating carbohydrates after exercise replenishes them.
If you have more energy, you can also train harder, which indirectly helps you build more muscle.
Along with the right diet (right amount), build muscle You need to train hard with gradual overload and also make sure you get enough rest.
By focusing on slow-releasing carbohydrates (sweet potatoes and oats in Taylor’s case), he was able to maintain relatively stable energy levels throughout the day. However, eating white potatoes, which release energy faster after a workout, will replenish your glycogen stores faster.
Taylor started bodybuilding at a young age.
As a teenager, Taylor had a job lifting boxes of drinks into and out of trucks, and as a result, his muscles began to grow.
Around the same time, he saw the cover of a men’s fitness magazine in a store and thought, “I want to look like that, too.” So, she started going to the gym when she was 19 years old.
The gym owner, a bodybuilder, recognized Taylor’s potential and invited him to train with him. A year later, Taylor competed in his first bodybuilding competition and took second place in the “Beginner” category. The following year he won the Scottish general championship.
That was the beginning of Taylor’s decades-long bodybuilding career.
Taylor, now 52, said: “I went on to win some Scottish titles, but I was never good enough. By the time I got to the British final, I was overwhelmed.” He said: “He always felt he had the potential to win everything, but he didn’t know how to get there.”
At the time, the idea of becoming Mr. Universe seemed too unrealistic even as a goal.
Taylor changed her eating habits 10 years ago
Taylor was on a strictly high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet while preparing for competitions because he had seen other bodybuilders do it.
On an average day, Taylor might have some oats for breakfast and a little rice later in the day, but his diet mainly focused on chicken and broccoli. It is said that he was That’s despite his rigorous training regime.
“I wasn’t eating any carbohydrates for energy, so I wasn’t feeling well all the time, I felt sick, and my workouts weren’t very good,” Taylor said.
In 2014, nutritionist and coach Vicki McCann, who had seen Taylor compete, offered to help with Taylor’s nutrition and asked him to send her a food diary.
“She just saw it and tore it up,” Taylor said.
McCann gave him a new eating plan that included carbohydrates in 10 meals a day.
“That’s when I changed my physique,” he said.
Taylor had more muscle mass than ever before. Within a year, he was second in a British bodybuilding competition, then moved on to the over-45 category and won a string of titles.
Taylor eats potatoes 6 times a day
McCann’s meal plan took Taylor’s calorie intake from 2,000 calories per day to about 4,000 calories per day, increasing to 6,000 calories in subsequent years.
It took me a few weeks to get used to eating twice the amount of food, and at first I was worried that eating too much, especially carbohydrates, would detract from the body shape I wanted. Ta. However, within a few weeks, Taylor realized it was counterproductive.
His current daily diet is as follows:
- 150g oats
- 6 servings of 300g sweet potato and 100g chicken
- 1 bottle of carbohydrate recovery drink
- 350 grams of white potatoes, 120 grams of chicken, broccoli
- Scrambled 5 egg whites and 1 whole egg
Although Taylor doesn’t count calories or macros, he and Vicki adjust their diets based on their appearance.
By eating more carbohydrates, Taylor had more energy training five times a week and his muscles felt more “full,” he said.
Incredibly, even after 10 years, Taylor hasn’t grown tired of potatoes. And the results are worth it.
“Keeping all your carbohydrates high will give you a much bigger and leaner physique,” he said. “If I cut it, it actually doesn’t look that hard because my physique looks smaller and flatter.”
He added: “It’s outrageous that the amount of food you put away and leave in tatters.”
