The New Food Pyramid: What Bodybuilders Knew Long Before Nutrition Policy

For decades, the food pyramid told us to fear fat and eat more grains — yet bodybuilders were doing the exact opposite. Today, nutrition policy has quietly come full circle. The new food pyramid looks revolutionary — but if you’ve studied bodybuilding nutrition, you’ll realize it’s nothing new at all.

Anyone that knows anything about bodybuilding will know that fitness and bodybuilding diets focus on protein, healthy fats and vegetables and fruits at the top, generally known as a high-protein diet, and recently RFK announced the new pyramid which has been coined the inverted pyramid as it is a complete flip of the old pyramid that placed grains at the top, with protein and fats at the bottom.

There has been much hype and celebration about the pyramid in the bodybuilding and fitness community, and rightly so. We as a community have known for years the benefits of nutrients dense whole food diets for overall health and vitality, muscle building and fat-loss, so I thought I would look at bodybuilding diets over the years and demonstrate that in fact, the new pyramid is essentially the same as what we have always preached about, The New Pyramid is a Bodybuilding Diet.

The Evolution of Bodybuilding Diets

If we go as far back as the bronze era, when strongmen like Eugen Sandow, George Hackenschmidt and the Saxon Brothers would perform their feats of strength and sports, there are reports of how they ate. Over a hundred years ago, strongmen built muscle on protein, fats, fruits, and vegetables — and now modern nutrition science is finally catching up.

Sandow is well known to have enjoyed a balanced diet for the majority of the time but was one of the first to emphasize high-protein for musculization, that is, to reduce body fat, and for example, was an advocate of one of the first protein supplements called Plasmon, which was the same as isolated whey. In his book titled “the Way to Live”, George Hackenschmidt advocated a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and protein which helped him develop his physique and become the world's greatest wrestler at the time. The Saxon brothers were known to have a very high calorie, high-protein nutrient dense diet and would eat huge portions of eggs, bacon and meat, as well as fresh fruits, and whole grains like porridge, however, they would wash it all down with large quantities of beer!

Fast forward to the Silver Era, and high-protein diets were recommended by nutritional gurus like Rheo Blair as well as bodybuilders like Steve Reeves, who would also eat large, whole-food-based meals, focusing on natural protein (fish, turkey, beef), fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, and cottage cheese, often reaching high calorie levels (rumoured 5,000-6,000+), emphasizing real food over processed items and getting plenty of sleep. Using this diet, he was able to train and win the Mr America title in 1947.

Armand Tanny, a legendary bodybuilder from the 1940s/50s, followed a raw food diet heavily featuring raw meat (beef, tuna, lobster), fish, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, believing it provided pure nutrients for his physique, though like Steve Reeves, he also supplemented with brewer's yeast and liver. Tanny wasn't strictly "carnivore" like today's diets, focusing more on uncooked animal protein for performance. He credited this raw food approach, inspired by strong islanders, for his success in winning Mr. America and Mr. USA titles, predating modern carnivore trends. 

During the Golden Era, High Fat High protein diets reached their highest popularity, with nutritionist and trainer the Iron Guru leading the charge. Vince Gironda's diets were typically high-protein, low-carb, focusing on whole foods like steak, eggs, and leafy greens, famously featuring his "Steak and Eggs Diet" for fat loss, often cycling in periodic carb meals, emphasizing whole eggs for muscle, and using supplements like liver tablets and digestive enzymes, while opposing complex carbs and sugars for muscle gain. He developed varied plans, including high-protein, vegetarian, and even vegan options, tailored to individual needs. 

This high protein approach persisted up to this modern age, and this is obvious when we see the bodybuilders pyramid. Published in Joe Weider’s Men’s Health magazine, the Bodybuilding pyramid focuses on high-protein animal sourced foods along with fruits and vegetables. Of Secondary importance are dairy and good fat sources, with whole grain foods at the bottom. So why after all this time was the food pyramid for the general public so different?

The Evolution of The Food Pyramid

Well, you’d be surprised to know that the food guidelines for the general public was much in agreement with Bodybuilding diets of the 1950s. Have a look at the “Basic 7” guidelines which was published by the WHO in 1946. As can be seen, the Basic 7 placed each group of food with equal importance. However, approximately half of foods recommended were fruits and vegetables, with the other half being animal sourced proteins and healthy fats. Only one portion out of 7 was recommended to consist of whole grain products.

However fast forward to the 1970s, and Sweden’s national board of Health and Welfare developed the idea of "basic foods" that were both cheap and nutritious, and "supplemental foods" that added nutrition missing from the basic foods. Anna-Britt Agnsäter, chief of the test kitchen for Kooperativa Förbundet (a cooperative Swedish retail chain), held a lecture the next year on how to illustrate these food groups. Attendee Fjalar Clemes suggested a triangle displaying basic foods at the base. Agnsäter developed the idea into the first food pyramid, which was introduced to the public in 1974 in KF's Vi magazine.^[2][3][4] The pyramid was divided into basic foods at the base, including milk, cheese, margarine, bread, cereals and potato; a large section of supplemental vegetables and fruit; and an apex of supplemental meat, fish and egg. The main reasoning for this form of eating was that Sweden was gripped by high food prices.

In 1977 HSPH professor Mark Hegsted helped map out the Dietary Goals for the United States, providing the basis for the 1979 Hassle-Free Daily Food Guide. David Mark Hegsted (March 25, 1914 – June 16, 2009) was an American nutritionist who studied the connections between food consumption and heart disease. His work included studies that showed that consumption of saturated fats led to increases in cholesterol, leading to the development of dietary guidelines intended to help Americans achieve better health through improved food choices.

By the 1980s and 1990s - The Food Guide Pyramid is the USDA’s first set of guidelines to include recommended servings for each of the food groups, with a high focus on grain products, fruits and vegetables being of secondary importance, with smaller recommended portions of dairy and meat proteins.

However, by 2005, the food pyramid began to shift again towards one recommending equal portions of meats and fats with fruit and vegetables, and a lower portion of grains, with the current new pyramid focusing even more on animal sourced protein, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables and a small serving of whole grain products.

Going Full Circle

So why did the food pyramid change so much throughout the years? Well it is well known that Sugar Industry Funded Research of David Mark Hegsted, who rejected the previous research that had shown that sucrose and high carb diets were a contributing factor to the development of CVD and chronic disease, promoted the narrative that cholesterol and saturated fat where the major dietary contributors to developing cardiac disease and chronic disease. This became the foundation of dietary guidelines and government policy which led to the Dietary Goals for the United States in 1977 and later food pyramids that followed throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This diet was based on the idea that high consumption of fats and animal products were harmful and should be limited, and that diets should be rich in grains, fruits and vegetables, and low in fat and cholesterol. As a result, saturated fats, cholesterol, and animal products were labeled harmful in official recommendations, influencing public perception and nutrition policy for decades.

A great article which I recommend reading on this topic is Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research by Kearns et al 2016.

The food pyramid changed in 2005 and again more recently because nutrition science began moving away from the low-fat, high-carbohydrate model that dominated the late 20th century. By the early 2000s, evidence showed that focusing simply on reducing fat and increasing grains hadn’t improved public health and coincided with rising obesity and metabolic disease. In response, the 2005 update shifted emphasis toward food quality, physical activity, and whole foods rather than sheer carbohydrate intake. More recently, growing research on protein’s role in satiety, muscle health, and metabolism — along with a better understanding that healthy fats are not inherently harmful — led to further changes. Modern guidelines now prioritize nutrient-dense proteins, vegetables, and healthy fats, while reducing the central role of grains, reflecting a broader shift away from refined carbohydrates and ultra-processed foods as primary drivers of chronic disease.

The New Pyramid = Bodybuilding Diet ?

Now the new pyramid has come out, it recommends a diet quite similar to a bodybuilders diet, but are they the same? Not quite. Here is a table comparing the two:

The new food pyramid and a bodybuilder’s pyramid are built on the same foundation but optimized for different goals. Modern dietary guidelines now recommend higher protein intakes — around 1.3 to 1.6 grams per kilo — to support muscle, metabolism, and healthy aging, while bodybuilders push this further to about 1.8 to 2.2 grams per kilo to maximize muscle growth and recovery. Both approaches emphasize whole foods and healthy fats, but bodybuilding diets use carbohydrates more strategically, often increasing or decreasing them based on training demands. In short, the new pyramid is about long-term health and sustainability, while the bodybuilder’s pyramid is a more aggressive, performance-driven version of the same principles.

Finally, no dietary framework should ever be followed as dogma. While this approach may be beneficial for a large proportion of the general population, it does not universally apply — particularly to individuals with a strong family history of cardiovascular disease. Genetically driven metabolic disorders such as familial hypercholesterolemia or hyperlipidemia fundamentally alter lipid handling and cardiovascular risk, and these conditions are not fully addressed by population-level dietary guidelines. As a biochemist, my aim here is not to prescribe a universal diet, but to emphasize that nutrition must be individualized, especially when genetics, lipid metabolism, and long-term cardiovascular risk are involved. And on that note, for those of you who want a personal, tailored approach to your nutrition, health and training, I offer one-on-one coaching—focused on health-driven, aesthetic bodybuilding for men. This is built on experience, research, and real-world application—guided by a PhD and bodybuilding coach.

So if you want to train smarter, get stronger, and build your physique naturally and efficiently—get in touch for a free call and we'll get started.