Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler’s training regimen: Eat, sleep, lift, repeat

Friday, Sept. 16, 2011 | 5:38 p.m.

Jay Cutler lives in Las Vegas for one reason: This is where the Mr. Olympia competition is held. He moved to Vegas eight years ago and has won the contest four times, enjoying a decided home stage advantage.

Other bodybuilders need to travel to Las Vegas and acclimate to their surroundings. Not Cutler, who has practically owned the Orleans Arena event since 2006, winning it four times. Only a hiccup in 2008 interrupted his string of world titles. At age 38, he says he looks better than he ever has leading into a competition, and it is not a case of “if” he wins Saturday, but what he will do “after I win” the competition, set for this weekend at Orleans Arena, with the finals Saturday night.

Cutler is off to another competition in India next week, no matter what, and says he’s taking his bodybuilding career year-to-year.

“I have a lot of endorsements tied to Mr. Olympia,” he said during this week’s episode of “Kats With the Dish.” “I’m Mr. Olympia from September to September, and those endorsements keep me active.”

More from the man who, without question, is his sport’s biggest star:

He became interested in bodybuilding in high school: “I was introduced to the magazines at an early age because my sister’s boyfriend actually read the magazines, and I actually saw pictures of former great bodybuilders. I fell in love with what the guys looked like. I thought, ‘This is almost superhero-like.’ ”

He was convinced that he wanted to be a full-time bodybuilder after winning the 1993 Teen Nationals in Raleigh, N.C.: “I wanted to become a police officer, or work in corrections, or work for the FBI, and had aspirations to do something of such. My real passion was actually lifting weights, being a bodybuilder, but I knew I had to have something to fall back on. I was able to go to school and pursue that (criminal justice) degree, and I finished that degree in 1993, just as I was training for the Teen Nationals. I was able to use the time between classes to lift weights. I won that contest, making me the top teenage bodybuilder in the country, and right then I knew then I wanted to be a professional bodybuilder. I caught the bug then.”

Training is focused on a four-month period leading to the contest, and his food intake is voluminous: “Getting in tip-top shape takes about four months, but you are always training. I start in June and I end in September. … During those four months, every day is the same. It’s like Groundhog Day for me. I eat, pretty much, 24 hours a day. I eat around seven meals, and I eat protein-carbohydrate combos. I eat every 2 ½ hours. It takes me about 45 minutes to eat each meal, and it takes 15 to 20 minutes of prepping time. I eat almost a pound of meat or fish every meal. I eat a pound of potatoes or rice every meal, and I eat between 4,000 and 6,000 calories per day. I’m training four times a day, and I sleep 6 to 8 hours. So, if you calculate time of the day together, there’s really not much else going on in my life.”

Just before competition, his weight is down to 250: “At my peak, I’m about 300 pounds, but when I compete, I’ll strip down to about 250 (Cutler is 5 feet 9 inches tall). I’ve cut sodium out of my diet completely this week. I eat egg whites for breakfast -- I have 20 egg whites for breakfast, usually -- and I’ve cut those out. I’ll stop drinking water Thursday and Friday, so you get that really ripped look you see in photos and magazines. You have to be dehydrated and showing every fiber in the body.”

After Saturday’s competition, he has one craving, and it is not pizza or a burger: “All I want after the show is water. I don’t care about food. I don’t care about pizza. I just want water after water after water.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.