American bodybuilder Nick Walker has won the 2026 Mr Olympia title, marking a remarkable turnaround after finishing sixth in last year’s competition.

At 32, Walker has now joined the elite list of Mr Olympia champions that includes bodybuilding legends such as Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Dorian Yates and Arnold Schwarzenegger. His victory is even more notable because he also won the People’s Champion award this year.

Walker’s victory has also put the spotlight on the extreme diet he followed in the final stages of his preparation.

A professional bodybuilder’s diet can change significantly depending on how close they are to competition. While athletes generally consume more calories during the offseason, their nutrition becomes increasingly controlled as they approach the stage.

For Walker, however, the days leading up to the 2026 Mr Olympia included a staggering high-carbohydrate day involving 5,760 calories, 950 grams of carbohydrates, 327 grams of protein and 77 grams of fat.

The strategy was designed to maximize muscle glycogen stores, support demanding workouts and help Walker achieve the desired fullness and appearance on stage.

Walker showed his high-carb approach in a video shared on September 7, detailing a day consisting of six large meals. His food choices included chicken, Cream of Rice, sushi rice, bananas and peanut butter.

At one point, Walker showed a massive serving of sushi rice.

“This is exactly 500 grams of sushi rice. It’s probably the biggest serving of rice I’ve ever eaten during prep in my entire bodybuilding career,” Walker said.

Despite the size of the meal, Walker said his appetite during preparation made it manageable.

“But I can promise you it’ll be gone in two minutes.”

Rice played a major role in Walker’s carbohydrate intake. He has also favored relatively simple, unflavored carbohydrate sources, allowing him to maintain greater control over his nutrition during the final stages of preparation.

Walker’s 950-gram carbohydrate intake was not necessarily representative of his everyday pre-contest diet. Instead, the high-carb day was a strategic part of his preparation.

Increasing carbohydrate intake can help replenish muscle glycogen, which is particularly important for a bodybuilder attempting to maintain training performance and achieve a fuller muscular appearance.

But eating nearly 1,000 grams of carbohydrates in a day also requires careful attention to digestion.

Walker has emphasized the importance of using foods that are relatively easy to digest while consuming such large quantities. Cream of Rice, in particular, has become a popular carbohydrate source among bodybuilders because it is generally considered easy to digest and can be incorporated into meals around workouts.

As Walker's competition approached, his meals also became increasingly repetitive.

“Every meal is the same at this point,” he said.

The repetition was intentional. Keeping meals consistent allowed Walker and his team to monitor changes in his physique and make adjustments to his nutrition as needed.

To put Walker’s diet into perspective, eight-time Mr Olympia champion Ronnie Coleman followed a considerably different approach during his pre-contest preparation. Coleman once revealed in a YouTube video that he would start his day with half a cup of grits and two cups of egg whites.

Coleman said that while preparing for a contest, he would sometimes replace the egg whites with a protein shake, but otherwise, “all the meals are pretty much the same.”

His meals typically included bodybuilding staples such as chicken with a baked potato, or rice and beans.

Some reports have estimated that Coleman consumed around 5,562 calories a day, including approximately 150 grams of fat, 546 grams of protein and 474 grams of carbohydrates during his preparation.

Walker’s meticulous preparation was also influenced by his experience at the 2025 Mr Olympia, where he finished sixth.

The bodybuilder previously acknowledged that his peak timing had not gone according to plan. He believed he looked better before taking the stage than he did under the Olympia lights.

“I mistimed my peak and looked better before stepping onstage than I did under the Olympia lights.”

That experience appears to have influenced his approach heading into the 2026 competition.

This year, Walker managed to put that potential together when it mattered most. His 2026 Mr Olympia victory represents a dramatic jump from sixth place to the top of the podium. Behind the headline, however, was an intensely controlled preparation involving repetitive meals, strategic carbohydrate loading and demanding training designed to produce the best possible physique when Walker stepped on stage.