Two quick warnings on protein intake. First, someone might try to freak you out and tell you that too much protein can damage the kidneys. Ask them to find you research where this has happened with an individual who did not already have a pre-existing kidney condition. They won’t be able to find anything, no matter how hard they search.
Second, if you have a 300g protein goal, this means 300g of actual protein. It does not mean 300g of a food that is primarily protein! A lot of people go wrong in this way, because 500g of steak is 500g of steak, it is not 500g of protein. It is in fact about 100g of protein.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAKFAST
You are either anabolic (building up) or catabolic (breaking down). There is no halfway house.
After a good night’s sleep the best thing for you to do is to consume some protein – the first 20g of protein you eat doesn’t even go to feed your hungry muscles, it goes to support your immune system. I shouldn’t need to tell you anything more because the most important message that a naturally slim person should take away from this nutritional chapter is that food is the best, and most anabolic, thing for you to focus on if you want to grow your muscles.
© Shutterstock.com
I’m going to add one extra bonus trick for you, though. If I was a real hard-gainer who was focusing all my efforts on maximising hypertrophy I would get up, down a quick protein shake (whey plus some essential fats), then clean my teeth and perform my daily rituals before getting down to things and cooking my breakfast.
And yes, I did write ‘cooking my breakfast’. Cornflakes and a piece of toast won’t cut it. The best breakfast for you is steak and eggs, with some nuts on the side. Keep the heavier carbs for later in the day when your body can better utilise them. Forget about what you may have read in the mainstream press: protein and fat will keep you alert and focused, whereas carbs will relax you.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPER
Supper, the meal that you eat an hour or so before going to bed, is arguably almost as important to the aspiring muscle builder as the breakfast that we’ve just discussed.
Why? Because you are about to not eat for an uninterrupted period of time, so fuelling overnight muscle growth with the right foods is of critical importance. Giving you a specific supper prescription is a bit of a challenge because while some people, like myself, sleep more soundly on a full stomach, others do not. If I had to say what was more important – sleep or a full belly – I’d say sleep. That means you must pay attention to how you feel and how you sleep and adapt accordingly.
The best supper is going to be one that is more weighted towards carbs (as per the section on ‘breakfast’, carbs will raise insulin levels, which will in turn lower your output of the stress hormone cortisol), and raise the levels of a neurotransmitter called serotonin that is responsible for making you feel more relaxed. The end result being a more restful and sounder sleep.
There are countless supper variations that we can look at, but one great example is:
1 large bowl of porridge made with full-fat milk
2 bananas
4 whole eggs (any style)
A protein shake
TWO POST-WORKOUT SHAKES
Drinking your calories can be very useful for those of you with poor appetites, but solid food is usually a better option. The one time when we should actively opt for a shake over solid food is post workout. There are arguments that a shake will be more rapidly absorbed, and I am a little on the fence with those theories, but what I will say is that a lot of us can’t face a mountain of food after a hard session so shakes can be of real benefit.
One trick that I learned from world-renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin is to double up on your post-workout shake. Rather than having one big shake (for example, 50g whey, 100g carbs and 5g creatine), have two, the first (50g whey, 50g carbs and 5g creatine) immediately after a workout, and the second (30g whey and 50g carbs) an hour later.
This is a true skinny guy’s trick and not for those of you who accumulate fat easily. But if it looks like you should be playing the xylophone on your ribcage then give this easy-to-follow strategy a try. It works very well indeed.
IS CHEATING GOOD?
I want you to remember what this section of the book is about. It is a relatively short-term plan designed to help you fill out certain key muscles in as short a timeframe as possible. With that caveat out of the way, allow me to introduce you to the principle of ‘spike days’ where we aggressively spike calories in order to further maximise growth potential and glycogen stores.
We use spike days for muscle growth in much the same way as we use carb-cycling theories. Some of you, the more precise and analytical among you, may want to stick to just carb cycling and careful tracking of everything that you eat. Others may prefer to tick along at a certain macronutrient and calorie level (above maintenance, of course, if you want to add as much muscle as possible) and then every few days (how often will depend on progress and response) have a spike day where we increase calories by up to 50 per cent.
We cannot force-feed muscle growth, but occasional high-calorie days do appear to promote extra anabolism. They are to be used judiciously and with great care. For those of you who find it pretty much impossible to ever add body fat then spike days are certainly the way to go to help you rapidly add muscular body weight.
My final point on spike days is that the first things you should eat should always be your high-quality protein. Once those are in your belly then it’s time to feed the beast and eat pretty much whatever you want as long as it has some genuine nutritional value! Home-made burger and fries would be OK, ten Mars bars would not.
YOUR DIET CANNOT BE RIGID. KEEP A FOOD DIARY, ASSESS PROGRESS AND MODULATE ACCORDINGLY
I know that you want me to tell you exactly what to eat for the next 84 days. Even if I was able to squeeze all that information into a single book, I wouldn’t do it because a diet needs to be a fluid and dynamic process that is a reflection of your progress, your gym performance, your ability to stay compliant, and how you are ‘feeling’.
You take the starting point that we have already discussed, you start out with certain goals. At their most basic I want you to hit your protein goal but you can make it much more complicated than that if you wish. You can measure macros, calories or simply estimate portion sizes. I really am not all that concerned how you track your nutrition so long as you do follow some sort of tracking procedure. By keeping a diary you will be able to modulate your diet as you progress, taking things away or adding them depending on how your body responds. In essence this procedure allows you to learn about your own body and you become your own coach.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: HOW TO CONSTRUCT YOUR OWN DIET PROGRAMME
If you have read the preceding points with due care and attention you should now be in a position to put your own diet together. Remember the old saying about giving a man a fish, versus teaching him how to fish?
If you can appreciate that then you should be able to appreciate what I’m trying to do here. I want you to think for yourself so that you can construct as near as possible to your own perfect diet. Because you’ve probably never done this before, here are the key points:
Establish current maintenance diet. While we should remember that all calories are not equal, they do still count. Work out what your BMR is if eating a sensible macronutrient split of 40 per cent carbs, 30 per cent protein and 30 per cent fat. That is your starting point, which you always add to.
Break your meals down into pre- and post-workout. Unless you are training late in the day try to have more carbs post- than pre-workout.
Harness the power of insulin. Don’t skip meals and cycle carbs somewhat.
Don’t ever let yourself get hungry!
Use liquid calories judiciously. They are not ideal but they have saved many a poor appetite.
Do not get hooked on using supplements. Think of food as being anabolic, not a supplement pill!
WHEN IT COMES TO EFFECTIVE F
AT LOSS, IT IS VERY HARD TO OUT-TRAIN A BAD DIET
If you’re a regular person who can only get to the gym four times a week for an hour at a time, then relying on your training at the expense of your diet to get rid of excess body fat means you’re heading for abject failure.
Earlier in this section we discussed the concept of ‘calories in, calories out’, as well as giving you some commonsense guidelines on how to establish a rough calorie base. Use that information to kick-start your diet and from there please do not be afraid to experiment and keep your diet alive by playing around with calories, macronutrient ratios and even meal timings. In many ways the best diet is the diet that you stick to consistently so I do not want you to over-think things here – it is not as complicated or as bewildering as you may think.
And if you are stuck, then once you’ve read the following rules go to the Fat-Loss Meal Plan section and use ‘Week A’ as a base starter. It is full of easy ideas to get you on the right track.
RULE ONE:
GREEN IS GOOD
Make vegetables the foundation of your diet: every time you sit down to eat half your plate should be covered in a variety of green and fibrous vegetables. If you want to get lean to show off your abs then it’s worth remembering that you’d have to eat half a kilo of asparagus to ingest the same amount of carbs as you get in a single wholemeal pitta bread.
RULE TWO:
EAT PROTEIN WITH EVERYTHING
Protein is one of the most important components of the diet, and when you eat a high-protein diet you’re generally less hungry, eat less and lose weight as a result.
It can be a struggle to eat too much protein, although you could easily not be getting enough. Eat lean, high-quality protein with every meal and aim for a minimum of 2g per kilogram of body weight, but don’t be afraid of sticking to 4g per kilo if you are in a very low-carbohydrate phase.
RULE THREE:
DON’T FEAR FAT
Fat does not make you fat. In fact, you need to consume good-quality fats if you want to build muscle and burn body fat because this macronutrient plays a number of roles in energy expenditure, vitamin storage and making testosterone, the male sex hormone. So there’s no need to avoid the fats found in red meat, avocado and nuts, but avoid hydrogenated and trans fats – those found in cakes, biscuits and other processed foods – because not only will they derail your muscle-building and fat-loss mission, they are also really bad for you.
RULE FOUR:
START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON
Think of breakfast like any other meal: you need a blend of protein, fats and veg. It may at first be strange to eat steak with broccoli first thing, but eating the right foods for breakfast will set you up for the rest of the day, get your metabolism firing and start the supply of high-quality nutrients to your muscles.
RULE FIVE:
MACRONUTRIENTS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN CALORIES!
What is going to make you fatter, 2,000 calories from ice cream, or 2,000 calories from steak and broccoli? You know the answer to this already, so hopefully you can accept that the intake of the correct macronutrients is ultimately more significant than mere calorie counting. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, as calories still do count – portion, and therefore calorie control, does have a part to play, but only once you have fixed your correct macronutrient rations, and typically only in the deeper reaches of a fat-loss programme where you are aiming to hit a low single-digit body-fat percentage.
RULE SIX:
FREE-RANGE IS PREFERABLE
Free-range animals have a more varied diet and they obtain a lot more exercise – they develop more muscle, which tends to contain more vitamins B, A and K, amino acids, iron, selenium, phosphorus and zinc. Farm-raised salmon have been found to contain up to eight times the level of carcinogens as their wild brethren, thanks to cramped conditions and poor-quality feed, while grass-fed beef tends to have much higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid and omega 3s. Eating free-range feels less like a frivolous luxury if you think of it this way: it’s so nutritionally dissimilar to cage-reared that it’s basically different food.
RULE SEVEN:
EAT REAL FOOD
This is the key. If you do this, you’ll end up following all the other rules almost by default. A simple rule of thumb is to only eat food that grows out of the ground or food that once had a face. Alternatively, simply go caveman and think like a hunter-gatherer. When you’re looking at something on the shelf, ask yourself if it would have existed 5,000 years ago. If the answer’s no, it probably isn’t anything that you should be eating. You may find it easier to stick to the outer aisles of the supermarket, which is where all the fresh produce is usually kept for ease of transportation, and away from the interior where everything’s canned, processed or packed full of preservatives. Avoid things containing preservatives that you can’t spell or ingredients you wouldn’t keep in the kitchen. Eat things that will rot eventually, so that you know they’re fresh. And try to enjoy it.
RULE EIGHT:
AVOID ALCOHOL
One medium-sized glass of red wine is allowed on a Saturday night. If you can factor that into your calories then there’s an argument that it can be a healthy occasional addition. I don’t need to tell you to avoid beer, do I?!
RULE NINE:
CARB CYCLING FOR FAT LOSS
This can be a bewildering subject so once you’ve read this section please refer to the carb-cycling sections in the Fat-Loss Meal Plans for some worked-out examples of exactly how to do it.
Carbohydrates have a bad rep when it comes to muscle-building and fat loss – they spike insulin levels, which can result in your body storing more energy as fat, rather than using fat for energy – but manipulating your carb intake is one of the best ways to get bigger and leaner. You just need to be lean enough in the first place to deserve those carbs!
A WORD ON CARBS
At first glance many of the diet recommendations in this book look a lot like the dreaded Atkins Diet. This is not the case, but you will go a long way to understanding how to eat for fat loss if you can grasp that controlling your blood sugar is of pre-eminent importance. This means that carbs should only be introduced when and if your body can handle them properly.
The bad news is that if you are out of shape, you can’t handle them. The good news is that weight training and getting leaner and more muscular improves insulin sensitivity. Carbs spike insulin for blood sugar management, so the better the insulin sensitivity the less indiscriminately the carbs you ingest go into fat cells and the more they go into muscle cells – where we want them to be. This means that as the 12 weeks progress you may benefit from adding carbs into your diet at some point.
After a two- to six-week low-carb period, most hard-training and strict-dieting individuals will benefit from selectively adding the right carbs into their diet. Rather than simply adding carbs on a daily basis, both science and anecdotal experience have shown that cycling your intake with low, medium and high days produces much better results for fat loss and muscle building. This way you get the muscle-building benefit of high-carb days with the fat-loss benefits of lower-carb days, all while keeping your metabolism properly revved up with fluctuating daily calorific intakes.
HOW TO DO IT
This is the most challenging part of the guide for you as the reader as it would be easy for us to tell you ‘one size fits all’, as you find in almost all other physique improvement books, and just follow what Joe did. But it does not work like that! You must really pay attention to your own body’s feedback and adjust according to the criteria we lay out for you here.
Every five to seven days, I would tweak Joe’s carb intake based on how he was performing in the gym, his overall energy levels, and his physical appearance. The right time to add carbs will come if you are eating sufficient food (if you are not, then all bets are off and you need to be more organised) and:
You feel sluggish all the time.
You are not getting a decent
pump when you weight train, and your exercise energy levels are generally much worse than usual.
You normally sleep well and now your sleep is disturbed.
You are noticeably more irritable than normal.
When the time comes to add carbs to your diet, start slowly for the first five to seven days to assess how it impacts your energy and your progress, and just add 50g of carbs to your post-workout shake.
If this small addition of carbs goes well, then the next step is to add one or both of 25g extra carb powder to your post-workout shake, and a large bowl of porridge (made with water) as part of your supper at night.
This will help you sleep and get rid of those lower-carb jitters that a lot of people suffer from. Start with adding the porridge on four nights a week for the first seven days and then review. If you can’t stomach porridge, you can have a medium-sized serving of wild rice, yams or sweet potatoes.
If you keep getting leaner and feel better with the addition of carbs, then one or two weeks after their gentle reintroduction is a good time to start thinking about more aggressive carb-cycling strategies. This is where it gets a bit more complicated and where estimating calories becomes a useful tool, because on the days that we add carbohydrates, if we are going for aggressive fat loss as we were with Joe, we must also take calories away via restricting either fat and/or protein intake. Before you have a heart attack and think if you reduce protein intake you will lose all that hard-earned muscle, don’t worry, we’d never do that to you!
Carbs are ‘protein sparing’ so an increase in carbs can comfortably be accommodated by a drop in protein, especially if you have been eating close to the admittedly ambitious 4g per kilo of body weight as we have advised you to.
CARB CYCLING FOR FAT LOSS
Stick with your meat and nuts breakfast, even on high-carb days. Carbs are better post-training and later at night.
Your Ultimate Body Transformation Plan Page 12
