Anabolism is a good thing. Metabolically speaking, when a person is anabolic, muscle growth is possible. Anabolism is such a good thing that medical people invented anabolic steroids as a way to artificially induce anabolism. Elite athletes and cutting-edge coaches understand that by creating an anabolic environment and then subjecting the anabolic individual to a high intensity weight workout, new muscle is constructed. The natural way to establish anabolism is to consume a lot of calories. The way to create anabolism— and not add body fat—is to obtain those calories from quality food sources.
It is easy to establish anabolism: eat lots of calories from indiscriminate food sources. Fat calories pack a wallop: 9 calories per gram. Protein and carbohydrate deliver 4 calories per gram. Eat a lot of fat calories and establish anabolism quicker than you can say, “Pass the Prime Rib.” To grow muscle and not add adipose tissue during the growth process requires discrimination and restraint. Athletes that overeat not only induce anabolism and grow muscle they also construct new fat cells. Excessive calories not used for the production of muscle tissue or used for energy (or passed through the digestive system and excreted) are converted into fat and stored away for future use. Optimally, the person intent on establishing an anabolic toehold will consume enough calories to trigger anabolism—yet not consume an excessive amount of calories as excess is shuttled to bodily fat storage depots.
How do you know when you’ve tipped the energy balance equation to the plus side and established anabolism? How do you know when to stop taking in calories? The answer is best arrived at by approaching the problem from a different direction. Train like hell and afterwards consume an ample amount of beneficial foods. Avoid detrimental foods altogether. That would make for a superb start. Do this for a week. Fine tuning can occur when we do things on a regularly reoccurring basis. Certain foods are extremely difficult for the human body to convert into body fat—not impossible, but damned difficult. By consuming calories derived from these foods, the anabolic margin of error is dramatically increased. Lean protein, protein with a minimal saturated fat, has been the staple bedrock nutrient of elite athletes for 50 years. Why? You can eat a mountain of lean protein and not add to fat storage—assuming you train with intensity sufficient enough to trigger hypertrophy. Lean protein is difficult for the body to break down and digest. As a direct result, the body kicks the metabolic thermostat upward to break protein down into subcomponent amino acids. That’s a good thing.
We use the thermic effect of food to goose the metabolism. We use intense weight training to goose the metabolism. We use hard cardio to goose the metabolism. After a few weeks of continually goosing the metabolism it stays goosed—permanently amped up: you have successfully reset the metabolic thermostat upward. Quite an amazing feat, actually.
When a healthy, rested muscle operating in the fertile field of Positive Nitrogen Balance is suddenly subjected to a high intensity weight workout (then fed and rested) that muscle grows larger and grows stronger. The muscle must be adequately stressed to induce growth, stressed to such a degree that the ‘adaptive response’ is triggered. The adaptive response occurs when the athlete trains with a training intensity sufficient to trip the hypertrophy switch.
Muscle tissue needs to be fed to stay alive. If you shatter a muscle in training then starve that muscle, the muscle shrinks and weakens. Instead of the wonder of anabolism, catabolism takes root. Catabolism (simplistically speaking) is muscular cannibalism. During catabolism, the body can eat its own muscle tissue. When catabolism takes root the body will strip the amino acid content off muscle walls to fuel caloric shortfall. This in an attempt to ward off perceived starvation. The human body seeks to preserve stored body fat at all costs. Stored fat is like money in a savings account. The body views stored fat as the last line of defense against starvation. If overworked and under-fed, the body will preferentially eat muscle tissue to save its precious body fat. Too much training and not enough food produces the catabolic horror of self-inflicted muscular cannibalism. Slash calories for a protracted period and trigger a metabolic freefall.
Obese individuals that engage in crash diets and precipitously slash calories always end up as miniaturized versions of their old fat selves. They might lose 100 pounds of body weight yet still appear fat. Why? Because they are still fat! Despite reducing their weight from say 350 pounds to 250 pounds, the body has cannibalized as much or more muscle tissue than body fat during the reduction process. Though the individual might weigh 100 pounds less, they still might possess a 40% body fat percentile. Obese individuals that choose to starve the weight off lose unacceptable amounts of muscle mass (not that they had any to spare to begin with) during the weight loss process.
How do you avoid the metabolic shutdown associated with crash dieting? Don’t crash diet.
Choose the right fuel sources. Never starve yourself. Use a slow downward glide-path when whittling off body fat. The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is “the amount of energy expended while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment.” The BMR is the metabolic thermostat and denotes the rate at which our body consumes calories while at rest. Digestion of certain, hard to digest nutrients naturally elevates the BMR.
Lean protein is difficult to break down. Amino acids are needed to heal, recover, repair and construct new muscle tissue. Lean protein is the bedrock nutrient in the physical renovation process. It feeds muscle tissue battered by high intensity weight workouts and extended cardio sessions. Purposeful Primitives need lean protein and lots of it.
Fibrous carbohydrates, carrots, broccoli, green beans, bell peppers, spinach, cauliflower, onions, asparagus, cabbage, salad greens, Brussels sprouts and the like are nearly impossible for the body to convert into body fat. Certain fibrous carbs require almost as many calories to digest as they contain. A green bean or baby carrot might contain 10 calories and the body will expend nearly that much energy to break down and digest these rugged vegetables. Fiber is critical!
Protein and fiber are the central foods in the Purposefully Primitive Performance eating approach. Elite athletes make protein and fiber the foundational backbone of their nutritional regimen. So should you!
Fibrous carbohydrates have a wonderful roto-rooter effect on the body’s internal plumbing. As fiber carbs work their way though the digestive passageways, mucus and gunk is scraped off intestinal walls and sludge buildup is kept to a minimum. For this reason fibrous carbohydrates are the perfect complement to a diet rich in lean protein. Fiber is the Yin to protein’s Yang. Both protein and fiber have a beneficial dampening effect on insulin secretions. It is no accident that competitive bodybuilders, the world’s best dieters, men capable of reducing body fat percentiles to 2% while maintaining incredible amounts of muscle mass, construct their eating regimen around the copious consumption of protein and fiber.
The goal of the bodybuilder in the weeks leading up to a competition is to melt off as much excess body fat as possible while maintaining the mountainous amount of muscle built up in the “off-season.” In their pre-competition phase a professional bodybuilder will consume lots of protein, lots of fiber and a wee bit of starchy carbohydrate. A 3,500 calorie pre-contest daily meal schedule might be broken down into five 700 calorie feedings spaced two hours apart…or perhaps seven 500 calorie meals. The competitive bodybuilder eliminates all food sources that contain calories easily converted into body fat. Refined carbohydrates, sugar, alcohol, etc. are tossed when the pre-competition process commences. Saturated fat intake is kept to a minimum. Optimally, smaller meals of relatively equal size, comprised exclusively of foods hard to convert into body fat, are eaten at specified times. By eating every two to three hours, the bodybuilder refuels in about the time the nutrients from the previous meal have been expended.
Every time the bodybuilder eats a protein/fiber/starch mini-meal they elevate their metabolism and reestablish anabolism. These mini-meals give the body lots of practice at assimilating and distributing quality nutrients. Increases in body heat associated with food digestion create a phenomenon known as thermogenesis. The metabolism gears up to digest hard-to-digest nutrients creating a thermic effect. Meals are used to spike the metabolism. A competitive bodybuilder deep into contest prep has their metabolism jacked up to such a degree that they will break out in a sweat as they consume a meal. The introduction of calories causes a dramatic increase in the bodybuilder’s body heat.
At the other extreme the crash dieter has succeeded in lowering their metabolic set-point. The calorie slasher always feels hungry, deprived, listless and lacking in energy. Calorie slashing sabotages the metabolism, causing it to nosedive. Once the metabolism is shattered, the body goes into starvation mode and resorts to catabolic cannibalism.
If you are obese, heed this dietary pitfall. Eat more to lose fat.
Indisputably Indispensible
There is a rock solid consensus among the iron elite that a physiological nutritional “window of opportunity” opens at the conclusion of an intense weight training session and closes about an hour later. If nutrients are ingested while the window is open; nutrients are absorbed, assimilated and distributed at four times the normal rate. The battered body craves calories after a kick-ass weight training session, specifically amino acids and glycogen-replenishing carbohydrates. By providing traumatized muscle tissue exactly what is needed in the post-workout environment, healing and growth are accelerated. Results are actually enhanced.
That’s a pretty damn sensational thing when you think about it: by simply eating or drinking a proscribed amount of protein and carbs after a workout, results are amplified; demonstrably superior to results from an identical workout where post-workout nutrients are not consumed. Wow! What could be easier? Simply drink a great tasting shake after working out and increase results derived from that workout. That’s a no brainer! Of course this only works if sufficient training intensity is achieved and the proper nutrients are ingested within the designated timeframe. Unless the workout is intense enough to trigger hypertrophy, post-workout supplementation is superfluous; yet another excuse for the over-eating under-trainer to consume more self-indulgent calories.
Be aware of digestive lead times. While eating a chicken breast and a serving of brown rice after a workout might be providing the battered body exactly the nutrients it requires, these foods require time to digest. Allow a sufficient amount of digestive lead time to break down and distribute whole food. If foods are ingested near the end of the window timeframe, the recuperative fuel could reach the devastated muscles too late. If the post-workout nutrients are in liquid form, the digestive process is greatly accelerated. Liquefied nutrients reach their ultimate destination, devastated muscle tissue, far faster than solid food. The liquid post-workout drink is known as a Smart Bomb and is consumed on a widespread basis by elite weight trainers.
I personally prefer a liquid Smart Bomb that provides a 50/50 combination of protein to carbohydrate. I use a powdered mixture that I activate with cold water. My protein/carb drink provides me with tons of high biologic-value protein and glycogen-replenishing slow release low glycemic carbs. Because it is liquefied, my Smart Bomb goes to work instantaneously. This potent potion tastes great and I actually consume my mixture about 2/3rd’s of the way into the workout. I have a problem with energy nosedives towards the end of a session and find that my performance improves appreciably if I Smart Bomb while the session is still underway. I place my dry powder in a half-quart Tupperware container and throw it into my gym bag. When I’m ready to activate the mixture, I walk to the water fountain, unscrew the top, add water, replace the top, shake the tar out of the container and drink it. My Smart Bomb provides me a minimum of 30 grams of high BV protein, 50 grams of low glycemic carbs, no sugar and a few grams of beneficial, benign fat. My liquid concoction is pure perfection and designed specifically to provide battered muscles precisely what they need to heal, recover and (ultimately) grow in the post-workout environment.
I unreservedly recommend that all hardcore, purposefully primitive weight trainers consume a protein/carbohydrate Smart Bomb shake as the workout winds down. Feel free to also eat a sport nutrition bar. I try to have a regular food meal 1 to 3 hours after working out. The meal should contain a lean protein source and a quality carb source or two. Portion size will depend on the size of the individual and I tend to err towards eating more, not less, in that first real food meal after a savage workout. I’m famished anyway. About the worst thing you can do is to train like a demon and then starve yourself. I use Parrillo 50-50 Plus, a mix of protein and carb powder designed specifically for post-workout replenishment. Typically, I will double or triple the recommended serving size. I want to make sure I take full advantage of that elusive open window of opportunity. Ori Hofmekler makes a highly recommended all natural, organic Smart Bomb concoction combining three powders, Warrior Milk, Warrior Whey Protein and Colostrum.
Don’t be a dumb ass! Smart Bomb!
Exercise , when done intensely, is a form of physical trauma. In order to recover from the traumatic and destructive effect of exercise on muscle fibers, the body induces awesome compensating mechanisms that involve anabolic growth promoting stimulatory actions. These actions enhance tissue rejuvenation and activate compensating mechanisms that have been shown to improve insulin sensitivity. Body fat is used as fuel for energy. These compensating mechanisms increase nutrients assimilation within the muscle. Nonetheless, as critical as this portion of the recovery process is, it is only the beginning— we are only dealing with the initial phase of recuperation. The final results of post exercise recuperation (increased strength gains, increased muscular development) depend on the completion of the recovery process in its entirety. The ultimate fate of optimal recovery lies in the very beginning of the recuperation process, right after the workout.
A post-exercise period lasts between 30 minutes and 4 hours and is known as an “open window of opportunity.” This is when the body’s growth promoting hormones reach peak levels and insulin reaches peak sensitivity. The recovery meal should be ingested immediately after a workout. Timing is everything. The capacity of a meal to promote recuperation and muscular development follows a formula: consume the right nutrition at the right time and reap maximum recuperation and rejuvenation. When you eat makes what you eat matter.
Post exercise, carbohydrate ingestion promotes swift Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF1) action within the exercised muscles. Post exercise, increased levels of muscle IGF1 are believed to be the most important factor in triggering muscle hypertrophy. What is the recommended amount of carbohydrate to consume after a workout? 10 to 30 grams Carbs should come from a low glycemic, complex fibrous source to avoid over-spiking insulin and thereby creating undesirable blood sugar fluctuations. Having said that, one trick of the trade is to purposefully trigger a slight insulin burst, just enough to take advantage of the anabolic properties of some insulin being introduced into the bloodstream after an intense workout.
A small amount of simple carbs from natural, low glycemic source, preferably a fructose-free source such as rice, malt or maple syrup, may induce a beneficial, immediate, short-term insulin spike. A spike is required to facilitate an immediate post-exercise anti-catabolic effect. 5 grams of simple carbohydrate will do the job. Any excess of sugar may cause insulin resistance, hypoglycemia and undesirable fat gain. It is imperative to incorporate meals that provide long-term support to the actions of these anabolic hormones.
Protein with maximum biological value containing a blend of fast and slow releasing proteins is considered optimal. You could combine fast-acting whey with slow-acting milk protein; whatever the choice, the nutrients should be consumed immediately following an intense training session. The amount of protein per serving should be between 10—30 grams, depending on the intensity and volume of the training. The fast releasing proteins will help boost an immediate post-exercise protein synthesis while the slow releasing proteins will help sustain the already established anabolic state. Carbohydrates, consisting of a blend of fast and slow releasing carbs, should be used to maintain an optimum level of blood sugar. This customized blend will induce an instant insulin spike, followed by a steady and slow carbohydrate release, required for stabilizing insulin levels. Insulin sensitivity increases immediately after intense training. Incorporate a post-workout recovery meal. Take advantage of the anabolic effect of insulin. Post-exercise, fast releasing carbs (simple carbs) will immediately inhibit muscle protein breakdown. Then slow releasing carbs (complex or fibrous carbs) will help maintain anti-catabolic activity in the muscle tissue for a longer period of time.
“Unless that apple tastes like the best apple you’ve ever tasted in your life, unless a pear or an orange tastes fabulous—unless the slightest deviation in your diet tastes like a dish prepared by a professional chef—you aren’t going to achieve the sub 5% body fat percentile needed to win. Unless you are always on the brink of hunger, hunger so deep and intense that eating a single piece of fruit, or having a bagel with a hint of jelly is a fantastic taste experience, than you need to redouble your dietary effort. There comes a point in deep dieting where the slightest stray from your day to day eating routine results in what I’d call amplified taste.”
This statement was made by a well known professional bodybuilder I interviewed just prior to his competing in The Arnold Classic. At the time he carried a 4% body fat percentile weighing 211 pounds with 19 inch arms and a 30 inch waist. He took 6th place.
“I would love just one sip of that beer…but of course that is ridiculous; I cannot have even one sip of that beer. Not that it wouldn’t be incredible…that sip would taste so incredible… As soon as this competition is over, in three days, I can have all the sips of beer I want—and I shall!”
This man won the Mr. Olympia competition within a week. Denial and discipline are Old School dietary progress levers. An overlooked aspect to successful dieting is the acquirement of the “amplified taste phenomenon” that arises out of fasting and deprivation.
When Douglas McArthur liberated General Wainwright’s survivors of the Bataan death march in 1945, they treated the emaciated survivors to a banquet consisting of the first real food these men had eaten after four years of brutalization and starvation. A major literally fainted away and fell to the floor in a fit of taste euphoria after he took a single sip of cold, whole milk.
—William Manchester, American Caesar
Hunger and heightened taste are inexorably linked. You can improve your quest to effect a total physical transformation by purposefully getting in touch with hunger. Okay, so maybe you don’t have to take it to the extremes used by those competing in professional bodybuilding competitions, and perhaps you do not need to develop the taste deprivation of a concentration camp survivor, however the missing piece of your dietary puzzle could well be getting in touch with true hunger, deep hunger. Hunger, deprivation and taste amplification are interrelated and acquiring taste amplification (through purposeful deprivation) could be just the thing needed to bust you through to the next level of physical development.
Carefully consider the relationship between taste and hunger. Can you use hunger to your advantage? Can hunger reactivate long dormant primitive hardwiring? Can deep hunger be used to our benefit – instead of its usual role as a detrimental binge trigger?
The first step is to stop eating. At least for a little while.
Eventually deprivation reawakens deadened and desensitized taste buds. Taste amplification arises out of the depths of true and prolonged hunger. Amplified taste becomes another valid arrow in our nutritional quiver. Another productive tool. In this day and age of plenty, taste buds are deluged and deadened with an unending barrage of overly sweet, salty, bitter, savory, chemically-drenched food and drink. We are taste junkies. We are used to eating what we want when we want. Our taste buds are overwrought and overwhelmed. Only the most extreme foods are able to push their way through to the forefront of our overwhelmed palettes and make any kind of taste impression.
Our taste receptor sites are clogged. Hunger cleans out these sites. Taste sensation reemerges in direct proportion to how long we abstain from food. Fasting is one way to make a clean break with the detrimental foods we are so addicted to.
Let us go cold turkey… Let us reestablish taste reality.
True hunger amplifies the sense of taste and makes us appreciate what we get when we get it. Hunger makes everything taste better. Hunger is multi-leveled and multidimensional. Hunger can be used to reestablish nutritional sanity.
We are continually assaulted by Carnival Barker diet hucksters, each screaming for our attention, each demanding our money in return for a Golden Calf dietary solution. Don’t be fooled as this is old wine in new bottles. Flee the carnival madhouse of food addiction. You need purchase nothing!
Simply stop eating.
What could be simpler? Stop eating. Detoxify the body and simultaneously detoxify the taste buds. The most elemental way to induce heightened taste sensibility is to purposefully induce intense hunger: simple fasting works best. Stop eating for a few days. Acquire an amplified sense of taste via fasting then carefully preserve this newfound heightened taste sense. Once our vibrant taste sense is reestablished, we find we appreciate the subtler tastes associated with healthier foods. We appreciate sensible, beneficial foods prepared tastily. A binge, post-fast, (still maintaining a heightened sense of taste) becomes eating a perfectly prepared fish filet with a serving of farm fresh fiber vegetables. It used to be, a binge was devouring an entire pint of ice cream covered with a pint of chocolate syrup. In the post-fasting amplified taste state, eating the ice cream and syrup would likely result in a violent physical reaction.
Once you have fasted and induced heightened taste, reintroduce natural foods back into your diet one at a time…slowly and carefully…savoring each…appreciating each, never overwhelming the taste buds and never exceeding the now reduced consumption capacity. By following this “slow walk” procedure, the amplified taste sensation can be prolonged indefinitely.
Take three days. Start on a Thursday afternoon and by 11 am Friday morning gradually, imperceptibly, eliminate solid food. From that point forward drink fruit juices and protein shakes on an as needed basis. Adhere to this liquid fast as long as is prudent, sane and rational. Most individuals new to fasting are able to fast for 36 to 48 hours before they feel compelled to reintroduce solid food. After the liquid fasting period has run its course, reintroduce light, potent solid foods one at a time. The Warrior Diet approach is perfect for reentry from a prolonged fast. Start the nightly feast with fruits and raw vegetables. Then move to vegetables barely cooked. Eat light coming off a fast. Don’t go crazy. Reintroduce foods slowly, Eat natural, organic foods (if possible) and after a few days of eating solid food, reintroduce exercise—gradually and slowly. Put it all together and you force the human body to oxidize stored body fat in order to fuel caloric shortfall.
Those first foods you taste coming off a prolonged fast should have unbelievable taste intensity. That first piece of fruit you taste coming off the liquid fast should rival the descriptive ecstasy our IFBB pro bodybuilder used when recounting eating his apple. Deprivation heightens taste sensitivity and as long as you don’t overwhelm the newly reacquired heightened sense of taste, it will stay with you. Maintain taste ultra-sensitivity; stay hungry. Do not overwhelm the metabolism; a proper combination of calories and activity creates an elevated metabolism. If you allow bad habits to creep back in—by recklessly consuming excessive calories derived from impure sources (saturated fat, sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol)—the body’s delicate metabolic gyroscope will be knocked off its pivot point. If overwhelmed, the metabolism will become sluggish and inefficient once again. Get back in touch with hunger on a periodic basis. Eliminate the sluggish metabolism by cleaning out the system. In doing so reestablish a magnified sense of taste. Take a tip from the pros and self induce the amplified taste syndrome.
Ori Hofmekler’s Warrior Diet turns intermittent fasting into high art. His approach is pure genius. By creating a fast condition on a daily basis and super-compensating at night, he creates taste deprivation that keeps our taste buds sensually attuned while allowing the empty body to detoxify. Day fasting—a continuation of the sleep fast—triggers primordial internal defense mechanisms. The nightly “feast” creates an “anabolic burst” and super-compensates muscles. Over time detoxification occurs and in a sensitized primordial state, taste amplification is ever present. Once the physiological phenomenon of taste deprivation takes hold, it continues until the individual does something to derail this marvelous heightened state. Warrior Diet adherents and professional bodybuilders purposefully put themselves into this amazing state and stay there for weeks on end, resulting, ultimately, in a body that is virtually fat-free, while still retaining 90% of hard-earned gym muscle. Let’s expropriate the amplified taste tactic for our own purposes. Give yourself permission to stop eating. Let us stop poisoning ourselves, let us reawaken deadened taste buds, let us get in touch with hunger—let us stop the insanity!
A Truly Memorable Meal— For All the Wrong Reasons
Ihad a tragic dinner with a well-meaning friend the other day.
The man is a great athlete and a truly horrendous cook. The food he served would have caused a prisoner riot in a forced labor camp.
His foray into food prep provided me with sudden insight that served to amplify and clarify why proper food preparation, tasty food preparation, is critically important for those serious about triggering true transformation. Once we learn how to infuse diet foods with taste, the nutritional portion of the fitness battle is all but won. But what happens when you are Mongo and have the culinary acumen of an over-sexed thirteen year old boy fully infected with attention deficit disorder? Effort, my friends, is no substitute for culinary success. My friend’s culinary offering was a total disaster on a multitude of levels. The meal was what happens when laziness is combined with ignorance and compounded with a total lack of taste. (A riddle wrapped in an enigma tucked inside a paradox wrapped around a bonehead?)
The first course was salad-in-a-bag. I use the stuff myself in the wintertime when local produce is unavailable, but bagged salad has to be eaten quickly and for that reason I buy small bags; Mongo had bought a monster bag from Sam’s Club and kept it in the moisture retaining plastic bag for over a week before we got around to using it.
The salad was reduced to one vast, tasteless mound of gooey fiber: the lettuce was starting to tinge brown around the edges, the individual flavors had dissipated into nothingness, the shredded carrot tasted the same as the pepper slivers and time and moisture had reduced the components into an indecipherable mass of moist blandness.
My wife grows yellow and red peppers and when she plucks a ripe one off the vine, the vibrancy of flavor is astounding. It is an object lesson on why top chefs insist on farm fresh produce; a just-picked pepper has an intense flavor that shines though whatever dish you use it in; assuming you don’t cook it to death.
Our soggy salad was topped with giant orange croutons that tasted like square cubes of those salty BBQ potato chips my teenage daughter loves. Our dressing choices came in 3-for-$2.00 plastic bottles. We could have French dressing that tasted like liquefied orange candy, blue cheese that contained no blue cheese, or oil-and-vinegar that seemed as if it were mixed with crankcase oil instead of extra virgin olive oil.
“I’m not too big on salad.” I lied as I slid my caustic concoction to one side.
Being a powerlifter, my pal poured the entire contents of a 12 ounce blue cheese bottle over half a box of croutons and then asked if he could eat mine. “Salad is good for you!” He mumbled semi-coherently between bites. As he pawed at his salad, a dribble of blue cheese dressing ran down his chin; he put me in mind of Anthony Quinn’s portrayal of Mountain Rivera in Requiem for a Heavyweight.
Done with the first course he bought out the vegetables: steamed broccoli, steamed green beans and steamed asparagus. He announced, for no particular reason, “Call me a slob or call me dumb…Say what you will about me Mart—but I eat healthy!” He was quite proud of the fact that in order to “save time and be efficient” he had steamed all three green vegetables at the same time in the same steamer basket. He’d purchased a monster rice streamer that held enough rice to supply a Vietnamese village for a month. Into a steam bath that could have powered a locomotive or have melted paint off wood, he had dumped all three vegetables. The succulent tips of the asparagus had melted; the tender broccoli crowns had been reduced to a soft blur and the green beans were emulsified at the ends yet remained raw in the middle. All the nutrients from the asparagus and broccoli had been leached out and lay in the green water at the bottom of the steamer. The green water he threw down the kitchen drain contained far more nutrients than the “green vegetable medley” he piled high on our plates.
Every bit of flavor had been blanched out of each veggie, yet my power-pal ate everything with relish and zest. The way he went at the vegetables, you’d have thought Jacques Pepin had just served us delicate white asparagus topped with a luxurious crème sauce. “Nothing like a home cooked meal—here have some more!” He ladled more soylent green onto my plate before I could mount a protest. It occurred to me that he had steamed the greens as if he were trying to decontaminate someone who’d been exposed to massive amounts of radiation.
He then produced a pile of baked potatoes. In hindsight this was easily the culinary zenith of the meal. He loaded up his two baked potatoes with a half stick of butter and a half a container of sour cream—each. Bye, Bye butter stick, Bye Bye quart of sour cream. “I LOVE freaking potatoes!” He yelled as he proceeded to grind his potatoes into a butter/sour cream/potato mush. He mashed and ate the spuds using a special oversized wooden spoon he fetched from the kitchen, specifically for this course. His spoon was the size of a child’s beach shovel and fit his mouth perfectly. It allowed him to shovel calories into his pie hole with much greater efficiency.
The spoon put me in mind of an Elvis story: supposedly Elvis’ favorite breakfast concoction was to have his cook make a huge mound of mashed potatoes then mix the spuds with copious amounts of white pepper gravy and a pound of crispy bacon, complete with the bacon grease drippings. Elvis would have his cook mix all the ingredients, spuds-gravy-bacon-bacon grease together in a blender. She’d throw in an entire stick of butter and some whole milk to liquefy the goop. The King would eat the resultant goo with an oversized spoon. I could imagine the King and Mongo, elbow to elbow, each ravenously chowing down their starch goop with child-like glee. They’d probably hi-five each other as they ate; then take a nap. Later they would head out in one of the King’s pink Cadillacs with Sonny and Red and pick up some dancers at a Memphis topless bar. So much for my Elvis fantasies.
Mongo got up with great flourish and said, “I can’t wait to show you our main course!” Now came the culinary star of the show. He described his piece de resistance as, “Grilled flank steak—just like the freaking Mexicans make it!”
Flank steak is a tough, brutal cut of meat and requires the deft skills of a celebrity chef to prepare properly. Tough and stringy, the optimal way to prepare it is either fast and quick over blazing hot coals for a brief minute, or slow and carefully for a long, long time.
This poor cow must have had a tough life.
Mongo had tossed the meat onto a super hot propane grill and burned it to a cinder. Not quick and fast, not long and slow, but blast furnace hot for a long, long time. “I like my meat crispy!” He related over his seventeenth lite beer. I asked why he incongruously drank lite beer. He didn’t seem the type. “I’m on a gawd damned diet! Doctor says my blood pressure is about to blow my freaking head clean off my shoulders! Can you believe THAT!” He was yelling again. He flexed a 20 inch biceps for my inspection. He kissed it before heading into the kitchen to retrieve the incinerated cow.
The charred, already tough cut had been cooked with the equivalent of a blow-torch. Any residual hint of moisture had been roasted dry. Tableside presentation was done with great flourish and lots of machismo posturing. The beef, still smoking, appeared to be some unidentifiable part of a hapless forest creature struck by lightning.
He started to carve, but had to stop. “Hmmm…” He mumbled as the meat shot off the platter and onto the rug. Wordlessly he picked up the meat and headed back into the kitchen. He obtained a sharper, sturdier blade. The knife he’d first selected was not nearly up to the task and bowed like a hillbilly musical saw when he attempted to cut me a slice. The downward pressure kept making the meat slide off the plate. He relocated to the kitchen where he could place the charred cinder on a wooden board for better cutting traction. I saw him break out a meat clever that looked like something from a horror movie and heard rapid-fire chopping interspersed with cursing.
He hit the meat one time and it flipped into the air and onto the kitchen floor. Unperturbed, he then took a pronged fork and nailed the meat to the cutting board. “There…That’s better!” He then got out an electric knife and surgery continued. “Do you like yours well done?” He asked rhetorically. After a few minutes he reappeared tableside, beaming like Wolfgang Puck. He heaped two slices on my plate. He placed six slices on his own plate and began eating his charred carcinogenic cinder with cannibalistic gusto. I marveled at his jaw strength and reckoned that in a street fight this man could bite off both your ears and your nuts in four seconds flat.
He ate at least 24 ounces of toasted shoe leather while I sat chewing like a cow on its cud on my first and only bite.
I understand Plains Indians in the 19th century would chew on buckskin to ward off hunger during times of starvation. I mulled this over as I chewed his “grilling masterpiece. Suddenly he erupted in another of his Tourette’s Syndrome outbursts. “This steak is great! This steak came out way better than the one I grilled a couple weeks back when Granny broke a tooth off.” When he wasn’t looking I slid my bite full out of my mouth and into my napkin. Per usual he finished his and then ate my leftovers. “You can’t beat steak fresh off the grill—can you Mart!” He was ecstatic. The meal was past perfection to his way of thinking.
For desert he brought out a giant pecan pie he bought from the grocery store and ate the entire thing when I begged off, saying I was too full. “I’ll work the pie off at the gym tomorrow.” He said between pie bites and beer chugs. I reckoned the pie alone contained 2000 calories and at 10 calorie per minute burn rate he would need to jog for four straight hours just to cancel out the pie. I didn’t even calculate the caloric content of the 18 lite beers he guzzled in three hours. He seemed sober as a judge.
I looked at my watch and said, “Wow! Look at the time! Can you believe it? Time flies when you’re having fun.” In actuality I’d been there less than an hour. “I hate to part good company, but I have to see my accountant at 1 pm. I need to talk about upping my IRA contributions.” He jerked upright, got super serious and said, “I know you’re Irish and all, but I wouldn’t be giving any IRA Irish terrorists money contributions if I were you Mart. The feds might be tapping your phone. I think they’re tapping mine—hold on a minute while I pack you a doggie bag.”
As I burned rubber down the gravel road that led away from his mobile home in the trailer park back to the highway, I threw my doggie bag out the window at a rabid looking wolfhound that was chasing my car. I watched the dog out my rearview mirror as he pulled up and began pawing the bag apart to get at the meat. Would the starving canine eat or reject the steak? It was inconclusive: he grabbed it between his jaws and ran off into the woods. I hoped he wouldn’t break off any teeth like poor granny.
So what does this culinary Chernobyl have to do with fitness?
In order to really get your hands around the throat of the critical nutrition leg of the transformational process, you have to come to grips with food preparation, make that tasty food preparation. You cannot depend on mom, the wife, the girlfriend, boyfriend or power pal to prepare your meals. Ideally you should develop a large arsenal of healthy, nutritious dishes for your culinary repertoire…dishes that you can prepare. We all have our food preferences and the smart trainee identifies and doubles up on the consumption of acceptable foods. Jettison foods that retard or derail our efforts. Once the good stuff is identified, learn how to prepare it and prepare it with such a degree of competency that we actually look forward to eating it. Check out the Food Network. The food prep tips are invaluable. Shows like “Boy Meets Grill,” “Molto Mario” and “Good Eats” can take the mystery out of meal making. Once you come to genuinely enjoy the taste of the foods that you make, beneficial foods instead of detrimental foods, the dietary campaign of the fitness war is all but won. Let Mongo’s memorable meal serve as a lesson: taste is in the mouth of the beholder and insanity can take many forms and guises.
The Procedural Consensus of the Bodybuilding Elite for Shedding Body Fat
O Over the past twenty years a procedural consensus has emerged from within the ranks of the elite bodybuilding community on precisely what modes and procedures should be used to become as lean and fat-free as possible. What modes and methods best melt off body fat while (and this is critical) retaining as much existing muscle mass as possible? Anyone can slash calories, stop eating and lose bodyweight—the bodybuilding elite have developed a consensual system that burns off the body fat without burning off the muscle.
Across the nation and the world, bodybuilders are lifting weights, hitting aerobics and eating with incredible precision. They might fight like cats in a sack over the details, but competitive bodybuilders will agree on the universally accepted core preparative modes and principles.
The pre-competition goal of the competitive bodybuilder is to melt off as much body fat as possible without losing hard earned muscle mass in the process. Competitive bodybuilders agree on the need to lift weights, perform cardio and eat using a disciplined and regimented multiple-meal schedule. The elite might quibble over specific weight training tactics-but there would be no disagreement that weight training is absolutely critical. They might argue over food selections-but there would be no argument over the applied use of the multiple meal template. They might argue over which cardio mode is superior-but no one would argue that cardio was critical. There would be uniform agreement on the overall training template and uniform agreement on the overall nutritional template. Differences of opinion would arise in the various subcategories and details. To create maximum muscle, lift weights and feed the body afterwards. Ample lean protein intake spares muscle tissue. To melt off fat maneuver the body downward to the caloric breakeven point and use exercise to create a temporary energy deficit.
Lose body fat in a slow, sustained and protracted fashion. Pros look to lose fat at a rate of about one pound per hundred pounds of bodyweight per week: a 200 pound man would seek to drop bodyweight at a rate of two pounds per week; a 145 pound woman would seek to lose bodyweight at a rate of 1.5 pounds per week. Less is hardly worth the effort and losing weight faster runs the risk of burning off muscle tissue.
The flat fact is that a radically lowered body fat percentage can be obtained by anyone who has the know-how and the requisite maniacal discipline. Lift weights with ferocity, blast away at metabolism elevating cardio, preplan every bite of food you will eat. Eat what you are supposed to when you are supposed to. Keep up the fierce lifting, the intense cardio and the perfect eating without break or respite for a prolonged period of time, say 60 to 120 days. Do so diligently and results are flat guaranteed. The pros know that when a tight system is in place and locked down real results will begin appearing within fourteen days, mind-blowing physical changes appear by day 30; utter and complete physical transformation is a foregone conclusion for anyone with enough guts, tenacity and grit to keep up this kind of ferocious effort for 90 days. No brag. Proven fact. Proven by thousands of local bodybuilders, men who routinely achieve sub 8% body fat percentiles while maintaining 90% of their incredible muscle mass.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that to acquire a sub-10% body fat percentile you must be in total control of yourself, your environment and your life-circumstance. To lose fat while maintaining muscle mass requires that precision eating be combined with intense exercise. The methods used are not magical: they work every single time. The procedures used are (nowadays) common knowledge. But knowledge and tenacious application are two entirely different things.
Even at the local level competitive bodybuilders are routinely achieving sub-10% body fat percentiles. It’s no big deal. Go to any jive little local bodybuilding competition held at the high school, the Mr. Suburban Colossus competition. Even at these entry level bodybuilding competitions, dozens of local yokel bodybuilders will exhibit sub-10% body fat percentiles. Thirty years ago only elite bodybuilders attained the magical sub-10%. What happened? The information revolution revealed to those in the know the procedural consensus of the Iron Elite.
While the preening peacock aspect of bodybuilding might be off-putting to John Q. Public, expropriating bodybuilder tactical procedures for melting off body fat is a terrific idea. To win at bodybuilding, above all else, you must be lean. If you are not lean you are damned to nothingness. Unless you are carrying a less-than 10% body fat percentile (for a man) don’t even consider entering a local bodybuilding competition—you’ll get blown into the weeds! In the bodybuilding world it’s assumed everyone is lean, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. The winners are those who have muscle mass and symmetry in addition to the prerequisite single digit body fat percentile. So how is it that bodybuilders, even at the local level, routinely acquire 5% body fat percentiles, a degree of physical condition once considered unreachable by all but elite professional bodybuilders?
The information revolution coincided with a coalescing of consensus. The once tightly held methods and procedures used by the bodybuilding elite finally filtered down to the masses. Protocols and procedures have gotten better and more sophisticated with time. We are six generations into this system and the tactics have become more refined with each succeeding generation. Since the end of WWII bodybuilders have been honing and refining their lean-out tactics. Top bodybuilders have long compared notes on eating and exercise. There have been several significant “breakthroughs” over the years that contributed to the effectiveness of today’s consensual method.
A leanness quantum leap forward occurred when bodybuilders began regimenting their nutrition to an infinitesimal degree. Top bodybuilders weigh their food. As they prepare foods ahead of time for storage and consumption later in the week, they will weigh precooked portions on a food scale that measures in grams. This cumbersome procedure provides them a heretofore unimaginable degree of exactitude. Do you have to weigh your foods? No, if getting down to 9% or 10% body fat percentile is acceptable; for a competitive bodybuilder wanting to whittle down to 2-5%, weighing every bite is mandatory.
We are much more knowledgeable and sophisticated about nutrition nowadays than we were in the 60’s and 70’s.
Leanness took another quantum leap forward when bodybuilders began systematically including cardiovascular exercise into their training template. Up until the 1980’s it had been assumed that cardio exercise would “tear down” muscle. That was factually inaccurate. Cardio not only burns extra calories, cardio builds cardiovascular density and improves endurance. Improved endurance allows the bodybuilder to train harder, longer and more often. Intense and repeated cardio makes the human machinery far more efficient. Cardio kicks the metabolism through the roof and improves nutrient assimilation. John Parrillo was an early and articulate champion of aerobic inclusion into the bodybuilding template. John was recommending cardio before cardio was cool. Per usual, he took a lot of heat from critics back in the beginning. Now cardio is SOP.
The final leap forward in the modern bodybuilding era occurred when amateurs and professionals began dramatically increasing their off-season bodyweight. By pushing their bodyweight upwards in the off-season, they were able to present a larger final finished physical product. By commencing the lean out cycle larger and still relatively lean, onstage, at the end of the process, they would be significantly larger yet still able to retain their previous degree of conditioning and muscularity. The new muscle, theoretically, would be strategically added onto weak or lagging muscles to smooth out asymmetrical disproportions. Eating massive amounts of clean calories in the off-season became an accepted practice. The calorie crazy bodybuilders didn’t get fatter they actually got leaner. Thus the new breed of muscle monster was born: massively muscular-yet (incongruously) leaner than earlier, smaller, lighter champions.
It was discovered that lots of calories could be eaten as long as the caloric intake was spaced out and food was derived from approved sources. Cardio and clean calories allowed bodybuilders to become larger and leaner. The inclusion of aerobics into the training template proved to be the last missing piece to the fat burning puzzle.
Top pro bodybuilders were routinely eating 6,000 to 10,000 calories per day in the off season and staying relatively lean. Dorian Yates would whittle down from an off-season bodyweight of 295 pounds, carrying an estimated 10% body fat percentile. On contest day he would weigh a ripped-to-the-bone 255 pounds carrying a 2% body fat percentile. He would gradually reduce his calories from an off season high of 6,500 a day to 3,500 a day. He never dropped below 3,500 as that might degrade muscle: he used a slow reduction process to spare muscle in the face of declining calories. He might take 12 full weeks (or more) to strip off forty pounds of body fat, a 14% reduction from his starting bodyweight. If he dipped below 3,500 calories a day, hard-earned muscle would evaporate. Famous for lifting bar-bending poundage, his food selections were surprisingly normal. His pre-contest meal plan was sanity cubed.
3,500 calories
Nutrient percentiles: 50% - 55% carbs, 30% protein, 15% - 20% fat
Yates ate seven times a day, starting with his initial, post-cardio meal at 7AM. He would eat his final meal at 10 PM. Four full food meals were augmented by three supplement meals: note that the supplement meal always included a carb, a fruit, vegetables or oatmeal. Other than his post-workout Smart Bomb shake, he made it a point to eat real food with every 40 gram protein shake.
This meal plan is the very definition of rationality-particularly when compared to the ridiculous extremes to which many of his competitors were subjecting themselves. His food selections allowed the inclusion of whole wheat toast, lean beef and fruit. This represents strict eating, yet his menu hardly seems inhumane. Interestingly, while John Parrillo recommends an optimal 1.5 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein to optimize the insulin/glucagon ratio, (and thereby maximize fat burning) Dorian prefers a slightly higher carb/protein ratio 1.7 to 1 for optimization of the insulin/glucagon ratio. Dorian allows far more saturated fat into his dietary template than Parrillo. Dorian’s daily fat intake could run as high as 20%, a whopping 80 grams of fat per day. This is a gargantuan amount in the restrictive, fatphobic world of international level bodybuilding. It is also noteworthy that Yates’ moderate approach resulted in a final finished physique that was always the leanest, most fat-free physique onstage. One would think that extreme deprivation would be needed to create the leanest body, yet here stood Yates, eating 3,500 calories a day and consistently able to come in as hard and lean as any of his competitors.
Yates would continually fuel himself with wholesome nutrients, eaten at equidistant intervals throughout the day. He maintained his sanity by eating fruit, beef and potatoes, hardly gulag fare.
The Mighty Diesel points the way. You would do well to mimic his patience with the process, his savage work ethic in the weight room, his realistic and humane dietary approach and his studied use of cardio. He successfully combined and balanced the elements to create a superbly effective approach. If you have the circumstance and the discipline, a milder, detuned version of the Diesel’s approach could work wonders for you. Expropriate the bodybuilder’s nutritional template for your own fat-loss aspirations. Bodybuilders give the phrase, nutritional discipline a whole new meaning: they weigh their food in order to establish exactness and uniformity. Should you do the same? A lot depends upon your psychological makeup. Anal retentive types love the exactitude of the food scale. Precision portion control makes charting and logging easy. Those who abhor the idea of measuring every bite can get very close by “eye balling” portions. This approach will certainly get you 90% of the way to the ultimate physique. Unless you are planning on entering a bodybuilding competition, a 10% body fat percentile is realistic for those who eyeball. Male bodybuilders nationwide are routinely obtaining single digit body fat percentiles using highly regimented procedures. Expropriate the bodybuilder’s protocols and procedures for you own use. You now have the roadmap.
An Amazingly Persuasive Rationale for “Sanctioned Gluttony” to Take Advantage of Temporary Metabolic Amnesia
Icontinually receive correspondence from folks fretting over the fact that they might binge a bit over the holidays. They tell me all about their elaborate plans to avoid anything on the “banned list” at the beach, or during Thanksgiving, or over the Christmas/New Year Holidays. My advice is so shocking to them that you’d have thought I asked them to have carnal relations with a farm animal.
I echo the message football iconoclast John Riggins related to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as he lay inebriated on the floor of the National Press Club at an important charity/award function. Riggins looked up from the floor, drunk out of his mind, winked at the grey haired Supreme Court justice and said, “Sandy! Can you hear me GIRL! Look it Sandy, I like you—but you are way too tight! You’re gonna blow a gasket—you gotta loosen up Sandy BABY!” He closed his eyes to take a nap complete with loud snoring. Later that month he set a Super Bowl rushing record.
My advice to those who relate the extremes they intend to resort to in order to forgo a single piece of pumpkin pie, three Christmas cookies or a serving of mash potatoes with gravy is this…Loosen up people! You are way too tight! I say—train hard and eat strict in anticipation of the holidays then eat, drink and be merry! Get back into the fitness saddle immediately afterwards. C’mon people, loose the robotic tendencies! A terrific rationalization/argument could be made on behalf of sanctioned gluttony.
Are my hedonistic, Mad Irish tendencies showing? You bet. Here is how we rationalize sanctioned gluttony. Train intensely and eat in restrictive fashion leading up to the holiday/vacation. After a period of prolonged deprivation, a short, sudden, massive reintroduction of calories, calories of an indiscriminate nature, will trigger the mythical “Anabolic Burst.” This results in a significant increase in lean muscle mass, literally overnight. A successfully executed Anabolic Burst requires a protracted period of highly restrictive eating followed by an all out, no regret, unapologetic food binge.
Leading up to the holidays eat light and eat strict. Utilize the highly disciplined Parrillo pre-competition lean-out approach or the intermittent fasting approach of the Warrior Diet. Augment the highly controlled eating with a lot of volume-biased weight training. Perform lots of cardio in the lead up. Tight diet and extensive exercise done for a protracted period sets up the appropriate pre-conditions for a successful Burst. Exert extreme iron discipline for three to four weeks leading up to the holiday. Then once you arrive at the vacation destination, BAM! IT’S ON! Eat anything and everything (including cocktails and adult beverages) for the next 48 hours.
The result is something called “super compensation.” When depleted muscles are suddenly force-fed a massive amount of calories the muscle cells volumize and swell to unimagined size without any loss in leanness and muscularity—for a while.
The trick is you have to stop the binge after 48 hours or you’ll blow the whole deal and experience something called “spillover.” Get off the binge before spillover occurs and all is right with the world. The Anabolic Burst produces a dramatic increase in muscle-building hormones. A veritable anabolic cocktail is created by the sudden introduction of massive amounts of calories into a severely depleted body. Such a body is literally unable to properly process strange nutrients, i.e. saturated fat, sugar and refined carbohydrates—for a little while.
Denied these substances for weeks and weeks leading up to their reintroduction, a small window of opportunity is created wherein the body is unable to shuttle these nasty nutrients into fat storage. The body has “forgotten” how to process these detrimental nutrients. I call this phenomenon temporary metabolic amnesia. When Super Compensation occurs muscle fibers swell to unimaginable size in a matter of hours. The secret lies in the sparse, light eating and the intense exercise leading up to the Anabolic Burst. The body scrambles to relearn how to process the bad stuff. The trick is to back off the binge before the body remembers how to properly process fat, sugar and bad carbs.
When spillover occurs the body regains its fat/sugar/refined carb compartmentalizing bearings. Until that point, all calories are sucked into depleted muscle cells, until saturation occurs. Until that spillover saturation point is reached, any nutrients not used to super-compensate muscles are passed in urine/feces or used for energy. None are stored as fat. During the lead up phase, when calories are clean and nutrients are pure, enzymes that promote fat storage efficiency decrease in activity. Enzymes control the metabolism of fat and carbohydrate and for a short time nitrogen balance can be manipulated to our benefit.
In one study entitled “The Hormonal Response to Overfeeding” scientists started off with a highly restrictive “maintenance diet” and coupled it with a vigorous exercise program. The test subjects then had their respective daily caloric intakes doubled (love it!) and everybody experienced significant increases in lean body mass. Once the body “adapts” to the over-feeding, the proverbial party is over. From that point forward the body converts all excess calories into fat faster than you can say “pass the pie!” The trick is jumping off the caloric party train before spillover occurs. Empirical experience has shown that 48 hours is plenty short enough to avoid spillover. Some bodybuilders have gone for as long as five days before hitting spillover. I know what you’re thinking but let’s not get greedy. Be safe and jump back on the wagon within two days.
I like to start my burst on a Friday afternoon, go all day Saturday and back off Sunday evening. By Monday morning, I’m ready to get back on the straight and narrow path. Trust me, 48 hours is plenty enough time to indulge in every form of food and drink porn imaginable. You’ll likely make yourself sick—but that’s okay—revulsion makes it easier to jump back on the wagon.
Be good in the weeks leading up to vacation then have your very own Bacchanalian Festival upon arrival. It’s sanctioned and approved. If you are sufficiently and properly depleted, a 48 hour Anabolic Burst will cause your muscles to explode; they swell like a dry sponge immersed into a pail of warm water. After two days of partying like a rock star, lockdown the tight eating and resume weight training and cardio. Big men have been known to gain 10-25 pounds of muscle in 48 hours.
I once had to diet down 22 pounds in 34 days to lift at the National Master’s Powerlifting Competition. I made weight on Friday afternoon at 1 pm, weighing in at 218.5. I was starved and famished and felt like a wolf crawling out of a hibernation den at the end of a long winter. I began eating and by 2 pm the next day I weighed 234 pounds. I had gained 16 pounds, all of it muscle. I was gargantuan in comparison to my competitors and squatted a national record in my age group 44–49 weight class 220 pound, 704 pounds. My tale is not out of the ordinary, rather a fairly representative example of a successfully executed Anabolic Burst in all its resplendent glory.
How fanatics spend their holiday—a cautionary tale of the ridiculous extremes some bodybuilders will go to:
I once knew a professional bodybuilder who proudly told me in a Muscle & Fitness interview that he used to pack his own food in Tupperware containers when he went home for Thanksgiving. He referred to himself in the third person. “Tommy (fictitious name) tells mom and dad and the relatives that Tommy needs his own food at Thanksgiving. Tommy’s only got 19 weeks until the Mr. Olympia contest and Tommy don’t eat no turkey or mashed potatoes, that trash will make Tommy fat!” So Tommy would pack a half dozen skinless chicken breasts, steamed broccoli and dry rice and break them out after grace was said and proceed to eat his gruel at the table while everyone else ate the holiday fare in the festive spirit. He’d make small talk about himself to whomever would listen, “Tommy’s gonna win the Olympia and its only six months away—so Tommy can’t be doing anything that would derail Tommy’s vision quest!” I kid you not. Tommy was good enough to qualify for the Olympia, but never came within a country mile of finishing in the top ten.
In my mind’s eye I always envisioned some wonderful, all-American family, dressed for church, gathered around a terrific spread of delicious home-cooked Thanksgiving food, grandma in her apron, the men in ties and jackets, the kid’s at the little card table—and this steroid freak in baggie workout pants, a skin tight tank top (in November in the Northeast) wearing a do-rag continually fumbles and jostles with a mountainous stack of Tupperware containers, piled up next to his seat at the table—with nothing to talk about other than himself and his “career.”
Tommy eventually had to have a liver transplant. Tommy pumped so much steroidal poison through his body that Tommy melted Tommy’s guts. Now Tommy uses a wheelchair and sits quietly at that Holiday table dressed like everyone else.
Enjoy the food, the drink, the company and the holiday vibe. Monday will be here in no time. Use the Anabolic Burst. To make the burst work, do your work ahead of time. And in the immortal words of that iconoclastic football Purposeful Primitive, “Loosen up people! You’re way too tight!”
The Lie That Will Not Die
The biggest fallacy in all of fitness is the unchallenged contention that abdominal exercise melts off the layer of fat that lies atop the abdominals.
They say that inside every fat man there is a thin man yearning to escape so I suppose beneath every beer gut there is a ripped six-pack yearning to be exposed. Body fat reduction, not abdominal exercise, is the key to developing a crisp, delineated, defined waistline. Excess body fat keeps the six-pack abs blurred and indistinct.
If someone were to invent a magical fat-dissolving ray-gun, you could arbitrarily aim it at any human waistline, pull the trigger and guess what? Every ray-gun victim would have defined abdominal muscles, even those that had never done a single rep of abdominal exercise. Unlike a bicep or thigh muscle that looks scrawny when undersized, the gut is different: magically melt the fat that obscures the waist muscles and anyone’s abs will look absolutely fabulous. No need to do any ab work whatsoever: simply oxidize the thick layer of lard that lies atop the ab muscles and presto! Ripped abs, gloriously displayed!
True, from an aesthetic viewpoint a fat-free 29 inch waistline will be visually more attractive than a fat free 40 inch distended beer gut. Regardless the circumference of the gut, melt off the fat and we all have a delineated waistline hidden away somewhere. In my admittedly heretical opinion, there is no need to endlessly train abdominal muscles, performing set after set, endless rep after endless rep. There is no need for exotic ab machines or devices. If the Purposeful Primitive is training and eating according to the prescribed dictates, body fat will melt and the abdominal muscles (that we all have) will eventually emerge.
Abdominal exercise does not, can not, and will not preferentially melt off the body fat that lies atop the abdominal muscles.
Gut muscles are worked hard by heavy squats and deadlifts and with far more intensity then effete crunches or ineffectual broomstick twists. Bio-mechanically, a properly performed deadlift is in actuality a weighted reverse sit-up. The waist muscles activate to an incredible degree in order to maintain an upright torso while performing a proper squat. Ab device product pushers perpetuate a myth that there is no need for diet or cardio; simply engage in endless ab exercise, usually using some sort of abdominal device. “Use the Sonic Gut-Buster and waistline fat is magically melted!” If only that were true—we’d all have ripped guts!
Personal Trainers worldwide routinely recommend abdominal work galore. This exercise prescription is expressly for “chiseling, defining and revealing the waistline.” Why are multiple sets of high reps proscribed for the abs and not all the other body parts also awash in a sea of excess body fat? How come women with saddlebags thighs aren’t made to perform hundreds of endless high rep sets of squats or leg extensions? If high rep ab work spot reduces the body fat overtop the ab muscles, why isn’t this same methodology carried over into other regions? Extending this faulty logic, why not utilize dozens of sets of 100 rep curls and 100 rep triceps extensions to melt body fat that covers chubby female upper arms? Man boobs? Let’s do dozens of 100 rep sets in the decline bench press. Physiologically speaking, specific deposits of body fat cannot be targeted or “zeroed in on.” There is no way that by working the hell out of a particular muscle the fat that lies atop that muscle is preferentially dissolved. Body fat is kept in fat storage depots that dot the body’s landscape. Men usually have their fat storage depots atop the frontal abdominal, pectorals and external oblique region. Women have their largest fat storage depots atop the buttocks, upper arms and upper thighs. Spot reducing fat is another example of George Orwell’s “smelly little orthodoxies.” The rationale for perpetuating the myth of spot reduction is simple: it sells products.
Excess calories turned into body fat are stored away in random fashion. Science has never been able to say definitively that there is a discernable pattern as to how the body stores fat, or how the body draws down from those fat stores. There is no specific pattern that stays constant, human to human, though empirical evidence tells us that each of us have certain fat storage depots that are preferentially used and therefore larger than the other depots.
Body fat is excess energy tucked away for emergency use at some point in the future. Stored body fat is used when the Energy Balance Equation (EBE) tips into the negative. Obviously if a person consumes more calories than they oxidize over the course of the day, the EBE never goes negative. Unless energy demands outstrip available calories, stored body fat is never mobilized to cover caloric shortfall—because there is no caloric shortfall. If a person is in continual caloric surplus there is never a reason for the body to call upon its strategic fat reserves.
There exist fat mobilization strategies used by the athletic elite to trick the body into mobilizing stored body fat, this despite the fact that many of these athletes are ingesting 5,000 calories or more per day. How can an athlete eating 5,000 calories a day actually burn fat? They are able to do so because they have jacked-up their metabolic burn rate through a strategic combination of exercise, activity and calorie selection. Think of the metabolism as the body’s thermostat. If the thermostat in your house is set at 32 degrees very little fuel is burned, if the thermostat is turned up to 95 degrees, lots of fuel is needed. An obese person has their metaphorical thermostat set at 32 degrees and needs very few calories to maintain. A professional bodybuilder has reset their caloric burn thermostat to 95 degrees and loses fat by only eating 3,500 calories a day!
Professional bodybuilders intent on achieving 2-6% body fat percentiles (while retaining 250 pounds plus of muscle mass) eat foods difficult or impossible for the body to convert into fat. They break their calories into roughly equal size meals and eat every few hours to trigger thermogenic attributes associated with digestion. They perform torrid cardio before breakfast to take advantage of the benefits of doing aerobics in a catabolic, post-sleep, glycogen-free environment. In the absence of glycogen the body is forced to burn body fat. Some will perform a second cardio session late in the day.
Muscle requires calories to exist. By building muscle the body demands more calories simply to breakeven. Adding ten pounds of muscle jacks up the daily metabolic breakeven point by 300 to 400 calories. Combine specific training tactics with specific eating procedures and over time the metabolic rate is elevated to stratospheric levels. A muscle-laden body needs thousands of calories just to maintain. When the muscleman cranks back their massive caloric intake ever so slightly, a caloric deficit is created and even though they might still be eating six 800 calorie meals a day, this might be a significant reduction from six 1,000 calories meals. Enough to tip the EBE into the negative. This slight 200-calorie per meal reduction might seem negligible, yet cumulatively, spread over six meals nets an impressive 1,200 calorie a day reduction.
Slashing calories drastically derails the metabolism and triggers dormant primordial hardwiring: the body, sensing starvation, becomes obsessed with hanging onto body fat at all costs. To fuel any caloric shortfalls bought on by crash dieting, the body’s alarm goes off and the body eats muscle to save precious body fat. The body “spares” fat by cannibalizing muscle tissue. Lovely.
We have no say in how the human body preferentially draws down its strategic fat reserves. There are no known procedures or tactics that can force the body to draw down from a specific fat storage depot. To oxidize stored body fat we first need to create an energy deficit. Optimally a balanced combination of precision eating (first and foremost) is closely coordinated with a specific exercise protocol that emphasizes cardio exercise—not abdominal exercise.
In the Purposefully Primitive approach we recommend very little direct abdominal exercises. Heresy? Absolutely! Cardiovascular exercise, done in close coordination with a tight diet, is far, far more effective use of training time if the goal is to attain a fat-free body. Nutrition is the biggest single factor in lowering body fat. When the athlete successfully pulls all the right physiological triggers, then and only then will the body mobilize stored body fat. The fat burning prerequisites need to be recognized and attended to: how are you going to burn fat if you are over-eating the wrong foods? That’s a deal breaker: bias food selections towards foods that are difficult to convert into body fat. Break the daily caloric intake into smaller amounts. Or use the Warrior Diet approach. Try performing pre-breakfast cardio. A sluggish metabolic rate makes it impossible to “get underneath the caloric ceiling” and cut calories further in order to reduce body fat. How does someone whose metabolism is slowed to a crawl and existing on 1,000 calories a day going to cut calories further to lose more fat?
How many calories do you suppose it takes to perform 100 crunch reps? It’s negligible. Using exercise to tip the energy balance equation is brutal work. The amount of exercise needed to produce a significant caloric reduction requires intense, prolonged effort.
Burning off 900 calories in an hour requires the athlete chug along at a Herculean 15 calorie per minute burn rate. A single ice cream sundae could easily contain 1,000 calories. The best way to melt off excess body fat is to stop making poor food choices. It is far easier to not eat the 1,000 calorie sundae than try and burn off 1,000 calories through intense, prolonged exercise. Toss the obvious junk foods and find the caloric tipping point where food intake equals energy expenditure. How to tell? Here’s a commonsense solution that requires only one tool: a bathroom scale. Reduce food intake until you drop a pound. Hold this level of food intake level for a few days and see if you stabilize. Then add calories back in until you are able to bump back up a pound. You have now found the caloric tipping zone: clean up the food selections. Use exercise to create a caloric deficit. Lose weight at a rate of one pound per hundred pounds of bodyweight.
Elite bodybuilders whittle fat down slowly, steadily and consistently; they avoid crash diets that “shatter the metabolism” as Ori says. Calorie slashing causes muscle tissue to disappear as fast or faster than body fat.
A procedural consensus, a fat-burning template, has emerged that can and should be used by normal individuals seeking a sleek physique. Use a patient, protracted, cyclical/periodized approach: take 8-12 weeks and reduce body fat using a slow and steady glide path. Pare away 1 to 3 pounds per week, depending on your size. Melt off fat in a systematic fashion, slowly and carefully, thereby preserving muscle tissue in the process. Expropriate hardcore bodybuilder methodology and use their procedures. Toss the fad diets and miracle products that lure you in with the seductive promise of how easy and effortless the fat loss process can be. Fat loss is difficult and should be done over a protracted period of time.
Place your faith in science, biology, intense exercise, elite empirical experience and above all else, disciplined eating. It’s a tough love message. As one music critic said after listening to the jarring, disconcerting music Miles Davis was playing in the 70s, “His music is like taking an ice cold shower; immediately shocking and unpleasant; ultimately bracing and invigorating.” Be done with spot reducing myths about ab exercise. The best single abdominal exercise is to exert control over your knife and fork. Clean up food selections, maneuver downward to the caloric breakeven point, use the caloric cost of exercise to create NEB. Hold tight for 6-12 weeks. Watch those abs emerge from beneath that sea of lard. Understand the futility of spot reducing. Recognize the inherent falsity of this first-magnitude fitness myth.
Learn How to Infuse
‘Diet Foods’ with Taste
As a young athlete I never paid a damned bit of attention to the nutritional content of anything. As I grew older I developed an interest in melding my newfound nutritional awareness with the peasant food preparation skills that I learned from my elderly grandmother. She resided on a spooky farm in the Arkansas delta. Tucked away in Yoda-like solitude, she taught me how to prepare foods I liked and naturally gravitated towards. Her approach was Old School all the way. Farm fresh foods were prepared simply, letting the natural flavor of fresh ingredients shine through. She intuitively laid a table that was a good balance between her garden vegetables (canned in the winter) and local pork, beef and fish. She raised chickens, turkey and geese. Freshwater fish, caught from ponds and the Mighty Mississippi, were plentiful between April and October.
Purposefully Primitive Performance Eating is all about melding great taste with great ingredients. When it comes to eating, taste trumps everything. We love great tasting food and hate bland gruel. Learn to prepare foods that are both beneficial for you and tickle your taste buds. Bland food needs to be transformed into tasty food. Creatively prepare acceptable, wholesome, beneficial foods in quantities sufficient enough to keep your refrigerator stocked for 3-7 days. When its time to eat, simply pop the proper portion size into the microwave and two minutes later eat a power-packed, terrific tasting meal. The idea is to create diet meals you actually look forward to eating. It is important that you learn basic food preparation tactics. Come to grips with elemental food preparation. That way you are in control of your nutritional destiny and not preparation-dependant on someone or something. Here are a few classic food preparation techniques.
You’d be surprised how many folks cannot grill a decent piece of meat. Nothing is easier, quicker or more delicious. Take the steak out of the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for at least 30 minutes as this softens the fat. Sirloin, rib eye, filet mignon, strip, T-bone, porterhouse, flank or skirt steak, are best grilled on a red hot grill that has been oiled with olive oil or a piece of steak fat. Generously season with coarse kosher or sea salt and pepper right before placing on the hottest part of the grill. Don’t walk away or get distracted; pay attention and flip the meat only once. Leave the 1st side totally alone for 1-3 minutes. You can also use the oven broiler. The length of steak cook time varies depending on size and thickness: if this is problematic use a meat thermometer—120 for rare, 145 medium rare. When done, let the steak stand for five minutes to allow the juices to settle. A properly grilled steak is one of life’s true pleasures. My personal favorite is a perfectly prepared cowboy rib steak or a fork tender filet.
Boneless skinless chicken breast is the absolute number one bodybuilding food. White meat chicken is relatively inexpensive and has a high protein/low fat ratio. Preparing a chicken breast that is delectable, moist and tender is difficult.
There is a method that produces absolutely the best breast I’ve ever tasted. This method of preparation allows you to produce a chicken breast that can be sautéed, baked or grilled to succulent perfection. The breasts can be stacked and stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.
The key is to squash the bulbous breast flat prior to preparation.
By eliminating the rotund profile, by squashing the raw breast into a low rider flattened configuration, you can cook a perfectly done, juicy breast every single time. From start to finish it takes less then ten minutes to prepare a squashed breast. I pay a few extra cents per pound and buy organic chicken—not only is it chemically free, the taste of the bird is significantly superior. Set a breast on a cutting board covered with a couple of plastic grocery bags. Flatten the breasts one at a time with a kitchen mallet. The force used to mash a breast is a little too intense to perform on a kitchen counter; the repeated blows could conceivably damage the counter surface. Try placing the cutting board on the floor. I go outside on my deck, use a 10 pound tamp and flatten a dozen breast inside of five minutes. I cover the tamper with layers of grocery bags and cover a small square of plywood with grocery bags. Once the fibrous core is hit square the breast will give way and flatten out nicely. The breast optimally ends up about 1/8th to 1/4 inch thick.
I often store the flattened breast in a Jacuzzi bath, usually a vinegar-based marinade. I use Stubb’s Marinade. The squashed breasts marinate until its time to cook them. My favorite method is to dredge the marinade breasts in Japanese Panko bread crumbs and sauté them in olive oil. You can bake squashed breasts by placing them on a wire rack set atop a baking pan. Slide the pan into a 350 degree oven. You can grill them over charcoal or over propane. Flattened bird makes you forget all about Colonel Sanders. A plain squashed breast can be grilled or sautéed and ready to eat inside five minutes.
You can oven roast standing rib roast, leg of lamb, whole chicken, turkey or duck. Roasted whole birds are easy to prepare.
To roast a chicken, turkey or duck wash the bird inside and out with cold running water. Let it drain dry in the sink. If you’re in a hurry, pat dry with paper towels. Coat the outside of the dry bird with a light application of salt and pepper. Ditto the cavity. Set the bird on a wire rack inside a pan and roast at 350/375 degrees. Cook until internal temperature (probe inserted at the deepest part of the thigh) reaches 170 degrees. I use a $10 kitchen thermometer that has a long metal braid rope connected to a probe which allows the digital readout to stay outside the oven and can be read without having to open the oven door or lift the Weber lid. No more guesswork. When the internal temp hits 170 an alarm goes off that alerts me that the bird is done.
I pull the bird out when the magic 170 is reached and let it set for a full ten minutes. The final finished result is perfection every time. If you are roasting a leg of lamb the internal temperature of the meat should reach 120 degrees.
For variation I use a Weber grill. I love the taste of wood smoked meat. Place charcoal in a starter tube in the center of the grill. Lightly soak newspaper or paper towels with a little vegetable oil and place the balled up oiled paper underneath the charcoal starter and light it.
In 10 to 15 minutes the coals will be white hot. When the coals turn white, divide them into two equal piles on opposite sides of the grill. In the middle place an aluminum drip pan. This is the indirect method of cooking. I like to place big chunks of water-soaked hickory, mesquite, apple or peach wood on top of the hot coals before setting the top grate in place. Place the protein payload, be it beef, lamb, turkey, duck or chicken in the center over top the drip pan. Put the lid in place and leave it alone. Use the meat thermometer to determine when the protein payload is thoroughly cooked. The same oven roasting temperatures apply to the Weber.
Regardless the protein payload, the final finished product is mind-blowing: succulent, smoke-infused meat, fowl or seafood rendered fork tender and smoky delicious.
Brining is a centuries-old method of making fowl tender and juicy by soaking the turkey, chicken or duck in a pail of water containing salt and sugar. The salt water is sucked into the cells and volume-moisturizes the meat. I brine whole turkey and chicken by submerging the bird in a 5 gallon paint bucket lined with a garbage bag. I fill the bucket with warm water and mix in a cup of salt and a ½ cup sugar and let is soak. Most experts say don’t brine longer than two hours. I brine a whole birds and sometimes chicken breasts. I find in every instance the brined bird turns out tender and juicy. Brining is particularly appropriate for roasting or smoking.
Whole fish or filets can be sautéed, grilled or steamed in a matter of a few minutes. Atlantic salmon, steelhead, haddock, cod and trout are my usual fish choices. I can have a perfectly prepared piece of fish ready to eat inside 5-15 minutes using a skillet, a spatula, a little olive oil and some dry spice. Sometimes I’ll dredge the trout, cod or haddock filets in Panko bread crumbs. I often sprinkle Paul Prudomme’s Blackened Redfish dry rub on fish. I use enough extra virgin olive oil to cover the bottom of a deep, large skillet and sauté the fish. If the fish has skin, place the filet into the skillet skin side down.
I use a relatively high heat taking the oil to just below its smoke point. The smoke point on any cooking oil occurs when the heat from the cooking source causes the oil to burn and evaporate. Extra virgin olive oil’s smoke point is around 370 degrees. Hot oil is what we seek—too hot is to be avoided. Don’t mess with the fish—let it sit and cook on one side 70% of the way before flipping it over. Turn the fish over carefully using a wide spatula or tongs. I often sprinkle dry rub on fish. Total cook time depends on the thickness of the filet. When complete, remove the fish gently.
Grilling is easy: oil the grate, let the fish cook mostly on side number one. Fish can be baked on a pan or steamed in a bag. To steam, place the fish on a big square of aluminum foil, throw in some herbs, perhaps some thin sliced onions, scallions or ginger. Add a dash of wine, seal the aluminum foil and place it on a cookie sheet. Slide the whole thing into a preheated oven; after 10 minutes check for doneness. The fish steams itself in the bag and this hassle-free preparation method produces a terrific tasting fish dish within 20 minutes of walking in the door after a long day at work. Please avoid battered frozen fish.
Nothing tastes better: shrimp, scallops, crab, squid, lobster, mussels, clams, oysters—the fresher the seafood the more vibrant the taste. Do you live along one of the coastlines and have a fisherman’s market or wharf in your area where the locals sell seafood? Frequent it! If you live inland, find where the river fishermen sell their divine freshwater fish. Again, think of the tortured route your supermarket seafood takes….catch it, sell it, transport it, reroute it—all before it gets to you.
According to my nutritional bible, The United States Department of Agriculture Handbook #8, a 100 gram portion of shrimp contain 18.1 grams of protein, 0.8 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of carbohydrate and 91 calories—a 100 gram portion is slightly less than ¼ pound. Once you buy it, don’t wait to cook it. Everybody steams shrimp and most folks overcook shrimp.
Try this alternative method for shrimp preparation: in a skillet add a slight bit of olive oil and heat the pan to just below the smoke point. Throw the shelled shrimp into the pan and make sure to not overcrowd the skillet. As soon as the shrimp begin to turn pink, within a minute, remove the pan from the heat and turn each shrimp over. The residual heat will continue to cook the crustaceans. Leave them alone until they cool, then peel them one at a time. The shells will come right off. If I intend to eat the shrimp by themselves, I will cook them thoroughly—but not too much. If I intend to use them in another dish I will err on the side of undercooking rather than over-cooking. Nothing is worse than overcooked shrimp as that turns the crustaceans rubbery and dry. If you cook shrimp completely then throw them into another dish, the shrimp will cook further and end up going past the point of no return.
Once you have cooked and shelled the shrimp, you can store them in the refrigerator for future use. Shrimp makes a killer meal and is always a hit when guests drop by. Mixing shrimp with vegetables gets maximum mileage out of this expensive ingredient. Don’t purchase the teeny-tiny popcorn shrimp: I like the largest possible crustaceans in the $9 to $14 per pound range and find that a single pound is good for one mega-meal or two normal meals. Let’s reconsider shrimp: yes they are expensive when compared to chicken breast and egg whites, but man cannot live by bird and bird eggs alone. As I told one novice trainee who complained that shrimp were too expensive to be included in his dietary game plan, “Sure you can! Take all the money you previously spent on $4 a pint ice cream, buck-a-bar candy bars, donuts, pastries and don’t forget the six-packs of Pepsi and beer—redirect all this recovered income towards some fat-free seafood!”
A rice steamer is a terrific tool and quite inexpensive. I use the nutty brown rice variations. Keep a cooked supply in the refrigerator ready for instant use. Nothing could be easier than preparing a mountain of rice for consumption in the coming week. Don’t overcook rice or it will dissolve into a mound of starchy mush. To make sure the rice is evenly done, I stir the steaming rice with a long handled wooden spoon during the cooking procedure to keep the rice on the bottom from getting over done while the rice on top remains crunchy. I particularly love organic Lunenburg Black Japonica, a gourmet blend of black and mahogany rice: rich, nutty flavored, power-packed and gluten free.
For those intent on building mass, rice rules!
Nothing tastes better than a baked sweet potato, particularly for someone with a sweet tooth. I like my sweet potatoes baked thoroughly and I bake them until the potato skin seems loose and feels brittle to the touch. This is another taste treat that can be prepared in mass quantities ahead of time. I prefer the smaller sized spuds. Yams and sweet potatoes are interchangeable. Potatoes can also be sliced paper thin and sautéed in olive oil.
I buy raw green beans, bust off the stem end and throw them in a deep skillet with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Dice up few bell peppers and cut a large organic carrot into strips. Let these three fiber veggies sauté for as long as it takes to tenderize the beans. It could take a while. Beans are tough, as are carrots and red, yellow or green bell peppers. Add a large sliced onion and/or broccoli flowerets later in the process. Right before serving put in a pile of raw spinach. Remove from the heat. Sometimes I add goat cheese. Stir periodically with a wooden spoon.
You can create an amazing medley of fibrous carbs that has a multitude of flavors. If you prefer certain fiber carbs and don’t like others, add or subtract according to your taste preference. This concoction stores well and I will scoop out a portion to complement my protein portion. I often construct this pan of fiber without the greens beans; this cuts down cooking time dramatically. Other times I will add some thin sliced cabbage and garlic. I eat some sort of pan sautéed fiber concoction every single day.
Fresh is best. On the other hand, what could be easier then opening a bag of premixed salad and pouring on top some low fat salad dressing? Quick, easy, convenient and effective, try to eat one salad a day. Don’t cancel out the benefits by loading up the salad with a high-fat or chemically-doused dressing. I honestly don’t eat a lot of bagged salad except in the winter when the local produce is unavailable. For someone looking to throw together a hassle-free meal after work, bagged salad is the ultimate in convenience. Stacy makes excellent homemade dressing: extra virgin olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar, plain organic yogurt and a little bit of dill.
Every urban area has a farmer’s market. The farmers who live in the region surrounding the city drive into town once a week during growing season and sell their farm fresh wares to the City Slickers. When you go to the grocery store to buy produce, that pepper or onion (or whatever) was grown on a Midwest or West Coast mega farm, doused with pesticides and chemicals to keep the bugs off, picked, trucked to a central distribution hub, placed on trucks and driven to your store. All that takes time: the nutritional potency and taste of a vegetable fades in direct relation to the length of time from when it was picked to when it is eaten. Go to the farmer’s market and taste the vibrant flavor of fruits and vegetables picked within the last few days. The taste difference is astounding. Eat what is in season and don’t allow it to languish in your refrigerator for too long: cook and eat produce as soon as possible.
This is a sparse and meager sampling. The idea behind any Performance Eating plan is to eat healthy and eat foods that actually taste terrific. Unless you have a personal chef on staff, unless you still live with your mother, unless you eat out every night, unless your wife, girlfriend or your “significant other” cooks, you need to come to grips with food preparation. It is easy, creative and fun. Good cooking is a bunch of simple procedures followed in a precise sequence. Taste and diet need not be a contradiction in terms.
Learn how to prepare tasty beneficial foods and you will amplify results obtained from weight training and cardio. When you exercise intensely you need to take in sufficient calories in order to speed up recovery and fuel new muscle growth. Over-exercising and under-eating is a cortisol-inducing, physiological catastrophe. Let’s eat smart and eat tasty and eat enough to recuperate and recover. Eating lots of protein and fiber: that’s the backbone. Eating copious amounts of acceptable food will dampen a sweet tooth. And if the sweet tooth persists, check out the Parrillo or Warrior line of nutritional supplements; lots of sweet tasting bars and engineered foods that fool the sweetest of sweet addictions – yet these supplemental foods are acceptable and downright beneficial.
Miracle Home Smoker
As is my habit when I watch TV and there is nothing really on, I turn to the Food Network. I’m a “foodie” and love to cook— to me it is another creative outlet and I’m usually at my best when I’m involved with something creative and constructive. I like to watch real food pros inventively deal with ingredients. They alert me to new food combinations, techniques and insider tips I’d never thought about.
One day I happened to catch a strange episode of Alton Brown’s show Good Eats. He is a strange combination of quirky chef, standup comedian, culinary wizard, science geek and food historian. In this particular episode, he ran the voodoo down (as Miles Davis called “truth telling”) on meat smokers: he did so from a science and practicality vantage point.
The subject of wood smokers may, at first glance, seem an odd choice for a fitness book. However food plays a huge role in the fitness equation. To succeed in transforming ourselves we need break out of our current love/hate relationship with food—which is really a love/hate relationship with taste! Imagine a magical world where every diet food tasted as if Iron Chef Mario Batali had lovingly prepared it, especially for you, using gourmet ingredients that you loved. Would not dieting cease to be dieting?
In order to break taste habit-patterns, it is critical to develop a vast and virtually inexhaustible repertoire of delicious recipes. The foods need be nutritionally acceptable. The trick is to learn how to infuse a relatively narrow band of food selections with wonderful taste. Is it possible to create a menu of delicious, nutritious, potent, acceptable foods that you can make? Do so (make diet food taste great) and sticking to a diet is no longer problematic.
One way to make meats, fowl and seafood taste succulent, subtle and delectable, is to cook them slow and smoke them. Wood smoke applied to meat, fish, seafood or fowl, infuses and imparts unparalleled flavor into the blandest cut. Slow smoking renders the final finished product tender, succulent, and incredibly delicious. Over the years I’ve earnestly sought to recreate at home (even to a small degree) the amazing smoked cuisine I’ve sampled commercially. Until now it’s been nothing but fool’s gold. Alton Brown explained in five minutes why all my home smokers were doomed and why my frustrations and poor results were to be expected. First and foremost: the commercial smokers I had purchased and used were all made of thin metal and thin metal allows heat to easily escape. Hence thin metal smokers are inefficient and need continual refueling.
Smoke needs to be thick, concentrated and consistent
The best temperature for smoking is between 190 and 220 degrees.
Thin metal allows heat to escape through its thin surface
Propane burns and emits chemicals that make it slow smoke-unfriendly and odd tasting
Effective smokers are expensive—cheap ones are ineffective
His solution was innovative and inexpensive. I mimicked his device with outstanding results. His home smoker solution was pure genius: inexpensive ingenuity cubed with great simplicity.
Purchase a large earthenware terracotta planter pot—mine measured 16-inches at the top
Purchase a 17-inch terracotta planter base—this is used as a lid. Price for both? $27
Purchase a single burner electric hot plate—I got mine at Wal-Mart for $8
Purchase a square wire rack and an 8-inch baking pan—$11
Purchase a bag of hardwood from Home Depot—$8
Purchase a cooking thermometer from Home Depot—$8
Place the terracotta pot on two bricks: this creates a gap under the pot. Set the hot plate in bottom of the pot and run the cord through the drain hole. Plug the hot plate into an outdoor extension cord. I set my smoker outside the unheated garage gym. Turn the hot plate on and set it at maximum temperature. Place the baking pan atop the hot plate coil and place a goodly amount of soaked hardwood into the baking pan. I use dry small slivers of hardwood and combine them with larger wet wood chunks. The little slivers get the smoke party started, quickly, and give the big chunks a chance to get rolling.
Place the bent-to-fit wire rack into the pot: I purchased a lightweight wire rack from the kitchen supply bake accessory aisle at Wal-Mart for five bucks. I bent it with my bare hands, no big deal. But then again as a brute, bending things comes easy for me. I bent the square grate so the four corners touched and held when placed inside the pot. Place the meat thermometer in one of the wire rack holes. Alton drilled a hole in the lid of his and sat the thermometer sensor into the newly created hole. I may get around to that someday.
Place the protein payload: the fish, chicken, turkey, lamb, beef, seafood or pork on the rack and cover the whole deal with the 17-inch bottom. The top fits real nice. Within five minutes this weird contraption is generating fragrant wood smoke like crazy. The small internal chamber area creates intense hickory, mesquite, apple or peach wood smoke. The wood chips go a long way. The smoke is contained in this tight little container and the small chamber prevents the smoke from diffusing or escaping. Every 60 minutes (for long cooking meats) remove the top; pull the rack out with the cargo still atop it. Set the wire rack down onto the overturned smoker lid (placed on the ground adjacent to the smoker) and baste the payload.
Add new wood chips replace the rack with the payload back into the smoker and go away. I’ve had my Miracle Terracotta Wood Smoker up and running for a year and this thing is by far the most effective smoke contraption I’ve ever used.
Two things make this device trump everything on the market under $1,000: the heat conductor is clay, not metal, and this funky substance holds heat incredibly well: clay reflects the heat inward instead of letting it dissipate through the surface as thin metal does. The smoker is small and miniaturized and the smallness makes it easy to create, contain and control heat and smoke to an exacting degree. To refuel use tongs and lift the pie pan of burning hardwood out and set it somewhere safe. Turn the hot plate temperature control down—or up—if the internal temp is less than 200-degrees.
When this device is up and cranking at capacity, tantalizing wisps of fragrant smoke mix with the meat/fish smell of whatever is being smoked. The smoke slips out from under the lid and smells positively seductive. (“Languid, luscious, lustful.”) The drawback is capacity: smallish, not tiny, but small. It takes very little wood-fuel to keep this sucker smoking like a locomotive. The lid fit is heavy and complete; the inner chamber supercharged with intense smoke infused with the wood flavor of your choice. Hickory and mesquite are the most widely available and both are excellent. The device is safe because everything is neatly contained inside the sturdy pot.
Regardless the protein source selected, the procedure is the same: place the food inside the supercharged smoke chamber for as long as it takes to reaches doneness. 120 degrees for lamb, 130 for beef and 170 degrees for fowl. I eyeball seafood. This device is earthen and primitive, one bus stop away from burying pigs in the ground. The cost was under $50. I set my smoker up next to the garage gym so I can tend it during our lifting sessions. I torture and tempt lifters with the smell of the succulent slow-roasting protein. The wood smoke smell drifts into the gym and drives everyone to insane distraction. Food and intense physical training are inexorably related: train hard then eat tasty, beneficial food afterwards. Smoking makes meat, lamb, bird and fish unbelievably tasty. What an easy enjoyable chore it is to produce smoked protein with the Lilliputian Magnificent Mini-Me.
