As the headline states, what exactly is a cheat meal?  If you asked me this question six months to a year ago, my response would have been “anything other than meat, vegetables, some fruit, and some nuts.”  My response to that same question today is “it depends.”

Today my diet includes corn tortillas, white rice, and potatoes several times a week.  My diet nowadays would seem like a travesty to my hardcore Paleo mindset of a year ago.  The theory being:  our ancestors didn’t have these things so neither should we.  Also, our macronutrient percentages should resemble the high fat, low carb diets of hunter-gatherers because carb intake is directly correlated with fat gain and insulin resistance.

The beauty of the Paleo/Primal movement is our minds our open (or they should be) and we don’t dogmatically stick to our guns in light of differing viewpoints/evidence.  A society such as the Kitavans, whose daily intake is comprised of as much as 60% carbohydrates without the incidences of obesity, heart disease, etc, forces us to take a second look at our entire premise.  As Kurt Harris has written of, the true issue isn’t the carbohydrate intake, but the so-called “Neolithic Agents of Disease.”  We want to avoid gluten, lectins, industrial seed oils, industrial levels of fructose and Omega-6 PUFA.  The strict Paleo diet prescription works because it happens to eliminate all of these.  In other words, pure glucose as part of a sensible diet is not, in itself, a challenge to a body functioning properly.  It becomes a problem if you’re metabolism is already dysfunctional and your ability to handle carbs has been compromised due to insulin resistance.  In these instances, low carb Paleo combined with an intelligent exercise program is a fantastic method to regain insulin sensitivity and metabolic regulation.  But once your lean and mean, one need not fear carbohydrates.

So therefore, cheat meals, it stands to reason, are as follows:  Anything that has a measurable, negative impact on your goals or well-being.  If you are suffering from an autoimmune condition, then for you potatoes, legumes, rice, wheat, etc are all off your menu depending on your individual tolerance.  If you are overweight and/or insulin resistant or diabetic, then a large bolus of starchy carbs would constitute a cheat meal.  But if you’re a hard charging athlete, then really only meals containing the Neolithic Agents of Disease are cheat meals.  And even still…how gluten sensitive are you?  Do you notice any appreciable effect from eating glutenous foods or foods prepared with seed/vegetable oils?  We logically know these are bad for us based on evidence, but is a single meal containing these NADs within an otherwise strict week going to present any sort of appreciable change?  For me, I feel an immediate “gross” feeling after consuming seed/vegetable oils, but little to no immediate effect from a single dose of gluten, even if its a fairly large one.  So I don’t really consider a single meal that includes bread as a “cheat.”  I feel more as if for my particular situation, there are only “cheat trends.”

I realize this is less cookie-cutter and harder to follow for people who just want to know, “what can I eat?”  But if you’re sick, reclaiming your health requires your full involvement.  Once you’re healthy and (relatively) lean, just concentrate on eating nutrient dense, REAL foods and everything will work itself out.

David Henry, Professional Bodybuilder and DoggCrap Adherent

For over six months I have been utilizing a “HIT Canon” rep speed ranging from 3-4 seconds on both the positive and negative portions of the repetition.  I spent about the last month practicing a Negative emphasized rep speed where I performed my normal 3-4 second positive followed by a 10 second negative, as recommended by Drew Baye.  I really enjoyed this protocol and the feeling after completing a HIT session was amazing.  Complete exhaustion would set in and would feel like I had been hit by a truck, but in the best manner possible…as hard as that concept is to imagine.

I noticed though, that although my strength was increasing steadily at a fantastic rate (using 5-10 lbs of extra weight on every session, with two sessions per week), size increases were extremely conservative.  Almost nonexistent.  Obviously, as I’ve posted before, you can’t expect to continue to put on slabs of muscle indefinitely, and the further you progress as you train the less you can expect to gain per month.  In previous experiments with overfeeding I’ve found that I get fat but don’t add much muscle.  However, a couple bits of info led me to question whether or not I may have been too forgiving with my expectations in terms of size gain.

First, this article on T-Nation titled, “Exercise Form Doesn’t Matter.”  To summarize, the author personally trained an individual and was a stickler for absolutely spot on perfect form.  The individual never quite excelled at his training.  The author lost track of the individual for a bit, and when he met him again after a while, was astounded by the increase in lean mass the individual displayed.  The author attributes it to months of horrid form.  The theory being that the body responds to the increased weight being used, regardless of the less than picture-perfect form being displayed.  This may sound like blasphemy, but keep in mind no one is saying sloppy form is safe.  Absolutely strict form is the only way to make training anywhere close to safe (keeping in mind of course that ANYTHING can happen when you step outside of the safety or your home), but one can perhaps take from this article that perhaps taking some calculated risks may pay dividends, just like in the stock market.

The second was a Q&A with professional bodybuilder Branch Warren wherein a reader asked Branch’s opinion on his rep cadence.  Branch opined that if you’re counting seconds during a rep you’re probably over-thinking.  Lift heavy weights and eat and you’ll grow.  All the people he sees in the gym who obsess over the minutia and work on charts and spreadsheets are the smallest people.  This statement was eerily familiar to the observation TC made in the article above.  Note:  I’m a gym nerd who obsessively tries to calculate everything out…and though I’m very happy with my body and I’m very lean, no one would ever mistake me for a massive muscular beast.

Now…kneejerk reaction:  Branch is a genetically gifted mass monster.  The biggest guys in the gym could be big because of what they’re doing, yes, or it may be that they’re that big IN SPITE of what they’re doing.  I do believe that the routines practiced by the genetic elite (high volume splits) aren’t best suited for the genetically average.  I know from years of experience that strength increases are simply unreliable using these programs, and progressive training is an absolute necessity for positive results.  But are we going perhaps too far in the other direction and throwing the baby out with the bathwater by emphasizing super strict form with slow rep cadences?  Furthermore, might a bit more volume also net me some muscle gain?

Rep Speed

The reasons to regulate rep speed, in my opinion, are twofold:

• For safety, to reduce the degree of forces our joints and tendons are forced to deal with
• For efficacy, eliminating momentum from the movement and forcing our muscles to work during the entire rep

Lately I’ve been experiencing fantastic linear gains, experimenting with various new ideas.  I’ve leaned out consideribly following the Martin Berkhan LG style intermittent fasting protocol.

As I’ve explained before, I tried gaining mass the regular bodybuilder “bulk” method where you eat everything in sight.  I was eating 3,000 calories a day, which isn’t much for most people but for me is quite a bit more than I need.  I did indeed gain weight steadily, but a lot of it was fat.  Following the Leangains protocol has brought my waistline down from roughly 31″ to roughly 28.5″ and bodyweight from roughly 150 to 135.  Strength gains in the gym continued unabated and unslowed, leading me to believe this was entirely fat loss.

I’ve switched gears a bit and decided to make another run at mass gain.  I have been increasing my calories just enough to have a slight energy balance but not force feeding myself tons of kcals.  I’m still following the LG-style IF, since Martin’s bodybuilders appear to be able to maintain single digit bf percentages while putting on muscle.  In addition to increasing my calories, I’ve also resumed supplementation with creatine monohydrate, and I’ve begun the “Triple Your Testosterone” protocol from The 4-Hour Body.  4HB gets a lot of flack, but I think that’s mostly because people have an irrational emotional reaction to the author himself, Tim Ferriss.  The book is simply a collection of his own personal N=1 self experimentation.  Basically its what I do here on this blog, only he collected it in a book.  I would hope no one would get angry with me just because something that worked for me didn’t work for you?  It should also be noted that at all times I am, of course, fully Paleo.  Carbs are provided with white rice or root vegetables on workout days, except for a once-weekly cheat meal that may include gluten.  Actually it may include a lot of things…who cares, its once a week!

At the same time that I implemented the above dietary and supplementation changes, I also adopted a new tweak to my lifting schedule.  Way to isolate variables, eh?  I’m still following the basic, full body HIT protocol hitting the entire body every 4 days (essentially twice weekly), except I’ve left free weights behind and moved almost entirely to machines (with the exception of a couple exercises).  In this way, I can move quickly between exercises.  This allows me to do more work in less time and maximize the hormonal effect of the exercise.  I used to complete fewer exercises in roughly 45 minutes, and I’m now completing 9 to 10 exercises in 25-30 minutes.  These repetitions are done in the 8-12 rep range for upper body and the 15-20 rep range for the quads with a steady 3/3 cadence.

I can’t tell what caused it since I started all of these changes simultaneously, but the strength gains have been spectacular.  I increase the weight used just about every session and do not lose many, if any, reps.  I’ve actually managed to gain reps from one week to the next even when increasing the weights used.  The degree of strength adaption has been fantastic.  It should be noted that just recently I’ve adopted the Negative emphasized cadence that Drew Baye recommended in a recent blogpost (which I can’t link because his site appears to be down).  Its too soon to really report on strength increases, but the feeling is definitely there.  I’ve experienced a deep, lasting soreness in muscles that I’ve been regularly working.  It will be interesting to see how this develops.

The workouts (alternated every 4 days)

Workout A

• Leg Press
• Nautilus Pulldown
• Nautlus OH Press
• Dumbbell Row
• Leg Curl
• Pec Deck Fly
• Hammer Strength Tricep
• Wrist Curls
• Reverse Wrist Curls

Many Paleo/Primal gurus blame rampant carbohydrate increases with the rise in diseases of civilization.  Some even go so far as to dismiss the concept of calories altogether, instead claiming that hormonal changes within the body are entirely to blame for weight shifts either positive or negative.  First of all, plenty of folks have dieted down to single digit bodyfat percentages on very high carb diets.  The path to doing so is to restrict calories.  When calories are restricted body weight goes down.  When calories are increased, body weight goes up.  Now…might there be some hormonal reaction to the increase in food volume eaten that is somehow unconnected to the concept of a calorie?  Perhaps…but do I really need to understand how the light bulb works to know that when I flip the switch on there is light and when I flip it off the light goes away?  Granted, when there is electrical problems, just like when there are metabolic problems, it might require a closer look, perhaps by a professional.  But that doesn’t change the fact that in the majority of cases the light switch constitutes and excellent tool for controlling light in your house.

Now, as for blaming carbohydrates for all of our modern woes, I believe the answer is a little too simple.  In reality the issue is more likely multifactorial, involving tons of moving parts.  In fact, in a post regarding “fructose alarmism”  Alan Aragon posted some interesting statistical data re:  our caloric intake over the last 30 or so years (for source data click on the link to check out Alan’s post):

• Meats, eggs, and nut kcals decreased 4%.
• Dairy kcals decreased 3%.
• Percentage of fruit kcals stayed the same.
• Percentage of vegetable kcals stayed the same.
• Flour and cereal product kcals increased 3%.
• Added fat kcals are up 7%,
• Added sugars kcals decreased 1%
• Total energy intake in 1970 averaged 2172 kcal. By 2007 this hiked up to 2775 kcal, a 603 kcal increase.

a·pol·o·gist

In modern speech, apology has come to mean a request for forgiveness for some wrongdoing, implying guilt, but the Greek root word, apologia, has a meaning much closer to defense.  Usually apologetics focus on the area of religion, but I felt bodybuilding needed its very own apologia.

I feel as though the sport of bodybuilding has gotten quite a bad rap due to some misconceptions that have been bandied about, and I think some of them deserve challenging.  Let me know what you all think.

1. Bodybuilding Is Not Functional

The argument here is that bodybuilding exercise does not train movement patterns that closely mirror situations you would encounter in the real world.  I’m also going to lump the metabolic conditioning argument into this one as well, since MetCon is usually an aspect of the “functional argument.”

My issue with this argument is, muscles only have finite functions.  Your pectoral muscles bring your upper arms in towards your torso (and down).  The deltoid raises the upper arm, etc.  A stronger muscle can contract both more efficiently and more powerfully.  You can use that strength ANYWHERE as long as the relevant muscles have been trained on your program and I challenge anyone to tell me logically how this is not the case.  If you need to translate that strength to a sport or activity, then thats where skill-specific training comes in.  Don’t try to develop sport-specific skills in the gym, get stronger in the gym.  Learn to apply strength/explosiveness/speed to a certain activity by practicing the given activity.

As far as conditioning/MetCon goes, as Martin Berkhan says, trying to combine strength and conditioning into a single training session yields mediocre results in both.  They are, to a certain extent, mutually exclusive.  No strength coach out there will tell you that the best way to get strong is to work on conditioning at the same time, and no conditioning coach will tell you the reverse.  You’ll have to prioritize one or the other in your training.  Granted, there is only so much time in the week and for some competitive athletes, this may be your only option.  But realistically, most of you can afford to dedicate days to either lifting or conditioning, not both.

2. Bodybuilders Aren’t Strong

I assure you, they are.  Not everyone who calls themselves a bodybuilder is very strong in the absolute sense, but thats true of any population.  But bodybuilding revolves around getting stronger.  To quote Mike Mentzer, “You can’t get stronger by getting weaker.”

I think this misunderstanding stems from the apparent difference in strength between powerlifters and bodybuilders at similar bodyweights.  But how is this supposed strength difference measured?  Bodybuilders train using a wide variety of movements with a focus on making the movement harder.  Powerlifters focus their training on the three competition lifts with an emphasis on making the movement more efficient.  And at the end of the day, powerlifters perform better at squat, benchpress, and deadlift at a given weight.  Well…I should hope so?  Would you expect a speed skater to be better at hockey than a hockey player just because they both skate?

Also, are all powerlifters equally strong or are certainly people more gifted than others?  If genetics do play a role in this sport (and they do…in every sport) then could it be that those that were most suited to powerlifting gravitated to that sport, and those with an aptitude for putting on mass gravitated to bodybuilding?

3. Bodybuilders are dumb, shallow, uncool, etc.

When I graduated high school, I thought I was past cliques and the cool and uncool crews.  I was wrong…

In every subculture, people gravitate together and make fun of the other groups, and physical culture is no different!

• Crossfit – Bodybuilders are muscle bound, out of shape, weak, and spend all their time pumping up on barbell curls.  Powerlifters are marginally cooler, but most of them are fat and unhealthy.
• Powerlifters – Crossfit?  Aren’t they those really skinny nerds wearing toe-shoes and doing like 300 reps of everything?  Bodybuilders are alright I guess if they weren’t always so concerned with their precious four-packs.
• Bodybuilders – Crossfitters are all like 100 lbs.  Crossfit makes women hot though!  Powerlifters are fat.

Yours Truly, Gymnastics Flag 2009

In my previous post on this subject, I mentioned that I felt my body was going to add lean mass at its own pace and that I could not force it to speed up by eating greater and greater volumes of food.  Since that blog post, some blogs I follow and highly respect have done a better job expanding on this idea than I ever could.  I’ll share them with you below and then make some comments of my own:

Here, Keith Norris asserts his belief that the hypertrophy response is dependent on the stimulus (exercise) versus fuel (food)

Here, Skyler Tanner discusses realistic mass gain for experienced trainers and likens increasing calories to “pushing with a rope.”

And lastly, in the discussion under Keith’s post, Skyler includes a much more comprehensive post along the lines of the Martin Berkhan post I included in my original post.

I’m going to borrow Lyle McDonald’s graph of expected mass gain based on training years to illustrate my point about caloric intake:

So we can see that Lyle predicts we can gain as much as 20-25 lbs of lean mass in our first year of serious training.  That’s quite a lot of muscle, although still quite a bit lower than most people seem to expect.  Obviously, increasing that much actual mass per week will require quite a bit of fuel to produce.  But, as we progress in our training careers, the maximum amount of muscle we can put on (drug-free) tapers.  Obviously, as a larger individual, you will need more calories to maintain your size than you did 30 lbs ago.  But beyond maintenance, how many more calories do you need to fuel 2-3 lbs of muscle mass per year?  My thought is, not much.

Yes, its nice to see the scale move upwards along with our strength when we overeat, but the reality is that steady mass gain is mostly fat, unless we’re referring to an undersized absolute beginner.  That being said, I think I’ll stick with my Intermittent Fasting, eating to satiation, and punctuated carb-refeeds/overeating immediately before and after training, as detailed in my previous post.  The muscle mass will come, at its own pace.

For most people, the standard Paleo prescription (Meat, Veggies, some fruit and some nuts) is the correct one.  The beauty of the Paleo diet is that you don’t have to micro-manage everything, from overall calories to macronutrients.  If you’re eating the right foods and listening to your body, you’ll be right where you need to be.

However, certain populations have certain needs, and as Nate Miyaki stated in a recent T-Nation article, “You’ll never convince me that a 300-pound, obese, insulin resistant, sedentary office worker who just wants to be able to see his wee-wee again should be eating the same thing as a 185-pound, ripped, insulin sensitive, athletic alpha male trying to reach peak athletic or physical conditioning.”  I agree that athletic fit individuals don’t need to be as carb-phobic as insulin resistant overweight dieters.  I disagree with Nate where he states that two of the mainstays of his dietary recommendations, rice and white potatoes, are not “paleo.”  While these may be Neolithic foods, we are heading towards a new definition of what “Paleo” is.  Most forward thinkers in terms of Paleo are moving towards a concept where we are less concerned with recreating an imagined paleolithic diet bite-for-bite and more towards moving towards making educated diet choices based on an what we know from our evolutionary heritage.

In other words, Paleolithic man and/or Hunter Gatherer tribes do not have the instances of the diseases of civilization that we see in modern society.  But we need to get into the nuts and bolts of “why” to see what foods we should eat and how much.   We know that gluten and various anti-predation elements in grains and legumes are destructive to the human body.  We also know that for overweight, insulin resistant individuals, a ketogenic or low carb diet can be very beneficial.  Finally, we know that even if one suffers no adverse effects (currently) from gluten or lectin ingestion and he or she is not overweight, there are no nutrients offered by grains and legumes that cannot be provided to a greater degree by varied vegetable sources.  Note this study by Dr. Loren Cordain on the nutritional characteristics of a modern diet based on paleolithic food groups.

In terms of performance, and if one is healthy, lean, and athletic, the precision introduction of carbs surrounding the athletic activity is absolutely appropriate.  Remaining gluten and lectin free, a few options for starchy vegetables to introduce in the “peri-workout” period include:

• White potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes
• White Rice
• Yucca Root
• Yams
• Plantains

I’ve been on the same basic HIT protocol for roughly four months now with only a few tweeks here and there.  I believe the difference is that HIT is the only approach that allows me to fully recuperate from the workout stressor.  High volume, as I was practicing it at least, was acceptable in the short-term, but cumulative fatigue would slowly catch up to me until the four week mark.  Experimentation may have lead me to a level of high volume that would be sustainable for my individual recovery ability, but if less overall work elicits the desired response, what point is there to doing more just because you can?

I do think occasionally introducing a novel stimulus to the body is valuable, but I think constantly changing your program every month makes it tough to accurately gauge progress.  How much of the increase in poundage or reps is a legit increase in capacity and how much of it is simply becoming more efficient at the movement?  In other words, I’ve been doing weighted dips since December, so I know when I get stronger its because I’m stronger.  If I switch to flat bench and I get “stronger” the next week, is it because my arms and chest have gotten stronger or is it because I’ve just gotten more neurologically efficient at a new movement? 

My workouts are always intense, but what about an occasional “non-sustainable” SUPER dose of high intensity?  Sticking with the High Intensity precepts but kicking it up to a notch that would beat me into the ground if I tried to do it every workout.  Enter the Negative Only workout.  As you know, we are weakest in the positive, or lifting, portion of a movement, stronger in the static position, and strongest in the negative.  In other words, you can hold a heavier weight in a static position than you can lift, and you can slowly lower a much much heavier weight than you could hope to lift.  Generally, we work out to positive failure, but we haven’t come close to negative failure.  In this workout I’ll be reaching a much deeper inroad than normal by skipping the positive altogether and working with heavy enough weights that I fail within 8-10 reps of negative only.  I’ve decided I’ll do this intensive workout once per month and then switch back to my regular workout for the rest of the month.  These were my exercise choices and my comments:

• Barbell Push Press w/ Slow Negative – Bad choice.  Push pressing a weight heavy enough to be a challenge for the Negative was far too demanding.  I couldn’t concentrate on the negative, I was too involved concentrating on the explosive positive.  I’ll have to figure out another option for next time.
• Leg Press – I used my arms to help shove my legs up to the top position of the Leg Press and then lowered slowly.  This was extremely effective and I felt my quadriceps received an immense workout.
• Bodyweight Glute-Ham-Raise – I hooked my feet under some railing and attempted to slowly lower my upper body to the floor using only the strength of my hamstrings.  I liked this movement.
• Weighted Dip – This was meant for triceps and chest, but I honestly think the extreme overload wiped my triceps out too soon for my chest to experience a good enough inroad.  My triceps were completely wrecked though.
• Nautilus Pullover – The foot pedal I thought would allow me to do a full negative actually only brings the bar down low enough for you to get your arms in it.  I ended up having to do a quick positive and a slow negative.  My back was extremely sore the next day, but next time I’ll ask someone to help pull the bar down so I can use a heavier weight and a true negative-only.
• Power Shrug w/ Slow Negative- Another one I won’t repeat.  This was tough on the traps but I was essentially doing the whole exercise.
• Hammer Curl on the Preacher Bench – This was an EXTREMELY effective movement.  I was able to use both arms to bring the dumbbell to its top position and then executed an extremely satisfying negative.  Loved this.

The next day I was sore from head to toe, with the exception of chest and shoulders.  All in all this experiment was a success.  I got an amazingly intense workout and I know I couldn’t sustain that intensity day after day regularly.  Obviously it wasn’t all good though and I’ll be refining the approach in the future.

I’ve written about the importance of proper recovery before, and in the Physical Culture tab at the top of the page I express the importance of proper recovery if you have any hope of physical self-improvement.  Sleep is a huge part of the recovery equation.  Studies have shown that even a single night of missed sleep can give you the insulin resistance of a Type II Diabetic.  Pretty scary stuff, huh?  There’s also a release of growth hormone during sleep that is important for proper recovery, growth, and general health.  Beyond that, if you aren’t giving yourself enough sleep each night you will realize a night and day difference in mental acuity, quickness, and general happiness. 

I’ve made it a priority to get eight (at the very least seven) hours of sleep a night.  I plan ahead so I’m in bed by 9:30, and I generally read for 30 minutes or so by candlelight, so as not to disturb the delicate circadian rhythm that lets me know when to sleep and when to wake. 

The Alarm Clock

Getting away from the alarm clock is one of the best things you can do for yourself.  I did so months ago and have never looked back.  The idea is, if you fall asleep on the weekend and turn your alarm clock off, you don’t just sleep indefinitely.  You generally either wake up when you’re accustomed to wake up, or after eight to nine hours after falling asleep, barring recent sleep deprivation.  As long as I get to bed at a decent hour I generally know when I’ll wake up…I won’t just continue sleeping until noon.

Give it a shot, setting your alarm for the absolute latest you could wake up without being late for work, but give yourself enough sleep time to hit eight or nine hours beforehand.  The point is to not need the alarm, and not having the alarm to lean on will make you more liable to get to bed early enough.

I cannot express the difference you’ll feel getting eight hours of solid sleep a night and waking naturally.  When my alarm went off in the morning it was a, “Uuuuugh…dear God don’t let it be MORNING ALREADYY!!!!!” kind of feeling.  Waking naturally after eight hours of sleep is more like, “And so…I have woken once again to continue my conquest of this planet.”  Which is the better feeling in the morning?

And if that isn’t enough, good sleep habits keep cortisol lower and testosterone higher, helping with both staying lean and putting on muscle.  Don’t waste money on supplements if you won’t put into place this simple fix.

The fact is, the bodybuilding magazines advertise with photos of drug-assisted bodybuilders and their level of muscularity is frankly not realistic for natural athletes.  I don’t mean to explain away all of their hard work and chalk it all up to a magic drug.  Steroids give you the ability to work harder than you’d normally be able to and still recover.  Professional bodybuilders work hard at their sport and taking steroids while sitting on your butt will not result in a world class physique.  But if you doubt that their results are not realistic for the natural athlete, take a quick glance at the “natural” tested bodybuilding contest weight classes versus the profession non-tested weight classes.  You’ll note a markedly lower bodyweight.  Add to that the fact that these drug assisted bodybuilders also have elite level genetics, and they are practically a different species from the scrawny guy with average genetics and poor nutrition habits who joins his local gym to “tone up.”

Those six day per week, two hour a day thrashfests you see recommended in the bodybuilding mags?  Those work fantastic for elite level, drug-assisted athletes, but not so great for the average guy holding down a full time job.  They can handle that workload and recover from it both because of the drug-assisted advantage and because working out is there job.  Those super high calorie, super high carb diets?  Also excellent for steroid using bodybuilders because of the nutrient partitioning effects of anabolic steroids.  The body is more geared towards muscle mass gain and less towards fat storage.  Its the opposite for normal humans.  We are always set towards fat gain and stingy with the metabolicly expensive muscle tissue.  Its one of the reasons we survived and Neanderthal didn’t, so its great for survival but crummy for our dreams of beach and bathing suit glory.

All of the above just goes to to set up my proposition that the preconceptions we hold about exercise and dietary practices may be skewed by info gathered from steroid users.  My reasons for recommending the Paleo approach to diet are outlined in the Nutrition tab at the top of the page, but where muscle mass is a priority I simply don’t think massive amounts of carbs is as beneficial for most people as the magazines say it is.  The constant presence of insulin and blood glucose is tough on the body and persistantly high levels of carbs can just lead to getting fat.

Precision Nutrition

I increase my carb intake in the period immediately before and after my workout, using non-grain or legume starchy carbs such as yams or potatoes.  I also on occasion utilize white rice immediately post exercise.  I accompany these high carb foods with some form of low fat protein.  In essence, the time surrounding my workout, roughly an hour before to an hour afterwards, I’m temporarily low fat, high carb.  The sudden insulin spike does help drive nutrients into the muscle and helps in promoting an anabolic environment for muscle growth.  Also, the meal immediately after my workout is the largest of the day.  Huge.  This is for someone concerned with muscle gain of course, I wouldn’t recommend purposely overeating to those who are overweight or have conditions such as Type II Diabetes.

On my non workout days I eat a more conventional Paleo diet.  High fat, adequate protein, low carb.  My meals consist of meat and veggies for the most part, with some fruit, nuts, and seeds.

Overall Caloric Intake?

This is an individual issue and it will take quite a bit of self-experimentation to nail just the right amount of calories.  But keep in mind that huge 5,000+ calorie diets you read about in the magazines may not be right for you.  It takes adequate calories to grow, this is a fact, but the delicate give and take between ample muscle growth and fat gain is paper-thin.  Beginning bodybuilders can put on massive amounts of muscle mass while losing substantial bodyfat because they’re in those beginner golden years where you can do no wrong.  But the closer you get to your genetic potential, the more and more conservative your body will get.  Soon enough you will be lucky to put on 5-7 lbs of honest to goodness lean mass a year.  Eventually it can become less than that.  Take a look at Martin Berkhan’s article on the Maximum Muscular Potential of Drug Free Athletes and it paints a fairly sobering portrait.  Some people are more genetically gifted than others, but almost no one is going to be 250 lbs ripped.  I read the magazines and websites that said if I gained any more than 0.5 to 1 lbs of bodyweight a week then I was likely putting on fat.  I kept upping my calories while working out hard to keep the scale moving upwards week after week and at the end of the growth phase, most of what I put on was fat.  I had gained perhaps 5-6 lbs of lean mass and 15 lbs of fat.  I’m not a giant by any means but I gather that I’m close enough to my genetic ceiling that my growth rate has retarded dramatically and tossing more and more calories at the problem was not going to force the issue.

Excess food intake can even be detrimental to muscle mass increases.  Nevermind the anti-testosterone effect of excess bodyfat, new research by Brad Pilon proposes that muscle mass increases are caused by accute inflammation of the muscle caused by the exercise itself.  He proposes this effect is blunted by chronic levels of systemic inflammation caused by constant overeating.  I’d also argue that chronic systemic inflammation from a grain and legume laden diet would also be a problem.  You can check out more on Brad’s Inflammation Theory of Muscle Gain here.

At the end of the day, be honest with yourself and what your goals are.  If you’re happy with the guy/gal in the mirror and you’re meeting your goals in the gym, keep plugging away.  But never stop questioning the established knowledge surrounding what and how we eat to support muscle gain.