Life of Riles - Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

-A personal experience with nutrition and exercise-

Monday, August 2, 2010

I'm Back

So, for the last month I have been busy traveling and spending time with my family. I think I only did 2 traditional workouts in the last 30 days and they were in the in the first week. The rest of the time I had been laying in the sun with a little swimming thrown in.

This was truly the longest I had gone without weight exercising since I began 2 years ago. I only a little size but other than that look just about the same. I was originally worried I would lose some muscle but this did not happen. My diet during the break stayed pretty consistent with the high starch low-moderate protein and low fat.

Today was my return to the gym and it went well with no strength loss. I am still deciding and playing around with what exercises I will be using for this next program. Still looking to gain some size but my goals are slightly different. I will do a post of what my new program looks like in the next few days.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Low Protein Diets & Thermogenesis

After reviewing a research paper on obesity it appears that there may be benefit in consuming a "low protein" diet at least for short term metabolic advantage. Perhaps even permanently improving certain imbalances. There are obviously some varitations in how effect certain person's metabolisms are in effectively promoting DIT(diet induced thermogenesis). 
Perhaps these variations are contributed to nurtient quantity and limiting refined foods.

 "Using diets providing
3% protein (low-protein, LP) and 15% protein
(termed high-protein, but actually normal-protein, NP)
to overfeed university students a daily excess of
4.2 MJ (1000 kcal) or more over periods of 3 ± 6
weeks, they reported that the efficiency of weight
gain was less than predicted if the excess calories
were laid down as body fat; this deviation from
predictions being particularly marked during LP-overfeeding.
In the absence of significant changes in digestibility, in body composition and in physical
 activity level, they attributed the bulk of the `missing
calories' (re¯ected in the low efficiency of weight
gain) to an increase in heat production, and the term
dietary-induced thermogenesis came into existence.
This was subsequently shortened slightly to dietinduced
thermogenesis and abbreviated as DIT by
Stirling and Stock."

"the majority of overfeeding
studies conducted during the past 3 decades have
failed to demonstrate a high cost (that is low ef®-
ciency) of weight gain in response to overconsumption
of diets typical of af¯uent societies, in which protein contributes 12 ± 16% of energy intake.Furthermore, in a closer inspection of the gluttony
experiments of Miller et al,5,6 Stock shows that the
cost of weight gain on the NP diet (15% protein) was
more or less what would be predicted if there was no
change in energetic ef®ciency.11 By contrast, the cost
of weight gain in those volunteers overfed the LP diet
(3% protein) was well above the predicted values if
the gain in weight was entirely fat, and could only be
due to a large decrease in energetic ef®ciencyƐthat
is to the activation of DIT during overfeeding on the
LP diet."

The expirements showed that there was a much greater cost of weight gain for those eating the low protein diet. This means that there was a "wasting" of calories through diet induced thermogenesis.


"The extent to which low-protein diets could affect
energetic efficiency was not fully recognized until
Miller and Payne used two weanling pigs to compare
the effects of restricting protein intake on the
energy cost of weight maintenance with restricting
energy intake. In this rather bizarre experiment, one
pig was allowed to eat ad libitum a diet with a protein
concentration so low that however much it ate it could
only take in sufficient protein to meet its maintenance
requirement, which meant that growth was impossible.
By contrast, the high-protein pig was fed a
standard, high-protein weaning diet that would normally
produce rapid growth if fed ad libitum. However,
this pig's food intake was restricted such that the
animal could only just maintain weight i.e. growth
was limited by energy. As a result of this dietary
manipulation, the low-protein pig was found to
require almost 5-times more energy to maintain the
same body weight as the high-protein pig. It was not
possible to carry out a proper energy balance, but it is
quite obvious from the results shown in Table 4 that if
the low-protein pig had not converted most of the
extra energy it consumed to heat, it would have
deposited an amount of fat almost equivalent to its entire body weight
- that is as much fat as there was pig!"

But you may be asking yourself why this would be an advantage in our human history.

"...also result in
low efficiency of growth and increased thermogenesis,
16 the teleological argument can be put forward
that a high capacity to activate DIT has emerged
during the course of evolution as an adaptation to
nutrient-deficient diets. As argued by Stock, the
necessity to increase DIT in the face of nutrient
deficient diets probably had survival advantage
during the course of mammalian evolution since it
enables the overeating (on an energy basis) of such
nutrient-deficient diets in an attempt to achieve an
adequate intake of the specific nutrient, but without
the disadvantage of excessive fat accumulation and
hindrance to optimal locomotion, hunting capabilities,
and the ability to fight or flight. Viewed in terms of
survival value, it is therefore not surprising that
protein de®ciency is a most potent dietary stimulus
of thermogenesis, and Miller, who was very much
aware of this following earlier studies on protein :
energy requirements for maintenance, is therefore
selected a low-protein diet in order to test the ability
of humans to resist weight gain during overfeeding."

Overfeeding a Low-Protein diet could possibly be a tool to see where you stand metabolically, allowing an inside look at glandular homeostasis.

the possibility arises
that overfeeding low-protein diets could serve as a
tool for maximising DIT to exaggerate individual
differences in energetic efficiency. In other words,
low-protein overfeeding may serve as a `magnifying
glass' for unravelling the genetic and metabolic basis
by which variations in thermogenesis contribute to
susceptibility to leanness and fatness during overconsumption
of the typical (well balanced) diets of
our afluent societies."

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Serge Nubret Training DVD

I have just uploaded the very rare Serge Nubret Training DVD. In it, Serge shares his amazing insight on the philosophies of bodybuilding. It is a pretty long seminar and shows all the exercise variations that he recommends as well as his posing routine. Enjoy

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Back to posting... Serge Nubret pt.1

So I have been real busy the last 2 weeks with my best friends wedding and other obligations. I have been doing the 5 meals a day thing for about a month now and have nothing particularly special about it and find it a sort of a pain to make time to eat all the time. I do enjoy cooking but it really plays havoc with my social life trying to eat every 3 hours with my standard foods.

I am also going to pay tribute to my favorite bodybuilder in this posting. A young Nubret with a young Arnold.
The reasons why I appreciate Nubret so much are numerous. He was originally born and raised in Guadeloupe where he began lifting at 19. His first inspiration was upon seeing Steve Reeves, who is probably one of the greatest. Serge, not reading popular magazines of the day, learned that high volume moderate weight training built great mass. By the age of 21, with 2 years of training he had won the title Mr. Guadeloupe twice.

Serge is one of the most open and honest bodybuilder there ever was. He takes much time to explain to other posters many things that are beneficial and what one should focus on.

It is interesting to me that he always strictly claims to never using steroids. Even at the age of 68 when almost every other bodybuilder from his period has admitted to it. I am not saying that he is telling the truth but, he was very unique in the way that he trained as well as ate.

He would nearly always train in a fasted state. He never ate breakfast and would consume 1 to 3 huge meals a day, commonly consuming up to 3 to 4 kilos of red meat along with rice & beans. This makes him fairly unique in terms of bodybuilders. He is also big on eating real whole "mother's food". He also claims to train the same way he always has and that is based on VOLUME.

*On my homepage and to the right, there is a page labeled Words of Wisdom from Serge Nubret In it are quotes from him that I have gathered that I feel are very important.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Quick Post

So I have been doing the 5 meals a day for a week, and as of this point I am kind of enjoying it. As I mentioned before it is an odd feeling for me as I never feel real strong hunger like I did eating 3 meals a day. I considered stopping after the second day, but stuck with it and now I am enjoying it. The only part I don't care for is managing my time so that I can cook what I need to. But I am getting used to it.

My routine has been a little modified but I have seen some really good results. I have split my routine into twice a day instead of one longer session hitting two body parts each day. I hit each body part twice a week and have actually seen improvements in my lifts. Each session is 45min-1hr.

Today was the second deadlift training day. I pyramided up to a 300lb x 5 which felt really good. I am trying to make slow and steady progress. Any one that deadlifts knows the biggest problem with them.....Your Shins Take A Beating
Here are mine even after wearing long pants:

Thursday, May 6, 2010

On going process...

So I have decided to split my big meals into smaller more frequent meals to see what effect it has on my composition. I've been talking with one of my weightlifting buddies and he has convinced me to up my protein and eat more frequently. I have been apprehensive about this because our "ancestors" didn't eat like this. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am not doing things my ancestors were doing anyway. Sometimes you have to break the mold and learn what has worked for others too.

So my meals right now are about 50grams of complete protein and 100grams of carbs. I looking to reach about 5-6 meals a day.

*-Just the first day of doing this I feel alot less tired and didn't feel like taking a nap after a meal which was always the case with the big meals*

I have tweaked my program a little as far as I am going to do the volume double split and I am a incorporating a deadlift specialization program. My goal is to get to 405 by the end of the year. I am also going to be attempting to gain 25lbs of lean mass by the end of the summer and prove that it can be done without gaining much, if any fat.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Refinement and Resetting

So I was feeling extremely drained and tired this whole week. My sleep these last few weeks has been very light with waking 1-2 times each night to urinate. Then last night I couldn't even sleep because I was so hungry. After watching the Science Behind the Cycle Diet DVD this week I realized that these are signs of being in a super-compensatory state. Therefore tonight, I thought I would try a little refeed of types. I ordered a Pappa Johns' XL Cheese pizza. I ate the entire thing in about 1 hr. After finishing I felt a little full but other than that I felt great. I checked my blood sugar after 2 hrs of finishing and it was 105. It seems that my insulin sensitivity is pretty good. My vascularity right now is pretty impressive and I feel like I'm burnin' at 100 degrees.


I am finally getting my routine narrowed down and that is making me feel more confident. I feel that I am getting a little "skinny" and seem to have lost some size trying to get too lean. I am going to be taking a little break and when I come back I am going to go for a more traditional weight gaining cycle. I am going to be trying to consume 4500-5000 kcals a day(HED style) to try and regain muscle that was lost a while ago due to much under-eating. I am confident I will gain minimum fat as I have a few trick I am going to try. Early afternoon today I weighed 185 on the scale that I usually use(don't know exactly how accurate it is). My goal right is about 25 lbs I want to get back. I am going to keep a log going and will update my progress weekly.

I have lately been intrigued with bodyweight exercises and have been playing around with them. I was able to do 6 hand stand push-ups today. My goal is to get to 15+

EDIT: My waking/fasting blood glocuse the following morning was 85