Current Condition... Inspiration

So I haven't really changed my diet much as far as items go. I am still generally eating potatoes, egg whites and lean beef and feeling really good. I am definitely getting more separation in my physique and the scale tells me my weight is around 185-187, although Im not sure how accurate it is.

My training routine has changed considerably. And I have continued to increase my volume of training. I have found that my body responds best to this types of training when my goals are hypertrophy. The routine is based on that of Serge Nubret. I feel that if a person is looking to increase strength, than yes, low volume is best as it causes more stress on CNS. One of the best ways to increase intensity is not through simply increasing weight but actually decreasing resting time between sets. I have also found that increase work capacity is also crucial in muscle hypertrophy.

Serge Nubret in my opinion is probably the greatest and most humble bodybuilder to come after the Golden Age. He grew-up in Guadeloupe and learned how to train through his on experiences and eating his native foods. He is against the use of supplements including protein powder, and eats and recommends a diet of Red Meat, Rice and Beans. His training style is based on the Mind-Muscle connection which I have found the most success with. I have learned not to worry about how much weight I am using and concentrate on the pump as well as the actual movement of the weight. I have included an interview which you can hear him talk about bodybuilding.

Serge Nubret Interview

I should be receiving my Science Behind the Cycle Diet DVD on Tuesday and will be reviewing it on here. I have been reading much of Scott's forum and posts and it is painting a picture for me as to how I should read my biofeedback. After viewing it, I am going to try and apply the principles if they will work for me this summer. If not, I will wait until fall time to try it.

Overfeeding, Increased Testosterone and Diet Composition

As most know, for the body to create new tissue, the body must be in a caloric excess. When a person eats more than the body can utilize, the excess is stored as fat or wasted through generating heat.

What I have been reading recently is that what you eat has an effect on what happens with excess calories that are consumed.

"This was different from the response

in our carbohydrate overfeeding study

(1), in which all subjects had an increase in

basal metabolic rate (mean 12%). One possible

explanation for this difference is that carbohydrate

overfeeding increased serum T3 levels

in all subjects (mean 32%), whereas in this

study mixed overfeeding did not always increase

serum T3 levels. It seems unlikely that

a small increase in serum T3 levels alone could

increase total energy expenditure very much,

since pharmacologically doubling T3 levels

(without overfeeding) increases basal metabolic

rate only 6% and does not affect the

thermic effect of meals or exercise (23). We

cannot rule out the possibility that increased

conversion of T4 to T3 in tissues contributes

to the increase in metabolic rate during overfeeding,

and increased responsiveness to T3

during overfeeding cannot be excluded as a

factor in the increased metabolic rate."

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/41/5/881.pdf

In this study the increased carbohydrate content increased T3 serum concentrations which in turn raised the metabolic rate. This is exactly what you want as a suppressed metabolism means suppressed hormones. It should be mentioned that the added calories in the diet were from extra desserts taken at meals (sucrose). Therefore they found that insulin levels were higher after the overfeeding, but I feel this would be different had the carbohydrates been glucose or starch based. It should be noted that in other studies:

"It has been observed that diets rich in

carbohydrate improve glucose tolerance (12,

13)"

Therefore I feel that overfeeding on a unrefined high starch diet will allow the greatest amounts of muscle to be gained while also limiting fat gains to zero or extremely low.

Diet composition plays an integral part in the hormones of the body. To gain the greatest amounts of muscle you must stimulate the muscle, feed the muscle, and have proper hormonal balance.

Many bodybuilding diets focus on consuming large amounts a protein. Extra protein that is not necessary and is a burden on the systems of the body. Protein is not a normal energy source and is extremely inefficient if it is called on to become one. While doing much studying, I have found yet another reason to avoid too much protein:

"The significant negative correlation between protein and resting T concentrations is consistent with the findings of Anderson et al. (2), who demonstrated that a low-protein diet (10% of total energy) was associated with higher levels of T compared with a diet higher in protein (44% of total energy)"

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/49#B24

"Testosterone concentrations in seven normal men were consistently higher after ten days on a high carbohydrate diet (468 +/- 34 ng/dl, mean +/- S.E.) than during a high protein diet (371 +/- 23 ng/dl, p less than 0.05)"

"In contrast, cortisol concentrations were consistently lower during the high carbohydrate diet than during the high protein diet (7.74 +/- 0.71 micrograms/dl vs. 10.6 +/- 0.4 micrograms/dl respectively, p less than 0.05)"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3573976?dopt=Abstract

Increased Testosterone and decreased Cortisol!! That is the perfect combination. It appears that a high carbohydrate is extremely anabolic and anti-catabolic.

By this chart, that correlates the effects of macro-nutrients on testosterone concentrations, you can easily see that the optimal diet is one that contains High Carbohydrates, Moderate Protein, and a High ratio of Saturated to unsaturated fats. This diet seems to be consistent with what Matt Stone's RRARF and my own recommendations. So as you you look to build muscle keep these variables in mind.

My next post I will discuss proper exercise regimens and how the utilize them.

Potatoes, Protein. . . and some Low Volume Training

The Lovely Potato

So as a few of you know, I am a true potato fiend. In my opinion, they easily belong in the top 5 foods that a person eats. I am doing a sort of research project on them and what I am finding is really interesting.

...This root being superior to both oat and wheat breads:

"The chairmen, porters, and coalheavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be the greater part of them from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution."

Here are some more that I found:

"what the Board of Agriculture mentions as a fact of the greatest importance, that potatoes and water alone, with common salt, can nourish men completely"

"The potato, which in some points of view, may justly be regarded as one of the greatest blessings to our species, is capable of operating the greatest calamities, when it exclusively furnishes the food on which a community is content to exist"

"The small farmers live on potatoes and milk. It is considered that he is a very fortunate man if he has milk for his family. He sells his butter and never uses oatmeal in his house."

It seems that these people were therefore living almost entirely on the potato and supplementing it with skimmed milk. This really makes me question the supposed 'great need for fats' in the diet.

Although this is probably not the 'Optimal' human diet, it shows that with enough calories and nutrients it is highly sustainable for hard working people. While I believe that there is no perfect diet, I have experimented with and witnessed that there are several similar factors to them all.

PROTEINS

I have recently increased my protein intake to see what kind of effect it will have on my current condition and recovery abilities. I have been reading up on protein deficiency to see what exactly it is and the symptoms of it.

I found this obvious but unrealized to me: " Protein deficiency is generally caused by lack of total food energy, making it an issue of not getting food in total."

This makes a lot of sense to me as that is why if you see a culture that has a low protein consumption, it is almost always high in starch. Carbohydrates 'spare' protein from being catabolized by the body to produce the much needed glucose (the bodies preferred source of energy). It is important to get your diet free of white sugar and excess fructose to help increase your insulin sensitivity. By doing this you will be able to eat a high starch diet and reap all the benefits with out any of the negatives often associated with 'evil carbs'.

People often talk about the bio-availability [BV] of protein. The problem with this is that the body is an amazing machine and nothing is simple. In studies it was found that "the BV of a protein is related to the amount of protein given. BV is measured at levels below the maintenance level. This means that as protein intake goes up, the BV of that protein goes down. For example, milk protein shows a BV near 100 at intakes of 0.2 g/kg. As protein intake increases to roughly maintenance levels, 0.5 g/kg, BV drops only around 70.^[20] Pellet et al., concluded that "biological measures of protein quality conducted at suboptimal levels in either experimental animals or human subjects may overestimate protein value at maintenance levels." As a result, while BV may be important for rating proteins where intake is below requirements, it has little bearing on individuals with protein intakes far above requirements."

It is easy to see that body adapts to what is being put into. The problem is when we make it extremely difficult for the body to maintain homeostasis. That is where health problems quickly arise. So therefore it is important to monitor yourself and your cravings. These will allow you to feed your body with what it wants when it wants it.

New Routine - Starting 4/5/10

So the new routine is a combination of several things I have been reading and discussing with others. I have decided that I need to improve my strength and not get caught up to much with the high volume training that pro's use. It is effective but should only be used only every-once-in-a-while.

*I will am writing it up right now and will post as soon as I finish*

Current Routine

This is what my current routine looks like:

Monday - Chest & Back

Incline DB Bench Press 6 x 6-8

Flat DB Flys 6 x 8

DB Pullover 6 x 8

Lat Pulldown (Wide Overhand Grip) 6 x 6-8

Cable Row 6 x 8

Tuesday - Shoulder, Bi & Tri

Behind Neck Shoulder Press 6 x 6-8

Lateral DB Raise 6 x 8

Standing BB Curl 6 x 6-8

Incline DB Curl 6 x 8

Lying French Press 6 x 8

Tri Rope Extension 6 x 8

Wednesday - Legs & Lower Back

Leg Extension 6 x 8-10

Front Squat 6 x 6

Romanian Deadlift 4 x 8

Thursday - Chest & Back

Flat Bench Press 6 x 6

Incline DB Flys 6 x 8

Straight Arm Pulldown 6 x 8

Chin Up/Supinated Lat Pulldown 6 x 6

Bent-over Row 6 x 8

Friday - Shoulders, Bi & Tri

DB Shoulder Press 6 x 6-8

Upright Row 6 x 8

Preacher Curl 6 x 6

Concentration Curl 6 x 8

DB Lying French Press 6 x 8

Tri Pushdown 6 x 8

This is what my routine looks like that I have been following for about 5 weeks now. I have increasing each exercise either in reps or in weight each workout. I do a very short rest between sets no more than 1 min. I rest 2 min between exercises. Workouts normally take me about 75 mins.

A Re-cap

So this is what my typical lunch looks like. Mind you, this is what I eat after my workouts. In it is 2lbs of white potatoes, 8oz of beef, 1/4 onion, 3 hot peppers, cooked in beef tallow. I normally eat this at 1 o' clock and it keeps me satisfied to about 7 o' clock.

I have been adding calories each week. I am aiming to get to 4500 on training days as that is what has been calculated that I reach to continue to grow. I was previously only eating about 2000 cals each day which is well below even my BMR.

Got a pic of the liver. I decided that each week I am going to be having liver at least once. I will have some of this one one Saturday. I haven't had liver in a very very long time, but I think I enjoyed it. Even if I don't at first, I'm sure the vitamins and minerals will do me well as I am probably deficient in a few.

I am still waiting on the bone broth as I need to get to the meat market for some soup bones and ox tails. I saw that they fresh pork hocks and I wounder if those would be good for making broth. There is also a local place that has goat meat for sale that I might check out.

I am posting a couple of before pictures to document my "bulking" experiment. (The lighting is pretty bad and detail is horrible)

Something on the Horizon

So...
Thus far I have still been eating mostly potatoes for carbs and todays workout went really well. It was Chest & Back and I had good energy and intensity. The workout looked like this:

Neutral Grip Incline DB Bench 6x6
Flat DB Flys 6x8
DB Pullover 6x8
Wide Grip Pulldown 6x8
Cable Row 6x8

This may seem like high volume but it is at a very fast pace and I have alot of down time during the day to recover. The other change is that I am planning on really building up my legs and body using 20 rep squats. This is one of the best over all body builders of all time.

I been contemplating and conversing with a couple of people and I have decided to go a little "unorthodox" with the diet. By this I mean compared to what the standard "bodybuilding diet" looks like.

Change 1] I am increasing my kcals much higher than they have been. I have been kind of consciously limiting my calories trying to get leaner. But after a recent discussion I realize that I need to eat some serious food to build more muscle which in turn will burn body fat. I am focusing on maintaining my protein and consuming more energy foods to fuel my body for growth

Change 2 ] I am planning to take creatine monohydrate which I am going to start next week. It has been suggested to me that I should load for 5 days at 30grams a day and then maintain at 5grams a day for 6 months. I am kind of excited to start this as it is the only natural supplement that has ever really been proven to increase muscle mass and strength

Change 3] LIVER & STOCK...I am going to eat a serving of liver once a week at first to build up my vitamin reserve. I am also going to be making bone stock to further increase the amount of vitamins and minerals I consume.

Hopefully with these changes as well as the additional calories will allow me to put on 20 lbs of muscle. I will try and remember to take some before pics to document the whole process.

Little Update

It has been a while since I gave a personal update. I have been doing a lot of reading on several blogs and am starting to incorporate some things I have read into my diet.

All this week I have been eating my largest meal which I increased the calories of (160g Carbs 70g Protein) at lunch, which happens to be my post-workout meal. It feels pretty good doing it this way.

I have also been replacing potatoes with white rice at a few meals as I think I am going to switch and have rice as my main starch. I have been reading about how iron can interfere with glucose tolerance and potatoes are fairly high in iron.

I have decided to continue to increase my overall caloric intake. I will be doing this slowly, adding 250 a day, each week.

I found this great little program on one of the bodybuilding sites I frequent. Total Metabolism Forecaster If you go to the last page of this thread you will find the most recent version. It allows you to plug in calories and macros as well as other variables and helps you determine how your metabolism will react to those variables. It seems to be pretty accurate and shows what percent of starvation does to the slowing of your metabolism.