Subject: Are you eating TOO much to build muscle fast? (yep, it IS a problem)
If you've ever hit a plateau with muscle building (who hasn't!),
this could be just the information you need to blast through it.
You're going to learn why you actually NEED to go on a low-
calorie diet if you want to build muscle fast! Sounds crazy, but
have a read through and see what you think.
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Why (and When) You Need to Eat LOW-Calorie If You Want to Build Maximum Muscle
By Nick Nilsson
This is going to sound strange but when you're trying to build muscle, I HIGHLY recommend doing a strategic low-calorie
diet on a regular basis.
Why low-calorie dieting for MUSCLE?
There are several reasons...
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1. Appetite
First, I've found that eating large amounts of food for long
stretches of time tends to diminish your enthusiasm for eating
large amounts of food for long stretches of time.
When your appetite drops, you're not going to be able to
eat as much without forcing yourself to, and therefore, your
overall calorie intake can potentially be diminished.
I can
tell you from experience, if you eat a LOT all the time, you
do get tired of eating. This is a way to fix it and hit the "reset" button on your appetite, which is going to pay off when you
go back to eating more again.
2. Digestive System Overload
The digestive system can be overworked if you demand too
much of it with no break. By constantly hammering the
digestive tract with piles of food, you're basically grinding
down it's capacity to digest and absorb nutrients.
So even if you're eating a lot of food, you may not even be
getting the nutrition you THOUGHT you were out of it!
3. Rebound Weight Gain
Strategic periods of low-calorie eating sets up a rebound effect
when you go back to higher-calorie eating. Basically, by taking
a few days easy and not eating much, you're going to be
creating momentum for when you go back to eating more again.
Think of the yo-yo diet thing, only with exercise. A short diet
will give you the benefits of rebound weight gain without the
detrimental effects of long-term low-calories eating and muscle
loss.
4. Insulin Sensitivity
By managing insulin levels (via low-glycemic or low-carb
dieting), you can help help improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin
is a powerful anabolic hormone...in fact, it's CRITICAL for
building muscle because it signals the muscle cells to take in
nutrients and unlocks the cellular "doors" to let nutrients in
(like a bouncer at a bar).
Here's the thing...if insulin levels are too high for too long,
your body develops resistance to insulin, which is a potential
problem with long-term heavy eating of carbs, typical of a
weight-gain diet. By backing off on food and carbs for a few
days, you give your body a chance to restore some insulin
sensitivity.
5. Keeping Bodyfat in Check While Building Muscle
One of the biggest problems people encounter with weight
gain diets is gaining weight. I'll be more specific...gaining
FAT.
Few people train hard to get fatter (nobody I know!).
This type of staggered-calorie eating is an excellent way to
keep bodyfat from climbing too high on a muscle-building, higher-calorie diet.
This can be a BIG problem because in men, because as bodyfat gets over 15 to 20%, testosterone levels drop and estrogen levels rise. This makes it even HARDER to build lean muscle and makes it EASIER to get even fatter.
The staggered-calorie approach gives you the majority of your days in a surplus-calorie
state with just a few days in a negative-calorie state. Those
negative calorie days can have a big impact on minimizing
fat gain.
I can't say you won't gain ANY fat...that'll depend
on other factors, too. But it's going to give you a much better
shot at keeping bodyfat from climbing too high and compromising your hormones.
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How to Do It
I'll give you an example from myself, from my Mad Scientist
Muscle program.
In that program, I include weekend dieting...2 days of low-
carb eating in this case. So basically, it's 5 days of high-calorie
eating then 2 days of low-calorie eating.
I don't do any training on the low-calorie days, which
minimizes any chance of muscle breakdown. As I mentioned,
it's low-carb so insulin levels are low and stable.
This sets up a nice rebound effect both from insulin and
from increase calorie load the following week (if you don't
want to do low-carb, you don't have to...low-calorie eating
in general will give you great benefits as well).
I've noticed a SIGNIFICANT difference in how well this
strategy works, as compared to straight-through higher-calorie eating. I actually find I build muscle and gain weight EASIER when I do two days of low-calorie eating every
week because of this rebound effect.
Plus, I keep bodyfat levels lower, which is great. To give
you an idea, when testing this program, over 5 months, I went from 188 lbs
in bodyweight to 217 lbs in bodyweight...not shredded
by any stretch, but I could still see a decent six-pack...which
is not bad for having gained almost 30 pounds in 5 months!
It's definitely something I would recommend you give a
try, especially if you're keen on increasing muscle mass
while keeping bodyfat in check.
The base nutritional strategy of Mad Scientist is all about
cycling of calories. It really provides a nice alternative to
constant high-calorie loads on the body while actually
delivering even BETTER results than you could achieve
with high-calories alone.
You can read more about Mad Scientist Muscle here...
Nick Nilsson
The "Mad Scientist of Muscle"