Remember some time ago when I said I was going to get swole?
Big as a damn silverback gorilla?
Well.. here we are almost a year later.
And while we made some staggering progress right out the gate, I now find myself back at square one..
Almost.
What happened, you ask?
Simple. My actions weren’t in line with my goals.
Sure, I was training my butt off and consistently raising the bar in the gym. I was eating a high-calorie diet of predominately whole foods. And I drank my camomille tea and said my prayers before bed every night.
Still, I couldn’t seem to get ahead.
“Maybe I’ve reached my genetic limit..”
“I’m just too active and my metabolism too high to put on size..”
“Maybe I should just quit and nobody will notice..”
All these excuses kept coming up in my mind. I was trying to justify my lack of progress and in doing so started to sound a lot like a little b****.
But the truth is it has nothing to do with genetics, the metabolism or other convenient excuses we like to fall back to.
I didn’t play by the rules.
I simply didn’t eat enough, didn’t provide enough building material to move forward with the objective.
Growing a considerable amount of muscle at an advanced level is HARD.
It requires a precise game plan, a lot of patience and unwavering dedication.
It requires giving up the old to build the new. Something I wasn’t ready to do.
Until now.
One Meal A Day
For the last 4 and a half years, I’ve been eating one meal a day.
Not to lose fat or maintain a certain body weight.
This is where I’m at my BEST – physically and cognitively. It’s a competitive edge, a lifestyle edge I will not give away.
After 2 decades of trial and error, I can tell you this works better for performance, mood, cognition and energy than anything else.
The problem, as you can imagine, is eating enough in a single sitting to grow. Especially when you’re running on a mammoth metabolism.
At this point, I need to consume a good chunk above 3000 calories just to maintain my weight. Anything below that means we’re moving backward. (Read this if you never want to get fat again)
Regardless, during this “bulking season”, I went from eating one massive meal at dinnertime to having a big lunch and dinner.
I was seeing the expected bump in weight and size. But it came at a cost.
After eating my first meal of the day, my energy levels and cognitive performance would immediately nosedive.
And regardless of what I did, I couldn’t seem to find a way to eat enough without throwing away the second half of the day.
The only exception was when I came out of a prolonged fast.
With insulin sensitivity peaking, I could eat large meals throughout the day and easily put away 4000+ calories without slowing down.
However, this would only last a couple of days before I was again introduced to the lethargy and sluggishness of eating at a calorie surplus.
But we still have to push the needle. And we will.
You see, I went back to the lab to dig out some old research and experiments I conducted many moons ago.
Back to nutritional strategies that were deemed outlandish when I first started delving into the subject close to twenty years ago and to this day, are anything but mainstream.
As I went through my archives, I came across my favorite book on fitness “Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat”.
Silly title aside, this is a radically unconventional guide to nutrition, training, and augmenting the human body.
The author, Ori Hofmekler is a true pioneer.
His strategies and unique take on the subject are unlike anything you’ve ever read or heard (unless you’re a regular here).
None of it makes sense initially.. until it does.
Ori Hofmekler was right
One of the strategies I picked up from him and used extensively for over a decade is to eat minimally throughout the day and consume the bulk of my calories at night.
This has proven to be the ultimate for performance, body composition and quality of life.
Now, is it something I would recommend for building muscle?
Absolutely.
But it’s not as simple as starving yourself throughout the day and stuffing yourself like a Thanksgiving turkey at night. You’ll have to play smarter than that.
Wanna look great on your next trip to the beach? (You know, without feeling the need to bury yourself in the sand after taking your shirt off.)
Follow a nutrition program designed to cut excess bodyfat.
Once you are ripped (chiseled abs, clean definition, veins popping and all) your body is primed to put on muscle.
Insulin sensitivity is at its peak and the metabolism now ready to process and assimilate large amounts of food without gaining excess fat.
And this is it.
This is where most athletes hit a wall. They shift from a calorie deficit (“cutting”) to a surplus diet (“bulking”) without ever looking back.
And within a relatively short timeframe, they’ve gained considerable amounts of body fat.
The chiseled abs and muscular definition? Gone.
Despite punishing themselves for hours in the gym, they look soft.
And even though they’re now eating a lot more food their energy is in the gutter and they’re no longer able to generate the same intensity in training.
At this point, most guys panic and jump back to their fat-loss diets or hop on the next fitness trend, while others push through on their bulks only to find themselves getting less and less return on their nutrition and training investments.
None of these approaches lead to the desired outcome.
What I will teach you here does.
Famine and Feast: Tactical Starvation and Muscle Gain
During the final stretch of last year, I was pressing the gas pedal on food so hard it would make fat people shutter.
Hellbent on packing on weight, I would eat in excess of 4500 calories a day. Yup, that’s what it takes for me to see the scale go up.
But I missed the warning signs along the way.
The incessant fatigue, the lack of cognitive spark and subpar training sessions, the need for more and more sleep, the generally foul mood.
One day, after battling a massive food hangover, I remembered the good old days of fasting and undereating and was reminded that you gotta go low to experience the highs.
I never saw favorable results by eating the same calories and macros every day.
It does nothing for me.
This, on the other hand, always works like magic: Extreme Calorie Cycling
Alternating between high-calorie and (very) low-calorie days has given me the best results of my life.
Whether we’re talking body composition, training performance, cognitive function or overall energy and well-being.
The highest highs I’ve experienced came after cycling famine and feast, controlled starvation and full compensation.
Now, this cycle works very well if done intermittently – as in my one-meal-a-day/Warrior Diet routine of the last 4 years.
As Ori put it, undereating throughout the day and overeating at night.
But the real magic happens when you stretch that cycle past the 24-hour mark, alternating between full days of undereating and overeating.
Going through controlled periods of famine and feast, without overstaying your welcome on either side, will prime your body to burn fat and build muscle.
As your body composition improves day by day, you’ll also notice a nice bump in mental acuity and physical prowess.
But make no mistake. Trying to follow this cycle moderately will not get you there.
Bring those calories ROCK BOTTOM before refueling like a sumo wrestler.
How low should you go on low-calorie days?
Reduce your diet to a necessary minimum. Protein. Veggies. Done.
This sets the stage for a massive anabolic rebound when large quantities of food are reintroduced.
Make no mistake. We’re not talking about a low-calorie diet here.
The default is always high-calorie eating. You must provide your body with enough energy while using undereating and fasting to maintain peak insulin sensitivity.
1-3 low days per week will do the job.
I’m telling you, if you follow this cycle while closely monitoring your progress, your results will leave people speechless.
[If your training is dialed in.]
Bulking is a Brain Killer
I gotta level with you.
It bothers me.
It bothers me that my muscle-gaining experiments of the last 5 years were not crowned with ultimate success.
Sure.. I’m in the best shape of my life as I write this.
But I’m not where I want to be. Not where I need to be.
You see, every time I raised my calories to fuel my massive ambition, I ran into problems.
Not of the trivial “My belly hurts” kind.
I was slowly but surely losing my mind.
Overeating makes me slow, lazy and anxious. It kills motivation and drive.
Worst of all.. it makes me dumber.
Something I will not accept as part of the deal.
And this is truly what kept me from reaching my ultimate form.
I simply couldn’t eat enough consistently to fuel growth without feeling like garbage all day.
Until now.
I’ve made the process of getting and staying ripped so easy. Very enjoyable, in fact.
But in the back of my mind, I always wanted to get bigger while maintaining the same level of conditioning.
And I made no secret about it. This was the objective.
Still is.
But only now, after years of trial and error, I have the means to make the vision a reality.
[Check out the YouTube Series where I will document the entire process.]
Food has a MASSIVE impact on your mind. Never eat recklessly in the pursuit of a cosmetic or performance goal.
It will cost you. Like it did me. And ultimately, you will not get there.
Live and learn.
We got work to do.
V
Tired of looking the same despite working your butt off and eating clean?
Tired of others blowing past you despite your efforts?
Enter M.E.A.N. and get RIPPED without dieting or wasting time at a gym.
Fully independent and totally superior.
