This is an excerpt from my Think Big ebook. You can use code CHIMERA to get 50% off the book here. I am shifting my focus to diet coaching, so if you would like to work with me, click here.
You’ve probably heard the saying about how bodybuilding is 80% diet. That’s not quite true, but diet is probably the biggest factor in determining how you look, assuming you’re following a halfway decent program.
Since this book is about powerbuilding, we’ll focus mainly on gaining size. Let’s be honest, though: no one just cares about size. No one wants to look big and fat. We want quality size: hard, lean, functional muscle with as little fat as possible. That’s a lot trickier than just getting big, but it’s not impossible. In fact, with a good nutrition strategy and a good training program, it’s almost easy.
The Basics
For most people, choosing the right foods to eat will make a huge impact on your physique – far more than any macro breakdown, meal plan timing, or whatever other complicated strategy Internet gurus rave about.
Here’s the deal: everyone is different. So unless you’re working closely with a qualified coach, you can only figure out what balance of macros works for you by experimenting. Deciding you’re going to rock a keto diet, or carb cycle, or whatever only works if your body responds well to that strategy. And it’s difficult to maintain rigid macro plans when you go out to eat with friends or are traveling.
Other plans, like intermittent fasting and carb backloading, claim that it doesn’t matter what you eat as long as you time your meals carefully. To an extent, that’s true: total caloric intake does determine weight loss or gain. But in more practical terms, there are some big problems with strict meal timing. First, it’s almost impossible to accurately estimate your caloric intake when you’re essentially bingeing every day. Second, if you’re at all concerned about strength, it’s important to be well fed before and after a workout. Most importantly, who the fuck only wants to eat once a day?
Here’s a better idea: don’t eat like an asshole. That just means choose healthier, less-processed foods that are a bit higher in protein. Yeah, everyone is different, and some people can get that Greek god physique while pounding chips and guac at Sunday brunch. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you were that person, chances are, you wouldn’t be reading this book right now. On the other hand, smart food choices make it easy to control your caloric intake. As a bonus, they’re usually lower in the types of fats and additives that can sometimes make you feel sluggish in the gym.
From there, it’s just about tracking your changes. The easiest way to track your progress is just by weighing yourself regularly. It’s best to weigh yourself once per week, because daily fluctuations in water weight can make patterns hard to notice. My weight can fluctuate as much as ten pounds in a day, and obviously no one can gain ten pounds of muscle or lose ten pounds of fat in so little time.
Body weight isn’t necessarily the best measure of progress, though, because that number doesn’t tell you if you’re achieving your goals or if you’re actually gaining fat and losing muscle instead. There’s two ways to tackle this problem. One is to also measure your body composition, either using calipers or a more advanced (and expensive) method like hydrostatic weighing or DEXA. That was you can specifically track muscle gain and fat loss. Unfortunately, body composition measurements are often inaccurate, and a small discrepancy in testing between measurements can be enough to make them practically worthless.
I like to keep things simple. In addition to the number on the scale, I ask myself two questions: Do I look better in the mirror? And am I getting stronger? If the answer to both those questions is yes, and the scale’s moving in the right direction, I know for sure that I’m making good progress.
Gaining Muscle
First things first: it’s important to start gaining muscle at the right time. Sorry, but if you’re already 20% bodyfat, eating to gain more size isn’t going to make you look better, it’s just going to make you look fat. So, if that’s the case, spend some time cutting down into the 12% range before you worry about getting big. Personally, I prefer to stick around 10%; I feel better a bit leaner and have a better appetite, but this is individual. Go with what makes you comfortable.
How Much to Eat
Once you’re ready to start gaining, the first step is to figure out where you are now. If you’re like me, that’s easy. I eat pretty much the same foods every day – I don’t get bored and I don’t have a lot of time to devote to meal prep, so that works very well for me. Other people prefer lots of variety, and that’s totally fine, but it will take you a bit longer to figure out where you’re at. Regardless, here’s how to start:
You need to track your total caloric intake for at least 3, and preferably 5 days. Sign up for a free account at a food-tracking website and start logging.
Make sure the days you track include both training and non-training days.
At the end of 3-5 days, you should know how many calories and how many grams of carbs, protein, and fats you ate each day. Average these (add them up and divide by the number of days you tracked).
Note if you ate more or less on training days compared to off days.
Don’t worry if this seems complicated – you can use the worksheet included in Chapter 5 as a guide.
Now, we’re trying to gain weight, so take whatever number you came up with for total calories, and add 10%. So if you were eating 2000 calories per day, bump that up to 2200; if you were eating 4000 before, now you’re at 4400. Simple, right?
It should be, and if you’re not too concerned about body composition, you can stop there. Stick with the new, higher-calorie diet until you stop gaining, and then add another 10%, and so on, until you reach your goals. This is a perfectly fine method, although it can be improved. If you’re really set on adding muscle with as little fat as possible, read on.
What to Eat
We’ve already covered the importance of not eating like an asshole, and again, that’s the most important thing. But there are other, still-important things you can do to help address common problems.
I can’t eat enough to gain!
Tough love: chances are, you’re just not trying hard enough. You might have to force yourself to eat for a couple of days or even weeks, but if you’re persistent and careful, you’ll adjust to eating more. Do not miss meals! Skipping a meal might make you feel better in the short term, but it will make it that much harder for your body to get used to eating more.
You can also make things easier on yourself my choosing more nutrient-dense foods. These are foods that pack lots of calories into a small volume of food. Easy example: can you eat more calories in rice cakes or rice? Unless you really love rice cakes, the answer is obviously rice. One cup of rice has more calories than an entire package of rice cakes, so it’s far easier to get calories from the former. Check out the list of food suggestions for more examples of nutrient-dense choices (sorry, McDonald’s doesn’t count as nutrient dense).
When to Eat
When you eat isn’t as important as what you eat, but there are some easy ways you can minimize fat gain as you add slabs of muscle. Again, we’re going for efficiency here: if you’re exhausting yourself by following an overly restrictive diet, you won’t have the energy to sink into heavy barbell training.
Circa-Workout Nutrition
Your first step should be to look at what you’re eating around you workouts. I recommend trying to eat about 50% of your daily allotment of carbohydrates in the space from 2 hours before until 2 hours after your workout.
That might seem like a lot at first, but let’s break it down:
About 2 hours before you train, have a solid-food meal that’s roughly 60-70% carbs, 20-30% protein, and 10% fats. My go-to: pancakes, oatmeal, 2 whole eggs, and a protein shake. Find something that doesn’t sit heavy on your stomach but will keep you from feeling depleted during a 2-hour workout.
When you get to the gym, start sipping on BCAAs mixed with carbohydrate powder. I recommend Recovery Factor X from Granite Supplements: it’s formulated by IFBB pro bodybuilder and legendary bodybuilding coach, John Meadows, and has everything you need for the course of a training session. Use 1-2 scoops depending on your size.
As soon as you finish your training, slam a protein shake with 20 grams of quality protein powder and 60-100 grams of carbs. I actually drink this in the middle of my workout, as soon as I’ve finished my heavy training for the day and am about to start on my accessory work. That way, I’m hungry again by the time I’ve finished training and can immediately eat again.
Within 2 hours of finishing your workout, eat another solid-food meal that’s high in carbohydrates, with at least 20-30 grams of protein and minimal fats.
Breaking it down like this will make it easy to get in all the calories, carbs, and protein you need, and you can easily adjust the amounts to fit your own macro goals for the day.
Time Between Meals
Conventional bodybuilding knowledge says that you should have no more than 2-3 hours between meals. This is a good guideline for most people. However, everyone is different. Here are some things to keep in mind when planning your meal timing:
Your Schedule. If you’ve got an extremely busy schedule, then yeah, you could make time to slam a protein shake or sneak to the bathroom to eat some chicken out of a Tupperware container – but it’s not absolutely necessary. If it’s more convenient for you to eat every 4 hours than every 2-3, that’s not a dealbreaker. Do not let yourself go an entire day without food, though. Consider 4 hours the upper limit on meal timing, and if you have any doubt about your ability to get a meal in during that time, carry a protein shake or some other easy food source with you during your day.
Your Digestion. If you’re eating larger meals, or if meals tend to sit in your stomach a while, you might not want to eat every 2-3 hours because it causes you to feel uncomfortable. That’s okay; again, remember that we’re trying to focus on the 20% that gives the most gains. In this case, the 20% is eating the right foods and the right amount of foods; if you feel more comfortable eating 3-4 meals per day instead of 5-6, you’re better off sticking with what feels right (at least in this case).
Your Sleep. Sleep is extremely important to recovery! If you find that you have difficulty sleeping after a meal, then adjust your meal timing so that you’re not eating with an hour or two of bedtime. On the other hand, if a full stomach helps you sleep, make sure to allocate some of your calories for the evening.
Carb Frontloading
You might have heard about carb backloading, which is essentially binging on carbohydrates before bed. Carb frontloading is much different. You’re simply trying to eat all of your carbs for the day in the earlier hours of the morning and afternoon, and eating more proteins and fats later at night.
There are two purposes to carb frontloading. Unlike circa-workout nutrition, carb frontloading is unlikely to have a direct and significant impact on body composition or muscle growth. However, it can have pretty substantial indirect impacts:
First, most people tend to feel a little more energetic when they’re following a higher-carb diet. Is this always the case? Of course not. But assuming you’re not following an extremely low-carb diet (which would make gaining muscle practically impossible) then it makes good sense to eat the majority of your carbohydrates earlier in the day, when you tend to be more active.
More importantly, everyone has a finite amount of willpower. Carb frontloading helps to structure your diet in a way that reduces the temptation to mindless pound some cereal or candy late at night, when you’re already exhausted from daily activities.
Is carb frontloading necessary? Absolutely not. At this point, we’re dealing with minor changes that can make some difference, but not huge ones.
Cheat Meals
This is the section you were waiting for, right? Cheat meals are a great tool for building muscle, but it’s important to remember that they’re just tools. They’re not excuses to let your diet go to shit, and they’re not something you should incorporate into your plan haphazardly.
Frequency and Timing
I’m not a big proponent of regular cheat meals while trying to gain muscle and not in a caloric deficit. It’s a different story when you’re trying to lose fat: cheat meals can really help you to maintain your metabolism and keep up intense training during the later stages of a diet.
Since that’s not the case here, we’ll go by feel for cheat meals. Personally, I like to save my cheat meals for special occasions or travel, but there are plenty of other good, productive reasons to deviate from your regular foods. If you’re feeling mentally or physically drained from intense training, for example, cheat meals can be a nice way to regain some enthusiasm. Or if you have weak points that you want to emphasize, plan a cheat meal for the night before the training session that you feel needs the most improvement. (So, if your back is weak, take your cheat meal around your back & biceps day.)
Let the mirror and your measurements guide your frequency: if you’re gaining too much bodyfat for your preferences, cut back on the number of cheat meals.
One important caveat: do not use cheat meals as an emotional crutch. This can be tempting for many people, but it’s important you look for healthier ways to deal with stress that isn’t imposed by your training.
Food Choices
Again, remember that a cheat meal is a tool. You should try to use it to get some extra protein and good calories, so choose accordingly: fresh meats and healthy carbs and fat are your best bets. Ice cream and candy probably aren’t going to help your body grow, but hitting up some barbecue or sushi very well might. I’m not saying that you should be super strict here – that would defeat the purpose of using the cheat meal as a physical and mental break. But remember the first rule of dieting: don’t eat like an asshole. That still applies, even when you’re cheating.
How Much to Eat
Again, we’re trying to find a balance here. Binging until you’re about to burst isn’t healthy or productive. Eat until you’re full, not until you’re one bite away from a diabetic coma. An easy way to self-moderate here is to drink a couple of glasses of water before you start eating, and to eat slowly. But there’s no need to track your calories or macros when you’re having a cheat meal.
Supplements
Supplements are just what they sound like — they’re extras. Supplements will never make or break your training or progress, but they can help, and some (like creatine) can help a whole lot.
The supplement industry is a billions-dollar business, so there’s a lot of bullshit out there, and even choosing a brand of creatine or protein can seem overwhelming. You’ve probably noticed the ads for Granite Supplements in this book – they’re here because Granite is one of the very few companies I trust for my own supplements, and so if you are having trouble choosing a brand, you won’t go wrong with them.
I recommend some products below, including many from Granite Supplements While I no longer work with Granite, Brittany does, so if you choose to use their products, we’d appreciate it if you’d use their code BDIMEZ10. Britt does receive a commission for this. We do not get kickbacks from any of the other products.
Creatine
If you’re only getting one supplement, it should be creatine. Creatine is proven to safely and effectively increase strength and weight and is absolutely necessary for a powerlifter. I take 15-20 grams of creatine every day, split up into two doses to avoid stomach problems. Most studies suggest that only 5-10 grams of creatine are necessary, but I have found that a higher intake produces much more noticeable results. There are many, many different forms of creatine available, but the “standard,” creatine monohydrate, is just as good as any of the fancier variations, and much less expensive. I don’t cycle creatine.
I recommend the cheapest creatine monohydrate you can find.
Essential Amino Acids
Next on the list are essential amino acids. Note that these are a little bit different than branched-chain amino acids. Amino acids are the compounds that make up protein; the three branched-chain amino acids are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. BCAAs work: leucine in particular signals your body to produce muscle, so even taking leucine alone can be beneficial. However, your body needs more than just leucine and the other BCAAs for proper functioning and muscle building. In fact, there are eight essential amino acids that your body can’t produce on its own – you have to get them from some external source!
Personally, I supplement with huge amounts of EAAs, because they work, they taste great and they are very affordable. I put 2 scoops of Granite’s Adamantium Aminos Essential Amino Acids into my intra-workout shake, and sip on another 2-3 scoops spread out throughout the day. That much isn’t necessary, although I feel it works well for me. If you want to try EAAs, though, I do recommend that you make sure to take a dose that provides at least 6 grams of leucine during your workout to see the maximum benefits.
Stimulants
Stimulants are my absolute favorite kind of supplement. They’re also my least favorite. That’s because stimulants are a double-edged sword, in more ways than one. You’re probably familiar with the crash that accompanies most energy drinks – and, while that sucks, it’s not such a big problem. Just choose a product that doesn’t leave you feeling crashed, or make sure to use it after you’ve finished most of your tasks for the day.
The bigger problem with many stimulants involves their effect on training. You know this deal, too: you take a double scoop of preworkout, crush your training session, and are riding high – until the next day, when you feel like a train wreck. Same thing the day after that. In fact, it might be two or three days until you’re feeling good again, and in the meantime, your training suffers.
Stimulants don’t directly wreck your training, but they do make it very difficult to gauge what you’re capable of and how hard you’re working. As a result, taking too many stimulants causes many people to overreach in their training, and to have difficulty recovering in short term. Sustained use can even lead to overtraining.
So, should you skip the stims? Absolutely not. They do directly and noticeably increase performance. You just need to be conservative with the products you choose and the doses you take. Don’t overdo it here, or you’re asking for trouble.
I don’t use strong preworkout stimulants anymore, but I stand by everything written above. If you’re looking for a good preworkout with stims, Granite’s product is called GX Preworkout. I am not picky about these products and think anything with about 200 milligrams of caffeine is good.
Pump Enhancers
Another one of my favorites. In the powerlifting world, a lot of people will tell you that the pump doesn’t matter – and that’s half true. You can get strong without getting a huge pump every time you train.
But most guys don’t want to just get strong – they want to get big and strong. And the pump is absolutely crucial for muscle growth. A pump drives blood into the muscles you’re training, delivering nutrients and helping them expand. Is it temporary? Sure, in the short term. In the long term, huge pumps lead to growth. Again, my go-to pump product comes from Granite Supplements: Arc Reactor’s ingredients are proven to be safe and effective, plus Arc Reactor contains just a few stimulants – enough to get you going for a good workout, but not so many that you’ll end up burning out as described above.
Just a side note: even if you’re not training for size, a pump can still be beneficial. A light pumping workout after a heavy training day can reduce soreness. And getting a good pump can help you feel your muscles working better, and over time help you form a better mind-muscle connection. That mind-muscle connection is crucial in activating the appropriate muscle groups when you’re performing heavy compound lifts like the squat, bench press, and deadlift.
I love non-stim preworkouts. Granite’s product is called Vaso Blast. I also like Vasoblitz by Build Fast Formula, Gorilla Mind Nitric, Axe and Sledge Hydraulic.
Protein
Protein is last on the list because I don’t really consider it a supplement: it’s a food. Protein powders are just a convenient way to get more protein and more calories in your diet. They’re extremely helpful if you’re pressed for time and can’t sit down to eat a meal; or if you have difficulty eating enough food to grow. Are they necessary? Absolutely not. Again, no supplement is going to make or break your progress.
I use protein powder sparingly: in my postworkout shake, and if I’m in a rush. Protein powder isn’t “worse” than other lean protein sources, like chicken breast, tuna, or egg whites, but I’d caution you to not rely exclusively upon protein powders in your diet. They do lack some of the valuable micronutrients that are present in the other foods mentioned. Like everything else, it’s all about balance.
I use hydrolyzed beef protein from True Nutrition.
I hope you found this except helpful. If you have feedback, please leave it in the comments or email me by clicking here.