It occurred to me over the weekend that this is going to be one hell of a long series, so I've decided to break it up into its component diets. Given that they've the furthest to go, I thought we'd start with our tubby compatriots- they need a head start shuffling towards whatever destination to which we send them, and ample breaks to catch their breath and shoot insulin and the like.
The Fat Fuck Approach
I've actually not had to use this, as I have about the same ability to ignore the sensation of my abdominal fat sitting on my waistband when seated as those overly pretty people on the Bachelor have for admitting that they're actual prostitutes. As soon as I start feeling that sensation, I start dieting my fucking ass off. Once lean, I freak out when I lose abdominal vascularity, much less my abs in general. As such, I've had to extrapolate from the diet I used to jump start my fat loss once I noticed that my abs were going the way of the the Kardashian family's collective personal pride.
As with everything I do, this diet is hardly a hard and fast dietary regimen, but rather more like a broad outline with suggestions on what you can do with the finer points. Thus, you should experiment with a couple of different approaches to determine what works best for you. From there, you can carry what you've learned into the succeeding phases and have an even better handle on your diet than the cast of that ridiculous show Mike and Molly, who apparently have made a pact to eat into immobility in recent years.
The Rundown
If you're concerned about calories, you will moderate your caloric intake according to your individual metabolism. I'm not talking about some bullshit, low-brow, Easy Bake Oven BMR calculation- you will find your sweet spot through experimentation, because you're a fucking mad scientist and only you can understand your own insanity. Additionally, my conception of a workout is considerably different tan that of most, so it would be completely disingenuous for me to suggest that I could tell you what caloric intake would result in the most fatloss and muscular gain. I can tell you that your body will tell you when it's had enough fatty meat. My sweet spot seems to be between 1 and 3.5 lbs of meat in a sitting, depending on the type, my level of activity, and where I am in a week.
Luckily for you, "studies of ketogenic diets have found that when subjects are told to limit carbohydrate intake but to consume "unlimited" quanitites of protein and fat, they automatically limit caloric intake and consume between 1400-2100 calories." (Ketogenic Diet 101) That's a very cool biological cruise control you've got built in, and I can say that though I generally go a bit higher than that (2000-3000 calories) in my evening meal, I definitely hit a point where I can go no further, and it's not from being stuffed- my body just taps out and says and says "fuck it, I'm done." The key here, especially for you tubby motherfuckers, is to stop eating before you're full. Luckily, meat on the bone slows your eating considerably (I personally tend to scarf down my food like a wild, starving dog), so you'll have a better sense of where you stand in terms of fullness than you would otherwise.
There is one unfortunate caveat for you people, however- years of overindulging have fucked you harder than a big-bootied white girl at a black fraternity and you can no longer fully trust your body's satiety signals. Leptin is the hormone made by fat cells that causes your brain to listen to signals of satiety, but overweight people, having much greater fat stores, have higher leptin levels and become resistant to the signal. As such, I would start toward the lower end of the caloric spectrum and increase as needed, using your level of energy in workouts as a guide. (Russell 22) One nice thing about the structure of this diet is that it will help to moderate the other side of the hormonal overeating coin- ghrelin. That's the hormone that tells your body you're hungry, and it's suppressed with high fat diets. As such, you'll likely find you're hungriest on your Rampage day, since you won't be eating such high fat foods throughout the day.
Many of you, upon seeing some quick results, are going to come to the conclusion that you should skip your Rampage day to prolong your fat loss. If you choose to do so, I would add in another high calorie day (but not consecutive with another), and would not recommend that you go more than two weeks without a cheat meal, both for sanity and your metabolism's sake. The reason I start this phase with a 10-14 day keto run is that the fatter you are, the harder it is for your body to get into ketosis. Basically, if you think of your glycogen stores as a water glass, you filled that fucker up years ago and kept dumping buckets of water on top of the full glass for years, while leaving it out in the rain. In Seattle. Your insulin receptors threw in the fucking towel years ago, while you shoving Little Debbie snack cakes down your piehole and washing it down with a Coke. You're completely destroyed your body's ability to correctly recognize its own metabolic signals, so you're going to have to suffer a bit to undo the damage you've done. Additionally, Dan Duchaine was a big fan of starting ketogenic phases with 10-14 day keto runs, and that makes good sense- fat people produce ketone bodies much more slowly than do lean people.(Russell 22) Thus, I can drop into ketosis inside a day right now, but the 308 lber trying to drop to 242 is going to take the better part of the week, for the reasons I outlined earlier in this paragraph.
In regards to how much carbohydrate you should eat, which I'm sure many of you are wondering, you should shoot to keep your carbohydrates to 30 grams or less a day. "Although up to 100 grams of carbohydrate will allow ketosis to develop, it would be rare to see ketones excreted in the urine at this level of intake."(Ketogenic Diet 104) Because you've spent the last several years stuffing your face with all manner of bullshit, you might want to go ahead and forgo it for the time being so as to get your body back to a state where it can better tolerate carbs. The nice thing about dieting is that the leaner you get and stay, the more leeway you end up having with it, and the more rapidly you can make physiological changes for the better. Think of fatloss like a massive freight train- it's a bitch to get that motherfucker moving, but once it's up to speed, nothing short of a nuke is stopping that fucking thing from reaching its destination.
Is this phase going to be fun? In spots. Eating every meal with your hands is fucking awesome, in my opinion. There's less cleanup, you get to use wet wipes, and gnawing on a bone is a hell of a good way to avoid biting your fingernails. The days you're not eating real food, however, are going to fucking blow. That's the price you pay for years of eating like dogshit, however, and if you want to be a beast, you're going to have to go hungry like one every now and again.
Sample Week Of The Fat Fuck Approach
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday:
5-6 protein shakes with a less calorically dense dinner. This is intended to rotate your calories and stimulate more fatloss.
Friday:
Watered-down Rampage day. Keep you carbs reasonable, and focus on getting lean proteins throughout the day. To give you an idea of how I did this to into single digit bodyfat, most Rampage days consisted of 94% lean meat tacos on low carb shells. For my cheat meals, I went bananas, but I'd suggest that while you definitely want to make sure you eat a considerable amount of carbs, you should keep your calories in check until you're starting to see decent progress. This is for two reasons- you need to learn dietary discipline and because your body still has massive fat stores on which to draw, so massive cheats are unnecessary. I'll cover the Rampage Day in depth in an upcoming post, but for now I'd say eat lean and low-to-moderate carb throughout the day and cap the day with a carbohydrate bonanza the likes of which you've likely not seen since you saw undergraduate college girls descend on a table of free bagels. In terms of amounts, I'll agree with Dave Palumbo and say your initial Rampage day should be in the neighborhood of 400 grams of carbohydrates. If you don't lose more weight the following week, reduce that number. If you lost plenty, you can adjust it up. For you guys, however, I'd suggest you go easy, since you've mangled your insulin sensitivity worse than that broad who got attacked by a chimp a couple of years ago.
Saturday:
Protein Sparing Modified Fast. Nothing but shakes in water today. Quite frankly, you're likely going to want to skip the gym today and just occupy yourself otherwise, but if you do plan on training, be prepared for it to suck, so don't plan to hit PRs.
Sunday:
Keto day, but eat two meals today- one smaller and one larger. Make sure you train on this day- your lift will be awesome.
What You Will Need For This Diet
A Note About Women And This Diet
Assuming you're a woman or have ever met one, you're aware that women regard carbohydrates like the last life boat on the titanic and will maul you like a fucking honey badger if you get between them and their potatoes. There's actually a psychochemical reason for this- women appear to either have chronically low seratonin and tryptophan levels or are just addicted to high levels of the two chemicals. This is especially true around their period, at which time the production of both chemicals in the brain is suppressed. Additionally, seratonin reduces anxiety, from which every chick I know suffers, and tryptophan is the amino-acid precursor to seratonin, so it contributes to anxiety suppression as well. (Sayegh et all, Christie)
Guess what kinds of foods stimulate the production of those chemicals? Carbohydrates.
Protein-rich foods (i.e. the foods women typically ignore for carbohydrate-laden foods) increase dopamine and norepinephrine, which means eating a lot of protein will make you more alert and energetic. This may be why men are so ready with solutions to any woman's problems, and happy to share them until she plants a fucking fork in his eye for doing so.
The reason why I'm including this is because women need a priest qualified for an exorcism and a psychiatrist far more than they need this diet. I'm not saying you necessarily can't do it, but it'll likely make you miserable for a couple of weeks. Men with high estrogen levels and might have this problem too, but that's just speculation. The original sound guy for the Grateful Dead is apparently 100% carnivorous and had this to say about chicks and keto diets:
Up next, dieting for the Not Too Fucking Fat But Not Too Fucking Lean and the Rampage explained fully and completely.
Sources:
Christie, Catherine. Mood-Food Relationships. http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Met-Obe/Mood-Food-Relationships.html#b
Doweiko, Harold E. Concepts of Chemical Dependency.
Macdonald, Lyle. Ketogenic Diet.
Russell, Sharmen Apt. Hunger: An Unnatural History.
Sayegh R, Schiff I, Wurtman J, Spiers P, McDermott J, Wurtman R. The effect of a carbohydrate-rich beverage on mood, appetite, and cognitive function in women with premenstrual syndrome. Obstet Gynecol. 1995 Oct;86(4 Pt 1):520-8. http://web.mit.edu/dick/www/pdf/909.pdf
Stanley, Owsley. Diet and Exercise. http://thebear.org/essays1.html#anchor496162
The Fat Fuck Approach
I've actually not had to use this, as I have about the same ability to ignore the sensation of my abdominal fat sitting on my waistband when seated as those overly pretty people on the Bachelor have for admitting that they're actual prostitutes. As soon as I start feeling that sensation, I start dieting my fucking ass off. Once lean, I freak out when I lose abdominal vascularity, much less my abs in general. As such, I've had to extrapolate from the diet I used to jump start my fat loss once I noticed that my abs were going the way of the the Kardashian family's collective personal pride.
I think I hate her more than I actually should because she's got one of the best asses on Earth.
The Rundown
- Kick it off with a 10-14 day keto run (no Rampage for 10-14 days)
- Protein-sparing modified fast at least one day a week
- 5 days a week, one solid-food meal a day, with one of those days being a fairly low calorie meal
- low- but not no- carb one day a week, punctuated by a 3 hour cheat window that is at least moderately reasonable. This is not, then, a full on Rampage day, but more of a moderated eating spree.
- One day wherein you eat more than one solid-food no-carb meal a day
Seems fairly simple, right? As I've said before, this is hardly brain surgery. The point in this phase is to get you looking at least decently while keeping your lifts up and not completely hating life. One of my main problems with the PSMF, as I've mentioned, is the fact that they leave you insanely hungry and can be a distraction from training. As such, I would recommend (based on personal experience) throwing that day in between your Rampage day and your higher calorie day. As I almost invariably have my cheat meal on Friday, that works out pretty nicely- keep the calories low on Saturday, drink a shitload of protein shakes (at least 6), and then grub on every meaty bit of deliciousness I can on Sunday.
If you're concerned about calories, you will moderate your caloric intake according to your individual metabolism. I'm not talking about some bullshit, low-brow, Easy Bake Oven BMR calculation- you will find your sweet spot through experimentation, because you're a fucking mad scientist and only you can understand your own insanity. Additionally, my conception of a workout is considerably different tan that of most, so it would be completely disingenuous for me to suggest that I could tell you what caloric intake would result in the most fatloss and muscular gain. I can tell you that your body will tell you when it's had enough fatty meat. My sweet spot seems to be between 1 and 3.5 lbs of meat in a sitting, depending on the type, my level of activity, and where I am in a week.
Luckily for you, "studies of ketogenic diets have found that when subjects are told to limit carbohydrate intake but to consume "unlimited" quanitites of protein and fat, they automatically limit caloric intake and consume between 1400-2100 calories." (Ketogenic Diet 101) That's a very cool biological cruise control you've got built in, and I can say that though I generally go a bit higher than that (2000-3000 calories) in my evening meal, I definitely hit a point where I can go no further, and it's not from being stuffed- my body just taps out and says and says "fuck it, I'm done." The key here, especially for you tubby motherfuckers, is to stop eating before you're full. Luckily, meat on the bone slows your eating considerably (I personally tend to scarf down my food like a wild, starving dog), so you'll have a better sense of where you stand in terms of fullness than you would otherwise.
Many of you, upon seeing some quick results, are going to come to the conclusion that you should skip your Rampage day to prolong your fat loss. If you choose to do so, I would add in another high calorie day (but not consecutive with another), and would not recommend that you go more than two weeks without a cheat meal, both for sanity and your metabolism's sake. The reason I start this phase with a 10-14 day keto run is that the fatter you are, the harder it is for your body to get into ketosis. Basically, if you think of your glycogen stores as a water glass, you filled that fucker up years ago and kept dumping buckets of water on top of the full glass for years, while leaving it out in the rain. In Seattle. Your insulin receptors threw in the fucking towel years ago, while you shoving Little Debbie snack cakes down your piehole and washing it down with a Coke. You're completely destroyed your body's ability to correctly recognize its own metabolic signals, so you're going to have to suffer a bit to undo the damage you've done. Additionally, Dan Duchaine was a big fan of starting ketogenic phases with 10-14 day keto runs, and that makes good sense- fat people produce ketone bodies much more slowly than do lean people.(Russell 22) Thus, I can drop into ketosis inside a day right now, but the 308 lber trying to drop to 242 is going to take the better part of the week, for the reasons I outlined earlier in this paragraph.
In regards to how much carbohydrate you should eat, which I'm sure many of you are wondering, you should shoot to keep your carbohydrates to 30 grams or less a day. "Although up to 100 grams of carbohydrate will allow ketosis to develop, it would be rare to see ketones excreted in the urine at this level of intake."(Ketogenic Diet 104) Because you've spent the last several years stuffing your face with all manner of bullshit, you might want to go ahead and forgo it for the time being so as to get your body back to a state where it can better tolerate carbs. The nice thing about dieting is that the leaner you get and stay, the more leeway you end up having with it, and the more rapidly you can make physiological changes for the better. Think of fatloss like a massive freight train- it's a bitch to get that motherfucker moving, but once it's up to speed, nothing short of a nuke is stopping that fucking thing from reaching its destination.
Is this phase going to be fun? In spots. Eating every meal with your hands is fucking awesome, in my opinion. There's less cleanup, you get to use wet wipes, and gnawing on a bone is a hell of a good way to avoid biting your fingernails. The days you're not eating real food, however, are going to fucking blow. That's the price you pay for years of eating like dogshit, however, and if you want to be a beast, you're going to have to go hungry like one every now and again.
I'm sure you wrestling marks just came in your pants. Triple H actually uses a moderate-fat ketogenic diet, as it happens.
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday:
- 5-6 protein shakes throughout the day (and one overnight, which I'd leave on the toilet and chug while peeing). I usually had Monster Milk in the morning, and followed that with Muscle Infusion throughout the day. If I did a morning workout, it was a short workout (20 mins) usually consisting of one arm deadlifts, and I usually did not have a pre-workout shake. On two of these four days I typically substitute one shake at lunch with wings or other no-carb meat.
- 1500-2500 calories worth of meat, preferably on the bone, for your evening meal. If you're eating chicken, make sure you're eating the skin.
- You might want to think about a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (nothing but shakes) on Monday as well, especially if you want to accelerate fatloss.
5-6 protein shakes with a less calorically dense dinner. This is intended to rotate your calories and stimulate more fatloss.
Friday:
Watered-down Rampage day. Keep you carbs reasonable, and focus on getting lean proteins throughout the day. To give you an idea of how I did this to into single digit bodyfat, most Rampage days consisted of 94% lean meat tacos on low carb shells. For my cheat meals, I went bananas, but I'd suggest that while you definitely want to make sure you eat a considerable amount of carbs, you should keep your calories in check until you're starting to see decent progress. This is for two reasons- you need to learn dietary discipline and because your body still has massive fat stores on which to draw, so massive cheats are unnecessary. I'll cover the Rampage Day in depth in an upcoming post, but for now I'd say eat lean and low-to-moderate carb throughout the day and cap the day with a carbohydrate bonanza the likes of which you've likely not seen since you saw undergraduate college girls descend on a table of free bagels. In terms of amounts, I'll agree with Dave Palumbo and say your initial Rampage day should be in the neighborhood of 400 grams of carbohydrates. If you don't lose more weight the following week, reduce that number. If you lost plenty, you can adjust it up. For you guys, however, I'd suggest you go easy, since you've mangled your insulin sensitivity worse than that broad who got attacked by a chimp a couple of years ago.
This is what your metabolism looks like. Well done.
Saturday:
Protein Sparing Modified Fast. Nothing but shakes in water today. Quite frankly, you're likely going to want to skip the gym today and just occupy yourself otherwise, but if you do plan on training, be prepared for it to suck, so don't plan to hit PRs.
Sunday:
Keto day, but eat two meals today- one smaller and one larger. Make sure you train on this day- your lift will be awesome.
What You Will Need For This Diet
- A good multi-vitamin. I cannot bring myself to eat offal, so this is a necessity for me. If you like eating liver and kidneys and sundry other items you see falling out of hapless victims in Hostel, feel free to skip the multi. I'm back on the Animal Pak bandwagon, and I'm fairly certain you could cure cancer with it.
- Omega 3 fatty acids. I'm not paying eleventy billion dollars for grass-fed beef. I've not got the money for that silliness, and likely nor have you. Pop Omega 3s like candy and you're gold.
- Some permutation of the ECA/ECY stack. I don't give a fuck how you combine them- just do it. Neanderthals were huge fans of ephedrine, and so should you be.(Doweiko 88) I've written about why you should love it here. I use Stimerex or Lipodrene.
- A good blended protein. I've used Matrix 5.0, Muscle Infusion, Monster Milk, and Pro Blend 55 to good effect. Just make sure that the carbs in that fucker are LOW- that means no Muscle Milk, no Syntha 6, no weight gainers.
Assuming you're a woman or have ever met one, you're aware that women regard carbohydrates like the last life boat on the titanic and will maul you like a fucking honey badger if you get between them and their potatoes. There's actually a psychochemical reason for this- women appear to either have chronically low seratonin and tryptophan levels or are just addicted to high levels of the two chemicals. This is especially true around their period, at which time the production of both chemicals in the brain is suppressed. Additionally, seratonin reduces anxiety, from which every chick I know suffers, and tryptophan is the amino-acid precursor to seratonin, so it contributes to anxiety suppression as well. (Sayegh et all, Christie)
Guess what kinds of foods stimulate the production of those chemicals? Carbohydrates.
Protein-rich foods (i.e. the foods women typically ignore for carbohydrate-laden foods) increase dopamine and norepinephrine, which means eating a lot of protein will make you more alert and energetic. This may be why men are so ready with solutions to any woman's problems, and happy to share them until she plants a fucking fork in his eye for doing so.
Her craving for carbs was so great, she had to wrap her face in a dirty blanket to restrain herself.
"The female hormones seem cause a strong craving for carbs, as the female body isn't fertile without a layer of fat. This makes this diet very hard for women to follow. Traditionally the women are the gatherers of fruits and (starchy) roots, while the men are the hunters. This is shown today in the different ways men and women go about buying things. The gals "shop" which is a trip through the entire store or mall in search of things to buy. They may not actually buy (gather) anything. The guys on the other hand know what they are after, and then seek it out (hunts it down) and buys it, usually then taking it home right away."(Stanley)If you do decide to try it, I did a quick google search to see which kinds of cheese might work for this diet, since it's my experience chicks will consider eating dogshit if it's covered in enough of the right kind of cheese. I'll say right off I know fuckall about cheese and despise it. Thus, I'm making recommendations on macronutrient ratios:
- Gruyere Cheese- This seems to be about as close to beef ribs as you can get in a cheese. If you want to sit down to a pound of this shit a day, have at it. 40g of protein and 42g of fat per cup with <1g carbs
- Limburger Cheese- Damn near as good for you as Gruyere, provided you can tolerate the smell.
- Goat Cheese, Hard Type
- Brie Cheese
- Edam Cheese
- Monterrey Chesse
- Muenster Cheese
- Camembert Cheese
Up next, dieting for the Not Too Fucking Fat But Not Too Fucking Lean and the Rampage explained fully and completely.
Sources:
Christie, Catherine. Mood-Food Relationships. http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Met-Obe/Mood-Food-Relationships.html#b
Doweiko, Harold E. Concepts of Chemical Dependency.
Macdonald, Lyle. Ketogenic Diet.
Russell, Sharmen Apt. Hunger: An Unnatural History.
Sayegh R, Schiff I, Wurtman J, Spiers P, McDermott J, Wurtman R. The effect of a carbohydrate-rich beverage on mood, appetite, and cognitive function in women with premenstrual syndrome. Obstet Gynecol. 1995 Oct;86(4 Pt 1):520-8. http://web.mit.edu/dick/www/pdf/909.pdf
Stanley, Owsley. Diet and Exercise. http://thebear.org/essays1.html#anchor496162
