Feast, Famine, And Ferocity Diet, Part 3- And Now We FEAST

"Feasting, loosely defined as the public consumption of an elaborate meal often accompanied by entertainment, is a feature of most ancient and modern societies. Hayden and Villeneuve recently defined feasting as 'any sharing of special food (in quality, preparation or quantity) by two or more people for a special (not everyday) event'" (Hirst).

Certainly a couple of weeks of protein sparing modified fasting qualifies as a special event, and not just because eating anything at the end of a fortnight of hunger will be glorious- at this point, your body is wringing every last bit of nutrition out of every calorie you consume, and your metabolism is a ravening beast straining at the chains that bind it.  Well, now is the time to throw off those chains and write an ode of sweat and blood on the floor of your gym.  

Tradition dictates that a major feast would last about two weeks in pre-Christian western societies, and during those times there would be a hell of a lot of partying and a hell of a lot of eating in addition to epic feats of strength and athletic competition.  Will their bellies full of meat and booze, people would decide that they needed to prove who was the biggest badass in the room, and they would set out to do so.  Whether this meant seeing how far they could carry a ship's mast, lift heavy stones, wrestle, race, or even do crazy-ass weighted situps like the Indians do when they're not chugging ghee, that meant there were more varied and impressive feats of strength than you would find on Festivus in the Costanza house.  As such, it is time to seriously get your lift on.

Before you get down to the business of chumping your friends in the gym and generally acting like the most vicious iron warlord in history, displaying strength that causes grown men to weep and fertile women to conceive simply from being in your presence, you've gotta eat.  In a stark departure from what you're used to, what you eat here matters far less than how much you eat.  That's right- after you hit your body's protein requirements, the macronutrient profile of what you're eating isn't precisely insignificant, but matters less than you would think (Rozenek).  This might explain, then, why Senegalese and Indian wrestlers are far more muscular than the macronutrient profile breakdown of their diets might indicate. 

That level of muscularity on a guy who's never seen a gym and never had a protein shake makes me wonder what in the fuck I have been doing with my life.  

Like sumo, who if you've forgotten carry more natty muscle than gassed up pro bodybuilders,  and Indian pehlwani, Senegalese laamb fighters focus more on carbohydrates than protein when they're making meals (Men's Health), which cuts down on the cost of bulking and makes the experience a bit easier from an eating perspective as well.  Now that science has finally caught up to the reality in which we've already been living, perhaps the internet will finally take notice- getting big and lifting big requires eating big.  And if you're worried about getting a little fat, don't- even people in studies who don't lift and shovel down enough food at the Chinese buffet to make it look like they were setting up for the Gluttony death in Se7en 2 have weight gain that is at worst equal amounts of fat and muscle and often a 2:1 ratio of muscle to fat (Forbes, Jebb).  This is due to marked increases in IGF-1, testosterone, and insulin, all of which mean fucking gainz.  

The Feast Diet (4 weeks)

• Multiply your bodyweight by 20 for total daily calories (if you're feeling like you want to go seriously big, go with 25 calories.  Halfthor goes with a minimum of 27)
• Ensure at least 35% of your calories are protein
• Eat whatever the fuck you want thereafter

There is nothing magical going on here- the weight of the human experience supports the idea that you're going to pack on mass like you're getting ready to stand in for the Hulk in the next Avengers flick.  Bear in mind when you're making food choices that not all macros are created equal.  I'm not suggesting you need to eat like a 1990's bodybuilder and just shovel down boatloads of brown rice and boiled chicken, but know for a certainty that 1000 calories of candy corn will likely not yield the same metabolic advantages of, say, a diet of human livers and blood sausage.  Use your fucking head here, and remember that the guys around the world who are jacked as hell without the benefit of modern training aids and refrigeration got that way mostly using the power of stew.  Icelandic strongmen still use it, as do the aforementioned Senegalese wrestlers, Indian wrestlers, and sumo, and they all credit stews for their heavy musculature and freakish strength.

In addition to stone lifting, the Tahitians actually compete yearly in a fruit carrying race.  No, I am not making this up- a 2km foot race carrying 30kg of fruit.  Given that they only thing kids are competing in these days is fucking Fortnite, a fruit race wearing a skirt and a garland of leaves seems insanely badass.

Polynesians also eat a hell of a lot of stew in the form of fafa, and they're some of the largest and most terrifying people on the planet.  Though their fafa is cooked in a badass underground oven called a hima'a, fafa is so easy to make on the stove I feel like I'm going to develop a sick tan and grow six inches just from reading the recipe.

Tahitian Chicken Fafa (Source)

Ingredients (4 servings)

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain white rice
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/3 cup shredded coconut

Directions (and holy hell is this easy to make):

• In a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook 2 minutes. 
• Mix in the coconut milk, water, rice, and chicken, and bring to a boil. 
• Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, until rice is tender and chicken juices run clear.
• Stir the spinach into the skillet, and cook just until heated through. 
• Sprinkle with coconut, and serve.

Nutrition
Per Serving: 599 calories; 23.2 g fat; 66.2 g carbohydrates; 32.1 g protein.

Dunno about you guys, but I would like to live in a place that had random stone lifting competitions for shits and giggles.  No fucking participation trophy, no membership cards, no nonsense- just a few people who wanted to see who could pick up the heaviest rock and then eat like they escaped a concentration camp.

And this next recipe doesn't really have any cool origin beyond the fact that I absolutely love smoked meats and keep my smoker popping all the time.  If you have any interest in quick and easy smoked meats, there is no shame whatsoever in owning an electric smoker- they're quick, easier to operate than half of the microwaves on the planet, and they make smoked fucking meats.  There is really only one reason not to have one, and that is just sucking worse than anyone ever has... or you live in an apartment with no balcony.  There is no fire, so rules against grills don't apply.  

Barbecue is pretty much ubiquitous across the world, but the US definitely has a culture of smoking meats that exists nowhere else in the world.  Because other countries don't smoke meat as much, or you might not have a smoker, or you're just lazy, I've got a couple of ways to do this recipe, including one with a biscuit topping (which is banging) and one that is a shepherd's pie.  However you make this fucking thing, it will both taste amazing and put meat on your bones.  

Pulled Pork Pot Pie (not sure of the source- I saved this awhile ago)

Pulled Pork
You've got three options: 

1. Drop 3 lbs of pork shoulder in a crock pot for 8 hours with 1/2 a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (I combine a shitload of Dave's Insanity sauce and Whole Foods 365 Texas barbecue sauce).
2. Rub 3 lbs of pork shoulder with spicy mustard, then coat generously with Bad Byron's Butt Rub and pop it in the smoker at 225 degrees for 6 hours (2 hours per pound).  The meat's internal temp should be between 195 and 201 degrees (hotter for softer pork).  Then pull the meat and add sauce if you want.
3. Make the pork in the oven.  

Crust
The easy way:  buy pie dough from the store.

The less easy way (which really isn't hard, and being able to make a banging pie crust will definitely come in handy at some point in your life):

• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 c cold butter, cubed
• 1/4 c ice water

Mix flour and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry knife (or fork if you don't have one) until the texture of rice. Add ice water one teaspoon at a time, mixing until a stiff dough forms. Roll that into a ball and smash between two layers of saran wrap. Place that in the freezer for four hours. This makes a top crust only. Double recipe for two crusts, freezing two balls of dough. When chilled, roll out pie crust between the saran wrap layers, to fit the pie pan.

Pie Filling

• 1 can each of corn and peas, drained
• 2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 potatoes microwaved for four minutes, diced
• 1 packet chicken gravy
• 1 1/4 lb of your pulled pork

When cooking gravy mix, add carrots to the pan to soften in hot gravy. If making double crusts, line pie pan with one crust. Layer filling ingredients in pan, pour gravy over top. Top pie with the second crust, pressing the edges onto pan (or bottom crust) to seal edges and prevent leaking. Cut steam vents in top crust. Bake on a cookie pan to catch leaks at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

To top with biscuits, use Pillsbury's recipe.

To make as a Shepherd's Pie, go here.

Any way you make that, the result is going to be a fuckload of quality calories that taste amazing and travel well.

Not only did Rory Leidelmeyer like to hang dong in the gym in broad daylight, but he ate 7000-8000 calories a day to fuel his heavy-as-a fat-broad-facesitting-a-midget workouts.

The Feast Program (4 weeks)
The logic here is simple- you're going to lift so heavy and brutally that if you were participating in an orgy filled with obese people at an Acacia Strain concert, you'd... I have no idea where I was going with that.  The first exercise in every workout is all about strength, and the remainder is about hypertrophy.  As everyone already knows, both are getting worked all the time, but the primary focus is maximal strength and then hypertrophy, respectively.   As with the Famine workout, if you have something you'd rather try, have at it- this shit isn't set in stone.  Hell, if you want to tackle Eddie Hall's 13.5 hour a week insanity, be my guest- you'll never know how your body will respond unless you try it, no matter what the 150lb pussies on your favorite website of choice for pointless discussion of training techniques is.

You'll notice there are no loading protocols because you're expected not to be a fucking pussy for a few weeks.  Go heavy as shit.  Take whatever rest period you need to attack the next set.

Day 1
1/2 Squats- 12 x 2 (10 second holds at the top of the rep) (apparently the internet calls these Anderson squats now)
Wide Stance Good Mornings- 3 x 6 (go heavy on these to bring up your glutes and hams)
Hamstring Curls- 5 x 10-15
Calf Raises- 4 x 50
Pullups / Chinups- 5 x max

Day 2
Bench Press / Floor Press- 10 x 2; 2 x AMRAP with 60% of your work set weight and a wider grip) 
Weighted Dips- 4 x 6
Unweighted Dips- 2 x AMRAP
Military Press- 5 x 12 (do these reps short and fast.  You're not locking out on them, but keeping constant tension on the muscles and firing them off as quickly as possible)
Superset of Rope Pushdowns and Overhead Extensions- 5 sets with the weight you would use for sets of 12 on pushdowns and do AMRAP on both.

If that doesn't get your ass to the gym on the regular, nothing will.  

Day 3
Pull- 10 x 2 (I don't care if these are high pulls, deadlifts, hex bar deads, rack pulls, or whatever.  The what doesn't matter so much as the why, and the why is because heavy pulls are the reason you have arms and hands)
Bent-Over Rows- 6 x 6 (again, the style you use matters not at all- the effort you put in does)
Face Pulls / Bent Over Laterals- 4 x 20 (the key here is working
Hammer Curls- 4 x 6
Barbell Curls- 3 x 25 (Go light and get a huge pump.  Bodybuilders do this shit for a reason)

Day 4
Optional fill-in day.  Use this for whatever you want to jam into the workout that's not already in there.  Bodyparts you want to bring up, pet lifts on which you want more work, etc.  For me, this is always shoulders and arms, because neither can ever be too big (short of the synthol retards, who should be gassed and their corpses should be used to poison the IG broads filling their faces with the whore version of synthol, Juvederm).

Or use it as an off day if you need one.  Let your conscience be your guide, slacker.

Jose Raymond, who has some of the sickest legs in bodybuilding, can rep 405 for 10 on the front squat pre-contest and has squatted 700 in the gym, had this to say about why he focuses on he doesn't go as heavy anymore, and it wasn't injuries: "Back in the day it was all about how much weight I could lift and for how many reps. That’s how I built the mass, but now what I need is a lot more separation and detail." 

In short, he was just getting too goddamn big from going crazy heavy.

Day 5
Front Squat / Back Squat- 6 x 3; 1 x AMRAP with 60% of your work weight
Hamstring Curl- Same rep scheme as the squatting, but with 2 AMRAP sets
Calf Raise- 8 x 6
Shrugs- 10 x 3 with at least 125% or your 1RM on deadlifts.  No more bitch weights on shrugs.
Curl- 5 x 10 (Dealer's choice on the exercise- just do some kind of curl.  Get a good pump.)

Day 6
Strict Military Press / Push Press- 8 x 2
Klokov Press- 5 x 10
Incline Bench Press- 5 x 5
Close Grip Bench Press- 4 x 6
Skullcrushers- 1 x 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 2, AMRAP (with the weight you originally used for 10)

Day 7
Off

So there you have it- the Feast, Famine, and Ferocity Diet.  Two weeks of rather unpleasant but productive protein sparing modified fasts and workouts designed to burn the fat fat off you like the skin off Germans being firebombed in Dresden followed by a month of eating like your gainz depend on it and training like a Tookie Williams on some badass PCP.  The net result will be net fat loss and net muscle gain, all in a timespan that the internet will claim is entirely unrealistic and the result of steroids because they're jealous as fuck and essentially useless.  And even better yet, you can repeat this cycle as many or as few times as you like, depending on what you're trying to accomplish, so you can drop this in as a quick six week shake-up or a six month bulk that will lean you out.  Either way, like Parker Lewis, you can't fucking lose.

Sources:
Forbes GB, Brown MR, Welle SL, Underwood LE.  Hormonal response to overfeeding.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1989 Apr;49(4):608-11.

Hirst, K. Kris.  Feasting: The Archaeology and History of Celebrating Food.  ThoughtCo.  1 Oct 2018.  Web.  3 Dec 2018.  https://www.thoughtco.com/feasting-archaeology-and-history-170940

Jebb SA, Prentice AM, Goldberg GR, Murgatroyd PR, Black AE, Coward WA.  Changes in macronutrient balance during over- and underfeeding assessed by 12-d continuous whole-body calorimetry.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1996 Sep;64(3):259-66.

Rozenek R, Ward P, Long S, Garhammer J.  Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training.  J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2002 Sep;42(3):340-7.

Senegalese wrestlers: stars made from fighting spirit and mysticism.  Men's Health UK.  7 Sep 2018.  Web.  3 Dec 2018.  http://www.menshealth.co.uk/fitness/senegalese-wrestlers-stars-made-from-fighting-spirit-and-mysticism