Apex Predator Diet If You're Lean As Shit

If you're following the Apex Predator Diet, it's highly likely that you didn't start out ridiculously lean.  As such, it'll have take you some time to get to this point- this diet's not a quick-fix or crash diet, but rather a way to lean out while getting bigger and stronger all at the same time.  By the time you hit 8% bodyfat, your metabolism should be wearing a pvc outfit and holding a cat o' nine tails tipped with metal rings, because it's dominant as hell and has made your bodyfat into its snivelling sissy bitch. You should now be at or under 8% bodyfat, so your abs are standing out in stark relief, your body looks like a Rand McNalley map due to your incredible vascularity, and you should be feeling like you can eat lightning and shit thunder at this point.  You are, officially, awesome, provided you're not bereft of muscle mass.

I'm not satisfied until every vein is forced up against my skin. Look how vascular I am Brian. If there's one thing women love it's a vascular man. I've got veins, they carry blood all over my bahday. That's how John Mayer would say it. Bahday. 

Assuming you had to work to get here, you'll know exactly how your body responds to both diet and exercise, which affords you a tremendous amount of leeway with your diet.  Before you head for the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, however, bear this in mind- you'll never be so awesome that you can out-train a shitty diet.  As such, sticking to the Apex Predator Diet is a good idea, though you can have the occasional dalliance.  As always, I encourage you to explore your inner Nikola Tesla and get as mad scientist as you can with both diet and training, but just remember that until you stay lean for a considerable period of time, your body is going to attempt to return to whatever your previous fat setpoint is.  Thus, if you spent the last 10 years eating butter sandwiches and appeared to be one box of Milk Duds away from purchasing a rascal to get you hither and thither, take the following with a grain of salt.  Additionally, if you like Milk Duds, you have no working taste buds, so dieting shouldn't be all that difficult for you anyway.

Got the coke and the smile covered.

Candied gastronomic atrocities aside, the Apex Predator Diet will become for most of you a delicate balancing act, wherein you're going to try to maximize your caloric intake while remaining super lean.  Though it's not as simple as most would like, nothing fucking is, so have a coke and smile and shut the fuck up about it.  You'll find that you'll naturally cycle your calories, as your ghrelin and leptin production will be optimized at this point, and your body is going to loudly let you know what it needs when it needs it.  Your stomach will growl its fucking ass off all day if you try a PSMF, and you will be miserable in the gym, so you'll likely drop those days. They'll be replaced by the regular Apex Predator days from earlier phases of the diet, wherein you drink shakes until your final evening meal.  When your metabolism resembles nothing more than Slayer's War Zone in speed, ferocity and overall sentment, it's tough to live on protein shakes and nothing more.  As such, your weekly diet will start to look much more like this:

Monday - Thursday, Saturday and Sunday

• 5-6 protein shakes evenly spaced throughout the day consisting of 40-60 grams of protein and less than 10 grams of carbs.
• 1 medium sized meal midday (I shoot for 600-800 calories in the form of wings, generally, although I'll substitute other meats as well.
• 1 large evening meal of 2000-4000 calories in the form of (preferably bone-in) meat.  Let your hunger levels dictate the size.

Friday
Rampage Day- Go here for details.

Alternate Saturday
At times, you're going to find both your enthusiasm and your energy waning for continued ketogenesis.  On those weeks, push hard to make it to Fridaywith the knowledge taht you're going to carry your carbup over onto Saturday.  As to when you'll want to do this, it's entirely up to you- I would use a combination of the mirror and your general level of enthusiasm for the gym as a guage.  If you find yourself incredibly burned out, a second carbup might be the boost you need.  Make Saturday more of a medium carb, low to moderate fat, high protein day than a Rampage.  It's important to remember that these carbohydrate refeeds are not supercompensations.  Supercompensations should only be used sparingly, as frequent use reduces their efficacy.(Zatsiorsky 13)  Additionally, I would not make a habit of utilizing the moderate carb Saturdays on a frequent basis, as there's only a small amount of glycogen resynthesis that occurs in the second 24 hours of carb loading, and there's the potential to regain some of the fat you lost during the week. As such, you should keep carbohydrate levels at or below 2 grams per pound of bodyweight on Saturdays.(McDonald 132-3)

It's Time To Take A Vacation
Another massive and awesome benefit of breaking your ass to get this lean is the fact that short dietary vacations don't do much harm, and in some cases will break you out of a plateau.  According to Torbjorn Akerfeldt, our "genes have not evolved much during the last 100,000 years; thus, they are still developed for our hunter/gatherer and, more recently, pastoral ancestors, who, whenever they succeeded in killing an animal, lived on meat for a week or two. At other times, when they had bad luck hunting and a crop failed, they lived on a low-calorie diet. This selective pressure gave man adipose tissue with almost unlimited storage capacity and a very adaptive metabolism to cope with periods of different diets."(Phillips)  Basically, once you'e lean, if you diet hard and undereat a bit, you'll get a consistent carryover of the rebound you get from your Rampage Day into multiple days.  I will generally not take this past 5 days or so, but one study showed that a three week period of overeating resulted in mass gain that was nearly evenly split between fat and muscle, and an increase in nitrogen retention that persisted even after the diet returned to normal.(Forbes, Oddoye)  Thus, protein retention after the overfeeding was increased, and the body was more anabolic.

Eat up, motherfucker.

Personally, I don't plan these.  They just sort of happen, and are generally the result of a long-weekend vacation or something similar.  You could try planning them if you wanted, and if you chose to do so, I would suggest they be limited to 4 or 5 days and occur on non-consecutive months.  Additionally, I'd suggest you undereat a bit in the week prior to the overfeed to accelerate fatloss.  Provided you jump right back into the Apex Predator diet, keep your training up, don't abuse the vacation and aren't completely ridiculous about it, you can get away with quite a few dietary shenanigans.

Up next, the Apex Predator Diet for Whiny Bitches and the innumerable rugby players who email me about this diet.

Sources:
Forbes GB, Brown MR, Welle SL, and Underwood LE.  Hormonal response to overfeeding.  Am J Clin Nutr 1989 49: 4 608-611.
McDonald, Lyle.  Ketogenic Diet.

Oddoye EA, Margen S.  Nitrogen Balance Studies in Humans: Long-Term Effect of High Nitrogen Intake on Nitrogen Accretion.  J. Nutr. 1979 109: 3 363-377.
Phillips, Bill.  “Torbjorn Akerfeldt interviewed by Bill Phillips – Part I"  http://myoblast.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/abcde-anabolic-burst-cycling-of-diet-and-exercise-torbjorn-akerfeldt/
Zatsiorsky, Vladimir.  Science and Practice of Strength Training.

The Apex Predator Diet, In Glorious Detail Part 1

In the event that you're not one of the readers hanging on my every word or who is new to the blog, this spinoff originally started with the Evolution Of My Diet series, which starts here.  In it, I outlined the diet I'm currently following, which I've called the Apex Predator Diet due to the fact that it consists of little more than that which an apex predator would eat, supplemented with protein shakes because I'm much more inclined to hedge my bets with a protein sparing modified fast than place my faith in the clinically unsupported yet theoretically sound Intermittent Fasting approach.  The following blogs will expand upon what I've previously explained, give greater detail for why this diet kicks more ass than Gina Carano in Haywire.

Gina Carano knows ass.

An Overview of the Apex Predator Diet
The Apex Predator Diet is a at its core a cyclical ketogenic diet, not unlike those I've supported in the past.  On this diet, you'll be keto dieting on 30 grams of carbohydrates or less per day for 5-6 days a week (or more, depending on your bodyfat levels).  During the non-carb days, you'll be consuming 1-2 meals of fatty, preferably bone-in meat per day, supplemented by 5-7 low carbohydrate protein shakes.  The other day or two are referred to as "Rampage" days, during which time you'll replenish your glycogen stores and satisfy your desire to wreck pizza and cookies.

The reasoning behind this methodology of dieting is that I found protein-sparing modified fasts like the Velocity Diet gave me just enough energy to put in a workout that would embarrass an undergraduate girl trying to drop her freshman 15 before going to the beach for cock over the summer- I was truncating my workouts horribly and thinking about nothing more than fucking killing myself out of shame.  Thus, I did some research and discovered those diets are really only suited to the morbidly obese and people who suck at lifting weights, rather than people trying to be so fucking superhuman they make Superman seem like a shiftless, limp-dicked, weaksauce layabout by comparison.  As such, I experimented with a variety of evening meals and finally settled upon beef ribs and bone in steaks, which are eminently satisfying, calorically dense, and restorative in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

This shit works.  

This diet, though similar to many you've likely seen, is vastly superior (if you're training hard 4+ times a week) to existing frameworks for a couple of reasons.

1. My macronutrient percentages are different.  Conventional wisdom on CKDs is that 65-75% of your calories should come from fat.  Fuck all that.  According to my biggest fan on Earth, Lyle McDonald, "when subjects are told to limit carbohydrate intake but to consume "unlimited" quantities of protein and fat, they automatically limit caloric intake and consume between 1400 and 2100 calories."(Ketogenic Diet 101).  I don't give a fuck who you are, that shit is not going to support heavy training.  Not only is that a caloric intake suitable only to the Olson twins and 19th Century hunger artists, but at the macros suggested by the gurus, you're not getting nearly enough protein, either.  2100-1470=630/4=157.5 grams of protein.  My protein shakes have more calories in them than that, for fuck's sake, and I mix them in water.  The Predator Diet is much higher calorie (3000+), most days, with 50-60% of your calories coming from protein and the remainder from fat.
2. I cycle calories.  For those of you who are not already incredibly lean, calorie cycling kicks in to keep your metabolism humming.  I've not seen another CKD or TKD diet that tinkers with calories in this way to accelerate fatloss.
3. It's fucking easy.  One of the things I see people constantly blabbering on about with the IF diet is how easy it is to not eat for half the day.  I guarantee you it takes no more time to make a shake than it does to make a cup of coffee, and those fuckers must be chugging coffee if they're not eating.  As such, their argument's as fucking stupid as the Predator Diet is anabolic.
4. It's anabolic.  Though you're operating in a caloric deficit for the majority of the day, you're getting a constant influx of protein to stave off muscle catabolism, and the high fat meats at the end of the day provide saturated fat and cholesterol, both of which boost testosterone levels, which in turn increase aggression, which in turn makes you tear shit up in the gym, making your system even more anabolic.  Basically, you become a perpetual-motion machine of badassery.
5. You're not insane with hunger at all times.  When hungry, "people tend to conserve energy rather than expend it."(Russell 148)  That's definitively not a good thing if you're training hard, especially if you're dieting for a competition and/or training twice a day.  I used this diet to cut for two meets and ended up on the underside of 7% bodyfat, making my water cut easier, increasing my strength to weight ratio, and allowing me to look fucking amazing while lifting big weights.  
6. You have planned, insane, gluttonous cheat meals.  These serve a variety of purposes, and they match the occasional gorge of a predator nicely.

Because I realize experimentation is scary, and I've already done plenty of experimenting, I've got four basic permutations of this diet- Fat Fuck; Not Too Fucking Fat, But Not Too Fucking Lean; Lean As Shit; and Whiny Bitch.  The first three are fairly self- explanatory, and will be broken out by bodyfat percentage (see the chart below).  The last is because I get a lot of emails from people whining about pre-and post-workout carbs.  They're of the opinion that they're indispensable, though I would dispute that opinion.  For those ladies out there who absolutely must have your carbs or you will turn into a raging ball of hormone-fueled fury, laying waste to everything in your path as you make for the counter at Auntie Annie's in the mall, this should suit your purposes nicely as well.

Components of the Apex Predator Diet
Before we get into the finer points of the diet, let's cover a couple of basics- food and supplement choices.  The reason why I've christened this diet the Apex Predator Diet is due to the awesome food choices you'll be making.  Nowhere will you find bland, tasteless, rubbery bullshit like chicken breasts and steamed broccoli.  Fuck it- on this diet, you won't even need utensils, most of the time, because your food should come with a built-in handle- bone.  Bone is an integral part of meat, and ripping an animal's flesh off its bones with your teeth is a primal, visceral, ethereal act that stands in stark defiance to modern life and harkens to a time when men were men and women appreciated real men, in addition to being tougher than most of the "men" you see waddling their sloppy asses around the mall these days.  As such, it would stand to reason that if we want to regain that former glory, strength, and aggressive awesomeness we had in times past, we should eat like our forebears.

For those of you who are staring, incredulous, at that statement, consider the following:
"The connection between flesh and bone is primordial and fundamental.  Yet today, bones have fallen out of favor.  We are all familiar with the expression, 'The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat,' but we demand everything precut and prepackaged, and that is, increasingly, all we can buy.  Our world is full of recipes for boneless, skinless (and often tastless pieces of meat, chicken, and fish, and we can scarcely recognize whole fish or birds.  We have become so obsessed with ease of preparation and speed that we have lost touch with the visceral appeal of cooking with- and eating- bones." (20  McLagan)

They understood this, because they were stronger, smarter, and tougher than the lot of us.

"There is a universal understanding that bones and meat are inseparable.  Yiddish: Bones without meat are possible, meat without bones is not possible.  Hebrew: There is no such thing as boneless meat.  Greek: Meat is sold with bones. Norwegian: He who buys the meat has to take the bone with it.  English:  Bones bring meat to town.  He who eats the meat let him eat the bones.  You buy the land you buy the stones: you buy the meat you buy the bones."(119 Bones)

Eating boneless meat is thus not only effete, ridiculous, artificial, and offensive to the soul of the slaughtered animal, but it's fucking stupid.  Bone in meat tastes better and is healthier, as cooking it in that fashion "enables the bone nutrients to infuse into the meat, imparting wonderful flavors"(Shanahan) in addition to added nutrients.  After you've cooked it that way, you eat it with your hands, as your primal ancestors did, using the bones as the handles for bearing meat to your mouth as they were fucking intended.  Eating becomes more satisfying because you're restoring the tactile sense in your hands to the process of eating.  As such, it becomes a richer, more natural, more intimate experience and produces greater satiety as a result.  As one probably hot hippie put it, "eating with your hands gives you a deeper sense of your food, because you are bringing more sense receptors to the table. Temperature and texture become more profound when you can feel them on your fingers first, and the experience of consumption is extended even longer for a more pleasurable process."(Urban)

Worries about a mess on your hands?  Buy some fucking Wet Wipes and be glad you have fewer dishes to do.

Additionally, you're going to be consuming a shitload of low-carb, blended source protein shakes, multivitamins, EFAs, and fatburners, and will try to mix in some offal if at all possible.  I'll get into all of that good shit in the next installment, however, leaving you with the fact that offal tastes fucking awful, so I generally just take a shitload of multis.

Exactly.

Sources:
McDonald, Lyle.  Ketogenic Diet.
McLagan, Jennifer.  Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Russell, Sharmen Apt.  Hunger: An Unnatural History.  New York: Basic Books, 2005.

Shanahan, Cate.  http://drcate.com/deep-nutrition-the-ancient-science-of-human-engineering/the-four-pillars-of-world-cuisine/
Urban, Shiloh.  "Eat With Your Hands." http://www.organicauthority.com/eco-chic-table/eat-with-your-hands.html

Apex Predator Diet For Athletes and Italians (APD + Carbs)

When I first posted about my concept for the Apex Predator Diet, I received a spate of emails asking me about pre-, peri-, and post-workout carbohydrates.  As I've stated more than once before, I think that the current infatuation with those three facets of one's nutrition are perhaps the most absurdly overblown distraction from critical points of training and nutrition one could have.  It's like a leper colony appealing to the UN for condoms and zit cream.  People obsessed with peri-workout nutrition come in exactly one form- people who have no fucking clue what a real workout is, clad in whatever the trendy workout gear of the moment is, making a fucking production of making a shake midworkout and getting in my fucking way when I'm trying to get water in between sets.  That's right- if you're focused with laser-like intensity on your mid-workout nutrition, you're a fucking bitch.  When you're lifting, you should be concerned with weights, not Biotest supplements and waxy maize.

Jon Cole, beast of all beasts.  First man to squat 900, and an unreal 1200 total (430 press, 340 snatch, and a 430 push jerk) at the same weight in weightlifting, a sport for which he really didn't train and rarely competed.  This man was wildly unconcerned with his peri-workout nutrition.

As for the pre- and post-workout nutrition guys, they're certainly a lesser form of evil, probably duped into thinking that shit is of critical importance through the constant barrage of marketing that pervades every corner of life.  For every person who states that pre- and post-workout nutrition is of critical importance if you want to gain mass and strength, I've got 100 people to name who did it without either, and a cock to slap across your lips.  That's not to say, however, that there's no benefit to be gained from either, but rather that their combined importance is still far less than that of the workout itself.  Given the fact that you're reading this, it's highly likely that you know this, so I'll be happy to impart a bit of knowledge on the subject of pre- and post- workout carbohydrate meals and their utility in the Apex Predator Diet.


That stated, I'll address the athletes who've expressed their concerns about consuming a ketogenic diet while participating in a sport that involved more than simply grunting and picking up heavy shit.  I personally have followed a ketogenic diet while wrestling and found I had no problem with energy provided that I kept my calories relatively high.  At that time, I was wrestling at 134 pounds and my diet consisted, as I recall, of pork sausage patties for breakfast and about a dozen hamburger patties throughout the rest of the day, in addition to the very occasional protein shake.  At the time, I hadn't really jumped onto the supplementation bandwagon, so I really didn't consume much in the way of supplements outside of my favorite ephedrine-filled supplements ever- Metaform Heat and Ultimate Orange.  For those of you too young to know about either of these supplements, they had so much caffeine and ephedrine in them that meth addicts were scared to take them.  Both of them tasted like fruit flavored cat shit, but they got you fucking going.  As such, I'll reassert my support for the consumption of stimulants, especially for those of you who need extra energy for running around and the like.  Once more, they're not necessary, but they're helpful, just as the inclusion of carbohydrates might be if you're not as genetically well-suited to ketogenic dieting as I am.

Oh, how I long for thee, Metaform Heat.

Tinkering with the Apex Predator Diet
I've stated time and time again that it's imperative that you experiment with anything and everything you try in order to maximize your personal benefit.  Doing so would generally necessitate a fair amount of research, but give my penchant for research, I've tried to do a fair amount of the legwork for you.  One concern some people have had with the Apex Predator Diet is that they experience a tremendous amount of lethargy a couple of days into the low carbohydrate phase of the APD.  Given the amazing array of biochemical makeups one could have, this should come as no surprise- I've never suggested that anything I do is "one size fits all."  In my still unfinished Metabolic Typing series, I outlined various metabolic typing methodologies, but the current trend is to divide people into Protein, Carb, or Mixed types.  It's possible to transition from one to the other, according to some authors, so making that attempt might be worthwhile.  


As I mentioned in the ATA about the diet, Lyle McDonald and Dan Duchaine both suggested the use of an Isocaloric diet if one is shifting from a traditional high carb, low fat diet into a ketogenic diet.  An interesting study by Stephen Phinney examined the initial investigations into ketogenic diets for endurance energy, and his study uncovered exactly what Duchaine and McDonald alluded to- the body often requires at least a two week acclimation period to wean athletes off their carbohydrate diet.(Phinney)  Thus, your "carb crash" might be mitigated by the gradual transition.  Something like the Zone Diet might help people who would be considered Carb-Types according to a Metabolic Typing test transition to a Protein Type.  A month of Zone Dieting, however, might not be enough to complete the transition, and you might experience the crash Phinney noted.  The Inuit, according to Phinney, dealt with energy lags by greatly increasing their consumption of fat and decreasing their protein intake accordingly, while other authors have suggested taht fat could be decreased and carbs could be increased accordingly.  The key, then, is to determine what works best for you.  That is, of course, the entire purpose of the Apex Predator Diet- to allow one to shed fat while gaining muscle and strength.  Luckily for me, I'm well-suited to ketogenic dieting.  For those of you who aren't, or feel as though you need more quick energy to facilitate sporting competition or just to fuel your workouts, there is hope for you yet.

Efferding rocks a fairly unique diet of 50% fat, 23% carbs, and 27% protein, for instance.  It's all about finding your person sweet spot, which he's clearly done.

A Historical Aside
Before you delve into the following bits about the utilization of carbohydrates to spur greater athletic performance, I'll go ahead and make a quick aside- a quick study of the entirety of human history will lead to one inevitable conclusion.  Humans do not require carbohydrates to perform at a high level.  The history of agriculture is essentially the history of human collectives in areas of high population densities- carbohydrates provide a cheap, easy way to feed a large population in a small area.  Put another way, carbohydrates are the fare of plebians and slaves, as crops were grown to feed the menial workers cheaply and to keep them alive while they built absurd buildings like ziggurats and pyramids.  As I've shown before, humans were larger and more muscular in the paleolithic era than the neolithic, and those peoples credited with being the strongest and most muscular in recorded history were all nearly entirely carnivorous.  The peoples considered to be the scourges of Europe were always nomads, championing animal husbandry and looking down upon agrarian societies as prey- the Huns, Goths, Mongols, Scythians and Sarmatians all ate similar diets that consisted of little more than meat and milk.  Of the Goths, Tacitus noted that "Feasts and entertainments, which, though inelegant, are plentifully furnished, are their only pay. The means of this bounty come from war and rapine. Nor are they as easily persuaded to plough the earth and to wait for the year's produce as to challenge an enemy and earn the honour of wounds. Nay, they actually think it tame and stupid to acquire by the sweat of toil what they might win by their blood."(Tacitus)  Though the latter two tribes eventually adopted agriculture, their agricultural products were the fare of those who remained behind with the villages, rather than those who rode into battle.  The Huns and the Mongols took this even further, eating little more than horse and game meat, and drank mare's milk and horse blood to supplement their nutrition.  This diet hardly hamstrung them- it enabled them to conquer vast territories while constantly outnumbered, and fueled legends of their incredible ferocity.(Turnbull 30)

“looming on horseback 8 ft above the ground, screaming maniacally, capable of unleashing repetitive and deadly fights of triple-edged arrows, they must have seemed the very embodiment of horror to those who had to stand and fight them. Nor were such fears unwarranted, for Scythian warriors regularly beheaded their enemies and sometimes even skinned them whole. If an enemy were known personally, his skull might receive a special treatment: sawn through below the eyes, it would be cleaned and painstakingly fashioned into richly appointed drinking vessel. Not surprisingly, Scythian ceremonies especially royal funerals, were drenched in blood: sometimes these drinking vessels were filled with enemy blood, mixed wine and after arrowheads were dipped into it, the concoction was imbibed by the Scythian chieftain."(Mann 4)

Contrast these diets of these lean, mean killing machines with that of the gladiators.  Gladiators in the Roman era were generally captives obtained from battles with neighboring tribes, all of whom generally subsisted on meat.  As such, they were generally described in accounts by ancient authors as huge framed, broad shouldered, muscular, and wild eyed,(Tacitus, Jordanes, Turnbull) and were chosen to be warriors for their stature and ferocity.  Once placed into the arena, however, their diet was changed to a nearly vegetarian diet, and not because the gladiators needed the extra energy.

"The vegetarian diet had nothing to do with poverty or animal rights. Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. 'Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat," Grossschmidt explains. "A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight.' Not only would a lean gladiator have been dead meat, he would have made for a bad show. Surface wounds "look more spectacular," says Grossschmidt. 'If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on," he adds. "It doesn't hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators.'"(Curry)

So, high carbohydrate diets are awesome for getting fat, and but are they necessary for maintaining cardiovascular endurance?  Fucking nope.  The aforementioned study by Phinney cited two still-unrefuted studies in which endurance athletes were switched to a ketogenic diet.  In both studies, their performance improved considerably after their acclimatization period. Neither group consumed supplementary calories, but rather increased their fat intake to accommodate their increased energy needs.  Thus, you might consider altering your macronutrient profile simply by adjusting your fat intake prior to attempting the inclusion of carbs.  Were I to do so, I'd consider adding heavy cream to my protein shakes and possibly rubbing my ribs with olive oil.

Oil makes delicious things deliciouser.

Upping Your Carbs Pre- and Post Workout
If you're not interested n increasing your fat intake or have already tried it and found it didn't do what you'd wanted, there's always upping your carbs.  In the Anabolic Diet, Mauro Di Pasquale mentions that certain people will have a tremendous amount of difficulty maintaining progress on a ketogenic diet consisting of 30 grams of carbohydrate a day.  As such, he recommends that  one complete at least the initial 10-14 day keto run and then begin experimenting with increases in their carbohydrate levels until an optimal balance between performance and body recomposition is struck.  Following this line of thought, he tailored a diet for Gozilla's second cousin on the black side of the family, Bob Sapp, so that it lowered the fats somewhat and increased the carbohydrates.(Di Pasquale, Bob Sapp 11)  He did mention, however, in the Anabolic Solution for Powerlifters, that people who are excellent fat oxidizers (like myself) can easily train on 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, so experimentation is absolutely critical- don't just decide what you need at the outset.(ADFP 21)  Ol' Mauro claims that the timing of one's carbohydrates is fairly insignificant, but does note that eating pre-workout carbohydrates will decrease IGF-1 and GH.(ASBB 70)  Thus, he recommends eating 50-100 grams of carbohydrates postworkout, for a total carbohydrate intake of .5-1gram of carbohydrates per pound of bodyweight a day.  This, of course, would necessitate a concordant drop in fat intake.


On the flip side of the coin, Lyle McDonald's Targeted Ketogenic Diet is actually based on the utilization of mostly pre-workout carbohydrates, which he feels are necessary to fuel high intensity exercise.  He recommends 25-50 grams of carbohydrate pre-workout, and claims that the type of carbohydrate and the glycemic index thereof is insignificant.  This would, of course, still preclude the use of fructose, as the goal is to replenish muscular glycogen stores rather than the glycogen stores of the liver.  According o McDonald, pre-workout carbohydrates will likely not affect either your insulin levels nor your ketosis (though they might throw you out of ketosis for the duration of your workout), and are thus fair game for just about everyone.  Conversely, post workout carbohydrates may negatively affect ketosis, so he encourages experimentation with those.(Ketogenic Diet 125)

As for the type of carbohydrates, I have a suggestion from novelist and paleo internet guru J. Stanton, who told me that he's been using a modified version of the APD for a while with great success.  If you're unfamiliar with his stuff, Stanton does a bunch of wacky shit outdoors that I'm inclined to call cardio, but he insists it's just "doing epic shit outdoors", like climbing mountains while fasted and all sorts of other shit that doesn't involve picking things up and putting them down.  He did, however, recently start lifting and noted the APD is the shit, with a couple of his own variations: 

"Here's an advanced-level Predator Diet variant: you may get more mileage out of your protein shake if you eat several grams of dextrose with it.  Reasoning: the protein causes some insulin release, which (if the protein is eaten solo) requires some glucose to be released from the liver in order to maintain blood sugar levels.  Then your liver will signal "NEED MORE GLUCOSE" and there will be a cortisol spike, whereupon your liver will suck up some of the protein and convert it via gluconeogenesis.  Also cortisol is catabolic.  So the additional dextrose basically gives the inevitable insulin something to chew on, and as a bonus, causes a bit of extra insulin release which will help drive protein into muscles.

(Note that "weight gainer" shakes have an assload of sugar because it's cheaper than protein.  Too much, no good.  I'm working on about a 4:1 protein/glucose ratio, but that's a guess and open to refinement. And it includes whatever sugar's already in your protein powder.)

You can buy a big bag of dextrose at the brewery supply store...but the easier way is to just eat a few Bottle Caps or Sweet Tarts candies.  Believe it or not, they're basically 100% dextrose: no sucrose or HFCS.  So my routine during protein loading days is: glass of unflavored whey isolate + 4-5 Bottle Caps, every few hours.  Note: add Runts and Spree to the list of "glucose with impurities": like Bottle Caps and Sweet Tarts, they're just dextrose, maltodextrin, and flavoring."(Stanton)

The Gist
As you can see, there's a bit of debate on the optimal timing of one's carbs if you're adding them to the Apex Predator Diet, but if you feel you need them, there are methods to try.  Experimentation is the name of the game, so get out your chemistry set and make something fucking awesome happen.  Just remember, however- the baddest motheruckers ever to walk the Earth didn't need bread to help them stomp the piss out of a bunch of bagel-chomping motherfuckers, and it's likely you don't either.
  
Sources:
     Bodybuilding.com.  Stan Efferding 6500 calories diet.  http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=138848513&page=1
     Curry, Andrew.  The gladiator diet.  Archaeology.  http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.html
     Di Pasquale, Mauro.  Anabolic Diet.
     Di Pasquale, Mauro.  Anabolic Solution for Bodybuilders.  Mauro Di Pasquale: 2002.
     Di Pasquale, Mauro.  Anabolic Solution for Powerlifters.  Mauro Di Pasquale: 2002.
     Di Pasquale, Mauro.  Bob Sapp (The Beast) Training and Nutrition Secrets.  Published as pdf.
     Jordanes.  An account of the person of Attila.
     Mann, Nirmil.  The Life and Times of Pakher Singh Gill.  Pittsburgh: Dorrance Publishing, 2005.
     McDonald, Lyle.  Ketogenic Diet.  1998
     Phinney, Stephen D.   Ketogenic diets and physical performance.  Nut Metab 2004, 1:2.  http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2
     Tacitus.  Germania.
     Turnbull, Stephen and Wayne Reynolds.  Mongol Warrior 1200-1350.  Oxford:  Osprey Publishing, 2003. 

Keto Diets- Why They Work, How To Make Them Work For You, Why Vince Gironda Made a Song About Them... And I Finally Use Decllenium In A Sentence

Vince Gironda says: 

“Fuck you, Carbos. You can suck my dick. You can’t get me, Carbos, because you’re just God’s farts.”

In the information age, more than ever, it seems extremely common for trends in what passes for rational and intelligent thought and discourse to emerge wherein a particular opinion is held aloft as unassailable truth.  For whatever reason, one of the most insidious and pervasive of these opinions in nutritional circles seems to be one that presents ketogenic diets as catabolic and useless for strength athletes.  Simply put for the new jacks in the audience, this means they believe that ketogenic diets will cause you to lose muscle mass faster than an AIDS patient in a Somali slum. This, however, is simply not the case- in fact, the polar opposite is true.  In fact, catabolism is blunted as the body metabolizes ketones for energy during a ketogenic diet.

Dave Palumbo's legs seem not to have suffered any ill effects from ketogenic dieting, unless "freakish muscularity" is considered an ill effect.

I realize it's a popular notion that I'm some sort of genetic freak who thrives on a diet that would kill a lesser man.  True, I am awesome, and true, most of the shit I do on a daily basis would kill lesser men, but I'm hardly a genetic anomaly in regards to the ketogenic diet.  A study conducted at the University of Connecticut in the early part of the last decade showed that thyroid function was greatly increased in a six week ketogenic dieting period, and that significant fat loss and muscle gain occurred- all of the participants had extraordinarily positive recomposition in a short period of time, and they accomplished this in spite of being fatties and saddies.  If fatties and saddies can lose an average of 7 lbs of body fat and gain 2 lbs of muscle in a six week period, I'd think that the average techno-death metal-Viking Hooligan would thrive on it.  Dave Palumbo certainly did- at his best, he squatted 800 for four and deadlifted 600 for 8, which is pretty fucking impressive for a guy training for size and definition rather than strength.

I suppose tentacle rape and ketosis go hand in hand.

For those of you unfamiliar with the myriad benefits of ketogenic dieting, allow me to educate you while I torture metaphors like they're Chechen teenagers in the greater Boston metropolitan area:

• ketosis is protein sparing, which means your body will not metabolize protein for fuel at any point in your day, provided you're eating enough fat.  Your body will actually learn to love burning ketones for energy more than the Japanese love tentacle rape and your protein synthesis will dramatically increase (Nair, Harber, Kadowaki).
• IGF-1 levels will raise like a true Belieber's current interest in shitty tattoos and girlish haircuts due to your body's low levels of insulin, which in turn will lead to greater hypertrophy (Harber).
• ketosis allows your body to utilize stored bodyfat for energy because of the aforementioned low insulin levels, and insulin blocks stored fat utilization like a fat girl cockblocking at a bar.
• ketosis suppresses your body's release of ghrelin, which means you will be less hungry on a ketogenic diet than you'd otherwise be.  This is particularly useful for the aforementioned saddies and fatties, who often have Charley Sheen-esque impulse-control issues when it comes to stuffing their faces (Halton).
• it may make you smarter- ketones seem to be a more efficient fuel for the brain than glucose (Amerman, but for a ridiculously complex explanation, go here and skip to the paragraph beginning with "We will use Alzheimers").  
• recovery will occur quickly and wounds will heal like you've got a hirsute, irascible, pocket-sized Uncle Logan (Nishira).
• in ketosis, your body becomes a furnace that would be the envy of every man named Goering in 1940s Germany, as you burn fat simply by breathing and pissing (Perez-Guisado).
• for those of you amusingly concerned with the effects of dietary salt in your diet (and there appear to a be lot of you people living in 1982 in that way), high protein diets seem to counteract the negative effects of high sodium intakes and lowers blood pressure (Debry).  As ketogenic diets are almost necessarily high protein, you're safe from an exploding heart on the ketogenic diet as well.

Living in the 80s has its perks- you get to wear cool outfits.

Sounds pretty fucking awesome, doesn't it?  Quite frankly, it is- I've been on a cyclical ketogenic diet for going on three years and have gotten continually stronger and leaner.  I'm not the only one who thinks this diet is the tits, either- one paper from the University of Cordoba (Spain) stated that "These diets are also healthier because they promote a non-atherogenic lipid profile, lower blood pressure and decrease resistance to insulin with an improvement in blood levels of glucose and insulin" and that "Such diets also have neurological and antineoplastic benefits and diet-induced ketosis is not associated with metabolic acidosis, nor do such diets alter kidney, liver or heart functions"(Perez-Guisado).

Keto doesn't appear to be hurting my gainz- weighing in at 195, carb depleted.

That's all well and good for the average saddie, you might be thinking, but it's got fuck-all to do with athletes and strength athletes in particular.  There's a reason for that- there've been almost no studies on the effects of ketogenic dieting on resistance training.  I was able to hunt down a single study on the subject, but it's not particularly relevant to the issue at hand, as it studied the effect of resistance training on obese, middle-aged women on the ketogenic diet.  We're about as dissimilar to that sample group as toasters are from Transformers, so there's no point even delving into that one.  Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence shows that ketogenic diets, in their myriad forms, have worked pretty fucking well over the last few decllenium for hominids.  

As I believe I've not ever done so, it seems useful to outline for you guys exactly what ketogenic dieting is, and what forms it can take.  A ketogenic diet is a diet in which a person consumes so few carbohydrates that their  body beings breaking fat down into fatty acids and ketones for use as energy.  Keto diets come in three flavors, standard, targeted, and cyclical.  They work like this:

• SKD (Standard Ketogenic Diet) – This is the diet of which most people traditionally think when they hear the words "keto diet".  Developed in the West by an undertaker named Banting in the 19th Century, it was resurrected as the Atkins diet in the US in the 20th Century.  Amusingly, the peoples of the Arctic Circle have been eating this way forever and haven't known they were dieting at all.  In any event, on a traditional ketogenic diet you simply keep your carbs at a certain low level indefinitely.  
• CKD (Cyclical Ketogenic Diet) – Cyclical keto diets are my personal favorite, and that's what my Apex Predator Diet is.  On a cyclical keto diet you rotate between ultra low carb and high carb days and in a less common fasion, rotate between low and high carb periods every day.  
• TKD (Targeted Ketogenic Diet) – Targeted keto diets are diets in which one eats extremely low carb and then consumes carbs at very specific times of the day.  I wrote a bit about these types of diets in my Apex Predator Diet For Italians And Athletes entry and noted that there is a difference of opinion by noted authors on when best to consume the carbs, but they're generally consumed either immediately before or after a workout.

It was time for some Warhammer.

Clearly, I'm the biggest fan of the CKD, as that's what I've been on for years.  I monkeyed with the TKD a bit in the past, but I never liked the idea of eating high fat and then spiking my insulin, so I never ate high enough fat to really have called it a particularly ketogenic diet.  It was more of a paleoized TKD.  In regards to CKDs, I've given you guys the broad strokes of how I've modified the traditional cyclical ketogenic diet for myself (i.e. the Apex Predator Diet), but thought it might be prudent to share with you a few of the tricks, hacks, and cheats I've developed along the way to make the diet work even better. Thus, without any further adieu:

• Protein is your primary concern at every meal.  I've seen nonstop gibbering out of people whose opinions would best be left alone in their empty heads about the value of coconut oil online, and it's ridiculous.  One douche actually asserted that his diet of naught but eggs and coconut oil was one to follow, which I found as fascinating as I found it absurd.  You are not eating unless you're getting upwards of 40 grams of protein.  Less than that isn't a meal and can barely be construed as a snack.  Cheat meals should start with protein and be followed by shakes- I always kick mine off with some kind of meat, be it hamburgers, wings, nuggets, or a meat-lover's pizza.  The more protein you consume, the greater the thermic effect of your meal and the better you will look and feel overall.
• Get at least two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.  Chicks can get by with a gram to a gram and a half- apparently more than that fucks with their hormone levels.  The mysteries of the vagina aside, no man is truly eating for strength if he's consuming less than two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.

She might keto diet.  I find myself not caring so much about the relevance of this pic, however.

• Take a break every once in a while.  That's not to say you should adopt the asinine practice utilized by people who follow a "periodization" routine wherein they take one week per month off from lifting.  Every now and again, though, it's good for your mind and body to stop giving a shit so much about your diet.  I realize that sounds fairly ridiculous for a guy who's essentially been on a diet for three straight years, but I do actually take a couple days to a week off from my diet after meets, and take a week or so off from my diet over the holidays as well.  I don't go nuts eating garbage, but I don't eat super-strict or super clean.  Instead, I keep my protein levels very high and fill in the gaps with whatever I want.  Again, caveats- I don't really care for ice cream or particularly sugary foods.  Thus, when I am am REALLY off my diet, the worst thing on which I'm generally snacking is Cinnamon Life, unless it's Thanksgiving Day or Christmas, when I'll eat desserts.  Eating sugary shit will make you fat.  It's science.
• Modify your total food intake to match your activity level.  This does not mean you should count calories, which is pointless even off a keto diet by truly worthless on one.  Instead, you should be eating more if you're training harder, longer, or heavier, and less if you're training lighter.  
• Do not skip your carbups.  Skipping your carbups might have a small effect on fat loss but will ultimately render all of your training feckless.  Type two muscle fibers require glycogen to function, and depriving them of that glycogen will force you to train lighter, which defeats the entire purpose of the diet in the first place.  No one gives a shit if you're ripped and you're weak, and no one gives a fuck if you're strong and you're fat.  The goal is to be strong as fuck and ripped to the bone, so you need to do your refeeds if you're keeping your carbs under 30 grams a day 5-6 days a week.
• Experiment.  Once you get your bodyfat to a manageable level, feel free to experiment.  I've tried supplementing with BCAAs post workout, and I think that post-workout BCAAs with additional leucine are a tremendously good idea, since leucine uptake and utilization is higher when in ketosis.  Try utilizing insulin modulating supplements like cinnamon and chromium to see if they accelerate fat loss.  ProSupps has a new product out called iLoad that looks to be good in that regard.  Mix up days wherein you have multiple food meals and days wherein you only eat solid food once or twice if you're doing the Apex Predator Diet.

CKDs work and work well for powerlifting, no matter what the message board know-nothings might assert to the contrary- I'm living proof, and science has my motherfuckin' back. 

Eat like a beast if you want to lift like one.

Sources:
Amerman, Don.  Benefits of Ketosis.  Livestrong.  28 Jul 2011.  Web.  7 may 2013.  http://www.livestrong.com/article/503671-the-benefits-of-ketosis/

Butterfield GE: Whole-body protein utilization in humans.  Med Sci Sports Exer 1987, 19:S167-S165.

Debry G: Data on hypertension. In Dietary Proteins and Atherosclerosis. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2004:191-203.

Deprospo, Jonathan.  In depth look at ketogenic diets and ketosis.  Bodybuilding.com.  25 Sep 2002.  Web.  4 May 2013.  http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/keto.htm

Harber MP, Schenk S, Barkan AL, Horowitz JF. Effects of dietary carbohydrate restriction with high protein intake on protein metabolism and the somatotropic axis.  J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005 Sep;90(9):5175-81. Epub 2005 Jun 21.

Halton TL, Hu FB.  The effects of high protein diets on thermogenesis, satiety and weight loss: a critical review.  J Am Coll Nutr. 2004 Oct;23(5):373-85.

Kadowaki M, Kamata T, Noguchi T.  Acute effect of epinephrine on muscle proteolysis in perfused rat hindquarters.  Am J Physiol. 1996 Jun;270(6 Pt 1):E961-7.

Layman DK, Evans E, Baum JI, Seyler J, Erickson DJ, Boileau RA.  Dietary protein and exercise have additive effects on body composition during weight loss in adult women.  J Nutr. 2005 Aug;135(8):1903-10.

Manninen AH.  High-Protein Weight Loss Diets and Purported Adverse Effects: Where is the Evidence?  J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2004; 1(1): 45–51.

Manninen AH.  Very-low-carbohydrate diets and preservation of muscle mass.  Nutr Metab (Lond). 2006 Jan 31;3:9.

Motil KJ, Matthews DE, Bier DM, Burke JF, Munro HN, Young VR.  Whole-body leucine and lysine metabolism: response to dietary protein intake in young men.  Am J Physiol. 1981 Jun;240(6):E712-21.

Nair KS, Welle SL, Halliday D, Campbell RG.  Effect of beta-hydroxybutyrate on whole-body leucine kinetics and fractional mixed skeletal muscle protein synthesis in humans.  J Clin Invest. 1988 Jul;82(1):198-205.

Nishihira J: Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF): its essential role in the immune system and cell growth. J Interferon Cytok Res 2000, 20: 751-762.

Paddon-Jones D, Sheffield-Moore M, Zhang XJ, Volpi E, Wolf SE, Aarsland A, Ferrando AA, Wolfe RR.  Amino acid ingestion improves muscle protein synthesis in the young and elderly.  Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2004 Mar;286(3):E321-8. Epub 2003 Oct 28.

Pérez-Guisado J. Arguments In Favor Of Ketogenic Diets. Int J Nut Wellness. 2007 4(2). 

Phinney SD.  Ketogenic diets and physical performance.  Nutr Metab (Lond). 2004 Aug 17;1(1):2.

Volek JS, Sharman MJ, Love DM, Avery NG, Gómez AL, Scheett TP, Kraemer WJ.  Body composition and hormonal responses to a carbohydrate-restricted diet.  Metabolism. 2002 Jul;51(7):864-70.

Evolution Of My Diet #3- The Birth Of The Apex Predator Diet

In the last installment, I explained that the basis of my dietary regime is the paleolithic diet, but that I've added a considerable amount in the way of tweaks to it in order to optimize my performance in the gym.  By tweaks, I mean tweaks in the same way a Japanese tuner enthusiast "tweaks" a pickup truck to make it appear as though it's a dragon- I took a giant, steaming shit in it's mouth, threw half of it overboard, and started wildly looking about for anything close at hand to make it appear exactly as it shouldn't.

My problem, you see, with the paleo approach was that I was eating way too fucking much food.  I'd been able to get away with this in the past, but time fucks up just about everyone, and my desk-jockey job and middle age conspired to fuck me in the ass.  Thus, I began tinkering with my macronutrients to see what, if any, interesting results I could derive.  The only way I could do this, however, and remain true to my Robb Wolff-esque ketoish pale diet was to either start eating a shitload of beef jerky, which would have been as delicious as it was economically unfeasible, or start replacing more meals with shakes.  That's exactly what I decided to do, influenced heavily by T-Nation's original Velocity Diet.

There are some damn good reasons to visit T-Nation.

For those of you who are unaware, the Velocity Diet is a T-Nation product used to sell their Metabolic Drive protein powder, a powder priced so insanely that one would think that it was created by a team of Russian alchemists using naught but powdered diamonds and dessicated unicorn cock.  As I, unlike many T-Nation readers, was cognizant of the fact that Biotest's products differ from others on the market only in their method and ferocity of wallet-raping, I decided to go with products that weren't priced by Bernie Madoff's evil uncle-in-law- Monster Milk and Muscle Infusion.  I chose the former for the fact that it tastes amazing, has an impressive blend of proteins that is heavy on the slow-released ones, and because it's got creatine included.  The latter was chosen on a combination of price point and protein blend, in addition to the fact that it was low carb.  Essentially, I wanted to maximize my protein intake while minimizing my caloric intake, in the spirit of the Velocity Diet.  For those of you who are unaware, the V-Diet 1.0 consists of 5 protein shakes a day supplemented with EFAs, fiber, and a multivitamin.  Once a week, you're allowed one real food, but non-cheat meal.  It's hardly rocket science, though they would have you believe otherwise.  Additionally, they claim that it's not a protein sparing modified fast (though without a shred of logic to support that claim) due to the fact that you'd not be in ketosis (though I think this is a recent addition, as their PWO product Surge didn't exist when I read that article years ago).

 Dave Palumbo- keto advocate and bodybuilder who strangely resembles the bad guy in Cobra.

As some background, the Protein Sparing Modified Fast is a concept that arose in the 1970s as a way to get Precious-type fatties back to human weight in a hurry.  They were characterized by being high in protein (at least in comparison with typical diets), and low in both carbohydrates and fats.  As such, they were intended to preserve what little muscle that land beast had while stripping away the blubber to let their human side show.  You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, however, and some of those non-humans perished in their quest to lose weight due to the fact that the researchers conducting the studies apparently knew very little about nutrition.  The doctor in charge of the diet had his collection of farting, wheezing, pre-Klumps drinking a concoction of his own invention called Prolinn, which "was a liquid protein that provided fewer than 400 calories a day, consisted of ground-up and crushed animal horns, hooves, hides, tendons, bones and other slaughterhouse byproducts that were treated with artificial flavors, colours and enzymes to break them down."(Diets)  From this, we learned that a lack of protein can cause cardiac heart loss and a lack of minerals can cause arrhythmias, which led later experimenters to choose a more suitable protein source and supplement with vitamins and minerals.(MacDonald)  Thus, diets like the Dukan Diet were born, which promotes this as the Attack phase, in addition to the first two iterations of the Velocity Diet and Lyle Macdonald's Rapid Fat Loss Handbook diet.

Apparently this broad is not getting much cock, as the Protein-Sparing bit doesn't appear to have kicked in.

According to Macdonald, the PSMF was the outgrowth of the use of starvation diets to aid in fatloss.  Though they did result in considerable fatloss, starvation diets had the unhappy side effect of rapid muscle loss, which is of course not the goal of any strength athlete.  As such, it's necessary to abate that side effect with regular infusions of protein, which is what PSMF diets aim to achieve- it spares muscular bodyweight from conversion into glucose by providing the body with a source of protein from which it may do so, while at the same time maintaining ketosis.  For this reason, it would seem to go nicely with the diet I'd already had in place, perhaps (as I envisioned it) in a caloric cycling scheme, as I couldn't imagine training the way I do on that sort of a diet.  I did, for a period of a few days, attempt the Velocity Diet.  It fucking sucked.  I was so distracted during my workouts from hunger that I cut them short.  No amount of ephedrine and caffeine would push me through a ninety minute workout of singles and doubles in behind the neck push press without gravely endangering my life.  As such, I deemed the Velocity Diet unsuitable for my goals.

Four months of dieting ago.

But, you might be thinking, "what about losing all of your fat"?  It's simple- I was never a giant fatass.  Although I let my bodyfat creep up to uncomfortable (for me levels in the 12-15% range are about as fat as I'd ever get without being in a coma) levels, I didn't see any reason to sacrifice muscle for fatloss.  Though the title of the diet is "protein sparing", that's not to say that such a diet would preserve mass on a 6-10 workout a week program, especially with the weights I handle.  Additionally, I saw no reason to lose the weight quickly if I could take it off over time and get stronger.  As such, I needed to find a way to keep my saturated fat intake high for optimal hormone levels while accelerating my metabolism with dietary trickery.  In essence, I would have to become the Loki of diet and exercise.

How to become a mythical god of shenanigans? I explained that I found parts of the Warrior Diet to be intriguing, as it's an intermittent fast made popular by the rather convincing Ori Hofmekler.  Hofmekler based his diet on that of the soldiers of the Roman Empire, who ate sparingly throughout the day and feasted at night.  That seemed reasonable to me, and eminently doable, though I was concerned about catabolism during the day.  This is where the Velocity Diet/PSMF came in- provided I kept my calories low throughout the day and simply utilized shakes to offset any catabolism I might encounter from two-a-day workouts, I might be able to combine the fat-burning effects of the undereating phase with the anabolic effects of the overeating phase to achieve both goals simultaneously.  As such, this is similar to what Martin Berkhan espouses, however without the actual starvation and potential catabolism.  Berkhan himself admits there's no clinical evidence to support the theory that catabolism is arrested in IF with heavy weight training, and as I've no interest in conducting that research with my hard-fought muscle and PRs, so I figure there's no harm in hedging like a motherfucker and chugging some protein shakes.

The godfather of IF.

Thus, we come back to paleolithic eating and to the meal itself.  It was, almost to a day, the exact same thing- beef ribs.  The reasoning behind the ribs was initially a revolt by my taste buds against chicken wings, of which I've grown sick after a couple of years of occasional reliance.  I found that beef ribs had a similar macronutrient ratio to the wings, tasted amazing, were high calorie, and had one more thing in common with the meat I'd cast aside- beef ribs are meat on the bone.  Though most people would posit that this is a ridiculous reason to choose a food, I have always found meat on a bone to be far more satisfying than other cuts.  There's something visceral and animalistic about tearing the flesh of an animal from its bones, and although I possess no scholarly evidence to prove it, I'm convinced that this animalistic act has a significant effect on one's psyche and hormonal profile.  In essence, if one wishes to be the apex predator of our forebears, one must eat like that predator, and rip the flesh of their victims from their bones with their teeth.  It's for this reason I started referring to my diet as the Apex Predator Diet, discovering later that another author had a very similar idea himself.

Up next, I'll wrap this motherfucker up with a bit more science, doubtlessly field eleventy million Martin Berkhan questions, and we can move on with our lives.

Sources:
CBS News.  Diets: A Primer.  CBS NEWS In-Depth.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/food/diets.html
Hofmekler, Ori.  The Warrior Diet.
McDonald, Lyle.  The Ketogenic Diet.
McDonald, Lyle.  The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook.
Berkhan, Martin.  Intermittent Fasting During Weight Loss Preserves Muscle Mass?  http://www.leangains.com/2011/03/intermittent-fasting-for-weight-loss.html