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A BONUS TO:
HOW TO GAIN MUSCLE MASS THE ULTIMATE GUIDE
By Charles R. Poliquin The Strength Sensei
www.strengthsensei.com
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Special Thanks to:
Carlos Castro Kelly Martinovich Juan Carlos Simo Velasquez Patrick Gagnon Louis Gagné
Disclaimer Before beginning any exercise program or diet/supplementation plan, please consult with your physician to make sure you are in good health. This ebook is not meant to replace proper medical advice by a qualified health practitioner. No liability is assumed by Charles R. Poliquin for any of the information contained in this document.
Published by Strength Sensei © 2016
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Muscle Laws of eating for Maximal Muscle Mass Eating good food is part of the muscle gaining process. These are the Muscle Laws of eating to get massive
Muscle Law 1: Find the sweet spot for along the carbohydrate/protein continuum Over the years, the more I work in this profession, the more I find that some people grow more on carbs, and some grow more on fats. How do you tell? It has to do with genetics. As a rule of thumb, the closer your ancestry originates from regions close to the Equator, the more carbohydrates will help. The further your ancestry comes the Equator, the more protein and fats will be optimal for you. Hence, if you are a full blooded Norwegian from Bergen, a more high protein/high fat diet will serve you. If your ancestors were for example from Senegal, a higher carb/lower fat diet would maximize your mass gains. So what should one do? Only experimentation will solve that issue, or go see one of my Metabolic Analytics practitioners listed on strengthsensei.com to find out by your patterns of fat distribution, what would be best for you. I have provided you will sample mass gaining diets in this book to inspire you.
Muscle Law 2: High calorie snacking Building muscle requires plenty of nutritious calories. Starting in 1992, I made it an habit to keep near my work space a “secret high calorie jar”. It is basically a mixture of nuts and dried fruits. If I get delayed for a meal, I reach in and take two handfuls from the pre-mixed jar, usually a recycled protein powder jar. The bottle contains: • Dried pineapple
• Cashews
• Dried cherries
• Dried apricots
• Walnuts
• Dried mango slices
• Dried blueberries
• Dates
• Pumpkin seeds
• Thompson raisins
• Pecans
• Sesame seeds
• Dried figs
• Brazil nuts
• Macadamia nuts
• Pistachios
• Hazelnuts
It keeps my blood sugar constant, and prevents me from going psycho. When my blood sugar gets too low, I am about as pleasant as Charles Manson on PCP with a toothache. With that, at times, I wash them down with an essential amino acids mixture, such as Complete Essentials from Body Systems Labs to further the anabolic processes. Besides providing you with a load of quality calories, you are also getting many valuable nutrients such as selenium from the Brazil nuts, magnesium from the cashews, anti-oxidants from the dried fruits, etc…
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Muscle Law 3 : You have to standardize your weight scale gain You have to be consistent on how you measure your body weight scale. Always weigh yourself first thing in the morning, after a trip to the bathroom to get of bodily waste, then you weight yourself to the nearest 0,1 lbs or kilo. Investing in a 30 dollars digital home scale is the way to go.
Muscle Law 4 : Eating carbs later during the day gets you out of sympathetic mode Carbs are best eaten after 6 PM, as they help you get out that wired state, and foster deep and sound sleep, if you are eating carbs all day, it takes away your drive as it shifting from sympathetic drive to parasympathetic mode. Parasympathetic mode is basically the mode you are in when you rest, wind down, and build muscle. Parasympathetic mode is counterproductive during as it takes you resolution to be productive. Avoid carbohydrates during, except peri-workout, allows you burn more fat. For optimal health, cortisol and insulin have to be in a balance. You need cortisol for drive during the day. In fact, studies from Norway and Finland show that the more cortisol you produce during workout, the more your strength and muscle mass will grow. Besides, elevated insulin from all day eating carbs blunts cortisol response. For optimal health, cortisol should be highest in the morning, and lowest at night. Eating carbs in the morning throws your natural cycle of cortisol production out the window, resulting in loss of mental focus and drive. Carbs at night will switch you in parasympathetic mode, which allow you to relax, rest and repair. Carbs stimulate the neurotransmitter serotonin which helps brain your brain happy.
Muscle Law 5 : Mindful eating Fat people chew on average their food 15 times before swallowing. Lean people chew their food 45 times! A basic principle is that you “liquify” the food before swallowing. Be mindful when you eat, stay away from screens of any kind. You are what you absorb, distraction ruins absorption.
Muscle Law 6 : Full hydration is paramount to gain muscle mass. To gain muscle mass rapidly, you must hydrate yourself well. To be even slightly dehydrated leads to increased cortisol output, which is catabolic to the muscle mass. The bare minimum of water to drink in a day can identified two ways: In imperial measures: take your bodyweight in pounds, multiply by 0.6, and make it ounces. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you should drink a minimum of 120 ounces of water a day.
In metric measures: Take your bodyweight in kilos and multiply by 3.37, and convert in milliliters. Hence, if you weigh 100 kg, you need to drink 3.37 liters a day minimum.
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Muscle Law 7: Stay away from alcohol Drinking alcohol is a muscle destroyer. It disrupts sleep, lowers testosterone and growth hormone, provides empty calories and promotes yeast build up in the gut.
Muscle Law 8: Stay away from inflammatory foods Inflammatory foods raise the catabolic hormone cortisol. The worst offenders are wheat, soy, corn (especially in the US, as it is often from GMO sources), fried foods, low quality protein like chicken nuggets, baloney, SPAM and refined sugar. So don’t believe the bullshit that chocolate milk with donuts are great to gain mass because they fit your macros. The greatest proponent of eating junk food, as long as it fits your macros, constantly whines that he can’t squat anymore because of inflammation.
Muscle Law 9: Vary your food intake A very simple is to put different colors in your food basket every week. Varying your food sources is a sure fire way to prevent the development of food intolerances. It is a well-known fact in labs that conduct food intolerance tests that they tend to find that bodybuilders always present the same food intolerances: tuna, eggs, whey, milk, beef…. foods that they eat day in and day out.
Muscle Law 10: Fruit consumption has to be custom tailored to your needs Strawberries, apples, oranges, madarines, plums, nectarines, apricots, raspberries, peaches are great for everyone. Grapes, pineapple, mangos, figs, dates, and bananas are particularly good if you are lean and severely underweight. For fruit, you can have 1 to 6 servings a day. If your body fat is around 15%, stick to one serving. If you are at 4%, you can probably handle up to 6 servings. Very hard training lean athletes can handle 30 grams of fructose a day, while the guy at 15% can handle only 5 grams. As a rule of thumb, a serving of fruit has about 5 grams of fructose.
Muscle Law 11: Favor wild meats or grass-fed meats over farm raised I am a firm believer in eating grass fed meats such as beef, yak and buffalo over conventionally raised beef. Why? Lab analysis shows that grass-fed meats are higher in these vital nutrients: • Creatine • Carnosine • Carnitine • Omega 3s • CLA, an anti-inflammatory fat that actually mitigates cortisol, hence being a strong anti-catabolic agent.
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On top of this, they are devoid of the pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics found in conventionally raised meats.
Muscle Law 12: Healthy fats are critical in building muscle rapidly The best sources of fats to build muscle are: organic cow’s butter, goat butter, olive oil, macadamia butter, cashew butter, peanut butter, almond butter, pecan butter, Brazil nut butter, macadamia oil, coconut oil, MCT oil, fish oil. Whenever I’m in Australia, I pick up a nut butter made out of Brazil nuts, cashews and almonds: delicious. If you are not blessed with a large appetite, coconut oil or MCT oil are a simple and easy way to pack in the calories. Since I grow better on fats than carbs, when my goal is to gain mass, I either take 2 tablespoons of MCT oil at the end of the meal, or I take two heaping tablespoons of coconut oil.
Muscle Law 13: Pre-workout fruits should be of a low glycemic nature The fruits listed below do not spike insulin, hence they are good choices pre workout: • Grapefruit
• Plum
• Blueberries
• Apricot
• Cantaloupe
• Blackberries
• Apples
• Nectarine
• Cherries
• Raspberries
• Orange family (tangerine, mandarine)
• Pear
• Strawberries
Muscle Law 14: Post-workout fruits should be of a high glycemic nature Insulin post workout is your best friend as an anabolic. Hence, one can use the high glycemic index fruits listed below to maximize the anabolic response. High glycemic index fruits
• Bananas (brown spotted bananas are a better choice. As bananas ripen, the fructose is converted to glucose, spiking their glycemic index) • Grapes • Raisins (as they are dried fruit, their carb content per weight is significantly higher than the fully hydrated grapes) • Figs • Dates
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Muscle Law 15 - Adequate sodium intake is critical in mass building nutrition Sodium has been considered evil in health circles. Doctors would advocate consuming less than 1.5 grams of sodium per day. Now the medical community has gone full circle, now advocating 4 to 6 grams a day for optimal health. High protein have been shown to increase sodium requirements. Salt should have a color. Not that bland white stuff. Salt should be either pink, red, beige or grey. What that means is that it contains trace minerals and has not been highly processed. Now keep in mind that should not cost an arm and leg. It does not need to come from Tibet, be harvested by a blood type AB Buddhist monk who engages his pelvic floor before bending over, 10th out of fourteen children born during a full moon...etc. Good salt is readily available at any health food store. A great brand that I have used for years would be Celtic Sea Salt. That type of salt is about 82% sodium chloride, and 14% other minerals, magnesium being the large portion of it. If you live in Hawaii, Hawaiian Red Sea Salt is a great option. The iodine contained in colored salts in retained in tissue for a long time, as opposed to the refined one from supermarkets. Gorillas which are massive animals, chew on rotten wood to satisfy their need for sodium.
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