Eat Lots (I Mean Lots) of Plants and Animals
Posted By: Mark SissonNo one would ever call the Primal Blueprint a protein-sparing plan, but you’re going to have to eat even more than before. Stuff yourself. I always say that body composition is 80% diet, and that goes for putting on mass as well as losing fat. You need to provide plenty of protein for all those hormones to synthesize, after all.
-Never let your protein intake go
lower than 1g/lb of body weight when you are aiming to add long-term muscle.
It’s the building block of muscle, and your body is going to be starving for
it.
-Eat plenty of saturated and monounsaturated fat. Fat blunts insulin
secretion while increasing testosterone production.
Insulin may be useful for stuffing your muscles full of glycogen, but that’s
not what you’re going for… right?
-Dietary fat, in conjunction with
all the GH you’ll be producing, also spares muscle wasting.
-You may have heard of the popular
GOMAD method – Gallon of Milk a Day for easy mass-building. It undoubtedly
works, but a gallon of milk isn’t exactly Primal and I can’t recommend it.
Instead of milk, why not a dozen eggs a day? ADEAD? If you can manage it, eating them on top of
your regularly scheduled meals is a great source of affordable protein, fat,
and vitamins (Vitamin A in particular may have pro-anabolic effects).
-Eat often. If you’re going for
pure size and strength, fasted workouts and
skipped PWO meals may not be the ticket. You’ll burn
more fat with the extra GH secretion and existing muscle will be spared, but
you may be missing the chance at prime protein synthesis when you fast. A PWO
meal of protein and fat will still blunt the insulin secretion and provide fuel
for your muscles.
-Increase caloric intake. You’re
going to be expending so much energy on the lifts (and you’ll continue to burn
through it even on rest days) while eating clean, Primal foods (and keeping insulin low as ever) that fat accumulation
shouldn’t be an issue at all. Eat!
-On those days when you do expend a
ton of energy – maybe on your metcon or sprint day – having a Primal-friendly
starch, like squash or sweet potato, is a decent way to replenish depleted glycogen stores.
-Eat a big piece of fatty meat
every single day. Steak, whole chicken,
lamb leg, organs, whatever. Just eat a solid piece of animal flesh for a powerful
protein infusion on a daily basis.
-A hardgainer is often someone who
doesn’t eat enough. Sure, genes play a role, but you can ultimately have a
significant say in how those genes rebuild you. To a point. Eat more and lift
harder to grab the reins.
I’m a firm
believer in the body’s natural ability to achieve proper homeostasis, provided
we supply the right environment and the right foods. For some of you, that
might mean lower body mass, lower than you’d like. In my opinion, that amount
of muscle is probably “right” for you and I wouldn’t recommend going above and
beyond to achieve more of it… but I also wouldn’t condemn it, especially if
it’s pursued in accordance with the Primal Laws. As for me, I am comfortable
where I’m at and tend not to seek added mass (I’m also at a point where lifting
heavy increases my risk of injury, and I HATE downtime). But if you are a
hard-gainer looking to add a few, as long as it’s not just show muscle and you
can actually lift some decent weight and at the very least manipulate your own
body weight comfortably, eat those dozen eggs and gain that weight.
¡hasta la próxima!
