The Anabolic Diet Blog

I am a regular consumer of raw eggs. I love them. I don’t eat them plain straight out of the shell, but I absolutely love mixing them into shakes, pudding recipes, and anything else they’ll fit into. Eggs are the most anabolic food available, and eating raw eggs not only helps me fit more eggs into my diet, but I also feel provides benefits that cooked eggs do not.  Raw eggs have helped me pack on more muscle than any other food, save for beef.

My love for raw eggs troubles a lot of people, but it shouldn’t. It’s almost comical to me the mass hysteria that surrounds every facet of eggs — salmonella poisoning, high cholesterol, egg whites versus whole eggs. There are legitimate concerns over eggs, but most are over-blown. This is to the detriment of those who are looking to improve their bodies, because raw eggs are, in my opinion, the greatest tool I’ve got in my arsenal for the Anabolic Diet.

Why raw eggs are safe

Recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveals that roughly one in every 30,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella, or 0.003% of all eggs. If you eat a dozen eggs a day on the Anabolic Diet, five days a week when excluding carb up days, then you have eaten 3,132 eggs in the course of one year.

Now let’s assume you’re a smart consumer and don’t waste your money on tons of unnecessary supplements. The money you save can be invested toward higher-quality eggs, which are less likely to be infected with any virus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s numbers are highly skewed by low-quality, commercially-produced eggs, because these eggs record the highest incidence of salmonella poisoning. We can assume that, if eating high-quality, farm-fresh eggs from a source like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, far less than 0.003% of all eggs you consume will be infected.

In other words, getting salmonella from a raw egg is an absolute anomaly. If eating responsibly, you have well less than a 1 in 30,000 chance of contracting any kind of disease. Statistics show that every time you hop in your car, there is a 1 in 5,000 chance of being in a fatal crash. Almost everything you do carries some sort of risk. Why small, harmless eggs have built themselves to be a great fear for our society, I will never know.

Eggs to avoid

If you still want to be absolutely safe, I can assure you that you can avoid most contaminated eggs fairly easily. These “sick” eggs will be an abnormal color once cracked open, and often contain tell-tale signs around the shells, like cracks or abnormal patterns. I once cracked open an egg that I was going to dump in a shake and it was an abnormal greenish hue. Needless to say, that entire shake got dumped into the drain immediately. (As a side note, this egg came from a bulk batch purchased from Costco. I now only buy fresh eggs from Trader Joe’s.)

Why raw eggs are good for you

There is controversy around whether an egg is healthier cooked or uncooked. I consume mine both ways. At least half, if not more, if my eggs eaten every day are raw, while the rest are either soft boiled (with a soft or runny yolk) or lightly scrambled.

The idea is that when you cook a yolk until it hardens, you are killing a number of nutrients and enzymes inside the yolk. This is the case any time you heavily cook fats, although saturated and monounsaturated fats hold up to heat better than their counterparts. I always eat my omega 3-enriched eggs raw because omega 3s do not hold up to heat, and cooking them negates any benefits I’ll receive from eating them. Most other eggs contain fats that stay stable at higher temperatures.

When I cook, I only cook with fertile eggs.

Eat both the yolk and the white

Raw egg whites contain high levels of avidin, which when consumed in large numbers, can cause a biotin deficiency. Biotin deficiencies can cause all kinds of nutritional problems. Consuming raw egg whites then can pose a problem.

However, the yolk of the egg contains high levels of biotin. When consuming the whole egg, a biotin deficiency is not an issue because the white and yolk counteract each other.

The take-home lesson: don’t take my advice and then consume just raw egg whites! I want you to be eating the entire egg.

The convenience of raw eggs

You could eat all soft-boiled eggs, but when you start to eat lots of them — which, if you want great results on the Anabolic Diet, you will — it will become too difficult to fit that many in, as well as the time to prepare them will be astronomical. Raw eggs provide a convenience that no other food does. Dump a bunch of eggs into a container, put in other anabolic shake ingredients, mix it together, and you have a healthy, calorie-dense, Anabolic Diet-friendly meal!

What kind of eggs to buy

I eat a mixture of omega 3-enriched eggs and fertile eggs. Vince Gironda believed fertile eggs to be the best and most bio-available, while omega 3 eggs help me get more of the essential fatty acids in my diet. Although I mentioned that I will cook with fertile eggs, I still eat both types of eggs raw more often than not.

How to prepare raw eggs

I don’t put my raw eggs into a blender anymore. I used to, but read that Vince Gironda advised against it, since it was essentially homogenizing the eggs, making them into particles too small to be digested and assimilated properly by the body. I don’t know if this is exactly the case with a consumer blender, but I follow the advice regardless.

I use my raw eggs primarily in shakes, like Vince Gironda’s Hormone Precursor Shake.

I put my eggs into a shaker bottle with the rest of my shake ingredients and just shake vigorously, which is enough to get everything to mix together. You can also use a fork to mix the eggs together. I also am a big fan of creating Anabolic Diet Pudding, by mixing one scoop of protein powder with a raw egg and some heavy cream.

Any famous raw egg consumers?

Although it’s taboo these days to admit to eating raw eggs, many top bodybuilders from the 1970s swore by them. (I’m sure many of today’s top bodybuilders are big fans of raw eggs, too.) VInce Gironda was the biggest proponent of raw egg consumption, and the bodybuilders he trained would sometimes eat up to 36 raw eggs a day!

Eat up!

The preceding hopefully will spell out why raw eggs are beneficial to someone looking to pack on more muscle. The convenience and nutrition raw eggs provide are too good to pass up. Raw eggs and the Anabolic Diet are naturally a perfect match.

It’s been a while since I posted picture progress on here, so I’d like to showcase how I’ve been doing utilizing the Anabolic Diet.

The first shot was taken the day after starting this blog, January 8, 2008.  The second shot was taken this morning, May 9, 2008.  Both pictures were taken first thing upon rising out of bed and are both unflexed.

Please note: these are simply progress pictures!  This isn’t my final “before and after” of the Anabolic Diet.  This is just where I’m at now.  I have a lot further I want to go, which I will document completely on here.  The Anabolic Diet is a lifestyle, and as such, I don’t think I will ever have a final “after” picture.  I am always striving to improve myself.

The best results I’ve received on the Anabolic Diet are when I’ve used whole food sources and very few supplements. I highly recommend that if you want the best results, you follow the same plan.

With that said, there are still some supplements that help. The following are the supplements I feel will benefit you the most while on the Anabolic Diet

Fish Oil

The benefits of fish oil and the omega 3 fats in it are easily found anywhere on the web. Among them include:

reduced inflammation, making weight lifting easier
improved heart health
prevention of numerous diseases and cell issues, including cancer

But, specific to the results we’re looking for, fish oil helps build more muscle and reduces fat gain. The omega 3s found in fish oil specifically help reduce insulin sensitivity and promote growth of muscle.

I dose very heavily on fish oil — at least over 20 grams a day, sometimes more depending on my goals. (When all-out trying to build muscle, I might go up to 40 grams a day.) I prefer now to get my fish oil in liquid form, opting for Carlson’s lemon-flavored fish oil, which blends in perfectly with any of my ground beef dishes.

Psyllium Husks

I’ve tried a number of fiber supplements. None of them have given me the, well, regularity and, sorry to get so graphic, ease of psyllium husks. Benefiber particularly made my dumps painful and irregular. (I figured I’d just get to the point.)

Psyllium husks are wheat-based and completely natural. They should be found in any grocery store. I buy mine from Trader Joe’s, under the name “Secrets of the Psyllium.” I use a couple tablespoons a day, either mixed into one of my ground beef dishes or into any shakes I make.

Protein Powder

Protein powder has plenty of advantages, but honestly, I use it pretty much just to flavor the shake or two I’ll have every day. I don’t have anything to back this claim up, but I just feel that the protein found in any protein powder is absolutely inferior to the protein in meat or eggs. I say this because when my diet is heavier in protein powder, I pile on fat easier and gain weight with more difficulty. When I cut out a lot of the protein powder, I stay unbelievably lean and have no trouble piling on muscle. I just prefer depending on eggs and beef rather than powders.

With that said, though, I do have a shake or two every day that is primarily made of raw eggs and cream that benefits a lot from good protein powder. I’m not entirely against the nutritional benefits of protein powder, but I just feel like too many people rely on it. Since I like healthy, beneficial protein powder, but also need the best-tasting stuff on the market, I use Biotest’s Metabolic Drive powder. It is absolutely amazing-tasting, and nutritionally is some of the best stuff I’ve seen.

BCAAs

BCAAs are the one form of “protein powder” that I do feel provides me with a huge advantage. Branched chain amino acids are the proteins that are primarily involved in healing and growing muscles; they give the “signal” to rebuild muscle. I use BCAAs heavily before, during, and after workouts, and I use them exclusively at this time. I ingest at least 40 grams of BCAAs in this period. I use a 50/50 mixture of Scivation Xtend and generic BCAA powder from bulknutrition.com to save money but keep my BCAAs palatable.

And that’s it. Don’t waste your money on other supplements. As long as you’re eating good, anabolic foods like meats and eggs, then you will grow like a weed. I know too many people that, in the pursuit of the ultimate body, will drop hundreds a month on worthless supplements. They would be much better off to be investing a fraction of that money into high-quality meats and the best, farm-fresh eggs they could get their hands on, and they’d get much better results from it.

The Anabolic Diet, despite being hailed as an amazing muscle-gaining diet, is also the best weight loss diet I’ve used. Specifically, the Anabolic Diet is the best diet I’ve used, bar none, to lose fat and retain as much muscle as possible.

I’ve been asked frequently how to lose weight using the Anabolic Diet. The answer is simple.

To lose weight on the Anabolic Diet, all you need to do is take a “regular” Anabolic Diet menu and subtract macronutrients. So, for example, if you are eating 3500 calories a day on the Anabolic Diet, you need to chop off an appropriate percentage of calories proportional to macronutrient levels. Let’s say, for example, you want to start off conservative and drop your calories by 20%. You would move to 2800 calories. Let’s say at 3500 calories, you were eating 230 grams of fat per day. You would then drop that amount 20% to 184 grams of fat. If eating 300 grams of protein, you would drop it 20% to 240. On and on it goes, dependent on the number of calories you plan to eat. Then just shrink the portion size of each meal you have.

But how many calories is appropriate to lose weight? This is entirely dependent on your body. If you are gaining weight on 3500 calories a day and your bodyfat is remaining very low, then if you maintain the same amount of work (or, better yet, add in a little more work in the form of cardio) and drop calories by 20% or more, then you should be able to lose weight. If you keep lifting heavy weights and do some cardio, your weight lost will likely be all fat and not muscle.

The best answer to how many calories to drop is: experiment. Start at a conservative number, like 20%, and then drop more calories every week dependent on your progress.

An example of a somewhat extreme “cutting” diet based on the Anabolic Diet is the Get Shredded Diet by Dr. John Berardi. I say it is extreme because it only has one carb refeed day every two weeks, and the calories are very low — about 10x bodyweight, for eight to twelve weeks. It is a diet for people who are already relatively low in bodyfat, but want to get even lower. (The link above will provide sample diet plans, as well as lots more information.)

I have followed the Get Shredded Diet twice over the past two years (each time separated by two years) and it truly gives amazing results. I have done a lot of “extreme” cutting in the past, but using the principles of the Anabolic Diet and the Get Shredded Diet helped me retain my strength and muscle.

Here is an example of my most recent Get Shredded/lower-calorie Anabolic Diet “cut” menu. I followed this for about eight weeks. Before this, I ate a very similar diet, but calories were bumped up around 2800. I was losing weight on this diet, but plateaued, which is why I jumped to the Get Shredded Diet next. Macronutrient percentages remained the same. The following diet provides about 1800 to 1900 calories and regular Anabolic Diet macronutrient ratios — about 60/35/5 fat/protein/carbs.

MEAL 1
4 omega 3 eggs
1/2 scoop protein powder
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 cup water

IN-BETWEEN
10g BCAA

MEAL 2
1/2 lbs 94% lean beef
4 g fish oil
Small salad with 1/4 avocado and 1 fertile egg

IN-BETWEEN
10g BCAA

MEAL 3
1/2 lbs 94% lean beef
4 g fish oil
Small salad with 1/4 avocado and 1 fertile egg

IN-BETWEEN
10g BCAA

Meal 4
Four eggs
1/2 avocado
6 g fish oil

Again, as with all other sample diet plans I list, I will supplement with psyllium husks and flax seeds in various meals, and I try to get as many veggies in as possible, whether they are listed in each meal or not. What I have listed simply provides the “bulk” of what I eat.

Using the principles of the Anabolic Diet, losing the little bit of pudge you gain will be a no-brainer.

The Anabolic Diet is great for building muscle with minimal fat gain, but if you’re like me, it takes a lot of work to avoid fat gain altogether. Whenever I build muscle, I expect to either stay around the same bodyfat levels or allow them to slightly elevate. I generally aim to stay lean year round.

With that said, a lot of people ask me what exactly I eat day-to-day on the Anabolic Diet when my goal is to gain muscle and keep fat gains to a minimum. The answer: a lot of foods in quantities that most people would try to avoid normally.

Basically, I try to center all my meals around beef and eggs, which are, in my opinion, two of the most anabolic foods available anywhere. I will eat a dozen or more eggs every day, and sometimes up to two pounds of beef a day. Of course, there are a number of other foods I eat, but these are the “core” of my diet and provide the majority of my nutrients.

The eggs are eaten raw in shakes — usually in the form of Vince Gironda’s Hormone Precursor Shake — as well as hard boiled and, when I have the time, very lightly scrambled. I aim for a mixture of fertile eggs and free-range omega 3 eggs. The beef is eaten cooked usually in a chili-like mixture.

All meals are evenly spread throughout the day, usually with breakfast being a little bit bigger than other meals, and post-workout meals being grouped a little closer together.

With that said, here’s a quick sample diet providing roughly 3500 calories; 214g fat, 350g protein, and under 30g carbs.

MEAL 1
6 eggs, scrambled
4 slices bacon

MEAL 2
1/2 lbs 90% lean beef
6g fish oil

MEAL 3
1/2 lbs 90% lean beef
6g fish oil

MEAL 4
1/2 lbs 95% lean beef
3 eggs
3g fish oil
1 tbsp hummus

MEAL 5
2 scoops protein powder
2 tbsp heavy cream
3 eggs
1 tbsp fish oil

MEAL 6
1/2 lbs 95% lean beef
3g fish oil
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 tbsp hummus

Of course, with each meal, I will have some form of vegetables, but I do not count these toward my calorie totals. I often even will have a salad with trace amount of bleu cheese dressing, which again I do not count toward my totals. My favorite veggies are broccoli, shredded carrots, asparagus, and spinach. I will also sprinkle a couple tablespoons of flax seeds into my beef mixtures, as well as a couple tablespoons of psyllium husks into my shakes. I will provide recipes for all of these in a future post.

The above, however, provides the “bulk” — no pun intended — of an Anabolic Diet plan geared toward muscle gain.

I took a few months and didn’t update this blog.

Of course, I am still strictly following the Anabolic Diet, and I will be providing regular updates from now on. I apologize for my inaction, but stay tuned for some good content, as well as picture updates.

This is a basic overview of my first week experience on the Anabolic Diet, and how it felt. For even more information on the first week, check out StrongLift.com’s write-up.

I first started on the Anabolic Diet in April of 2007. I read up on it for about two weeks before beginning, and then dove in head-first. I chose to follow the guidelines in T-Nation.com’s popular Anabolic Diet thread — specifically to eat low-carb/high-fat for the first 12 days rather than just the first 5, so the body becomes better fat-adapted. This is not necessary, but the reasoning behind it seemed sound to me.

Most accounts of the Anabolic Diet warned that, sometime late in the first week, you’ll hit a wall. A painful, slow, dull wall, and you’ll want to quit right there.  On day two of the Anabolic Diet, I hit that wall. I ate low carb and high fat on Monday, and woke up Tuesday sore and like there were a hundred little sandbags taped to my body, pulling me down. And I plowed through that day, using every bit of energy I had to get through my daily tasks. It was truly a challenge.

An even bigger challenged awaited me after working for the first half of the day, though: my workout for that night.

Don’t push yourself too hard in your workout when you hit the first-week wall. If you’re like me, you have the balls-to-the-wall attitude when it comes to training when you have a goal, but trust me, you will have endless energy and strength to power through every single other workout for years to come. You don’t want to wear yourself out too much, or worse yet, risk injury.

The feeling of having hundreds of little sandbags taped to my body continued slightly through Wednesday, held on a little through Thursday, and was basically gone by Friday.

Don’t give up during your first two weeks of the Anabolic Diet! Trust me, it is absolutely painful when you hit the dreaded “wall” but when it’s gone, the feeling you get is wonderful. I have lots more energy than I ever had on a traditional mixed-fats-and-carbs diet, and just feel better in everyday life. Eating carbs throughout the day always gave me a bloated feeling, and that is gone with the Anabolic Diet.

If you’re going to give the Anabolic Diet a shot, give it at least three weeks. By the end of the third week, you should be pretty fat-adapted and trust me, you’ll feel better than you’ve ever felt before.

I have reached a point in my bodybuilding life where I just need to be honest with myself.

And the honest truth is: I just want to look better naked. (And clothed.)

Reading around on popular bodybuilding forums, you’ll find a number of people looking down on those that want to build up their upper bodies, or who don’t vigorously squat in every workout.

That is not what this site is about. 

I am not looking to neglect any body parts, but I am looking to build exactly what Vince Gironda espoused: a proportional, symmetrical, beautiful body. If I have to primarily work my upper body to get it, then so be it. If I’m not squatting 600 pounds or benching 500, then so be it.

My interest is in looking better, without regard to strength increases or better athletic performance.  Of course, strength increases and better athletic performance are going to come as a result of having a better body, but that is not the point to me.

I want to be happier with my body, and in order to be happier with my body, it has to look better first. Right now, I am doing whatever it takes — naturally — to get the look I want.

Everyone seems to hold them up to a pedestal — and with good reason — but I need to come out and say it:

I absolutely hate eating vegetables.

I’ve gotten better in the past couple years. These days I don’t mind forcing them down, gagging the whole way. I used to avoid it altogether, and it took a passion for weight-lifting to change my mind.

I try to eat vegetables with every meal, but these days I get about six or seven servings of my greens without any gagging or any taste issues. And doing it is very easy.

Instead of ice, blend frozen veggies into your shakes. This trick has profoundly changed my vegetable consumption. For example, in today’s Hormone Precursor shake, I blended in three cups of frozen broccoli.

This trick barely alters the taste of your shake — in fact, you won’t notice it at all after just a few shakes. I am a big fan of using shakes as a quick, complete meal, and these days I don’t make a single one without at least a couple of frozen vegetables inside. Experiment with a variety of vegetables and see what suits you best.

Just remember: ditch the ice in your shakes. Popping in a cup of frozen veggies instead will do wonders for your health and your physical appearance.

Vince Gironda, one of my biggest influences in the bodybuilding game, swore by guidelines similar to those laid out by the Anabolic Diet.  In his book, Unleashing the Wild Physique, Vince stated that he believes great results in bodybuilding are 85% from nutrition and diet.

Vince, in describing a “muscle building” diet he called the “Hormone Precursor Diet,” wrote a recipe for a shake to be drank throughout the day.  The shake is as follows, copied from Splendid Specimens: The History of Nutrition in Bodybuilding:

Vince’s special protein drink made of 12 oz half and half, 12 raw eggs, 1/3 cup milk-and-egg protein powder, 1 banana. (Make one to three mixtures of this formula and drink throughout the day, between meals, and before retiring)

My plan, right now, is to make one of these shakes and sip on it throughout the day rather than having many small shakes intermittently all day long.  The milk-and-egg protein powder will be replaced with one scoop of Biotest’s Metabolic Drive protein powder, and I will be omitting the banana.  I will also grind some frozen broccoli into the mix for some greens.

This seems like a convenient way to get the nutrition I need and have it all throughout the day.  I’ll report back on how well it works, of course.