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The Get Big Diet

                                                                                                                                                   Researched and Composed by Jacob Wilson, BSc. (Hons), MSc. CSCS

I'd like to start this article by asking you a question.  What is the most anabolic substance known to man?  If you said food then you are 100 percent correct.  It is absolutely impossible to put muscle on without enough nutrients to support the process.  You can train day after day, month after month, and still see absolutely nothing new in the mirror if you are not eating enough.

Taking this into consideration, it would stand to reason that the more food you consume, the higher an anabolic response your body will have after a brutal workout.  So if you were looking for a muscle building magic bullet then you have no further to look than your refrigerator!  Go stand in your kitchen for a minute. Look around, you are completely surrounded by the most anabolic substance in the world!  You can almost feel its power as if the cabinets were about to explode.  For if you consume the correct amount of macronutrients you will undoubtedly experience a surge of muscle growth that you never imagined possible!  

Everything I have ever done has been to the extreme.  Whether at work or play I have always attempted to break barriers. I believe that this is the mentality a bodybuilder must have if he/she is to succeed! Therefore, you can imagine what transpired when I first discovered the anabolic power of food.  I stuffed myself with it!

Make no mistake about it, you will never become huge on 2,500 calories a day!  No matter what any sell out magazine tells you. I know that allot of you are thinking, " what about my abs?  I don't want to lose sight of them."  Have you ever seen pro bodybuilders in the off season? They are tanks!  Lee Priest competes at 225 and has gotten up to 300 pounds in the off season.  While I am not going to ask you to go to these extremes, you must sacrifice by gaining a small amount of fat if you ever hope to add serious muscle mass. Guess what? When you diet the fat off after a bulk,  your abs will still be there, and with them, a whole new layer of lean muscle mass that you can show off at the beach!   Remember bodybuilding is a process of building the body up and then chiseling it down again.  You must understand that you cannot build anything without the proper materials and that is what my "Get Big Diet" is all About. Here's what I am going to do, I will post a mass building diet that is meant to build muscle, while keeping fat gain to a minimum.  I will accomplish this by sticking with extremely clean eating!

Get Big Diet Components

Protein - I can talk all day long about the importance of protein!  But I will sum it up by saying that this macronutrient contains the building blocks of muscle tissue!  Without the proper amount of protein you can kiss muscle gains goodbye!  I would recommend a minimum of 1 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight a day  from sources such as chicken, fish, turkey, steak, skim milk, egg whites and protein powders. Therefore, if you weigh 200 pounds, you should consume 200 to 300 grams per day. Lastly, I would stay away from foods such as bacon and ribs. All the meat you eat should be lean.

Carbohydrates - Obviously you cannot induce muscle growth without intense workouts.  Well, there is no way that you can train at an optimal level without the bodies chief source of fuel.  The Carbohydrate.  This macronutrient not only fuels us, but it releases one of the body's most anabolic hormones in response to its ingestion.  This hormone is called insulin, and it increases the uptake of protein into our muscles tremendously. Carbs also spare protein so that it can be used to build muscle as opposed to being burned as energy (see note).  You should consume 2.5 to 3.5 g of carbohydrates a day.  That said, a 200 pound man would consume  500 to 700 grams of carbs a day from complex carbohydrates such oatmeal, and wheat bread.

Note:  The body has the capability to convert other macros into glucose. Such a process is known as gluconeogenesis.  Mr. Knowlden discusses this in The Window Of Opportunity.  Here is an excerpt:

Cortisol literally converts muscle tissue to proteins for conversion into glucose. This is your body’s way of producing energy when all readily available energy (glucose) and stored forms (glycogen) of energy have been expended.  To compensate for this depletion of energy, your body will go into a process called gluconeogenesis to produce glucose from amino acids in the liver. The end result of this process? Hard earned muscle used as energy, and all potential gains becoming null and void.

Essential Fatty Acids -  Fat intake, namely from EFA's, are vital to your progress. Essential Fatty Acids help with countless areas in our bodybuilding lifestyle. For more information on this, refer to, Essential Fatty Acids - An In Depth Analysis.

Calculating Your Calories

I discuss caloric calculation in 13 weeks to burning fat the diet.  You can go to the exact section by clicking here.  Once there, find the amount of calories it would take to maintain your current bodyweight.  Here is what you must understand:  even though food is extremely anabolic, a general rule of thumb, is that the higher you raise your caloric intake, the more fat you will store. You can minimize this through clean eating, and slowly raising your calories.  For example, say your maintenance is 3, 000 calories per day, you might tack on an additional 250 calories the first week to increase muscular gains.  On that low an increase, fat gain will be negligible to non-existent! If weight gain fails, then increase your intake slowly again. 

Sample Meal Plan

The following diet is over 4,500 calories, you will of course adjust it to your daily needs as calculated above. 

This articles was meant to build a solid foundation.  A foundation based on the following fact:   " If you want to be one of the Big Boys you've got to eat like the big boys!"

As you advance however, you will find that the site has a wealth of additional nutritional knowledge.  The goal is to make you, the athlete succeed and do so with a flare!

Yours In Sport

Jacob Wilson jwilson@abcbodybuilding.com  
President Abcbodybuilding.com / Hyperplasia The Magazine
 

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