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The Large Professor
What I Wish I Knew Then - Confessions of a Former Skinny Guy Part I

By Austin Blood
First published at www.johnberardi.com, Sept 5 2003.

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True Story.

The facilities maintenance guy here at Science Link Headquarters goes by the unfortunate moniker, “B-Man”. Don’t ask us how he got this name.

Long story.

Nicknames aside, B-Man used to be skinny. Real skinny. His older brother; who stole all the muscle hypertrophy genes while first in the womb, used to taunt him incessantly as a child with statements of overwhelming maturity like:

“Boy, you so damn skinny you gotta jump around in the shower to get wet.”

“Hey bro, when you turn sideways and stick out your tongue, you look like a zipper.”

Like we said, real mature.

As an adult, B-Man grew weary of being a beanpole and became determined to do whatever it took to add copious slabs of sinewy brawn to his spindly frame. Inspired by the pretty “before and after” pictures of supplement company advertisements, and convinced he could overhaul his spindly frame by participation in their twelve week programs, he commenced his daunting task of “getting his big on”. Unfortunately, while the twelve weeks progressed rather quickly, the B-man did not. Despite having followed their workout recommendations and nutritional components to a “T”, he looked nothing like those pretty “after” pictures in the supplement sales literature.

Frustrated but undaunted, he carried on. Toiling under the misguided watch of a slew of personal trainers; he squatted, benched, and cursed his way to a dismal five-pound lean body mass increase in four years. While he certainly got an “A” for effort, the B-man became worried that he was doomed to a scrawny existence. Still, he continued to read every mainstream fitness publication he could get his bony hands. The B-man also experimented with every legal supplement he could purchase. If it promised bigger muscles and could be blended, sprayed, encapsulated, mixed, or swallowed, he bought it. But despite his efforts, that stubborn scale needle remained cast in stone, taunting him like a cruel, leather-clad dominatrix.

Finally, when the B-man was approaching his wit’s end (but fortunately, not his fortitude’s end), his emaciated derriere discovered this site. And the rest, as they say, is history. Over the course of the past year, under JB’s tutelage, the B-man has put on over twenty pounds of androgen-free lean mass and recently reduced his bodyfat percentage into the single digits. Six percent, to be exact.

Now, if any aspect of the above scenario sounds remotely familiar, or you consider yourself to be a card-carrying member of the genetically challenged militia, this article is written especially for you. How many of us have found ourselves in similar situations with little to no progress to show for all the blood, sweat, and tears we have invested in the gym? I know I certainly have. For I am the B-man.

As indicated, muscle gains for me have always come at pace that can only be described as geological and it is only through a focused and methodical plan – one gained through experience - that I have been able to make significant gains. With so much misinformation being spread in today’s era of sport nutrition and training, separating fact from fiction is often a tall order. Countless corporations and media conglomerates, each with their own selfish profit agendas, assault our senses seemingly by the hour with outright lies, half-truths, and appeals to our vanity. Caught in the crossfire of this relentless onslaught, it is easy to lose sight of the basic truths that have the greatest ability to impact your success. How I wish someone had pulled me aside in the early days of my training to share with me the fundamental principles of effective nutrition and workout design; free and clear of hidden agendas. Had that been the case, I would not have wasted years exercising futility rather than muscles.

But you, my good JB.com brethren, need not suffer the same fate as the B-Man, for I am here to share with you the fundamentals no one shared with me. With them you may bypass years of unproductive toil and chisel your frame into a hunk of steel that much sooner. In this two-part series, I will discuss the key points that JB taught me so that I might add over twenty pounds of androgen-free lean mass while simultaneously reducing my bodyfat (now 6%) by over ten percentage points in a little over one years’ time. In Part I, I will share with you my top nutritional lessons for success, while Part II will demonstrate how the incorporation of low-rep strength training and the critical component of perseverance can help put your lean-mass gains through the roof. Without further ado - let’s roll!

The B-Man’s Listing of What I Wish I Knew Then, Thank Goodness I Know Now, Nutrition Fundamentals…

When it comes to getting results from your fitness program, there is no substitute for good eating and persistent planning. Whether you want to grow like a tree or shred like a woodcutter, the following points are crucial in helping you produce optimum results:

I. MANAGE TOTAL CALORIC INTAKE – BETTER GET A CALCULATOR!

- Ya gotta feed the machine! As someone wise once said, “You don’t get to be an eagle by eating like a bird.” In your quest to join the ranks of the physically elite, it is imperative you make total caloric intake and analysis the cornerstone of your plan. Unless you are a rare breed of caloric clairvoyant, it is unlikely you will ever reach your potential without regularly taking the time to calculate the total caloric intake you will need to achieve your goals. For me, I read food labels; kept a daily food log, and made damn sure I knew how many calories I needed to grow. Be forewarned: for all of us, it’s a lot more than you think. Bottom line: make sure you are dead certain you are getting enough good calories to grow, or risk being sorely disappointed with your progress. Not sure how much to eat? You’ve come to the right place. Read JB’s Massive Eating article when you’re done with this one.

II. FEEDING FREQUENCY – YA GOTTA EAT!

- Eat every 2-3 hours. This will ensure your body has a steady stream of nutrients to fuel growth and health. By eating frequently, you will also improve and maintain the efficiency of your metabolism. Yes, it’s a pain. Yes, you’ll use more dishes. Yes, you’ll use more toilet paper. And yes, you’ll definitely look and feel a lot better.

III. POST- WORKOUT NUTRITION IS VITAL TO YOUR SUCCESS!

- After you have soundly thrashed yourself in the gym, your muscles are screaming for glycogen and protein to repair the damage. This is the time to get the goods into your gullet ASAP! Don’t fool around with this one. We’re talking rapidly digestible proteins (whey) and simple carbs, with at least a 2:1 ratio of carbs to protein. I took Biotest Surge to the gym with a shaker, so that I made sure I was growing before I even left the building. The following is my favorite formula for rapid recovery:

- Immediately Post Workout: Mix one scoop of Biotest Surge, and 3 scoops of powdered Gatorade with one liter of water before leaving the gym. Drink it up!

- One hour post-workout: 2 cups Kellogg’s Smart Start cereal, one cup of fat-free cottage cheese, 2 scoops of protein powder (40 gms protein) and one piece of fruit or mixed berries. Mix up and chow down!

IV. MACRONUTRIENT MANIPULATION

- Eat protein with every meal. When eating a carb meal, don’t eat more than 10 grams of fat in that particular meal. Conversely, if you eat more than 10 grams of fat in a single meal, make sure you minimize the carb consumption (10 grams or less), and up the protein. Following these guidelines will enable you to keep your insulin levels in check and prevent you from becoming a tub of lard while eating to get big. Speaking of insulin, that sneaky little hormone can be both anabolic and diabolic due to the fact that it will shuttle nutrients into either fat or muscle cells in accordance with your dietary practices. So you need to minimize insulin at certain times during the day to prevent fat gain, and you need to spike insulin several times a day to keep the anabolic process rolling along. Put another way, here’s what I did:

- First 3 meals of the day: Protein plus fat with no carbs.
- Strength training session. (Call gurney for transport out of the gym)
- Post-workout nutrition. (Massive insulin spike for anabolic recovery)
- Final 3 meals of the day: Protein plus carbs with little to no fat.

V. THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLIGENT FOOD CHOICES

- Ya gotta eat clean to get or stay lean. With rare exception, if it comes in a box it is pretty much worthless. Unless, of course, the development of Type II diabetes is your goal. The more foods you eat that are as close to their natural states as possible, the better off you will be. This means lots of veggies, chicken, and beans. (not baked beans...barbecue breath!) I recommend that the carbohydrate portions of your diet be fibrous in nature; foods like oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. For protein, eat casein, whey, white meat chicken, lean beef, fresh fish, and egg whites. Lastly, eat low quantities of fats from flax, olive, fish, and nut oils. Some general percentage guidelines:

To grow like a tree:

- Carbs: 40-50% of total diet.
- High Quality Protein: 30-40% of total diet.
- Fats: 25%-30% of total diet.

To shred like a woodcutter:

- Carbs: 20-25% of total diet.
- High Quality Protein: 50% of total diet.
- Fats: 20-25% of total diet.

- Want to know more? Again, you’ve come to the right place. Read JB’s Massive Eating and Lean Eatin' articles when you’re done with this one.

VI. DON’T FOCUS ON SUPPLEMENTS

- All the fancy forms of creatine, pro-hormones, and cutting-edge thermogenics in the world are inconsequential in the absence of a sound nutritional plan that is specifically designed to achieve your unique goals. Supplements are just that…supplements; not magical elixirs. Please don’t do what I did and waste a ton of money on these products without having your nutritional house in order. At best, the efficacy of a great many supplements is dubious anyway.

VII. CHEAT MEALS

- Ahhh, the most slippery slope of them all! The cheat meal concept is highly variable because it depends so much on personal aesthetic concerns and individual physiology. Personally, I contend that you should never, ever have a cheat meal.

Naah…just kidding!

Let’s admit it, there is nothing like the occasional session of scrumptious cuisine to make us feel just a little bit better about life. However, it is crucial we define the parameters of a cheat meal since this is one component that has great potential to derail your otherwise sensible program. Bottom line: If you have a shred of concern for an aesthetic physique, it is imperative that any cheat meal you have be modest in nature. That means three reasonable slices of pizza instead of the whole pie. That means one hamburger with medium fries instead of the Triple Ham Slam garnished with a gallon of onion rings, then washed down with a trough of cola. Get the picture? Going on a junk food binge or eating 12 Krispy Kreme doughnuts in 12 seconds and then calling it a cheat meal is a fitness train wreck of epic proportions. My personal experience has taught me that any cheat meal during periods of attempted fat loss usually brings progress to a screeching halt; even with a single weekly meal. Therefore, I contend that any cheat meal should be consumed during periods in which you are trying to gain mass. In this particular case, a modest weekly cheat meal is usually fine for most people. Leaner people may be able to get away with a little bit more, while those who gain fat easily need to be very cautious.

VIII. SOUND NUTRITION AS A LIFESTYLE

- As a nutritional neophyte, I used to view dietary discipline as a means to an end. Usually, that end involved eating myself into an insulin-induced stupor after a pre-determined period of restraint. (usually no more than a few days) As I progressed and became more serious about achieving results, I came to realize the importance of proper nutrition as a lifestyle, rather than an excuse to exercise gluttony. Simply put, as you come to realize and experience firsthand for yourself the many benefits of proper nutrition, your desire to consistently incorporate these principles into your own lifestyle will increase to the point where destructive nutritional habits will naturally fall by the wayside.

Nutritionally Philosophical Waxing

As evidenced by the above points, you certainly know by now (if you didn’t already) that your nutrition program is the most crucial component of your total fitness plan and the one most directly attributable to your ultimate success or failure. I still become infuriated to the point of rupturing an artery when recalling all the gut-busting workouts with the aforementioned slew of personal trainers. I rage because of the fact that not one of them took the time to inquire about my dietary intake or counsel me on the importance of such, despite the fact that they knew my goals – to get as big as possible. In the early years of my training, my progress was virtually non-existent until I incorporated a concrete dietary plan that included intelligent food choices and provided the caloric intake required to sustain muscular hypertrophy. Only after pursuing nutritional knowledge with the same attention to detail and passion as I pursued training knowledge, did I begin to make noticeable progress. Getting big while staying lean or getting lean without compromising lean mass tissue is a science, and those who are most successful in this endeavor approach it as such. If you are genuinely committed to the pursuit of physical excellence, this will involve learning everything you can about energy balance, macronutrient manipulation, the importance of post-workout nutrition, and how to best make intelligent food choices. While it may seem like a daunting and possibly tedious task at the outset, rest assured that the knowledge you glean will pay you exponentially beneficial dividends for years to come. The greatest advantage in developing a basic understanding of the principles of sound nutrition is that once you have made the initial investment, you will have an invaluable base of knowledge from which you can continually draw and manipulate as you progress. This will then enable you to frequently assess the efficacy of your meal plans to ensure that you are eating the correct foods in the proper amounts as dictated by your goals. With your nutritional house in order, you will be light-years ahead of the general population…and your physique will reflect it.

As you might imagine, nutrition is only part of the battle. Next month, I’ll be back with the top training lessons I learned from JB. Remember, I’m no nutrition expert. Nor am I a strength coach. Rather, I’m just an unwavering guy that wasted too many years looking for the “secrets” to wearing a lean and muscular physique. Fortunately, I’ve learned a number of excellent lessons along the way, have achieved my goals, and am setting new ones. Hopefully you won’t have to plod along in frustration for years. Instead, nestle up under my wing and let the B-man be your guide. Use the suggestions contained in this and my next article so that you might move that much closer to your ideal body.