Pulse Feast / LeanGains Principles

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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Pulse Feast / LeanGains (Martin Berkhan) Principles:

Sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to post using LiveSpill for the Pulse Feast article. Again, sorry, I know this question should be posted there instead of here.

(1) Since Martin advocates a 16/8 fast/feast, is there a reason why breakfast isn’t skipped with this protocol to reach the desired 14 to 16 hour fast?

(2) What are your thoughts on veggies during the fast (e.g., salad with one of the pulses)?

(3) What are your thoughts on taking 10 grams of fats (e.g., almonds) during the fast?

(4) If someone has practically a whole bottle of Surge Recovery and Whey, what do you think they should do until it is finished (e.g., 50 grams of whey protein for each pulse and one serving of Surge post-workout followed by feast)?

THANKS IN ADVANCE! I am very interested in this methodology. Leangains seems to be quite effective as does the principles of the modified warrior diet. I think this way of eating will suit me well. Again, thanks for your time and effort!

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For clarification purposes, I meant during the pulse, not the fast, when I was referring to the veggies and fats.

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whey won’t work for the pulse and food with the pulse is going to interfere. sounds like you are looking for too many shortcuts.

4

CT, himself, has stated MANY times that his diet is frequently tweaked. Sometimes it is because his goals have changed and other times, it is to experiment and find out well different strategies work. It is his willingness to experiment that makes him a leader and you a follower.

That is why I asked him the question, I want his advice. Yours is appreciated as the next guys, but it lacks any real value other than to try make me out as lazy.

Instead, it is through this questioning and answering (experimentation) that we will find out the best protocol possible. Not by being merely passive and dismissive to anyone who questions the current protocol.

The reason I asked about veggies is that there is a similar protocol (modified warrior diet) out there (yes, this is not the only one in existence that using these principles) that allows for small amount of veggies during the day.

Furthermore, CT has previously stated that before MAG-10 he used Whey (one pulse at 9, then 12, then 3).

Additionally, CT said that he highly values Martin’s work, and Martin advocates using whole food during the underfeed meals?

Also, Michael Keck over at Elitefts uses a modified warrior diet and he uses whey, 50g protein with 10g of fat, spread over 2-3 underfeed meals (cannot exceed 300 calories).

My purpose in posting was to get CT’s feeling based on the above questions because of these similar protocols that exist. I suppose, I am just too lazy to know better!

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Michael Keck’s recommendations for using a modified warrior diet (all of this information is taken from either Michael Keck’s log and the Q&A board over at Elitefts.com - if you don’t know about it, go check it out because there is an amazing amount of knowledge on training, nutrition, and fat-loss):

Under the modified warrior diet approach, you are allowed to eat 2-3 small meals during the day…this is indeed NOT fasting such feedings, depending on the individuals and the goal can be 25-50g protein and 5-10g fat and or 10-20g carbs all from easily digested sources.

Simply do your morning fasted cardio (usually low intensity steady state) and an hour or so afterward, you can have your first underfeeding meal, preferably a small amount of protein and fats. Small is relative to the person, but will usually fall in the 25-50g of protein range with 5-15g fat.

if you perform a fasted HIIT session, then you MAY want to forgo the fats in favor of carbs 15-30g in the first underfeeding meal. That will be, of course, goal and individual dependent.

Regarding peri-workout nutrition for a morning lifter I would set up it something like this

10g BCAA/EAA 15 minutes prior
5-10g EAA during
Post workout Whey or Hydrolyzed Whey 25-50g depending on the size of the person along with 20-30g slow carbs again, person dependent. From there I would go back to underfeeding meals until the evening feeding.

Here’s the macro and calorie breakdown
for each day.

High Carb High Calorie
300g Protein
400g Carb
50g Fat
3,500 calories

Medium Carb Medium Calorie
300g Protein
300g Carb
50g Fat
3,000 calories

Low Carb Low calorie
300g Protein
200g Carb
40g fat
2,510 calories

I’m going to have One High Carb, One low carb and the rest medium carb days for the remainder of the month and re test to see what happened.

Today is a medium day so the breakdown will be as such

Meal one-around 11:30am
50g protein
10g fat

Meal two-around 3:00pm
50g Protein
10g fat

During and PWO 5-6:30pm
100g Protein
100g Carb

Evening Feeding
100g protein
200g carbs
30g fat

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This is an outline of Iron Addicts (RIP) version of the modified warrior diet.

I got this information at http://scottmarcaccio.com/the-warrior-diet-day-1/

First off, attribution needs to be paid to Iron Addict for sparking this idea in me and Iâ??ve been using several of his processes. By the way, thatâ??s an AMAZING forum for anyone at any stage in weightlifting. Check it out.

Back on trackâ?¦ Throughout the day, you have 20 hours of undereating, with a 4 hour window, at night of all times, where you overcompensate and eat very heavily until youâ??re satisfied.

During the day, you can snack on veggies (no dips), and low GI fruit such as berries. Vegetable juices are good as well. Probably through the day you wouldnâ??t take more than 400-600 calories depending on your bodyweight. This gives your body a chance to detox, letâ??s your digestive tract recover, and switches your body into using the sympathetic nervous system (basically the fight/flight response which is our natural state, VERY high energy state to be in).

Then at night time, you dramatically increase food intake. I typically start out with a massive spinach salad, then move to either steak or 6-8 whole eggs, then a ton of sweet potatoes or brown rice, then more roasted vegetables or home-made guacamole, then whatever else Iâ??m craving. I eat very healthy, but itâ??s ALOT. Due to the daily undereating period, your body soaks up nutrients and protein absorption is increased dramatically.

After this meal, you feel so satisfied and sleepy, and itâ??s just an amazing feelingâ?¦ canâ??t wait for my meal tonight!

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I hope that this information can help someone in experimenting with the new rage of IF / modified warrior diet.

I think Iron Addicts has a modified warrior diet book, and I think that Michael Keck is working on one as well.

Martin Berkhan has a ton of free information available on his blog, so go check it out. I am sure Martin and Michael do consulting work if you need some specific help.

Of course, check out Elitefts, if you haven’t already, and to TNation for having a forum available to share this information.

I do not know any of these people personally, but I am thankful for them putting so much time and effort in helping others.

Now go shed some fat and break some PR’s!

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[quote]colinphenom wrote:
whey won’t work for the pulse and food with the pulse is going to interfere. sounds like you are looking for too many shortcuts. [/quote]

I respectfully disagree. As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to believe MAG-10 isn’t the only protein that can be used to be successful in gaining/maintaining muscle and limiting fat when on this type of diet. I’ve experimented with something like the pulse feast with Metabolic Drive Muscle drinks in the mornings and afternoons before eating solid food meals in the evening, and this actually is working FOR ME.

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[quote]buffd_samurai wrote:

[quote]colinphenom wrote:
whey won’t work for the pulse and food with the pulse is going to interfere. sounds like you are looking for too many shortcuts. [/quote]

I respectfully disagree. As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to believe MAG-10 isn’t the only protein that can be used to be successful in gaining/maintaining muscle and limiting fat when on this type of diet. I’ve experimented with something like the pulse feast with Metabolic Drive Muscle drinks in the mornings and afternoons before eating solid food meals in the evening, and this actually is working FOR ME.
[/quote]

I’m actually starting a similar fast. I have an amino supplement that is loaded with BCAAs, EAAs and NEAAs that I will take 2x during the fast. Peri-workout is creatine, with a protein blend (whey isolate, whey hydrolysate, milk isolate, casein, and egg albumin) and simple carbs. Then begins the feeding or feast phase at 7, where I get the rest of the food in. I’m going to try for a couple weeks, then tweak if need be and have blood tests done intermittently.

10

[quote]buffd_samurai wrote:
I respectfully disagree. As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to believe MAG-10 isn’t the only protein that can be used to be successful in gaining/maintaining muscle and limiting fat when on this type of diet. I’ve experimented with something like the pulse feast with Metabolic Drive Muscle drinks in the mornings and afternoons before eating solid food meals in the evening, and this actually is working FOR ME.
[/quote]

I was quick to jump to conclusions regarding whey. from one of Berardi’s articles:
Whey protein intake (30g) produces large transient hyperaminoacidemia. After an hour, blood amino acids are elevated by about 300%. After two hours, about 92%. After four hours, you’re back to baseline. This is ideal for increased protein synthesis but does nothing for protein breakdown (3,4).

I do agree with you that whey can be successful, however, for the physique athlete I still think MAG-10 is superior.

Protein hydrolysates in sports nutrition
Anssi H Manninen1

“Collectively, these studies strongly suggest that ingestion of a fast-acting protein hydrolysate and/or amino acid supplement results a less efficient uptake by the splanchnic bed and therefore increases the magnitude of the acute increase in amino acids in the systemic circulation that are available for muscle protein anabolism…
The splanchnic bed comprises 1) the liver and 2) the portal-drained viscera (PDV), which include the stomach, intestines, pancreas, and spleen…
Thus, the notion than an amino acid is an amino acid no matter how administered is clearly fallacious”

In otherwords di and tri peptides are used to a lesser extent by organs and are more available for your muscles.
With MAG-10 the quick rise and fall of aminos is going to be a quick rise and fall of insulin. I would assume the insulin response is going to be more drawn out with whey and thus inhibit fat breakdown to a greater extent than a pulse with a hydrolyzed protein. I know Poliquin recommends staying away from liquid meals if fat loss is the goal because they will inhibit fat loss.

Something else to consider is the actual “fasting state” which would be limited with a whey or whey/casein supplement because of the longer absorption time. IMO you aren’t really “fasting” if you’re consuming a whey/casein mix, to me that is more of a low-carb meal replacement. Furthermore, with the prolonged release of amino acids from the casein, it is going to make it harder to induce hyperaminoacidemia and thus require more protein. It is going to take more whey to reach that state than it would CH, and even more so if amino acids levels are eletated from the casein. Berardi’s article stated that 30g of whey resulted in an increase of 300% from baseline, but if baseline levels are higher than the effect is going to be less. From what I can find searching around, the higher the spike of aminos, the better the effect. Probably why they have moved from a pulse of 1 scoop of MAG-10 to three for this type of diet.

If you’re diet is working for you, stick with it for sure. I still think it would be more effective switching over to MAG-10, or even just a straight whey isolate vs. Metabolic Drive.

My two cents on it anyways.

11

[quote]dphillips wrote:
This is an outline of Iron Addicts (RIP) version of the modified warrior diet.

I got this information at http://scottmarcaccio.com/the-warrior-diet-day-1/

First off, attribution needs to be paid to Iron Addict for sparking this idea in me and Iâ??ve been using several of his processes. By the way, thatâ??s an AMAZING forum for anyone at any stage in weightlifting. Check it out.

Back on trackâ?¦ Throughout the day, you have 20 hours of undereating, with a 4 hour window, at night of all times, where you overcompensate and eat very heavily until youâ??re satisfied.

During the day, you can snack on veggies (no dips), and low GI fruit such as berries. Vegetable juices are good as well. Probably through the day you wouldnâ??t take more than 400-600 calories depending on your bodyweight. This gives your body a chance to detox, letâ??s your digestive tract recover, and switches your body into using the sympathetic nervous system (basically the fight/flight response which is our natural state, VERY high energy state to be in).

Then at night time, you dramatically increase food intake. I typically start out with a massive spinach salad, then move to either steak or 6-8 whole eggs, then a ton of sweet potatoes or brown rice, then more roasted vegetables or home-made guacamole, then whatever else Iâ??m craving. I eat very healthy, but itâ??s ALOT. Due to the daily undereating period, your body soaks up nutrients and protein absorption is increased dramatically.

After this meal, you feel so satisfied and sleepy, and itâ??s just an amazing feelingâ?¦ canâ??t wait for my meal tonight![/quote]

Scott changed his protocol to micellar casein over the BCAA mix as did most people fallowing IA version of the warrior diet. Quite a few people are also using cottage cheese instead of casein with good success too ( the verdict is still out and how effective this approach will be with most people though ).

12

buffd_samurai is correct to question the alleged superior efficacy of any one supplement.

A trip to Pubmed can do wonders towards finding what works for stimulating protein synthesis and potentially hypertrophy. There are dozens of peer-reviewed, supporting studies there. Not surprisingly, Whey alone works, and Whey plus Casein works great too. Or Whey plus Milk (which contains casein). But these “generic” items can be had for much less cost than other highly-tauted supplements.

Indeed, just using MILK in peri-workout has done wonders. Check out the work from from Stuart Phillips (who runs a great lab at McMasters). Few write bodybuilding articles about Milk because you can’t charge hundreds of bucks per month for it. Doesn’t matter that Milk works well; it just isn’t sexy-sounding or profitable enough, so you won’t see many big guys endorsing it.

As with using Barbell compound movements instead of isolated Machine movements, the simple and inexpensive often works as well as the complex and expensive. At the very least, if money is any concern, try using affordable products–that nonetheless have peer-reviewed support–before moving to the expensive ones with the magical claims.

13

The funny thing is I did the Pulse-Feast a couple of times after the Pulse-Fast, and I’m tempted to say I even posted about it. Pairing IF with the pulsing strategy seemed so natural. When the Pulse-Feast article came out I said to myself, “it’s about time!”

But as you guys are talking about, there are a variety of ways to do this. They all respect the same basic principles:

  1. Under-eat
  2. Lift
  3. Overeat

I like to use a whey-casein blend. The whey is fast enough to turn on protein synthesis, and the casein inhibits protein breakdown over the 4-5 hours between feedings. I’ve tossed out ideas on why CH pulsing might work in its own way, perhaps better, but long-term it’s not a cost-effective strategy.

14

thats just it CH may be the best but we dont get given an unlimited amount for free like thibs. They said its as much as having fast food but fast food isnt cheap to live on either.

They say that it is the peak and valley so casein may not be the best to pulse with but whey has been a staple for many years and it has protiens hydrolised too so what is the difference in absorbtion rate if they are both hydrolised???

15

[quote]colinphenom wrote:
whey won’t work for the pulse and food with the pulse is going to interfere. sounds like you are looking for too many shortcuts. [/quote]

people do this all the time on this site… they attack people for asking questions when there is sooo much research on other products that could work just as well. The main reason people look for shortcuts or what ever is time and money.

If you can afford CH all the time then get it some people want to know the science and alternatives so they can find things that will work for them.

16

I would like to know if there are supplements similar to MAG-10, ANACONDA and Surge. Also on this pulse feast can I ever eat breakfast again or lunch??? Is this a 7 day a week plan?

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[quote]Liam M wrote:
thats just it CH may be the best but we dont get given an unlimited amount for free like thibs. They said its as much as having fast food but fast food isnt cheap to live on either.

[/quote]

You also have to realize that at the end of the day you are going to need to take in the same amount of calories to reach your goals. so your going to be spending money on just as much food, minus a few hundred calories worth covered by the pulses. so it is an extra cost. I am however still giving it a try and i like it so far.

18

Fast-Squat-Milk

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[quote]midwestmuscle73 wrote:
I would like to know if there are supplements similar to MAG-10, ANACONDA and Surge. Also on this pulse feast can I ever eat breakfast again or lunch??? Is this a 7 day a week plan? [/quote]

That’s really funny, midwestmuscle, but a good question!

Seriously, I think I read where Thibs says that you can have normal eating days when you have to (vacations and such). But, in the main, I fear, that the eggs, toast, bacon and OJ days are over (unless you want that as your initial feast). Lunch is history too. We have entered the age of the perpetual supper…

As for the supplement substitutes, assuming one really needs any this sort of precision in the first place, if you get the ingredient list and look carefully, you’ll find something close enough, with the proteins, carbs, potassium, sodium, etc.

20

[quote]Liam M wrote:
Fast-Squat-Milk
[/quote]

And all supported by peer-reviewed work.

Hey, that’s a catchy article title, Liam: F-S-M Training!