CHAPTER 3
The Anabolic Diet
— HOW AND WHY IT WORKS
Before we get into the mechanics of the Anabolic Diet, let’s take a few pages for some final
words on just how and why it works, and clear up a few misconceptions about the diet some
people may have. Some of this may seem a little technical but I urge you to hang on for the next
few pages. By reading carefully, you’ll get a good idea of exactly why the Anabolic Diet is the
best diet for the bodybuilder.
First, let’s make it perfectly clear that insulin is not some kind of enemy to muscle growth.
We’re not mounting a campaign against it like others have done. In fact, it plays a pivotal role
in muscle growth. It’s only a problem when it’s chronically high or yo-yo’s as it does on the
carbohydrate-based diet.
What you want to do with insulin, and what this diet focuses on, is to increase it at the
appropriate time and place so it stimulates muscle growth. In this way, you increase the drive of
amino acids into the muscle cell, thus increasing the incorporation of aminos into muscle protein.
What we don’t want is fat built up at the same time. That’s why insulin secretion is controlled
and limited before it begins working the other side of the street and laying on fat. Instead of the
chronically elevated insulin levels of the carb diet, the Anabolic Diet carefully manages insulin
increase during the bodybuilder’s day and week, so you get an anabolic effect without packing
on that unwanted fat.
Insulin then works hand in hand with testosterone and growth hormone in maximizing muscle
growth. Growth hormone is very important here for its role in cell growth and maintenance.
When insulin goes down, as it does during the weekdays when you’ll be on the high fat/high
protein/low carb portion of the diet, growth hormone secretions increase. Along with stimulating
an anabolic environment, they also induce cells to use fat instead of sugar for energy, thus
increasing lipolysis and fighting lipogenesis.
Growth hormone also acts almost like a “starvation” hormone. When your body’s in trouble
or when you’re threatened or in “fight or flight syndrome,” GH kicks in to mobilize stores of
energy in the body to deal with stress and these increased needs. It will also increase under the
stress of exercise.
Usually insulin works to decrease the secretion of growth hormone, but the body sees the
great increase in carbs and insulin during the weekend as a stressful situation, much like exercise,
and growth hormone actually increases with insulin. In this way, we get the positive effects of
growth hormone stimulus both during the week and on weekends.
Testosterone, also critical to health and growth, responds well to the Anabolic Diet. Research
studies, though still in early stages in this area, have found testosterone positively linked to dietary
THE ANABOLIC DIET — HOW AND WHY IT WORKS 27