seem like a revelation. You won’t suffer those insulin ups and downs anymore. Energy will return.
You’ll feel strong and lean and, in most cases, you won’t be tempted to go back to the old,
inferior way of eating. BUT YOU’VE GOT TO GET THROUGH THAT FIRST WEEK
AND PAY SOME DUES TO EXPERIENCE THE BENEFITS.
Generally you’ll continue with the “start-up” phase of the diet until you’ve got all your energy
back and have no other symptoms. This will usually take 3–4 weeks, and you’ll know when it’s
time. You’ll be feeling very, very good.
At this point you can move on to the next phase, the “mass phase” of the diet. But if you find
you’ve got enough mass, you can stay at this phase for awhile and then move on to a “cutting”
phase as needed. The “start up” phase, without all the introductory facets, can be returned to
when needed as a transition between the “mass” and “cutting” phases of the diet. As such, it
can also properly be called the “maintenance” phase of the Anabolic Diet.
The “Mass Phase”
This phase is similar to the “bulking up” phase most bodybuilders are familiar with. As usual,
you’ll be increasing your calorie intake. On the Anabolic Diet, your goal should be to ALLOW YOUR
BODY WEIGHT TO INCREASE TO 15 PERCENT ABOVE YOUR IDEAL WEIGHT.
When we use the term “ideal weight” we’re talking about what you consider to be your
optimum contest weight, and you’ve got to be practical about it. If you’ve been competing at
200 pounds for 4–5 years and then say your ideal weight is 315, that’s not practical. More
reasonable would be to take that ideal weight up to 215 or so and increase your weight to 15
percent above this, or 250 pounds, in this phase.
Realize that if you go hog wild, eat like crazy, and end up going 30 percent above your “ideal
weight,” your body will end up being 15 percent bodyfat or more. That’s not what we’re looking
for here. The Anabolic Diet is designed to get you more muscle and limit bodyfat. Even though
you’ll experience an increase in lean mass and put on less fat than you would on another diet,
you’ve still got to exercise some discipline.
As far as the specifics of the diet itself, they’re the same on this phase as on the others. You’ll
be sticking to the weekday high fat, weekend carb load plan. The only change will be in the
amount of calories you eat. If you want to get to a level 15 percent above your ideal weight,
you’re obviously going to have to eat more.
To achieve this, the bodybuilder should consume between 20 to 25 CALORIES PER
POUND OF BODYWEIGHT DESIRED EVERY DAY. In the example above, the body-
builder wants to get to 250 pounds, so he’ll be eating 5,000 to 6,250 calories a day. When you
consider that he’s probably been on a 3,600 calorie diet before that, you can see the tremendous
increase in calories he’s going to experience.
This can present a big problem for athletes who have trouble gaining weight. They’re not
used to eating and don’t really have big appetites. They may think they’re eating huge amounts,
but they’re not. They’ll find themselves at 6,000 calories one day and down at 1,500 a few days
later. You ask them what happened and all they’ll say is, “I wasn’t hungry.”
THE ANABOLIC DIET — HOW AND WHY IT WORKS 39