The Brute Force Diet

[Brute Force]

Nothing I am going to say here is utterly mindblowing. Basically I am going to lay out the diet and go into a little bit on how it works, but just trust me, it does. Now the goal of this diet can be geared to bulking or cutting. First and foremost, I do not advocate getting fat just for the sake of gaining muscle. I also do not advocate losing precious muscle mass for the sake of fat loss. The goal should either be maximal muscle gain with minimal fat gain, or maximal fat loss with minimal muscle loss. Therefore, I also recommend the following principles no matter what phase your in.

The base diet:

Upon waking: This is a crucial time as your body is in an catabolic (muscle wasting) state. You need to make it anabolic ASAP. The best way to do this would be to treat this time the same as post workout. If it is a workout day, take a whey/maltodextrin and or dextrose/leucine shake as soon as you wake up (or after taking a piss). You can play around with it, but the rule of thumb is whey+simple carbs+EAAs(especially leucine). Regardless of whether you are bulking or cutting, high carb or low carb, this shake is an absolute must. You can fool around with the ratios, but I take 20g whey hydrosolate, 20g maltodextrin, 20g dextrose and 6g leucine. Additions to this shake could be creatine and beta-alanine, but any other supps aren't necessary.

[Brute Force]

Now I've addressed workout days, but what about non-workout days. This depends on a lot of factors, but I would recommend the same shake, but minus the carbs. If you are a hardgainer and are bulking, feel free to keep in the carbs, but usually days off are no-carb (or close to it). Again, regardless of whether you are bulking or cutting. So basically the shake would be whey+leucine.

[Brute Force]

Now I am going to get into the bread and butter of the diet, and it revolves around two basic principles. One is, you should definitely cycle carbs. It improves metabolism, thyroid function, psychological well being, insulin resistance, and so on. Basically, the research is out there, you just have to take my word for it. The second part is, you don't mix fat with carbs in a single meal. You either have a protein plus fat meal, or you have a protein plus carb meal. The body needs insulin to store fat. Carbs increase insulin and fat is the macronutrient that is most likely to be stored as fat. So if you eat carbs plus fat, the increase in insulin will help store that fat, as well, fat. If you eat just fat without carbs, you won't get fat, because fat needs insulin in order to be stored. So why include carbs at all? Carbs are necessary for muscle growth. Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body, but if not kept in check, will make you a fat slob (see above). By eating carbs without fat, the only way you will get fat is if you eat excess carbs. However, you will most likely be using these carbs in your workouts and for recovery. Remember, carbs will not make you fat as long as they are serving a purpose e.g. glycogen replenishment, energy, etc. Next I will get into a sample diet. The diet I will provide is a baseline diet and can be adjusted for cutting and bulking.

[Brute Force]

This is basically my diet right now as I am preparing to cut. Actually, because I was starting this diet at 275lbs, I am already losing weight on the baseline. but for most people (200-250) the baseline is a good starting point and your diet can be adjusted from here. Now I workout monday-tuesday-thurs-friday. So the diet will follow that schedule, but again it can be adjusted.

Monday is moderate carb
Tuesday is high carbs
Thurs is moderate
Fri is high
days off are no carb, except you can have a cheat meal on sunday if need be.


High Carb:
8am: whey+carbs+leucine. 20/40/6

9am: 2 whole eggs, 2 egg whites. 1 cup non-fat plain yogurt, 1/2 cup ground oats, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein, 1 cup frozen berries (or dried fruit or a piece of fruit) mixed together. Animal Pak.

12pm: 6oz turkey breast, tuna or chicken breast. 1/2 cup ground oats, 1/2 scoop protein, fruit mixed to a pudding consistency using water or skim milk. 3 uni-liver.

3pm: same as above.

6pm: pre-workout shake. Same as upon waking

7pm: post-workout shake. Same as upon waking, but here I take around 80g of carbs, 40g of whey and 12g leucine.

8pm: same as 12pm and 3pm.

11pm: pre bed. whey, casein and egg blend with 1/2 cup of fat free plain cottage cheese. I usually also throw in some fish oil and natural peanut butter as well.

I don't really count carbs or anything like that. Bascially the high carb day is 7 carb meals and one fat meal. Its around 40-60g protein at each meal. This is about 350g of protein for the day. I will follow up later with the moderate carb day meals and the no-carb days.

[Karma]

That’s a real solid diet Bruce. Just one question; you only use Uni-liver one time per day? How you think about that?

[G Diesel]

Great post Brute... Informative and articulate. Peace, G

[Wasteland]

Some important contributions made here Brute... Congrats on the new avatar.

[Lobo]

Good post, thanks for the info.

What would be the macro ratios for the High, Moderate and Low carb days according to your diet/opinion?

[RedIron 392]

Thanks for the info Brute. I have been cycling carbs,but have been getting fats with my meals exept pre and post. I'll start dropping the fats from the carbs.

Later

[Kiwi129]

Im with the guy above... what would the macro ratios be? Also, would a low carb day be smart for someone who is bulking? That would take your calories down pretty low. I'm eating about 3000 calories per workout day (clean except post workout) and then just take it down to about 2400-2500 on a non-workout day. The carbs without fat thing makes sense...but if I'm bulking would a ZERO carb day really be smart?

[Kiwi129]

Anyone? BruteForce???

[Brute Force]

That’s a real solid diet Bruce. Just one question; you only use Uni-liver one time per day? How you think about that?

Sorry for the confusion. Uni-liver is taken with every whole food meal. So 3 pills 4 times a day.

Peace

[Brute Force]

Good post, thanks for the info.

What would be the macro ratios for the High, Moderate and Low carb days according to your diet/opinion?

The high days are actually not all that high considering that this is the baseline of the diet. Basically, on the high days, the carbs and protein are around 350 each. As you bulk or cut, the carbs will get higher and lower on this day. As for the moderate day. Carbs are only ingested with you morning, pre-wokout and post workout shakes. The other meals will be high protein and fat meals. Hopefully I'll have time within the next few days to articulate further on this issue. I'm hoping to provide continuous updates to this thread, so stay tuned. As time goes on, I will go more in depth.

[Brute Force]

Im with the guy above... what would the macro ratios be? Also, would a low carb day be smart for someone who is bulking? That would take your calories down pretty low. I'm eating about 3000 calories per workout day (clean except post workout) and then just take it down to about 2400-2500 on a non-workout day. The carbs without fat thing makes sense...but if I'm bulking would a ZERO carb day really be smart?

Well, the diet I am providing here is just the starting point of the bulk. So for the first week you'll have 7 high carb meals on the high carb day, 3 on the moderate and 0 on your days off. The next weeks you'll start replacing fat meals with carb meals. So within a few weeks you'll build up to 7 on high carb, 5 on moderate and 3 on non-workout days. At this time, you'll start making your carb meals bigger. Maybe you start adding another 1/2 cup of oats, rice, pasta, potatoes, etc. to each carb meal. You just keep adding carbs every week, until you reac your goals, but I would definitely still cycle in order to maximize muscle gain while keeping fat gain to a minimum.

[Brute Force]

Im with the guy above... what would the macro ratios be? Also, would a low carb day be smart for someone who is bulking? That would take your calories down pretty low. I'm eating about 3000 calories per workout day (clean except post workout) and then just take it down to about 2400-2500 on a non-workout day. The carbs without fat thing makes sense...but if I'm bulking would a ZERO carb day really be smart?

If you are already on a bulk and aren't starting this diet anew, then I would not recommend a no-carb day. You definitely need to play around with the diet. I designed it to be very flexible. You should plan out each week. If you are already on a bulk, I would have more carbs then you normally have on high carb day, about as many as your used to on moderate and lower than what you are having on a normal day.

[Brute Force]

I'm going to articulate a little bit more on the diet by providing a sample moderate carb day. Basically, all the shakes and the pre-bed meal are the same as the high carb day. So reference the above post for those meals. Animal Pak is taken every day with the 9am meal, and 3 uni-liver tabs are taken with every whole food meal. The basics of the fat meals are to have a solid protein source, healthy fats and veggies. I like to eat red meat, whole eggs and salmon on these days.

Moderate carb day. Monday and thursday

8am: Shake

9am: 2 whole eggs, 2 egg whites. 1tbsp natural peanut butter ( I prefer skippy) mixed with 1/2 scoop of protein. Add a little skim milk or water to make into a gooey consistency. Fish oil caps and flax oil caps. I serving of canned pumpkin! (with splenda).

12pm: Beef or salmon. PB and protein. Fish, flax and veggies. The veggies can be canned diced tomatoes, spinach or broccoli. Spinach and broccoli. Spinach and broccoli can be eaten raw or steamed. In fact, you should eat both raw and cooked. Switch it up. The structures of the veggies change when cooked. Both methods have different benefits. I would also add some extra virgin olive oil th the veggies here.

3pm: same as above

6pm: pre-workout shake

7pm: post workout shake

8pm: same as 12 and 3

11pm: bedtime cottage cheese and protein.

[Brute Force]

This day will essentially be protein+fat meals eaten every 2-3 hours. The only shake consumed here would be the upon awakening shake. This shake will be whey+leucine.

[Brute Force]

If anyone has questions about how they can tweak the diet to fit your needs, just let me know about your current status and future goals and what your previous diet was like. I'll set some guidelines to follow, but it's up to you to tweak the diet as time goes on to meet your goals. Every body reacts differently to different diets.

Feel free to post or PM me.

Later

[doomsdaylover]

No fat with carbs? You mean no more PB and J sandwhiches with my egg whites before I lift? I don't know about that...that peanut butter plus wheat bread = lots of energy for me.