Warrior Diet, Muscle, and Fat:
The Principles of Growth: How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat on the Warrior Diet
By Ori Hofmekler
Author of The Warrior Diet: Switch on Your Biological Powerhouse For High Energy, Explosive Strength, and a Leaner, Harder Body
"How can I keep gaining muscle mass while losing fat on the Warrior Diet?"
I am asked this question all the time now -- by people who have reached a plateau, with no further muscle gain and no other noticeable progress.
Through e-mails and private consultations, I realized that most of these people already suffer from severe dietary related problems such as fatigue, lethargy, sluggishness, fat gain, loss of libido, insomnia, irregularity and a decrease in muscle strength and endurance.
The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the principles of muscle growth and rejuvenation and the nature of body composition.
Let me start with the reasons why people reach a plateau, or to say it another way, why people hit the wall.
People hit the wall when their body adaptation to physical stress through rejuvenation (growth and repair) is impaired.
Growth, proliferation and protein synthesis is being regulated by many factors such as glands, hormones, enzymes, hormonal receptors, cell membrane pH, mineral composition, osmotic pressure, outer-cellular plasma nucleotides, cyclic AMP, cyclic GMP, mitochondrial energy yield and sheer stress.
To put it simply - growth is more complicated than just shoving in protein and pumping iron.
The principle of inducing growth is based on strong stimulation that signals rejuvenation (tissue repair) and proliferation (increase in tissue mass). The growth stimulation activates an anabolic process through receptors in the cellular membrane. This stimulation requires carriers such as hormones, steroids, growth factors and nucleotides can't be fully potentiated without the activation of cellular membrane receptors.
If the cell membrane receptors are insensitive (such as in the case of de-synthesized insulin, adrenal or IGF1 receptors) then growth will be impaired. There is much more to it but for the purpose of understanding the principles of growth, let me just say for now that cell membrane receptor activation is critical.
Growth activation depends on the body's ability to re-synthesize or recuperate its receptors. Recuperation and growth go hand in hand. The point that I'm trying to make here is that your body needs time to recuperate in order to resume growth.
The process of recuperation includes daily detoxification, the redesigning of daily nutrition and diet composition and most importantly the alleviation of stress on your liver to help regulate protein synthesis and fat burning.
The Warrior Diet gives you just that.
Sometimes it's good to take a step back in order to move two steps forward. Those who are concerned about losing fat and some muscle mass do not realize that at that preliminary stage, they have already improved their body composition (this means the improvement of the ratio of muscle to fat). In order to get out of a plateau and resume growth, one has to go through a preliminary stage of detox that often results in a temporary weight loss.
The Myth of Protein
Many people reach a plateau in spite of consuming monstrous amounts of protein, mostly from commercial protein powders. Those who consume 300 - 400g of protein per day don't realize that this is one of the reasons why they have stagnated.
Too much processed protein creates a protein imbalance that leads to -- guess what -- amino acid deficiency!
Moreover, in order to get rid of the extra aminos, the body converts them into energy or fat while taxing the liver with toxic byproducts of protein breakdown.
Low Carb Products
Most low carb products have ingredients that can seriously inhibit fat burning or glycolysis (the conversion of sugar into energy). Glycerin, ethanol and sorbitol are common ingredients in most low carb protein products. These chemicals can have a devastating effect on your liver's ability to regulate fat and sugar metabolism.
The subject of growth is intriguing and deserves much more attention. Nevertheless, in order to simplify things let me offer you twelve basic tips to help maximize your muscle growth while burning fat:
- DETOX! Undereating during the day by ingesting live whole vegetables, fruits and their juices will help accelerate detoxification.
- Take 2 to 3 weeks off from eating processed foods and eat whole foods instead.
- You may be overtrained. Take a break and see if that helps.
- Stay away from low carb protein products that contain glycerin.
- Minimize alcohol consumption.
- Carbs are not the bad guy! Chronic carb restriction can slow your thyroid and impair growth.
- Keep the good fat coming. EFA from flax and primrose oils and phospho-lipids from soy lecithin are essential for cellular membranes and play a critical role in the regulation of hormonal and cellular functions.
- Rotate among full days of undereating and full days of overeating. Undereating will potentiate the body to turn on the anabolic switch. Overeating will activate the final stimuli.
- Protect your mitochondrial DNA with antioxidants (most importantly glutathione precursors, SOD precursors and lipoic acid).
- Protect your bottom line with multivitamin and mineral supplementation.
- Avoid chronic sodium restriction. Sodium is necessary for growth.
- Take it easy with creatine to avoid impairment of the body's own ability to produce creatine.
These are a few basic tips that will hopefully help you break out of stagnation. Let me note here that following the above recommendations will naturally accelerate metabolic efficiency that will result in fat loss.
Note: Mitochondrial high-energy yield in the form of ATP is critical for growth and overall rejuvenation. Thus, protecting your mitochondrial DNA will keep your energy level high while slowing the aging process and keep you growing.
