Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha (8 page)

But aren't you supposed to eat more frequently? Not exactly . . .

 

REJECT THIS THOUGHT:

Eating frequently stokes your metabolism.

 

Guy walks into a gym. Meets with a trainer. Gets pitched a $600 training package. One thing leads to another and the trainer starts talking about nutrition.

“Bro, you got to eat six meals a day if you really want to lose fat. It keeps your metabolism going. You gotta keep the fire burning. That way, you can actually eat more and lose fat. It's pretty sweet, bro. It's what I do, and I'm
shrippped
!”

Forgive us for buying into the trend of demonizing the word
bro
(which we love), but some version of this happens every single day. To be fair, it's not just trainers, and the people offering this advice are trying to be helpful. But they are misinformed, so let's say this as clearly and concisely as we can: eating six meals per day
does not
help you burn more fat.

Read that again, and then read it once more. Then read it out loud and watch the reactions of the people around you. They will probably look at you like you have three heads. Because everyone and their mothers (including our mothers—until we taught them) think that eating small meals helps you burn more fat, build more muscle, and fight off hunger.

Unfortunately for them, that's complete and total bullshit.

Remember when we told you that in order to come with us on your journey you have to unlearn what you have learned? To forget what you thought was true? This is one of those times.

If it's not true, then why does everyone—and we mean everyone—tell you to do this? Unfortunately, there's no good reason. We know that when you eat, you burn calories. So about thirty years ago, it was determined that if you eat more frequently you must burn more calories.

The idea seemed great. You get to eat more often and still have a lean, hard body.

But then some geniuses in white lab coats (call them scientists, doctors, professors) decided to actually test the theory. The results? Not so good for people who believe in the six-meal god.

French researchers found that there is “no evidence of improved weight loss” by eating more frequently. And they even went a step farther to show that in terms of the number of calories you burn per day, it does not matter if you graze or gorge—assuming that you're eating the number of calories you need to lose weight. So if you're told to eat 2,000 calories per day, it doesn't matter if it's separated into five 400-calorie meals or two 1,000-calorie feasts. (However, the composition of those meals does matter.)

But that's not all. Canadian researchers decided to compare three meals per day to six meals per day, breaking the six into three main meals and three snacks (the routine that has been advocated by every diet book written in the last twenty years). The results? There was no significant difference in weight loss, but the people who ate three meals per day were more satisfied and felt less hunger.

That's why on our plan we take a more realistic approach to your eating habits. It's our opinion that fewer meals per day work better for most guys. But the only rule that really matters is how much time you spend eating during the day. So we'll provide you with easy-to-follow guidelines that put you in charge of your diet within the parameters of the plan. You'll know exactly how many hours you have to eat during the day (don't worry, you have more than enough time to chow), and then you can choose how many meals you want to have within that eating period.

It's the best of both worlds. A diet plan backed by science and optimized for your goals, but without the stress of being forced to eat in a way that isn't natural to your own preferences.

 

REJECT THIS THOUGHT:

Your body can only digest 30 grams of protein.

 

A little knowledge can do a lot of damage. Several years ago a very smart researcher named Douglas Paddon-Jones ran an experiment. The design was innocent enough: test out how to maximize muscle protein synthesis. You might recognize this as your body's ability to convert protein into muscle.

Paddon-Jones found, once again, that protein builds muscle.

But he also discovered one other interesting fact. In his research, he determined that 30 grams of protein creates the same amount of maximum muscle protein synthesis as you'd receive from a 90-gram dosage. The simple conclusion—your body can't handle more than 30 grams of protein.

This was widely accepted and embraced. And suddenly a nation of men stopped eating large steaks and went back to only one scoop of protein powder in their post-workout shake. Sure, maybe it's a little more economical—but is it better for your body?

Using the same logic as the protein study, if you had sex just once in an hour and your level of arousal was the same as having sex ten times in an hour, then one bout of sex would be the same experience, right?

If you said yes, well, we don't know what to say to you.

The point we're making is this: while we have some evidence—and that evidence is not completely foolproof—that protein synthesis tops out at 30 grams, that doesn't mean you don't receive other benefits from eating more. Or that there is any harm in eating more. In fact, we know that eating a high-protein diet helps you build more muscle, stay fuller longer, and even burn more fat because protein is more metabolically active in your body (meaning it takes more calories to break down protein in your digestive system and use it as energy).

There's also a lot to be said about the pure enjoyment of things, which in this case means eating. Even if we accept Paddon-Jones's conclusions that “the body” can only utilize 30 grams of protein in “a sitting,” does that mean that we shouldn't eat a porterhouse that has 60 grams of protein? Absolutely not. Porterhouse steaks are delicious. And the calories in the steak—if not the protein—will still be used in the muscle-building process.

Secondly, you'll notice that we put “the body” in quotes. Paddon-Jones's experiment was conducted with a relatively small sample size, just thirty-four people, which is important because people react to protein in different ways. So while 30 grams is a good jumping-off point, it's not the complete picture. We know that testosterone can increase protein synthesis and nitrogen retention. Meaning, if you increase testosterone—as we'll teach you throughout this book—then you can increase protein synthesis and make even better use of the protein you eat.

You'll also notice that we put “a sitting” in quotes. What constitutes a sitting? Is it thirty minutes? Sixty minutes? Obviously, we need to take into account the rate of digestion. You see, 30 grams of protein coming from the porterhouse would be broken down much more slowly than 30 grams of protein from whey hydrolysate—the fastest-digesting form for protein. So even if we could define a sitting, the type of protein would obviously factor in to the digesting.

For our purposes, it is better to look at the total amount of protein consumed in a day rather than a sitting. If you assume you can only eat 30 grams of protein at one meal and you're expected to eat 250 grams of protein in a day, you'd have no choice but to eat all of that protein in multiple meals.

But there's enough research, as we shared above, to prove that the multiple-meal hypothesis is false. And there's a mountain of evidence suggesting that your body can, in fact, digest much more than 30 grams of protein. In a study published in the
Journal of Nutrition,
scientists found no difference between eating roughly 80 percent of your protein in one meal versus four meals spread throughout the day. And by no difference, we mean that muscle gain and fat loss, as well as protein absorption, were even. And in that study, that meant that subjects were eating 54 grams of protein in one serving—or nearly double what you've been told your body can handle.

But that's not even the entire story. In that same study, only females were tested. So why should you care? As we already mentioned, the amount of muscle you have has a direct relationship to how much protein you can handle, as does the amount of testosterone in your body. And since men have more muscle and testosterone than women do, the scientists speculated that men could take in even more protein than what was discovered in the study.

Not to bore you with more science, but in another study in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
researchers found that body composition improved (less fat and more muscle) when men ate just one meal per day consisting of roughly 85 grams of protein as opposed to the same amount of protein spread across meals and more hours.

We share the science for a few reasons. First, we want you to be able to eat more protein. Guys love eating, and guys
really
love eating more protein. But you need to know that there is no drawback to eating more than 30 grams and no reason to create some imaginary cutoff. In fact, there might be a great benefit in pushing the limited findings of what our favorite scientists might recommend.

As for the exact number? Don't worry—we've done enough experiments to know what will work for your body, on this plan, with our diet and exercise design. And we will share that with you starting in chapter 8.

 

REJECT THIS THOUGHT:

Eating before bed makes you fat.

 

We love Ryan Reynolds. We've never met him, but he seems like an awesome guy, a dude who's got it all figured out. He has a movie career where he gets paid millions of dollars to play himself in every role, and he's had sex with Scarlett Johansson
and
Blake Lively. In other words, his life is pretty damn awesome.

If all of that weren't enough, Reynolds walks around shredded year-round—a difficult feat for anyone to accomplish.

Despite all that, he's not your best guy for nutritional advice, and that's why we're calling him out. You see, Mr. Reynolds—whether he realizes it or not—is one of the reasons why guys think it's bad to eat after seven p.m. When Reynolds dropped to about 5 percent body fat for his supporting role in
Blade: Trinity,
his body instantly became the new prototype and even earned him a nod for
People
's Most Eligible Bachelor. Good for him. Bad for you.

Eating late at night is actually one of the best things you can do for your body. For starters, let's not forget the most basic of laws—and that is the first law of thermogenesis. That is, your weight is dependent on how many calories you eat (energy in) compared to how many calories you burn (energy out). While the foods you eat are very important, calories are still calories. To quote renowned nutritionist Alan Aragon, “Your body doesn't store fat more readily during the evening than any other point during the day.”

What's funny is we've known this for a while. All the way back in 1987, Italian researchers compared eating earlier in the day (ten a.m.) to eating later in the day (six p.m.). In that study, there was no difference in weight loss, but fat burning was higher in the people who ate their meals after six
P.M
.

Several follow-up studies concluded the same thing—timing doesn't matter. And then in 2006, researchers from the University of Oregon made this bold statement: eating too many calories causes weight gain regardless of when you eat them. In other words, the timing of your meals doesn't matter. All that matters is the foods you eat.

So why not eat more calories at night? It's easier, and it makes more sense. Do you have more breakfast meetings or more dinner parties? Do you prefer drinks at night or in the morning? Eating at night is an essential component of the social fabric of our society. And living in a world where you can't eat at night and can't enjoy food with your friends and family is dumb and restrictive. And it's a reason why so many people hate dieting.

So just stop. In our diet, we're going to encourage that you eat more at night and enjoy. Your body will look better for it, you won't wake up hungry every morning, and you'll have less stress planning your day.

 

REJECT THIS THOUGHT:

Eat your carbs earlier in the day.

 

So if we're telling you it's okay to eat at night, we just mean protein, right? Cottage cheese and peanut butter—the old bodybuilder standbys. There's no possible way it's okay to eat carbs before bed.

Right?

Wrong.

In fact, eating carbs during a late-night feast might be one of the best ways to blast away your gut. Having carbs at night can cause you to release more growth hormone (GH) when you sleep. You might not know much about GH—yet—but we can tell you that it allows you to build muscle while keeping you lean. Oftentimes antiaging clinics prescribe expensive doses of GH to men looking to keep their edge. But how much better would it be to have the same impact by eating carbs at night? If you believe science and physics, that's a reality. So much so that when Israeli researchers compared people who ate their carbs in the morning with those who ate them at night, the nighttime carb feasters lost more fat and experienced less hunger.

The benefits don't end there. If you train in the morning or afternoon, consuming your carbs at night has a carryover effect toward your training. That's because those nighttime carbs will fill up your glycogen, which is the energy you need to train hard. That energy will then be utilized for your workout, but without that sick feeling you get from training just after eating.

No upset stomach, better training results, and you can have pasta for dinner? Yes, it's all true, and it's exactly what we'll prescribe as part of the diet in this book.

 

REJECT THIS THOUGHT:

Cardio is the best fat-loss strategy.

 

We don't know how we even need to address this, but somehow there is a large majority of people that believe cardio—such as long-distance running, biking, or even a slow walk on the treadmill—is the key to fat loss. Running is still the most popular physical activity, and the most common reason people run is to lose weight.