As Saturnalia, or “Christmas,” approaches with people finding excuses to shovel toxic life-shortening fat-building crap down their pieholes, Chris Shugart of T-Nation is back with a “One Protein Shake a Day for Muscle” bulking-up article for boys and gals who want to be swole without looking like fat pigs. Always with the f**king artificial man-made crappy protein powders and shakes. Jeez.
Shugart begins his article with advocating for a “smarter” bulk approach with gaining less total weight, as in actually gaining some muscle without an unnecessary amount of fat. And yes, if you want to gain muscle mass that is the better approach. Actually, if you eat correctly and according to your physiology, to make sure you are healthy, as in an animal-based carnivorous diet, it is the only approach because you could never overeat to such a degree on real food that you would get fat. It’s impossible.
After going back and forth and claiming that he used various “formulas” and averaging out “the recommendations” of dozens of coaches, he arrived at around a “500 calorie” surplus to be ideal for building muscle mass with a minimal fat gain. Then he adds, that depending on lifestyles, it might vary between 300 and 700 calories, but 500 is a good number to shoot for.
Well, as you know, calories are a concept of physics, as in measuring the energy needed per unit of mass to raise the temperature of water by 1 degree Celsius. That is not how our bodies work. However, let’s play along, as an increase in energy, or more specifically, an increase in ‘nutrients’ make it easier to build additional muscle mass. While a healthy body can take nutrients from our fat tissue and from recycling damaged cells and thus actually build muscle on a deficient diet, at least for a while, it is easier if there is a surplus of nutrients available. However, it does mean that in a healthy individual, you do not need to “overeat” all the time. It does not matter if you undereat every now and then, as your body is still nourished and will find what it needs. Actually, in that sense, it is preferable to have days with less food, or even fasting, as that will assist your body in its natural cleaning process, removing damaged and dead cells, keeping you healthy and increasing your lifespan.
Unfortunately, 99% or more of people looking to build muscle mass, just as people in general, are unhealthy and actually malnourished. So, eating more food is almost required.
Then Shugart claim that having a “calorie goal” to shoot for is good, as the skinny guy has a target to reach while the easy-fat-gainer has a number to follow and limit himself to so he doesn’t overdo it.
Well, if you currently are ‘weight stable,’ as in not really gaining weight or muscle mass, simply adding a bit more of healthy food you already are consuming to your plate will do the trick, without having to count nonsensical calories.
“The Easiest Way to Add Around 500 Calories”
Can you guess what the supplement-shill Shugart will recommend? Yes, of course, a frikkin’ protein-based shake a day. Then he proceeds to establish a couple of simple guidelines…
The simple guidelines:
- Make sure you’ve maintained your current weight for at least 6 months or so. (If you’ve been slowly gaining weight, you’re already bulking, big boy.)
- If you normally skip breakfast or any other meal, have a shake instead.
- If you’re eating regular meals, have the shake between meals or before bed.
- After 4 weeks or so, adjust calories by around 200 per day.
First off, the best foods for assisting you in building muscle mass are beef and eggs. If you want to keep it really simple, just add in about 6 to 7 eggs a day, which will give you about an additional 40 grams of protein, 35 grams of the best fat available, and roughly a pseudo-scientific 450 to 550 “calories.” And more importantly, the fat and the cholesterol from eggs will help you boost your natural testosterone levels, and the B-vitamins will ensure proper protein metabolism. Remember, every cell in your body is made out of cholesterol. The more stress you put your body through, the more cholesterol you will need. A ‘protein-based’ shake is pure garbage in comparison.
And you should never skip “breakfast,” or at least not wait too long before your first meal. If you do IF, or eat within a ‘feeding window,’ and you should, then it’s always better to eat early in the day, and stop eating just before the evening. The logic is extremely simple. Digestion takes time, anywhere from 2 to 6 hours depending on the composition and size of the meal. If you consume real animal-based food, and none of that toxic plant-based slave garbage that clogs you up, your digestion will probably only take about 1.5 to 4 hours at most. Now, you want to have completely digested your last meal before going to bed, so that you are in a fasted state when sleeping, as that is the only way for your body to start its recycling, healing, and detoxing processes. As long as you are digesting food, these processes are shut down. And if you eat late in the day, they will hardly get activated at all, meaning that toxicity will build up and damaged cells will not be recycled, leading to diseases, especially in your organs, and a shortened life-span.
And if you’re eating ‘regular meals’ simply add the eggs to one or more meals, or have them as a “shake” after your workout. Do not have them as an extra meal before bed, not unless you are desperate to gain weight, and if so, only do it for short periods of time and make sure to do some real fasting during the year to assist your body in detoxing and recycling.
Also, eating late in the day will not only interfere in your body’s cleansing mechanics, it will interfere with your sleep, lowering sleep quality and thus, further down the road, it will interfere with recovery and all bodily functions, especially your mental health.
And yeah, after a few weeks, evaluate and simply add or reduce an egg or two depending on your results.
The (idiotic) 500-Calorie (ish) Shake
Here Shugart share his favorite recipe, and just for shits and giggles, let’s take a look at it.
Peanut Butter Cup Shake
- 2 scoops chocolate MD protein
- 1 medium banana
- 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
So, artificially separated proteins mixed with a bunch of chemicals with a banana, which is pure sugar, as in toxic fructose, and peanut butter, as in nuts which are, along with seeds, among the most toxic “edibles” you can find, not to mention all the garbage that goes along with that to make it into a “butter.”
To conclude, you get some protein of decent quality and a shit-load of toxic carbohydrates that tax your liver, and then tons of defense chemicals and antinutrients from the nuts, including a lot of very toxic and rancid “fats.”
Well, if you hate yourself and want to damage your body, go right ahead. I’ll stick with my eggs, a perfect and fully natural source of bioavailable nutrients.
Well, Shugart is not done yet. To add insult to injury, he lists some other “things” to add to his toxic shitstorm of a shake – such as oats, the ultimate slave food that is totally void of nutrition and full of harmful fiber and antinutrients, fruits and berries, which are nothing more than sugar loaded with defense chemicals and pesticides, avocado, which contains cell-damaging defense chemicals and toxic fats, and other nut butters, again among the most toxic shit you can find.
The only two things he recommends that are decent are natural yoghurt or kefir.
To finish, Shugart recommends to have these toxic garbage shakes on weekdays and skip them on weekends, as a non-linear cycling strategy. And sure, you can do the same with either additional beef and/or eggs.
And as for eggs, you can have them any way you want. However, I recommend that you keep the yolks as raw as possible to ensure maximum retainability of nutrients and the good healthy fats. The egg white is simply protein and some minerals, and you can cook egg whites on very low heat if you wish. Just enough to make it coagulate and turn white. If you like omelets or scrambled eggs, simply add egg whites, butter and some raw milk or cream at low heat and let it slowly coagulate, then take it off and add the yolks on top. Stir a little if you want, and then serve. That short exposure of heat and the low temperature will ensure that all nutrition within the yolk is preserved. Also, it will taste a lot better this way.
And of course, you can have the eggs as a shake with some raw milk if you need it for taste.
With that said, if you want to stay as healthy as possible and also pack on some muscle mass, there is nothing better than raw eggs and some raw meat, preferable that of ruminants.