Saturday, February 13, 2010

Anabolic Almonds?

So, T-Nation recently threw out the article, Food Nazi: Nuts to You. I pulled this quote from the article:

Wanting to get so big that an ox yoke looks more appropriate on you than a necklace? Well, for the mass-seeking bodybuilder, almonds provide clean calories and have been recommended by bodybuilding nutritionists like Mike Roussell for those seeking to ditch the "skinny-fat" look.

Keep a bag of natural almonds in your car, your laptop case, or at your desk and snack on them throughout the day. Just a handful here and there can help you reach the 800 to 1000 additional calories per day that most hypertrophy experts say are needed to fuel muscle growth without gaining ridiculous amounts of body
fat


My reaction to this article? NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!

Seriously, it stuns me how people, even "experts" on T-Nation, are ignorant about how to add more muscle to the body with diet alone (Or, they do a pretty good job pretending to be). Is everyone stuck on the notion that you get big only with protein powders and gear? Geeze!

I started blogging about the same time I decided to bulk myself up and it became obvious to me that nuts, especially almonds, were a crucial step in getting bigger and stronger. Since I haven't tried to bulk up for two years now, the exact science hasn't stuck in my head but I do remember this: you can't build muscle on protein alone. Protein is the substance that you use to build muscle with but fats provoke the hormone synthesis that tells your body to build tissue in the first place. If you're exercising properly, you'll build muscle. If not, well...

How much fat in your diet that you need. I never nailed that down for sure. After all, I was only working on myself. So, I can't say what percentage works for me works for everyone. Furthermore, I know that I was frying up a lot of that fat just running around like crazy in the Summer of 2007. It was a grueling, busy time and I know that I was using those fat calories just to sustain my work routine.

Anyway, I never would have predicted the rush of people looking to get bigger that PM'ed me on message boards, hit me up on my blog, or that I chatted with over the course of three years. It's hard to comprehend how almost everyone wants to get more muscle but how little decent information is out there on how to eat your way to big muscles.

So, every time I sat down to eat back in the day, I threw into any meal plan (including snacks) a heaping handful of nuts. Keep this in mind, almonds aren't the only nut that exists in this world. There also not the only nut that can help you in your quest to be a bull. Pistachios, cashews, pecans, walnuts, macadamias, hazelnuts, etc are all good. Couple this gratuitous nut-munching with some hardcore, kick-ass BW stuff and I'm walking proof that you can put some serious beef on your bones!

5 comments:

Todd said...

Not to mention they're delicious.

jon C (mtguy) said...

It amazes me that people avoid nuts and avacodos because of the fat in them. My wife and I being vegetarians rely on nuts (almond butter especially), seeds, coconuts and avacodos to at least gain weight. By far one of the best nuts out there, Brazil nuts. Great blog

Unknown said...

I have been reading this site for a few months, I really wish you had an RSS option so I can see when you post instead of visiting from bookmarks every day to look for updates. Anyways, thanks for your continuous call for BW and natural health, I totally agree with it and have been looking for someone with this mindset for a long time.

Todd said...

t,

You should be able to subscribe RSS. I'm using firefox and the RSS button appears to the right of the url. If it doesn't on yours maybe try this url: http://thebodyweightfiles.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Anonymous said...

Is it safe to say that you always had nuts in your mouth?