Hi

I've been zone dieting for 6 months. I do crossfit WOD regularly as well.
I consider myself as very thin. Currently, I am 5'11" and 152lbs.
My body fat % is around 12.
I try to have 18 blocks a day which I think is a lot for my activitiy level, yet I don't gain any weight at all.
It doesn't go over 155lbs.

I am not sure how much I am suppose to take in order to gain weight/muscle mass.
Do I have to decrease the number of blocks and add more fat into it?
I know that normal crossfitters use .7 mulitplier but I think I will lose my weight if I use 0.7 multiplier.

Question : How many blocks do I have to take to gain weight according to my activity level?

Hi Kangsan!

To gain muscle you'd typically include strength training in your workouts (I asume you already do) and add more protein blocks (Zone balanced with carb and fat), not going above 1 gram of protein per pound of your LBM. With your stats, one more block of protein (19 blocks a day) will put you at 1 gram of protein per pound of LBM. This should help you gain muscle.

You need BOTH sufficient protein and sufficient total calories in addition to a well-designed resistance training program. It is very difficult to build muscle in a calorie deficit. Assuming you are using a well-designed resistance training program, frankly, you need to eat more.

Hi Matthew!

If you follow the Zone principles correctly, your body is going to have all the calories it needs, whether you're sedentary non-exerciser, or an elite athlete.

<div class='NTForums_Quote'>Posted By Sue on 03/27/2009 3:37 PM

Hi Matthew!

If you follow the Zone principles correctly, your body is going to have all the calories it needs, whether you're sedentary non-exerciser, or an elite athlete. </div>

Sue, I appreciate that you have done exceptionally well with the Zone diet as I have seen your before and after photos. But in this, frankly, I believe you are incorrect.

Indeed, the mere fact that the Zone has already been tweaked by Dr. Sears and elite competitive athletes by adding significantly more fat calories is an indication that 1 g/lb. of LBM of protein per day making up 30% of your total calories is insufficient to meet energy requirements.

The question isn't whether athletes need to eat more calories total in a day than a non-athlete. The question becomes how much more and what should those calories consist of? A related question might be the timing of those calories as well.

The reality is that people who are in strength/power sports or in bodybuilding often do better with more protein than 1 g/lb. of LBM. The reality is that both practical experience and numerous studies have shown the benefits of strength/power athletes training at high intensity consuming high GI carb + protein meals pre & post workout and even during workout and that there are well-established protocols about what the total caloric quantity of that pre/post workout meal should consist of as well as the proper ratio of carbs to protein.

So, knowing these things, what would make the most sense for a strength/power athlete to do who is trying to maximize performance, gain muscle mass, gain strength, give the body enough energy and the right nutrients at the right time to maximize recovery and hormonal balance?

Some have answered that question by simply saying "eat more healthy fat". That might be part of the equation, but it is not the entire answer. It is certainly a step in the right direction because building muscle in a calorie deficit is very very difficult to do. At least if you eat enough additional fat so that you get enough total calories (plus a small surplus to build muscle) you will see results... but are they they optimal results?

I think that the answer to this is no. In fact, even athletes in the "Zone" say "no" too. There are numerous examples of elite endurance athletes eating non-zone meals during competition that consist of high GI carbs and protein.

So why is it that strength/power athletes shouldn't do similarly within the confines of what is required by their sport and training? Of course they should, and there is ample evidence that adding high GI + protein pre/post workout nutrition is among the most important and beneficial things that a strength/power athlete can do in terms of performance.

There is less strong evidence and a bit more controversy about the need to consume greater quantities of protein than 1 g/ lb. of LBM (at least for elite level strength/power athletes and bodybuilders). I happen to be in the camp that believes higher quantities of protein are beneficial. There are extremists (in my view) that suggest as much as 2g/lb. Maybe if you are a Bulgarian weightlifter who is training with heavy weights in excess of 30 hours per week that amount is beneficial. Maybe if you are just hitting the weights hard 3 hours per week and doing a couple hours of cardio 3 hours per week 1g/lb. is sufficient. But there is a big gap between those two. And in my experience, getting more protein than 1g/lb. is beneficial up to a point. I try to aim for 1.5g/lb. I don't always get there, but that is my goal. I will tell you from experience having "been there, done that" that I do better on my training schedule (which is in excess of 20 hours per week including 6+ hours of strength training per week) when I increase my protein above 1g/lb. What this leads to is the necessity of eating more blocks (so that you are getting the additional protein, but still staying in Zone ratios between carbs and protein) to optimize strength/power and muscle gains.

I have never walked a mile in your shoes and would never impugn the advice you would give using the Zone diet properly for weight loss. You have (very impressively) done it and kept it off. But, until you have walked a mile in the shoes of a bodybuilder, powerlifter, Olympic weightlifter, or other elite level strength/power athlete who is trying to gain strength and muscle and have enough energy for his or her sport and training regimen, I think you need to realize that your experiences may not translate or be 100% applicable to the experience of such athletes or for people with very dissimilar goals to yours.

Please don't take this as a slam on you. In my short time on this board, I most certainly appreciate your contributions and pay close attention to what you write. But on this subject, I urge you to have a more open mind. The Zone is a great eating plan. But one size does not fit all and based on where you are, what you are doing, and where you want to get to, what works for you, intelligent and thoughtful adjustments and tinkering are necessary to get you to where you want to go faster.

Matthew, I will agree that the Zone Diet is really just the beginning point, the framework. We all need to "tinker" at it here and there to get it to work for us. Some of us have to tinker more than others. And, I guess that is why they call it the Zone, because it isn't an exact spot where we all land. It is a range, and the range is going to be different for you than it is for me.

I am a little bit confused about adjusting the number of blocks for those who are intense athletes/below 10% of body fat. Many intense crossfitters modified the zone a bit. They decrease the total number of blocks and they eat extra X3-X4 of fat.
I wonder whether I should just stay at 19 blocks per day or decrease it to around 15 blocks and eat X3-X4 of fat in order to increase in both bodyweight/performance.
Because, according to the zone block calc. I have to eat around 15 blocks per day at moderate activity level which is only CrossFit WOD.

Hi Matthew and Everyone!

First and foremost, the Zone info I share with all is about hormonal control and inflammation loweing to achieve optimal health and performance and does not espouse a one size fit's all approach.

Matthew, frankly, some of the tactics you advocate here are not likely to allow one to perform at their best.

Hi Kangsan!

You would eat the appropriate amount of protein to support your LBM needs (in your case it's 1g per pound of LBM because you'd like to gain muscle) and add extra monounsaturated fat blocks to meet your energy requirements. At 12 %, you're at an ideal body fat. If you still wish to gain body fat, increase your fat blocks even a bit more. In other words, stay at 19 blocks and increase the amount of monounsaturated fat in your meals and snacks.

The following short article, a Q&A (the "A" from Barry Sears) found on DrSears.com will confirm this protein recommendation:





Building muscle in the Zone

Hi, Dr. Barry,

Q: My boyfriend and I would like to know your thoughts on how to achieve increased muscle mass. Muscle-building diets say you should take 1gm protein per pound of body weight. At my current weight of 120 pounds that means I should have 6 more blocks of protein a day. What are your recommendations?

Your Zone fan, Mary

Dear Mary,

The key to building muscle mass is to have adequate levels of protein in small doses throughout the day. As I stated in “The Zone” and subsequent books, a person undertaking weight training requires about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass (the rest of your weight is fat that doesn’t require any protein to maintain it). If you are 120 pounds and have 20 percent body fat, then your lean body mass is 96 pounds. This means you need about 100 grams of protein per day. Based on this calculation, you would need three meals each containing about 30 grams of protein per day as well as one snack of about of 15 grams of protein per day. http://www.drsears.com/tabid/399/it...-Zone.aspx

Sue:

I think you made my point, and the reason why your advice does not always apply in the athletic setting. You are approaching the dietary needs of athletes from a "health" perspective and I am approaching it from "performance" perspective. Health and performance may overlap to a large degree, but what is best for one is not necessarily the best for the other. I have made it clear in many of the suggestions I have made that what I advocate is for performance... and specifically for performance related to strength/power athletes.

I think we agree that athletes need more calories because of their higher energy expenditure. This is why Zone athletes often eat so much more fat (2-3x as much, often). If I am wrong about our agreement in this regard, let me know and we can discuss it.

Your disagreement with my recommendations for tweaking the Zone for athletes seems to come in two forms:

1. eating non-Zone high GI meals; and
2. eating more blocks for strength/power athletes (based on needing more protein than 1.0 g/lb of LBM for this particular population of athletes).

As far as our first disagreement, I don't know why this is an area of disagreement. Some of the articles about athletes in the Zone on this very site discuss how endurance athletes do precisely this during competition (such as when running marathons or cycling). Just like endurance athletes benefit from high GI meals, so too do strength and power athletes benefit from high GI carbs too during specific windows of opportunity when the body can assimilate those carbs and put them to good use (and this small window of time is pretty well researched).

As far as our second area of disagreement, I will admit that the protein requirements are more controversial. That said, there is a still a raging controversy about the amount of protein that is optimal for strength athletes. The thing is, I have yet to see a Zone sponsored athlete who isn't an endurance athlete. So the body of knowledge and experience with applying the Zone to such athletes is pretty limited. What works best in one circumstance (endurance athletes) may not work in another circumstance (strength/power athletes).

Don't you think that there might just possibly be a difference between the protein requirements (I mean based on per lb. of LBM) between two athletes putting entirely different demands on their energy systems? Don't you think a bodybuilder, powerlifter, weightlifter, sprinter, football player, etc. might not possibly do better with more protein than 1g/lb of LBM? This is still an open question for scientists, coaches and athletes. That said, there is a strong body of evidence that strength/power athletes do significantly better with more protein than 1 g/lb. of LBM. I think it would be foolish to dismiss this growing body of evidence as well as the actual experience of serious strength/power athletes simply because it is beyond what is recommended by Dr. Sears. There is a lot of overlap between the dietary needs of different types of athletes... but there are a lot of differences too, and it is often a mistake to assume that what is best or what works for one population works and applies equally well to another population.

By the way, I just wanted to add a little addendum to prove my point about total calories requirements being the same regardless of whether you are "in the Zone" or whether you make tweaks to it.

We are told that athletes in the Zone who need more blocks of fat. Indeed, we are told that some Zone athletes will eat as many as 3x the number of fat blocks. So, instead of being 40-30-30 (=100), the diet, in effect becomes 40-30-90 (=160). So, athletes in the Zone are consuming as many as 60% more calories than the basic Zone requirements call for.

I did a rough calculation on myself to see how many calories this is.

170 lbs. at roughly 13% BF (I am actually somewhere between 13-14%).

LBM = 148 lbs.

Basic Zone Guidelines for an Elite athlete means roughly 600 calories per day from protein (rounding up). Since this is suppoed to be 30% of my daily caloric intake, that means I would eat 2,000 calories per day. However, since I am an elite athlete whose activity levels are very high, I increase my fat blocks by a factor of 3x. This means I would get 600 calories per day from protein, 800 calories per day from carbohydrates and 1,800 calories per day from fat (= 3 x 600).

Guess what this number ends up equaling?

3,200 calories per day.

Guess what happens when I go to exrx.net and use their caloric requirement calculator based on my stats and activity levels?

It ALSO comes out to be almost exactly 3,200 calories per day (not quite, but very close and certainly close enough for the point I am making).

So, my calorie requirements are my calorie requirements REGARDLESS of whether I am in the Zone the entire time or not... I still need the same amount of calories.

So, as I mentioned above, the only real debate is whether there is any point to filling any of the additional 1,200 calories I need with either (1) more blocks, or (2) non-Zone meals.

Because the caloric requirements are the same whether, maybe we can focus the discussion on those two issues and see if we can come to a better understanding of the issues. I am open to the concept that filling all of my additional 1,200 calories that I need from healthy fat may work as well (or even better) in some respects. But I hope that others are open to the idea that (1) adding more blocks, and/or, (2) consuming specifically timed non-Zone meals (i.e., the pre/post workout high GI carb+protein shake) might work equally well or better for specific types of athletes with specific types of goals.

So with that in mind, I am happy to hear others' thoughts and experiences.

I'll get the ball rolling with a two-part series written by Dr. John Berardi about the importance of post workout nutrition.

Here is part 1:

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles...zzle_1.htm

Here is part 2:

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/puzzle_2.htm

For those that don't want to wade through all of the article, here is this particular PhD's recommendation and conclusion (and other researchers have come up with different conclusion based on the research):

Here is another excerpt from Dr. John Berardi (from 2006, so his recommendations are more recent than the excerpt I provided above) regarding the importance of workout nutrition both during and after strenuous training:



http://www.johnberardi.com/articles...e_diet.htm

What does Dr. Jonny Bowden say on the subject of high GI post-workout snacks (and by the way, Dr. Bowden is a colleague of Dr. Sears and has co-authored a book with Dr. Sears)?

http://www.jonnybowden.com/2009/02/...-fast.html



Now, this article isn't meant to be scientific or anything of the like that, but it is quite clear that Dr. Sears' colleague agrees with the concept of serious athletes consuming a high GI carb post workout meal. His problem with this advice is when you are dealing with your average person who just exercises to stay in shape, lose a little weight, and stay healthy.

>>So, my calorie requirements are my calorie requirements REGARDLESS of whether I am in the Zone the entire time or not... I still need the same amount of calories.<<

Hi Matthew,

I agree with your claim that high endurance athletes can't follow a strict Zone Diet and optimize their performance. Their energy requirements are so great their body can't supply all their energy requirements via burning fat for fuel. They have to burn carbs and so they have to ingest more carbs.

That isn't to say they can't apply some anti-inflammatory principles (fish oil, avoid inflammatory foods, eat a little protein and fat with all those carbs, etc...).

I disagree with you that "a calorie is a calorie," though. Please resist the urge to shut down at this point and tune me out. At least listen to what I'm trying to communicate, *then* make a determination.

Dr. Sears' latest book actually discusses this topic in good detail. Your body doesn't run on calories, it runs on ATP. The amount of ATP that can be generated from a calorie of fat is ~3x the ATP available from a calorie of carbs. I believe this is likely why our body stores fat and not carbs - it is a more efficient way store ATP potential. To get the same ATP potential from carbs, you'd need to store 3x as many calories of carbs around your waistline.

I went to exrx.net and plugged in my data and it generated 2854 as an estimate. It is rare that I eat more than 2000 calories (if I do, we are talking 2100 or 2200, tops) - and I'm gaining lean muscle mass. I attribute this burning a higher % of fat to generate ATP (at 3x the output per calorie!) than is assumed by exrx.net calculators.

I didn't stack the ratings, either. I went with the following:

Resting: 8
Very light: 12
Light: 3
Heavy: 1

Now, if you still want to argue the point, please explain why this wrong - because this is Dr. Sears' argument in a nutshell.

Jeffey:

I never said a calorie was a calorie. Also, I am a very big fan of eating a Zone diet for most of the meals per day, including anti-inflammatory healthy fats. What I said was that your calorie requirements are your calorie requirements. Calorie = measure of energy. The fact that fat contains more ATP than an equal amount of carbohydrates doesn't change that fact.

I am not arguing any points with you, but rather discussing points. First, going by what you posted in the other thread, you mentioned that you had gone from a bench press of 135 x 3 (roughly a 150 lb. max) to a bench of 195 x 1 in about 9 months, while lose 25-30 or so lbs. of fat, while gaining muscle and strength. Frankly, if you have that amount of fat on your body and are relatively untrained, you most certainly do not want to eat a calorie surplus diet, because you already have plenty of energy in the form of fat that is readily available to be used to meet your daily energy requirements not provided by your diet. Also, building muscle and losing fat at the same time isn't impossible at all, it is just hard to do very well once you are beyond the novice stage with low levels of bodyfat.

You mentioned that you weigh 158 lbs. right now and want to be at 180 lbs. and down to 5% BF in 2 years. That tells me that you want to gain in excess of 22 lbs. of muscle in 2 years (and I cannot tell how much fat you want to lose because you didn't mention your present BFP). So, you may be gaining muscle despite being on a calorie restrictive diet, because you can still supply the missing calories from easily accessible excess body fat. You also had mentioned that you had lost muscle due to years of atrophy. That is another factor in gaining muscle, BTW. It is very easy to gain muscle that your body once had, even if it was years and years ago. Adding new muscle is much harder.

BTW, if you are eating 2,000-2,200 calories per day, your aren't in as big a calorie deficit as you think. First, your exrx.net calculation is probably off, not by much, but still off. Weight training (even under GVT, which I am familiar with) isn't "heavy", it is "moderate" (which lowers the calorie requirements by about 100 calories). Also, if you are using the original Charles Poliquin GVT suggestion and stretching the 5 day program to 7 days, your energy requirements are only 2,700 3 days per week, and drop after that down to probably around 2,400 for the other 4 days per week. Assuming the other numbers you use are accurate (people tend to unconsciously think they do more than they actually do), you are probably in a mild calorie deficit of around 400-500 calories per day. If you still have reasonable amounts of body fat to lose, it is more than possible that you will be able to gain mild amounts of muscle while still losing fat.

For someone like you, and in your particular circumstances (given the nerve damage issues you mentioned in the other thread), when you get to reasonably low body fat percentages, perhaps the only thing you add to the Zone diet you are presently eating is to add more fat blocks so that you get enough calories to continue to build muscle while still never leaving the Zone due to your fears regarding the anti-inflammation issues.

By the way, I am curious how, at 158 lbs., you are eating 2,000-2,200 calories per day and following the Zone. At 2,000 calories per day (assuming that you are eating 30% of your daily intake of calories from protein) that means you are eating 150 grams of protein per day. Even assuming that you are using 1.0 g/lb of LBM (which, according to the Zone's guidelines is probably too much protein for your actual daily activity levels which are probably "moderate" or "active" according to Zone guidelines), that means your are at about 5% body fat. Since you said in the other thread that one of your goals was to get down to 5% body fat in 2 years, this leads me to believe that you are already tweaking the Zone for your own purposes, perhaps unconsciously. You must be eating more blocks, or additional calories than what is proscribed by the Zone.

I also wanted to add a point about energy requirements. It is all well and good to talk about ATP and such, but the bottom line is that you cannot violate the law of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of energy. Put in other terms, "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms." In practice, what this means is that the only way to lose body mass is take take in less energy than you are expending. What this means in practice is that if you want to increase body mass, you need to take in more energy than you are expending. The quality of the body mass you gain or lose is dependent on a number of factors, including (but not limited to) the quality of your diet and exercise (which also affect your hormones). If you have sufficient bodyfat levels, you can create new muscle by the process of your body breaking down one form of energy (body fat) to use it to build another form of energy (muscle). But from a biological perspective, particularly when body fat levels are low, this is difficult to do when in a severe calorie (i.e., energy) deficit.

I should note that building strength is much easier to do in a calorie deficit (at least up to a point) than building muscle because strength adaptations can be either (or both) structural (i.e., adding more muscle) or through increased efficiency of the central nervous system (your body learns to do the movement more efficiently through intra and inter muscular coordination as well as increasing the CNS's ability to recruit more muscle fibers at once. A sedentary person can only voluntarily recruit in the neighborhood of 40% of their muscles in a maximal effort, whereas world class strength and power athletes can recruit in the neighborhood of 90% voluntarily... so even with equal muscle mass and the same ratio of fiber types (I, IIA and IIx) and equal length levers, an elite strength/power athlete will be more than 2x as strong as a sedentary individual because his or her CNS is simply able to recruit more muscle fibers than a non-trained individual. Then, when you consider that all things are not otherwise equal between a trained athlete and a sedentary individual (e.g., training increases muscle mass, ligament and tendon strength, superior levers, conversion of type I and type IIa fibers to type IIx fibers, fiber splitting, favorable levers, etc.) you can easily see how the strength of elite athletes can seem so otherworldly to sedentary individuals. But a huge component of strength has to do with the CNS, which isn't dependent on excess energy like structural (i.e., muscular, tendon, ligament, bone, etc.) changes are.

Hi Matthew,

"Discuss" is what I meant when I said "argue," but I like your wording better.

Nobody is discussing the idea that a calorie burned will release a different amount of energy for any of the macronutrients. Dr. Sears doesn't argue that at all. Just like a gallon of crude oil is a gallon of crude oil. But like crude oil, a calorie doesn't run your body, the ATP it produces runs your body.

Therefore, the conversion of said calorie (crude oil) into ATP (chemical required to run the body) becomes a critical factor. Dr. Sears' discusses the idea that this conversion process is not identical in all people.

Put another way, if oil refinery A is 3x as efficient as oil refinery B, oil refinery A will be able to produce twice as much gasoline (ATP) to power vehicles given the same amount of crude oil (calorie) input.

This anology applies in two ways. First, a calorie of fat can produce ~3x the ATP as a calorie of carbs. The ATP required to keep one's body functioning and active is doesn't change for a given activity level (for a given person). Therefore, if one's metabolism is based on burning a higher percentage of fat to generate that given amount of ATP, they need less calories to do so.

I'm not discussing the idea that energy is lost, I'm saying it isn't used to produce the chemical that keeps us alive and moving. It is used for something else.

Second, I believe that everyone has a unique biological calorie to ATP conversion efficiency - those whose genetics don't allow for an easy conversion tend to get fat - they need more calories to produce a given amount of ATP. Again, the enerfy isn't "lost," rather, the energy is directed to other place, like the energy contained in the fat stored by such people.

As for my stats, I'm a little over an inch shy of 6', I started at 178.5 lbs, dipped down to 155.5 lbs and now I'm about 162 lbs. My best guess as to body fat percentage is about 9% right now. I did lift in my late teens (23 years ago or so), so I might've benefited form that experience. My all time best bench press was 225 lbs x 2. My goal is to eventually break that record (in spite of my nerve damage and hurt shoulder). It won't be any time soon, primarily due to my nerve damage and hurt shoulder. I'm sure age plays a role, too. I have time.

I'm not eating 2000-2200 calories a day. When I was going through the initial process, I averaged about 1800 calories a day. I ate this way well over a year - maybe 15 months or so.

A few months back, I added in some protein, maybe a little extra fat on 5k days, so I probably eat an average about 2000 calories a day (still within the Zone's P/C ratio zone of 0.5 to 1.0 - I'm closer to 1). I do this because I'd rather have a little too much protein than not enough and the extra carbs don't benefit me (or so my thinking goes right now). I'm not the least bit interested in maximizing fat loss at this point in time, although, I don't want to gain fat, either. I'm actually quite stable right now, maybe losing very little fat over time.

I also eat more since I've gained lean muscle mass. I'd still say I'm more likely to eat less than 2k calories than more than 2k calories.

Remember, the Zone isn't a strict 40/30/30 diet. That is one of Dr. Sears' regrets - that he associated 40/30/30 to the Zone. While that is the optimal starting point, one should fine tune their Zone depending on their individual genetics, some people can eat twice as many carb grams as protein grams and still be within the Zone guidelines. Others, like me (due to my desire to add muscle more than my genetic code), can eat nearly equal amounts of carb and protein grams and still be in the Zone (maybe not optimal from an anti-inflammatory standpoint, but reasonably close).

Matthew, as I think I said above, nobody is claiming the law of thermodynamics is violated. You assume that calorie energy in must equal calorie energy out in the form of actual physical labor.

What I'm suggesting is that isn't true. Some of that energy goes for physical labor. Some gets stored as fat. Some may be excreted as waste (just throwing this out, I don't this to be true or false).

Fat is much more efficient at producing ATP - the chemical required to keep your body moving. In other words, a calorie of fat can move your body more than a calorie of carbs. That doesn't mean a calorie of carbs will give off less heat than a calorie of fat when burned by a flame. Then again, burning with a flame has nothing to do with ATP conversion.

The energy isn't lost, it just isn't used to generate the chemical that keeps your body moving. Energy isn't created or destroyed, it is just used differently.

Think of it this way. Take two hypothetical 18 year old identical twins with the *exact* same build - exactly the same in every way. Put them on the exact same diet and the exact same muscle building exercise program, but provide one with an optimal muscle building dose of anabolic steroids.

Fast forward one year. Each has consumed the *exact* same amount of calories and done the exact same amount of exercise.

Would you expect their bodies to look identical? Would you expect their muscle development to be identical? How about their body fat?

Calories in / calories out are equal, right? As I understadn your theory, the results should be identical, but I think they would be quite different. One would have more muscle and less fat than the other - and obviously so.

Obviously, energy was not lost here, but the results are still dramatically different, or at least I think you'll agree to that point.

Stated differently, you can have dramatically different results in spite of equal calorie input and output without, obviously, violating the law of thermodynamics.

Now, reset back to the starting poinit and do the same same study, only inject on of the identical twins with excess insulin. Again, the body takes the incoming calories and *processes them differently*. It isn't that energy was lost, it was that the hormonal condition of the person directed the body to use the energy differently. The one injected with insulin would end up fatter at the end of the year, all else being equal - and no energy was lost.

Regarding your discussion on strength vs muscle gain - I found that insightful and it gives a good explanation to what I probably experienced.

You raise an interesting point about the identical twins. Most certainly the twin who has been using anabolic steroids will have a different body composition than the twin who was not. But, I would be willing to bet that their body weight would be close to identical. Why? Because if they are expending the same amount of energy and eating the same diet, their total body weight will be the same due to the law of thermodynmics. Hormones most certainly matter when it comes to recovery from training and storage of calories as either muscle or fat. Now, there are other factors at play here, like heat energy, excretion of energy, the fact that the twin using AAS will get stronger faster than the twin not using AAS (which means he will expend greater calories due to his ability to do more total work [i.e., force x distance] than his clean twin). So, even with identical twins eating the same calories and following the same program, all things will not be equal for very long.

Also, you might well be in error about the twin who injected insulin being fatter, particularly if that twin knew how to use insulin correctly. Bodybuilders, in addition to using AAS, also inject insulin. Yes, that's right... insulin. You see, insulin can be HIGHLY anabolic (i.e., muscle building)... indeed, it might well be the most anabolic hormone in the human body -- even more than testosterone (which is really what steroids are -- synthetic testosterone). The twist is that insulin is a double edged sword. There are certain times it is anabolic and there are other times that it is not and can lead to accumulation of body fat, and other problems. The key is timing of insulin. And what is the time in which insulin release is highly anabolic and not harmful? Based on the recommendations given by me above regarding the time of high GI carbs + protein, you should be able to guess... that's right... immediately following intense strength training insulin doesn't store calories as fat, but rather operates to build and repair muscle!

This is precisely the time when you WANT to have a large insulin response and precisely the reason why professional bodybuilder inject insulin (in addition to steroids, growth hormone, and just about everything else you can imagine, including some sort of fish paralyzer -- okay that last one was a joke and a reference to an old SNL skit). So, for someone who trains INTENSELY with moderate to heavy weights (and most certainly not for the casual trainer), having a large insulin surge from high GI carbs (accompanied by protein and BCAAs) is a very very good thing during the brief window of opportunity that presents itself post training. So, as long as we are talking about hormone manipulation through diet, let's tell the whole story. This the main reason why a lean strength/power athlete will benefit from a non-zone post workout drink with high GI carbs + protein + BCAAs. It is ALSO manipulating your hormone response so your body does what you want it to do... build muscle!

Hormones most certainly matter a lot, and as I mentioned above, the quality of your diet will have a lot to do with whether additional calories you consume are converted to fat or muscle or burned off to meet the body's energy requirements (or for that matter whether your body will use your fat stores or break down muscle to meet energy needs that aren't being met by your diet). But this doesn't change the fact that to gain body mass you must eat a calorie excess diet and to lose body mass you must eat a calorie surplus diet.

At 155 lbs. and 10% BF (I use that number for ease of calculation) that means you have 15 lbs. of body fat and 140 lbs. of fat free mass. In order to weight 180 lbs. at 5%, that means you will have ~170 lbs. of FFM and 10 lbs. of fat. A pound of muscle is 2,500 calories, and a pound of fat is 3,500 calories. So, the 5 lbs. of fat you will lose to get to 5% will supply 17,500 calories. This is enough to build 7 lbs. of muscle (assuming no use of the energy contained therein for other purposes, which most certainly will happen if you are in a calorie deficit). But where are the additional calories going to come from to build the other 23 lbs. of muscle you would like to build? They really cannot come from your existing body fat stores (staying below 4-5% body fat for prolonged periods of time can be very unhealthy and there is only so low your body will permit you to drop). If you are still in a calorie deficit diet, they cannot come from there. And while ATP may be the fuel used to spark muscular contractions, that still doesn't tell me where you plan to get the additional ~60,000 calories you will need (ignoring the loss of calories due to digestion, heat, excretion, meeting your daily energy requirements not met by your diet, etc.) to build another 23 lbs. of muscle. Even if you were injecting steroids, GH, and everything else professional bodybuilders use, if you continued to eat a caloric deficit diet, there is only so much muscle you could add, and when your body fat levels fell far enough that they could no longer supply the calories needed to build that muscle, your attempts to continue building muscle would come to a screeching halt. At some point, you would be forced to switch to a calorie excess diet in order to add body mass.

BTW, there is something else I should add here... something about your muscular gains that you may not want to hear, but it is the reality. GVT and many bodybuilding programs build primarily what is called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. What this means is that much of the gains you are seeing (particularly on a program like GVT) are as a result of increased storage of plasma in the muscle cells. Programs like GVT do not build (or don't build much) of what is known as sarcomeric hypertrophy, which is the contractile portions of the muscles. This is a long way of saying that a large portion of what you are seeing as increased muscle mass is little more than water retention in your muscles. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can give a false sense of how much muscle you have really built. This is another reason why you may be "gaining muscle" while on a calorie restrictive diet.

I have been trying to follow this discussion at a distance (being that I have no real expertise in the athletic field). But, I do find this discusssion very interesting.

Jeffrey, I think it all came together for me with your twin analogy. I definitely think that the twins would weigh and measure differently, if one used AAS, while the other didn't. And, in the case of the injected insulin, I think that Matthew may have a point there, because of the way the insulin was used.

I believe that the energy is still balanced, but is redirected, as Jeffrey stated. One twin used his intake and stored it as muscle, because his body was directed to do so. That may mean that he might have lacked energy to do other things (since the diets were the same). The other twin used his intake for his energy expenditure, rather than storing it, because there was no chemical there to tell the body to do anything else with it.

I won't go into the insulin discussion, only to say that it is important to have a post-workout snack, after an intense workout, to feed the body and help build and repair those muscles. A high carb (or highly unfavorable carb) snack is going to provide a quick release, but this practice will also muck around with the body's ability to burn fat for energy, rather than burning carbs. A more moderated snack (zone favorable snack) will still provide the necessary nutrients, but it will also promote fat burning.

And, a true fat-burning machine will burn fat 24/7. A Carb-burning machine is less efficient. It will fluctuate between hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia more radically. Nothing worse than suffering hypoglycemia when your body is trying to perform! (isn't that the "bonk" that I hear you guys talking about?)

The thing about the Zone is that you MUST eat enough protein in order to supply your LBM with what it needs. Along with the adequate protein, you should be eating an adequate amount of carbs and fat. I get the feeling that Matthew does not think he is getting enough protein to support/build his LBM. So, increase the protein. Then, increase the carbs and fat. I think that the struggle isn't that we are not getting enough calories, but rather that we are eating too much food. A proper Zone Diet should be veggies and fruits, lean protein and monounsaturated fat. Perhaps, if Matthew tried to eat lower glycemic meals and snacks, he may find the energy that he is looking for?

Cranberry:

I do eat low glycemic meals and snacks. I don't know why you would assume that I don't. I often eat 6+ times per day, and it is almost always with lean sources of protein, healthy fats, and low GI carbs, including tons of veggies and fruit. In fact, other than really one meal per day, 6 days out of the week, I eat pretty much a Zone diet (only with additional blocks and additional healthy fats to fill my increased caloric requirements due to the amount of exercise I do on a daily basis (often in excess of 3 hours per day).

There is ONE time that I do not use low GI carbs, and that is immediately post-intense strength training. The reason why is because I want the insulin response (coupled with protein and BCAAs). That is what I am looking for. Because insulin, under those circumstances, is very anabolic. This is why professional bodybuilders inject insulin (in addition to everything else they are using). So, by eating a high GI + protein meal, I am intentionally manipulating my body's hormones to get my body to do what I want it to do after strength training -- repair and rebuild muscle in the most efficient manner possible. During the rest of the day I am also manipulating my hormones, by eating low GI carbs, protein and healthy fats, but I am controlling my hormones to limit insulin response so my body doesn't use it to store fat during the times of the day when insulin will do exactly that.

I do get enough protein to support and build my LBM. And the protein recommendations of the Zone are sufficient to do that. But there is a difference between being sufficient and being optimal. And that is why I add additional protein above and beyond 1 g/ lb. of LBM. And when you are strength training with maximal weights 6+ hours per week and doing other exercises/training another 14 hours per week that are moderate to strenuous, you are probably looking for "optimal" and not merely "sufficient". A 5% difference in performance may not matter to most people, but it is a world of difference to me.

The "twin" example is a very good example. But please note my response. I never claimed that hormones don't matter when it comes to body composition and whether your body is building muscle or building fat. Of course hormones matter a great deal. There are entire training systems used by advanced athletes based on this concept (one is even called the "Hormonal Fluctuation Model"). The use of steroids and insulin by professional bodybuilders is meant to take advantage of the role hormones play in the building of muscle and the storage or burning of fat. And of course the way we eat manipulates our hormones as well.

As I mentioned before, the two twins following identical training programs and diets with one using steroids and the other not would most certainly involve changes in body composition between the two. Hypothetically, assuming no loss of energy to other purposes, the steroid-using twin would be better able to burn fat and use the energy to build muscles because that is what his hormones are telling him to do. Since a lb. of fat is more dense than a lb. of muscle, the steroid using twin could conceivably supply the energy to build 7 lbs. of muscle from every 5 lbs. of fat he has on his body (assuming his other nutritional needs are being met, such as sufficient calories for his energy expenditure and sufficient protein). But at some point, using the energy from your fat stores to supply the muscle building process is difficult to do. The lower your body fat levels get, the more your body tries to hold onto them, and of course the less energy your are able to supply for the purpose of building muscle, from your fat stores. So there is a limit to how much more muscular the steroid twin can get as compared with his non-steroid twin.

I would propose another comparison. Let's take two identical twins, both of whom have 8% body fat, are elite strength athletes, have them follow exactly the same training protocol for a year, but have them eat different diets for a year. One eats a Zone diet that provides him with 1,800 calories per day (and let's assume this is 600 calories less than his maintenance diet according to the various calculators out there). The other brother eats as I have described, eating a "maintenance" diet that is still a Zone diet, but getting an additional 600 calories (at this point I don't care if they come from additional fat blocks only or additional blocks). At the end of a year of training, which do you think will have more lean muscle? Which do you think will be stronger?

To be clear, there are 3 separate (but interrelated issues here):

1. Does a lean strength athlete need more calories than is provided under the "basic" Zone diet to gain (or maintain) muscle at optimal rates (or at all for that matter)?

2. If yes, how much additional calories do they need?

3. If yes to #1, what is the best way to get those additional calories to perform at optimal levels.

I think the answer to #1 is clearly yes.

I think the answer to #2 is some figure that is slightly above their maintenance levels for gain muscle and at maintenance levels to keep body weight.

I think that the answer to #3 is by a combination of adding additional blocks, post workout nutrition involving high GI carbs + protein + BCAAs, and, if necessary, adding additional fat blocks.

By the way, it is clear that Dr. Sears agrees that the answer to #1 is "yes" as well. Although I am not aware of specifically what he has written on #2, what I have seen leads me to believe that his answer would be similar to mine.

I think the only area of disagreement I might have with Dr. Sears what the nature of the additional calories should be. He would fill the additional caloric requirement of elite lean strength athletes with additional fat blocks only. I would do that too, but I would add a non-Zone high GI+protein+BCAA post workout meal to the equation. I would also (depending on the athlete) increase the number of blocks so that the athlete was getting more than 1 g/lb. of LBM. How much more (or even if more is needed) depends a bit on the athlete and how much strength training and other high intensity work he or she is doing.

Frankly, I attribute the majority of this disagreement to the fact that it appears most, if not all, of the Zone-sponsored athletes are endurance athletes and not strength/power athletes. I think if Dr. Sears worked with a larger cross sections of elite level powerlifters, weightlifters, bodybuilders, football players, etc., he might very well change change what it means to be "in the Zone" for these athletes.

As I mentioned, Dr. Jonny Bowden, who co-authored the book, "Living the Low Carb Life" with Dr. Sears, does believe that for athletes who train intensely, high GI carb drinks are beneficial post-workout (though he thinks it is poor advice for the general exercise public).

Matthew, I hope I can cover your response adequately, but I don't really have a lot of time at the moment.

I really had no way of knowing whether or not you were eating low glycemic meals or not. I don't recall that you had ever discussed it before.

But, based on your response, I think that you are perhaps not allowing yourself to really get in the Zone. Big difference between eating low glycemic MOST of the time and being in the Zone ALL of the time. Also, I continue to see you post about this additional calorie expenditure that you feel you need, but I will try to explain my thoughts a bit better.

I think most athletes that are trying to Zone probably struggle with the performance aspect and the post-workout aspect. I can see your point, regarding endurance athletes vs. strength/power athletes. I don't have the athletic expertise here, so I will defer on that, for the most part. A higher glycemic snack may be fine after a workout, as long as it has adequate protein and fat to go along with it. But, I think that you are looking for elevated insulin levels to repair the muscle fibers, whereas the elevated insulin levels is also going to take you out of the Zone (OOZ, as I like to refer to it).

I must have been confused, because I thought I had read in another one of your posts, that you were concerned that you didn't get enough protein to support your LBM and muscle building efforts. I really have no problem with your feelings on increasing protein for the reasons that you posted.

What I like about the twin example is that it illustrated that the 2 people ingesting the same meals over the year still had a different body build because one received steroid injections. Obviously, only an analogy, as I have never actually seen a study like that. Because of it being an analogy, I suppose that there are a number of things that could go wrong with the analogy, if it was actually put into place. But, the point was to show that a diet of equal calories can result in a difference of body builds, and that the calorie distribution was not necessarily the same.

I would like to see a study done on identical twins where both twins are put on an equal number of calories, but one follows a Zone Diet and the other follows a hi-carb diet. Probably would be impossible to eliminate the variables, but it would be interesting to see.

ON your proposed study: I think you would have to be more specific with regard to whether the additional calories are coming from fat or from increased blocks, since the addition of one or the other would have very different results. Too many blocks can take one out of the Zone, if added blocks are not necessarily needed. If both twins are trying to increase muscle mass, then they should eat the same number of blocks. Then, the added 600 calories need to be defined. Do they come from fat? Carbs? Protein?

The point here is that the twins can't both be in the Zone if one eats one way and the other eats another way. The Zone may happen for one, but not for the other.

Here are the answers (as best as I can give them) to the questions that you have posted:

1. Does a lean strength athlete need more calories than is provided under the "basic" Zone diet to gain (or maintain) muscle at optimal rates (or at all for that matter)? -- if a lean strength athlete is trying to gain muscle, he/she may need more blocks of protein (accompanied by carb/fat). If he/she is maintaining muscle, then he/she may not need to eat extra blocks, but rather eat his/her protein as per the protein prescription. I think we all agree that if one is trying to increase LBM, then we need to eat the amount of protein that allows for the increase.

2. If yes, how much additional calories do they need? -- that answer is going to fluctuate with every individual, depending on current stats and desired state.

3. If yes to #1, what is the best way to get those additional calories to perform at optimal levels. -- the best way is to not think calorically. If you need additional protein, then eat more protein. There is also going to be a corresponding need for additional carb and fat, so all of this will work together, to keep you in the Zone.

Looks like we are all in agreement (for the most part)on these 3 questions. Except that you are also thinking that there is an additional energy need. This is not necessarily true. It could be true, but this will vary individually. Actually, the additional energy need depends on what is happening to your body. If you are losing fat stores (and you are already optimally lean), then you would increase fat blocks. But, if you are losing LBM, then you would probably want to re-analyze whether or not you are getting enough protein. I would not try to prevent the destruction of LBM by feeding the body high carbs or high fat, in this case.

Wow, I wrote more than I had planned!

1. But what if the protein prescriptions are too conservative? Does a Bulgarian weightlifter who lifts maximal weights 30 hours per week 6 days per week only need 1 g/lb of lbm? Are you telling me that this weightlifter would not benefit from a higher ratio of protein per pound of lbm than 1 g and only needs exactly the same ratio is another elite athlete who only trains with heavy weights 5 hours per week or does twice a day training for 10 hours? There seems to be a bias against going over 1g/lb of lbm of protein here because that is the maximum in Dr. Sears' physical activity factor. Of course the additional protein over 1g / lb. of lbm must be balanced with a commensurate increase in carbs and fat so you remain in the Zone.

2. Yes the answer fluctuates, but obviously let's assume you are already dealing with someone who is consuming 1g/lb? Obviously Dr. Sears thinks that athletes of this nature might well need even more calories, since he suggests (in "Entering the Zone") that truly elite athletes consume 2x the fat blocks. That is a 33% increase in calories. Frankly, caloric requirements can exceed this amount as well.

3. As long as you agree that protein requirements can be more than 1g/lb., then yes, we are mostly in agreement. If you think that is the cap to protein requirements, we probably are still in disagreement. Also, a remaining area of disagreement is that you should never ever leave the Zone to perform at your best. But the Zone is all about hormone manipulation and decreasing inflammation. Insulin is treated as though it is always the enemy, but that simply isn't the case. There are brief windows of opportunity where insulin is your friend when it comes to getting your body to do what you want it to. And that period of time is within the first 30 minutes post heavy training. During that period, insuln is highly anabolic and stimulates muscle growth (as long as it is accompanied by protein and BCAAs). Adding fat reduces the insulin response during this critical window which is why I am not in favor of a Zone balanced meal post-intense strength training.

The bottom line is that 4-5 meals per day that I consume are Zone balanced meals (sometimes with more fat blocks and adding additional blocks so I meet my protein requirements that are higher than 1g/lb) using the foods that Dr. Sears recommends. But 1-2 times per day (depending on whether my intense strength training is 1x per day or 2x per day), I use a non-Zone meal that consists of high GI carbs coupled with protein. Why? Because just like my Zone meals are manipulating my insulin levels for the purpose of avoiding fat storage, decreasing inflammation, increasing lean body mass, etc., so too are my non-Zone meals doing the same thing... the non-Zone meals just happen to be doing it in relation to the changed circumstances that my body is facing due to intense strength training.

Insulin is interesting because it can be either good or bad depending on timing and the nutrients in your blood stream when you get the large insulin release. Most certainly, you don't want a large insulin response most of the day. But you do want a big insulin response immediately post training. That insulin response helps build muscles faster, speeds recovery, prevents catabolism, etc. during that specific time. The problem I have is that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You need to use the right tool for the right job for optimal results. Most of the time, staying in the Zone is the right tool for the job of all those healthy things that we want... but there are discreet times when it most certainly is not optimal. And one of those times is immediately post intense strength training.

Hi Matthew,

I decided to track my calorie intake to a "T" today. It is 7:00 PM and I've eaten 1206 calories so far. These are actual, all up calories - I counted every calorie in everything I have eaten so far. I do have to estimate, but I'd be shocked to be off by more than 5% either way.

I will eat a 2 block snack, run a 5k and eat a 3 block meal and a 1 block bedtime snack before I go to sleep (this is my "adder" - I didn't eat this extra block until recently). I expect this to be about 1900 calories and it is typical of what I eat most days.

I input 24 hours of Resting into the exrx calculator and it return 1691 calories. That's a full sleep 24 hours a day.

What I'm doing ought to be impossible *assuming* the exrx calorie / ooutput energy equation is right. Dr. Sears explains why it isn't when one burns a higher percentage of fat for energy - you get 3x the ATP and, therefore, need fewer calories to move one's body.

His theories are consistent with my reality - its anecdotal, but works *awsome* for me. ;-)

By the way, I'm not contending that a "standard" Zone diet is optimized to gain lean muscle mass at the optimal rate (there are so many variables, it is silly - each person has to make a good faith effort on their own if they are interested). I don't know. I'm just applying its principles to my own life to see what I can get out of it. After sleeping in on Saturday, I weighed in at 161.5 lbs in the morning. I'm gaining weight, but it is hard to put a number on the rate. My goal is 168-170 lbs while lowering my approximate 9% body fat by the end of the year.

We'll see where I end up.

I'm off to eat my 2 block snack and go run my 5k...