Shock & Awe: Nutrition Plan

Chapter Two: The Nutrition Plan

This isn’t a “diet” or “weight loss” or “weight gain” plan. This is a lifestyle-eating plan. It takes organization, a scale, a food reference guide and, at times, will power. If you’re already serious about your eating, this plan won’t be overwhelming at all – it will actually be a joy. If you have never calculated your food portions before it may be a bit daunting at first, but hang in there – the results will be worth the effort and pretty soon it’ll become second nature.

Before we get into it there are a few things to bring up. First, get yourself checked for food intolerances and allergies. No meal plan will work if your body is inflamed – some foods that work well for others may not work for you. Second, try to eat organic as often as possible. This is especially important when eating meats. Also, choose foods that are nutritionally dense – swapping out brown rice and avocado for Doritos, just because it “fits your macros”, is not going to produce a desirable physique. Finally, this plan allows for you to get creative and enjoy your life. Don’t stress if a meal is off by a few grams of protein or carbs – it doesn’t have to be exact. Stick to the plan as closely as possible of course, but close is close enough.

You may already know that carb cycling works very well for losing body fat. We’re taking our eating plan to the next level, shocking the body daily with different foods and different macro amounts, cycling not just carbs, but also protein and fats. This way the body never becomes accustomed to one way of eating and never gets the opportunity to adapt and keep itself in homeostasis…Shock & Awe!

Here’s the layout:

This is your starting point. Now time for some math…

To figure out your low protein amount, take your lean body mass and multiply by 1. Let’s use an imaginary character; let’s call him “Max” to help with our calculations. Max weighs 200 pounds at 10% body fat. Max would eat 180 grams of protein on low protein days (200 – 10% = 180). To figure out your high protein, multiply your lean bodyweight by 1.5. Max would consume 270 grams of protein per day.

To figure out your high fat amount, take your lean bodyweight and divide by 2. For Max, that would 180/2 = 90 grams of fat per day. Simply divide this number by 2 to get your low fat day amount. Max’s low fat days would be 45 grams per day.

For this plan we will always have carbs during and after exercise and these don’t get included in your equation for carb intake. Sometimes you will train on a low carb day, sometimes on a high carb day, but you will always drink/eat carbs during and after. Start with 25 grams during (1 scoop of Battle Juice OR coconut water and 2 scoops AMMO-8) and 40 grams, from food, post workout.

To figure out your high carb numbers, start with 1 gram per pound of lean bodyweight on high carb days and no added carbs on low carb days. Max would eat 180 grams on high carb days and no added carbs on low carb days (unless he trains, then he would have his 20 grams intra and 40 grams post). Veggies, especially green veggies, are great and although they contain carbs, we don’t include them in your numbers. That means you can eat veggies every day (and you should!).

I personally like to divide my protein, fat and carbs over 4 meals. Eating every three hours works for me. It gives my food time to digest properly. If you prefer to eat more often, just divide your total intake over that number. If you enjoy eating less, 3 meals per day would be the minimum as I don’t recommend going for more than 4 hours without food.

For cheat meals, eat whatever you want. Really…whatever you want. I suggest staying away from fast foods or overly processed foods because they’re pretty much devoid of any nutritional value, but whatever floats your boat.
The next step is how to adjust your food intake as time goes on…
You will weigh yourself each week, same day, same time of day. I recommend Wednesday mornings. Keep a log of your weight and the adjustments you make to your plan. You will adjust your plan every two weeks at most and only if necessary. A gain or loss of 1-2 pounds, depending on your goals, every two weeks is a good target.
Let’s look at how to adjust the plan for weight loss and how to adjust it for weight gain.

Weight Loss

After two weeks: if you lose 1-2 pounds, keep the plan as is. If you lose more than 2 pounds, you can up your intra-workout carbs by 10 grams. If you don’t lose anything or you gain weight, step one is to drop one of the cheat meals.

After the next two weeks, if you lose 1-2 pounds, keep the plan as is. If you lose more than 2 pounds this week, up your carbs slightly on your high carb days (10 grams per meal). If you don’t lose anything or you gain weight, drop your post-workout carbs by 10 grams.

NOTE 1: the scale is only part of the equation. For example, if you don’t lose any weight, but your pants are looser than they were 2 weeks ago, you’ve lost fat and gained muscle – keep the plan the same! Use the mirror and common sense in harmony with the scale.

As you continue on you can slowly increase or decrease carbs or fat every two weeks to keep your fat loss going. It takes a number of weeks to get the plan personalized to your own needs, but with careful regulation eventually it will be tailored perfectly for you as an individual.

NOTE 2: cardio is also an important part of the fat loss plan!!! For now, stick with one HIIT cardio session every 4-5 days. We will talk more about cardio when we get to the training chapter. It will be something we also can adjust on a bi-weekly basis to ensure the fat loss continues. Just remember this: never adjust diet AND cardio at the same time. If one is increased the other is left untouched.

Weight Gain

When we talk about weight gain, we mean lean muscle gain. Moving the scale up just to move it is ridiculous. A fat body does not perform optimally and it’s unhealthy.

Again, we weigh ourselves every two weeks. If you gain 1-2 pounds, keep the diet the same. If you don’t gain anything you can increase your intra-workout carbs by 10 grams. If you lose weight, increase your high carbs meals by 10 grams each. (When you increase protein or fat, also increase your low days. For example if I add 20 grams of daily fat to my high days, I’ll also increase my low days by 10 grams per day.) If you gain more than 2 pounds, drop one of your cheat meals.

You can incrementally increase your carbs and/or fat until your weight gain is achieving the desired 1-2 pounds of lean muscle mass – just remember to only make small changes. As with fat loss, use the mirror and common sense to help with your decisions. If you’re gaining 1-2 pounds every couple of weeks and your pants get tighter and tighter, stop adding food until things level out! If you’re really efficient at burning carbs, you may find yourself eventually adding carbs to your low carb days. This is perfectly fine as long as you’re not gaining fat.

Final Notes

Try to eat as many different varieties of protein, fats and carbs that you can. Choose as many different meats as you can get your hands on (organic or wild is always best!). For carbs, mainly stick to low glycemic types (brown rice, oatmeal, quinoa, etc.). Intra and possibly post workout are the only exceptions to the rule (I drink freshly squeezed fruit juice or coconut water intra-workout and follow every workout with a banana!). Veggies can be eaten without limitation and are great sources of fiber. For fat loss, stick to mainly green veggies. For muscle gain, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables should be enjoyed. Fats should be of the healthy kind – omega-3 from fish, a good mix of nuts/seeds and nut/seed butters, extra virgin olive oil, as well as some saturated fats from coconut oil and organic meats.

The next chapter will be on supplements and then we’ll get right into the training where I’ll act as your personal trainer providing you with different workouts every week!