Elite Physique The New Science of Building a Better Body

CHAPTER 11
Nutrition for Muscle
Growth or Fat Loss
I’m not a registered dietitian, nor do I have an advanced degree in nutrition. But
I learned early in my coaching career that I couldn’t help my clients reach their
performance or physique goals without focusing as much on nutrition as I do
on training and recovery.
It’s a surprisingly complex topic. For example, if you want to lose fat, you
should eat less. The math is pretty simple, right? But the more aggressively you
cut calories, the harder it will be to continue training with enough volume and
intensity to achieve the physique you want. You’ll compromise your recovery
between workouts and probably disrupt the quality of your sleep as well. You
can still lose fat, if you tough it out long enough. But it’s a miserable way to reach
your goals, and it makes your new lower body fat percentage nearly impossible
to sustain.
Or let’s say you want to gain muscle. Again, the math is pretty simple: The
more you eat, the more muscle you can pack on. But there are good and bad
ways to do it. Without a smart nutrition plan, the muscle you gain will come
with more fat than you anticipated, and it may take years to lose it. No matter
your goals—muscle gain, fat loss, or physique maintenance—you need to get
two things right: total calories per day and protein intake.
In this chapter we cover the elements of your nutrition plan that apply to muscle
growth, fat loss, and recovery. We first discuss the importance of getting your
calories and protein intake dialed in. We also outline healthy sources of carbohydrate,
fat, and protein, as well as guidelines for workout nutrition and hydration.
Intermittent fasting is discussed along with simple guidelines to clean up any
diet. By the end of this chapter you’ll have all the nutrition strategies you need
to accelerate fat loss and muscle growth in sensible, sustainable ways, allowing
for full recovery and optimal health to maximize your nutrition for any goal.
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Dialing in Your Calories and Protein
Losing fat requires an energy deficit, meaning you need to eat fewer calories
per day than your body needs for maintenance. Gaining muscle requires an
energy surplus. For that, it doesn’t help to increase your protein intake beyond
1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight, the recommended amount of protein we