The Anabolic Diet and CrossFit

Seems I’ve been slacking when it comes to putting any written content up. It’s been about 6 months since I started the Anabolic Diet (AD) and now seems like a good time to write something about it.

Background: The AD was developed by Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale and is detailed in his book “The Anabolic Solution.” You can find tons on information on Dr. Di Pasquale and his various protocols on Google. He also has his own website MD+ that not only sells his books but also his own line of supplements.

Basics: The AD is a high fat, high protein diet (~60% fat, ~40% protein) five days a week and then has a high carbohydrate intake the last two days of the week. The idea is to switch the body away from burning carbohydrates as it’s primary fuel to burning fat. The two days of carbo-loading at the end of the week are used to manipulate fat burning hormones into maximizing muscle growth while simultaneously minimizing body fat.

Links to CrossFit (CF): If you’ve spent any time pursuing fitness, diet always seems to come up in one capacity or another. Reading through the CF boards, there is a whole section devoted to nutrition. The diet promoted by CF is the Zone Diet, however in CF Journal #15 (November 2003), Coach Glassman talks about nutrition and various diets where he gives a nod to the AD saying “It works, and works very well.”

Attraction: The attraction for me to the AD over the Zone comes down to greater simplicity. In order to follow the Zone strictly, it requires you to weigh and measure all your food so that you have the correct amount of blocks for each meal. One technique Zone followers use is to take one day and prepare all the meals ahead of time for the upcoming week. Definitely a technique, but one that is much too tedious for me even in the best circumstances and doesn’t work if you have no control of what you can eat, which is the case if you spend any time away from home (deployed soldiers, travel, etc.).

Like the Zone, the AD requires a certain breakdown of macronutrients. The Zone ratios are 40/30/30 of carbohydrates, fat and protein whereas the AD ratios are 40-60/40-50/4-10 fats, proteins and carbohydrates (during the week). The even bigger difference comes in that unlike the Zone, the AD doesn’t require you to maintain this ratio for each meal. As long as your daily intake comes close to the ratios, you can eat each meal with no specific amounts of macronutrients per meal that you’re trying to stay within. This makes things MUCH easier. You can eat a large amount of protein in one meal (think a big steak!) then make up your fats in other meals. This flexibility lets you also eat things on the fly without having to worry about what the exact macronutrient proportions are.

In addition, because the weekends on the AD are carbohydrate high, no food or food groups are really off-limits. The restriction comes not from WHAT you can eat, but WHEN you can eat it. Like ice cream? Cookies? BBQ pulled pork? Whatever your favorite food, it can be eaten as long as you program it in on the appropriate day. This does not give you carte blanche to eat as much junk food as you can during your carbohydrate days. Both diets advocate specific amounts of food (calories) based upon your desired goals. With the AD you can eat to maintain (baseline caloric intake), weight and fat loss (reduced caloric intake) or mass gain (increased caloric intake). For those that need a little psychological help, I use the weekend carb-loading days as a reward, something to look forward to for staying clean and on the diet during the five week days.

Application: Initially when starting the AD, calories aren’t a factor and the focus is on staying within the ratios to allow your body to become fat adapted to the new diet. This can take as little as two weeks to a month or more depending on the individual’s carbohydrate sensitivity. Once this phase is passed, then specific goals of fat loss, maintenance, or mass gain can be addressed and then total caloric intake becomes a factor.

Regardless of what your goal is the basics are the same, which is watching both (a) the total amount of calories you take in and (b) what the ratios are. Initially this can be difficult because you don’t know what foods to eat, when you can eat them, what their macronutrient levels are and the tedium of keeping track of all that information. There are a couple of resources that help tackle those two problems with ease.

The first piece of that puzzle is what foods to eat and when. The carbohydrate days are easy in deciding what you can eat (anything you want!), so you don’t really need to worry too much on those days. It’s the five low-carb days that are a pain. A great resource to see what foods are low-carb can be found at StrongLifts’ “101 Foods to Eat on the Anabolic Diet”. This list gives you ample variety so you can steer yourself towards the foods that will help keep that high fat, high protein profile you’re looking for.

The second piece of that puzzle would be using a macronutrient and calorie counting program. A great (and free) online resource is Fitday. You sign up for an account and use the fairly comprehensive drop down menus to keep track of how much you eat. The site automatically calculates the total amount of your macronutrients and what ratio that is to the whole. Another nice feature is you can input and save custom foods that might not be listed or are only generic in the drop down menus. Even if you don’t follow the AD, this site is still a great tool to show how much you eat without taking up too much of your time.

Diet example: The following is taken from my food log to give you an idea of how I used the AD guidelines.

Breakfast: 4 eggs (over easy), 5 strips of bacon, 3 slices of cheese, 1/2 cup of watermelon, water (with green tea mix).
Snack: 1/2 cup almonds
Lunch: Braised pork chops (8 oz), 1/2 cup broccoli, 1 cup tossed salad w/ Italian dressing, 3 slices of cheese, water (with green tea mix).
Snack: 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, 1 pack of beef jerky, 1 serving liquid protein supplement
Dinner: Chicken breast (6 oz), 1 cup green beans, 1 slice of cheese, water (with green tea mix).
Totals: Calories- 3,095; Fats- 205g (61%); Protein- 261g (35%); Carbohydrates- 37g (4%)

Quite a bit of food, so even though it’s a diet you’re not going to starve by following it.

Results: As far as CF is concerned, none of the above means much if you don’t derive some benefit from it. So how has it worked out for me?

03 JAN 08: BW of 181.2 lbs @ BF of 14.8% = 154.4 lbs of LBM and 26.8 lbs of fat
01 JUN 08: BW of 190.8 lbs @ BF of 10.5% = 170.5 lbs of LBM and 20.3 lbs of fat
Total: BW gain of 9.6lbs, with 16.1 lbs LBM gained and 6.6 lbs of fat lost over the course of 5 months.

I also made personal records (PR) on many fronts. Times went down on WOD’s such as Diane, Elizabeth, Grace, Helen, and Michael. Weights went up on things like weighted pull-ups, thrusters, snatch, push jerk, and squat clean. I didn’t set up a baseline for before and after testing, so I can’t quantify the results suitably for a study but overall I’m happy with the results. Dymphna experienced very similar results as well. She lost body fat, gained lean muscle mass and had significant performance increases across the board.

What next: After a couple of months following the AD, it becomes habit and therefore much easier to stick to. You have a good idea of what foods you can eat and how much of them you can eat. I’ve made the switch and without thinking, follow the AD even when I fail to record my daily food intake. I consider it a healthy switch away from a lot of the quick and easy processed foods that Americans seem to default to for their diet. I’ve seen both positive body composition changes as well as increased performance.

I can’t say what the long term consequences of a diet like this are, but I do know that obesity is almost an epidemic in America where the majority of people eat a diet of high carbohydrates and the commercial buzz of keeping things low fat. So don’t take my word for it, make your own decision whether or not you want to try the Anabolic Diet. If you do, keep us posted on your results!