Introduction to Strength Camp Nutrition

It’s time to change your relationship with food. What you put into your body is going to
directly impact your performance.

The goal of an intelligent nutrition plan should be three things.

First, it should provide adequate energy to fuel you. The energy demands of an
Strength Camp Athlete are quite different than the energy demands of a sedentary
person. Athletes require more fuel and different fuel than the average person.

Second, it should provide enough nutrition to assist in recovery and cellular processes.
It is known that inadequate nutrition can lower testosterone and growth hormone
production. Couple that drop in anabolic hormones with a lack of necessary nutrients to
repair the body, and you have a formula for disaster.

Third, and finally, it should provide a balance of nutrients to promote overall health and
well being. A diet void of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) is not only unhealthy,
but it will hurt your performance. For example, an imbalance of sodium, potassium, and
magnesium will result in cramping and muscle spasms. No one runs very well when
their calf muscles are cramping into knots.

If you are serious about performing at a high level, you will make the effort to focus on
your nutrition the same way that you focus on your physical training. After all, what good
is it to crush yourself in the weight room if you’re not going to eat enough to build bigger,
stronger, faster, muscles?

Too often, the discussion of nutrition becomes overly complicated and confusing.
“Experts” will often use big terms and talk about theory rather than application in an
effort to flex their intellectual muscles and sound smarter. This is completely
unnecessary and helps no one. Nutrition doesn’t have to be advanced chemistry, you
just need to understand the basic principles and your specific goals.

The “trick” to nutrition is finding what works best for you, and then finding a way to
implement it into your daily life. Consistency is king. We will briefly outline a few different
nutrition strategies for you along with variations to fit your specific goals.
 Macronutrients
Protein

Found in all animals and vegetable tissue, protein is a nitrogen containing compound
that aids in the repair of tissue and synthesis. The nitrogen actually comes from the
amino acids that make up the protein, which are the key factors of growth and repair.
Proteins are compiled of 20 amino acids, 8 of which are essential and found in food
sources.

Any strenuous activity including weightlifting increases the bodies demand for these
amino acids for the purpose of repairing the tissues broken down and growth of the
tissues. If the body is not supplied sufficiently it will begin to breakdown muscle tissue in
order to receive them.

First, you will need to ensure that you are getting enough protein. Thanks to all the
fitness magazines and supplement companies out there, this is commonly known, and
most athletes are already consuming enough protein. However, it is also important that
you do not over consume protein. Dr. Lonnie Lowery wrote about this, and he discussed
how eating too much protein can 1) encourage your body to burn protein for energy,
hence, encouraging your body to burn muscle instead of fat and 2) eating too much
protein often means that you’re not eating enough carbohydrates and fat.

That being said, most athletes will require 0.8-1.2 grams of protein per pound of
bodyweight. So, a 200 pound athlete would be consuming between 160-240 grams of
protein per day. Just to give you a brief example of how someone might consume this
quantity of protein; 4 eggs, 8 ounces of ground beef (two hamburger patties), 2 scoops
of whey protein, and 8 ounces of chicken breast would be approximately 180-185 grams
of protein.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the preferred source of energy for the body to utilize during training.
Carbs come mainly from plant sources that when entered into the body are readily
available. When the body has no carbs it begins to turn to fats then proteins to utilize for
energy.

When training, the body should be breaking down and processing the right combination
and ratio of carbs to aid in energy and help aid in digestion of amino acids.

You will need to consume enough carbohydrates to fuel your performance. Most sports
require energy from a process called glycolysis which simply means the body is using
glucose which comes from carbohydrates. This is not to say that your body cannot use
protein or fat for energy, but simply that your body is better able to use glucose from
carbohydrates than it can create its own glucose from fat or protein.

From personal experience and observation, we have found that most athletes perform
best when consuming 0.8-1.6 grams of carbohydrates per pound of bodyweight. For a
200 pound athlete, this would be 160-320 grams of carbohydrates. Some athletes will
perform better with even high quantities of carbohydrates (you may be familiar with
Michael Phelps and his 10,000 calorie diet), but this is a rare case because the average
person can only store about 400 grams of glycogen (stored glucose) at a time. Hence,
consuming more than 400 grams of carbohydrates when you are not depleted of
glycogen will result in “spillover” or fat production.

For example, to reach the carbohydrate needs of a 200 pound athlete; 1 cup of dry
oatmeal, a 1/2 cup of dry white rice, 1 potato, and 2 slices of bread would yield roughly
200-205 grams of carbohydrates. You may have noticed that we selected mostly high
glycemic index carbohydrates here, we will explain more on that later.

Fat

Fat is a macronutrient that aids in the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients such as

vitamins and minerals. Fat also assists in the growth process as it metabolizes growth
hormone released by the body during REM sleep. Also, fat highly correlates with
increased testosterone when found in the body.

Fat has a bad reputation which it does not deserve. Fat is absolutely necessary for
many of our cellular processes, and fat and cholesterol should be important to you since
they are necessary for the production of testosterone. Low fat diets have been shown in
research to lower testosterone levels.

Staying with the example of a 200 pound athlete, most athletes need approximately
0.5-0.75 grams of fat per pound of bodyweight, so this would be 100-150 grams of fat
per day. This is actually a very easy number to hit, and it’s often harder to keep the fat
intake low than it is to increase it.

Just to give a brief example of how someone might consume this quantity; 2
tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of coconut oil would be all the additional fat
needed to consume 140-145 grams of fat for an athlete who has already consumed the
eggs, ground beef, and chicken previous listed. If you figure that you’ll probably put at
least a tablespoon of butter into the pan when cooking eggs and possibly another
tablespoon when cooking your ground beef or chicken, all the additional fat you might
want to consume would be 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, which we will address in the
discussion of nutrient timing.
Nutrient Timing
So, now we’ve outlined some basic principles of nutrition. How might we actually
implement this?

If you’re like most people, you sleep in till the last possible minute which doesn’t exactly
leave much extra time for breakfast. The easiest thing to do is to put a scoop of whey
into a shaker before you go to bed. When you get up, have a heaping tablespoon of
coconut oil. The MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) in coconut oil will convert readily
into ketones, which are shown to boost brain function. Also, since you haven’t eaten all
night while you were sleeping, have a spoonful of coconut oil for breakfast will further
facilitate more fatty acid oxidation (fat burning). Grab your shaker and a bottle of water,
and head out the door.

About two hours later, you’ll likely start to get hungry, this is a great time to add some
water to your whey protein and drink your shake. Just two hours into your day, and
we’ve already got a serving of good quality fat and a serving of protein.

Depending on what you have available, your next meal should be solid. When I was
going to school, I rarely had time to cook or even go to the cafeteria to eat, so I used to
make up two dozen hard boiled eggs every Sunday. For your first solid meal, I
recommend going with 4 hard boiled eggs, but if you’re grabbing some food in the
cafeteria, you can get a couple hamburgers, ditch the bun, and then just eat the meat
and whatever came on your burger. Essentially here we are getting the protein and fat
source without the carbohydrates.

Dr. John Berardi used to recommend eating your carbohydrates separate from your fat
intake. So, each meal with either have protein and fat or protein and carbohydrates, but
never carbohydrates and fat. This makes sense because if we look at the chemistry of
how our body responds to food, when we consume carbohydrates, we release insulin.
That insulin is absolutely necessary, and I am not one of those people who vilifies
insulin because insulin can help to transport glucose into our muscles, but if you
combine carbohydrates and fat, that insulin will also trigger something called lipoprotein
lipase (LPL) to transport fat into our fat cells. This is undesirable for obvious reasons.
Therefore, I agree with Dr. Berardi and recommend that you consume your
carbohydrates with protein and keep the fat intake low for your high carbohydrate
meals.

Assuming you train after school or work, your next meal is going to be the last meal you
have before you hit the gym. So, if haven’t had your eggs yet, now would be the time to
eat those eggs, if you haven’t had your beef yet (and it can be steak, roast beef, ground
beef, etc), have your serving of beef. And in this meal, have your first serving of
carbohydrates. I recommend the oatmeal since it digests slowly and will give you
energy to draw from for your training. You might even add a tablespoon of butter (not
margarine) to your oatmeal. Because oatmeal is a lower glycemic index carbohydrate,it
won’t spike your insulin causing you to store the fat in the butter like carbohydrates
normally do.

Assuming that your next activity is your training, your post workout meal should be a
scoop of whey protein and a Russet potato. Why a Russet potato? Russet potatoes,
according to some charts, have a glycemic index of 115 on a scale of 1-100. That’s a
serious insulin spike! When you spike your system with a high glycemic index
carbohydrate post workout, your body will rapidly replenish glycogen stores (your body’s
stored carbohydrates for energy).

Now for the science, post workout, your GLUT4 levels (a glucose transporter) are
elevated, so when you eat the Russet potato, you will have something called “non
insulin mediated glycogen replenishment.” In other words, the glucose from the
carbohydrates will be transported to your muscles by GLUT4 instead of insulin. What
this does is improves your rate of glycogen recovery and minimizes carbohydrates
being stored as fat.

This influx of carbohydrates post workout also stops catabolic processes (muscle
breakdown) and begins anabolic processes (muscle building). If you don’t like potatoes,
or your just hate eating solid food post workout, I would recommend a carbohydrate
supplement as a viable post workout carbohydrate source. I normally try to stick to real
food instead of supplements, but a carbohydrate powder will work.

For your last meal, about 2 to 3 hours after your post workout meal, this is where I
recommend you eat the chicken breast and rice. It is a lean meat and a good quality
carbohydrate to finish out the night. This will further replenish glycogen levels to give
you energy for the following day’s training as well as provide your body with more
protein to continue reparative processes.

That is how I would recommend that you best plan your meals to maximize the most
performance, muscle gain, and fat loss. You will recover faster and make more progress
if you are well fed and consuming adequate nutrients.

WHY EAT THIS WAY?

Metabolic flexibility. Our goal is to optimize your body’s ability to use fuel. The human
body can run on ketones which come primarily from fat or glucose which comes
primarily from carbohydrates. There are some other pathways through which our body
can create ketones and glucose through other means, but the primary sources of
ketones and glucose are fat and carbohydrates, respectively. We want our body to be
efficient at switching from one fuel source to the other when necessary. So, when you’re
running low on glucose, your body will turn to fat for energy, and spare your stored
glycogen for when you need it most.
When you’re walking throughout the day, sitting, even low intensity practice or training,
your body should be primarily fueled by fat. If your body is metabolically healthy, you will
use fat during those times which allows your body to hold on to your stored glucose for
that moment when you need a huge burst of power and speed to blow through the line.
Sprinting, power, explosiveness, and sustained output are fueled best by glucose.

By eating this way, we are encouraging our body to use fat for energy during low
intensity times while sparing glycogen so that our body has accessible glucose for high
intensity times or your training that afternoon.

By separating our carbohydrate and fat intake, we encourage more glycogen

replenishment to our muscles, especially because the majority of our carbohydrates will
be consumed around and after the training window.

A WORD ABOUT CHEAT MEALS

We don’t like the term “cheat meal” because it implies that there is something “wrong” or
“cheating” about eating food. There are no good foods or bad foods. Food is just food.
Glucose is glucose no matter the original source.

That being said, you do not train in a bubble. You have lives outside of your training.
Eating has become a social activity in our culture. I would never recommend that
someone deny themselves attending a family barbecue or going out for pizza with
friends. Instead, when you deviate from the diet, learn to adjust. If you indulge at a
social gathering and eat some birthday cake, just realize that you probably ate all the
carbs you need for that day, and so for your other meals that day, make an effort to eat
more protein and less carbs to balance your daily macronutrients out.

Or say that you indulge after dinner at a nice restaurant and get a piece of cheesecake.
Simply adjust. Cheesecake is high in fat and carbs. So, for the rest of your meals, try to
eat high protein and low fat and low carbs in order to compensate for the cheesecake
and balance your macros.

While nutrient timing is important, always remember that your metabolic processes are
taking place 24/7. The body is amazingly flexible and adaptable to changes in dietary
intake. This is why we say “There’s no such thing as a cheat meal.”
Weight Loss
There are some “variations” that we can make to any diet to fit specific goals.

First off, and most obvious, if you’re trying to lose weight, a very easy change is to drop
the morning spoonful of coconut oil. Right there you’re cutting 240 calories. The trick to
weight loss, and specifically fat loss, is not to cut calories too much too fast. The reason
being, if you make a large change in calories, your body will react negatively and you
will have a much harder time losing fat. Small changes, gradually implemented over
time are far more effective, plus, you won’t lose your strength in the gym. If you just
suddenly cut 500 calories, you can bet that your performance in the gym would suffer.

Another “tweak” you can make to your diet is you can eliminate the pre workout
oatmeal. So, in that scenario, you would still have the spoonful of coconut oil first thing
the morning, the whey shake, the eggs, and the beef from the example, but you would
not consume any carbohydrates pre workout. Before you get worried about this,
digestion is an ongoing process, so remember that you’re eating your carbohydrates
post workout, and so they are stored from the day before. You should not see any
decrease in strength, speed, or explosiveness, however, you may have SLIGHTLY less
endurance in longer training sessions, but if you’re following the Strength Camp
Program, you should not be training for hours on end anyways.

Essentially, these are 2 examples how we would want to tweak your food consumption
to adjust to your body. We want consistency and once consistency is reached in your
daily life it becomes easy to manipulate your macronutrients to either gain or lose
weight.

The way your nutrition is set up is to optimally utilize the food you give your body.
Meaning we want to not add fat but also gain muscle. There are more detailed and
intense ways to drastically lose weight and you can contact our nutritionist at
StrengthCampNutrition@gmail.com

That is the easiest way to approach weight loss, and ensure that the weight you are
losing is fat and not muscle.
Weight Gain
What if you want to gain weight?

Assuming that you want to gain muscle and not fat, a huge spike in calories is not
advised. Sure, you can do the dirty bulking, but most guys “dirty bulking” gain as much
fat as they do muscle. You don’t want that. The best way to do this is to either add
another serving of carbohydrates, so for instance, you could eat two potatoes or two
cups of rice, or, you can add another meal. That additional meal should be post workout
just like the chicken and rice meal, and ideally, it would be a lean protein with a low fat
carbohydrate source. Canned tuna or salmon is an option, you can also go with deli
chicken or turkey breast, and then for your carbohydrate you might consider rice,
quinoa, frozen vegetables, etc. You should aim for about 30 grams of protein and 30 to
35 grams of carbohydrate in this additional meal.

To intelligently gain weight, and assuming you’re interested in gaining muscle and not
fat, the “dirty bulking” method where you just eat whatever you want should be avoided.
Instead, slowly increase your calories each week in small increments still eating good
quality food sources and with appropriate meal timing. This will encourage more
metabolic efficiency in nutrient partitioning (sending things where they need to go) and
you will gain more muscle while keeping fat gain to a minimum.

Again it comes down to consistency and small changes to begin to gain muscle. If you
are on a timetable and need to gain the weight fast feel free to contact our nutritionist
at... StrengthCampNutrition@gmail.com
SUPPLEMENTS
We know that the supplement industry is constantly pitching new products, but the
unfortunate reality is that most supplements just don’t deliver.

Here are the supplements that we recommend because they are proven to be effective.

Whey Protein (we personally prefer Whey Protein Isolate)

Creatine (plain creatine monohydrate powder)
Baking Soda (Arm and Hammer)

Whey protein has a great profile of amino acids and provides immunoglobulins as well.
It is a low fat, low carbohydrate source of very high quality protein.

Creatine monohydrate is a great addition to your post workout shake. The research is
seemingly endless, so we won’t rehash it all here, but creatine is a proven product in
increasing strength, power, and mass.

Baking soda is the one thing on that list that probably will surprise most people.
However, if you look at the research, baking soda in your water pre workout reduces
fatigue, increases power output, and appears to even have some benefits in preventing
post workout soreness. It’s cheap and highly effective. We will warn you though, start
with a small dose and slowly work your way up. Taking a large dose of baking soda can
give you diarrhea if you’re not used to it.

The number one supplement that we think athletes should be avoiding is all the pre
workout and fat burner supplements on the market. When we look at the research,
participants often lose as much muscle as they do fat when using pre workout and fat
burner supplements. These have a stimulant effect, but that stimulant effect is catabolic
(breaking tissue down) and the body does not appear to favor fat over muscle and
breaks them both down.

If you feel that you need a “boost,” good old, tried and true caffeine is the way to go.
There is a mountain of research showing the effectiveness and safety of using caffeine.
A cup of black coffee 30 to 60 minutes pre workout seems to do the trick for most
athletes.
Designing Your Strength Camp Meal Plan
Here we will break down exactly what meals you will be consuming should look like
throughout the day.

Look over what a day of eating should look like then use the table and examples to
calculate what you need. You can then round up or down depending whether you wish
to gain or lose but remember to consider the sections on weight gain and weight loss.

Note these are examples of foods you can consume. As athletes we take into account
that you will be pressed for time and sometimes need to eat “alternatives” which we
displayed for you. However, here is the breakdown of what your daily meals should
look like.

Macronutrients Recommendation

Protein 0.8 -1.2 g. per lb. of bodyweight

Carbohydrates 0.8 -1.6 g. per lb. of bodyweight

Fat 0.5 -0.75 g. per lb. of bodyweight

How to calculate your macronutrients

Using the recommendations above we can find out how many of each macronutrient
you should be consuming throughout each day.

Simply take your bodyweight in pounds and multiply it by the numbers recommended.
Simple rule of thumb is if you wish to gain weight start in on the upper number and
same if you want to lose for the lower number. This may obviously be adjusted
according to your goals, activity, and metabolic type but it will give you a start.
 Daily Intake

Meal 1 Upon Waking

High Fat Choose a high fat from the sources below. This will kick start
your morning by aiding in brain function and drive your body to
utilize fat for fuel.

Meal 2 Breakfast

High Protein Choose a high protein meal. Here we want to consume high
protein and low carb to keep the body running off fat. We will
keep the fats low here as well. Your Whey shake will be best
here.

Meal 3 Lunch

Protein and Fat Here we want a balanced meal of protein and fat. Again the
body is still running off fat and we are consuming lower carbs.

Meal 4 Pre Workout

Protein and Carbs Here we introduce carbohydrates to begin fueling you up for
your training session. We want a good balance between
protein and carbs, essentially 50/50 ratio.

Meal 5 Post Workout

Protein and Carbs This will be your biggest carb meal as your body is beat from
the workout the repairing process begins. Make sure to eat
optimal protein and carbs here.

Meal 6 Dinner

Protein and Carbs Choose a good balanced meal of protein and carbs before you
call it night.
 Food Source Reference

Protein Sources Carbohydrate Sources Fat Sources

Chicken Oatmeal Coconut Oil

Steak Rice Olive Oil

Ground Beef Potato Almonds/Almond Butter

Lamb Sweet Potato/Yam Macadamia Nuts

Turkey Vegetables Hazelnuts

Tuna Bread Cashews

White Fish Fruit Peanuts/Peanut Butter

Eggs Quinoa Sunflower Seeds

Shell Fish Pasta Coconut Butter

Pork Tortilla Cream

Whey Protein Beans Dressings