Nutrient Combining (and Timing) for Muscle-Building and Fat Loss?

 Some Random Thoughts (like Really Random) on Nutritional Concepts That May, or May Not, Work

     C.S.’s note: As I wrote above, what follows is very random.  I had read about Suzanne Somers’ recent death, and it made me think about something I don’t typically write about: nutrition.  Take what follows with a slight grain of salt…

     Suzanne Somers died this past week just short of her 77th birthday.  If you were a kid in the ‘70s and early ‘80s (like me), then you remember well her character Chrissy from the tv sitcom “Three’s Company.”  In fact, if you were a young boy in the ‘70s and early ‘80s (once again, like me), then there’s a good chance that your love of all things female boiled down to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, any one of Charlie’s Angels, Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, and, finally, Somers as Chrissy Snow.  But don’t worry, this isn’t an essay where I go on and on about the first “loves” of my young male life.  No, Somers' death got me thinking about something else that most people probably don’t associate with the late actress: nutrient-combining.  Believe it or not, she wrote something like a dozen best-selling nutrition/dietary books, and the main gist of her nutritional thesis was that, sure, some things are off-limits such as “sugar” and “starches,” but the main culprit of bad health was combining certain foods with other foods.  And by that same token, certain foods should be combined together for optimal health - not to mention a smaller waist size.

     Somers wasn’t the first nutritional “expert” to recommend such combining, or lack thereof, whatever the case might be.  The “classical conditioning” expert Ivan Pavlov - who died in the 1930s - believed that protein-rich foods shouldn’t be combined with carbohydrate-rich foods.  I’m unsure whether this was also based on his various observations of drooling dogs, but hey, he certainly wasn’t the last to recommend such a thing.

     I remember reading about this idea for bodybuilding sometime in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s.  Now, don’t hold me to this, but I believe it was Ron Love in an old MuscleMag International from around this time who said that he never ate his protein with his carbs.  He would have a piece of chicken, wait an hour, have a baked potato or some rice, wait a couple of hours, and have some more chicken (or steak, hamburger, whatever), then wait a little bit before having some more carbs.  And he always ate this way, especially pre-contest.  As I said, I think this was Ron Love - I’ve looked everywhere for that particular MuscleMag, and I’m sure I still have the magazine somewhere, but I can’t find it in my boxes and boxes of old mags in my attic.  It might have been Scott Wilson - he and Ron Love were both fantastic late ‘80s, early ‘90s bodybuilders that need to be remembered more - so, please, someone correct me in the comments section below if you know me to be wrong.  Anyway, I wasn’t really sure about such a concept at the time, but it always stuck with me, and would eventually lead me to do some nutrient combining/timing methods myself as a bit of experimentation.

     In the mid ‘90s, I tried the Anabolic Diet invented by Dr.  Mauro DiPasquale.  It was probably the first, last, and only time that I managed to gain some muscle mass while also losing body fat without the aid of anabolic “supplements.”  On the Anabolic Diet, you eat high-fat (like really high-fat) Monday through Friday, and on the weekends, you ate an ultra-high carb diet.  The beauty of it, at least for me being a fairly young college student, was that basically the weekend was anything goes as long as it was carb-centric.  I ate plenty of pasta, ice cream, pizza, donuts, and not to mention ice-cold beer on Saturday and Sunday, which didn’t exactly, you know, interfere with my college life.  It just required me to be very strict Monday through Friday, but even then, I mean, it wasn’t that hard to eat a diet of steak, bacon, eggs, cheese, and (at least two to three days-per-week) a Wendy’s triple cheeseburger with bacon sans bun.

     After having success with the Anabolic Diet, I thought about that diet of Ron Love’s (or Scott Wilson’s or whoever’s), and thought that maybe, just maybe, that was one of the reasons that the Anabolic Diet was so successful, because you never combined fat with carbohydrates.  Or at least rarely.  I also realized this: high-fat diet, low-carb diets work… until they don’t.  But so do high-carb, low-fat diets.  I came up with the idea that you should eat a day or two of high-fat, low-carb followed by a day or two of high-carb, low-fat.  I thought I may have come up with a new diet that I could tout in the pages of the major muscle-magazines, maybe even become something of a household name if I could come up with a catchy name for my new diet.  But there was one problem that I should have seen coming: it didn’t really work.  I probably gained some muscle mass just because I was keeping my protein high each and every day, but it turns out you need more than just one day of high-fat, low-carb eating before trying something else.  Go figure (insert massive eye-roll).  But, hey, if anyone else wants to try it, be my guest and let me know what happens.

     A few years later, in the pages of the (at the time) cutting-edge Muscle Media 2000 magazine, I read about the ABCDE diet, an acronym for the absurdly titled “Anabolic Burst Cycle of Diet and Exercise” regimen.  Basically, using the ABCDE approach, you ate what amounted to an off-season diet where you “pigged-out” for two weeks, followed by two weeks of, essentially, pre-contest eating.  Actually, this isn’t a “bad” approach, aside from the fact that two weeks is too long to go on a “see-food” buffet.  But I did find that it worked much better if you ate high-calorie for three or four days, followed by a few days of low-calorie.  And I still think it’s pretty good, but it’s not something I’d recommend most people try unless they want to gain as much muscle as possible while minimizing fat gain.  But I have a feeling most lifters will still gain some fat on such an approach.  But, once again, I’m not discouraging folks from trying it.  By all means, if you think this approach will work for you, then give it a shot.

     That’s another thing about diet.  Too many people are all or nothing when it comes to dietary advice and nutritional regimens.  But I think diet is a lot more like training than the majority of bodybuilders realize.  As the saying goes when it comes to training, “the best program is the one you’re not doing,” and I think the same thing applies to nutrition.  And, of course, by the same token, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” also applies.

     I think one truth when it comes to diet is universal, however.  If you’re trying to gain as much muscle as you can, then you need to combine foods.  You need to eat your steak with your baked potato, or your chicken breast with your rice.  But outside of that?  Experiment as you will.  Maybe you’ll come up with a food combination/ nutrient timing method that really works.  And if you write about it, just come up with a better acronym than ABCDE.  Who knows, maybe you’ll have a best seller on your hands (if the title is catchy enough).