Anabolic Diet: what is it and how does it work?

The aim of this diet is to transform your fat into muscles. It is a very strict diet that requires careful planning and discipline. It is essential to stick to it to be able to see good results. The basic principle in this diet is to prepare the body into getting into the fat burning mode as fast as possible.

Therefore, the initial phase of this diet (which generally lasts for one week) is to eat proteins throughout the week while carbohydrates are kept to a minimum (their intake is limited to 30 grams each day or less), except on the weekends, when you are allowed to eat them in a much bigger quantity. This is essential to ensure that the switch happens without delay. Performing exercise in this phase is highly recommended for it helps in speeding up the changeover of carbohydrate-fueled metabolism to fat-fueled.

You may experience some uncomfortable symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, and brain fogging but they should not last for more than 48 hours, which is the time needed for the body to switch from running on carbohydrates to running on body fats.

Once the change occurs, the dieter has to start incorporating periods of eating high carbohydrates. This is crucially important to jump-start the optimal exercise performance. What makes this diet unique is its dual type of eating carbohydrates. During weekdays, you must follow a low-carbohydrate diet whereas on weekends you must conform to high carbohydrates. A meal plan with 55%-60% fat, 30-35% protein, and 30 grams of carbohydrate should be good for weekdays.

This protein diet is used by many body builders as proteins are necessary to gain the muscle mass they are looking for. To get proteins, you can eat meat, fish, eggs, and/or beans and lentils, which are very good sources of protein.

It is also recommended to eat 5-6 small meals a day and never becoming very hungry. Examples of food allowed are chicken, fish, lean pork, cheese, butter, almonds, tofu, nuts, low-carb vegetables, fish oil, mustard, pickles, sour cream, and Caesar’s salad.

Please note that if you don’t stick to the anabolic diet seriously, it can actually increase your body fat instead of your muscles. The anabolic diet is one of the hardest muscle building diets to follow.

It is very important that you avoid eating carbohydrates during the weekdays. The reason for this is that the energy needed to perform daily functions is provided by carbohydrates, and in their absence, the body is forced to turn to fat reserves to get the energy. In other words, the body is forced to use fat as fuel instead of carbs.

Before you decide to go for this diet, it is advisable to seek for your doctor’s opinion.