Greetings T-nationers!
Get ready for a long read…
I wanted detail my experiences with the works of one of nutrition’s greatest eccentrics: Vince Gironda. For those that are unaware (shame on you!), Vince was a pioneer in the world of golden era bodybuilding training and nutrition, famous for telling Arnold Schwarzenegger that he was fat and for prescribing a diet of 36 raw eggs per day mixed with half and half (among other things), and also famous for possessing an absolutely bonkers physique that would STILL turn heads today.
Seriously, imagine possessing a physique like this in 1951…or NOW even
Alongside Rheo Blair, Vince was one of the OG dieting gurus that serious bodybuilders turned to in order to achieve the “next level”, and he was adamantly against the use of steroids, which, if nothing else, was reflected in his nutritional approach based on how hard he was attempting to achieve optimal hormonal balance in the ABSENCE of chemical assistance. All this to say, for a trainee not employing steroids to achieve a supraphysiological level of testosterone OR using exogenous insulin in order to assimilate carbohydrates at a level beyond normal human functional capacity, his suggestions were at least worth TRYING. Besides, I get bored to tears at the idea of just calculating a TDEE and then weighing and tracking macros and calories, so of COURSE I had to give Vince’s methods a try.
Plus, I had always WANTED to follow the Maximum Definition Diet, because I had always heard it referred to as the “steak and eggs diet”. And, since there is VERY little reported experience on this diet, I decided to create the content I wanted to read.
THE “STEAK AND EGGS DIET” ISN’T
So to start, once again, the telephone game came into effect, because though I had always heard this referred to as the “steak and eggs diet”, and even seen many people report on this AS the “steak and eggs diet”, that is NOT what Vince Gironda calls this diet. His title for it is “The Maximum Definition Diet”, and, in turn, “steak and eggs” are NOT the only thing consumed in the diet.
THE MAXIMUM DEFINITION DIET IS
So what are the “rules” of the Maximum Definition Diet? Vince lays it out simply in his book “Unleashing the Wild Physique”, wherein he states “All carbohydrates must be removed from your menu. The only milk products that can be sued are butter and cream. Meat, fish, and eggs are the only food permissible. You must, however, eat a high carbohydrarte meal every four or five days (ie, pasta, potato, grain, fruit); otherwise your muscles will smooth out and your strength will decrease)”, although it’s worth also appreciating that, later in the same passage he writes “remember to have a high-carbohydrate meal with no protein every third or fourth day to replenish glycogen to your muscles”, so he wavers a bit on the 4 to 5 days vs 3 to 4 days.
And, of course, I know you number crunchers are wanting to know “ok, but HOW much meat, fish and eggs do I eat?” And here is what I loved about the diet. This is what is listed for breakfast.
Curious about lunch?
Ready for a big surprise for dinner?
Have I found the perfect diet or what?!
However, it’s not all a bed of roses (a bed of bacon? What the hell is the meat and eggs equivalent here?) because Vince was a big fan of supplementation, and his requirements for this diet were extensive to say the last. Here is what he wanted for breakfast
For lunch and dinner, it was less extensive
And THEN there was the last of special supplements
Vince spends a significant portion of his book detailing the benefits of every single supplement prescribed, so it’s not like he just shoves the reader a handful of pills and says “Here, take this”, like Matt Dimel did to Dave Tate, but suffice it to say: it’s an EXTENSIVE list of supplements on this diet. But, in fairness: it’s not just THIS diet he does this with. All of the diets in his book (“The Advanced Maintenance Diet”, “The Hormone Precursor Diet”, “The Weight Gaining Diet”, and “The Lacto-Vegetarian Diet”) have a laundry list of supplements associated with it, which speaks to the idea that Vince didn’t feel like the Maximum Definition Diet was criminally deficient in certain nutrients, but that ALL diets required supplementation to be effective.
SO WHAT ARE WE REALLY LOOKING AT HERE
I genuinely don’t know if Vince was fully versed in the notion of a ketogenic diet/ketosis, but it’s definitely what he created here and acknowledged in his own words by saying “the diet works so well for defining muscles because fats are used as a source of fuel for the body. Since it is difficult for the body to convert fat into energy, this results in a loss of your existing body fat.” And, when paired with his 3-5 day carbohydrate refeed, we effectively have a cyclical ketogenic diet. However, Vince was smart to avoid some of the pitfalls that people fall into with ketogenic diets as it relates to fat loss by severely limiting the menu to meat, eggs, butter and cream.
The limited dairy, in particular, is absolutely the right call for someone pursuing fat loss, because so many folks on the keto train end up going off the rails due to cheese. Cheese is hyperpalatable and not satiating, meaning when you eat it, you just want to keep eating more of a it, and you never really fill up on it (barring those with allergies/intolerances). This also excludes all manners of yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, etc etc. And since there’s no coffee to speak of, no one is going to be drinking cream or butter under the justification of “it’s bulletproof!”
This also means we no longer have the downfall associated with sauces. Mayo is a commonly appreciated keto condiment, and it’s not on the menu, nor is any other sort of creamy low/zero carb sauce that can rapidly add up energy in the diet.
The absence of nuts/seeds are ALSO incredible beneficial here as it relates to a goal of maximum definition. Nuts and nut butters are INCREDIBLY energy dense and very easy to overconsume. The serving size of peanut butter almost seems like a joke when you actually see it laid out in front of you, as is the serving for cashews. Keeping these out of the diet goes far in limiting the damage one can do in a diet.
Even the removal of veggies goes far, because often trainees eat these to excess in an attempt to fill the gut/avoid hunger, which for 1: doesn’t work, and secondly, in the realm of keto, these tends to be used as a vehicle to transport butter and other sauces to the mouth.
By keeping the focus on ONLY meat and eggs, Vince has found an effective mechanism to regulate the intake of the trainee WITHOUT having to resort to counting calories or artificial restriction. For those of you out there that think you can get fat eating JUST meat and eggs: try it. Try ONLY meat and eggs: no sauces, no sides, only butter or cream to cook the eggs in, as much as you can. Your body will eventually say “I’m full” and you won’t want to eat any more.
HOW I DEVIATED
Of course, you know me: I can’t do anything as prescribed.
The most obvious: I did NOT follow the supplement prescription. I didn’t even try. I have no idea if I could even FIND most of that stuff. But the good people at BioTest are amazing and I have access to a lot of awesome supplements as a result, which means I WAS taking stuff like Rez-V, D Fix, Micellar Curcumin, Flameout, Carbolin 19, Elitepro Minerals, Omega-Man, Vitamin K-2, P-Well, and before my high carb meal I’d have Indigo-3G. In addition, rather than taking liver tablets, I just took it upon myself to have beef liver with my breakfast meal.
Another major deviation: I only had 2 meals solid a day, rather than 3. As I wrote above: meat and eggs are VERY satiating, and I, quite frankly, just plain didn’t need to eat that much. I’d have a hearty breakfast (will detail below) and would typically feel satiated until my evening meal. On days where I had a lunch obligation (going out as a family, meeting friends, etc), I’d fast through breakfast that morning and do an old school intermittent fasting approach, having a tighter eating window of 5-6 hours with a lunch and dinner meal. That said, for the sake of ensuring adequate protein intake, I WOULD have a 1 scoop protein shake in water at night. Typically, at some point in the night, my dog would need to get up to pee (she’s 15 years old, it’s amazing she’s gone on this long), and I’d use that as an opportunity to drink my shake and get back to bed. The shake itself is a deviation, as it’s neither meat, egg, butter or cream, but it was at least dairy based. I DID contemplate going hardcore and making a shake of egg whites and raw eggs, and it might be something I do on another attempt to really meet intent here, but this was close enough.
The two meals a day wasn’t an original thought of mine, but actually something I had read from Dr. Robert Kiltz, when he discussed this diet on his own website. Once again, via the telephone game, I was exposed to Kiltz’ interpretation BEFORE I actually read Gironda’s original work on it.
The final major deviation is a 2-parter: for the high carb meal, I only had it once a week, and it was a meal that included carbs, fats and proteins. I’m still a family man, and similar to my experience with the Velocity Diet, I wasn’t going to make my family suffer just so I could be a superior meathead. On Sunday nights, we have a family meal where we all come together, make something yummy, and enjoy each other’s company. This was typically a pasta meal with meat sauce or some sort of midwestern style casserole dish with a pasta base, and it was joined with some homemade cookies or cheesecake that I would top with some raw local honey.
I had some minor deviations along the way as well. I’d occasionally have a slice of Sargento thin sliced cheese with my weekend breakfasts, and if we ate out there was a chance my food was cooked in oil instead of butter or cream, but these weren’t gamechangers.
A SAMPLE DAY
0400: Wake up, take creatine, applecider vinegar, Rez-V, Carbolin 19, D Fix, and Flameout
0430-0540: Tactical Barbell lifting workout
0615: Breakfast
- 12.5oz of grassfed leg of lamb, air fried in grassfed beef tallow
- An omelet of 3 pastured eggs, 5 whites and a tablespoon of grassfed tallow
- A piece of beef liver
1700: Dinner
- 3 pastured eggs, fried
- 5 whites mixed with a tablespoon of grassfed beef tallow
- 12-18oz of some sort of (preferably red) meat
In this case: 2 piedmontese grassfed beef chuck bone in short ribs
1800-1900: Evening walk with the family
2000: Take Flameout, Omega Man, Micellar Curcumin, Elitepro Minerals, Melatonin and Vitamin K-2
2300: 1 scoop protein shake with P-Well
That omelet, in particular, was primarily a creation of frugality beyond anything else. Egg whites are cheaper than pastured eggs, so it was easy to bulk up the omelet and get more protein in the diet by leaning heavier into the whites vs the whole eggs. I added a tablespoon of grassfed tallow as a means to get the fats “back” that were missing from the whites.
WHAT I OBSERVED
This diet was excellent for habit breaking. I’ve done restrictive diets before, like the Velocity Diet, and found a similar effect, but with Vince really making the cut clean and what is and is not allowed, I felt as though the gauntlet had been thrown down and it was on me to comply. Know what wasn’t on the list? Gum. And I definitely had a problem with that (detailed in an earlier blog post), which I’m now well over 2 months sober from my last stick of the stuff, whereas before I was going through nearly a pack a day. From there, I got rid of other sweet tastes, specifically the stevia that was in my electrolytes, opting for the unflavored version instead. I also had to give up my beloved sour cream, my absolute FAVORITE condiment, due to having grown up in San Diego and having access to the most wonderful Mexican food in the world. Instead, I grew an appreciation for tallow.
I’d never used tallow before, and wasn’t really very familiar with it, but in keeping with the rules, I felt it fell in line with the “meat: any kind” instruction. I’m not the biggest fan of butter, and found tallow far more palatable (pun intended) for cooking and adding fat to meals. There’s something satisfying about mixing tallow into egg whites, like we’re making our own Frankenfood. The fats from the yolk were removed and replaced with fats from grassfed ruminants. And I even took to rendering my own tallow through the process: collecting jars from the meals I was cooking, which became self-perpetuating: I’d use tallow, then gather tallow that I could then use again.
I had zero issues with energy as it relates to training or just throughout the day. No spikes or crashes, very stable clean and even hum. And even after my weekly high carb meals, I felt fine. There was one meal where I got a bit of carb sweats, but otherwise my system was pretty capable of switching between fuel sources. Since my high carb meal was Sunday evening, it would fuel my Monday morning lifting session, and my Tuesday workout was a high intensity conditioning session, which made the most of my available energy sources, similar to what Dan Douchine prescribed in “Body Opus” (which I’ll have to write up a review of sometime).
Vince is definitely correct in his assessment that, in the absence of carbs, the muscles with smooth out. Typically, by the end of the week, I would look flat and washed out and therefore “fatter”. When this happens, it’s easy to get in your head and think “I better avoid that high carb meal: I’m getting too fat!”, but, in truth, you gotta lean into that meal even more at that point, as, typically, 2 days later, I was stupidly shredded.
And perhaps this is just me, but I bring up the analogy of “like a dog with kibble” when it comes to this diet. The breakfast I listed above was a breakfast I had for 3 weeks in a row, because Costco had a great deal on leg of lamb. In turn, for 3 weeks, I’d wake up at 0400 and think to myself “once I get this workout done: I get to have breakfast!” Every single time I sat down for breakfast, I was SO excited to be able to eat like that, and when the day was over, I was excited to do it all over again. This wasn’t being a “food addict”, where I had a bunch of food noise in the background distracting me from life, nor was I obsessing over what/when I was going to eat next: I was just genuinely EXCITED to eat this way. If nothing else, that’s the sign of a diet that fits you. Find you one like that.
THE RESULTS
I started the Maximum Definition Diet weighing 82.1kg, and in 6 weeks dropped to 79.2, a weight loss rate of 1.06lbs per week. That is a rate of weight loss that most internet gurus will tell you is ideal as far as preserving muscle goes, and it was done without having to count calories, weigh or track food. And I firmly believe muscle has been spared, as during this time I’ve advanced in all my lifts on Tactical Barbell Operator (per my most recent write-up of the program), and even set a recent deadlift PR (by bodyweight) of 15x405lbs at a bodyweight of 176lbs.
And, of course, in getting lighter, I got leaner. Abs came in fuller, I lost the little bit of lower belly pooch, and just tightened up in general.
I don’t have any before or after photos to speak to, but this is my most recent training session, where you can see how my “walk around leanness” is doing
And here is my most recent deadlift PR
THE FUTURE
Honestly, I can see myself eating like this for the rest of my life. I feel like keeping it at 2 meals vs through helps improve the sustainability, and the weekly carb up helps with sanity/balance in the family. However, I’m not throwing out the Feast/Famine/Ferocity, Apex Predator Diet or Velocity Diet with the bathwater here. All the tools and tricks I’ve picked up leading up to this can still find a place, and I may find myself in a situation where living off protein shakes for a few weeks is just what I need to re-orient myself. But, if nothing else, after I get back from my cruise vacation in the middle of June, I’ll be hopping right back onto the Maximum Definition Diet (I’ve already got 16lbs of leg of lamb in my freezer awaiting my return) leading up to my next Strongman Competition at the end of Jul. From there, I may look to tweak the diet to support weight GAIN leading through the holidays.
Thanks for reading!
