I would say I have pretty awful genetics.
I made SO much more progress when I stopped asking myself this and started asking “is this good enough?”
Optimal had me chasing my tail for years
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Ya I can see that. You’d have to control for so many variables, execute them for months, measure the outcomes…
HIT with lower volumes has been really good to me. 48 and still adding muscle at a good clip.
Your genetics might be avg but your physique is very impressive. Total homo here, not sorry.
Combat sports have changed my physique pretty noticeably. It’s kinda weird, tbh
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See, THIS is what I aim for. Dan John says that “pretty good” is high praise.
I appreciate the kind words. I like looking the way I look, but taking 25 years to get there is why I say my genetics are awful, haha.
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try 32 years to get mediocre results !
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Is this a club, where do I sign up 
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Sir - awesome post thank you. I’m surprised nobody has asked this yet - where do you get your fiber? 
Much appreciated dude.
I don’t. I try to eat a 0 fiber diet whenever possible. The sole exception would be during that carb meal.
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Not necessary and has numerous drawbacks, actually.
Still running it or on to something else?
This is going to be my way forward for the foreseeable future. Allowing myself a few more minor deviance by way of some cheese or homemade tzatziki sauce with some meals. When I start gaining in August, I’m going to see if I can flip the script on this and make it a gaining program by including more tallow.
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Solid… basically how I eat, too. A couple burritos on Sunday but that’s it.
What would you say to someone that says you can’t build muscle without carbs?
Nothing. One of the best parts about being an adult is that I don’t need to justify myself to anyone.
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I mean them thinking you cant… do you ever say “yes, you can” or just say “Sure Jan” ?
Again: nothing. If someone tells me I can’t do something and I know I can, I don’t see a need to correct them. I don’t see what I win from that argument. I don’t need to convince them that my way is going to work for me: it will.
My life became a lot less stressful when I stopped worrying about people thinking I was right. I’d rather be wrong and strong than right and weak.
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Ya I get it. It gets tedious.
I love this so much.
Have you had blood work done lately? Seems like it’s been a couple of years since both starting this way of eating and bringing in crazy-good health metrics. I’m wondering how they stand now, since you’ve been at it for a while.
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Thanks so much! It’s one of my go to phrases, haha. It really is like turning on “god mode” in social situations once you make this realization.
I get annual blood work done to check for hormonal health, and each year it gets better and better. Hemocrit is doing great as well. I haven’t had a blood lipids panel in quite some time. My prediction is that my LDL will be quite high, as will by HDL, while my triglycerides will be stupidly low, as that tends to be how I roll. That also tends to be pretty common in lean people with high fat/ketogenic style diets, simply because of the biological processes the body undergos in that state.
I’m not terribly concerned about blood lipids at this point. For heart health, I find a Coronary Artery Calcium Test a bit more value added.
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Familiar with Ted Naiman? He’s more into protein over fats. I’m trying that for a while.
Very familiar. He wrote the PE Diet alongside William Shewfelt. He was originally more keto/carnivore leaning, but has since become a bit more macronutrient agonistic, seeming to lean a bit more toward carbs.
A good contrast to him would be Robert Sikes, who, as a ketogenic bodybuilder, will drop his protein during his prep phases to numbers much lower than are traditionally accepted, hinging on the premise of ketones being muscle sparing. He has the bonafides to prove that it works.
It’s fun to cycle a bunch of approaches like that. I find cycles are really the underscoring of all of this. Or perhaps “seasons”, ala Dan John, would be an even more accurate and prettier way to understand it.
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I use his Keto Bricks. Ever tried one?