As your most favoritist and most respected health professional (RIGHT?!?!) I’m supposed to guilt you into not enjoying the holiday season. I’m supposed to tell you to not eat a bazilllion calories over the next month and a half. I can’t do that. It sounds too much like Catholicism. Not to mention, *I* will be eating a bazillion calories over the next month and a half, so why shouldn’t you?

Here’s the thing though, while I’m eating all these anabolic foods, I also plan on doing other things to counter the calorie excess.

The Anabolic Season

I’ve mentioned tons of times that excess calories mean weight gain, right? Well, what happens when you couple excess calories and consistent weight training? Should mean you add some muscle too, right? Doesn’t adding muscle sound better than doing endless cardio to burn off the calories? Not to mention, the added muscle, even if it’s just a little bit, will stave off that undesireable “skinny-fat” look you get from running and running and running and running without lifting weights.

The key to this method is “consistent”. I can’t mention it enough that I think The Gym Protocol is superior to any other protocol out there, but even if you follow something else, you must be consistent, especially during this time of year.

With the sodium and carbohydrate bloat you will no doubt experience, you will definitely see some increase in strength. Increase in strength leads to increase in volume. Increase in volume normally means increase in size. If anything, this could be considered a 6-week mini-“dirty bulk”-cycle.

So, yes, I still think you should try curb your intake a little, but I’m not going to guilt you into it. I think a better use of this time is to slaughter your workouts consistently and build some much needed muscle. Once the Holiday Season is over, then you can go back to eating better….and still be consistent with your workouts.

Will this Work?

I believe so. Again, if you’re consistent (4-5 days/week), you’ll be burning a lot more calories than usual. An increase in intense exercise also increases your metabolic flexibility. Metabolic Flexibility is the ability to burn carbs or fat as fuel efficiently. Therefore, if you’re predisposed to suck at burning carbs for fuel, this will help you handle those a lot better.

The other way to increase your Met Flex is by intermittent fasting. I think this should/could also be incorporated to work seemlessly with this time of year. Skip breakfast, eat a light lunch, go to the gym, pig out. Hey! Wait a second! That’s exactly what the LeanGains method is!

Stop the Rambling!!

Ok, ok, I’ll admit, this is not a very well thought out post. I’m actually listening to music at the same time to drown out the background noise. As with most guys, I can only focus on one thing at once so it sounds incoherent even to me.

This is all I’m trying to say (in more words than needed) is, don’t let your orthorexia get in the way of enjoying the holidays. Follow these simple rules and you won’t feel nearly as bad about eating a baker’s dozen sugar cookies:

Excess calories (that you know you’re going to eat even if you tried not to) + consistent, progressive weight training + Intermittent Fasting = Highly anabolic shit storm.

I have no doubt that if you follow that equation, you will be stronger than you are now, you won’t gain nearly as much weight (if any) as if you didn’t do anything, and you’ll have just a little bit extra muscle mass. In fact, if you follow Gym Movement, you’ll probably have quite a bit more than “just a little bit”. Just sayin…

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