The Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition

Just finished reading this (and the Muscle & Strength - Training) books and can say they are absolutely excellent!! You see, I'm in a little different position than many people starting out - I'm mid-50s, coming from 16 years of sitting on my ass in front of a computer (engineering position) that I allowed to wreck my posture and conditioning, and am working to reverse the damage I allowed. In short, if I was going to reverse all this crap I let happen I was going to need help in 2 areas, Strength and Nutrition.Let's talk about the Nutrition (you can read my Training review under that product).I love eating!!!! And thankfully I love cooking too...because boy do I love eating!! I think you get that picture ;)I actually don't eat too bad. I'm not a junk fooder (yeah, I made that word up) and mostly good quality food. Actual food, not processed crap simply referred to as food at the stores. 90+% of the time it's home made meals from raw ingredients and rarely go out to eat at restaurants where there are days worth of sodium, sugar, and/or fat in one simple meal. But for a couple decades now, I slowly gained body fat to an unnecessary level (~25% at my worst a couple years ago). At 5'11" I got up to about 200lbs with weak muscles, you might think "not bad" but I'm active and that only served to hold me back from being as active as I like to be.Through strength training I got myself down to about 185lbs with about 21% BF. Yes, I suspect I lost a little muscle mass but here's where the information I got from Andy's site (RippedBody.com) comes in. I wasn't eating nearly enough protein for the approach I was taking to fix myself. Remember, I love food! But I thought I needed more veggies and fruits and oatmeal, and yogurt and..Bah...I was eating more than enough of that daily already, in fact, I was eating way too much of them! I neglected protein in favor of all the yummy stuff, carbs and fat!I knew from Andy's site that this book (ebook only up until a couple weeks ago) would have more detail, and it sure does. The additional information I got from this, just like the Training book, is just what I need to end the constant doubting if I was doing this right.I am all of 5'11" 166lbs at about 17.3%BF (Navy measure). I know I've lost additional muscle mass but I can see I was dieting a little too aggressively. Thanks to the way the additional info is conveyed in this book, I'm thankful to end that and get back to eating more before I wrecked myself going too far.Daily tracking (weighing myself and macro/calorie documenting), weekly averaging, combined with monthly measurements are showing my body is responding positively just the way Eric, Andy, and Andrea's information contained in these 2 books are supposed to. I now have the understanding to calm my impatience to "get this over with fast" and progress efficiently. I'm still impatient but knowledge is now keeping me from acting on it!I'm paraphrasing but the comment for people like me (non-competitor) questioning "...why we'd subject ourselves to a dieting extreme if we weren't preparing for a competition..." was gold! Just what I needed to hear!The bottom line with this book: It won't disappoint!

I have had the pleasure of following Eric and Andy's online content for years now. I have a stupid number of bookmarks linking to articles and/or Saved Facebook posts for podcasts. I've experienced Andrea's content far less, but have enjoyed the few podcasts I've caught where she has been the guest. I passed up the first editions of The Muscle and Strength Pyramid e-books because I'm an old-fashioned fuddy duddy who prefers having something physical in his hands. Now, with this release of print format, I've had a chance to course-correct. Given the content here, I might even go so far as to say I've had the chance to rectify a previous mistake.I'm not a strength or physique athlete. I'm not even a particularly gifted recreational lifter. But lifting was a correctional life change that has become a thus-far decade-long habit, that also contributed to shifting the focus of my academic career toward a master's degree in nutrition. There have been setbacks along the way, but this habit continues to be ammunition for both physical and mental health.The nutrition field can be a rough place. There are no shortage of individuals propagating their ideas or hypotheses of health and unhealth, some through jovial ignorance (the anecdotal "this is what worked for me!"), some others through a willful preying on ignorance. There are times that credentialed nutrition professionals fall into these patterns, and there are times that their attempts to combat these patterns do no favors for credentialed nutrition professionals or the field at large.Sometimes all we want is the "quick fix," or some short list of simple guidelines to follow ("this, not that") to make sense of what has become a complicated, conflicting, sometimes-misleading mess of information. The authors of this text accomplish just that, without needing to tell us not to eat after 7 P.M. or to eat acai or adopt a certain fad diet. By framing the information in the shape of a pyramid - from most-important at the base to least-important at the peak - the authors have already provided readers with a method to navigating the madness. If your life is hectic and you only have the attention and/or time to navigate the very basics, the base of the pyramid gives you the crucial information you need to begin making the changes you're seeking to make. You can progress and fine-tune those changes when you have more time and/or attention later, but aren't missing out in the meantime just because you may not be able to commit to making it past the first fifty pages.Spoiler warning and pro-tip: don't just skip to the end.On the other hand, if you have all the time in the world to commit to reading this, you'll come away with an abundance of knowledge without ever having wasted time on magical macros, whether intermittent fasting allows you to defy gravity, or whether it's high carbs or high fat that makes Jack a dull boy.On a closing note, Eric gets bonus points for being a Baldur's Gate fan. Pretend this is six stars, not the paltry five stars I must settle for.

This is an amazing book that will teach you everything you need to know about nutrition for powerlifting, bodybuilding or just overall fitness in general. The text is very easy to understand, yet incredibly detailed, and it does a great job of teaching you exactly what you need to know about nutrition (in order of importance) in order to reach your goals. Most importantly, the authors do not lose sight of the fact that most people cannot be machines at all times when it comes to nutrition, the information focuses on the "human side" of the equation, if you will. The amount of incredibly useful information in this book cannot be understated, it's a total must have, and you will not be disappointed!

Perfect for the fitness professional. Easy read, great info. Discusses best practices in fitness and health promotion

These books will change your life! No b*****it!! Dr. Helms is well known in the fitness and health industry’s and there is good reason for that. The strength and diet books (recently brought to print) are all you will need to start, sustain and exceed all your fitness and lifestyle dreams and needs. I have maintained an 8-11% body fat between winter (higher body fat) and summer (lower body fat) using his nutritional guidance while crushing my strength goals. BUY THIS BOOK!!.

Hands down the best nutrition book on the market. Doesn’t try to sell you anything. Just the facts that are back by science. Teaches you how to set up your diet not just give you a general eat this to get lean. And the chemical and hormonal reasons diets fail. This book will save you a lot of time and headache. Wish I had this when I decided it was time to lose weight.