Posts in "Useful Nutrition Theory"

How to Make Weight for a Powerlifting (or Weightlifting) Competition

Eric Helms, Andy Morgan and Andrea Valdez / Muscle and Strength Pyramid Book Excerpts , Useful Nutrition Theory

If you’re a fan of boxing or MMA, you may have wondered how professional fighters can walk around in the ring some 15–20 lbs heavier than they weighed in the day before. The answer, for the most part, involves an extreme level of water manipulation. Professional fighters with a 24-hour weigh-in have no choice but […] Read More »

Metabolic Damage Isn’t Real, but Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome Is

Eric Helms, Andy Morgan and Andrea Valdez / Muscle and Strength Pyramid Book Excerpts , Useful Nutrition Theory

The term ‘energy availability’ refers to whether or not you have adequate energy to maintain not only the energy demands of exercise or sport but also of normal physiological function. You can be at energy balance, maintaining a stable body mass, but be in a state of ‘relative energy deficiency’ where reproductive and metabolic function […] Read More »

Why The ‘Best Macro Ratio’ Doesn’t Exist

Andy Morgan / Useful Nutrition Theory

There is an idea out there that ‘golden’ macronutrient ratios exist that can transform a person’s physique. The idea was born in bodybuilding forums by people looking at someone else’s body transformation, asking their macro intake, then reverse engineering it to come up with a macro ratio that is assumed to be somehow special. I’m not a fan of this idea. It’s logically flawed and […] Read More »

Dreambulkeritis

Andy Morgan / Training Principles , Useful Nutrition Theory

Dreams in a tub – “ONE THOUSAND CALORIES, 50g PROTEIN” – … Dream-bulker-itis | drēmˈbʌlkərˈʌɪtɪs | slang  noun Disease where an individual (usually male) suffers deluded notions that the enormous amounts of  weight gained due to purposeful overeating combined with weight training in the winter months is actually mostly muscle, that they can remove the […] Read More »

If it ain’t broken…

Andy Morgan / Useful Nutrition Theory

Intermittently-fasted Lambo Let’s say your rich uncle dies and leaves you his Gallardo. On your first track-day you get spanked. To make matters worse it’s by guys in cars half the price. They are laughing. Do you get out your spanners and start fiddling with stuff in the hope this will make it faster, or […] Read More »

Patience: A Key Tool for Diet Success

Andy Morgan / Useful Nutrition Theory

Sands through the hour glass exploring patience
Patience. When to wait and when to make a change? As a coach, this is the hardest part of the job. Everyone wants results now. There’s pressure to make the change, but you can’t bow to it. You have to stay objective. Have to choose the right moment. – That’s what the client pays for. Lack of […] Read More »