Thoughts on Dave Palumbo Mass Gaining Diet?

[Damienm05]

Input from anyone is appreciated. I'm looking for a few guys in particular to chime in though.

I don't have the link available but the diet is simple enough. Basically it's the Palumbo Keto diet. Calories are 60% protein, 35% fat, and 5% or less carbs. Very good for fat loss and certainly, imo, much better than the traditional CKD. In recent years, Dave has altered this diet to create a bulking version without adding a lot of carbs. Essentially, the diet would look something like this:

Meal 1: 3 whole omega-3 eggs, 5 egg whites

Meal 2/Pre: 40/50/20 shake using whey isolate, waxy maize starch, and natural PB to slow digestion through the workout.

PWO: 40/50 shake of isolate/WM starch

meal 3: 8 oz. lean protein, 1/4 cup nuts

meal 4: 6 oz. fatty protein, veggies (salmon with skin on, Well-trimmed Ny strip, etc)

meal 5: 8 oz. lean protein, 1/4 cup nuts

meal 6: Casein with fat or lean steak.


Calories would be adjusted obviously to my stats by adding another shake or 2 in there as the above sample would be below maintenance. Total calories, ideally, would be around maintenance plus 400 from the starch. The concept is that, for those who respond well to fats as a primary energy source (myself) a - that you're giving your body the emergency reserve of glycogen it needs to perform workouts with peak intensity, while staving off the bloating and gas that tends to come with a diet higher in starchy carbs (at least for me). Based on my other recent thread, you guys know I mindfvck myself when bulking up or maintaining, so I think this looks like a good fit.

With that in mind my new goal is a 12-week lean bulk using this diet that I plan on starting in March after I go to Miami (will be leaning out until then).

The question is, now that you're all informed, does this look promising? I am a big fan of Dave and love the cutting diet and I've found many testemonials from clients of his that this does work but I can't put much stock into that. I suppose, my biggest reservation is that without being able to achieve ketosis and without a sustained complex carb intake, a good portion of my protein intake will likely be converted to muscle glycogen and as such, partially wasted. If nothing else, it's a better alternative to the "anabolic diet" but I'm hesitant to go all in.

Also, I might add that I don't care how you've been eating or what your stance on carbs is: a few weeks on his cutting diet, eating lean protein, fibrous veggies, and olive, mac nut, coconut, fish oil with every meal - you'll feel amazing and your hair, skin, nails, will all look the part. (I'm not a carb demonizer, been eating 300g a day for a while now - just felt great on this diet last time I cut)

Forgive the grammer/punctuation. iPhone.

[gbrice75]

Firstly, kudos for getting through that post on your iPhone!

I haven't personally run Palumbo's diet (bulk or otherwise), however i'm pretty familiar with you, your history and tendencies, etc. so I figured i'd add my .02.

I ran a CKD a year ago and personally didn't like it. It felt unhealthy to be eating that much fat, and the carb load was too rigid and scientific for normal people to follow IMO. (glucose displacement pills, glucose polymers, liquid meals giving way to solid simple carbs, then complex, etc - who the hell wants to think about their food THAT much!) If I had been more informed about Palumbo's diet at the time, I most certainly would have gone that route, and probably would have been happy with my results vs. CKD which left me weak, flat, irritable and miserable.

Having said that, I don't like referring to Palumbo's diet as a 'keto diet' because it isn't. It's almost exactly what i'll be doing soon except i'll also be having a carb meal in the am after fasted cardio. The basic morning/pre/pwo carb meal plan. All other meals will be pro/fat and veggies. I don't think either is the ideal straight mass building approach, however to add LEAN mass, so long as the calories and macros are on point, I think it's very promising. Neither of us will know for sure until we implement, but I'm interested to see your progress on this. Good luck!

[Damienm05]

I warned you about that CKD too you bastard! It's great for fat loss if you're a robot but I think it just instills bad eating habits in most people.

I always do PWO cardio and I haven't been able to figure out how that would work with this plan. I'm thinking I'd probably have to bite the bullet and go back to fasted AM cardio to make full use of the PWO "window of opportunity" as they say. Obviously, sustained nutrition over the course of the day is the key to proper recovery but I'm thinking that not taking the PWO shake directly following my final set may defeat some of the effectiveness considering I'll be walking a tightrope with regard to an emergency glycogen store.

Also, I should add that the reason he advocates WM is because the starch molecules are the largest and he uses an analogy of them being like a large cruise ship passing in the ocean where every nutrient following it is pulled into it's wake, as opposed to many small fishing boats.

Did you get my PM reply? Something is wrong with my PMs according to one of the contest guys.