Macrobolic Nutrition: Priming Your Body to Build Muscle & Burn Fat

by Gerard Dente

Book Overview

Priming your body to build muscle and burn fat. Learn about food's effect on the biochemical processes that influencemuscle growth and fat burning. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591201314
• ISBN13: 9781591201311
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Basic Health Publications
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Nutrition Guide for Beginning Bodybuilders

In "Macrobolic Nutrition," Gerard Dente offers an introduction to sports nutrition for beginning bodybuilders who want to gain muscle mass. What sets this book apart from many other sports nutrition books is that it explains the science behind the principles that underlie a sound bodybuilding diet including the roles of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in building lean mass; the need to spread meals out throughout the day in order to continuously feed muscles the nutrients they need for growth; the benefits of achieving balance among different food sources; and the importance of managing the glycemic index. Dente also recommends foods proven to work and offers guidelines that individuals can follow to plan their meals. In order to gain muscle, the body requires continuous intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fats from the right sources and in the right ratios. Dente explains that achieving this continuous intake requires consuming a small-to-medium-sized meal about every three hours. He offers strong scientific evidence to suggest that the best possible combination of calories for these meals would include 45 percent carbohydrates, 35 percent protein, and 20 percent fat. The book presents this ratio as optimal for fueling gains in lean mass. Dente then offers a formula that users can follow to calculate the number of calories that each meal should contain. The formula takes into account a person's current weight, percentage bodyfat, and physical activity required on the job. The book makes these calculations relatively easy to understand and perform. "Macrobolic Nutrition" addresses each nutrient's role in the muscle building process. Protein provides the building blocks necessary to create muscle. Carbohydrates provide energy and can restore muscle glycogen levels. Dietary fats, such as monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, are necessary for the body to absorb fat-soluble vitamins and manufacturer certain hormones. Dente lists the best sources from which to obtain these nutrients including lean steak, eggs, chicken, fish, and pork tenderloin for protein; green vegetables, oatmeal, and brown rice for carbohydrates; and peanut butter, almonds, walnuts, fish oil, and olive oil for fats. The book also offers an extensive listing of vitamins and minerals necessary for muscle growth, as well as examples of foods that contain them. Most importantly, Dente discusses the glycemic index extensively. Failure to understand the glycemic index of various carbohydrates is one of the most common problems among beginning bodybuilders. The glycemic index essentially refers to the speed at which consuming a particular carbohydrate causes glucose to enter the bloodstream. The body must produce insulin in order to manage blood glucose. If it must produce insulin very rapidly, fat utilization will be suppressed and sugar will be stored as fat. Dente explains exactly why causing an excessive insulin response stops the body from converting nutrients into m

GREAT INFO

I have been weighlifting for awhile and believe that proper training and nutrition go hand and hand. I am a nutrition major and agree with the information he has regarding the protein/carb/ fat ratio to make quality gains. The only thing I dont like in the book is that he pushes his supplements but then again we cant knock him he does own the supplement company and has to make his money. Overall great book.

For the love of the game

I have been interested in Bodybuilding for 6 years. If you like new information and love to try new things to keep the game exciting, you should read this book. It also gives good guidelines on how to calculate all your cal needs before calculating your new metabolic diet. Enjoy, Vince

Excellent book that introduces sound advice and concepts

This book is largely Dent's take on the Macro Nutrient ratios i.e. how much of our food intake should be Carbohydrates, Protein and Fat. In Macrobolic Nutrition these ratio's are 45% Carbs, 35% Protein, and 20% Fat. Dent's summary of the Macro Nutrients is excellent. All 3 are explained in a way that blends common knowledge with researched science. The explaination of proteins and the role of Amino Acids is excellent and well worth the read. Furthermore Dent identifies sources of these Macro Nurtients and what you can expect to get out of them. If you're new to BodyBuilding diets the book is a great place to start, and even if you're not it still contains information worth knowing. The only minor disappointment in this book was towards the end when Dent begins to plug his own supplement line but this is to be expected given that Dent owns a supplement company, and most of the supplements hes plugging are standard bodybuilding supplements. This book is specifically about the diet required for building muscle whilst controlling fat, its about gaining lean mass nothing else, and it does that well by sticking to the point and not romanticizing the reader with pictures of muscle as seems to be the norm with most muscle publications.

Macrobolic Nutrition

This book is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how important the types of food we eat are when trying to sculpt a lean and muscular physique. It comes complete with Glycemic indexes, nutrient breakdowns, and caloric intake charts for people over/under 15%bodyfat, active/sedentary, breakfast,lunch and dinner meal plans. The best part about the diet is that it doesn't restrict anything. Without giving away everything the nutrient breakdown goes 45/35/20- carbs,protein,fat. The book gives detailed descriptions of when the best time is to take in your nutrients, and supplement recomendations. Given that Dente runs his own supplement company that isn't surprising, but the advice is solid and from what I've heard his MHP product line is top notch. As a personal trainer I have been recommending this diet to my clients, (but actually getting them to follow through is a different story). Try it for yourself and you won't be disappointed.