The Leangains Method: The Art of Getting Ripped. Researched, Practiced, Perfected.

by Martin Berkhan

acknowledgment. To this day, I get the same feeling when similar accusations or speculations are made. I worked my ass off for these gains; people better think I’m on steroids.13

deal of interest in: epidemiology and statistics. These were tangible disciplines that helped me understand science, but more importantly, how it should be interpreted.

Optimizing thermogenesis and calories burned during this process largely depends on the percentage of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in a meal.

Thanksgiving or Christmas, but de novo lipogenesis (DNL), and it yields 20 to 25 percent DIT (ref. 5).

We evolved to store dietary fat seamlessly.54 Since there’s no insulin response after eating this nutrient, there’s no additional energy expenditure or facultative component.

a staggering 20 to 35 percent.56 It’s a large enough number that any reasonable person might propose counting protein grams as 3 calories instead of 4.

An increase from 6 percent to 9 percent isn’t bad—and possibly, the effect would be greater still after a more thermogenic meal. Importantly, this effect is additive to the effects of caffeine on metabolic rate. Other benefits of caffeine include appetite suppression, improved exercise performance, better insulin sensitivity and increased muscle glycogen synthesis (ref. 19,23,24,25).

In a curious twist of events, it now appears a lower meal frequency results in a higher metabolic rate due to greater effects on DIT.60

Stay simple. Eat similar foods every day. Rotate no more than two or three menus throughout the week. Should you tire, change a thing or two. Soon enough, you’ll find your rhythm. And when you do, roll with it to the finish line.

This isn’t weight training; it’s cardio. It’ll improve your endurance, sure, but it won’t make you as strong and defined as a solid weight training program and caloric deficit combined. In fact, these aerobics-like exercise modalities might actually speed up muscle loss, to the point where you’re better off not doing them at all (ref. 4).