Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

can now fit into a large shirt.
    When I started I had pain in my lower back and my knees would be screaming after the workouts. Now both areas are stronger than ever, and I no longer have pain. I can’t express my thankfulness enough. I’ve already transformed so much, but I’m still excited to see how much more I can improve and what those changes will do for my life.

    HIT THE ROAD: THE FOUR PHASES OF ENGINEERING THE BODY OF THE ALPHA
    Your body transformation happens in four phases. Each phase has a distinct focus and scientific design that will solve all of the problems that typically hold you back, create plateaus, or just cause a lack of inspiring results. But before we give you the exact details, we want you to be prepared for what you’re going to experience. Just as importantly, we want you to understand what you’ll be doing and why you’ll be doing it. You’ll see why our approach is unique, and you’ll understand the type of results you can expect to see.

    PHASE I: PRIME
    The Foundation: Building Your New Body
    Chinese wise man Lao-Tsu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” the implication being that the first step is the hardest and most important. We certainly agree. Within the context of engineering the Alpha, the most important steps toward greatness occur in the beginning as well: heeding the Call to Adventure and Meeting the Mentor—all the things we’ve discussed so far are crucial to the success of this program.
    But even within the workout and diet program itself, the first phase is also the most important. It sets the stage for everything else that will occur in the ensuing weeks and phases. Phase I is all about insulin. This hormone is a threshold guardian standing between you and the next phase of your development. Just as you have to pay Charon to ferry you across the River Styx, you must take control of insulin to take power over your body.
    The Diet
    The foundation of the first phase is an insulin reset. This is a strategic approach to your nutrition that will do exactly what the name implies—reset your insulin. And we mean that literally. Ultimately, the goal is to increase your insulin sensitivity, which is the first step to making your body better at building muscle and losing fat. And the intermittent fasting approach we use has been proven to speed up your metabolism and burn more fat, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition . What is important about this study is that it was done in non-obese individuals. You see, most studies usually focus on the obese—people with a BMI upward of 30. While BMI is not the best indicator of a person’s fitness level, it’s pretty accurate for the sedentary, which is exactly the population that tends to be studied.
    And while we’ve already seen research that shows intermittent fasting works for obese populations and sustains weight loss (an important point because most diets are not sustainable), this study showed that it worked for normal weight and healthy people too. This means that science supports the hypothesis that an insulin reset will burn fat for everyone.
    We’ll be honest: the amount of research on intermittent fasting in healthy populations is limited. And it’s not because studies haven’t confirmed our philosophy; it’s because very few studies have analyzed the topic. You need to understand that getting funding for scientific research is extremely hard. And that’s why lots of cool topics never have any research behind them. Trust us—we’ve been in the university environment and have gone through the frustrations ourselves. Getting funding is the worst part of a researcher’s job. (That noise you hear, it’s all the researchers reading this book simultaneously saying, “Mmmm hmmmmm.”)
    So given that reality, we decided to run our own scientific experiment. We tested the insulin reset on all kinds of people. Fat clients, thin clients, those who wanted to lose weight, and those who wanted to pack on muscle. In fact, we even tried the insulin reset on Arnold Schwarzenegger himself.
    The results were undeniable. Two years of testing and thousands of subjects later, we had all the proof we needed.
    It works.
    By limiting your carbs—and timing them for the moments when you need them most—we retrain your body to manage the master hormone the right way. That is, there’s a direct relationship between insulin management and nutrient uptake: the