Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

example, if you want to cheat on Friday and make Saturday your fast day, don’t randomly schedule your workouts to fall on Saturday. Instead, do the same training plan that we have scheduled on cheat day, and do that on Friday. And then follow up with the training and fasting protocol on Saturday. The entire schedule has a rhyme and a reason. So maintain the diet and training pairings, and you’ll be fine.

    ADAPT: THE DIET
    Determine Your Daily Caloric Intake During Adapt
    Before you have your first cheat day, though, you once again need to determine your maintenance calories. This is done in precisely the same manner as in Prime, but do not use the same numbers. Your body will have undergone some radical changes in that four-week phase; at the very least, you’ll have lost fat, which may put you into a different category of body fat. It’s equally possible that you will have gained some muscle. In either case, your maintenance calories are going to be affected, and in order to make the best possible use of the program, you need to have the most accurate and current information. Therefore, before you set your goals for Adapt, please check your weight and get your body fat retested, and from there determine your new maintenance calories.
    Done? Great. Let’s move on to your daily calories. For Adapt, you’re going to be eating below maintenance calories on both workout and non-workout days.

    To determine your calories for workout days, subtract 200 from your maintenance calories.
    To determine your calories for non-workout days, subtract 600.

    You’ll notice that you’re eating a bit less on non-workout days in Adapt than you did in Prime; the reason is leptin. As mentioned, cheat days work because they serve to increase leptin; however, leptin levels only need a bump if they fall in response to a caloric deficit. To create the greatest possible effect, you’ll eat a bit less during the week, but you’ll more than make up for it with your cheat day.

    MACRONUTRIENT BREAKDOWN
    Protein
    Once again, protein consumption is determined by your lean body mass, but it is higher during this phase.
    Protein intake will be set as follows:

    Workout days: 1 gram of protein per pound of LBM
    Non-workout days: 0.8 grams of protein per pound of LBM

    Carbs
    Workout days: 0.75 grams per pound of LBM
    Non-workout days: 0.3 grams per pound of LBM

    Fat
    At this point, you know your maintenance calories and have subtracted both the caloric values of your protein and carb intake. Now, you still have a balance of a few hundred calories; these will come from fat—and yes, that generally equates to a lot of fat. But as you know by now, if you’re getting healthy fats, you’re taking another step on the path toward hormonal optimization.
    Now, as fat has 9 calories per gram, take your remaining balance of calories and divide by 9. The result is how many grams of fat you’ll eat.

    THE ALPHA EATING EQUATION: ADAPT
    Workout Days
    Going through the steps, it would look like this:

    1. Using the information in the chart on page 169, figure out how many calories you need in order to maintain your body weight.
    2. Subtract 200 from that number. Now we’ve got your calories for workout days.
    3. Multiply your lean body mass by 1. This number represents how much protein you should eat.
    4. Multiply your lean body mass by 0.75. This number represents how many carbs you should eat.
    5. Take your total grams of protein and your total grams of carbs, and add them together.
    6. Multiply that number by 4. This gives you the total number of calories from protein and carbs.
    7. Subtract this number from your calories for workout days. This number is how many calories from fat you need.
    8. Divide this number by 9. This is how many grams of fat you need.
    Non-Workout Days
    We repeat the same process for non-workout days:

    1. Using the information in the chart on page 169, figure out how many calories you need in order to maintain your body weight.
    2. Subtract 600 from that number. Now we’ve got your calories for non-workout days.
    3. Multiply your lean body mass by 0.8. This number represents how much protein you should eat.
    4. Multiply your lean body mass by 0.3. This number represents how many carbs you should eat.
    5. Take your total grams of protein and your total grams of carbs, and add them together.
    6. Multiply that number by 4. This gives you the total number of calories from protein and carbs.
    7. Subtract this number from