FEAST, FAMINE, AND FEROCITY DIET PART 3: FEASTING

FEAST, FAMINE, AND FEROCITY DIET PART 3: FEASTING

Feasting,loosely defined as the public consumption of an elaborate meal often accompanied by entertainment, is a feature of most ancient and modern societies. Hayden and Villeneuve recently defined feasting as ‘any sharing of special food (in quality, preparation, or quantity) by two or more people for a special (not every day) event'” (Hirst).

Certainly, a couple of weeks of protein sparing modified fasting qualifies as a special event, and not just because eating anything at the end of a fortnight of hunger will be glorious- at this point,
your body is wringing every bit of nutrition out of every calorie you consume, and your metabolism is a ravening beast straining at the chains that bind it. Well, now is the time to throw off those chains and write an ode of sweat and blood on the floor of your gym.

Tradition dictates that a major feast would last about two weeks in pre-Christian western societies, and during those times there would be a hell of a lot of partying and a hell of a lot of eating in addition to epic feats of strength and athletic competition. Will their bellies full of meat and booze, people would decide that they needed to prove
who was the biggest badass in the room, and they would set out to do so. Whether this meant seeing how far they could carry a ship’s mastlift heavy stones, wrestle, race, or even do crazy-ass weighted sit-ups like the Indians do when they’re not chugging ghee, that meant there were more varied and impressive feats of strength than you would find on Festivus in the Costanza house. As such, it is time to seriously get your lift on.

 Before you get down to the business of chumping your friends in the gym and generally acting like the most vicious iron warlord
in history, displaying strength that causes grown men to weep and fertile women to conceive simply from being in your presence, you’ve got to eat. In a stark departure from what you’re used to, what you eat here matters far less than how much you eat. That’s right- after you hit your body’s protein requirements, the macronutrient profile of what you’re eating isn’t precisely insignificant but matters less than you would think (Rozenek). This might explain, then, why Senegalese and Indian wrestlers are far more muscular than the macronutrient profile breakdown of their diets might indicate. 

That level of muscularity on a guy who’s never seen a gym and never had a protein shake makes me wonder what in the hell I have been doing with my life. 

Like sumo, who if you’ve forgotten carry more natty muscle than gassed up pro bodybuilders, and Indian pehlwani, Senegalese lamb fighters focus more on carbohydrates than protein when they’re making meals (Men’s Health), which cuts down on the cost of bulking and makes the experience a bit easier from an eating perspective as well. Now that science has finally caught up to the
reality in which we’ve already been living, perhaps the internet will finally take notice- getting big and lifting big requires eating big. And if you’re worried about getting a little fat, don’t- even people in studies who don’t lift and shovel down enough food at the Chinese buffet to make it look like they were setting up for the Gluttony death in Se7en 2 have weight gain that is at worst equal amounts of fat and muscle and often a 2:1 ratio of muscle to fat (Forbes, Jebb). This is due to marked increases in IGF-1, testosterone, and insulin, all of which mean gainz.

 The Feast Diet (4 weeks)

  • Multiply your bodyweight by 20 for total daily calories
    (if you’re feeling like you want to go seriously big, go with 25
    calories. Halfthor goes with a minimum of 27)
  • Ensure at least 35% of your calories are protein
  • Eat whatever the hell you want thereafter

There is nothing magical going on here- the weight of the human experience supports the idea that you’re going to pack on mass like you’re getting ready to stand in for the Hulk in the next Avengers
flick. Bear in mind when you’re making food choices that not all macros are created equal. I’m not suggesting you need to eat like a 1990’s bodybuilder and just shovel down boatloads of brown rice and boiled chicken but know for a certainty that 1000 calories of
candy corn will likely not yield the same metabolic advantages of, say, a diet of human livers and blood sausage. Use your goddamned head here and remember that the guys around the world who are jacked as hell without the benefit of modern training aids and refrigeration got that way mostly using the power of stew. Icelandic strongmen still use it, as do the aforementioned Senegalese wrestlersIndian wrestlers, and sumo, and they all credit stews for their heavy musculature and freakish strength.

 In addition to stone lifting, the Tahitians compete yearly in a fruit carrying race. No, I am not making this up- a 2km foot race carrying 30kg of fruit. Given that they only thing kids are competing in these days is that goddamned crapfest Fortnite, a fruit race wearing a skirt
and a garland of leaves seems insanely badass.

Polynesians also eat a hell of a lot of stew in the form of fafa, and they’re some of the largest and most terrifying people on the planet. Though their fafa is cooked in a badass underground oven called a hima’afafa is so easy to make on the stove I feel like I’m going to develop a sick tan and grow six inches just from reading the recipe.

Tahitian Chicken Fafa (Source)

Ingredients (4 servings)

  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain white rice
  • 1-pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut
    into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and
    drained
  • 1/3 cup shredded coconut

Directions (and holy hell is this easy to make):

  • In a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Stir in the onion and garlic and cook 2 minutes. 
  • Mix in the coconut milk, water, rice, and chicken, and
    bring to a boil. 
  • Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, until
    rice is tender and chicken juices run clear.
  • Stir the spinach into the skillet and cook just until heated through. 
  • Sprinkle with coconut and serve.

Nutrition

Per Serving: 599 calories; 23.2 g fat; 66.2 g carbohydrates; 32.1 g protein.

Don’t know about you guys, but I would like to live in a place that had random stone lifting competitions for craps and giggles. No goddamned participation trophy, no membership cards, no nonsense- just a few people who wanted to see who could pick up the heaviest rock and then eat like they escaped a concentration camp.

And this next recipe doesn’t really have any cool origin beyond the fact that I absolutely love smoked meats and keep my smoker popping all the time. If you have any interest in quick and easy smoked meats, there is no shame whatsoever in owning an electric smoker- they’re quick, easier to operate than half of the microwaves on the planet, and they make smoked meats. There is only one reason not to have one, and that is just sucking worse than anyone
ever has… or you live in an apartment with no balcony. There is no
fire, so rules against grills don’t apply.

Barbecue is pretty much ubiquitous across the world, but the US has a culture of smoking meats that exists nowhere else in the world. Because other countries don’t smoke meat as much, or you might not have a smoker, or you’re just lazy, I’ve got a couple of ways to do this recipe, including one with a biscuit topping (which is banging) and one that is a shepherd’s pie. However, you make this goddamned thing, it will both taste amazing and put meat on your bones.

 Pulled Pork Pot Pie (not sure of the source- I saved this a while
ago)

Pulled Pork

You’ve got three options: 

  1. Drop 3 lbs. of pork shoulder in a crock pot for 8 hours with 1/2 a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (I combine a ton of Dave’s Insanity sauce and Whole Foods 365 Texas barbecue sauce).
  2. Rub 3 lbs. of pork shoulder with spicy mustard, then
    coat generously with Bad Byron’s Butt Rub and pop it in the smoker at 225 degrees for 6 hours (2 hours per pound). The meat’s internal temp should be between 195 and 201 degrees (hotter for softer pork). Then pull the meat and add sauce if you want.
  3. Make the pork in the oven

Crust

The easy way: buy pie dough from the store.

The less easy way (which really isn’t hard, and being able to make a banging pie crust will come in handy at some point in your life):

  • 1 1/4 c flour
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1/2 c cold butter, cubed
  • 1/4 c ice water

Mix flour and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry knife (or fork if you don’t have one) until the texture of rice. Add ice water one teaspoon at a time, mixing until a stiff dough forms. Roll that into a ball
and smash between two layers of saran wrap. Place that in the freezer for four hours. This makes a top crust only. Double recipe for two crusts, freezing two balls of dough. When chilled, roll out pie crust between the saran wrap layers, to fit the pie pan.

Pie Filling

  • 1 can each
    of corn and peas, drained
  • 2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
  • 2 potatoes microwaved for four minutes, diced
  • 1 packet chicken gravy
  • 1 1/4 lb. of your pulled pork

When cooking gravy mix, add carrots to the pan to soften in hot gravy. If making double crusts, line pie pan with one crust. Layer filling ingredients in pan, pour gravy over top. Top pie with the second crust, pressing the edges onto pan (or bottom crust) to seal edges and prevent leaking. Cut steam vents in top crust. Bake on a cookie pan to catch leaks at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

To top with biscuits, use Pillsbury’s recipe.

To make as a Shepherd’s Pie, go here.

Any way you make that, the result is going to be a hell of a lot of quality calories that taste amazing and travel well.

Not only did Rory Leidelmeyer like to hang dong in the gym in broad daylight, but he ate 7000-8000 calories a day to fuel his heavy-as-a-fat-broad-face sitting-a-midget workouts.

Sources:

Forbes GB, Brown MR, Welle SL, Underwood LE. Hormonal response to overfeeding.Am J Clin Nutr. 1989 Apr;49(4):608-11.

Hirst, K. Kris. Feasting: The Archaeology and History of Celebrating Food. ThoughtCo.1 Oct 2018.Web.3 Dec 2018.https://www.thoughtco.com/feasting-archaeology-and-history-170940

Jebb SA, Prentice AM, Goldberg GR, Murgatroyd PR, Black AE, Coward WA. Changes in macronutrient balance during over- and underfeeding assessed by 12-d continuous whole-body calorimetry. Am J Clin Nutr. 1996 Sep;64(3):259-66.

Rozenek R, Ward P, Long S, Garhammer J. Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2002 Sep;42(3):340-7.

Senegalese wrestlers: stars made from fighting spirit and mysticism. Men’s Health UK.7 Sep 2018.Web.3 Dec 2018.http://www.menshealth.co.uk/fitness/senegalese-wrestlers-stars-made-from-fighting-spirit-and-mysticism

 

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