My month on RP Strength diet

     I am 5’10” and 175-180.  I didn’t want to gain or lose any weight.  I just wanted to clean up and learn how to eat.  So I reached out to Nick at RP and he was immediately responsive back and forth with me.  He advised me to purchase the cutting template and enter 180 lbs but just eat the base diet.


     There are 4 diets, base, cuts 1,2, and 3.  The idea is to start on the base, then move to the cut diets which reduce calories just enough each time to spur on fat loss.  They also have a massing template that has 3 massing phases where calories are slowly added to gain muscle.

     Anyhow, I realized almost immediately I had not been eating enough food/quality calories.  I felt like I was stuffing myself with the amount of meals/food I was eating.  The other thing that happened was that I accidentally printed out cut #3 sheet for my training days.  I still felt like I was eating a ton, but I started getting pretty lean fast.  I did this (ate base on three rest days and cut 3 on my four training days) accidentally for about 10 days.  Once I realized this, I switched to base for all of the days and REALLY felt that I was stuffing myself.  But my weight stayed around 177-180.  I was shocked.

     In the beginning I was meal prepping hard.  Cooking a ton of food and having it ready to roll eating big breakfasts, etc….  Now I feel like I’ve got it kind of dialed in and so I will bring left overs from the night before’s dinner for a meal or 2 while at work or I’ll go grab something at wholefoods or wherever.  For breakfasts a lot of times I’ll have fruit and a protein/carb shake to get the meal in.  I’m fairly lean still (for sure more than before I started) and my weight is mostly pegged at 178-180.
     The way they do things is calculate your BMR (easy to find on line) then use a multiple for how much calories to eat on rest days vs training days (also easy to find on line).  They take your body weight and figure out protein intake (.8-1g per lb) and then same with carbs (roughly .5 rest days 1.5 training days).  Split the macros up into 5-6 meals and then fill in the rest of the calories with fat calories.

     The only thing that is slightly complicated is their nutrient timing.  That is pretty cool and it’s a matter of “when in the day do you train?” and based on that they have a ton of scenarios for how to eat around training.  The one thing that is in EVERY plan in the casein protein shake at bedtime.  That’s to preserve muscle throughout the night as you sleep due to its slow breakdown/absorption.  

     There is for sure a difference in a diet for performance and for health.  If you work hard at it, you can make this one both.  It is not paleo, but is paleo friendly.  I find myself eating more starches that I had in the past, but also a boat load more protein.  And the pre and intra workout shakes are VERY good for training endurance.  I don’t eat lean beef like they say to, because its hard to find that grass fed, so I just cut back my supplemental fat since the beef has plenty.  It’s part art as well as science and I think it’s been a very worthwhile investment.