Living Large. Vince Del Monte
PRINCIPLES TO GAIN YOUR FIRST 30 POUNDS OF PURE MUSCLE
The Nutritional Hierarchy of Muscle Growth (and Fat Loss)
Choose Your Goal: Don’t Chase Two Rabbits at Once
Calories and Macronutrients: Setting Your Best Targets (Without Complicated Formulas)
Protein: The Body’s Most Important Building Block
Fat: The Key to Optimal Testosterone Production and Sex Drive
Carbs: You Need to Earn Them!
Hydrate to Look Fuller and Stay Stronger
Establish a Regular Meal Cadence
How to Use “Treat Meals” to Bulk Your Muscles, Not Your Belly
Alcohol: You Booze, You Lose?
Consistency: The “Best Diet” Is the One That You Follow
The Devil Is in the Dose, Never in the Food Itself
Arm Yourself with the Only Kitchen Tools You Need
Invest in Cooking Lessons and Cook Like a Pro
PART 10
THE DONE-FOR-YOU MASS AND SHRED MEAL PLANS
Training Day: Mass Phase Meal Plans
Non-Training Day: Mass Phase Meal Plans
Training Day: Shred Phase Meal Plans
Non-Training Day: Shred Phase Meal Plans
PART 11
SUPPLEMENTS THAT ACTUALLY WORK (DON'T WORRY, THIS PART IS SHORT)
Do You Earn the Right to Take Supplements?
How to Build More Muscle with Less Protein
The War in Your Gut: Are You Losing?
Protein Powders: Whey Is Not the Only Way
Carbohydrate Powder: The Ultimate Muscle-Building Solution
PART 12
A NO-NONSENSE GUIDE TO LIVING LARGE OUTSIDE OF THE GYM
Build Muscle to Serve, Not to Be Served
Take Massive Action (Don’t Just Think or Talk About It)
Avoid Broken Focus
Get Blood in the Game
Recognize the Gym Is a Metaphor for Life
Acknowledgments
Can You Hook A Brother Up?
About the Author
Endnotes
WARNING! IF YOU WERE BLESSED WITH GREAT GENES, WANT TO LOOK LIKE A “BODYBUILDING MUTANT,” OR IF YOU THINK STEROIDS AND SUPPLEMENTS ARE THE ANSWER, THEN CLOSE THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW. IT’S NOT FOR YOU.
“Scrawny,” “Bones,” “Toothpick,” “Pencil Neck,” “String Bean”—I’ve been called them all. I bet you have too. And if you’re like I was, you’ve searched all the bookstores and scoured the Internet looking for someone to explain to you how to gain weight and build life-changing muscle. You found plenty of information on how to lose weight, but it seems no one wants to help the skinny guy.
Tell friends that you hate being thin, and you’re trying to gain weight, and they just roll their eyes and tell you you’re lucky.
Want to know what’s worse? No one cares! No one cares that no matter how hard you train, your muscles will not grow as fast as you want them to. No one cares that guys mock you and girls pity you. No one but a skinny guy can understand the disadvantages of your ectomorph physique.
I’m Vince Del Monte, and I am excited that you are reading this book! Why? Because mine is the first book written by an ex-skinny guy specifically for skinny guys like you. My nickname used to be “Skinny Vinny.” Now I’m called the “Skinny Guy Savior.” I came into this world as a scrawny, awkward pipsqueak. I mean, I had no muscle mass whatsoever. The only thing I wanted was to be big and muscular and not be intimidated by the bigger guys at school.
Adding to my misery, when I got to university, all my roommates were jacked and ripped. I’m talking six-packs, eight-packs, and guns the size of Howitzers! I wanted what they had, but I was a puny runner with a lame social life. I figured I was destined to be “Skinny Vinny” forever.
I started to believe everyone who said, “It’s not your fault. You have bad genetics,” and, for a while, I gave up the fascination with being muscular, but I still wanted to make the most of the skinny body I was cursed with.
I became a triathlete—a lean and mean swimming, biking, and running machine. I actually got good at it, and I competed at the provincial and national levels. I became the captain of my university squad and even represented my country at the world triathlon championships one year.
But it wasn’t everything I wanted.
Just like you, I wanted muscle and respect. Just like you, I wanted to be ripped and feel confident. Just like you, I wanted all the things I figured I could never have.
After four years of university, my athletic eligibility was over, and it was time for me to move into the real world. Like just about everyone else who graduates from an exercise sciences program, I had no clue what I wanted to do, so I pursued the fitness industry as a personal trainer. The only problem was that I did not resemble a personal trainer in any way. I was still Skinny Vinny.
On top of that, I figured I had damaged my potential for muscle growth by making my “muscle-unfriendly genes” even more unfriendly by training long hours each day using primarily my slow-twitch muscle fibers (the kind that don’t contribute to big muscles, only endurance).
My diet consisted of mostly mac and cheese in a box, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, bagels, pasta, Power Bars, and Gatorade. I got my protein, fruits, and vegetables on Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving—during an Italian ten-course dinner. Even worse, I had no experience with weight training.
If there had been a reality-based TV show called The Biggest Gainer, I would have been the prototype for the show’s most embarrassingly scrawny, geeky weakling and instantly cast.
I moved back home to live with my parents and began working at my local YMCA as a personal trainer (for $10 an hour) on a Monday, and I decided that would be the day that I’d start to put to death the nickname that had plagued me my entire life.
Doubtful that I could overcome my stubborn genetics, I banked on the hope that perhaps I could transfer the same qualities that made me successful in the runner’s world to the gym. I went to my room and took a series of “before” pictures to act as proof, just in case I did transform my skin and bones into the body of my dreams.
It wasn’t long after my first bodybuilding mentor had taught me an entirely new way of training that the unimaginable happened. I began to see and feel a difference in just one week (three workouts). My muscles got thicker, denser. My high school crush, who had moved here from Italy, approached me in the gym and said, “Wow, you look different!”
I interpreted that to mean, “Wow, you’re looking hot.”
After a few more weeks, my buddies started to yell, “VIN-SANITY!” when I’d walk into the gym, inspired