The Anabolic Solution: Book Review

The book was written by Mauro G. Di Pasquale, B.S.c., M.D., M.R.O., M.F.S. and published in 2002.

An associate told me of this book and asked my opinion.  Since it was short in length, I thought I'd knock it out this weekend and use it as fodder for my posts.  The book is supposed to be geared to the competitive powerlifter and the good doctor listed some fairly impressive feats.
He is said to have honors degrees in biological science, molecular biochemistry, and genetics.  His powerlifting career included the world championships in 1976, world games in 1981, and other notable "world" titles.  He states that he was the first Canadian to total 10 times body weight in two weight classes.  He was the medical director responsible for keeping the WWF and WPF drug free (or at least trying to).  He's worked with ISSA, EAS, and written a few books.  Here is what I thought about his work in this book.

Though I am nothing special in the world of powerlifting, I am a competitive powerlifter.  I consistently total elite in the two weight classes I frequent and I have enough time in the trenches to know a little about what is going on. 

Dr. Pasquale starts off his book mentioning that ergogenic drugs (anabolics) pose a serious threat to powerlifters and bodybuilders alike.  He gives the distinct impression that they are negative.  He holds up the metabolic diet as the alternative path for someone wanting to compete with those competitors "who are on".  I took the chapter at face value though the pictures with some "known users" of his day, the positions he's held over some organizations that seemed like hot beds of anabolic drug use, and the fact that he was a pro during the time when steroids were legal seem to contradict what he writes.  In any case, he makes his position clear in that he believes drugs are bad and he can offer an alternative that is natural and good.

The three basic steps of the diet appear to be a straight copy of the Atkins diet.  You cut carbs to get the body to learn to burn fat.  Once you get the body burning fat you can lower your bodyweight by cutting calories and your body will burn its fat stores.  Hence , you burn fat and gain muscle all at the same time. 

The good doctor also writes that the athletes that use drugs tend to "cruise" due to the drug's effects.  In other words, the athletes aren't working as hard as they need to and let the drugs do the work.  This is the impression I got from his work and it contradicts what I have seen of steroid using lifters.  I believe Louis Simmons said it best when he said that he never saw drugs lift a weight in his gym.  While not a direct quote, the point is that many of the best powerlifters and ALL of the top bodybuilders use some sort of "artificial" help.  Steroids do NOT do the work for you.  They only increase protein synthesis and allow you to recup much faster.  I've watched lifters leave me in the dust NOT because they sat back and had the drug win the meets for them, but because they could train twice as hard as I could without overtraining.  I would assume the doctor knew this and chose poor words to describe what he meant. 

On the topic of competing low carb diets the doctor claims that they fail in the long-term due to the "ketogenic diets" causing the lifter to lose muscle because there are no days in which high/low carb cycling can take place.  Ironically, the modified Atkin's DOES allow for higher carb days to be cycled in at the leisure of the dieter.  My wife and I did the diet and would cheat every Saturday by going out to extravagant dinners much to our hearts content.  We never saw the fat come back because we only did it once per week.  I never saw muscle loss even when I wasn't competing.  As a matter of fact, the differences between this diet and the Atkins diet were minimal at best.  He also states that the competing diets are all fixed and static.  He claims that his diet is somehow different because it changes for each person based on their "carbohydrate set point".  In the end, the author discredits all competing diets because "...none of these people including the zone man himself is any kind of athlete never mind a powerlifter".  While this may be true, it makes the author sound a bit egotistical and closed-minded.

The key to the metabolic diet then appears to be the cheat days where you carb up to restore glycogen levels previously lost through your training and dieting.  The remainder of Chapter 2 is dedicated to the various benefits of the diet.

Chapter 3 goes into the basics of why ANY low carb diet works.

Chapter 4 covers the basics of insulin and what it does to the body.  It goes into the first phase of the diet and surprise!!!  It looks sort of like an Atkins phase.

Chapter 5 covers good and bad fats in nauseating detail.  It's a good primer if you don't know, but there is no new information if you've been paying attention to the fitness industry for the last few years.

Chapter 6 covers monitoring and documentation of your diet and training.  I often urge lifters to do this and I liked this chapter.  It even explains how to use fat calipers to track your progress.

The final chapter starts pushing the supplements and how to match them to your diet and periodized routine.  It covers everything from exercises to the details of what each supplement does for you.  The book ends in a FAQ and appendix with lots of extras.

The bottom line is that if you are fairly new to lifting, the book could provide some information in easy to digest portions.  It is a quick read and is well written.  While it was easy to read, I was left more skeptical than anything else.  There is an overwhelming body of evidence that shows that ergogenic aids work so well that it is virtually impossible to compete with diet and exercise alone.  A very few genetically gifted individuals can get away with that or at least that is how it seems.  The doctor paints a pretty picture that seems to end in the best answer of an alternative.  Unfortunately, I highly doubt that using his supplements will do much more than a good low carb diet will do alone.  Combine a modified Atkins diet with conjugate training and you will learn what most of us already know.  You can look pretty good and still be pretty strong.  I would NOT urge you to go out and buy this book if you have any experience under the bar.  If you are a newbie, it wouldn't hurt to have it.  Until the next time ... stay strong.