Home :: Lyle McDonald Q&A

Uncensored Q&A with Lyle McDonald

Lyle McDonald

Lyle McDonald is a physiologist and author who has spent over a decade obsessively finding ways to apply cutting-edge scientific research to sports nutrition, fat loss and muscle growth. In this uncensored Q&A, Lyle answers your most pressing questions about diet and exercise.

Q. Lyle, I am starting to use yohimbe with my ephedra in order to hit the "stubborn fat." What do YOU suggest for a protocol?

A. The best way to use yohimbe and ephedrine together is as follows:

• 30-60 minutes prior to morning fasted cardio: yohimbe (0.2 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight) with caffeine (100-200 milligrams).
• Do your morning cardio (45-60 minutes at a low-moderate intensity).
• 3-4 hours following the yohimbe, you can take your first ephedrine/caffeine dose.
• Four hours later, you can take another dose (the last dose should be at least 4 hours before you intend to go to sleep).

This usually allows for two doses of ephedrine/caffeine on top of the morning yohimbe.

Q. Is there a magic number for daily calorie intake for weight loss? I have lost 19 pounds and 4% body fat, dropping from 191 to 172 pounds. I seem to be stuck at this point, and think I am not eating enough.

A. Magic number? No. But there are some good estimations. For years, bodybuilders have used 10-12 calories per pound of bodyweight as a starting point for fat loss. This tends to be as good as anything else. Some hapless individuals have to go lower (8 calories per pound of bodyweight) and those with very high activity levels can lose at higher intakes.

At 172 pounds, this would put you between 1700-2064 calories per day. Right now, you're at the high end of that. You may lose fat at that level but you might also have to adjust it downwards.

At the end of the day, all of the equations in the world are only estimates. You will need to adjust your food intake based on real world changes in weight and body fat. For most people, a weekly fat loss of 1-1.5 pounds per week is about the right level, so you can adjust your food intake until you hit the sweet spot.

Q. Right now, I have lost about 30 pounds and I want to lose another 30 pounds. I go to the gym early in the morning prior to work and swim laps, but every 3 days I weight train prior to swimming. I have rheumatoid arthritis so my diet is consisting of foods that are more alkaline and my portions are smaller. But I still want to lose my gut. Do you think this a good routine for losing fat and gaining muscle? I'm 52 years old. Do you think I should change or add anything?

A. Well, you have some cardiovascular exercise, some weight training and are modifying your diet. That's about right. The only comment I'd make is that, for some people, swimming tends to stimulate their appetite (has to do with the cold water) and this may make you eat more. If you're controlling your calories sufficiently, what you're doing is fine as far as I'm concerned.

Q. Lyle, I have read in your articles that one can build muscle mass without supplements. What amount of food are we talking about consuming and do your books discuss that question? What supplements can be used to build mass if one wants to use them?

A. I'm going to go off on a bit of rant here, but questions like this tend to aggravate me, more because of how the bodybuilding industry presents things to newbies.

Since the magazines make most of their money selling supplements, they get new lifters into the mindset that supplements are somehow required to build muscle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here's what is needed to gain muscle

• Proper training.
• Adequate building blocks (protein).
• Adequate dietary energy (to support protein synthesis).

That's it. No supplements, no magic pills, no potions, no powders are required to build muscle. Are some useful or convenient? Possibly. But none are required.

So, to gain muscle, first you need a non-stupid training program. Hypertrophy Specific Training is good. DoggCrapp is good. My generic bulking routine (I'll be putting this into book format shortly) is good.

The key is progressive tension overload, forcing your muscles to do more work (more weight on the bar) over time. ALL good muscle-building programs have getting stronger as their focus. That's the only way to get bigger for a natural lifter.

• For protein, you need 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
• For calories, you should start at maintenance intake plus 10-20%. 16-18 calories is a good starting place, but should be adjusted based on real world changes in bodyweight and body fat.

Until you get those in place, no supplement will help. And once they are in place, you'll find that most supplements do NOTHING. You may want to read some of the articles on my site (especially the Baseline Diet articles) for more information.

Q. Hi, I'm Kate, I'm 17, and I eat healthily and run about 3 miles 3/4 times a week. I work on my abs too. I would like to know how to lose excess fat from around the waist so that my abs can be seen more clearly. I'm confused about what else I could be doing because there seem to be so many different — and sometimes conflicting — ideas as to how to lose fat from the waist area. Any ideas welcome!

A. There's absolutely no magic to having a lean midsection. You simply have to lose body fat. The best exercises for this are table pushaways (when you start to get full, push yourself away from the plate) and multiple repetitions of side to side head rotations (when someone offers you junk food say, "No thank you" while performing this exercise).

You can do crunches until the cows come home, but until you lose the body fat, nothing will happen.

Books by Lyle McDonald

The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook (e-book)
Maybe you need to drop weight fast for a special event, like a class reunion or a wedding. Perhaps you want to look good in a bathing suit and didn't start your diet and exercise program early enough... or you might just want to get your diet over as quickly as possible. If so, the Rapid Fat Loss Handbook will reveal the fastest, most effective way to shed both weight and fat in the shortest time possible. Now includes FREE home exercise program and easy-to-use online diet calculator.

The Protein Book covers everything you need to know about protein and muscle growth, fat loss and athletic performance. Referencing over 500 scientific studies, the book is the ultimate reference on all aspects of optimal protein nutrition for anyone who's serious about building a better body.

The Ultimate Diet 2.0 (UD2)
The UD2 is possibly the most comprehensive and complete guide to losing stubborn body fat ever written. Inside, you'll discover the secrets of calorie partitioning, how to control where the calories go when you overeat, and where they come from when you diet... the hidden metabolic advantages that elite athletes have, and how to duplicate them to improve your results... why stubborn fat is so stubborn and how to get rid of it... how muscle grows and why so many different training systems can all be right... and much, much more!

A Guide to Flexible Dieting
A Guide to Flexible Dieting reveals how being less strict with your diet can actually make it work better. You'll discover how deliberately breaking your diet (in a controlled fashion) can make it work better in the long run. Free meals, structured re-feeds and even a full diet break are all discussed and explained in detail.

The Ketogenic Diet
The Ketogenic Diet is the first and only book to examine in-depth the scientific evidence regarding low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets. At 325 pages and containing over 600 scientific references, this will be your complete reference for ketogenic diets. It's unlike any other book on low-carbohydrate diets that you have ever read or seen.

Bromocriptine: An Old Drug with New Uses
The problem of getting very lean or simply losing fat and keeping it off is not a new one. New research is finally explaining the reasons and physiology behind dieting failure and it turns out that many of the problems are in your brain. Bromocriptine: An Old Drug with New Uses explains the physiological reasons behind dieting failures, along with discussing a potential fix: a very old drug called Bromocriptine.