Beyond the Shake: Real Nutrition Rules

What if everything you thought you knew about gym nutrition - from the "anabolic window" to your daily water intake is actually holding back your progress?

Coach Jermiah Blount, creator of The Heavyish Method, breaks down the practical rules of nutrition without the typical fitness industry fluff. From simple macro math like the 10-gram protein rule to debunking trends around "dead water" and dirty bulking, Blount offers realistic advice for everyday strength builders. 

Ultimately, he explains why true strength is built outside the gym through consistent nutrition, quality sleep, and understanding your body's unique food sensitivities.

0:00 – Meet Coach Jeremiah Blount
0:41 – The 10g Per 100 Cal Rule
1:29 – Protein Needs as You Age
3:36 – The Anabolic Window Explained
6:30 – What Is "Dead Water"?
7:56 – Creatine: Worth the Hype
8:37 – The Truth About Dirty Bulking
10:28 – Start Here: Know Your Allergies

"A good rule of thumb is if you're wanting something quick, you would roughly want 10 grams of protein per 100 calories, so that way it's well-balanced."

"Trust me, you don't have to have plain boiled chicken, broccoli, and rice to diet."

"Strength lives outside of the gym, in your meals, in your sleep, and in your consistency."

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About Jermiah Blount: Jermiah has harbored a deep passion for health, fitness, and strength ever since his tenure in the Air Force. He finds fulfillment in assisting individuals in enhancing their lives by promoting strength, well-being, and proper nutrition through the utilization of Heavyish principles.

Check us out at:
https://www.instagram.com/heavyishgym/
https://www.tiktok.com/@heavyishgym

#nutritiontips #healthyeating #fitnessjourney

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

As you're dieting, it's okay to be hungry sometimes. I know if no one wants to hear that, and it's something you don't want to necessarily hear, but it is okay to be hungry. You don't want to be starving. We don't want our stomach to be hurting or anything along those lines. But if you're just like, man, I'm kind of hungry, especially if you're trying to cut back, then that's perfectly okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Drink some water. Welcome to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blount, a show about strength, longevity, and building a body that carries you well for decades. Because resistance creates adaptation. And some things are supposed to be heavy. Let's get to work.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Hi, my name is Jeremiah Blunt. I am a coach from Franklin, Tennessee. I'm the creator of the heaviest method. Today's topic is beyond the shake, the real rules of nutrition.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

When it comes to getting all your macrobes, carbs, protein, fat, the general rule, I believe, is 10 grams for every 100 calories.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

So 100 calories being you need 10 grams of so if you were looking at, let's say you were on the go and you had to run into a store and get some jerky or find something, of course, depending on how much fats and things that may vary. But a good rule of thumb is if you're wanting something quick, you'd roughly want 10 grams of protein per 100 calories. So that way it's well balanced. Because you can see some of these where you'll see 10 grams of protein, 250 calories, 300 calories. So that just doesn't compute because that's probably a lot more fats than you really need. When you break down the macros, it's four calories per gram of protein, four calories per gram of carb, and nine calories per gram of fat.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

How does protein, especially protein needs and kind of change as you get older and as well as you're building up strength? Do you just need to just eat as much protein no matter what, or try to go for different proteins?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

There's a bunch of different things that go on there depending on how well your health is, how your liver is, and things along those lines. Generally, if you don't have any type of liver issues, a rough estimate, this is rough, is one gram of protein per lean body mass. But as we get older, especially protein is super, super important, but we always don't never want to neglect carbs, especially as we get older. Some people actually find that eating a little bit more carbs as they get older versus protein affects our body a little bit better. But we always want to have protein, especially if we are overweight, because eating more protein usually fills us up a lot better. It doesn't make our insulin spike or anything. We don't necessarily get those hunger spurts. And as you're dieting, it's okay to be hungry sometimes. I know if no one wants to hear that, and it's something you don't want to necessarily hear, but it is okay to be hungry. You don't want to be starving. We don't want our stomach to be hurting or anything along those lines. But if you're just like, man, I'm kind of hungry, especially if you're trying to cut back, then that's perfectly okay. Drink some water. If you're really good on your water intake, enjoy a zero calorie soda, something along those lines. The carbonation helps. I like sparkling water myself and it helps you keep you full.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

So I really hate to break or burst everyone's bubble, but when you mention carbs and how carbs are good for you, we're not talking about white money bread type of carbs. I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Carbs process a little bit differently. The white bunny bread's gonna kill you. But if you have good potatoes, you have good rice, there's all different types of rice you can have, and good quality bread. I'm not saying bread to just the devil, but having a good quality bread versus the white bunny bread or something like that will absolutely help. Bananas got carbs, fruits got carbs. It's just what you're putting in your body and be mindful and understand things react to your body differently and just be mindful of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

A lot of times on social media now, especially with TikTok gym influencers who are really into like the science aspect of weightlifting and strength building, you hear anabolic window a lot. Is that like, are they overselling that kind of idea of the window of when you need to eat and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 4:11

It's not oversold. It's just the ideal would be 30-minute window. But as long as you're not putting anything in your body besides water after you work out, I mean, you have a lot longer. It's just more effective if we go ahead and hit that 30-minute window. Also, it's good that you won't forget. If you have a shake or you have a good meal and you put yourself off longer, there's higher chances of you not getting the exact meal that you planned. Some people maybe plan on having a shake or have a prep meal, they don't eat it, they get busy at work, things go on, and then the next thing you know, it's like you're super starved. You forget about your meal, and then you go eat something that you really shouldn't. When it comes to the anabolic window, how would you define that in layman's terms to someone who's just now looking into their nutrition on top of their really simple way is after you work out your body's craving substance and having that window where your body's peat because you just had a hard workout. That would be the dumbest way to explain it.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I know there's a lot of trend diets when it comes to like we were talking about earlier with carbs, like obviously there's good carbs, but really fats. Back early 2000s and 90s, it was the zero fat diet, you know, you're super skinny, and that's all that really matters. Which as now a lot of people have come to realize that they're actually good fats. Prime example being avocado. But when it comes to those good fats, are you trying to eat those kind of fats daily?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Well, it it depends on how you're breaking down. But of course, you want to have a certain amount of fats daily, certain amount of carbs, certain amount of proteins, that's where the macros come into play. But your overall goal, too, and how your body responds, if you're doing a 40, 40, 30 split in your macro system, that's 40% uh carbs, 40% proteins, and 30% fats, you want to keep those fat numbers down. And generally, when you really want to lean out, a lot of people, unless they're in a state of ketosis, generally can increase their carbs, decrease their protein a little bit, but really make sure they're hitting that minimum amount of fat that keeps their hormones regulated and still be able to cut.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

And this is more of a another personal opinion, but if you could have one dinner bowl, we'll say, for the rest of your life, what would be your personal go-to uh potatoes, beef, and there's your carbs and fats, and most definitely you'd have your protein as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

You also get a lot more micronutrition from beef. And then, of course, you want to have fiber, so I would definitely throw on some asparagus or something along those lines. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I'm more of a salmon rice bowl kind of guy right now. Kind of going back to what we were talking about a little bit with the hydration and electrolytes. I know uh we were talking before a couple weeks ago. I think you called it death water. Dead water, yes. Dead water, yes. Sure, a lot of people don't understand what dead water means.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Essentially, what it is, a lot of these things that have been processed over and over again don't have any actual minerals in the water. If we drink too much of it, we can actually make us sick from water poisoning. So we want to make sure that we have a good, healthy balance and actually stay hydrated. We need magnesium, potassium, and sodium to hydrate the body. So liquid IVs, any of those packets along those lines will definitely help. Throw in those one or two a day. You don't want to overdo it though, because it can affect your digestive system. And you don't want to just overdo it every single glass you have, right? So keeping that, you may want to increase it by another packet if you're somebody that works outside and sweats a lot and things along those lines. But a lot of the water that we intake from the faucet things like that, it's been filtered, filtered, filtered so many times. There's actually no good minerals in the actual water itself.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So I need to get rid of my Britain.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, if you like it. I mean, there's probably definitely probably things that we could keep the Brita for to not everything's perfect, flush some of those out and then add to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yes. Kind of switching gears here. On top of the workout influencer world, the supplement world has really blown up in the last 10, 15 years. What would you say is one of the most overhyped and underrated supplements that people are getting? What are people wasting their money on? What do they need to invest more in?

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Okay, of course, you probably everybody talks about this, but creatine, creatine is absolutely phenomenal. There's a lot of great studies in it. Five grams a day is absolutely amazing. And now we have studies out showing that on times that you're sleep deprived or lack of sleep, taking up to 25 grams of creatine will definitely improve your overall function, brain function, right? And then when it comes to supplements that are a waste of money, there's a lot of them out there. But probably the BCA powder, BCAA powder, unless you want to use it for something like flavoring your water to help you get it down. If you're eating plenty of protein, it's not necessary.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Now, this is one of my most favorite topics just in general, dirty bulking, because I use that as an excuse to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. Yeah, chicken nuggets from McDonald's. What is an actual dirty bulk in the way that's beneficial?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

And when it comes to dirty bulk, there's really not a super beneficial way unless it's in your programming, right? There's some guys that train really heavy, let's look at strongmen, and maybe not so much at a super competitive level like a professional where they have nutrition and everything. So they have to intake the calories. And what's easier than going down here to McDonald's and getting an order of large fries and a double quarter pounder and bam, you got 1800 calories just like that, versus trying to do it cleanly, and then you're eating 10 times a day and trying to reach five, six, seven thousand calories when multiple meals and just feeling stuffed and just miserable all day, or you can go eat a whole Domino's pizza and a tub of ice cream and bam, you got 4,000 calories right there. But it will reflect on your body and your overall health. Do your research, find out what suits you. I don't suggest an absolute dirty bulk, but some people live by it. Some people just have the metabolisms they can handle it, they can dial in when they need to, they'll go through a dirty bulk, and then next thing you know, six, seven, eight months later, they're ripped to the gills. But your average person, when if they're gonna, it's gonna show on their body and it's gonna show in their health and it's gonna show in their blood work if they dirty bulk.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

One last kind of idea before we wrap it up for today. What would be the best way for someone to figure out what their body needs for their nutrition are? And do they just need to go to the doctor and ask?

SPEAKER_02 10:59

So there's a bunch of different ways. There's a bunch of different YouTubers that give you formulas that you can look up. Where I would start is find out what you're allergic to. Go find out your food allergies. Not all food allergies affect you the same way. Not all of them are gonna make you break out in hives, not all of them are gonna make you swell, cut off your breathing. But what they can do is cause inflammation, make you feel bad, stuff like that. Go ahead and find out what you're allergic to. Start cutting those things out, right? When you start feeling better, when you don't feel as bloated all the time and things along those lines, then look into all right, so I got a handle on this because trust me, you don't have to have plain boiled chicken, broccoli, and rice, a diet. And there's so many great influencers out there and so many awesome recipes you can do from pizza to pastas to everything, right? It's just finding out what you're allergic to, eliminating that, and then opening yourself up, do the research, put the time in. Of course, bodybuilding diet has its place, but if you're not trying to be a bodybuilder, then don't do it. Strength lives outside of the gym in your meals, in your sleep, and in your consistency.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Thanks for listening to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blount. Train hard, recover well, stay capable, and remember aging is mandatory. Weakness is optional. See you next time.