Plague of Strength

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain white rice
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/3 cup shredded coconut

Directions (and holy hell is this easy to make):

• In a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook 2 minutes. 
• Mix in the coconut milk, water, rice, and chicken, and bring to a boil. 
• Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, until rice is tender and chicken juices run clear.
• Stir the spinach into the skillet, and cook just until heated through. 
• Sprinkle with coconut, and serve.

Nutrition
Per Serving: 599 calories; 23.2 g fat; 66.2 g carbohydrates; 32.1 g protein.

And this next recipe doesn’t really have any cool origin beyond the fact that I absolutely love smoked meats and keep my smoker popping all the time.  If you have any interest in quick and easy smoked meats, there is no shame whatsoever in owning an electric smoker- they’re quick, easier to operate than half of the microwaves on the planet, and they make smoked fucking meats.  There is really only one reason not to have one, and that is just sucking worse than anyone ever has… or you live in an apartment with no balcony.  There is no fire, so rules against grills don’t apply.  

Barbecue is pretty much ubiquitous across the world, but the US definitely has a culture of smoking meats that exists nowhere else in the world.  Because other countries don’t smoke meat as much, or you might not have a smoker, or you’re just lazy, I’ve got a couple of ways to do this recipe, including one with a biscuit topping (which is banging) and one that is a shepherd’s pie.  However you make this fucking thing, it will both taste amazing and put meat on your bones.  

Pulled Pork
You’ve got three options: 

1. Drop 3 lbs of pork shoulder in a crock pot for 8 hours with 1/2 a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (I combine a shitload of Dave’s Insanity sauce and Whole Foods 365 Texas barbecue sauce).
2. Rub 3 lbs of pork shoulder with spicy mustard, then coat generously with Bad Byron’s Butt Rub and pop it in the smoker at 225 degrees for 6 hours (2 hours per pound).  The meat’s internal temp should be between 195 and 201 degrees (hotter for softer pork).  Then pull the meat and add sauce if you want.
3. Make the pork in the oven.  

Crust
The easy way:  buy pie dough from the store.

The less easy way (which really isn’t hard, and being able to make a banging pie crust will definitely come in handy at some point in your life):

• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 c cold butter, cubed
• 1/4 c ice water

Mix flour and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry knife (or fork if you don’t have one) until the texture of rice. Add ice water one teaspoon at a time, mixing until a stiff dough forms. Roll that into a ball and smash between two layers of saran wrap. Place that in the freezer for four hours. This makes a top crust only. Double recipe for two crusts, freezing two balls of dough. When chilled, roll out pie crust between the saran wrap layers, to fit the pie pan.

Pie Filling

• 1 can each of corn and peas, drained
• 2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 potatoes microwaved for four minutes, diced
• 1 packet chicken gravy
• 1 1/4 lb of your pulled pork

When cooking gravy mix, add carrots to the pan to soften in hot gravy. If making double crusts, line pie pan with one crust. Layer filling ingredients in pan, pour gravy over top. Top pie with the second crust, pressing the edges onto pan (or bottom crust) to seal edges and prevent leaking. Cut steam vents in top crust. Bake on a cookie pan to catch leaks at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

To top with biscuits, use Pillsbury’s recipe.

To make as a Shepherd’s Pie, go here.

The Feast Program (4 weeks)
The logic here is simple- you’re going to lift so heavy and brutally that if you were participating in an orgy filled with obese people at an Acacia Strain concert, you’d… I have no idea where I was going with that.  The first exercise in every workout is all about strength, and the remainder is about hypertrophy.  As everyone already knows, both are getting worked all the time, but the primary focus is maximal strength and then hypertrophy, respectively.   As with the Famine workout, if you have something you’d rather try, have at it- this shit isn’t set in stone.  Hell, if you want to tackle Eddie Hall’s 13.5 hour a week insanity, be my guest- you’ll never know how your body will respond unless you try it, no matter what the 150lb pussies on your favorite website of choice for pointless discussion of training techniques is.

You’ll notice there are no loading protocols because you’re expected not to be a fucking pussy for a few weeks.  Go heavy as shit.  Take whatever rest period you need to attack the next set.

Day 1
1/2 Squats– 12 x 2 (10 second holds at the top of the rep) (apparently the internet calls these Anderson squats now)
Wide Stance Good Mornings– 3 x 6 (go heavy on these to bring up your glutes and hams)
Hamstring Curls– 5 x 10-15
Calf Raises– 4 x 50
Pullups / Chinups– 5 x max

Day 2
Bench Press / Floor Press– 10 x 2; 2 x AMRAP with 60% of your work set weight and a wider grip) 
Weighted Dips– 4 x 6
Unweighted Dips– 2 x AMRAP
Military Press– 5 x 12 (do these reps short and fast.  You’re not locking out on them, but keeping constant tension on the muscles and firing them off as quickly as possible)
Superset of Rope Pushdowns and Overhead Extensions– 5 sets with the weight you would use for sets of 12 on pushdowns and do AMRAP on both.

Day 3
Pull– 10 x 2 (I don’t care if these are high pulls, deadlifts, hex bar deads, rack pulls, or whatever.  The what doesn’t matter so much as the why, and the why is because heavy pulls are the reason you have arms and hands)
Bent-Over Rows– 6 x 6 (again, the style you use matters not at all- the effort you put in does)
Face Pulls / Bent Over Laterals– 4 x 20 (the key here is working
Hammer Curls– 4 x 6
Barbell Curls– 3 x 25 (Go light and get a huge pump.  Bodybuilders do this shit for a reason)

Day 4
Optional fill-in day.  Use this for whatever you want to jam into the workout that’s not already in there.  Bodyparts you want to bring up, pet lifts on which you want more work, etc.  For me, this is always shoulders and arms, because neither can ever be too big (short of the synthol retards, who should be gassed and their corpses should be used to poison the IG broads filling their faces with the whore version of synthol, Juvederm).

Or use it as an off day if you need one.  Let your conscience be your guide, slacker.

Day 5
Front Squat / Back Squat– 6 x 3; 1 x AMRAP with 60% of your work weight
Hamstring Curl– Same rep scheme as the squatting, but with 2 AMRAP sets
Calf Raise– 8 x 6
Shrugs– 10 x 3 with at least 125% or your 1RM on deadlifts.  No more bitch weights on shrugs.
Curl– 5 x 10 (Dealer’s choice on the exercise- just do some kind of curl.  Get a good pump.)

Day 6
Strict Military Press / Push Press– 8 x 2
Klokov Press– 5 x 10
Incline Bench Press– 5 x 5
Close Grip Bench Press– 4 x 6
Skullcrushers– 1 x 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 2, AMRAP (with the weight you originally used for 10)

Day 7
Off

So there you have it- the Feast, Famine, and Ferocity Diet.  Two weeks of rather unpleasant but productive protein sparing modified fasts and workouts designed to burn the fat fat off you like the skin off Germans being firebombed in Dresden followed by a month of eating like your gainz depend on it and training like a Tookie Williams on some badass PCP.  The net result will be net fat loss and net muscle gain, all in a timespan that the internet will claim is entirely unrealistic and the result of steroids because they’re jealous as fuck and essentially useless.  And even better yet, you can repeat this cycle as many or as few times as you like, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, so you can drop this in as a quick six week shake-up or a six month bulk that will lean you out.  Either way, like Parker Lewis, you can’t fucking lose.

Sources:
Forbes GB, Brown MR, Welle SL, Underwood LE.  Hormonal response to overfeeding.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1989 Apr;49(4):608-11.

Hirst, K. Kris.  Feasting: The Archaeology and History of Celebrating Food.  ThoughtCo.  1 Oct 2018.  Web.  3 Dec 2018.  https://www.thoughtco.com/feasting-archaeology-and-history-170940

Jebb SA, Prentice AM, Goldberg GR, Murgatroyd PR, Black AE, Coward WA.  Changes in macronutrient balance during over- and underfeeding assessed by 12-d continuous whole-body calorimetry.  Am J Clin Nutr. 1996 Sep;64(3):259-66.

Rozenek R, Ward P, Long S, Garhammer J.  Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training.  J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2002 Sep;42(3):340-7.

Senegalese wrestlers: stars made from fighting spirit and mysticism.  Men’s Health UK.  7 Sep 2018.  Web.  3 Dec 2018.  http://www.menshealth.co.uk/fitness/senegalese-wrestlers-stars-made-from-fighting-spirit-and-mysticism