'Clean' Gains, Creatine, and Why You Aren't Eating Enough

And how to eat more protein and less dopamine

Hello, beautiful people!

If you’re new here, welcome, and thank you so much for joining my new-to-me adventure of writing about nutrition when I’m not busy cooking it for a living. It’s summer here in Phoenix, and similar to winter back home in the snowy North Woods, it’s a horrible time to be alive - and a fantastic time to bear down and get our collective shit together. For me, this means getting back to a regimented fitness routine - and as a person who makes a living cooking for professional athletes, a fitness routine means a diet routine to support it. Fear not, this is not a gym-bro post - I deadlift in socks and wear Birkenstocks to the gym - but we do need to discuss nutritional starvation, dehydration, and why you’re probably eating too much of the wrong thing and not enough of the right, plus how to reset if you want to, or just add some more goodness into your daily eating habits. This is a fly-over - I’m not totally sure how interested my audience is about sports nutrition, so I kept it short. I’m happy to write way more about it anytime.

When people think about sports nutrition, I can almost guarantee that what comes to mind is in powdered form, and nothing about it gets the salivary glands moving. Sports nutrition, for the most part, absolutely fucking sucks - white rice, chicken breast and steamed broccoli feels like hospital food and punishment, while the onslaught of mystery powders, abbreviations and “must haves” stops most folks from trying at all. Let’s get a few things out of the way first before we get into the big concepts.

If you’ve read some other articles, you know I loathe the term “clean” eating - it calls forth a tradwife churning raw milk ice cream in a trust fund mansion and it rests in the realm of shame - clean suggests the existence of dirty, and while we can make good or better choices based on our access to healthier foods, the term can be improved to contain empathy for the variety of situations which prevent a human being from accessing them the same way we do. I use “whole” and “unprocessed” in place of “clean” when talking about ingredients I prefer to use in my personal life and my work. The terms “clean gains” or “clean bulk” are industry wide references to how you eat to gain muscle weight - clean bulk vs. dirty bulk means counting macros + eating whole foods vs. gobbling up Reeces Pieces to hit your daily caloric goal. I had a bodybuilding trainer years ago who would eat a sleeve of them to “hit his numbers.” That example is extreme but it certainly paints a picture. Let’s make this the last time we use the word clean, and shift our focus from calories to where the calories are.

Most of my friends, as well as my clients, do not eat anywhere close to enough, do not drink anywhere near enough water, and skew their dietary ratios towards joy and away from function - regardless of their fitness habits or goals. Food is a beautiful, happy, uniting thing - and it’s also our fuel source, or medicine, and a necessary vehicle for greater health and strength. The chronic malnutrition many of us experience due to poor time management and dopamine chasing eating habits contribute to loss of cognitive function, organ function, bone density and digestive health. In no way am I suggesting that we should remove the joy - but we need to be honest with ourselves about our health, and if we’re eating for dopamine or for longevity (ideally, both). If you are not interested in using food as an instrumental part of your fitness, and/or if you are not interested in food being your source of minerals, proteins, fats and carbohydrates in a way that adds up to what you actually need, then this article may not be for you (but you should still consider reading it).

At some point in your journey, you might’ve used a macro calculator or formula to determine your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), aka the more or less foolproof baseline math for how many calories you need to consume to maintain your weight as is based on your activity level. There are zillions of calculators online for this purpose, but this one generally has no ads or extra clicks so I recommend starting here. If you select ‘maintain weight’ and are actually honest about your activity level, you’ll find your caloric intake for simply existing. Now, if you’re a highly active individual - a runner, a lifter, a daily yogi or pilates person, a hiker, whatever - your caloric intake goes up. In my practice, I work with a slightly different equation - focused on lean muscle gain - and you can find that calculator plus a really great write-up on what they mean and how they differ from traditional macro gaining here. Once you get your numbers, you can input them into your macro logging app, and start working towards your goal. Calories and exact numbers absolutely don’t have to rule your life - but if you feel helpless in where to begin, this is my recommendation - figuring out what amount of food you need to maintain is a great starting point for ensuring you’re getting enough nutrition before we start talking about loss, gain, or goals.

To give you some idea, I’m 31, 5’5, and 140 lbs. I am interested in lean gains, so I need about 1700 calories per day to maintain, and a little over 2,000 to gain. If you are not significantly underweight or overweight in a manner which raises medical concern, I would recommend taking a week or two to eat your TDEE recommendation and see how you feel. This is what I do with clients new to tracking. Here’s looking at you, three cold brews and a sweet treat for breakfast and lunch - your bones are deteriorating, stop it. I am not here to tell you how to lose weight unless you hire me to do so - diet culture and weight loss culture are evil, flat stomachs are often genetic and plastic surgery has destroyed genuine fitness physique as something to reference on the internet - but if you want to change your body, work out efficiently, recover well and grow muscle, and as a cherry on top start to lose some excess body fat, you should first start with making sure you are eating enough, and enough of the right thing.

Where your calories split is what matters. How much protein, fat, and carbohydrates you need to eat every day come down to math and personal preference, but mostly math. I like a high protein diet, so I’m slamming 170g protein every day, and splitting the fat/carbs 50%. One week of eating like this makes my deadlifts heavier, my recovery faster, and my stamina higher. If you are not willing to hit your required nutritional goals, do not bother weightlifting. You are setting yourself up for injury, fatigue and malnutrition - aesthetics have nothing to do with it. We also have to learn to track our vitamins and minerals, because we don’t get as many as we think. Your giant bowl of salad barely touches half of what you think it does - whereas a few cups of cooked spinach satisfy a majority of your daily requirements. I really, really, really urge you to download Cronometer - it’s free - do not pay for anything extra - and start logging your food. Where I really move the needle for my clients is when we start making better choices for what we eat in these categories, with minerals in mind. Some examples:

• You can eat a fatty pork chop, hit your protein and your fat, but lose out on a lot of vitamins and minerals - or you can eat a chicken breast, an avocado, eggs, feta, quinoa and some salmon and max out your omegas + diversify your vitamins instead

• You can eat two cups of white rice to hit your carbs, or you can eat quinoa and garbanzo beans so you hit all of your fiber, plus way more vitamins

• You can eat a giant salad with raw vegetables and barely hit your vitamins, or you can eat 2 cups of sauteed spinach + kale and get way closer to your RDI’s

I think it goes without saying that restrictive diets do not work, as we are autonomous beings and we need to experience reward sensations from the activities we take part in throughout the day. But we’re also addicted to dopamine, from TikTok to Instagram to snacks, and this is where you can start to make changes. I think where people misstep comes down to a few things :

• A lack of planning - trying to make something to eat while hungry is horrible. It also leads to eating out most of the time. Having multiple options, prepped and ready, portioned for bonus points will make nutrition forward eating much easier. I plan my week ahead of time

• Carb dominant eating habits - carbs are delicious. They’re also addictive. A few weeks of counting your macros and weighing your food will shine a very bright light on where your normal diet is imbalanced and give you an opportunity for correction. Carbs aren’t bad, I think keto people are maniacs (I say that with love, but when I tried it and entered ketosis I thought I was dying, so no thanks), but eating mostly carbs and then doubling down with potato and corn based snacks while totally under-eating proteins and fats is simply not the way

• Not actually counting - it’s incredibly important to weigh your food when you’re participating in an assessment or a precision diet like this. This means buying a little digital scale, and weighing every single thing you eat - you will be absolutely shocked at what you find. Cronometer is my go to tool for logging your daily meals or planning them ahead of time, and it has in-depth vitamin and mineral values that are extraordinarily educational as we restructure our relationships with what we eat

• Leaving no room for fun - stop calling it a cheat day. It’s a regular day. You’re just taking a break from a super disciplined and regimented thing you’re in the middle of. I think 5 days of super intentional eating and two days of slightly less intentional eating are the key split - it doesn’t mean gorging on Doritos and ice cream all day, but it does man loosening up and eating whatever you want with intention to honor the work you’ve been doing

• If weightlifting, adequate creatine supplementation

A quick note on creatine: if you lift heavy stuff and set it back down, and your kidneys, liver, and blood pressure are healthy, you need to add creatine to your roster. You know I hate unnecessary supplements, so it takes a lot for me to recommend something - but y’all, it is night and day as far as muscle growth, performance and recovery. It also significantly contributes to your bone density and your brain health. No, creatine doesn’t make you fat, no, you don’t need to load it, no, it’s not gross, and no, it doesn’t mean you have to drink two gallons of water. Creatine exists in our body and supplies power to our muscles as they expand and contract. Your body makes about 1g of creatine a day, and while you do get some from meat and fish, everyone with a love for lifting can benefit from supplementation. I use this one from Kion, as I trust their products and sourcing - you can use whatever you want, just make sure it’s a monohydrate. I really recommend Kion, though, for creatine, aminos, and colostrum - I would skip the protein powder and opt for a more cost effective one. And while we’re on the subject, if you can get your protein in without protein powder, you should. Whole foods are always better. But if you’re going to use a protein, whey isolate or bone broth proteins are what I prefer and what my athletes use. This is my preferred BBP. Bone broth protein is elite due to its glycine content, as well as its complete amino acid profile and its ability to support collagen building in the body, increasing gastric secretion and serving as a superstar joint and bone supplement. Remember that many toxins are stored in the bones, so opt for a grass fed, organic option if you can.

You are dehydrated. Like, seriously, I am almost positive that 90% of folks reading this article are dehydrated. A doctor I trust with my life once told me that your minimum water consumption for the day is half your weight in pounds in ounces, and I try to drink 1.5x that every day (I also sweat like crazy in hot yoga and live in a very hot desert). Water is essential for every single function in our body so for the love of god, drink enough of it. Just start with a half gallon a day and see how you feel.

If this article feels like information overload, I get it. The hardest part of starting a new routine or lifestyle is the overwhelming amount of information on the internet telling you three thousand different things. Knowing where to start can be intimidating, and I encourage you to calculate your TDEE, download Cronometer and just start logging what you already eat. I have no kickback to this thing, I have no kickbacks to anything - it’s just a really useful application and it helps a lot of people live a lot healthier. Take time to read the values for your minerals, omegas, everything - and notice where you’re over and under. I really, really encourage everybody to make one choice today to introduce more fiber or produce into your life. Buy a bag of garbanzo beans, cook them in your crock pot and eat 4oz per day. Your digestion will be renewed. Buy a few bunches of spinach or kale and cook them with garlic and chicken stock, and eat a few ounces. It doesn’t take much. My grocery list for the week is as follows:

• 6# organic chicken breast

• 3# wild caught sockeye salmon

• 1# organic dry garbanzo beans

• 2# organic dry quinoa

• 4 x organic kale bunch

• 4 x organic spinach bunch

• 18ct organic, pastured eggs

• 1# organic sheep’s milk feta

• 2 bottles almond malk (to use with frozen blueberries, creatine, protein powders, etc I already have)

• 2 cucumbers

• 4 avocados

• 2 # brussel sprouts

• mangoes, kiwis, whatever looks good

It’s an incredibly simple list. I prep my proteins, hard boil my eggs, prep my beans + grains, portion them out and always have something to eat. I feel incredibly strong. You can, too. If it’s something you want professional help with, I’m more than happy to oblige - but you are powerful, and you can take these steps yourself, too. As much as this is a sports nutrition post, eating enough of the right things is necessary for everybody - you don’t have to be an athlete to treat your body like the infinite strength source it is.

Over the next few months, I’ll be working on and publishing an e-book for a very intentional eating plan that will reshape your relationship with food over the course of thirty days. It will, like everything else on my Substack, focus on whole food integration, maximizing your caloric value, and how to prep like a professional chef. A lot of the subjects covered in this flyover will be emphasized there, so look out for that sometime this fall! I should also note that if you’re looking for somebody to write you a custom meal plan, put you on a thirty day re-set and help you with recipes and grocery lists to that goal, that’s literally what I do for a living. For about $100/month, I can build you a super custom meal plan + program and check in with you weekly as we navigate your goals - this is my job - I don’t like making this Substack super money-driven but I do suppose it’s worth mentioning. If you’re interested in that service, please e-mail me at mamachkapopup@gmail.com <3

I hope you drink lots of water today and get one step closer to learning how many calories your body needs, and how to hit those numbers with foods that nurture your bones, your belly and your muscles. It doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or difficult - it can come down to lentils, spinach and chicken breast for as long as you want. I promise. I just want you all to live forever.

In Health,

Anna