Who here still follow the principle "Eat only when hungry"? Phil Hernon

[thethinker48]

Something to think about . . .

Human beings, to the best of my knowledge, are the only animals that eat and drink
when not hungry or thirsty.

And domesticated animals and humans are the only animals that get fat or are obese.

If you are training correctly, you should be famished, ravenous between workouts
with no need to force feed. It only causes problems in my opinion, overloads your
body and detracts from the task at hand and that is building. If all you energy goes
towards digestion, and digestion requires a ton of calories . . . calories that could and
be going toward muscular development. Most so called bodybuilders are fat, at
least what I seen on this forum and exercise too much and eat too much.

Well you say . . . I am a bodybuilder that changes everything. Sorry, but I don’t think
so. The bottom line is we are all animals and you can’t change nature to suite yourself.

A good friend once wrote “From my study of animals I became aware of the fact that
very little in the way of exercise is required for building enormous levels of strength and
muscular size. How do you like the muscular size of a gorilla? Or a lion? Yet, both
gorillas and lions actually perform almost no exercise or hard physical activity. But,
when they do work, they work very hard … but very briefly, and not very often.
If it works for a lion or a gorilla, why shouldn’t it work equally well for a man. Well,
in fact, it does work well for a man.

An adult male lion can get over a ten-foot-high fence with a 500-pound cow in his mouth.
At a bodyweight of more than 500 pounds a gorilla can perform a one-armed “chin up”
so easily that he appears to weigh nothing. A wrist that measures more than eight inches on
a man is huge, and nine inches is unbelievably large, yet my gorilla had wrists that
measured more than thirteen inches, larger than most bodybuilders’ forearms at the largest
place. His neck was over forty inches in size.”

Editor’s note . . . I lived and worked in East Africa, on a game preserve (see my avatar),
and I have seen some wild animals perform some amazing feats of strength.

“I strongly suspect that if you exercise a lion or a gorilla as much as many bodybuilders train
that you would probably kill them, and it is certainly obvious that they do not “need” that
much exercise. Neither do you; and even if you can “stand” it, it does not follow that you
“need” it.

Go to the gym, perform your workout properly, then get away from the gym and forget it
until time for your next workout; talking about exercise, reading about exercise, literally
“living” exercise will do nothing in the way of improving your results.”

You make an interesting argument, but the fact of the matter is that humans aren't meant to be bodybuilders. Carrying muscle is an inconvenience for the body. It's sole purpose is survival, not to be able to bench 500 lbs, and carry the amount of muscle to do that.

The only way mine, and many other people's body is willing to carry add muscle tissue, and support it is by eating when we don't want. Also the thought of eating chicken breast, and rice actually decreases my appetite.

 

[Mike Arnold]

Something to think about . . .

Human beings, to the best of my knowledge, are the only animals that eat and drink
when not hungry or thirsty.

And domesticated animals and humans are the only animals that get fat or are obese.

If you are training correctly, you should be famished, ravenous between workouts
with no need to force feed. It only causes problems in my opinion, overloads your
body and detracts from the task at hand and that is building. If all you energy goes
towards digestion, and digestion requires a ton of calories . . . calories that could and
be going toward muscular development. Most so called bodybuilders are fat, at
least what I seen on this forum and exercise too much and eat too much.

Well you say . . . I am a bodybuilder that changes everything. Sorry, but I don’t think
so. The bottom line is we are all animals and you can’t change nature to suite yourself.

A good friend once wrote “From my study of animals I became aware of the fact that
very little in the way of exercise is required for building enormous levels of strength and
muscular size. How do you like the muscular size of a gorilla? Or a lion? Yet, both
gorillas and lions actually perform almost no exercise or hard physical activity. But,
when they do work, they work very hard … but very briefly, and not very often.
If it works for a lion or a gorilla, why shouldn’t it work equally well for a man. Well,
in fact, it does work well for a man.

An adult male lion can get over a ten-foot-high fence with a 500-pound cow in his mouth.
At a bodyweight of more than 500 pounds a gorilla can perform a one-armed “chin up”
so easily that he appears to weigh nothing. A wrist that measures more than eight inches on
a man is huge, and nine inches is unbelievably large, yet my gorilla had wrists that
measured more than thirteen inches, larger than most bodybuilders’ forearms at the largest
place. His neck was over forty inches in size.”

Editor’s note . . . I lived and worked in East Africa, on a game preserve (see my avatar),
and I have seen some wild animals perform some amazing feats of strength.

“I strongly suspect that if you exercise a lion or a gorilla as much as many bodybuilders train
that you would probably kill them, and it is certainly obvious that they do not “need” that
much exercise. Neither do you; and even if you can “stand” it, it does not follow that you
“need” it.

Go to the gym, perform your workout properly, then get away from the gym and forget it
until time for your next workout; talking about exercise, reading about exercise, literally
“living” exercise will do nothing in the way of improving your results.”

See bold above: If it works for a Gorilla it should work for a man? No, bro. If that were so we could eat nothing but a few bamboo shoots, eventually deadlift 2000 lbs (the estimated deadlift strength of a Gorilla) and build 400 lbs of lean mass, all while doing pretty much nothing--which is exactly what Gorillas do (they do virtually zero hard work).

The fact is that each animal (including people, although I wouldn't call us animals) has a different genetic make-up, which directly dictates natural levels of muscle mass and dietary requirements.

Comparing Gorillas, or Male lions for that matter, to people, is ludicrous--on all fronts.

 

[Mike Arnold]

You make an interesting argument, but the fact of the matter is that humans aren't meant to be bodybuilders. Carrying muscle is an inconvenience for the body. It's sole purpose is survival, not to be able to bench 500 lbs, and carry the amount of muscle to do that.

The only way mine, and many other people's body is willing to carry add muscle tissue, and support it is by eating when we don't want. Also the thought of eating chicken breast, and rice actually decreases my appetite.

You got that right

 

[Chode Logan]

Fuck beast mode, I'm going #Lionmode. No more gym just chase predators and wait for the hundreds of lbs of LBM to flood onto my body.

 

[knucklehed]

Phil was right

If you don't understand the fundamentals of this principle then you'll likely disagree with Phil. That is fine, its not for everyone.
In my opinion, if you're not hungry and/or eating crap the extra calories will add only fat. If your body is prepared to refuel and/or add muscle, you will have an appetite. Learning how to eat, work, rest and consistently have the appetite is the key here.

 

[b_cornelius]

You make an interesting argument, but the fact of the matter is that humans aren't meant to be bodybuilders. Carrying muscle is an inconvenience for the body. It's sole purpose is survival, not to be able to bench 500 lbs, and carry the amount of muscle to do that.

The only way mine, and many other people's body is willing to carry add muscle tissue, and support it is by eating when we don't want. Also the thought of eating chicken breast, and rice actually decreases my appetite.

Yes and if you take a look at these sort of abstract parallels, you'll notice that the male tendency is to fight adversity, expend oneself, and die if necessary. While the female tends to survive longer inorder to reproduce and ensure successful reproduction. Taking upon oneself "male" or "animal" characteristics is a tendency towards a short harsh life.

But yet I can ensure you that muscle-size has less to do with Testosterone and simple feedings than many believe. And we know this because of science and consciousness, not man or animals. The better juxiposition would be: instead of comparing man to nature, how about those Big Guys that just eat a couple fast food meals a day? Big guys happen even on moderate food and moderate natty test.

There is probably really nothing "meant" by it all, just probabilities of occurrence.

Maybe you should try a chicken sandwich.

 

[Arcus]

I think it's good for some, not good for others. If you followed this principle exactly, what do you do when appetite takes a hit from something like anadrol or ephedrine? You wouldn't be eating much. People like me, who have monster appetites, would get fat if we followed this. Others swear by it, however if they have normal appetites.

This is the point I would make as well. I followed the eat when hungry principles and it worked out fairly well. I would get hungry every 2-3 hours and eat the macros I found worked for me. But now I am on medication where I don't have much of a appetite until the evening, so if I listened to my body and waited for the hunger pangs, I wouldn't consume anything all day until close to noon time. That just wouldn't work.

 

[thethinker48]

Yes and if you take a look at these sort of abstract parallels, you'll notice that the male tendency is to fight adversity, expend oneself, and die if necessary. While the female tends to survive longer inorder to reproduce and ensure successful reproduction. Taking upon oneself "male" or "animal" characteristics is a tendency towards a short harsh life.

But yet I can ensure you that muscle-size has less to do with Testosterone and simple feedings than many believe. And we know this because of science and consciousness, not man or animals. The better juxiposition would be: instead of comparing man to nature, how about those Big Guys that just eat a couple fast food meals a day? Big guys happen even on moderate food and moderate natty test.

There is probably really nothing "meant" by it all, just probabilities of occurrence.

Maybe you should try a chicken sandwich.

All of what you say makes sense. But those big guys that your talking about are guys with good genetics. Not everyone can just eat a few big meals and get huge. If you look at all the big champions of the past, you'll notice one large factor. And that's the amount of food these guys pound day in and day out.

As long as you get enough calories to grow, you'll obviously grow, but there comes a point where appetite is far from the thing thats required to grow. Unless you have a naturally huge appetite, you can't possibly eat 5000+ mostly clean calorie without forcing it.

 

[Mike Arnold]

If you don't understand the fundamentals of this principle then you'll likely disagree with Phil. That is fine, its not for everyone.
In my opinion, if you're not hungry and/or eating crap the extra calories will add only fat. If your body is prepared to refuel and/or add muscle, you will have an appetite. Learning how to eat, work, rest and consistently have the appetite is the key here.

This could work for some guys, such as the ons who don't require a lot of food to gain muscle--the guys with slower metabolisms, but there are a LOT of guys out there who have very fast metabolisms, and no matter what they do, their appetite will never match their caloric requirements when attempting to gain maximum mass.

Furthermore, some guys have both a fast metabolism AND a small appetite. Having a good appetite is not just the result of proper bodily functioning, but is influenced by a multitude of factors unrelated to good health. There are genetic components at play here, as well as many body systems all affecting the appetite in different ways....and these things are not the same across the board, even if all other variables were equal.

For example, the endocrine system plays a huge role in how hungry someone may or may not be, and its function can vary substantially from one person to the next, regardless of how well we understand and work with our body. I've worked with some guys--some very thin guys--who really struggled just to put down 3,000 calories per day of mostly clean food. As their size and caloric requirements grew, it just got harder.

Some people have huge appetites and will naturally want to eat more than they need, but then you have guys like this who are on the opposite end of the spectrum and barely ever get hungry no mater what is done. There are also guys with health issues which can lead to a suppressed appetite, or other medical problems which prevent someone from eating normally.

 

[Mike Arnold]

This is the point I would make as well. I followed the eat when hungry principles and it worked out fairly well. I would get hungry every 2-3 hours and eat the macros I found worked for me. But now I am on medication where I don't have much of a appetite until the evening, so if I listened to my body and waited for the hunger pangs, I wouldn't consume anything all day until close to noon time. That just wouldn't work.

Same here. I actually have considerable experience with the "eat when hungry" approach--because I have been doing it for the last 5 or so years.

Before my back injury 6 months ago, I would only get hungry about once every 8-10 hours. Because of this, I normally only ate twice a day, with a snack thrown in there when I felt like it. Furthermore, I never really felt like eating any animal protein--no meat or eggs. So, I really only ate the stuff about once a week on average. This allowed me to hit between 250-270 lbs, but it was sure wasn't optimal--and definitely kept me from gaining a lot of size. I have no doubt I could have been 50 lbs heavier (without using more drugs) if I had only followed a bodybuilding friendly diet with consistency. However, being that I had decided not pursue professional bodybuilding over 15 years ago, the trade-off just didn't seem worth it to me.

These days I usually only eat once a day with a snack somewhere in there...and I often go 16-20 hours inbetween eating before I get "hungry". Of course, if I was moving around more I would get hungry more often, but like I said, even when I was active, I would only get hungry every 8-10 hours.

 

[b_cornelius]

All of what you say makes sense. But those big guys that your talking about are guys with good genetics. Not everyone can just eat a few big meals and get huge. If you look at all the big champions of the past, you'll notice one large factor. And that's the amount of food these guys pound day in and day out.

As long as you get enough calories to grow, you'll obviously grow, but there comes a point where appetite is far from the thing thats required to grow. Unless you have a naturally huge appetite, you can't possibly eat 5000+ mostly clean calorie without forcing it.

No, I understanding what you're saying. I'm just making some philosophical amendments to it for the sake of good conversation.

All too often Genetics are equivocated with fate, while your genetics are always changing with epigenetics. Your genes produce ever-changing proteins that influence, and yet you even live with a biome of virus/bacteria that produce proteins that influence. They are both the product of genetics. Maybe you have a disease preventing you from growth? Or you could have a virus that produces follistatin? Complicated huh....Flux. I don't know.

Mainly there, I was getting to the fact that the idea of "human" is just an idea that you have about your yourself, such as your ego. It is not as primordial or as authentic as consciousness-itself. Most Post-structuralist analysis discusses the matter. Our ideas of humanism are relatively recent, but consciousness of it....


Nevertheless, your statement is a good statement to make. There is just much more to it for those who are willing listen.

 

[thethinker48]

No, I understanding what you're saying. I'm just making some philosophical amendments to it for the sake of good conversation.

All too often Genetics are equivocated with fate, while your genetics are always changing with epigenetics. Your genes produce ever-changing proteins that influence, and yet you even live with a biome of virus/bacteria that produce proteins that influence. They are both the product of genetics. Maybe you have a disease preventing you from growth? Or you could have a virus that produces follistatin? Complicated huh....Flux. I don't know.

Mainly there, I was getting to the fact that the idea of "human" is just an idea that you have about your yourself, such as your ego. It is not as primordial or as authentic as consciousness-itself. Most Post-structuralist analysis discusses the matter. Our ideas of humanism are relatively recent, but consciousness of it....


Nevertheless, your statement is a good statement to make. There is just much more to it for those who are willing listen.

I'm glad you post on here. Such structured sentences with proper syntax, and an irrefutable argument is refreshing.

 

[b_cornelius]

I'm glad you post on here. Such structured sentences with proper syntax, and an irrefutable argument is refreshing.

Thank you my friend. It's just more.

 

[Phidias]

I know many on PM will automatically say it's stupid just because Phil said it (used to be the exact opposite quite a few years ago btw ), but the day I stopped force feeding myself and ate according to my appetite, I instantly felt better... some days I'll eat twice, others 6 times, and honestly I don't feel I've lost a single gram of muscle behaving this way for 10 years now.

However, as some already outlined, genetics/individual metabolism is certainly a huge factor in everyone's ability to retain/build muscle like this, that's a fact you can't deny.

 

[JohnUSMC35]

If you don't understand the fundamentals of this principle then you'll likely disagree with Phil. That is fine, its not for everyone.
In my opinion, if you're not hungry and/or eating crap the extra calories will add only fat. If your body is prepared to refuel and/or add muscle, you will have an appetite. Learning how to eat, work, rest and consistently have the appetite is the key here.

Couldn't have said it better myself bro! :yeahthat:

 

[raw33man]

I know many on PM will automatically say it's stupid just because Phil said it (used to be the exact opposite quite a few years ago btw ), but the day I stopped force feeding myself and ate according to my appetite, I instantly felt better... some days I'll eat twice, others 6 times, and honestly I don't feel I've lost a single gram of muscle behaving this way for 10 years now.

However, as some already outlined, genetics/individual metabolism is certainly a huge factor in everyone's ability to retain/build muscle like this, that's a fact you can't deny.

We shit when we need to shit
We fuck when we need to fuck
we cry when we need to cry

I don't see why we can't eat when need to eat.

BUT... eating is like fucking ! You can fuck a hoe and get AIDS.... You can eat McDonalds and get Fat. So watch what you EAT, and EAT whenever you NEED to EAT

was that clear ? Do you think I'd make a good kindergarten teacher?

 

[Chode Logan]

We shit when we need to shit
We fuck when we need to fuck
we cry when we need to cry

I don't see why we can't eat when need to eat.

BUT... eating is like fucking ! You can fuck a hoe and get AIDS.... You can eat McDonalds and get Fat. So watch what you EAT, and EAT whenever you NEED to EAT

was that clear ? Do you think I'd make a good kindergarten teacher?

Please babysit my son.

Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk

 

[ajdonutz]

If I ate every time I was hungry I'd be a fat lard lol. I'm always hungry

 

[11111]

I'm glad you post on here. Such structured sentences with proper syntax, and an irrefutable argument is refreshing.

Agreed. I have enjoyed his posts as well.

 

[GottaGain]

Appetite can be very much mental in a lot of cases. If you're stressed, anxious, depressed, etc. it will have a huge impact on your appetite whether your emotions increase or decrease your appetite. The stomach has been said to be like a second brain.