In the book, Better Than Steroids, Dr. Warren Willey proposes that a NATURAL trainer can actually achieve superior results than a steroid user IF the natural trainer follows a proper training and nutrition program.
In this article, I’ll let you know if the doctor delivers or if this book falls short of the hype.
Dr. Wiley says that part of the reason steroid users get such good results is because you tend to eat better and train harder while on steroids. On page 21 he states…
“I’m going to teach you how to mimic anabolic steroids using diet and exercise!”
Below is a success story from one of these clients. No names are given, and no before-and-after photos are presented. The client simply appears as “LD”
In just 12 weeks, LD went from 182 pounds at 16.1% body fat to 177 pounds at 5.5% body fat. Which means LD not only lost 19.56lbs of fat, but also gained 14.57lbs of muscle AT THE SAME TIME!
Here’s the kicker: Dr. Wiley says that LD was 60 years old at the time of this study and has had other clients gain 30 pounds of lean muscle WHILE losing 60 pounds of fat following the same principles.
Now, at this point, I’m smelling something funny. It smells like bull shit.
But let’s continue. Doc goes on to talk about the importance of water and that food can actually be used as a drug. I liked this part of the book because too often we forget how powerful food can be. Food can be used to increase or decrease insulin, just like a drug. And by timing your food intake—eating carb-rich foods around the time of your workout and cutting carbs for the rest of the day—you can take advantage of the drug-like qualities of food. Good stuff here.
Willey then talks about how to calculate your recommended daily caloric intake and even provides 4 different meal plans. The meal plans are as follows:
Isocaloric: Divide daily caloric intake evenly between fat, carbohydrates, and protein.
Keto Run – Eating ultra-low carbs for 7-14 days at a time.
The Modified Carb Drop: Do a Keto run and then continue with a carb load.
The Zig Zag: Eating a lot of calories one day, then a few calories the next day.
In general, nothing innovative here. In fact, I saw a lot of similarities between these recommendations and Dan Duchaine’s recommendations in his book Underground BodyOpus. They both talk about using an isocaloric approach at first, then a super low-carb diet when weight loss stops, and then adding carbs on the weekends to allow you to gain muscle while shedding fat.
The following chapters cover meals before and after training.
Then we come to Chapter 12: Glycogen Supercompensation.
For me, this is where the book falls apart.
Willey opens with the following case study detailing “CV’s” experiences (Again, full name and photos not shown).
CV started at 200 pounds and 8.9% body fat. She then did 10 days of super low carb followed by 48 hours of high carb eating.
He ended up at 212 pounds and 8.0% body fat. On the surface, this looks impressive. And Dr. Warren Willey exclaims…
“No typos in the chart above! CV gained 12.8lbs of muscle in a 48 hour load and actually lost some body fat!”
But this is completely wrong. He did not gain 12.8 pounds of muscle. She is just holding water. Because that’s what happens when you drastically cut carbs and then flood your system with a high dose of carbs—your body ends up retaining extra water.
And that’s okay, many times this is a good thing. But you can’t confuse retaining extra water with building muscle. Willey is a doctor; he should understand the difference between muscle and swelling.
But apparently he doesn’t because he goes on to list even more examples of successful clients. In each case, it’s clear what happens: the client ends up retaining excess water for a couple of days, and Willey writes it down as “muscle gain.”
But is not. You don’t gain 12 pounds of muscle in two days. No one does. Not even steroid users.
From there, the rest of the book offers some bodybuilding routines that sound like something out of a Joe Weider magazine: giant sets, supersets, 21s, pre-burnout training, etc.
Oddly enough, this style of bodybuilding training generally works better for steroid users than natural trainers.
Overall, the book doesn’t deliver on its main promise: Willey shows that you can retain extra water for a few days on a carb load, but he doesn’t show that his strategies can help you gain muscle, and he certainly doesn’t show that these strategies can pay off. better results than steroids.
So I’d save your money and skip this book. If you want to learn more about carb loading and glycogen supercompensation, find a copy of Dan Duchaine’s Underground Bodyopus. The book is now 15 years old, but Duchaine does a better job of laying out the principles behind glycogen supercompensation.