Mark Bell, a world-renowned powerlifter, bodybuilder, and strength sports advocate, has spent years experimenting with various nutrition strategies. His journey is a testament to the ever-evolving understanding of diet and its impact on performance, health, and body composition. This article will explore Mark Bell's dietary approaches, including his experiences with weight gain for powerlifting, Paleo diets, carnivore diets, and even a high-sugar experiment, while emphasizing the importance of individualization and long-term sustainability.
Early Influences: Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, and the Importance of Protein
Mark Bell's dietary journey began with bodybuilding, where he learned the importance of protein for building muscle. However, the powerlifting culture he encountered initially placed little emphasis on nutrition. Despite this, Bell maintained a meat-based diet, ensuring sufficient protein intake to preserve muscle mass. He always felt like the look is important, even if you end up with a lot of excess body fat on top of muscle. So even as fat and as bloated as he got, it never got sloppy. He was lucky enough to try to keep everything together enough to where now he’s down 100 pounds and doesn’t have any loose skin or anything like that.
Strategic Weight Gain for Strength
Bell's career involved periods of intentional weight gain to enhance his powerlifting performance. This approach, while effective for increasing strength, came with its own set of challenges. He reached a peak weight of 330 pounds, driven by the desire to lift more. This involved a plan devised with Jesse Burdick to strategically increase calorie intake, particularly later in the day. Most of the day would be just like normal, trying to make sure that we’re eating protein with every meal. But we could have eggs and bacon and some toast in the morning. Afternoon could be like a burrito. Dinner could be steak, veggies, a potato. But then after that, is where you can really kind of get after it and have like ice cream. The extra body weight and mass provided a distinct advantage in moving heavier loads. However, Bell acknowledges that he may have compromised his health in the process.
The Paleo Transition and a Shift in Perspective
After achieving significant milestones in powerlifting, including nearly squatting 1,100 pounds and benching 900 pounds, Mark Bell shifted his focus towards overall health and well-being. Inspired by conversations with Kelly Starrett, he transitioned to a Paleo-style diet. This dietary change led to a decrease in strength, primarily due to weight loss. However, Bell recognized the potential for long-term benefits, noting that the body adapts to a new weight over time, leading to leanness without drastic measures.
Exploring the Carnivore Diet
Mark Bell has experimented with the carnivore diet for about three years, though not continuously. He views it as a challenge to understand how the body reacts to eliminating plant-based foods. The carnivore diet, as Bell describes it, mainly includes meat, eggs, bone broth, and butter. It excludes fruits, vegetables, and other plant-based foods, with the intention of observing the body's response.
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The Carnivore Diet Challenge
The carnivore diet is often undertaken as a challenge to assess its impact on the body. This involves strictly adhering to the diet for a specific period, typically a month, to observe changes in various aspects of health, such as digestion, sleep, and overall well-being. Mark Bell found out about the carnivore Diet, the carnivore challenge, through Dr. Shawn Baker, who started it about three years ago. And every year it’s in January, which I think is brilliant because a lot of people are gaining weight from Halloween, on through Thanksgiving, on through Christmas, and so on. And they’ve got some weight to lose. So issuing that challenge at that time is perfect timing. Bell emphasizes that this approach is intended to be a short-term experiment, rather than a long-term lifestyle.
Rational Carnivore Diet
Beyond the challenge, Bell suggests a more rational approach to the carnivore diet, incorporating insights from figures like Robb Wolf. This involves selectively reintroducing certain plant-based foods, such as low-carbohydrate vegetables and fruits like olives and avocados. He also believes that using spices and seasonings is acceptable. This approach allows for greater dietary variety and flexibility.
Key Principles of Mark Bell's Nutritional Approach
Mark Bell's current approach to nutrition emphasizes the following principles:
- Prioritize Single-Ingredient Foods: Focus on consuming whole, unprocessed foods as the foundation of the diet.
- Protein Intake: Consume adequate protein to support muscle mass and satiety. The diet calls for basically any kind of meat however, what we are trying to do is to consume the correct amount of protein every day without going over our overall caloric and energy intake.
- Strategic Carbohydrate Timing: If consuming carbohydrates, prioritize them around workouts to fuel performance and recovery. If you’re going to eat your carbs, have them around workouts, before and after is best.
- Frequent Eating: Eat regularly, typically 3-5 times a day, to maintain energy levels and prevent poor food choices. I would say for most people you should be eating probably 3-5 times a day. There should be 3-5 times a day where you are taking in calories, sometimes that can be a protein shake, a yogurt and an apple, or sometimes it can be a real meal, it depends on you as a person.
- Mindful Snacking: Avoid snacking on processed foods and prioritize whole, nutrient-dense options when needed.
The "Sugar Diet" Experiment: A Controversial Approach
In a more recent and controversial experiment, Mark Bell explored a high-sugar, high-carbohydrate diet, consuming up to 1,000 grams of carbohydrates per day from sources like fruit, juice, honey, and sugar. Protein intake was kept at 100 grams from ultra-lean sources, and fat was severely restricted.
Rationale
The rationale behind this approach was to accelerate digestion, improve insulin sensitivity, and maintain high energy levels, thereby facilitating fat loss.
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Results and Considerations
While Bell reported some success with this diet, it is essential to consider several factors:
- Individual Physiology: Mark Bell's physiology is not average. He trained intensively, managed his sleep, and had a long history of anabolic support and body recomposition.
- Limited Applicability: Mark’s experiment doesn’t invalidate low-carb approaches, nor does it suggest everyone can tolerate sugar. His results don’t prove sugar is harmless but they underscore how context shapes response. Muscle mass, insulin sensitivity, liver function, and inflammation all influence tolerance.
- Potential Health Risks: Lab results after six months on the diet revealed elevated liver enzymes, arterial plaque, thyroid antibodies, low HDL, and elevated CRP.
- Unsustainable: The diet is built around foods that are highly palatable and easy to overconsume. The sugar diet is a classic example of a fad diet that cherry-picks results, ignores basic nutrition principles, and sets most people up for failure.
8 Simple Rules to Transform Your Life
After suffering from a major injury, Mark decided that it was time begin his next chapter and make a change. Fast forward to today, Mark has lost over 100 pounds and completely transformed his life by following these 8 simple rules, and you can too!
- WALK - Move! At least 3x/day.
- FASTING I recommend, if you’re new to fasting to do it every other day!
- I’m less likely to cheat or make bad decisions when food is already prepared.
- EAT VEGGIES - if you’re in a caloric deficit and HUNGRY you’re less likely to reach for chocolate if you’re stuffed to the gills with heavy green veggies. It will fill you up. My only caveat to this, you must finish your protein before you finish your veggies…
- KEEP PROTEIN HIGH - I personally choose protein leveraging. Example: before my meal, I’ll enjoy some protein like a chicken breast before my actual meal. I’m less likely to binge on the fun stuff like carbs or fats because I’m full.
- CUT CALORIE DRINKS - smoothies, juices, etc are marketed as “healthy” when all too often they are pumped with processed sugar, etc. People will rely on these and ignore protein & proper nutrient from other sources of foods. Ditch the juice and drink some water.
- KEEP IT SIMPLE - keep your habits so simple, so easy that they are hard to say no to. Example: pop on the stair master for 5 minutes before and after my workout. That’s simple enough, right? Simple = repeatable.
- OCCUPY YOUR MIND - get after something you love to do. A hobby like lifting is something I’ve been doing since I was 12.
General Principles for Sustainable Fat Loss
Regardless of the specific diet plan, certain fundamental principles are essential for achieving and maintaining fat loss:
- Calorie Deficit: Consume fewer calories than you burn.
- Prioritize Whole Foods: Stick to mostly minimally processed foods.
- Protein and Fiber: Prioritize protein and fiber.
- Patience: Stay patient.
- Trust the Biology, Physics, and History: Humans have been losing fat long before diets had flashy names or were marketed with trendy labels.
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