Mike Arone Fitness

If you’re like every other gym rat on the planet, you might understand the importance of nutrition in addition to your balls-to-the walls workouts (What does that even mean anyway? I would never want to put my balls on ANY walls – especially at the gym).

And you may understand that in order to achieve that ripped, dry physique that you may have to trade in your hamburgers for turkey burgers.

You may also realize that you’re too lazy to cook and that “Screw it. Wheel-O-Fortune is on and they’re in Hawaii…again.”

Well, I got the chance to catch up with The Muscle Cook – Dave Ruel – this past week.  He is the brilliant author of Anabolic Cooking, which has made healthy cooking not only easy and tasty…but badass as well.

So if you’re sick of making excuses as to why your physique isn’t where it should be, you may want to read my recent interview with Dave…

Dave Ruel (In a Canadian accent): All right, Mike, we are live!

Mike (In a Boston accent): So, Dave you call yourself The Muscle Cook and rightfully so.   I mean, needless to say, you’re not an ordinary chef.  For instance, you won’t to see Bobby Flay making your protein pancakes on Boy Meets Grill on the Food Network.  Obviously your transformation was incredible, the pictures show that.  And we know that lifting heavy weight and going to the gym all the time can definitely get you muscular, but how much if this do you actually attribute to nutrition?

DR: Well, Mike, nutrition is a big part and that’s sometimes one of the most underestimated parts of bodybuilding and fitness.  When you start training, you start building your body by lifting weights and whatever you can do at the gym in regards to performance and such.  But, after a certain point you realize well, there needs to be more because I don’t get the results I deserve.  Most of the time it’s because people don’t pay attention to their nutrition soon enough when they start training. That’s a common mistake a lot of people make.

If I were to go back to 1999 when I first picked up weights, I would have done things totally different.  Yes, I was getting good results, but I could have done much more and actually leveraged my time in the gym by eating the way I was supposed to eat and probably triple the results.

They say in nutrition it’s 80% of your results. That’s kind of true, because a lot of your results are going to be because of nutrition and PROPER nutrition.

MA: I’m a firm believer of that, too.  Now, when did you realize this?  And there must have been somebody that kind of pointed you in the right direction, in order for you discover that this is so important in order to build a mind-blowing physique.

DR: I wanted to make my first bodybuilding competition and this was the big eye-opener for me.  I think that was back in 2005. I bulked up to 262 pounds.  I was like, I’m going to train heavy, and I’m going to eat.  I was still eating a lot of clean food, but I was eating too much clean food.  You know what I mean?  I was eating lots of food and I was under the old impression, well, I’m going to make my best gain.  I’m going to maximize my gains by doing a big bulk.  You don’t realize it because you see yourself in the mirror every day.  You’re like, “Not too bad!”

I decided to take off-season pictures, and then I realized, “Holy shit!  Man, I’m fat!”  I was fat, and I couldn’t believe I let myself…  well, I didn’t let myself go, but that I got up to that point.

I wanted to compete in my first bodybuilding competition, so that was pretty much my incentive or my goal to lose weight.  But, I didn’t realize it would work out so well.

I tag-teamed with one of my friends who is a professional nutritionist.  He owns a nutrition clinic back in Moncton, New Brunswick – that’s where I’m from.  Basically, we started on a 12-week meal plan. The really cool thing about these meal plans is that they were all based on recipes.  So, you didn’t have your basic six ounces or eight ounces of chicken breast and medium baked potato and broccoli or something like that.  It was basically 80% recipes.  It was so easy.  I actually dropped 50 pounds in 12 weeks on the meal plan.

Shredded Wheat!

MA: That’s unbelievable.

DR: It never felt like dieting.  It was so easy.  The recipes were good.  I never felt like eating at restaurants, because I almost didn’t realize it was all food I was preparing.  It was like oh “Wow, that’s actually awesome!”

MA: So, it kind of made it easy for you in that sense.  You obviously  took it and ran with it later on.  We now see you as The Muscle Cook and this great book (Anabolic Cooking Cookbook) that came out which is a great product about  healthy cooking. When people do ask you, how do you explain to them what Anabolic Cooking is?

DR: Well, “Anabolic Cooking”, I thought that was a really cool name.

MA: And it is.

DR: A lot of people will be able to relate to it, because you eat like most people who are involved in bodybuilding and fitness.  They do it for what reason?  They either want to build muscle or lose body fat, but always in the same goal of being in shape and best shape they can be.  Basically, that means eating your a certain amount of protein, a certain amount of carbohydrates, and the proper amount of fat to put your body in an anabolic state and a metabolic state as well.  And it was like “Anabolic Cooking” – that sounds good.  That’s a name people are going to be like, well, “That book is for me!”

MA: When did you decide to run with this idea?

DR: I started doing those recipes for people I was helping out for competitions as well as myself when I was competing. Everybody’s like, well, “you’re a real Muscle Cook.” It was funny because that name came out pretty often from my friends and the people I was cooking for.  So, I decided on the name Muscle Cook and I started my blog called TheMuscleCook.com.  It all started from there.

MA: That’s why I like it.  It’s so simple and to the point and that’s why the name says it all.  I’ve read the book, went through the products and they’re awesome.  I think they’re nothing short of, if not better than, something you’d probably see as a top-selling cookbook that you see on the shelves in the book store.

…But, as far as your culinary background…Cooking school? Restaurant chef? Did you work at like a Ruby Tuesdays?  I mean, where did this come in and where did you actually learn how to cook?

DR: (laughing) Actually, I learned how to cook in my own kitchen.  I get that question asked all the time, what’s your background, your cooking background?  Did you graduate from any cooking school?  How did that happen?  That all happened by, as I said, I started to cook because I started following that proper meal plan from my nutritionist and then I started developing my own recipes and for the off season. That was the goal, to stay healthy.  But, again, I didn’t want my diet or my off-season eating to be plain or boring or eat too much.  So, I decided to be creative with my food and start developing recipes.

As I developed those recipes; I was keeping everything in a binder and trying those recipes.  If they weren’t good, they would pretty much go in the garbage can.  But, if they were good, I was keeping that in a big binder and just collecting recipes.

I collected about more than 200 recipes.

After four years I had 200 and some recipes in that binder.

MA: Besides the fact that the taste in every recipe throughout the book is phenomenal, the recipes are super creative.  Like a bunch of other fitness enthusiasts, I like to prepare meals – but I hate doing it.  I hate it!  How easy are these meals to create or recreate?

DR: EASY!!! I knew it needed to be easy because I realize it takes time to prepare meals especially when you’ve got a busy lifestyle. Sometimes it can be kind of difficult to cook the meals and everything.  So, I’m not going to do anything too complicated.  I’m going to keep everything simple with all the ingredients that most people can get easily at the grocery store and basically make them as simple as possible so it’s easy to prepare…and tasty! That was the goal.

You have all the ingredients you need and it’s a simple, three, four and five easy steps to create a recipe and that’s it.  There’s no complicated process involved.

MA: Right, and that’s what I think my favorite aspect is. The amount of ingredients in each recipe is to a minimum.  Whenever I see cookbooks, the first thing I think of is, “Oh my God, there is like 47 different spices that I definitely don’t have!”  The best thing about this is, the spices are ones that most people probably have in their spice rack or ingredients that they have or that are super easy to get.

What do you feel that most cookbooks are missing or rather maybe they have too much of for that matter?

DR: There is not a whole lot of fitness cookbooks. And sometimes I feel like fitness cookbooks could have some modifications to make the recipes even healthier.  I kept that in mind. I designed mine to be as healthy as possible considering the food that people can have access in grocery stores.  That was the domain.  I back up as much as possible natural products like grass fed beef, game meat and things like fresh vegetables from the farmer – all this stuff.  But, you got to keep it realistic, too.  Not a whole lot of people have access to it. I wanted to make that book as healthy as possible, but for fitness people and people who have the same goals as I have.

MA: So, when you’re obviously constructing these, you have a plan in mind.  I want to make a fish, I want to make this, and I want to make that.  But, what do you feel is the most important aspect to any meal that every single meal should contain, no matter what?

DR: Most of my recipes basically are high protein, moderate fat, and moderate to low carbs.  Because, not everybody reacts well to carbs, some people have sensitivity and that hurt instead of help.  I designed them to fit pretty much everybody’s type of body, type of physiques or type of results that they’re getting from certain foods. With that said, the biggest thing is to keep protein in the diet and that should be the main piece of everybody’s bodybuilding or fitness diet.  You can play with your fats and your carbohydrates a bit more.

MA: So, I’ve got some scenarios for you that people reading your book may ask:

This specific person has got meetings all day, need to pick up their illegitimate child from daycare and then their stove is broken.  What recipe would you share with them from your book to fit this person’s crazy day?

DR: Stove’s broken?  Do you still have a microwave?

MA: Yea, they can have a microwave.  A microwave will work.  We’ll put that in there.

DR: A recipe that you can eat pretty much make every time you’re in a rush is my “Anabolic Blueberry Oatmeal” recipe.

* – 3/4 cup oatmeal
* – 8 Egg Whites
* – 1/2 scoop (15g) of Chocolate Protein Powder
* – 2 teaspoons of Pure Cocoa Powder
* – 1 teaspoon of Splenda
* – 1 tbsp of Flax Oil
* – 1 cup of frozen Blueberries
* – 1/4 cup of water

MA: Ok. Next scenario:

I’ve got a date coming over, I told her I’m a master chef and I got to impress her, but I’ve got to make a healthy meal.  What kind of meal am I putting together from the book?

DR: Actually, that’s funny you say that because I have a recipe I have that I call The First Date Recipe.  And actually, if you go on You Tube on my You Tube channel I’ve got a video of that recipe and that’s actually a true story.  That’s the recipe I did on my first date with my girlfriend.  It’s my roasted chicken with spinach and walnut stuffing.  Sounds really fancy.  Like, you know, you have a date over; I got roasted chicken breast with spinach and walnut stuffing for you tonight.  That’s sounds fancy.

So, that recipe, that’s what I did with my girlfriend.  Actually, she’s still there, so I guess that recipe worked for me.  I still have guys emailing me like, “Dave, man, I had a date last weekend and I did your recipe and yea, it worked!  It worked!”

MA: Now, protein is often confused as a supplement, but it’s used a lot in your recipes.  How important do you think protein powder to have as an everyday item on-hand?

DR: As you said, protein powder is a supplement.  So, you should supplement your diet and you’re going to see most of my recipes, it’s not the main ingredient, and something I add to get more protein to the recipe.

I use it in my recipes to add more protein to the recipes, to make it a high protein meal.  For example, when you look at the anabolic blueberry oatmeal recipe, it’s basically a mix of oatmeal, egg whites, protein powder and sometimes peanut butter, flax seed oil, depending on what you want to have with it, and blueberries, of course.

But, the fact of adding half or three quarters of a scoop of protein powder like adds about 20 grams of protein to that recipe.  So, that makes it a really high protein recipe.  So, I actually…protein powder should be used as a supplement, at the right time of the day, post workout or even as a snack when you don’t have time to eat anything else.  That’s a really good idea.  You always should have protein powder on hand, but don’t rely only on just protein powder.

I would say 70% of your protein should come from solid food and use protein powder as a supplement.

MA: Yep, and I’m glad you cleared that up.  I think that’s an important point, because I think a lot of people either will go overboard, and I think some people will also go under.  Some people won’t to touch protein powder and some use it way too much. So, I think that’s a huge point.

So how can everybody stay up to date on the adventures of David Ruel the Muscle Cook and what can they expect in the future, maybe a best-seller book?  Are there any videos, sites, anywhere they can stay up to date with you?

DR: Well, actually Mike, I don’t know if you know about it, but my book turned best seller actually a couple of weeks ago on ClikBank, and I’m pretty happy about it so I want to share it with everybody.  Yay!

MA: Congratulations!  That’s a huge accomplishment.

DR: It’s an e-book, so it’s not something you’re going to find at Chapters or Borders or whatever store you have in the US or in Canada.  But, it’s a downloadable book and I did it that way because there was no way I could have come up with a book at that type of price and to compare it with what I offer in the book.  I’m offering a whole lot of stuff and there are a whole lot of add-ons to it like calorie calculator, just all kinds of stuff.  And there was no way I would have been able to deliver all that kind of information in one book for the price I’m offering it, too.  So, I just want to explain that.  A lot of people are asking me why it’s not a physical book. It’s actually a good thing that it’s an eBook. The price would have otherwise been crazy if I would have released a paper book.

You can keep up to date with me by visting: www.TheMuscleCook.com. I’m very active on my blog.  I post two or three blogs a week, different articles, different recipes,  and a lot of videos as well.  My YouTube channel, type “The Muscle Cook”, you can find me.  I’ve got a lot of recipes and actually training, workout videos as well with some of my friends, guys like Lee Hayward and Vince Del Monte, those are pretty cool friends and whenever we do workouts together we put them on YouTube.

You can also have them add as a friend on Facebook.

MA: Well, Dave, I appreciate you taking the time.  The book’s great.  Your site is always full of awesome information, always updated, the book is unbelievable and the products that you provide are great…I know my fans will enjoy it.

I appreciate you taking the time to do the interview.

DR: Mike, no problem. It’s a great thing you’re helping out people like you do and the fact that you’re a funny guy and you’re not making fitness boring, that’s a big thing!

MA: Dave thanks so much man!

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Be sure to check out Dave’s best-selling cookbook by clicking on the link below.  And feel free to contact Dave or drop him a line!

Click Here to check it out!