Holy Grail vs Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle

Hi everyone, recently I see there’s been a lot of interest in information on the differences between Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle and Holy Grail. As I own both books, I thought it might be useful for me to briefly layout the differences.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle largely discusses how to lose fat without losing muscle. Essentially, the book is geared towards people who may not understand how to properly lose fat without also losing muscle mass.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle basically comes down to this –

• Knowing how many calories you need to eat per day to lose fat. Not knowing how much you can eat during a diet and still lose weight is the #1 mistake most dieters make (ie. typically people eat either way too little or just a little too much. You want to be in the happy medium.)
  
• Knowing how many calories you are really burning every day through daily activities and exercise. This is the #2 biggest diet mistake – thinking you burned a ton of calories working out when you didn’t.
  
• Eating multiple small meals throughout the day. I think in some ways, this dates the book as at one time people believed this boosted one’s metabolism. This has since been disproved but is still a useful too to avoid feeling hungry and over eating.
• Eating a diet that is balanced but slightly higher in protein. Eating more protein makes you feel fuller, prevents muscle loss while dieting, burns more calories while digesting, and prevents excess water weight (this can be a big problem for dieters which Tom discusses in a chapter on water – the less you eat, the more water your body hoards – who knew?) Not eating enough protein is probably the average dieter’s #3 biggest mistake.
• Eating – not avoiding – carbs AND fat. This is not a ketogenic diet. Avoiding carbs and fat over the long term will lead to a total halt of your fat loss as your body will think you are starving and proper fat burning hormones will not be released.
• Lifting weights to preserve your muscle mass while dieting. Most people make the mistake of only doing cardio when trying to lose weight. This can really burn through your muscle if you are also restricting your calories. This is probably the dieter’s #4 biggest mistake when trying to lose fat. Doing only cardio will help you get smaller for sure, but a lot of the loss comes from muscle vs fat. Sort of the opposite of what you want. At the end of the book a full body workout weight lifting program is provided and is suitable for all levels.
• How much cardio to do depending on your body type. Tom discusses how some people have to struggle a lot more than others when it comes to losing fat. He recommends gradually adding cardio and cutting back on calories little by little until results are seen. Tom also argues that any kind of cardio is fine and no one gets “fat” doing cardio no matter what you read on the internet.
• Setting goals to maximize your success. This is something everyone discounting but is truly vital to fat loss success.
• And how to track your progress (lots of different methods listed for testing body fat accurately.)

If this sounds like what you are looking for, then Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is what you need.

Holy Grail is a book with a narrower scope – trying to burn fat and build muscle simultaneously. The book is much shorter – 74 pages compared to BFFM’s 300 something pages.

Holy Grail covers -

The theory and science behind gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time. This section talks about the processes in your body that build muscle and burn fat. This section also discusses people who may have a natural advantage in this area as well as what is really biologically possible vs what is purely the result of drug use.

Exact eating plans that show you how to structure you daily diet and workouts to maximize your chances of building muscle and burning fat at the same time. It pretty much comes down to picking a primary goal, eating your largest meals before and after weightlifting, and avoiding doing cardio too soon after weightlifting. There are also suggestions for eating more on lifting days and less on in between days.

You get a totally different lifting plan than in Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.

If this sounds like what you are looking for, you can get Holy Grail here.

Otherwise, if you are undecided – I recommend getting Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle as I think you can then get Holy Grail for free (but not the other way around.) That is what I did. I did have to email customer service as it was part of the promotion I selected, but I didn’t get an auto download link. On the other hand, Holy Grail is a cheaper ebook and if you know you don’t need the information in Burn the Fat, then you could save some $$. Hope this helps!