I was reading a magazine generally about muscle and fitness the other day, and they gave some tips on fat loss
Cut carbs to 100g or less for 4-5 days, then increase to 250-300g for two days
Eat about 50g of fast-digesting carbs @ breakfast and PWO
Take 5-10g of BCAA’s in the morn w/ breakfast and before/after workouts.
20-40g slow-digesting carbs preworkout
Supplement w/ caff., evodiamine or tea, 2-3 times daily including preworkout.
Chose slower-burning carbs most of the time to control insulin.
Stock up on sugar-free yogurt and low-fat cottage cheese for snacks.
Eat small meals ever 1.5-2hrs
Take 3-10g of arginine preworkout
Avoid carbs late at night
Take 5-10g of glutamine and 1-3g of taurine pre/pwo
Go to a near-zero-fat diet for 4-5 days.
Most seem to make sense, but what about number 1. Cycling carbs has proven effective but it seems like these are pretty high numbers. And number 12, foods with low fat (turkey, egg whites, cottage cheese, protein powders) isnt that a little extreme for fat loss, I always thought fats were good for you. Extremely low fat for 4-5 days seems a little too much right?
Combining tip #1 and tip #12 is rough… not sure what the thought behind including both of those was. This combination will result in some bad moods, awful energy, and REALLY low calories.
That’s some stupid stuff there (except for a few). I’ve done the 5 days low carb, 2 days high carb diet, and it works well, but the only fast carbs I’ll have on low days is postworkout (<40g) simply to blunt cortisol levels and spike insulin. I also use my BCAAs midworkout to also control rising cortisol and prevent muscle loss.
Fast carbs at breakfast is stupid (you’ll be hungry soon, and you won’t utilize your fat stores).
Any carbs preworkout when you’re trying to cut is stupid (why give your body an alternative energy source when you want to burn off what you already have).
Low Fat Cottage Cheese (or anything) when on low carbs is stupid (anything low in fat is usually high in carbs or sodium).
Near Zero fat when on low carbs is stupid
(see above).
They gave a summary at the end and this was it…the actual article was even more confusing, it said limit your carbs to 100 but you should have 50 cabrs in the morning 20-40 preworkout and 50 pastworkout…the basically said the only thing you could eat for the 4-5 days was egg whites, turkey and protein powder.
When you do cycle carbs, can your body really tell the difference between 50g a day and 70g a day. Also, if you limit yourself to 50g a day do you up that for postworkout to like 80-90g? sort of like the t-dawg diet but lower.
[quote]CJK wrote:
Combining tip #1 and tip #12 is rough… not sure what the thought behind including both of those was. This combination will result in some bad moods, awful energy, and REALLY low calories. [/quote]
Agreed… I dont know if they mean at the same time (although if they are talking about in the same week its impossible to avoid it), but dropping fat and carbs leaves you with only 1 macro… Thats the worst advice I’ve seen on dieting. Some of the other tips are alright.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
CJK wrote:
Combining tip #1 and tip #12 is rough… not sure what the thought behind including both of those was. This combination will result in some bad moods, awful energy, and REALLY low calories.
Agreed… I dont know if they mean at the same time (although if they are talking about in the same week its impossible to avoid it), but dropping fat and carbs leaves you with only 1 macro… Thats the worst advice I’ve seen on dieting. Some of the other tips are alright.
[/quote]
Exactly. We’ve got 100g or less carbs, 200 calories. I am guessing that the sort of people that read this magazine won’t eat more than 1 gram of protein/BW so at BEST we are looking at about 200 g of protein… a whopping 1000 calories, if you get close to zero fat (which by the way is a trick in itself…)
The majority of their readers never probably never kept a food log, and couldn’t tell 10g of carbs from 25g of fat if their life depended on it.
I saw a “low carb” pasta recipe the other day on a low carb cooking forum: started with “cook one pack of spagetti” and ended with “serve with bread”. And “protein pancakes” that was the usual recipe but with a 1 tbs of cottage cheese in it for protein.