So you’re saying that it isn’t possible to implement a specific situation with respect to both nutrition and training, as well as their timing in order to better utilize body fat as an energy source outside of simply being in a deficit? Because I have to tell you, I have meticulously tracked calories before and timing DOES matter with respect to composition which in my eyes, is just as important as weight if not more so.
[quote]andersons wrote:
Have you experimented and found that even if you meticulously keep calories EXACTLY the same, that the bedtime cutoff timing of calorie intake makes a difference? [/quote] I should say so. [quote]
Yes, actually – I am talking only about fat loss. You are apparently talking about gaining muscle with minimal fat. They are different IMO. Fat loss is very simple. Fat loss while retaining muscle is slightly more complicated, but it doesn’t have to be very complicated, and you STILL have to create a deficit at the end of the day.
Muscle gain with minimal fat gain is much trickier. The cutoff you describe sounds like it could be an effective part of a plan to do that (although I would think that if you train in the evening, this cutoff wouldn’t be ideal for muscle gain). [/quote] Somehow, people still make it work… Usually you just take your PWO shake then, and afterwards it’s business as usual. [quote]
I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but did you track your calorie intake and weight carefully when you fasted?
I say this because I have found that when people don’t track intake carefully when dieting, it’s NEVER what they think it is. They are miserable because they eat little or nothing for so many hours or even days, but they erase their deficit with little or big cheats at some point. When we look at the calories over the course of a week, they are not in a deficit for the week.
[/quote] Obviously I did not count calories or anything like that.
I do however remember very well what I usually ate (there rarely were exceptions), particularly during school terms:
-usually nothing for breakfast other than a glass of juice or some such
-2 chocolate bars (kitkat) at school (total per day) during breaks (sometimes nothing at all, but this is what I usually ate during the last 2 years of school). Drank some water, tea or nothing (yeah, real smart, I know)
-a relatively small plate of spaghetti (250 cal or so at most, judging by what I eat today… I still use the same pre-packed pasta I used back then) with tomato sauce after school
-the same as above but this time in the evening…
-some water or maybe a glass of coke in between, maybe an apple if my mother forced me (rare that she succeeded).
So yes. Lots of vitamins and all essential nutrients covered, right? 
Holidays or weekends were usually worse (because then I spent a lot of time reading or playing computer games… Well, more time than during the week… So a lot of “fasting” going on because I never took a break from what I was doing, except to get a glas of water roughly once every equinox)
This just pretty much prevented any kind of muscle-mass to appear on my body (I didn’t train either, but I was really a stick… A smooth stick, because there was still enough fat on me to cover any muscle I may have had). Oh well. Sure wish I could go back and do things differently.
Not easy to be good at school when you eat like that (and I had no idea that my eating was a problem as such).
[quote]
The reasoning behind not combining them was, to the best of my knowledge, that the large insulin spike you get after eating a major amount of carbs causes the body to store most of what you just put into it… Including any major amount of fat you ate. That’s one of the reasons why we differentiate between “dirty” foods and “clean” foods… Milk (containing somewhat similar amounts of sugar, fat and protein) vs. chicken breasts and such.
Of course I’m no scientist and still don’t care much. I do however notice that I’m staying leaner when training in the “off-season” as long as I avoid combining major amounts of fat with major amounts of carbs in my meals… Sure, if I were eating little overall, I’d lose fat… But also a boatload of muscle and sure as hell wouldn’t be able to keep progressing in the gym.
So the whole p+c/p+f thing was not meant to help people lose fat as such, but to avoid excess fat gain…
Of course I’m partially talking about recomp here, rather than dieting down while maintaining mass.
Not eating major amounts of carbs and fats at the same time IS effective for both recomp and fat loss – but how can we argue that this phenomenon contradicts calories in, calories out?[/quote] I’m not arguing that it contradicts that… I do however believe that it definitely influences how easily you put on fat… And possibly the ratio between fat and muscle loss on a diet, along with many other factors. [quote] Forget about the insulin spike altogether – meals HIGH in carbs and HIGH in fats are also INSANELY HIGH in calories. [/quote] Sure, and yet, insulin signals storage… That’s one reason why we want an insulin spike during/after our PWO meal/shake.[quote]
And they are usually low in protein [/quote] Well, we usually eat protein with every meal so I just didn’t bother mentioning “eaten with protein”. [quote]and thus have a low TEF. And they are the tastiest foods (pizza, ice cream) that are easy to overeat.
I bet that if instead of high carb + high fat, you eat EXACTLY the same calories worth of just fat, you’ll get equally bad results without any insulin spike. [/quote] Hmm. So you think that carb tolerance (or whatever) is all just a myth, that insulin doesn’t really matter and that guys who go on keto diets and suddenly recomp/lean out well etc all just really reduced their overal calories a lot? [quote]
I might think no one would ever do that – but then we have threads where guys who want to put on muscle are told to get their calories up by drinking shots of EVOO![/quote]
Erm. I use a tablespoon of Evoo in some of my shakes to get in a little extra when I just can’t seem to stuff more food into me… A LOT of us do… Where exactly do you see the problem there? A few extra cals per day can get a guy who hit a brick-wall, training wise (mostly in the moderate+above rep ranges or, when using low reps exclusively, combining that with high sets), gaining again.
This has nothing to do with dieting either?
[quote]esk221 wrote:
Doesn’t really matter in my opinion, as long as you get it done. Also, if you’re doing HIIT training correctly, there’s no way you can do more than two sessions per week. Take it from me dude, I’ve gotten better results by scaling back my cardio and tightening up my diet. It’s very easy to overtrain when you’re lifting 3-4 times per week and doing cardio every day.[/quote]
THIS.
I need 48 hours to recover from the HIIT. And I’m just talking my CNS. HIIT just burns me out and makes me feel worthless.
[quote]Gillium-001 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
AaronFitness wrote:
I thought I would ask everyone if it is more efficent to do cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach when sugar levels are at their lowest OR straight after a workout when sugar levels are also low…?
Thanks
Far better to do it late in the afternoon. Don’t eat anything all day except for fruit (grapes, apples, avocado, and such) in small amounts. Do cardio before lifting, to really challenge yourself. Think like a Roman warrior/soldier: run all day on an empty stomach for 20 or 25 miles, go into battle, build your camp, THEN you get to pig out. You should be shaking violently from lack of food, before beginning your feast, late in the evening.
Everything you’ve ever been taught by modern day ‘experts’ is the exact opposite of what you should be doing; unless you want to be a modern soft pussified human. The Roman soldier averaged 135 pounds and could kill anyone on this site in seconds. Easily.
Uh, Roman soldiers didn’t freakin’ starve all day because it was efficient, they did it because they didn’t have any friggin’ choice! It was a rough existence back then…
And who the hell on here is trying to be a 135 pound killer?! This is a forum for building strength and muscle, dumbass.
Oh, and your trolling is still top-notch, HeadHunter. Keep at it, maybe one day I can antagonize you to the point where you’ll burst a blood vessel in your brain and die.[/quote]
Romans fed their slaves throughout the day, to keep them docile. It was considered unmasculine to eat during the day, with only children and slaves eating in the day. Citizens would eat in very small amounts (if at all) and then eat huge meals at night. With this eating philosophy, they conquered the known world and were lean tough motherfuckers.
When they started eating like their slaves, they became pussified and lost their empire.
Your genetics might allow you to eat during the day and be lean but that’s a gift from your ancestors. Most Americans get fat even eating at maintenance cals during the day. If you can eat during the day and be lean, that’s wonderful, but its NOT the result of your diet. Its your genes.
And you’re still being pussified (as is obvious from your post — only a pussy would wish death on someone in an internet site).
I normally mix it up, occasionly I’ll do it in the morn, sometimes after weights and when i’m pushed for time I’ll do HIT on an off day. If I do it in the morn, i’m not getting by heart rate higher than around 145BPM.
Cardio in the morning always seems to work best for me. After your workout is good for fat burning , but the last thing I want to be thinking about while lifting is knowing that I get to finish it off with 35 minutes of low intensity cardio. I would much rather get up an extra thirty minutes earlier , get it done , then focus on the weights even more when I am doing them. Personally for me getting my post workout shake in me after lifting weights takes priority. I just feel after I do cardio in the morning that its more benefical.
just my two cents 
[quote]debraD wrote:
What qualifies as a carb cut-off? 4 hours before bed? Also, if you work out at night, do you still have the carb cut-off?
I wouldn’t even try sprints or HIIT fasted or in the morning. That would kill me! I do them in the afternoon and workout a few hours later. [/quote]
Like CC said if you work out in the evening, you will still have a PWO shake. I believe the DC people also say to have a PWO meal in addition to the shake. But this may be for building, and they may make modifications for cutting.
Headhunter, your posts are hilarious. I didn’t know that eating was such a pussy thing to do. Shame on everyone for eating and trying to be big. All those 130lb guys in the gym doing endless sets of situps are the real men.
As for cardio timing, what this thread was about…
I dont believe you can do HIIT early morning fasted. It wont be HIIT, it will just be IT. HIIT is a performance based approach, and should be done just like training heavy with weights. Pre-workout nutrition and PWO nutrition. And improvements in performance should be the aim of HIIT, not just making it through the workout and doing the time.
Steady state cardio can be done pwo or early morning fasted, and I believe this method works well for SOME people.
The important thing about cardio and timing, is matching the cardio to the person, the diet, and the rest of the training.
If you’re on a huge deficit, you dont do lots of HIIT.
If you have a high training volume and demanding resistance training, you wont do HIIT or fasted morning cardio.
If you are very overweight and out of shape, you wont be doing HIIT.
If you are skinny-fat, or underweight, fasted cardio and long duration cardio are a bad idea.
If you are taking in a large surplus of calories (especially carbs) then lots of steady state cardio is pretty useless.
Also, there is a trend growing suggesting that cardio isn’t really necessary to lose fat and get cut. Still the majority of gym’goers hit the treadmill for hours to try to get “cut” while resistance training and small amounts of short duration HIIT may be much better.
Im not saying this is for everyone, because steady state cardio in long durations works very well for some. But for a lot of people its not idea.
[quote]dankid wrote:
debraD wrote:
What qualifies as a carb cut-off? 4 hours before bed? Also, if you work out at night, do you still have the carb cut-off?
I wouldn’t even try sprints or HIIT fasted or in the morning. That would kill me! I do them in the afternoon and workout a few hours later.
Like CC said if you work out in the evening, you will still have a PWO shake. I believe the DC people also say to have a PWO meal in addition to the shake. But this may be for building, and they may make modifications for cutting.
Headhunter, your posts are hilarious. I didn’t know that eating was such a pussy thing to do. Shame on everyone for eating and trying to be big. All those 130lb guys in the gym doing endless sets of situps are the real men.
As for cardio timing, what this thread was about…
I dont believe you can do HIIT early morning fasted. It wont be HIIT, it will just be IT. HIIT is a performance based approach, and should be done just like training heavy with weights. Pre-workout nutrition and PWO nutrition. And improvements in performance should be the aim of HIIT, not just making it through the workout and doing the time.
Steady state cardio can be done pwo or early morning fasted, and I believe this method works well for SOME people.
The important thing about cardio and timing, is matching the cardio to the person, the diet, and the rest of the training.
If you’re on a huge deficit, you dont do lots of HIIT.
If you have a high training volume and demanding resistance training, you wont do HIIT or fasted morning cardio.
If you are very overweight and out of shape, you wont be doing HIIT.
If you are skinny-fat, or underweight, fasted cardio and long duration cardio are a bad idea.
If you are taking in a large surplus of calories (especially carbs) then lots of steady state cardio is pretty useless.
Also, there is a trend growing suggesting that cardio isn’t really necessary to lose fat and get cut. Still the majority of gym’goers hit the treadmill for hours to try to get “cut” while resistance training and small amounts of short duration HIIT may be much better.
Im not saying this is for everyone, because steady state cardio in long durations works very well for some. But for a lot of people its not idea.
[/quote]
Good post. I agreed with about 95% of it and the parts I’m on the fence about have a basis in reality anyway.