[quote]Damici wrote:
[quote]PKS wrote:
@Damici
Yeah, your experience with getting a little fatter until you figure things out is a common one. It certainly happened to me.
My sweet spot with CBL is as follows:
- I don’t have carbs at all on days I train in the mornings. Just BCAA’s (lots of), betaine, citrulline malate, creatine malate peri workout. I then eat high fat/ moderate protein (keto) for the rest of the day.
- I will backload with lots of carbs approx every other day, but only when I train in the evenings.
As I train everyday, I end up backloading 3-4 times per week.
I think if you follow a similar approach, you can keep the Ben’nJerrys IN without gaining blubber.
I’ve been following this tweaked approach for about 3 weeks now and have gotten into the best shape of my life ay 40yo! I love it![/quote]
Interesting.
It sounds like you’re training 7 (or almost 7) days per week, though only half of those are in the evenings, and thus you only do the CBL on those evening days. I wonder if the fact that you’re ALSO getting in 3 or 4 workout days per week during which you DON’T carb up (because they’re in the mornings) – time of day aside – is what’s helping to keep you lean?
In other words, if all 7 of your weekly workouts were in the evening, and you carb-loaded on every one of those evenings, I wonder if you’d be fatter? Bottom line: I wonder if, regardless of workout schedule, if doing a CBL is only wise to do a certain (limited) number of times per week (like 3 or 4) . . . .
Anyway, very useful feedback. Thanks.
In my case, as all my lifting workouts are in the evenings (and are generally 4 times per week), I’m going to focus on (a.) sticking strictly to no-carbs on other days, social occasions be damned, and (b.) not going AS crazy with the back loads (ice cream and such) if the workout that evening wasn’t “crazy” enough to justify it.
Workouts that have lots of heavy, compound, ass-kicking exercises and/or high volume justify it more than the occasional time when, for example, the deadlifting space is taken up the whole evening because my gym is constantly overcrowded and thus I have to find some lame-assed alternative stuff to do for posterior chain and lower body. (GRRRR.)[/quote]
Yes, I set up my shedule exactly for those reasons.
In the book, Kiefer doesn’t really talk about guys who train 7 days per week, only really 3-5 if my memory serves me correctly. When I ran Smolov squat AND did brutal Thibs layers pressing workouts every other day as well, I did backload daily no matter what timed I trained, and it served me beautifully.
That’s where I believe CBL gets a bad wrap, as guys just assume it’s a ‘seefood’ diet and demolish fries and pizzas every day even when their training volume doesn’t come close to warranting it.
What IS John Kiefer’s fault however is the appalling lack of ‘what if?’ information that everyday trainers can apply to their own plans. Like Spidey and I, you have to digest HOURS and HOURS of Kiefer’s follow up info to work out what the fuck is actually going on and piece the CBL jigsaw puzzle together…
Some key distinctions I’ve worked out from all this:
- Morning training followed by an evening backload is not ideal imho, except when extreme training demands warrants it. Even then, perhaps heavy peri workout carb intake (a la Meadows) will ‘agree’ with the trainee better anyway.
- Regardless of following CBL or not, carb cycling of some description WORKS. It makes sense then to have low or no carb days on off days or easier gym days.
- With those 2 points in mind, the ideal setup is to then have medium/heavy carb feedings on 3-4 evenings a week during/after training, and to train ‘fasted’ with BCAA’s or a scoop or two of Mag10 if training in the AM. Trainee could then eat keto for the rest of the day to maximize fat loss.
- If training more than 3-4 days per week in the evenings, a moderate carb peri workout protocol eg Plazma, as your only carbs for the day works great.
*Remember the whole point of CBLing is to maximize fatloss during the day by minimizing insulin in our system for as long as possible, (skipping breakfast: especially carbs!) and by ingesting carbs ONLY when the muscle cells (not fat cells) are highly sensitized for glycogen storage.
So we try to time your backloads so that your muscle cells have been sensitized to enhanced glucose uptake (through lack of carbs during the day and up-regulated Glut4 receptor expression from heavy training). Training in the evening and going no carb beforehand thus theoretically allows you to burn more bodyfat AND store more glycogen in your muscles preferentially over converting to bodyfat.
