Hey…
Sorry if this has been answered, but you guys are counting PWO shake carbs in your daily carb totals, right?
Or no?
I am doing 45 minutes on an elliptical at about 60-70% max heart rate 5 days a week in the morning. I take a stimulant and some BCAA’s prior. Works well for me but may not for everyone. I know Stu has mentioned he always loses muscle with low intensity cardio, however, I have never really hit really low body fat levels and think I can afford a lot more.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
Hey…
Sorry if this has been answered, but you guys are counting PWO shake carbs in your daily carb totals, right?
Or no?[/quote]
Yeah. PWO carbs count towards totals.
I’m on the same page as HulkSmash, lactate induced workouts are not nearly as taxing on my CNS as much as HIIT.
[quote]dratner wrote:
I’m on the same page as HulkSmash, lactate induced workouts are not nearly as taxing on my CNS as much as HIIT. [/quote]
I agree with this.
I hesitate to post this because I didn’t follow the program exactly. I have a slow metabolism and used fewer total calories then suggested, but part of that might be impatience to see the scale move down on my part. I took off about 30 lbs in 6 weeks and didn’t lose strength. I should have stuck with it. I was use to it, and it was working well. I let someone get in my head with an “ohhh, you’re starving yourself…”
But ultimately I pussed out because I love food. I’m gearing up to give it another shot because I think it was the most effective diet I’ve followed. So much of it is sticking to it the first couple of weeks.
[quote]ajweins wrote:
I am doing 45 minutes on an elliptical at about 60-70% max heart rate 5 days a week in the morning. I take a stimulant and some BCAA’s prior. Works well for me but may not for everyone. I know Stu has mentioned he always loses muscle with low intensity cardio, however, I have never really hit really low body fat levels and think I can afford a lot more.[/quote]
I’m in the same boat here. 5-6 days a week of added cardio is almost a must for me and it helps psychologically. I tend to cheat less with nutrition the more exercise I complete.
The bottom line is caloric intake is going to make up ~80% of fat loss. The other 20% is up to you…but what all of us know is that hypertrophy leads to the biggest improvements visually and metabolically.
Just had my first carb meal of the day. Headed to the gym now and I already feel tired from the insulin rush!
So would you guys say that this method of having a refeed once a week allows you to keep your during the week calories at the same level (i.e., fairly low) for an extended period of time, as opposed to having to raise your intake after a few weeks?
I mean, would you say you can maintain 10xBW in cals for your low cals for greater than 8 weeks, as long as your refeed is well planned?
I am thinking the refeed is meant to take care of any crashing the metabolism/thyroid would do for being on low cals for a long time.
Second question:
I’d like my refeed to coincide on days that I may have social obligations and would be out out of the house, so I’d appear “normal” in my eating habits.
However, this can either be the second half of Friday (afternoon through evening) or on Saturday.
Would it be ok to periodically shift the refeed window by about 12-18 hours, or would that hurt my dieting efforts?
I think the refeed day helps in being able to keep such a high deficit for an extended period of time, but you probably wouldn’t want to do it for more than 10-12 weeks. That’s not to say don’t carb cycle, a lot of people live by it, but raise your calories more toward maintenance for a little while. You can’t cut forever.
Shifting your refeed shouldn’t cause any detriment to your progress. Try it. Weigh yourself and if you’re getting back to starting weight in time and still losing fat on either day, then go for it. I would lean more toward having the refeed on your highest work output day, but Elusive obviously doesn’t and it works for him.
Well, elusive is a freak of nature in that he can get in 15,000 calories within 12 hours (or is it 24?)…
So, I wouldn’t exactly look to him as a reference 
Thanks for the responses, guys.
I think I’ll throw in the fat burner after the 4th week, in the event that my metabolism might slow down on its own - extra assistance at just the right time.
I also keep the refeed days to those I need to be the most social, so my dietary needs don’t seem to burden anyone else…especially when I’m out on a date. But what do you mean shift the refeed by 12-18 hours? Do you mean each week change the day, like one week friday afternoon, the next, saturday?
Yes, that’s what I mean.
I can’t guarantee that I’ll have the majority of my social obligations Friday evening, every week. Sometimes they will fall on Friday evening, other times, Saturday during the day.
So, that’s what I mean by shifting the refeed window each week. I don’t think it’s too big a problem but I’m not the experienced one here.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
So would you guys say that this method of having a refeed once a week allows you to keep your during the week calories at the same level (i.e., fairly low) for an extended period of time, as opposed to having to raise your intake after a few weeks?
I mean, would you say you can maintain 10xBW in cals for your low cals for greater than 8 weeks, as long as your refeed is well planned?
I am thinking the refeed is meant to take care of any crashing the metabolism/thyroid would do for being on low cals for a long time.
Second question:
I’d like my refeed to coincide on days that I may have social obligations and would be out out of the house, so I’d appear “normal” in my eating habits.
However, this can either be the second half of Friday (afternoon through evening) or on Saturday.
Would it be ok to periodically shift the refeed window by about 12-18 hours, or would that hurt my dieting efforts?[/quote]
I think large calorie deficits throughout the week can be done when a large refeed is implemented. I view them as inversely related. Meaning the larger the refeed, the lower you can go during the week (assuming you are getting adequate protein).
As for shifting the refeed by 12-18 hours, no problem. As long as you assure that you are depleted come refeed time, this time table shouldn’t screw things up.
I also don’t hold my refeeds to a set time frame, meaning I don’t aim to eat everything in 12 hours. I wake up, start eating until I go to bed. This may be 16 hours or more… sometimes less. Depends.
Shifting the refeed is probably good for you, if anything it’s not bad. Keeps the body guessing and we all know our bodies HATE inefficiency which leads to fat loss (HIIT, heavy weight training, carb cycling, calorie cycling, etc etc).
Hulk’s right, you should never “diet” more than 12 weeks at a time. Dieting in my book is eating less than your maintenance level calories. That’s a whopping three months though so kudos to you if you have to try and go longer! The refeed allows you to deviate from the lowered calories and amps up the anabolism so as long as it doesn’t last longer than ~36-48 hours, you’ll stay in fat loss mode.
I’m enjoying my 36 hour refeed so far, you can check my log on on fitday, posted in the profile.
Maybe someone here can help me with my diet:
I have been doing for a while a kind of carb cycling (mostly based on Shelbys article) like this:
Mon-2g/lb, most carbs in the AM
Tue-2g/lb, most carbs in the AM
Wed-1g/lb, most carbs in breakfast
Thr-2g/lb, most carbs in the AM
Fri-2g/lb, most carbs in the AM
Sat-1g/lb, most carbs in breakfast
Sun-1g/lb, most carbs in breakfast
There is usually some free meal on weekend that i’m not counting.
I’m training weights at morning 4xweek and mma 4xweek at evening. My goals now is mostly gain strength and improve at fighting, but i feel i can improve body composition (staying around the same bw, but “harder”) and performance increasing calories/carbs.
So here is the question: how do you guys advise me increasing carbs? Going up to 3g/lb in two days? Increasing carbs on all 4 high carb days? Or adding high carb day on an off day in the weekend(like some here are doing)?
I apreciate any comment/advice.
Found this in another thread, thought it might be pertinent here.
From Charles Poliquin:
"As a general rule, I would recommend the following carbohydrate intake based on training volume for a given workout:
12-72 reps per workout: 0.6 g/Kg/LBM
73-200 reps per workout: 0.8 g/kg/LBM
200-360 reps per workout: 1.0 g/kg/LBM
360-450 reps per workout: 1.2 g/kg/LBM
Calculate Your LBM
Regarding the source of carbohydrates post-workout, I have experimented with various sources, I like using fruit juices with a high glycemic index (i.e. pineapple, grape) to provide 30-40% of the carbs, the rest of the carbs coming from carb powders such as Ultra Fuel from Twinlab.
For variety sake, I will use different types of juice like a berry blend. You can also any type of mushy fruit like bananas or peaches. For seriously underweight athletes, I may use pineapple and/or corn flakes to drive the glycemic index upwards. Instead of using maltodextrin, you can also use desiccated honey."
Comes out to a TON of CHO PWO if you bust your ass. There might not be much more room for other carbs during the day. I would try splitting the carbs up over pre/post workout meals for intense sessions.
Another question…what are you favorite foods for carb ups? Carb dense/low fat!
I bought a box of Grape Nuts tonight haha…wow that’s gonna be a colon blow.
My favorite “dirty” carbs are pancakes w/ syrup and fat free ice cream. Texas Toast gets an honorable mention.
My favorite cleaner carbs are potatoes and rice a roni. Pasta with some tomato sauce gets an honorable mention here.
Also, I don’t feel that those PWO carb recommendations are alot. I mean, I eat 80-100 CHO’s post work out usually. While bulking I was having 100 CHO’s right before training with 25 grams of whey. Then the same shake right after.
elusive,
You also handle carbs ridiculously well. I’d probably make my carb intake about 50% of what you take in (PWO), and that’s on a moderate day.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
elusive,
You also handle carbs ridiculously well. I’d probably make my carb intake about 50% of what you take in (PWO), and that’s on a moderate day.[/quote]
What can I say? lol.
Oh, another question:
Do you guys find that the GI (fine, GL!) of the carb sources really matters?
Like, white potatoes vs sweet potatoes / yams vs white rice ?
Or does it just not matter when you start to consume over several hundred grams of CHO for the day?
I think elusive said Lyle recommends junk carbs early in the day, but I presume that is because of the higher insulin spike from processed carbs. Not sure how much it matters, though.