I know refeeds are used to keep the thyroid from shutting down due to prolonged calorie restriction.
However, I also read that Shelby and Justin do not advocate massive refeeds (or do they, such as those that you guys have within a 24 hr window?).
If I were to do 8xBW for the first two weeks, with a refeed at the end of week 2, then go up in cals by a factor of 1 (e.g. 9xBW) every 2 weeks, with a refeed once a week, is that similar to how you guys are setting up your refeeds?
Or will having optimal hi/low/moderate carb days negate the need for a refeed?
I’m thinking the refeeds will only be necessary until I get to about 12xBW, after which I could probably drop them as long as I cycled carbs properly.
Let me know if that doesn’t make sense. My original plan was to refeed once a week (starting with week 3) and increase cals by 1xBW every 2 weeks.
From what I’ve read. Eating more than 10 x BW really shouldn’t require a day long refeed, but maybe just 2-3 refeed meals/weekly. I have never experimented with that though. I agree with your train of thought however. The more you eat (per BW) the less you’ll need a refeed. A moderate cycle with low/med/hi days eliminates the need for weekly* refeeds.
= because refeeds are still needed after prolong periods of dieting regardless of how drastic calorie intake is.
I am about bodyweight x10 for cals and less than 50 grams of carbs a day and have a refeed on Saturday (I am following Berardi’s get shredded died which has a refeed every two weeks). I must say, I wish I would have started dieting smarter with a simple carb rotation that allowed me to drop 1-2 pounds a week. But instead I stalled and decided to just go balls to the wall and diet crazy hard. The refeeds are great, but the two weeks in between are hell. My lifts are down along with my outlook on life. I am constantly starving, foggy, and flat. I hate it, but I am going to stay committed to it for at least 4 more weeks.
I am probably shedding quite a bit of body fat, but in the future I am definately going to start a moderate carb cycling diet that allows me to lose 1-2 pounds a week slowly so that I can keep more muscle. I feel like I am wasting away now.
Yeah if you’re using the low end of Shelby’s ratios, you probably WILL need a refeed or at least a super high day, since the cals are only ~1500 for your low/moderate days (that’s my 185 lb frame).
I would say an extremely low weekly calorie intake (8-10X BW) with a weekend refeed is more of a Lyle McDonald approach, which is a much more extreme way to diet. He even admits to his diets as “crash” where the dieter only has ~4 weeks to get ready for an event (to show off your hawt abz).
For the long run (and true carb cycling) go with Starnes…that’s my story and I’m stickin to it!
Phatkins, You are a wiser man than me. Oh well, its a good learning experience. And when I look on the bright side, I got 1200 carbs coming my way on Saturday. Do not know how I am supposed to get anything done in the gym though.
[quote]ajweins wrote:
Phatkins, You are a wiser man than me. Oh well, its a good learning experience. And when I look on the bright side, I got 1200 carbs coming my way on Saturday. Do not know how I am supposed to get anything done in the gym though.[/quote]
I’d recommend an early bed time Friday, wake up early Saturday and get a big high GI carb meal/shake and then hit the gym ~1-2 hours after so you aren’t absolutely knackered from the insulin rush you’ll experience the rest of the day! Abuse the SURGE Recovery
Aside, I bought the Supd Fat Loss Diaries and am half-way through…it’s amazing to actually see results from a dedicated carb cycler. And by dedicated, I don’t mean he tortured himself with barebones chicken and oatmeal, he definitely had quite a few cheat meals/carb ups…but he busted his ass in the gym just like all of us! Yes, including cardio…so AJ you are actually the wise one.
No lifting on the carbup day, but I am going to do high intensity intervals upon waking up to thoroughly deplete any glycogen left in me. I never do intervals for cardio as I am already low carbs and need to save any glycogen I can for lifting, but I saw Thib recommend it before a refeed. Hopefully any muscle loss will be easily made up by supercompensation of glycogen storage.
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
ajweins wrote:
Phatkins, You are a wiser man than me. Oh well, its a good learning experience. And when I look on the bright side, I got 1200 carbs coming my way on Saturday. Do not know how I am supposed to get anything done in the gym though.
I’d recommend an early bed time Friday, wake up early Saturday and get a big high GI carb meal/shake and then hit the gym ~1-2 hours after so you aren’t absolutely knackered from the insulin rush you’ll experience the rest of the day! Abuse the SURGE Recovery
Aside, I bought the Supd Fat Loss Diaries and am half-way through…it’s amazing to actually see results from a dedicated carb cycler. And by dedicated, I don’t mean he tortured himself with barebones chicken and oatmeal, he definitely had quite a few cheat meals/carb ups…but he busted his ass in the gym just like all of us! Yes, including cardio…so AJ you are actually the wise one.[/quote]
Fatloss diaries is really good, when to lazy to do the freaking cardio, i read and reread some parts of the book, maybe im not pulling the sled at 03:00am but at least i do my cardio now!
On another note its easy to go from one cheat meal to one cheat day…
So depending on where you fit within the range of the recent carb cycling article, the high carb day can be a surplus of calories? Or should it still be a deficit, but not as drastic as on low days?
When is the best times to do cardio (low intensity) on a carb cycling approach? On non-workout days, is prior to breakfast the best time for low intensity work? And then would post workout be another good time to ride the bike for 15-20 mins?
elusive, what books might you recommend (e-books, or otherwise) to help answer some questions a guy might have about this approach?
[quote]crankMAN wrote:
On another note its easy to go from one cheat meal to one cheat day…
[/quote]
So true. I don’t even do cheat meals anymore because of that. Psychologically, for me, it works out so much better. I’m kind of an all or nothin guy either way, so when I cheat, I have a hard time stopping, but it’s pretty easy to just not cheat.
[quote]Burst wrote:
So depending on where you fit within the range of the recent carb cycling article, the high carb day can be a surplus of calories? Or should it still be a deficit, but not as drastic as on low days?
When is the best times to do cardio (low intensity) on a carb cycling approach? On non-workout days, is prior to breakfast the best time for low intensity work? And then would post workout be another good time to ride the bike for 15-20 mins?
elusive, what books might you recommend (e-books, or otherwise) to help answer some questions a guy might have about this approach?[/quote]
I would at least hit maintenance on your refeed day. Part of the purpose is to kick your metabolism out of the starvation mode it thinks it’s going into when you’re at a deficit.
There is debate as to whether fasted (pre-breakfast) cardio is better than non-fasted. Generally I think more people think it’s beneficial. In the same line of thinking, after workout is also a good time for cardio because of glycogen depletion.
[quote]Burst wrote:
So depending on where you fit within the range of the recent carb cycling article, the high carb day can be a surplus of calories? Or should it still be a deficit, but not as drastic as on low days?
When is the best times to do cardio (low intensity) on a carb cycling approach? On non-workout days, is prior to breakfast the best time for low intensity work? And then would post workout be another good time to ride the bike for 15-20 mins?
elusive, what books might you recommend (e-books, or otherwise) to help answer some questions a guy might have about this approach?[/quote]
The high day can be surplus of calories, depending on how you chose your ratios. Low intensity is recommended fasted, before breakfast, then after your workout as a secondary option. Before bed is the last option (this is summarizing Justin Harris’ advice).
Ebooks that I recommend? For Troponin’s carb cycle approach hmmm. Shelby’s new ebook, The Troponin Macronutrient Guidebook is good. However, it gives you the same tables/ratios and info as the article did from yesterday. I recommend Justin’s Seminar DVD from Powerhouse gym. Thats a little more informative than the ebook. Also, I would shuffle through the ton of info that Shelby and Justin have given away at Elitefts.com in the Q&A section. Found here: http://asp.elitefts.com/qa/default.asp?a=search&tid=
Depending on your goals, Shelby is actually really afordable. You can check him out at TroponinNutrition.com
You guys ever notice a single day in the week where you hit depletion?
I switched to a more drastic (one very high day, ~150g training days, <50 low days) than I was previously doing based on the experiences here and the readings from skip and justin. I had an unofficial carb up last saturday before easter, lots of bread, candy etc with the family. Went back to low carbs sunday, and then yesterday it hit me.
In the morning I weighed in at around 178, and looked somewhat smooth still from my indulgences saturday. Then, I went and did my morning chest/tri session and some cardio afterwards. The rest of the day, I was peeing pretty much every hour even though I wasn’t drinking a shitload of water. This morning, I weighed in at 172.4 and looked a little flat, albeit leaner. Gotta love water weight and carb depletion! Next carb up is Saturday, Imma shoot for ~800-1000g carbs, will hopefully take pics and log the weight changes and time back to baseline for you guys.
Past 2 weeks I’ve been doing the following. Its a 6 day schedule rotated over the week, so my carb up day hits a different body part each week. I’ve also worked up to 2-a-days for each body part.
Back/bi- 1/2 serving Surge during session, 1/2 after for both AM & PM sessions. One carb meal after AM session.
Chest/tri- same
Legs- same
Shoulders- only Surge peri/post workout, no meals.
Mondays and thursdays are my off/HIIT days every week with <50g carbs, refeeds are saturdays.
I didn’t eat very well last sunday, easter feasting and all. So instead of my planned 600g carb up tomorrow, I’m doing a mini refeed at 400g of carbs. I bought some fat free buttermilk pancake mix and fat free ice cream tonight. Can’t wait for tomorrow morning.
I’ve been between 1750-1950 calories all week, 30g carbs on low days, 65g on med days. I’m gonna try to go 50-100 kcal lower per day next week and really earn my refeed.
Well, since elusive isn’t doing the crazy refeeds anymore I guess I am going to be the new top dog :),even though I am still not on his level tomorrow is my refeed and I have everything prepared. To those new to the thread I am doing Berardi’s Get shredded diet, consisting of an under 2000 cal a day diet with less than 50 grams of carbs per day. In addition I have done 5 days of fasted cardio in the mornings for 45 minutes, plus 5 heavy weight training sessions a week.
Needless to say, I have earned this refeed day. Berardi recommends not going over 7000 cals for the refeed and I plan on sticking to that. Berardi has the day structured as a full cheat day (eating pizzas and burger and whatever other crap), however, I am sticking with a very low fat very high refeed. Here is what is on the menu after burying myself with a fasted glycogen depleting high intensity interval workout tomorrow morning:
1 box of eggo waffles
1 entire angel food cake
1 cup raw pineapple
3 servings of krusteaz wheat pancakes
1 bottle of sugar free syrup (I feel sick on full sugar syrup)
1 container of blue bunny fat free brownie sundae ice cream
2 small loaves of low fat banana bread
1 bowl of oatmeal with honey
6 low fat apple fig newton bar things
1 can of black beans with chicken and a ton of BBQ sauce
Comes out to roughly 7000 cals, 1400 grams of carbs, 256 grams of protein, and 48 grams of fat
I know some may ask about stomach problems due to all the fiber in the ice cream, oatmeal, and beans. And I can only answer that I have never had stomach discomfort from these foods previously, so until I do I will include them in the refeed since I find them rather tasty.
[quote]ajweins wrote:
Well, since elusive isn’t doing the crazy refeeds anymore I guess I am going to be the new top dog :),even though I am still not on his level tomorrow is my refeed and I have everything prepared. To those new to the thread I am doing Berardi’s Get shredded diet, consisting of an under 2000 cal a day diet with less than 50 grams of carbs per day. In addition I have done 5 days of fasted cardio in the mornings for 45 minutes, plus 5 heavy weight training sessions a week. Needless to say, I have earned this refeed day. Berardi recommends not going over 7000 cals for the refeed and I plan on sticking to that. Berardi has the day structured as a full cheat day (eating pizzas and burger and whatever other crap), however, I am sticking with a very low fat very high refeed. Here is what is on the menu after burying myself with a fasted glycogen depleting high intensity interval workout tomorrow morning:
1 box of eggo waffles
1 entire angel food cake
1 cup raw pineapple
3 servings of krusteaz wheat pancakes
1 bottle of sugar free syrup (I feel sick on full sugar syrup)
1 container of blue bunny fat free brownie sundae ice cream
2 small loaves of low fat banana bread
1 bowl of oatmeal with honey
6 low fat apple fig newton bar things
1 can of black beans with chicken and a ton of BBQ sauce
Comes out to roughly 7000 cals, 1400 grams of carbs, 256 grams of protein, and 48 grams of fat
I know some may ask about stomach problems due to all the fiber in the ice cream, oatmeal, and beans. And I can only answer that I have never had stomach discomfort from these foods previously, so until I do I will include them in the refeed since I find them rather tasty.
Glad you decided to throw some metabolic furnace inducing HIIT in there AJ, it’ll definitely get your stomach growling and your muscles hungry for that feast!
I’m taking a much more modest approach as I only have 5 weeks left on my cut.
4 cups grape nuts
1 pint ben and jerry’s froyo
2 bananas
4 cup skim milk
2 scoops whey
1 scoop casein
2 cups dried fruit
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
Glad you decided to throw some metabolic furnace inducing HIIT in there AJ, it’ll definitely get your stomach growling and your muscles hungry for that feast!
I’m taking a much more modest approach as I only have 5 weeks left on my cut.
4 cups grape nuts
1 pint ben and jerry’s froyo
2 bananas
4 cup skim milk
2 scoops whey
1 scoop casein
2 cups dried fruit
4,000 kcal, 29f/181p/809c
Only cardio will be walking 18 holes of golf! :)[/quote]
LOL if I could find a big enough blender I’d let you know dude! Come to think of it…shit, that would be pretty tasty.
Plan is to use the dried fruit/bananas with the grape nuts after my Ben and Jerry’s breakfast…I could definitely use that for a delicious wakeup milk shake!
