Ah, so I didnt eat enough CHO then??
Cant see that its a problem really, my gym performance was up slightly, and I still lost weight. I mainly replaced my usual fat sources with a similar CHO source. I.e 1 TBSP EVOO, got a white tortilla wrap, eggs got a cup of oatmeal and some milk. Night time almonds got a MD bar.
Do I really need to refeed to a level where I dont lose for days following the refeed?
Nah man, it’s all subjective. If you’re not really depleting yourself during the week, you don’t need a huge refeed.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
Guys, what would you say about this comment:
From experience, while a short term low carbs approach improves your capacity to supercompensate glycogen stores; when you are on such a diet over the long run the ‘carb deplete/carb load strategy’ stops working, or doesn’t work as good. Mostly because the ‘deplete’ is not seen as a deplete anymore and thus the body doesn’r get into surcompensation mode.
[/quote]
Interesting comment. I’ve heard of bodybuilders that prepped with a keto diet for weeks (12-16) and couldn’t carb up. They claimed that their body never really responded to the carbs. Physiologically, I’m not sure why that would happen (your body “forgetting” how to metabolize glucose). I’ve read some work from Lyle McDonald (I don’t remember which book, probably UD 2.0) where he claimed if you OVER deplete or stay depleted of muscle glycogen for too long, the enzymes that help convert glucose to glycogen and lead to supercompensation get downregulated. This happens because the body believes that glucose will not be coming and there will be no need for conversion to glycogen. You can see how this can cause a problem for carbing up.
Now, I don’t know what types of extremes cause the above. Will 6 days of low carbs cause it? Does it take longer? Will a continued cycle of carb up and deplete eventually lead to it? I don’t know. Whoever you quoted, I imagine has much more experience than I do. I can only speak for what I’ve seen from myself and few friends I speak with that I know personally. I also can judge by the accounts I read from prep coaches or dieters that log their experiences here on the interwebz. I know Skip, depletes and loads every single week until the client is ready to step on stage and has been doing this for years. His track record speaks for itself and hes never had a problem. I’ve also never seen a problem, even after keto dieting last year for 11 weeks or so. My carb up went fine. I think some bodybuilders expect supercompensation to make them look like an entirely different person. The results of a carb up are not that drastic.
Who knows. Like I said, my experience is narrow. Whats everyone elses thoughts?
[quote]elusive wrote:
PonceDeLeon wrote:
Guys, what would you say about this comment:
From experience, while a short term low carbs approach improves your capacity to supercompensate glycogen stores; when you are on such a diet over the long run the ‘carb deplete/carb load strategy’ stops working, or doesn’t work as good. Mostly because the ‘deplete’ is not seen as a deplete anymore and thus the body doesn’r get into surcompensation mode.
Interesting comment. I’ve heard of bodybuilders that prepped with a keto diet for weeks (12-16) and couldn’t carb up. They claimed that their body never really responded to the carbs. Physiologically, I’m not sure why that would happen (your body “forgetting” how to metabolize glucose). I’ve read some work from Lyle McDonald (I don’t remember which book, probably UD 2.0) where he claimed if you OVER deplete or stay depleted of muscle glycogen for too long, the enzymes that help convert glucose to glycogen and lead to supercompensation get downregulated. This happens because the body believes that glucose will not be coming and there will be no need for conversion to glycogen. You can see how this can cause a problem for carbing up.
Now, I don’t know what types of extremes cause the above. Will 6 days of low carbs cause it? Does it take longer? Will a continued cycle of carb up and deplete eventually lead to it? I don’t know. Whoever you quoted, I imagine has much more experience than I do. I can only speak for what I’ve seen from myself and few friends I speak with that I know personally. I also can judge by the accounts I read from prep coaches or dieters that log their experiences here on the interwebz. I know Skip, depletes and loads every single week until the client is ready to step on stage and has been doing this for years. His track record speaks for itself and hes never had a problem. I’ve also never seen a problem, even after keto dieting last year for 11 weeks or so. My carb up went fine. I think some bodybuilders expect supercompensation to make them look like an entirely different person. The results of a carb up are not that drastic.
Who knows. Like I said, my experience is narrow. Whats everyone elses thoughts?[/quote]
It’s an interesting thought. The quote is by CT by the way who I definitely wouldn’t want to doubt but I rarely see people who are going to compete who didn’t use some form of higher calories/carbs when dieting to get really cut. Maybe he just meant that the supercompensation part wouldn’t happen but you’d still at least get the higher calories for metabolism and glycogen would be “compensated”, it just wouldn’t be supercompensated to the point of going over normal levels
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
elusive wrote:
PonceDeLeon wrote:
Guys, what would you say about this comment:
From experience, while a short term low carbs approach improves your capacity to supercompensate glycogen stores; when you are on such a diet over the long run the ‘carb deplete/carb load strategy’ stops working, or doesn’t work as good. Mostly because the ‘deplete’ is not seen as a deplete anymore and thus the body doesn’r get into surcompensation mode.
Interesting comment. I’ve heard of bodybuilders that prepped with a keto diet for weeks (12-16) and couldn’t carb up. They claimed that their body never really responded to the carbs. Physiologically, I’m not sure why that would happen (your body “forgetting” how to metabolize glucose). I’ve read some work from Lyle McDonald (I don’t remember which book, probably UD 2.0) where he claimed if you OVER deplete or stay depleted of muscle glycogen for too long, the enzymes that help convert glucose to glycogen and lead to supercompensation get downregulated. This happens because the body believes that glucose will not be coming and there will be no need for conversion to glycogen. You can see how this can cause a problem for carbing up.
Now, I don’t know what types of extremes cause the above. Will 6 days of low carbs cause it? Does it take longer? Will a continued cycle of carb up and deplete eventually lead to it? I don’t know. Whoever you quoted, I imagine has much more experience than I do. I can only speak for what I’ve seen from myself and few friends I speak with that I know personally. I also can judge by the accounts I read from prep coaches or dieters that log their experiences here on the interwebz. I know Skip, depletes and loads every single week until the client is ready to step on stage and has been doing this for years. His track record speaks for itself and hes never had a problem. I’ve also never seen a problem, even after keto dieting last year for 11 weeks or so. My carb up went fine. I think some bodybuilders expect supercompensation to make them look like an entirely different person. The results of a carb up are not that drastic.
Who knows. Like I said, my experience is narrow. Whats everyone elses thoughts?
It’s an interesting thought. The quote is by CT by the way who I definitely wouldn’t want to doubt but I rarely see people who are going to compete who didn’t use some form of higher calories/carbs when dieting to get really cut. Maybe he just meant that the supercompensation part wouldn’t happen but you’d still at least get the higher calories for metabolism and glycogen would be “compensated”, it just wouldn’t be supercompensated to the point of going over normal levels[/quote]
LOL that makes perfect sense…I was going to jokingly suggest CT made the comment. He’s preached success with Ketogenic diets for a long time. He used to be 100% keto when he went through his “Beast Evolves” stage. I’d imagine when the body shifts from using glucose to ketones for energy, it may take a significant amount of time to adjust back into the CHO dependent energy mode. This transition can possibly lead to fat storage rather than glycogen storage.
I wouldn’t put much faith into the statement over the long run if an individual follows a balanced diets of animal protein, EFAs, and carbs.
Another thing to consider…I remember reading several bodybuilders have had to progressively increase their refeed to promote supercompensation time and again because their individual metabolisms (muscle mass) increased.
I didn’t want to put CT’s name with the quote to avoid any “author bias,” i.e. “Lolz omgz CT is hardcore I rly belief in him.”
Not saying that CT doesn’t have experience, but I was curious if the comments would be any different if people didn’t know who said it 
Anyway, I’d love to know what Shelby Starnes thinks on the matter.
[quote]bkmacky9288 wrote:
just found out I shouldn’t have been eating all that butternut squash!! Damn…[/quote]
i’m following a carb cycling plan at the moment and was just curious as to why you said this cause i eat butternut squash all the time and it hasn’t bothered me or hindered my results?
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I didn’t want to put CT’s name with the quote to avoid any “author bias,” i.e. “Lolz omgz CT is hardcore I rly belief in him.”
Not saying that CT doesn’t have experience, but I was curious if the comments would be any different if people didn’t know who said it
Anyway, I’d love to know what Shelby Starnes thinks on the matter.[/quote]
my bad 
lol I thought that might have been the case too but then ended up saying it cause I wasn’t trying to prove him wrong or anything
[quote]darraghoconaill wrote:
bkmacky9288 wrote:
just found out I shouldn’t have been eating all that butternut squash!! Damn…
i’m following a carb cycling plan at the moment and was just curious as to why you said this cause i eat butternut squash all the time and it hasn’t bothered me or hindered my results?[/quote]
Only because Im following the AD lifestyle and its quite a carby veggie
Seems like most here are going for fat loss… Just curious, is there anybody here using a carb cycling approach for gaining mass(while staying lean, or gaining some mass while losing some fat) or performance goals? If so what are you doing?
[quote]Sagat wrote:
Seems like most here are going for fat loss… Just curious, is there anybody here using a carb cycling approach for gaining mass(while staying lean, or gaining some mass while losing some fat) or performance goals? If so what are you doing?[/quote]
I was going to speak up about this anyways. I’ve decided to go for an overall body recomposition that includes fat loss and lean muscle gain. I’ve been at a caloric deficit for nearly 12 weeks and as a rule of thumb, my metabolism has likely severely slowed, so I should increase my cals for a bit. Anyways, I’ve decided to continue carb cycling and take more of a rigid approach with calorie counting to see what happens. It’s going to help me gauge my progress if I am very accurate and anal with my program. Basically I’m using Berardi’s massive eating plan with some tweaks to the total daily calories. I’m subtracting 1,000 kcal per day from each of the totals I came up with and dividing the macros up accordingly.
I’m going to be doing a 6 day cycle with muscle groups and diet. It will be a 2 on 1 off rotation with 2 high, 2 moderate, and 2 low days.
Here’s what I’ve decided on…switching from TBT to a muscle group split:
Day 1 - HIGH
Chest/Glutes/Calves
KCAL - 3,300 (40/40/20)
PRO - 330
CHO - 330
FAT - 73
Day 2 - MOD
Shoulders/Biceps/Abs
KCAL - 2890 (40/30/30)
PRO - 290
CHO - 217
FAT - 96
Day 3 - LOW
Off
KCAL - 2500 (40/20/40)
PRO - 250
CHO - 125
FAT - 111
Day 4 - MOD
Back/Triceps/Abs
Day 5 - HIGH
Quads/Hams
Day 6 - LOW
Off
Any questions? Like I said this is what I’ll experiment with for 1 month and assess my gains/losses etc. If I stall out with LBM gains I’ll likely add ~500 kcal to each day. I’ve had no problem gaining lean muscle on a limited calorie diet in the past and I am a FFB so it’s very easy for me to replenish my fat cells, hence the not so massive, massive eating.
Sounds like a good plan. When you say massive eating are you talking about separating pro+carb and pro+fat meals right? Keep telling us how this works for you.
What is the general consensus of Joel Marion’s Cheat Your Way Thin diet? It seems pretty similar to what is being discussed, except his “Cheat” days don’t seem to limit fat.
[quote]Sagat wrote:
Sounds like a good plan. When you say massive eating are you talking about separating pro+carb and pro+fat meals right? Keep telling us how this works for you.[/quote]
Well…I don’t know if I agree with the only P+F and P+C meal ideas. It takes up to 12 hours for certain foods in the stomach to digest. I’ll use a nutrient timing technique and try to manipulate insulin around my workouts to increase glycogen uptake into the muscle. Other days I’ll try to eat lower GI foods (oatmeal, veggies, whole wheats, berries) separate from the workouts and eat them early in the day. As long as I stick to my calories I doubt I’ll gain a substantial amount of fat.
I’ve been reading Jamie Hale’s “Knowledge and Nonsense” and there’s TONS of good information that often conflicts with some of the contributors on T-Nation. All of his claims are backed by laboratory research.
[quote]AceQHounddog wrote:
What is the general consensus of Joel Marion’s Cheat Your Way Thin diet? It seems pretty similar to what is being discussed, except his “Cheat” days don’t seem to limit fat.[/quote]
With all this talk about refeeds i wondered about that too.
[quote]Sagat wrote:
AceQHounddog wrote:
What is the general consensus of Joel Marion’s Cheat Your Way Thin diet? It seems pretty similar to what is being discussed, except his “Cheat” days don’t seem to limit fat.
With all this talk about refeeds i wondered about that too.
[/quote]
Cheat to lose is the same concept. Fat isn’t directly hurting you on a refeed, it just may make you fuller. This may keep you from eating more carbs, because you’re stuffed. Carbs are the main culprits for kick starting the metabolism again.
Another diet that uses refeeds is Scott Abel’s Cycle Diet. Check it out. He has people deplete, then take a cheat day (usually Sunday). Eat what ever you’d like, fats/carbs what ever. He also has his people do a cheat meal on Wednesday night. They still lose fat.
Point of the story is, people can get away with much more “cheating” (Wednesday night and entire day on Sunday for example) and STILL lose fat. I can attest to this. I’ve lost fat cheating 3 days a week. Most of the week I’m still burning that adipose tissue baby!
[quote]Sagat wrote:
Seems like most here are going for fat loss… Just curious, is there anybody here using a carb cycling approach for gaining mass(while staying lean, or gaining some mass while losing some fat) or performance goals? If so what are you doing?[/quote]
I just did 4 weeks of CKD with a massive refeed to finish off my summer dieting, but due to some bad diet choices around mother’s day weekend and being with the family I ended up around 175 lbs, whereas the morning before my last refeed I was 168. I’m sure a good deal of that is glycogen + water, but I probably gained back a pound or two of fat.
I’m going to 3 high days (350-400g), 2 med days (~200g), and 2 low days (<100g, preferably <50). I’m training on an U/L westside split, with 2-3 cardio sessions and 1 HIIT session weekly if I have the energy. I’m shooting for high protein intake of ~2g/lb, and keeping fat low(er) at ~75g/day. I’m keeping carbs to breakfast/ morning and around my workouts only, with PF meals for my last 2 meals of each day. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
If i was still dieting for fat loss, I’d do high carb half days (~400g) every 3-4 days of dieting, and I’d probably be more lenient with the fat intake, which is really similar to what marion recommends. By the end of a full week of dieting I often felt like total shit, and my fat loss would really slow down the last day or two before my refeeds. But each person responds differently
All this talk of re comp is good. I’m about to put carb cycling to a big ish test.
In the last year I have lost about 120lbs, through various techniques, I’ve lost about 15lbs LBM, so nothing drastic concidering the total. I was at the gym last night and the manager seems to want to use some ‘before and after’ shots of me for some advertising, after my contract runs out at the end of June. At the moment i’m about 208lbs, roughly 17-20% body fat.
So in 6-8 weeks, I need to lose about 25lbs of fat, and possibly get my other 15lbs of LBM back! That should see a significant recomp, whilst only losing 10lbs of actual weight. Basically I want to look lean and reasonably impressive, almost Men’s Health if you will! Obviously thats not the long term goal, but i terms of making some cash/getting some decent shots taken, thats the short term goal!
Now obviously fat loss is a massive component of this, i’m doing TBT 3x a week, with HIIT style cardio and conditioning on 2, 2 rest days. I was thinking of going H L M L M L L in terms of carb intake, high days shoot for 400g CHO, medium 200 CHO, but allow a few more fats in there, such as EVOO. No cheat meals, just keeping it nice and clean for the most part.
Supps: HRX, Fish Oil (8 caps per day), Multi Vit, 5g Creatine PWO, 5g BCAA PWO.
[quote]sidewalkdances wrote:
All this talk of re comp is good. I’m about to put carb cycling to a big ish test.
In the last year I have lost about 120lbs, through various techniques, I’ve lost about 15lbs LBM, so nothing drastic concidering the total. I was at the gym last night and the manager seems to want to use some ‘before and after’ shots of me for some advertising, after my contract runs out at the end of June. At the moment i’m about 208lbs, roughly 17-20% body fat.
So in 6-8 weeks, I need to lose about 25lbs of fat, and possibly get my other 15lbs of LBM back! That should see a significant recomp, whilst only losing 10lbs of actual weight. Basically I want to look lean and reasonably impressive, almost Men’s Health if you will! Obviously thats not the long term goal, but i terms of making some cash/getting some decent shots taken, thats the short term goal!
Now obviously fat loss is a massive component of this, i’m doing TBT 3x a week, with HIIT style cardio and conditioning on 2, 2 rest days. I was thinking of going H L M L M L L in terms of carb intake, high days shoot for 400g CHO, medium 200 CHO, but allow a few more fats in there, such as EVOO. No cheat meals, just keeping it nice and clean for the most part.
Supps: HRX, Fish Oil (8 caps per day), Multi Vit, 5g Creatine PWO, 5g BCAA PWO.[/quote]
Sounds like a good plan. I wouldn’t hesitate to add some fasted morning cardio (low intensity) if your fat loss stalls. Only do this is if your fat loss stalls though.
Just to add, I also have a doctors appointment booked for Monday to check my insulin sensitivity, the hard gut that’s still left hints at it not being the best in the world, plus my constant thirst!
Might grab another bottle of BCAA’s to have 12g throughout the day, and stick with my 5g powder PWO.
Would you knock carbs on the head PWO in the low days, where I just do cardio? My PWO mix is 25g whey, 25g Waxy Maize Starch, 5g Creatine and 5g BCAAs. Keep everything the same, but rip out the WMS?