Cardio or No Cardio on Anabolic Diet?

Nutrition
1

Hi guys,

Just a quick one… Im doing Dr mauro di Pasquale’s anabolic diet. My goal is cutting fat. Im aware that hiit is not advisable on this type of diet, but should i do low intensity cardio?

At the moment im eating below maintenance (having 2500cal at my 175 lbs weight; if i calculate maintenance as 18x bw it should be 3100, so im having about 500 cal below maintenance). Also, im not doing any cardio atm, just weights 4x a week.

And the second questiob: would a 5 day split be more useful?

Any replies much appreciated!

2

Everyone is different but before you try cutting you should do the 18-15x BW for 4-8 weeks so your body gets used to it. Do it exactley as he has in the book then you can do the cut phase or bulk phase.

For me when cutting I like 10-12x BW with only 1 carb day also 30-45min cardio daily… I’ve had no problem doing HIIT or cross fit type stuff once you become fat adapeted you may have better energy… The AD isnt for everyone some people do fine some never get fully fat adapetd but it will take 6-9 months before you really know

Not sure about the split I think thats a preference thing

3

For the second question: More useful then/for what? You pick a split that works for you and your schedule.

4

[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
Everyone is different but before you try cutting you should do the 18-15x BW for 4-8 weeks so your body gets used to it. Do it exactley as he has in the book then you can do the cut phase or bulk phase.

For me when cutting I like 10-12x BW with only 1 carb day also 30-45min cardio daily… I’ve had no problem doing HIIT or cross fit type stuff once you become fat adapeted you may have better energy… The AD isnt for everyone some people do fine some never get fully fat adapetd but it will take 6-9 months before you really know

Not sure about the split I think thats a preference thing[/quote]

Thanks a lot for the input!

I feel really lethargic these days. I should def increase calories. If i wanna get back to 18x bw (3100), should i do it gradually or at once? I feel like i need more food for sure.

In those 2500cals that i had i was counting also broccoli, cabbage and celery (300cals). Do you count your green vegies?

5

Yes count vegies then subtract fiber for true carb count. As a rule of thumb green leafy stuff is cool all other vegies can ad up on u. If feelimg lethargit try eating some omletts. This ad not paleo so zero carb protien shakes with a cap of olive oil is great pre and post wo also black coffe or zereo carb rockstar

6

[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
Yes count vegies then subtract fiber for true carb count. As a rule of thumb green leafy stuff is cool all other vegies can ad up on u. If feelimg lethargit try eating some omletts. This ad not paleo so zero carb protien shakes with a cap of olive oil is great pre and post wo also black coffe or zereo carb rockstar[/quote]

Do you think i can get back to my 3100 cals straight away or gradually?

7

[quote]JFG wrote:
For the second question: More useful then/for what? You pick a split that works for you and your schedule.

[/quote]

I was thinking in terms ‘more shock and tear for the muscles more growth’. But then it all depends on my body’s ability to recover i guess…

8

Straight away is fine… For me I make my AD adjustments on Mondays after a carb up. But if you feel like ass try high fat meals… Ribs, fatty steaks, burger. Remeber AD is a high red meat diet so chicken and fish are not best bet on this diet. I bet if you count calls and watch macros you will find on days fat was 60% or more you feel great. I know I do… Only when cutting do I knock fat down to 50-40%

9

[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
Straight away is fine… For me I make my AD adjustments on Mondays after a carb up. But if you feel like ass try high fat meals… Ribs, fatty steaks, burger. Remeber AD is a high red meat diet so chicken and fish are not best bet on this diet. I bet if you count calls and watch macros you will find on days fat was 60% or more you feel great. I know I do… Only when cutting do I knock fat down to 50-40% [/quote]

Yeah i eat lots of red meat, sausages, rumpsteak, chuck beef…

I asked about gradual increasing of cals for the following reason. I read a lot online that ppl when cutting decrease cals by 250 a week, and when cutting-they increase by 250 a week. However, mauro is talking about 500cals increments on a week basic.

The reasoning about gradual increasing/decr cals is so to avoid fatigue/muscle loss in case of cutting, or fat gaining in case of bulking. Whats ur oppinion and experience of this?

If im about to gradually increase cals by 250, thats pretty much one more tuna can a day, which is ridiculous coz id still be starving.

Regarding my fats, they usually comprise 55% of total calories every day, so that shouldnt be reason of my fatigue.

10

How many of these threads are you gonna start? lol

Again, I wouldn’t do anything drastic with calories. Since you’re dead set on losing fat at a faster rate than you would from just being on the diet alone, here’s what I would do if I were you:

Use AD style eating at maintenence, or just below (250 below, maybe) and getting your calories in on an intermittent fasting schedule. That’s where I saw my best gains while on the AD in terms of leanness. I did a 5 day bodypart split in the late morning fasted (leucine and EAA’s preworkout) then ate my first big (high fat/protein, low carb) meal of the day. Then I’d get the rest of my toal calories in for the day within the next 8 hour period.

If you want to further fat loss, you could do a prowler workout (or something similarly brutal) on saturday mornings right before your first carb meal of the day/week. This will help in two ways: since you just had a carb depleted brutal cardio session, your body will handle and use the carbs better. Secondly, it’ll act as cardio.

Also, since the AD utilizes carbs/insulin in the way it does, your carb up is pretty important. If you want to improve your insulin sensitivity, you can take a glucose dispersal agent and leucine on the weekends with your carbs. Also, as a note on carb ups: Obviously, the cleaner the carb sources (potatoes and rice as opposed to pizza and ice cream) the faster your body recomp will ocurr. That said, if you’re craving something on the weekend, EAT IT.

It’s a good psychological boost being able to indulge without guilt. Plus, on the AD the low carb days are so damn strict, you can’t cheat even just a tiny little piece of this brownie just a little bit. So if by saturday, you’re still thinking about the brownie that’s been sitting on your counter since tuesday, go for it.

11

[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
How many of these threads are you gonna start? lol

Again, I wouldn’t do anything drastic with calories. Since you’re dead set on losing fat at a faster rate than you would from just being on the diet alone, here’s what I would do if I were you:

Use AD style eating at maintenence, or just below (250 below, maybe) and getting your calories in on an intermittent fasting schedule. That’s where I saw my best gains while on the AD in terms of leanness. I did a 5 day bodypart split in the late morning fasted (leucine and EAA’s preworkout) then ate my first big (high fat/protein, low carb) meal of the day. Then I’d get the rest of my toal calories in for the day within the next 8 hour period.

If you want to further fat loss, you could do a prowler workout (or something similarly brutal) on saturday mornings right before your first carb meal of the day/week. This will help in two ways: since you just had a carb depleted brutal cardio session, your body will handle and use the carbs better. Secondly, it’ll act as cardio.

Also, since the AD utilizes carbs/insulin in the way it does, your carb up is pretty important. If you want to improve your insulin sensitivity, you can take a glucose dispersal agent and leucine on the weekends with your carbs. Also, as a note on carb ups: Obviously, the cleaner the carb sources (potatoes and rice as opposed to pizza and ice cream) the faster your body recomp will ocurr. That said, if you’re craving something on the weekend, EAT IT. It’s a good psychological boost being able to indulge without guilt. Plus, on the AD the low carb days are so damn strict, you can’t cheat even just a tiny little piece of this brownie just a little bit. So if by saturday, you’re still thinking about the brownie that’s been sitting on your counter since tuesday, go for it. [/quote]

Cheers for such a long and informative reply mate!

I’ll try to limit all my ad stuff here in the future lol

Regarding hiit, prowler and other glycogen depleting excercises, what i understood is that its not recommended since it may cause muscle loss. Have you noticed anything similar while doing so?

I think you guys convinced me! I’ll get back to my maintenance calories. I dont know what they actually are but i’ll assume its 18 x bw.

Since you sound like someone who has been practising this diet for a while, im inerested in how you personally handle two things:

  1. When bulking/cutting, how slowly do you increase/decrease calories? In my case i’ll get back to my maintenance calories straight away, but your answer will be useful for me in the future when i try cutting/bulking again.

  2. When Mauro is talking about maintenance calories being 18x bw (i understood its total bw, not lean bw), do you think he counts green fibrous vegies in that as well?

Thanks again for such a useful text!

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I don’t think you will loose much muscle if your protien is 1-2g per lb when doing hiit or super intense cardio. I can say that doing full body depletion right before carb up is great. If you carb up clean & big u will look & feel pumped

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[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
I don’t think you will loose much muscle if your protien is 1-2g per lb when doing hiit or super intense cardio. I can say that doing full body depletion right before carb up is great. If you carb up clean & big u will look & feel pumped[/quote]

I had 550 g of carbs yesterday from oats, and this morning i weight a bit less. I hear ppl usually are heavier the next day, thats weierd. U think i should have more carbs next time?

14

Cant really say I just follow the book so basically carb days I keep carbs as clean as possible and run them at 45-60% of intake… Also I dont really count cals on carb days I just basically look at what I eat and try to make sure 50% of the shit on the plate is carb based. Im genearlly always heavyier the 1st day or so after carbing

15

[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
Cant really say I just follow the book so basically carb days I keep carbs as clean as possible and run them at 45-60% of intake… Also I dont really count cals on carb days I just basically look at what I eat and try to make sure 50% of the shit on the plate is carb based. Im genearlly always heavyier the 1st day or so after carbing[/quote]

Yeah i also dont count/limit my self with calories on carb up days, i eat whenever im hungry. Id find that i consume almost twice as much calories compared to low carb days. If i correctly understood the diet, we should be having higher calories on carb refeed days.

When you go from cutting to bulking, do you increase calories in small increments (like 200cals a week) or in bigger increments (say 500 cal a week)? Mauro says in his book ‘anabolic solution’ that we should increase cals by 500 a week untill we see gains of 1-2lbs a week. However, a lot of ppl online increase cals by only 200 a week or so, i guess coz they want to decrease posibilities of fat gain.

16

Personally I like to shock my system and then throw it curve balls

Example go from maintence 15xBW to Bulk or Cut on a Monday with now ramp up or down… For me bulking and maintence is easy so I really cant mess that up. Cutting is hard so some times while cutting I’ll change my fat ratio to 40% and some times Ill bump calls up by 250 I do this when I hit platues. Its really strange but some times adding calls will cause a deaper cut… On bulking I find the mid week carb spike technique to help. Also when bulking I tend to lift very heavy. About 2 years ago I did the AD bulk phase in combo with the 5/3/1 boring but big routine with almost no cardio for 3 months people around me thought I was juicing, great gains in size and strength. No matter what you will always hit stalling points because the body adjusts to what you are doing so keep that in mind while playing with the AD… It sounds like cutting is your big thing search the “get shredded diet” on hear is kinda AD based. I did it for awhile its pretty hard IMO but works. Also you could try limiting carb ups to 1x week or every other week.
For me I only make adjustments If I stall for 2 weeks straight

17

I started eating 18x bw and i feel much better. Before this diet i was on high prot high fat moderate carbs, and i was getting 3600 cals without gainin or losing weigt, so i think my maint would be close to 3100. I will do main for a while, and then i might start bulking. It sounds like i’ll need a lot of food for that.

5/3/1 might be also a good idea for me. Its only 3 sessions per week isnt it?

Or i might just stay on maintenance for a while, since according do dr D i can expect some recomposition. I think thats what u mentioned earlier, that u gain some muscle on maint.

18

[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
Personally I like to shock my system and then throw it curve balls

Example go from maintence 15xBW to Bulk or Cut on a Monday with now ramp up or down… For me bulking and maintence is easy so I really cant mess that up. Cutting is hard so some times while cutting I’ll change my fat ratio to 40% and some times Ill bump calls up by 250 I do this when I hit platues. Its really strange but some times adding calls will cause a deaper cut… On bulking I find the mid week carb spike technique to help. Also when bulking I tend to lift very heavy. About 2 years ago I did the AD bulk phase in combo with the 5/3/1 boring but big routine with almost no cardio for 3 months people around me thought I was juicing, great gains in size and strength. No matter what you will always hit stalling points because the body adjusts to what you are doing so keep that in mind while playing with the AD… It sounds like cutting is your big thing search the “get shredded diet” on hear is kinda AD based. I did it for awhile its pretty hard IMO but works. Also you could try limiting carb ups to 1x week or every other week.
For me I only make adjustments If I stall for 2 weeks straight [/quote]

Ok, i decided to do 5/3/1 from tomorrow. Wendler recommends hiit, but i think its not recommended on ad right?

19

Yes there is a 3 day version of 5/3/1 I like the 4day personally, Bench- Squat- off or cardio OHP-DL, Cardio HIIT is fine or 45min of SS I think either is the same burn IMO… Not sure what the book said on that. However if doing 5/3/1 make sure you are in the maintence or bulk phase of AD Ive tried it on the cut phase and its brutally painful. Hindsite 20/20 dont do it it trust me 5/3/1 is for when you are eating.

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[quote]thehebrewhero wrote:
Yes there is a 3 day version of 5/3/1 I like the 4day personally, Bench- Squat- off or cardio OHP-DL, Cardio HIIT is fine or 45min of SS I think either is the same burn IMO… Not sure what the book said on that. However if doing 5/3/1 make sure you are in the maintence or bulk phase of AD Ive tried it on the cut phase and its brutally painful. Hindsite 20/20 dont do it it trust me 5/3/1 is for when you are eating.[/quote]

Thanks buddy!

I started 5/3/1 yesterday. Felt too light, i guess thats how it has to be the first week of every cycle.

I was just reading Anabolic Solution now, Mass section (about bulking, coz thats what i want to do now). Im totally confused with the amount the calories he suggested-25x your ideal weight. My desired weight in this instance would be:

  • ideal weight 83 kg or 183lbs
  • he says add 15% to that: 183x1.15=210lbs
  • daily calories are obtained by multiplying desired weight by 25: 210x25=5200cal

This is ridiculous! Im supposed to eat 5200 cal on this diet. What were your calories when u were bulking on 5/3/1 and AD?

By the way your great results on 5/3/1 and ad totally inspired me and i have a good feeling about my progress on this new program.