Well, I really enjoy when people post studies proving their points. With a BSc. in Biochem, I find it hard to find ‘new’ information in most BB mags - but I’m much more willing to get other people find the studies for me. Plus, I don’t think that making people defend their positions is wrong - it’s the only way to realize what’s true and what’s not
On the other, I think people should endeavor to be polite. What educating gets done when people are angry?
I have no personal problem with the kid, in fact I enjoyed his article, the ripped, rugged and so forth. Now that is something I like reading and have no problem with.
180? Try 200+. He was 180 2 years ago. Time to quit playing with mommies computer.
Personally, I can get away with cheat meals when around ~12%. I’ve always had a positive experience with cheating; and when i tried to keep it strict for a few weeks, my results ALWAYS slowed down. Everyone has cheated while dieting at some point in their bodybuilding life, so the key is to remember those times and think- did they hurt or help? If you generally get leaner after a full fledged cheat, then try that first. For those individuals who have not have great experiences with it in the past, still refeed on a severe diet- it’s a special situation! You just have to be a little more careful and controlled; go with the CHO refeeds twice weekly. I think that a whole week of severe dieting is too long without a refeed. As they get leaner, they may want to gradually progress to cheat meals and/or sessions; if that doesn’t work, stick with the CHO refeeds. Everyone is different, that’s why i’m trying to give plenty of options to experiment with here.
The reason for just carbs and protein in the CHO refeed to is to increase leptin w/ the carbs and lower the GI (through combining nutrients), but stearing away from high levels of insulin and fat in the blood simultaneously (ala Berardi) by not adding fat.
Lastly, I do recommend 600mg of ALA in 100-200mg doses spread throughout the day. Whether it has any acute effects on insulin sensitivity, I dont know. Also, the d-pinitol w/ the cheat is a good addition.
I’m obese and I hang out here to learn from the experts. I’ve been following this thread with interest. You see, Joel seems to have managed to explain something that I have observed in myself that I could never explain. For me, the greatest fat loss occurs not when I’m on a continuous diet, but when I have a bad week and cheat a couple times! I’ve been going crazy trying to figure this out. Why should I diet and achieve nothing when I can cheat regularly and lose a couple pounds? His plan has provided some insights for me and I intend to incorporate his suggestions.
Now, is his explanation correct? Who knows? WHO CARES? It seems to work, and has a scientific THEORY behind it at least.
Frankly, as an engineer I understand the complexities of feedback control. The human endocrine system is the most complex feedback control system in existence, and it’s not implemented in electronics, it’s implemented in chemistry! The only way to attempt to understand it is to disturb the control loops, observe the results, and deduce the reason. Just because nobody has fully deduced the role of leptin yet does not mean leptin has no role. Maybe the right disturbance and right observations have not been made yet.
how many carbs and cals would u have in a cho refead?
and clean carbs correct? would a bagal be consider cho, or cheat food?
MP-Here are the scenarios you presented:
1. Obese people who are most likely leptin resistant being administered leptin. From this, you deduce that a elevated leptin levels and/or a leptin spike is worthless; this deduction can't be made. Give insulin shots to a Type II diabetic and you wont get positive results either.
2. Lean individuals consuming maintenance calories. There is no need to spike leptin levels when consuming maintenance calories, so no, I didn't expect it to make a difference. Leptin levels are normal when consuming maintenance calories. There is no reason to add more leptin, it doesn't do anything. The only time when additional leptin is valuable is when leptin levels are below normal due to a hypocaloric diet (particuarly a severe hypocaloric diet).
I'm sorry that I could not "comprehend this," but your argument is flawed, so I'm not going to sit here and agree.
And to the individual who couldn't post his name and wanted to flame me- Just because I havn't reached my bodybuilding goals yet, doesn't mean the info I present is worthless. I've come from 173 to 215 in a few years and have actively learned all I could. Knowledge is knowledge, independent of the source. Yea, you've seen me in a few of these debates before, but it's because I'm on of the few contributors who is actually here to help people on the forum instead of just writing articles and then leaving it up to you to figure everything out. But there is always that one person who wants to debate everything with you and pick apart everything you say, thus you have two options- either debate and stand up for what you believe, or allow that person to defame you and cause many to never try a real-world proven approach. I'm not going to let someone get the best of me when I dont agree with them. I dont think any real Tman would.
Some people didnt think (and still dont) alterations in muscle tone are possible, but the many emails that I have received in my inbox attesting to a harder, denser look after training heavy seem to say that yes, they are.
It's this very reason why Berardi doesn't post anymore. You try to help people out, but then you are forced to defend yourself against one person on threads like these and you do nothing to help anyone and waste a bunch of your own time. The amount of time that I put into this thread over the past few days is crazy, and to think, no one really benefited. All I did was defend myself. I want to post on the forum so everyone can benefit and read the responses, but if I have to continually deal with one on one debate, then I might just leave it to email.
Everyone have a nice day,
-JM
It’s in the article under the Q and A section. Having a bagel during the refeed is OK, but stick mostly to complex. Pasta is a good choice.
So no more bullshit on this thread or I’ll come over and eat you for my cheat meal DAMMIT!!
Personally, I see no reason for this debate to have even started, much less continue. A few things must be taken into account here.
I am relatively certain we can all agree that in life--and certainly in body building--there are very few absolute "thruths" that we can count on. I can think of maybe three off of the top of my head: Lifting weights helps build muscle; you generally need to eat to grow; and in most cases genetics will be a limiting factor in muscular development.
Notice that even with these very accepted things, I did not use words such as "always" or "never." My point is that most things you read, even on Testosterone, will not be applicable to EVERY person. Most of the information that we have access to, whether it has been proven or not, is, for the most part "general" in the sense that it is applicable only to a percentage of the population, be it 10% or 99% This includes some of the information presented in Joel's article.
Studies are wonderful things, but many times they are not the only way to test something. In this case, it seems that Joel has several studies backing what he syas. Does this mean that his program will work? No, not by any means.
Likewise, it seems certain people are citing studies that contradict some of Joel's article. Does that mean that his program won't work? Certainly not.
The science backing up one thing or another is not necessarily the only way to determine the efficacy of a given program. Personally, the studies I looked at and those that were cited are interesting, but much more interesting and influential to me is the anecdotal evidence.
The fact of the matter is, for one reason or another, and whether it is scientifically explained or not (which it seems to be) and whether studies support it or not, "cheating" seems to work. Will it work for everyone? Probably not. But name one program that will.
If people seem to be getting results from a program, and those results coincide with my goals, then I'm likely to try the program, assuming it's interesting to me. I think this is how most people view things. Planned cheat meals or carbohydrate refeeds are not new ideas by any means; just look at the T-dawg diet. Also, in a sense, itsn't using Surge while on an otherwise ketogenic diet technically a refeed? For some people, the result will be accelerated fat loss. For others, it may not. The
The big problem with this thread is that it focuses less on the efficacy of the program and more on the qualifcations of it's author. Joel doesn't come off as "cocky" to most people, or at least that is the impression I have gotten.
He IS young, and because of this he is constantly called upon to defend himself and his ideas. Why his age matters is unknown to me. Yes, Joel does have strong opinions, and believes very much in his ideas. He defends them with skill, and with confidence. This is, for whatever reason, seen as being cocky or arrogant. I feel it is an admirable quality.
People will think what they think, but I just feel if by-line on the Cheater's Diet read "John M. Berardi" as opposed to "Joel Marion" these arguments wouldn't occur. And, even if they did, JMB certainly wouldn't spend time facing off against his detractors. Just a thought.
just wanted to clarify that it was not my intention to set off the shitstorm that i did with my questions. i apologize, i didnt expect this thread to turn out the way it did.
Joel, I’m curious about your protocols. My question is about age. Will this approach work for lifters in their mid 30’s? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that maintaining low body fat levels more an dmore difficult. When you were researching this article, did you find anything about older lifters?
If Joel indeed popped in those references to get instant street-cred from the casual reader, as Moonpie suggests he did, then this is nothing more than the typical FLEX magazine ?Big-Arms-By-Ronnie? article.
However, whatever the actual scientific explanation happens to be behind Joel?s transformation, it may be a sound approach for some. I wish Joel could have shared his experience in a different manner, since his article reads too much like ?The Warrior Diet? and the old school ?ABCDE?.. I would have appreciated a case-study type of format.
Joel, you said that Charles Poliquin recommends getting leaner by overfeeding; I thought I knew Poliquin’s stuff quite well, so I?m curious, where could I find him stating that?
Well said, John; I couldn’t agree more. I would, however, like to add something about all this premadonna crap. Suffice it to say that I would be such good friends with Joel if I thought he was an arrogant SOB. In fact, I doubt most of the most valuable contributors (Jason Norcross, Steve Coppola, Patricia, KO MBE, Mufasa, John Roman, etc.) would be, either. Don’t confuse arrogance with confidence that one EARNS through hard work and experimentation in training, eating, supplementing, and research. For every one putz that tries to bring Joel down a peg, you’ll find a hundred that he’s helped; success breeds envy.
Well, I’ll be the first to admit that Joel and I are very good friends. We talk extensively about life, training, nutrition, whatever is on our minds. BUT, if he is wrong, I’ll be the first person to tell him so! I see and proofread all of his articles and he does the same for me.
I totally agree that citing studies carelessly is a quick way to lose credit, but sometimes citing studies is not the easiest thing to do when I comes to writing practical programs in the bodybuilding world.
Now, I didn't read thru all of Joel's references, but I know Joel well enough to assume that he takes his science seriously.
I've always said that coming to a conclusion on any scientific topic requires consideration of three areas:
1. Scientific Literature
2. Real World Results
3. Scientific Logic
In the real world, cheating works. Consideration number 2 is then taken care of. So(Of course, you need to consider what John Roman said that no program will work for everyone.) The psychological reasons are obvious, hence the reason why Joel did not talk about them. But the physiological reasons are not so obvious.
There are no scientific studies that put people through Joel's exact routine, so Consideration number 1 is going to be tough. But there are a lot of reasonable theories to support the claim of increased metabolic rate, leptin production, etc. Hence, Consideration #3 is pretty solid, but not rock solid.
What Joel did was to propose the potential scientific mechanisms of why "cheating" could be beneficial and then look for evidence that would support these claims. Sure, the scientific evidence is not perfect (when is it ever?), but it does coincide well with the scientific mechanisms that were proposed.
Anyway, real world data is positive, scientific mechansims are very reasonable and the scientific literature supports the potential mechansims as being a reasonable hypothesis.
Is the scientific support for "cheating" crystal clear? - Not yet, but I do think that Joel has done a fantastic job so far to cover an inconclusive topic as of know.
I’ll get the Poliquin reference to you shortly; I did my best to reference what is available- I gave a lot of reasoning as to the thought process behind it on this thread.
I’m sure the approach will work for older lifters, even though the metabolism is not as active; you may have to go with a more moderate approach, such as cheat meals or CHO refeeds as opposed to cheat sessions, but I don’t forsee a problem. On the same note, cheat sessions may be fine; experiment and find out what works best. The research was not age specific.
Thanks for the article. I think I’m going to give this a go starting this week (I just started 4-AD-EC anyway, so good timing 
I’ll let everyone know how it goes.
Here it goes VERY SIMPLY for you, because you seem to have a problem with it.
The body has a set point for bodyfat, that is generally controlled by leptin and its influences in the hypothalamus neuropeptideY yada yada yada.
When you diet, leptin goes down. Unfortunately it goes down at a larger rate than the bodyfat. As leptin goes down, your body reacts to this by lowering metabolic rate blah blah blah.
The point of the refeed is to raise leptin back towards the point they should be ‘without’ the energy reduction.
While not perfect it works. Nice and simple.
Now, leptin is NOT the cause of obesity in humans like it was origonally thought.
Leptin is a starvation hormone NOT a obesity hormone.
joel, i’m sorry if this has been addressed here already, but for someone just begining to diet, would you recommend a) starting with a more gradual (~500) calorie deficit, and refeeds once aweek, or b) a more severe (~1000) calorie deficit w/ the twice weekly refeeds. I ask because it seems that for your body to really appreciate the twice weekly cheats, you need to be in deficit pretty deep. I know this isn’t much to go on, i just wanna hear what you think. And thanks again from all of us for you taking time out to contribute to this thread, it is appreciated.