Clean Carb Refeed

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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Hi Christian,
Quick question on how many calories a clean carb refeed would entail? From your article ‘The Cheating Manifesto’ someone looking to get down to 10% body fat should look to cheat/refeed once every 2-4 weeks and only if truly needed. I understand what the small cheat add-on, the good food cheat meal and the isocaloric cheat meal entail but not sure what the clean carb refeed is equal too?

You help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Henri

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It depends on how depleted you are and what type of diet you were following.

The MOST carbs someone should eat on that day is 400g of carbs (unless you are 250lbs+ and fairly lean in which case you might go as high as 500g) because you won’t be able to store more than that as muscle glycogen.

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  1. Ok great something like having your maintenance amount for the day. Im 500 calories below my maintenance so adding 125g (500 calories) Clean Carbs for the day?

My maintenance is 2,500-2,600 calories and right now Im having 2,050-2,100 calories per day (Protein=225g, Carbs=175g, Fat=60g). My diet approach is eating the same calories each day (Training day and Non Training day) rather than carb cycling as I find this approach easier to follow and I find I feel better on this.
2. Is this ok to follow to get down to 10% body fat?

  1. Also with the other cheat methods you suggest only having around 350 calories for each added on to your total daily calories. How come with the carb refeed you can have more calories for this cheat/refeed compared to the others?

Thanks again appreciate it,
Henri

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Depending on how depleted you are that might not be enough. You might have room for adding 200-250g (since you are already taking in 175g/day)

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Nothing “on paper” is ever “ok”. To get down to a TRUE 10% you WILL need to make adjustments along the way because the boy adapts. What is a deficit now might not be a deficit anymore in 4 weeks.

What works great at the beginning of a fat loss phase will not be as effective 4 weeks in and might not make you progress anymore at the 6 weeks mark.

Even more so if it is based on a “theoretical” maintenance level.

You can’t write down a set of macros based on some calculator you found on the web and think “if I do this for 10 weeks, I’ll be 10%” … that NEVER works. At best it’s a starting point.

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Food quality. Which, sorry IIFYM fans, matters. And what I gave you in the original answer is “the most” carbs you should add. If you are adding 125g it’s 500kcals, not that much above 350. And you can simply lower fats by 15-20g (normally when I add carbs I reduce fats and vice versa).

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Sorry I should have elaborated where Im at. As an example from your ‘Cheating Manifesto’ article Im close to lean category but currently in a normal category (starting on the verge of being in the lean category). Ive just come off staying at maintenance for about 4-5 weeks and for the last 2 weeks I’ve dropped down 500 calories as my starting point.

  1. From this point to help with my progression how would you adjust (tips) to keep progressing and how often should you look to adjust?

Thanks again,
Henri