The idea of refeeding on carbs every week or so has become kind of popular as of late it seems (the release of how some Hot-Rox Inferfno champs used it successfully must not have hurt).
Now Lowery’s preaching in his latest article that waiting six or eight weeks then taking a WEEK long wait from both excercise and restricted carbs is good.
This makes sense that your bodies safety mechanisms will take a much sharper turn with one week of more eating instead of a day.
I’m guessing this plan would work better for someone whose metabolism adapts slower while those who have one that quickly switches gears are better off with the traditional 7-9 days before eating more.
Note, I’m not really sure which taking a break on dieting helps more: physically or pyschologically, the latter sounds logical.
But even if the physical ameiliorations are minimal, that’s all the more reason to try to maximize what you get out of them by manipulating the timing.
I’m a bit new to dieting (this is my first cutting phase) and don’t want anyone to take what I write as something I feel to be the God’s truth.
Any takes on the subject?
Honestly man I think most peeps can tell if they need refeed more often by their body.
Like for me, if i’m running a low carb diet for weeks on end, aside from the issues with energy and so on, I can really tell the fat loss just stops after only a short while of about 7-10 days. I’ve gone anywhere from one week up to 3 straight months on low carb, and now in looking back at it (since at the time I didnt realize it) I notice that I did the best if I had moderate “cheat” meals mixed into the low carb diet every so often.
I’ve also seen the same thing with several family members, especially my wife since I have a much better view of her diet than I do with external family.
I guess I could see some use for a week off after a long stretch of continuous months, but in reality most peeps on low carb lose the fat they wanted to lose in a few months and are done with that stage. Maybe if someone really had a lot of fat to lose, then they could benefit from refeeds on both smaller and larger time spans.
The workout rest period like that would be good for overuse injuries, otherwise not sure what benefit would be. Maybe boredom, dont know. I really never worry about purposely taking time off unless i’m injured, since regular life will always give me time off due to vacations or whathaveyou.
A break from training at intervals like you suggested probably isn’t a bad thing. I have noticed that a week long break from training every 6-8 weeks, at least for me, along with overfeeding the entire week seems to make me stronger. I seem to come back the following week with better lifts and generally more enthusiasm.
If you are dieting properly for the bulk of the weeks, the cumulative sum of your gains will be based in the averages. If you diet and train for 6 weeks properly you will make some good progress. Its going to take a lot more than a week of overfeeding to do any real damage to that progress, and like many people are saying, its actually beneficial.
I think refeeds are totally a personal thing. it depends on your diet, body type, conditioning, training etc.
the Lowery thing is nothing new, not far off what paul delia has preached for years, but certainly the way i would do it in future.
I try to leave the refeeds as long as possible