[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Alright Stu, back with 2 more (Thanks again for being so informative, hope I can pay it forward one day)
1 - Does your “off season” training/diet keep the 6 day rotation, or do you have a different split during that time of the year?
2 - What formulas did you use to calculate your cals/carbs for the days?[/quote]
During my offseason, I pretty much keep the same split as far as weight training days go - 4 day breakdown of bodyparts. I do make use of days where I am truly ‘off’ from the gym instead of my pre-contest approach of having cardio days instead. Typically, I would say that I adopt a 2 on 1 off split, or even a 4 on 1 off split, but this last year, in efforts of bring up weak points, I actually had two chest days, and two leg days thrown in every rotation, so that was fun (I forgot what it’s like to not have your legs sore!)
My thinking is that during a prep, you’re not really banking on gaining any appreciable amounts of muscle mass, so the focus is on retention and losing bodyfat. During the offseason though, you need to allow your body time (and a supportive environment - food, supps, sleep…) to grow, hence the days off, and lack of cardio work.
As far as calculating numbers go, there are so many formulas and different approaches to giving you your BMR, that it all just gets a bit confusing. I remember two approaches I used to get an initial figure… 1 was the Mayo Clinic web site, which was just basic basic questions, and definitely a useful place to get a ballpark idea (athletes and bodybuilders will obviously require more nutrients than most people simply to support the higher degree of LBM). The second one was an older article by Berardi, where I was really doing all these complicated figures, valuing Met Coefficents of various food choices and probably confusing myself way more than I need to.
What ultimately allowed me to get my starting figure, was to pick a higher daily number than I thought I needed, log all my foods for a week or two, and see what happened according to the scale. When I realized, after a few weeks of experimenting, that I could maintain 195/200 lbs with about 3400 cals a day (I do realize that I have more muscle mass than most people of my height and weight), I was able to start my diet losing weight with 3000 cals.
For my protein intake, I will admit to eating much more protein and less carbs than I needed for my first contest. As with most people who have been influenced/jaded/brainwashed by what they read in the muscle ads… er, I mean, magazines, I thought I needed a zillion grams of protein in order to keep my muscle during a diet, and that carbs were evil and would make me soft and fat.
What I do now, and contributed to my larger stage appearance just a year later, is to keep my protein levels at a more ‘normal’ (by bodybuilding standards) level, keep my healthy fats at an amount where I know my bases are covered, and then fill the rest with carbs (or some protein depending on my food choices for that particular day). I will note though that a lot of the foods that I like to eat are P+F foods.
I can just sit around all day destroying cashews, peanut butter, beef jerky,… so sometimes I know my protein intake is more than it needs to be, but as long as my carbs are high enough, the body will opt for them as an energy source, leaving the protein for it’s intended use,… muscle growth and repair.
As long as I’m getting 275g of protein a day, I figure I’m good. More than this isn’t bad, as protein does provide a satiating effect (blunts hunger), as well as causing your body to expend more calories simply to digest, but it should never be at the expense of adequate carb intake. My carb intake is anywhere from 225g - 250g on most days when I’m dieting. Low days start around 150g, and high days are about 325+g, sometimes as high as 400g.
Remember though that this is what works for ME. I know PARAGONA is a great competitor in his own right, and approaches his preps in a manner very similar to what I do, but he goes a lot high on carb intake on his high days. It works FOR HIM. I don’t think my system could handle 400-600g of carbs without some degree of backslide in progress.
Keeping a written account of your numbers and results each week is what will give you the final word on whether your decisions are working or not. Contest prep is a constant cycle of assessment and reassessment. No one nails it right out of the starting gate.
S
I was able to return the meathead gesture a few days later when (on her Birthday) I made a Metabolic Drive Pudding Pie with a Graham Cracker Crust. Amazingly this was not only the first dessert to be devoured by her (non-training) friends at a party, but the only one to be finished completely and then incite a barrage of questions about how it could possibly be ‘healthy’ -lol
