My Experience On the Anabolic Diet Part II

Nutrition
421

Ok I think a cautionary note is in order here:

If you are new to the plan (less than 4-5 cycles), then assuming you had carbs on Saturday:

Sunday you feel bloated but strong
Monday you will feel really strong and look pretty good.
Tuesday you feel a lethargic by mid-day and your workout may suffer if it’s before this lethargy
Wednesday, you will jump out of bed with energy and look great.
Thursday you feel depleted and flat/
Friday, you will be at the end of your rope and completely spent.

Craving wise, they peak on Tuesday and maybe on Thur/Fri. EAT SOME SF JELLO and power through.

This is normal.
And, if changing stuff, change one thing at a time so you actually know what the hell works and what doesn’t for certain.

422

I carbup on Fri & Sat and enjoy most of it I think what kills me is I start the carbup with pre & post WO shakes that include 250ML milk, 1 banana, 1 cup oats + protein in each shake. I’m lactose intolerant so its lactose free milk but because Im not used to drinking milk anymore it kills me all day friday with gas and the like… On Sat no milk and its all good.

I think I need to relook and these 2 shakes and sub the milk. Im thinking raw eggs + cream… Would this be ok? Any other suggestions?

I do eggs cream shakes post WO weekdays no probs they tsate great and low carbs.

423

[quote]Nat7774 wrote:
I carbup on Fri & Sat and enjoy most of it I think what kills me is I start the carbup with pre & post WO shakes that include 250ML milk, 1 banana, 1 cup oats + protein in each shake. I’m lactose intolerant so its lactose free milk but because Im not used to drinking milk anymore it kills me all day friday with gas and the like… On Sat no milk and its all good.

I think I need to relook and these 2 shakes and sub the milk. Im thinking raw eggs + cream… Would this be ok? Any other suggestions?

I do eggs cream shakes post WO weekdays no probs they tsate great and low carbs.
[/quote]

I use almond milk (unsweetened) in my shakes, and it tastes pretty good. I add a little vanilla extract and stevia to it to kind of mask the nutty taste, but really it’s not necessary. It sounds like that would be delish with bananas and oats! :slight_smile: Also, if this is during your carb load, you could go with lowfat vanilla soy milk. Mmmmmmm… :slight_smile:

424

[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
That’s cool since it sounds like you’re a MILF…okay okay I’ll stop :-/.
[/quote]

Oh wow, I hope I’m a MILF, that’s what this is all for, right?!? lol
ty for the compliment! If I can get some decent pics, I’ll post some “before & after” in my profile. :wink:

425

This looks good only 2g carbs… From Our Hearts to Your Hands | Almond Products | Blue Diamond

[quote]sunshne wrote:
Nat7774 wrote:
I carbup on Fri & Sat and enjoy most of it I think what kills me is I start the carbup with pre & post WO shakes that include 250ML milk, 1 banana, 1 cup oats + protein in each shake. I’m lactose intolerant so its lactose free milk but because Im not used to drinking milk anymore it kills me all day friday with gas and the like… On Sat no milk and its all good.

I think I need to relook and these 2 shakes and sub the milk. Im thinking raw eggs + cream… Would this be ok? Any other suggestions?

I do eggs cream shakes post WO weekdays no probs they tsate great and low carbs.

I use almond milk (unsweetened) in my shakes, and it tastes pretty good. I add a little vanilla extract and stevia to it to kind of mask the nutty taste, but really it’s not necessary. It sounds like that would be delish with bananas and oats! :slight_smile: Also, if this is during your carb load, you could go with lowfat vanilla soy milk. Mmmmmmm… :)[/quote]

426

[quote]Evil1 wrote:
Ok I think a cautionary note is in order here:

If you are new to the plan (less than 4-5 cycles), then assuming you had carbs on Saturday:

Sunday you feel bloated but strong
Monday you will feel really strong and look pretty good.
Tuesday you feel a lethargic by mid-day and your workout may suffer if it’s before this lethargy
Wednesday, you will jump out of bed with energy and look great.
Thursday you feel depleted and flat/
Friday, you will be at the end of your rope and completely spent.

Craving wise, they peak on Tuesday and maybe on Thur/Fri. EAT SOME SF JELLO and power through.

This is normal.
And, if changing stuff, change one thing at a time so you actually know what the hell works and what doesn’t for certain.

[/quote]

Evil, funny you posted this as I just signed on to pose a question about Tuesday morning. I’m a noob, completed the 12 day induction and 2 weeks since. So far, Tuesday morning is killer. I workout in the AM before work. This morning was lower body and it was brutal. From the second I opened my eyes this morning I felt like I was going to fall right back asleep…laying in bed, driving to the gym, working out, even after the workout. Any way to solve this? Can I expect my body to adjust a little more to the carb flucuation and even out this energy dip? The way my split is right now, deadlift and squat will continue to line up on Tuesday morning. I was already considering going to a 3-day full body split (MWF) rather than a 4-day upper/lower (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs). Thoughts?

427

[quote]pumped340 wrote:

I agree with all of that. As for the thing about having fruit for breakfast and carbs PWO thats another method of carb cycling or a TKD. Many people do that along with a once a week refeed, depending on your goals. [/quote]

Yea, thats basically what I was pointing towards, moving towards a TKD. I’m waiting until I get back to maintenance calories though as I am still ramping up.

I’m really not a fan of the percentages on the weekends that is laid out for the AD, and then you are just supposed to know when this “spillover” happens. There needs to be better research for the guidelines of how much glycogen or grams of carbs it takes to refill the liver and muscles based on pounds of LBM. Whether you are taking in 4000 calories or 2000 when bulking or cutting, you are going to start spilling over much quicker when bulking unnecessarily on your carb loads and either the duration or the percentage of carbs really needs to be cut back imo.

428

Alright, so I’ve been reading the Ketogenic Diet by Lyle McDonald, and I am really enjoying the quality of it.

I felt the Anabolic Solution was written poorly with frequent errors and copy/pasted paragraphs. I also felt it was vague in many places, despite the wealth of cited references.

A few pages into the Ketogenic Diet, McDonald references the flaws of the published AD which I just mentioned, and that made me feel very good about the book I was digging into. From his writings I’ve seen, he likes to be thorough.

Anyway, book quality aside, from the first few chapters, here is a conclusion/conjecture I have made regarding what’s “ideal” in terms of diet for the two extremes: fat loss and muscle gain.
Based on what he said about “de novo lipogenesis” (carbs into fat due to full glycogen stores) being far less significant in contributing to adipose gains than eating carb+fat combos (problem being that insulin shuts down any lipolytic enzyme activity and consequently stores any dietary fat with the meal), here is what I’ve concluded.

For muscle gain: a generally higher carb diet with limited fat, separated into carb+pro and fat+pro meals, timed accordingly. (Sounds a little like carb cycling, hm?)
For fat loss: fat+protein with as little carbs as possible.

What about the catabolic states of ketosis and unavailable carbohydrate usage in intense exercise, you ask?

Well, I’m not done sorting this out yet. I’ll update my stance when I’m done the book.

As for now, I’d like to hear some thoughts on my conclusions.

429

yes! That’s exactly what I use! :slight_smile: I add some instant coffee sometimes, and pretend I’m at a fancy cafe! XD

[quote]Nat7774 wrote:
This looks good only 2g carbs… From Our Hearts to Your Hands | Almond Products | Blue Diamond

sunshne wrote:
Nat7774 wrote:
I carbup on Fri & Sat and enjoy most of it I think what kills me is I start the carbup with pre & post WO shakes that include 250ML milk, 1 banana, 1 cup oats + protein in each shake. I’m lactose intolerant so its lactose free milk but because Im not used to drinking milk anymore it kills me all day friday with gas and the like… On Sat no milk and its all good.

I think I need to relook and these 2 shakes and sub the milk. Im thinking raw eggs + cream… Would this be ok? Any other suggestions?

I do eggs cream shakes post WO weekdays no probs they tsate great and low carbs.

I use almond milk (unsweetened) in my shakes, and it tastes pretty good. I add a little vanilla extract and stevia to it to kind of mask the nutty taste, but really it’s not necessary. It sounds like that would be delish with bananas and oats! :slight_smile: Also, if this is during your carb load, you could go with lowfat vanilla soy milk. Mmmmmmm… :slight_smile:

[/quote]

430

Evil1 happy to see someone here is speakin about the AD actually…My only vice is carb loads since I really don’t fill up easy at all! so I know I can easily get 1000 carbs in one day from clean sources with very minimal junk (4 serv container of dairy-free desert). Its only if I drink anything when I start to bloat! Then its like a bomb went off in me and I immediately burst at the gut.

431

anyone see a drawback in just lowering the duration but keeping the carbs up high as the sky? Any benefit to spreading over 2 days as opposed to getting the same number in on one day?

432

[quote]bkmacky9288 wrote:
Any benefit to spreading over 2 days as opposed to getting the same number in on one day?[/quote]

From what I have read, it takes your body 24 hours to fully refill your muscles, assuming that you go into it depleted. Which is why 36 hours is the usual minimum to facilitate super-compensation.

However, if you are not tailoring your week in order to be depleted before your carb-ups, you could just go 24 hours and still see some super compensation, simply because your body has been deprived of the carbs and sees it as a chance to build its reserve.

I think DH mentioned once that 36 hours done properly is around 2 days eg: start @ 8am Saturday and end @ 8pm Sunday.

433

[quote]Evil1 wrote:
bkmacky9288 wrote:
Any benefit to spreading over 2 days as opposed to getting the same number in on one day?

From what I have read, it takes your body 24 hours to fully refill your muscles, assuming that you go into it depleted. Which is why 36 hours is the usual minimum to facilitate super-compensation.

However, if you are not tailoring your week in order to be depleted before your carb-ups, you could just go 24 hours and still see some super compensation, simply because your body has been deprived of the carbs and sees it as a chance to build its reserve.

I think DH mentioned once that 36 hours done properly is around 2 days eg: start @ 8am Saturday and end @ 8pm Sunday.
[/quote]

yea true thing with that though is I can’t stop during this phase. Which is why Im thinkin of changing it to wake up to bed time. ~13 hours. However, if I can just eat these two days ups and consequently lower cals on the weekdays then I see where my bottomless pit wont hurt me. My goal is to basically maintain/possibly lean up a bit. It is Summer afterall

434

[quote]nz6stringaxe wrote:

For muscle gain: a generally higher carb diet with limited fat, separated into carb+pro and fat+pro meals, timed accordingly. (Sounds a little like carb cycling, hm?)
For fat loss: fat+protein with as little carbs as possible.

What about the catabolic states of ketosis and unavailable carbohydrate usage in intense exercise, you ask?

Well, I’m not done sorting this out yet. I’ll update my stance when I’m done the book.

As for now, I’d like to hear some thoughts on my conclusions.[/quote]

I agree except for fat loss you need carbs somewhere to fuel fatloss which you’ll see lyle Mcd talk about in the book. Also I wouldn’t say a high carb diet with limited fat for muscle gain (at least not when trying to stay lean), but definitely somewhat higher carbs than when cutting.

435

Right.

That’s exemplified by John Berardi’s Get Shredded, Joel Marion’s Cheater’s Diet, and any cyclic ketogenic diet we’ve seen here.

Why do you disagree with the muscle gain part? From what I’ve seen in classic bodybuilding dogma, it’s what was the standard.

Also, I may clarify that my idea of high carb as it relates here comes together in my head more like a Zone ratio. The difference is just the splitting of the macros at various meals.

436

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
nz6stringaxe wrote:

For muscle gain: a generally higher carb diet with limited fat, separated into carb+pro and fat+pro meals, timed accordingly. (Sounds a little like carb cycling, hm?)
For fat loss: fat+protein with as little carbs as possible.

What about the catabolic states of ketosis and unavailable carbohydrate usage in intense exercise, you ask?

Well, I’m not done sorting this out yet. I’ll update my stance when I’m done the book.

As for now, I’d like to hear some thoughts on my conclusions.

I agree except for fat loss you need carbs somewhere to fuel fatloss which you’ll see lyle Mcd talk about in the book. Also I wouldn’t say a high carb diet with limited fat for muscle gain (at least not when trying to stay lean), but definitely somewhat higher carbs than when cutting. [/quote]

So if you’re trying to put on a significant amount of muscle mass on the AD, you need longer carb ups?

437

No, what I’m suggesting is that you need to not use the AD in ideal circumstances.

As for your question in its raw state: “Does increasing your carb load increase the ability to build muscle?” The answer would of course be yes as carbs put you in an anabolic state. Mind you, this ignores any consideration for fat gain.

438

hey guys

just started the ad diet, i accidentally didnt do the 12 day initiation. oops

I had carbs on the 1st weekend

my question is should i do the 12 days of no carbs now?

and can you guys please critique my diet

meal 1: 4 wholes eggs, 250ml egg whites

meal 2: 1 and 1/2x chicken breasts, bout 1/2 cup of green beans

meal 3: 1 scoop protein, 4 tblspoon nat PB, 2 fish oil tabs, 2 tspoons physillium husk

meal 4: 2x 100% beef patties, 1/2 cup green beans

meal 5: 1x 170g can of tuna in olive oil, handful of almonds, 1 scoop creatine

workout
postworkout: 2 scoops whey, 1 scoop glutamine, will sip on 4 scoops of xtend until my next meal

meal 6: chicken or fish or meat/mince, veggies

meal 7, 125g weight watchers cottage cheese, 2 tablets of flax, 1 tblsppon natural PB

usually if i run out of meat or chicken i will do another, protein shake with 4 tbles spoons of PB, husk, fish oil…

wat do you guys think? more fat less protein or?

439

[quote]synny wrote:
hey guys

just started the ad diet, i accidentally didnt do the 12 day initiation. oops

I had carbs on the 1st weekend

my question is should i do the 12 days of no carbs now?

and can you guys please critique my diet

meal 1: 4 wholes eggs, 250ml egg whites

meal 2: 1 and 1/2x chicken breasts, bout 1/2 cup of green beans

meal 3: 1 scoop protein, 4 tblspoon nat PB, 2 fish oil tabs, 2 tspoons physillium husk

meal 4: 2x 100% beef patties, 1/2 cup green beans

meal 5: 1x 170g can of tuna in olive oil, handful of almonds, 1 scoop creatine

workout
postworkout: 2 scoops whey, 1 scoop glutamine, will sip on 4 scoops of xtend until my next meal

meal 6: chicken or fish or meat/mince, veggies

meal 7, 125g weight watchers cottage cheese, 2 tablets of flax, 1 tblsppon natural PB

usually if i run out of meat or chicken i will do another, protein shake with 4 tbles spoons of PB, husk, fish oil…

wat do you guys think? more fat less protein or?
[/quote]

Replace the egg whites from Meal 1. The first meal should be high fat (60%0 to set the tone for the day )
Add in more fat to the second meal. Sub in chicken thighs and dress the green beans with olive oil.

PWO glutamine and BCAA’s are unnecessary and best avoided (at least for the first 4-5 cycles) Try some whey w/ cream instead.

I don’t know wat else to say without actual numbers, but, FWIW, get in 60% fat and 30% pro. Get it all from whole foods for the majority.(stock your pantry with salmon cans, tuna pouches, mixed nuts)

Some numbers would really help us help you

E

440

I don’t know how much you weigh, synny, but it seems like a bit much on the protein side.

I only use lean proteins when my protein is lagging a bit halfway through the day. Your meals all seem to have a good portion of lean proteins; like Evil said, try some fattier substitutions.