My Experience On the Anabolic Diet

Nutrition
3922

[quote]ovalpline wrote:
bkmacky9288 wrote:
yo realpeanut butter question…for winter break i have AM practices from 9-11 and i need a nice recipe for a good practice…during practice im fine but afterwards when the animal has settled i get these hardcore headaches and if i stand i get really dizzy and get the feeling of needing to puke…but i wont let myself…

coach said i need to drink more but with breakfast i drink 1/2 gallon so maybe its my breakfast like this morning i had 4oz steak w 4 eggs 1&1/2 hours before practice started…so any advice for a fellow animal?

As taken from the book Biz just gave us a link to:
“Many subjects in early studies on ketosis or the PSMF noted transient lethargy and weakness. As well many studies noted a high occurrence of orthostatic hypotension which is a drop in blood pressure when individuals move from a sitting to standing position. This caused lightheadedness in many individuals. It was always taken for granted that ketosis caused this to happen. However, later studies established that most of these symptoms could be avoided by providing enough supplemental minerals, especially sodium. Providing 4-5 grams of sodium per day (not much higher than the average American diet) prevents the majority of symptoms of weakness and low energy, possibly by maintaining normal blood pressure (26).”[/quote]

Oh wow, I don’t think I’ve gotten to that part yet. I’m on page 24.

But I was considering this, if creatine uptake is determined by sodium rather than carbs, wouldn’t it make since for us to be taking 4-5 grams of salt along with our 5g creatine post workout? Just a thought. But yeah, that book is really awesome, I just got another ebook too that is written by the same guy. Lemme know if you want it and I can e-mail it to you.

3923

[quote]realpeanutbutter wrote:

cunt. you have hood milk? fuk me. wish I had hood milk. On a lighter note exams are finally done. weeeeeee…

keep it up. keep a diary of how your training goes. you will notice that your energy is great after 2 months.

-chris[/quote]

Yeah it was the first time I have tried it and it was pretty good. It’s a little more expensive, but since I’ll only have a cup a day at most, oh well. Congrats on being done with finals too. That always is a great feeling.

Day 3 is half done, and energy is very high. As long as I stay hydrated, I’m feeling very good and the iron is being moved almost with ease. Today, though I’m getting too much protein and need to get it down and get the fats up. I’m leaving town tomorrow to get groceries as I gotta drive 35 miles to the nearest town with a chain grocery store so that I can buy in bulk.

Thursday, I’m going snowboarding, so all is good. Any ideas for food to shove in my pockets for the boarding trip? Right now, I’m thinking beef sticks and cheese and nuts. Any other ideas? Keep it up ladies and gents!

3924

[quote]ovalpline wrote:
bkmacky9288 wrote:
yo realpeanut butter question…for winter break i have AM practices from 9-11 and i need a nice recipe for a good practice…during practice im fine but afterwards when the animal has settled i get these hardcore headaches and if i stand i get really dizzy and get the feeling of needing to puke…but i wont let myself…

coach said i need to drink more but with breakfast i drink 1/2 gallon so maybe its my breakfast like this morning i had 4oz steak w 4 eggs 1&1/2 hours before practice started…so any advice for a fellow animal?

As taken from the book Biz just gave us a link to:
“Many subjects in early studies on ketosis or the PSMF noted transient lethargy and weakness. As well many studies noted a high occurrence of orthostatic hypotension which is a drop in blood pressure when individuals move from a sitting to standing position. This caused lightheadedness in many individuals. It was always taken for granted that ketosis caused this to happen. However, later studies established that most of these symptoms could be avoided by providing enough supplemental minerals, especially sodium. Providing 4-5 grams of sodium per day (not much higher than the average American diet) prevents the majority of symptoms of weakness and low energy, possibly by maintaining normal blood pressure (26).”[/quote]

thanx a lot i do remember doing some reading on sodium that talked about this…i guess ill be flavoring up my eggs before my morning practices during this fine (hot as hell) winter break

3925

[quote]Bizmark wrote:
Hey everybody, check out this ebook. Tons of information on ckd’s (cyclic ketogenic diets) and tkd’s (targeted ketogenic diets).

http://mx.geocities.com/jessegonzalezh/doctos/Ketogenicdiet.pdf[/quote]

good job biz…

this guy talks about the inability of the SKD to support high intensity training. this is essentially what we are doing over on the other thread. my findings are this:
i engage in mostly high intensity training and i find that yes, carbs do improve performance… but only marginally. the occasional carb up or carb meal does fine for performance. i believe “relative” is the key word here.

i want to make the point that i enjoyed this read, and he has a lot of (through my experience) right on notions. my belief is that there is a small deviation between optimum performance and muscle size - dietetically. high performance can be achieved on an SKD while a focus on muscle size and fullness requires a TKD or full on CKD.

any thoughts?

SK

3926

[quote]Pauli D wrote:
sifuinkorea wrote:
paul,

my question to you is if you remember what you actually were eating during those 16 months? did you get lots of fat? were you eating too much protein?

I ask because when I drop my fat intake on my low carb plan, I begin to lose strength and muscle fullness.

SK

Sure I remember.
My macros were at about 55-60% pro/ 35-40% fat and <5% carbs.
[/quote]

fat was definitely low for strength and fullness - but your focus was fat loss. what was your daily caloric intake at the time?

SK

3927

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Cthulhu wrote:
Everything has been going good.
My strength has gone up quite a bit in my bench press and deadlift,along with my squats.
A little problem has popped up though.
My g/f is taking cooking classes because she loves cooking,and she’s making pumpkin pies today.
I already had my carb up mon and tues,so I think I’m gonna go and have the pie,then not eat any carbs straight from tomorrow until Christmas,which is about 12 days.
So hopefully this won’t hinder my goals too much.

Honestly, I doubt if you even have to do that much. If you wanted throw another “pie day” in the middle of those 12 somewhere I don’t see it setting back to any great degree.

Good to hear from you BTW. I was wondering how it was going. I’ve never been very strong in comparison to other guys my size, but I saw some abrupt increases at times on this diet and I’m making steady gains not to mention that I feel 100 times better than I did before .

You may be interested, as well as some others here actually, in a thread I just started in the Supplements and Nutrition room about just having tested my cholesterol for the first time since starting the AD several months ago.[/quote]

I think it’s going to be good to keep those 12 days hard,then gorge like a pig on christmas day.
I hear ya. I’m so much stronger now than I was.
I thought for some time that I was going to hit a plateau real soon in my strength so I wanted to increase my overall calories or switch to something different. This diet has really given me more energy and strength. It’s funny how the smallest modifications can have the biggest impact as far as working out and nutrition goes.
Great thread I must add too.
It’s great to see some people who educate themselves on health,rather than be educated by the drug companies.
No matter what opinions people may have or how they perceive things,fact still remains that eating plenty of fats and cholesterol,excluding trans fat,keeps you healthy.
I’m sure I’d be on the road to diabetes myself if I followed the Governments food pyramid guide of processed breakfast cereals and white bread.

3928

Could one stay on this diet or any type of CKD indefinitely? Would there be serious health risks presuming you ate relatively clean foods?

3929

Just posted this over on Trib’s thread http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1376869
Thought I’d post it here also, in case anyone is interested.

Just picked up my lab results from a hospital blood/urine test. I’ve been on the AD for three months now. I also have lab results from the same hospital taken in January when I was on a clean (high protein, moderate carb) diet. I’m 41 and work out six days a week.

Before-AD Lab Results (1/26/06)
Triglycerides: 48 mg/dL
Cholesterol: 151 mg/dL
HDL: 53 mg/dL
Tot Cholesterol/HDL: 2.9
Glucose: 91 mg/dL
Ketones: 0 mg/dL

AD Diet Lab Results (12/14/06)
Triglycerides: 50 mg/dL
Cholesterol: 190 mg/dL
HDL : 65 mg/dL
Tot Cholesterol/HDL: 2.9
Glucose: 82 mg/dL
Ketones: 80 mg/dL (0-5 normal)

While my total cholesterol number is higher, I don’t see anything to worry about. Interesting to note the ketones.

3930

[quote]Bizmark wrote:
Oh wow, I don’t think I’ve gotten to that part yet. I’m on page 24.

But I was considering this, if creatine uptake is determined by sodium rather than carbs, wouldn’t it make since for us to be taking 4-5 grams of salt along with our 5g creatine post workout? Just a thought. But yeah, that book is really awesome, I just got another ebook too that is written by the same guy. Lemme know if you want it and I can e-mail it to you.
[/quote]

I think that, that is a case where theory trumps reality. 4-5 grams of sodium is A LOT to take at one time, as in to the point where anything you eat would be completely unpalatable. Really though, I would like to see that study that Chris has showing that creatine uptake is predicated upon sodium intake. My hunch is that a balanced sodium intake throughout the day is key.

3931

[quote]sifuinkorea wrote:

good job biz…

this guy talks about the inability of the SKD to support high intensity training. this is essentially what we are doing over on the other thread. my findings are this:
i engage in mostly high intensity training and i find that yes, carbs do improve performance… but only marginally. the occasional carb up or carb meal does fine for performance. i believe “relative” is the key word here.

i want to make the point that i enjoyed this read, and he has a lot of (through my experience) right on notions. my belief is that there is a small deviation between optimum performance and muscle size - dietetically. high performance can be achieved on an SKD while a focus on muscle size and fullness requires a TKD or full on CKD.

any thoughts?

SK
[/quote]

I think the crucial point in that book was that high performance CANNOT be achieved on a SKD because FFA and ketones are not synthesized at the rates necessary to support high energy thresholds. While FFA and ketones are synthesized comparatively slowly and require a more metabolically exhaustive process, glycolysis is very rapid.

The release of glycogen requires no metabolic processing and is essentially an emergency energy source as per required by the body to sustain high energy thresholds. With that said, the body is increasingly dependent on FFA and ketones once fat adapted and becomes increasingly efficient at using FFA and ketones for energy at high energy thresholds.

However, despite the greater efficiency, once glycogen is depleted to the point of less than 40 mmol/kg, performance is hindered.
Furthermore, it only requires 3-4 intense workouts to exhaust glycogen from 175 mmol/kg to 40 mmol/kg (assuming moderate-high reps, multiple sets, and short rest periods). With that said, the very nature of the low carb phase of the AD, a CKD, or the SKD is catabolic as the author notes that the liver is the primary metabolic agent.

That is, the concentration of liver glycogen determines many metabolic processes in the body, whether we are in a state of anabolism or catabolism. And the fact that we are purposefully depleting glycogen levels, starting with our liver, puts us naturally in a state of catabolism. Needless to say, catabolism doesn’t behoove our performance goals.

For this reason, the CHO up is necessary to increase or sustain performance, as well as increase our muscle mass (remember that muscle size is proportional to muscle strength, or performance). Sooooo, as long-winded as this entry has been, I’m hitting a conclusion: an SKD is inappropriate for any athlete since athletes depend on high performance from big, strong, full, and well-glycogenated muscles.
The author states that performance at a glycogen level at 70 mmol/kg is roughly the same as performance at 175 mmol/kg, and while that’s all fine and dandy, the critical point is that a high level of performance can be achieved at a greater frequency if the athlete starts at 175 mmol/kg.

AND if our goals are to constantly improve ourselves, why would we ever not want to push ourselves at our highest thresholds as often as we can? So while it may seem that carbohydrates only influence our performance marginally, the fact of the matter is that it DOES influence our performance positively.

3932

ovalpline…

Great point.

3933

[quote]ovalpline wrote:

I think the crucial point in that book was that high performance CANNOT be achieved on a SKD because FFA and ketones are not synthesized at the rates necessary to support high energy thresholds…

AND if our goals are to constantly improve ourselves, why would we ever not want to push ourselves at our highest thresholds as often as we can? So while it may seem that carbohydrates only influence our performance marginally, the fact of the matter is that it DOES influence our performance positively.

[/quote]

Good research and interesting findings -to be sure.

However…let’s also keep in mind that not all theories will play out as hypothesized in all cases.
There will still be those that perform better on low/no carb -no matter what the energy expenditure…just as there will always be those who perform better with more available carbs, more often, for energy.

Still, the beauty of the AD is its adaptive nature.
One can tweak it as needed, once fully adapted.

Nice research though.
Good contributions to the thread :wink:

peace

3934

Ya I wouldn’t take everything in that ebook as dogma. The author Lyle Mcdonald was discussed along with Dan Duchaine earlier in this thread for their involvement with cyclical ketogenic diets. The AD is not that, it doesn’t have days where you eat no carbs or where you perform weight training where gylcogen depletion is more important that building muscle. Dr. D has way more credential than Lyle and I think that Lyle forms too many theories from research that doesn’t really crossover.

I hope that wasn’t too bashing on Lyle, but the book is somewhat old, and his diet isn’t really the same as the AD so learn some useful stuff, but dont follow everything.

3935

Hey everybody,
Day 4 is about 3/4 in the books and I feel great. I had the day off from the weights, but I got 25 min. off HIIT in. I’m staying properly hydrated since thats the only problem I’ve had so far. My recovery has actually been better since dropping the carbs if its possible for it to be so, already.

I’m not even really looking forward to the carb-up, yet except for a reason to get rid of some oatmeal and christmas candy. I’ve read a couple places where spinach and broccoli are “free”, but I’ve been counting them. I guess the broccoli is more substantial in carbs, but any thoughts?

3936

Yeah, idk I’d probably count it at least for breaking in and months when you’re really getting adapted after then…its up to you and see how you respond I suppose.

3937

Thanks for your opinion, gunner. I was actually a day off on my records. I went back to my fitday.com calendar and figured out that today is day 7 on the diet for me instead of day 6 like I previously thought! Great news for me. It’ll be strange to have my first carb-up on a Thursday, but I’ll probably end up extending the next week, so that it can fall a Sunday for me. That is probably the most convenient for me to have a carb coma as I have in the past. Also, it ends up coinciding perfectly with the Super Bowl. I think I’ll gradually extend it by one day per week until it falls on a Sunday and then keep it there for a while. Energy is still high, as I had a great workout yesterday, and then I went snowboarding all afternoon. My weight is fluctuating, of course, but I’m going to start only weighing right before carb-ups and right after.

3938

i think each of us should post at least one food log here for others to look on to see how others treat this lifestyle…ill be adding one tomorrow from today

3939

Question. I just started the anabolic diet and feel rotten. I expected this, but I was just wondering when the mental alertness and general feeling of well being returns?

3940

[quote]DeTest wrote:
Question. I just started the anabolic diet and feel rotten. I expected this, but I was just wondering when the mental alertness and general feeling of well being returns?[/quote]

With me it comes in bouts. Some days I feel absolutely wonderful. The next day I feel like complete shit. Its really odd actually. I think it might be more psychological than physical though. Maybe I start focusing on something else in my subconscious that doesn’t make me happy.

But anyway, usually it takes about 3 weeks.

3941

Yeah cause im feelin sick, have no energy, and am extremely depressed/cranky. im gonna give it a few more days and hopefully some good will come out of this.