My Experience On the Anabolic Diet

Nutrition
8203

[quote]CJK wrote:
HouseOfAtlas wrote:
CJK wrote:
House,
My weekend carb up usually only lasts a day and consists of a lot of oatmeal, organic whole wheat spaghetti, brown rice, and even some cereal like Frosted Flakes or Rice Crispies. I’ll throw in a pizza and ice cream, also. I am “trying” to do the Mass Phase, but am missing my mark by 10-15g of protein and 10-15g of fat per meal and that adds up.

As for fat loss, I haven’t used a caliper or anything, but I follow the way my stomach looks LOL! When I flex, I can still see some abs a bit and my stomach is cursed with having a layer of fat on it LOL!

Also, I totally agree with you about modifications on this diet. If something is working well, there is no reason to mess with it. I wish I had the book in front of me because there is a “problem solving” guide as to when and how to add carbs into the diet if needed.

What are your goals and calorie intake on this diet?

My calories range from 3000-3500 depending on the day, whether I strength train that day or not. My goals are strength and size. I am training for MMA now so I am trying to slowly put on a little more size, while trying to significantly up my power and strength, and work on my conditioning. It’s a lot to do at the same time, but with enough food to offset the conditioning work, I think it is going work.

My carb-ups are mostly clean now, after several months (think like 8-10) of going almost all dirty. I do not condone this. I have felt night a day better keeping the bulk of my carb foods low-GI and throwing in one or two meals of shit foods.
[/quote]

How much do you weigh? Also, I agree with you on the cheat meals. I can’t eat all dirty, but I feel one or two cheat meals helps a lot, even in the gym the next day.

8204

I’m 6’2, 210.

I think the same thing about the cheat meals. I have done completely clean carb ups and felt a lot different - think some of the dirt can benefit you in the week following, you just gotta be careful with it. To be honest I would eat almost 90 percent shit meals on the carb up and feel totally energized the next week, it just really hurt me with the fat gain.

8205

Well I’m on my 5th day of the break in… The roasted potatoes my parents were having with the steak were calling me… and most everything else in the kitchen. I thought earlier that I might be crashing cause I just felt bleh, but I went outside and did some yard work and was fine. I tried a Ketostick thing, and it said I had “trace-small”, or 5-15 mg/dl, amounts (couldn’t tell which it was).

Buutt, the cravings haven’t been too hard to resist, I, unlike most teenagers, have pretty crazy self control.

But so far I think I’ve dropped some (water) weight because after eating a pound of steak, pound of Italian sausage,(I’m still starving most of the time if I don’t chug some psyllium, so its good I would regularly eat soggy cardboard before starting this) plus clothes with lots of random crap in my pockets and on my belt (usually weigh in my boxers), but I’m still a couple pounds lighter than usual (210 before starting, now 207 at 6’, maybe 6’1).

My question today is if it matters if 4 days a week (mon, tues, thurs, and friday, but I start my carb up around 6 friday) my fat percentage is only 45-55%, I think I remember reading somewhere earlier it was fine while cutting, or maybe it was after several months…

I’m cutting though, Sunday and Wednesday are my calorie “spike” days, and I’m getting 4000+ on those days, with a tad over 60% from fat. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I’m getting 1700-1900 calories with 45-50% from fat. Will my body start metabolizing muscle? And do my waves sound good?

Also, should I move my carb up from Friday evening-Saturday to just Saturday since I am cutting? I know that next weekend I’m starting late Friday and that I will probably eat like 70/30 clean to dirty… But after that its gonna be clean, whether I feel crappy Sunday or not…

I’m definitely going to restart this in August (I’m stopping about June 15th because my diet will truly be too out of my control, too often for me to continue reasonably) and then at least until next summer rolls around. Hoping to gain about 30lbs of muscle, or more, especially if I grow, by next May.

I think that covered everything I’m wondering… for now!

Thanks,
Matt

8206

wow has anyone ever experience a massive headache at the gym. Today was back and as I started doing pull-ups, a big big headache came out of no where. Maybe i didnt breath all that right during my leg workout yesterday but it pisses me off to miss a workout cause of it.

CJK:

isnt that too little calories for you?? arent you going for mass??.. I’m 5’11" at around 160-165 and take an average of 3000 calories per day…

8207

[quote]mattchew wrote:
Well I’m on my 5th day of the break in…

My question today is if it matters if 4 days a week I only eat 50% of my diet as fat? I’m cutting …

Sunday and Wednesday are my calorie “spike” days, and I’m getting 4000+ on those days, with a tad over 60% from fat. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I’m getting 1700-1900 calories with 45-50% from fat. Will my body start metabolizing muscle? And do my waves sound good?

Also, should I move my carb up from Friday evening-Saturday to just Saturday since I am cutting?

Thanks,
Matt[/quote]

Don’t cut while in the adaptation phase. You need more fat to get your body used to using fat as fuel. PERIOD.

I have no experience using spikes in caloric intake to cut. My guess though is that they don’t work nearly as well for newbs as they do for people who’ve been training for years (Kiplemet and DH can get away with it. I wouldn’t recommend it for you. Then again, if it works… ignore me).

Just carb-up on Saturday. You’re not cutting, your in the ADAPTATION phase. But if you want to minimize the risk of fat-gain, all you really need is one day.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

8208

[quote]Otep wrote:
Don’t cut while in the adaptation phase. You need more fat to get your body used to using fat as fuel. PERIOD.
[/quote]

This should be the golden rule when starting the AD. I think I even lost two pounds during the adaption phase and I was following the 18 calories per pound of bodyweight rule.

8209

[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
wow has anyone ever experience a massive headache at the gym. Today was back and as I started doing pull-ups, a big big headache came out of no where. Maybe i didnt breath all that right during my leg workout yesterday but it pisses me off to miss a workout cause of it.
[/quote]

I’ve gotten headaches once in a while for reasons unknown, even when not on the AD, but its pretty rare for me. Have you gotten them before? Are you drinking enough water? Are you taking a multivitamin? It could be a number of things but it could of just been bad luck, too.

8210

[quote]HouseOfAtlas wrote:
ronaldo7 wrote:
wow has anyone ever experience a massive headache at the gym. Today was back and as I started doing pull-ups, a big big headache came out of no where. Maybe i didnt breath all that right during my leg workout yesterday but it pisses me off to miss a workout cause of it.

I’ve gotten headaches once in a while for reasons unknown, even when not on the AD, but its pretty rare for me. Have you gotten them before? Are you drinking enough water? Are you taking a multivitamin? It could be a number of things but it could of just been bad luck, too.

[/quote]

I got it when I was doing squads, was doing a final set to tire the legs and went until failure…after that set a massive headache came on but went away the next minute until last night when I started doing pull-ups. I did chest today and felt fine so I was happy.

8211

[quote]Otep wrote:
Don’t cut while in the adaptation phase. You need more fat to get your body used to using fat as fuel. PERIOD.

I have no experience using spikes in caloric intake to cut. My guess though is that they don’t work nearly as well for newbs as they do for people who’ve been training for years (Kiplemet and DH can get away with it. I wouldn’t recommend it for you. Then again, if it works… ignore me).

Just carb-up on Saturday. You’re not cutting, your in the ADAPTATION phase. But if you want to minimize the risk of fat-gain, all you really need is one day.

Hope this helps. Good luck.[/quote]

I’m no where near cutting currently… I think I’m eating more than he lined out for the adaption phase, but I’m insatiable for now…Buutt I’m still lighter than before, so its all good.

So you think that it would be more effective if I ate 2500 cals or so daily?

Also, I fixed my diet plan so I’m back in the 60/38/30g fat/protein/carb range.

Heres hoping I crash tomorrow rather than during school…

8212

Just got my first bottle and need to know when to use them based on this diet.

I understand that BCAAs elevate insulin levels?
So how will that affect this diet? Should I just take them around the workout or can I use them all day as directed?

Thanks as usual

8213

[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
I got it when I was doing squads, was doing a final set to tire the legs and went until failure…after that set a massive headache came on but went away the next minute until last night when I started doing pull-ups. I did chest today and felt fine so I was happy.[/quote]

Keep us posted!

[quote]roberds wrote:
Just got my first bottle and need to know when to use them based on this diet.

I understand that BCAAs elevate insulin levels?
So how will that affect this diet? Should I just take them around the workout or can I use them all day as directed?

Thanks as usual[/quote]

http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/readTopic.do?id=1124610

In a post in that thread, John Berardi says its safe to assume that insulin won’t be a factor with BCAAs when dealing with low carbs. If anyone else has something that differs, I’d love to see it. I’m thinking about supplementing with BCAAs in the next month or so and would hate for it to be counterproductive, but I don’t think it would be.

8214

Here is my carb up from yesterday.

http://fitday.com/webfit/publicjournals.html?Owner=jvalencia7&Year=2008&Month=3&Day=12

When I was keeping the calories low the carb up was for 12 hours and it worked well. I did the same with this carb up but now the goal is to gain weight. I decided to keep it to 12 hours because I don’t like mixing carbs and fats in the same day so I just took more calories during the 12 hour carb load and went back to fats today to decrease the chance of spilling over.

8215

Day 7,

So far so good, 7th day of the metabolic shift period. I keep my carbs around 30g per day (without food scale, it is virtually impossible to know the exact number of carbs taken in from vegetables, so the final count is +/- 4 grams or so for me no matter what).

My question is on this “crash” that people mention. Here is how I feel so far: I have “normal” energy throughout the day, I don’t fall asleep at work like I used to:), but it’s nothing to write home about either. Libido: I felt a lot hornier for several days after a high carb weekend (the weekend before I started AD). Now it’s just ok. I basically felt better in that regard when eating carbs.

I think my general mood right now is just average. I wonder if this is what is considered a “crash”, since my mood is much better normally when I eat carbs. I’m going to give the AD the fair chance and see how my first carb up weekend goes. If I don’t see a drastic change in mood, I’m going to ditch this diet, since I was doing fine without it.

Training is OK, Monday (1st day on AD) felt great benching, I pulled a decent deadlift on Wednesday with a lot more left in the tank, and yesterday (Saturday) I squatted - THAT was a different story. I felt like someone nailed my ass to the floor.

I was basically doing 5x5 raw (olympic squat), and just 315 made me think if I even feel like squatting. I didn’t feel like getting up with the weight - not that I couldn’t, I just didn’t feel like it, thinking “what’s the point?” :slight_smile: Then some behind the neck presses and some high volume tricep work.

Since I started a week ago, I went from about 256 down to 249.6lbs this morning. I attribute it mostly to water loss (by cutting carbs drastically), but I can definitely see a difference in appearance. My abs are flat now, I can see a six pack, and I wear 2 sizes smaller jeans now.

That means most of the weight came off the waist, just like Dr. DiPasquale mentions in the book. The weightloss is probably a partial explanation for the poor squat workout.

The girls at work now address me “hey skinny”, so I guess there is a noticable difference.

I’m off to do some chinups, to see how the weight loss helped me there:)

Later

8216

This headache is really getting to me. I dont understand what is wrong but its preventing me from lifting. I dont want to take time off!!!
:frowning:

8217

[quote]mattchew wrote:
I’m no where near cutting currently… I think I’m eating more than he lined out for the adaption phase, but I’m insatiable for now…Buutt I’m still lighter than before, so its all good.

So you think that it would be more effective if I ate 2500 cals or so daily?

Also, I fixed my diet plan so I’m back in the 60/38/30g fat/protein/carb range.

Heres hoping I crash tomorrow rather than during school…
[/quote]

You’re 210lbs, right? which means that, unless my math is off, you should be eating close to (210 x 18 =) 3800 kcal.

I think it would be more effective if you ate closer to 3800 kcals. That also might help with the… insatiableness.

8218

[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
This headache is really getting to me. I dont understand what is wrong but its preventing me from lifting. I dont want to take time off!!!
:-([/quote]

During the induction phase and in the first couple of weeks on the AD I got similar headaches in the gym, although they weren’t as major. I didn’t think too much of them at the time. I took a bit longer to rest in between sets and paid attention to my breathing to ensure I was pulling air deeply into my stomach. That usually at least helped.

Not sure what causes it, only that it totally went away after about a week.

8219

[quote]Otep wrote:
ronaldo7 wrote:
This headache is really getting to me. I dont understand what is wrong but its preventing me from lifting. I dont want to take time off!!!
:frowning:

During the induction phase and in the first couple of weeks on the AD I got similar headaches in the gym, although they weren’t as major. I didn’t think too much of them at the time. I took a bit longer to rest in between sets and paid attention to my breathing to ensure I was pulling air deeply into my stomach. That usually at least helped.

Not sure what causes it, only that it totally went away after about a week.[/quote]

I’m sure it has nothing to do with the AD…I’ve been on it for about 3 months now…it was the breathing during squads but I didnt think it would last soo long…I feel like shit. It sucks when u have the will to go to the gym and eat correctly but your body doesnt want to help. its times like these when I want to go eat donughts and not give a shit.

8220

[quote]Otep wrote:

You’re 210lbs, right? which means that, unless my math is off, you should be eating close to (210 x 18 =) 3800 kcal.

I think it would be more effective if you ate closer to 3800 kcals. That also might help with the… insatiableness.[/quote]

Okay, we’re misunderstanding each other…

Currently I’m eating about 4500 kcal a day, and will be eating probably at least 4000 the rest of the week. Even with all this food I’m super hungry a lot, so I’ve been eating a ton of salads and some jell-o.

Next week I’m going into my cutting phase. You said you thought that a wave wouldn’t be as effective for me because I don’t have much experience, so I meant 2500ish per day rather than the waving of calories. Although I guess I should be eating more like 2800 (my desired 185lbs x 15kcal)? That would definitely make planning my meals easier…

I also think I might be shifting… I woke up and had about a pound of 20% hamburger… Then about 1 I was hungry and had a couple Italian sausage, but about 3 I just started feeling really tired and pretty blah, and have felt like that, I’m kind of hungry but I just don’t feel like eating, I had some olive oil in some whipped cream and then some jell-o, not sure if it might just be a crappy day though?

8221

im officially starting the AD tomorrow. I was low carbing it last week, but not taking in as many calories as the diet suggests (BWx18) But today is a carb up with the BWx18, then this week is the low carb/high fat at BWx18.

Question: How long until people usually switch to the “cutting” phase? For the record im 140lbs. So im going to be taking in 2500 calories a day.

Toward the end of my low carb stint last week, i was feeling it in the gym, and just in general… the clouded mind feeling and all. No headaches though. Going to be interesting to see what happens this week.

Are most people only doing 1 day carb up, then 5 days low carb?

8222

[quote]Justin Negrete wrote:
im officially starting the AD tomorrow. I was low carbing it last week, but not taking in as many calories as the diet suggests (BWx18) But today is a carb up with the BWx18, then this week is the low carb/high fat at BWx18.

Question: How long until people usually switch to the “cutting” phase? For the record im 140lbs. So im going to be taking in 2500 calories a day.

Toward the end of my low carb stint last week, i was feeling it in the gym, and just in generaul… the clouded mind feeling and all. No headaches though. Going to be interesting to see what happens this week.

Are most people only doing 1 day carb up, then 5 days low carb?[/quote]

just wondering why you’re asking about the cuttin phase??..at 140lbs you surely don’t want to cut!!!