My Experience On the Anabolic Diet

jackbrown · January 24, 2009, 2:15am

Let me jump in here. I’ve been on the AD for almost 4 weeks now. Went from 193-5lbs to 187lbs as of yesterday. Been training BB style for 2.5 years and prescribed to the high carb/protein low fat diets that most people who train use. But after the first week I was GTG.

the first 5 days had me feeling mentally worn out and looking visibly sick, per my wife. At day 25 I’m feeling real good with the small exception of feeling weak in the gym by Friday as I couldn’t put up my normal sets today. The weekends are worth waiting for in regards to my love of high carb foods. Anyone else feel a bit weaker by the end of the week?

Evil1 · January 24, 2009, 2:43am

yea that’s a common occurance…actually ties into what happened to me today…t’was supposed to be a lactate inducing workout but I pussied out and ended up just not going to the gym at all.

I believe that’s why most people leave Friday for the easiest workout of the week…well the sane ones anyway…me? i’m ‘special’ here’s what I’ll be doing the next 20 minutes borrowed a pair of 20lb dbells from the guy in the room next to mine (6 tenants in 1 house!!!) and asked him to leave his pull up bar on his ledge.

Gonna go for 2 of the following from CT’s max fat loss thing:

A: (x3 w/ no rest)
db bench, db squat, pull-ups, db lunge, leg raises

2 min rest, then;

B: (x3 w/ no rest)
db military press, db step-up, db upright row, db lunge, russian twists

nz6stringaxe · January 24, 2009, 7:20am

…And when I awaken, carbohydrates will be had!!

I’ll let you know how I feel, the pump feels, and how one of the two hardest workouts (of four) I’m doing right now go. I currently train 4 sessions over a 6-8 day cycle, and I’m going to use this carb weekend to pair up my sessions. Oh, and my wrist feels a little bit better; I’ve been really trying to nurse it in my sleep.

By the way, I’m planning on doing at least 2 more weeks of this (unless this carb up is the worst thing ever, then I may have to change my mind) and hopefully extending it to successful fat loss which I deemed first-priority as of yesterday. My post-competition mistakes were very harsh.

…and then back to worshiping the ground John Berardi walks on!

(Good luck Indy, I’d like to hear your first loading experiences as well.)

DJS · January 24, 2009, 11:02am

[quote]nz6stringaxe wrote:
…And when I awaken, carbohydrates will be had!!

I’ll let you know how I feel, the pump feels, and how one of the two hardest workouts (of four) I’m doing right now go. I currently train 4 sessions over a 6-8 day cycle, and I’m going to use this carb weekend to pair up my sessions. Oh, and my wrist feels a little bit better; I’ve been really trying to nurse it in my sleep.

By the way, I’m planning on doing at least 2 more weeks of this (unless this carb up is the worst thing ever, then I may have to change my mind) and hopefully extending it to successful fat loss which I deemed first-priority as of yesterday. My post-competition mistakes were very harsh.

…and then back to worshiping the ground John Berardi walks on!

(Good luck Indy, I’d like to hear your first loading experiences as well.)[/quote]

Best of luck! I hope your carb up goes well. I assume you are going to get an amazing pump!

TITI_MATIBAY · January 25, 2009, 3:59am

Hi guys. Just wanted to pop in here and say I’m glad this thread is still alive. I’ve been lurking around the boards and have been hearing talks about the Anabolic Diet and have decided to give it a shot. I’ve read the book and understand the principles and have read through the first 20 pages of this thread, which we all know is over 370 pages.

So anyway, considering this thread started back in 2005, and now being 2009… has there been any significant discoveries or changes people have decided to make to the diet? For example, people have been eating full fat meats such as bacon, fatty steaks, etc. Changes as far as better food choices, carb loading lengths etc.

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I just didn’t want to go through 370 pages before starting the diet and realizing that I could’ve done something different. Thanks.

nz6stringaxe · January 25, 2009, 4:37am

Sorry man, but I doubt anyone in the ‘current class’ of this thread knows what happened in the last 200 pages either!

So carb loading today started with 44g of steel cut oats with 26g of flaxmeal, 40g of apricots, and one whole grapefruit. I started to feel the insulin surge in a tingly sort of way as well as experiencing a non-painful headache (just heavy activity up there or something). I went to a rehearsal for a performance tonight and hit my workout right after which wasn’t much easier, but I did seem more focused. My wrist didn’t hinder my curls as much either. I took a total of 75ish g of dextrose during and after, went home and cooked zucchini, green beans, broccoli, spinach, 55g pasta, and beef with some vinegar and light BBQ sauce. After the show, more beef with 325g of yammy goodness.

I guess I feel a little pumped…I don’t really feel I’m that sensitive to it, especially being as fat as I’ve become. I did take weight last night and this morning, looking forward to seeing what it says tonight and tomorrow.

So as for this diet goes…the plan remains to use it to help me cut until I’m satisfied and then ditch it knowing I gave it its chance.

DJS · January 25, 2009, 3:41pm

[quote]TITI MATIBAY wrote:
Hi guys. Just wanted to pop in here and say I’m glad this thread is still alive. I’ve been lurking around the boards and have been hearing talks about the Anabolic Diet and have decided to give it a shot. I’ve read the book and understand the principles and have read through the first 20 pages of this thread, which we all know is over 370 pages.

So anyway, considering this thread started back in 2005, and now being 2009… has there been any significant discoveries or changes people have decided to make to the diet? For example, people have been eating full fat meats such as bacon, fatty steaks, etc. Changes as far as better food choices, carb loading lengths etc.

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I just didn’t want to go through 370 pages before starting the diet and realizing that I could’ve done something different. Thanks.[/quote]

Hello there. Good luck. I am not an expert on this diet. Only on day seven. I think you are good to get started. There is a ton of useful tidbits in the thread that you can keep reading when you can. I think i have read about 150 pages at this point. I have a sample day’s diet on this page towards the top. Its right around 3500 cals and the ratios are all right but its a little low on fiber. I have not had any issues taking a dump once a day though. You may be different so you need to watch that.

jackbrown · January 25, 2009, 5:23pm

Anyone have a good online calorie counter/log? As you know when you drop your carbs, you drop almost 50% of your Cals.

Carb up this weekend is going well. The only thing that killed me was eating a whole pack of candy my daughter got at a B-day party. Talk about Insulin spike then blood sugar drop…Whoa! Had to take a nap after that one. Otherwise all the food I ate was great and caused no issues. Even at Orange Chicken at Panda Express with Chow Mein and felt great.

I’m gonna have to change my training days around so my hard and heavy days are at the beginning of the week. I usually do a Sat Bicep/Tricep workout, but opted not to because I train Chest and Tris together. So Monday I will do Chest/Tris instead of legs.

DJS · January 25, 2009, 5:37pm

[quote]jackbrown wrote:
Anyone have a good online calorie counter/log? As you know when you drop your carbs, you drop almost 50% of your Cals.

Carb up this weekend is going well. The only thing that killed me was eating a whole pack of candy my daughter got at a B-day party. Talk about Insulin spike then blood sugar drop…Whoa! Had to take a nap after that one. Otherwise all the food I ate was great and caused no issues. Even at Orange Chicken at Panda Express with Chow Mein and felt great.

I’m gonna have to change my training days around so my hard and heavy days are at the beginning of the week. I usually do a Sat Bicep/Tricep workout, but opted not to because I train Chest and Tris together. So Monday I will do Chest/Tris instead of legs. [/quote]

I use www.fitday.com. It is free and you can create foods that arent on there such as protein powders ect.

jackbrown · January 25, 2009, 6:34pm

Nevermind. Found a good one on fitday.com

KingIndy · January 25, 2009, 9:47pm

Alright, finished the first carb up. I just did it all day Saturday for this first time and will adjust going forward if need be. Didn’t want to overdo it this time. It was a pretty unorthodox carb up that probably won’t happen again due to my inability to get to the store and load up with a variety of foods.

Throughout the day I had 1600 calories worth of granola, most of it for breakfast, which was pretty ridiculous. However, it was all natural with honey/peanut butter being the only sweetener in it, and it was the perfect profile for the caloric percentages I was looking for.

I also had whole-wheat spaghetti with pasta sauce, cucumber, brown rice, and a naked superfood smoothie for my first fruit in two weeks. and a met-rx protein bar. Not 100% clean, but pretty clean.

I felt a little hazy and crappy in the middle of the day, but nothing horrible, didn’t really experience this magical pump but honestly didn’t think I would. Maybe it’s because I’m not as in-tune with the behaviors of my body as othere.

Anyways, I went and worked out about 2500 calories into the day and had a high volume workout. Felt pretty good, but the deadlift really killed me. I’m not really attributing that to the diet, it was just a tough workout.

I was actually down a pound when I weighed myself pre-workout, and I’m not someone who has big weight fluctuation, so that was interesting as I was expecting the opposite, to be up a pound or two. We’ll see how this week goes, expecting to see some strength gains this week and interested to see what happens with my weight.

TITI_MATIBAY · January 25, 2009, 10:13pm

Thanks for the reply guys. I just wanted to make sure that eating bacon, Spam, etc was still okay choices or if I should get most of my fats from “good” sources such as mainly olive oil, nuts, etc.

I’m ready to start up tomorrow, although I’m gonna do my first week as a 5day/2day carb and then do the 12 days low carb straight the week after. My girlfriend’s family is coming in from Hawaii this weekend and we’re going to Disneyland. Hard to low carb while at Disneyland lol.

Anyway, I’ll update on this thread as well and give you guys my starting stats tonight to track my progress. Thanks.

TITI_MATIBAY · January 25, 2009, 10:56pm

[quote]IL Cazzo wrote:

During induction, just eat. Sausages too.

As you adapt, especially if you are cutting, then you can begin to both better fats (btw, olive oil is a source of Omega 9, not 3’s…go with fish or flax for 3’s)and lowering fat levels slightly and increasing protein.

But, at no point should you be afraid to eat eggs, bacon or steak![/quote]

Found the answer to my question. Thanks IC, I know you’ve been around since the beginning of this thread.

nz6stringaxe · January 26, 2009, 1:14am

I don’t know how you want to handle this TITI, but if I were you (starting with a 5/2 before the 12), I’d make the carb-up light. By that I mean just eat what you’d normally eat. Don’t do anything special, don’t purposely overload on carbs, just make it a normal carb-friendly day or two.

I just finished my carb period and felt pretty weird after my first meal yesterday. I don’t really like that tingly rush of insulin. Today I just had an apple, another bowl of oats with flaxmeal, a full workout drink setup, some Promax bar which turned out to be pretty crappy, and finishing off with a small slice of pumpkin cheesecake.

I did my shopping a few hours ago and had an updated list (based on how hard/light to stock things). I overbought meat apparently and had to store a few lbs of gorund chuck in my roommates’ freezer.

(I live with 4 people in a house with a complete fridge, but I don’t use the freezer because I have my own large, personal, chest-style freezer for all the meats and vegetables lol).

My workouts were pretty good this weekend…not especially easy, but I was more mentally there. That may also be because during the week, I train after I’m done all or a few classes. Otherwise, first priority. Do you guys all train on the weekends? Both days, one day, no days? I feel like it just makes sense to use the massive influx of nutrients.

I ended up only eating about 3500-3700cal yesterday. I can’t imagine someone eating 10k as mentioned in the book! My 18xBW is only about 2800, but when I began, I tried to get somwhere more around 3000-3500 since I was eating MORE than maintenance prior to starting.

I thought I’d be eating a lot more yesterday, but I seemed to really just focus on carbs, and magically, my caloric ratios came out just about perfectly to where I was planning. (CFP: 54% 33% 13%)

So this week I bought a full pint of heavy cream, BEEF bacon (can’t wait to try that one), and got some special oils. Crisco now has some canola blend with DHA from Algae, and I got the Smartbalance blend. Much cheaper than evoo (and I can’t even stand the taste anymore).

The anabolic diet shall continue until my fat comes down. In terms of cutting, do you guys find cutting calories is enough to elicit a significant reduction in fat with this, that is, without adding in cardio of any sort or adding lactate-producing workouts?

nz6stringaxe · January 26, 2009, 1:20am

By the way, I meant to ask you all how you felt about all the horrible ingredients we almost HAVE to be eating to maintain this diet, like sodium erythrorbate and sodium nitrite. The only solace I’m taking is that I know I’m ditching this plan once I’m in a satisfactory state of leanness.

Evil1 · January 26, 2009, 2:45am

[quote]nz6stringaxe wrote:
By the way, I meant to ask you all how you felt about all the horrible ingredients we almost HAVE to be eating to maintain this diet, like sodium erythrorbate and sodium nitrite. The only solace I’m taking is that I know I’m ditching this plan once I’m in a satisfactory state of leanness.[/quote]

IMO, you’re making this harder than it needs to be.
This is the first time I have heard of the need to balance Sodium erythrobate & sodium nitrite.
Apart from a good multivitamin you don’t need to control anything other than the quality of your food. Which if you paid any attention to nutrition before, should be quite a mundane matter at this point.

If you’re concerned about sodium balances and such, all you have to do is stop cooking with regular salt…get sea salt, over do what I do and don’t add any salt to your cooking. the only thing I ever salt is my the meat I grill/fry.
Apart from that any salt I take in comes from dressings, sauces, cheeses and outside food.

Btw, If you continue to feel terrible ‘mentally’ on this plan, you may want to look at either upping your cho intake during the week or maybe a diff plan. Some people don’t feel good on low-carb. maybe you’re one of them

nz6stringaxe · January 26, 2009, 5:19am

No, I think you misunderstood. I’m not exactly sure what sodium erythorbate is other than a preserving food additive, but sodium nitrite is a bad dude. It’s reactive to become a nitrosamine (a carcinogen) in high heats.

I also don’t think you understood what I meant by ‘being there’ mentally. In my workouts over the last 2 weeks, I’ve lacked focus and felt daunted by the work ahead of me. The Alpha Male attack mode wasn’t quite there.

As far as cognitive function or just general well being, after day four, I’ve felt completely normal at all times. I’m actually surprised at how efficiently I function on such low carb intake. I’m pretty hungry most of the time, however, even on 3500 cals.

dlannan · January 26, 2009, 5:20am

[quote]nz6stringaxe wrote:
By the way, I meant to ask you all how you felt about all the horrible ingredients we almost HAVE to be eating to maintain this diet, like sodium erythrorbate and sodium nitrite. The only solace I’m taking is that I know I’m ditching this plan once I’m in a satisfactory state of leanness.[/quote]

Are you simply eating bacon and sausage? I eat steak, burgers, turkey, salmon, eggs, and protein shakes w/cream as my staples. I don’t think I’m eating any weirdo sodiums.

TITI_MATIBAY · January 26, 2009, 8:24am

[quote]nz6stringaxe wrote:
I don’t know how you want to handle this TITI, but if I were you (starting with a 5/2 before the 12), I’d make the carb-up light. By that I mean just eat what you’d normally eat. Don’t do anything special, don’t purposely overload on carbs, just make it a normal carb-friendly day or two.

[/quote]

good call on the first carb load. i’m gonna start this up tomorrow but as a real rough trial. not trying to get all caught up in the numbers quite yet and just slam down as much food as i can these next few days and then look back and see what i’ve done, as advised by Avocado. I’ll let this week be my trial and start to dial it all in next week. I’ll try roughly for 3000 calories, 60%fat and 35protein.

my starting stats are roughly as follows:
5’7" 170 lbs
Jackson/Pollack 7: 14% Bodyfat
Parillo: 17% Bodyfat

I’ve slacked off from my training about two months ago starting around Thanksgiving but before that I was using Waterbury’s ABBH. I tested my maxes as follows:

Bench: 300
Squat: 300
Deadlift: 415

I realized how unbalanced I was with my real pussy weight squats so i switched to Rader’s old school training and focused on squats and deadlifts, which is what I’ll be using when I start back on my training tomorrow. That’s it for now, I’ll check back in tomorrow.

TITI_MATIBAY · January 26, 2009, 8:31am