My Personal Workouts (Plus My Current Dieting Approach)

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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Just to let you know that I’m posting my daily training sessions on my instagram account (Thibarmy). At the moment my goal are:

  • Regaining strength… I went lighter/low neural demands during my photoshoot prep and while my muscle mass is just as good as it ever was, my strength is not where it needs to be

  • Gain size in some key areas (glutes/hams, upper back mostly)

  • Maintain pretty much the same leaness I achieved for my photo shoot, maybe a 1-2% gain is acceptable

I’m using my own version of the conjugate method with double stimulation sessions in-between the main workouts.

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Christian how your diet looks now, compare to photoshootindbdiet…you will increase kcal slowly?

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No, I am not capable of increasing my diet slowly… that’s not how my brain works. After my photoshoot last year I tried to do that (increase calories/carbs gradually) but I lost control and gained about 20lbs back.

FOR MOST PEOPLE GRADUALLY INCREASING CALORIES IS THE BEST WAY TO GO

But not for me. I know myself now. I’m an “all or nothing” guy.

What I do is this:

Sun: Low calories / Low carbs (around 150g of carbs and 2300 calories)
Mon: Very low calories / Very low carbs (75-100g of carbs and 1900-2100 calories)
Tues: Very low calories / Very low carbs (25-50g of carbs and 1600-1700 calories)
Wed: CHEAT DAY… here I basically eat anything I want all day… often around 6000 calories and not all “good foods” at all!!!
Thu: Very low calories / Very low carbs (75-100g of carbs and 1900-2100 calories)
Fri: Very low calories / Very low carbs (25-50g of carbs and 1600-1700 calories)
Sat: I have ONE fairly large carbs meal (200-250g of carbs) and the rest of the day is low carbs

What helped is that during my photoshoot prep I didn’t cheat. So simply adding the cheat in and the clean carb up allows me to slowly build muscle. Had I included cheats in my prep diet I would have add to increase calories more on a daily basis and while it works for many, ME if I have more than 150g of carb in a day I will binge out on carbs. Mental issue I know!

During my photoshoot diet I would go through the three first days (Sun/Mon/Tues in the plan above) non-stop. I had ONE cheat meal in 8 weeks of dieting (3 chocolate chip cookies during week 6 after driving 3 hours, shooting videos for 5 hours then driving back 3 hours without having a solid meal).

So during my prep my diet looked like this:

DAY 1: Low calories / Low carbs (around 150g of carbs and 2300 calories)
DAY 2: Very low calories / Very low carbs (75-100g of carbs and 1900-2100 calories)
DAY 3: Very low calories / Very low carbs (25-50g of carbs and 1600-1700 calories)
Then start over at Day 1

If I was VERY flat and depleted I would add 50-75g of carbs… did that probably 3-4 times in 8 weeks.

NOTE: I believe that ONLY people who are VERY lean AND depleted can have a real cheat day where they eat what they want. If you are not a TRUE 8% and are super flat, you can’t have a cheat day.

See, last week my body weight was as follow on each day:

Sun: 203lbs
Mon: 202lbs
Tue: 200lbs
Wed: 195lbs (VERY depleted… 6-7 less than my normal weight at the moment)
Thu: 204lbs (after cheat day)
Fri: 202lbs
Sat: 201 lbs

If on wednesday morning I was not depleted like I wanted (for example if I had not been able to do my cardio or training, of if I didn’t do much training, etc.) and was only down to 198-199 I would only have had 2 cheat meals instead of a whole day.

My daily training is posted on instagram (Thibarmy) but normally my schedule at the moment is:

Sun: Low calories / Low carbs (around 150g of carbs and 2300 calories)
DYNAMIC EFFORT UPPER BODY

Mon: Very low calories / Very low carbs (75-100g of carbs and 1900-2100 calories)
OFF OR BONUS WORK LIKE ABS/BICEPS/FARMERS WALK

Tues: Very low calories / Very low carbs (25-50g of carbs and 1600-1700 calories)
LOWER BODY HEAVY (I train early and do low reps so the low carbs don’t bother me for this workout, especially since I have carbs around my session)

Wed: CHEAT DAY… here I basically eat anything I want all day… often around 6000 calories and not all “good foods” at all!!!
EASY PUMP WORK - DOUBLE STIMULATION FOR MUSCLES WORKED TUESDAY

Thu: Very low calories / Very low carbs (75-100g of carbs and 1900-2100 calories)
UPPER BODY HEAVY (when fully loaded)

Fri: Very low calories / Very low carbs (25-50g of carbs and 1600-1700 calories)
EASY PUMP WORK - DOUBLE STIMULATION FOR THE MUSCLES TRAINED THURSDAY

Sat: I have ONE fairly large carbs meal (200-250g of carbs) and the rest of the day is low carbs
DYNAMIC EFFORT LOWER BODY

I also do fasted cardio when possible (my busiest period of the year just started). During my prep I did 40-60 min of fasted cardio every day, at the moment it’s 30-40 min 4-5 times a week.

I normally:

  • Wake up at 5am
  • Do my fasted cardio at 6am
  • Come back home and eat breakfast (something light and easy to digest, normally 2 servings of MAG-10 and 150g of chicken)
  • Lift at 9am
  • Eat my second meal which is the largest one of the day and includes almost all of my carbs… this is around 30-45 min after my workout
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These are from the photoshoot, not necessarily the best ones, I have a thousand to sort through and picked almost randomly.

I was 198-199 leading up to the photoshoot (before dehydration) and my normal weight now is 201-202. I do not notice any added fat but my muscles (mostly arms, shoulders and glutes) look fuller. For the photoshoot I didn’t train my legs that much and started all-out lower body training 3 weeks ago. Since I have naturally good legs they responded well which likely explains the 2-3lbs increase in weight.

My priorities now are getting stronger while staying lean and improving glutes/hams and upper back. I have a flat chest but it doesn’t bother me for what I’m trying to accomplish.

NOTE: I do NOT believe that you can GET really lean and gain strength and muscle at the same time. BUT I think that once you are lean you can stay lean while working on adding strength and muscle.

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Obviously I’m not the only one thinking it, but I’ll be the one to say it: THANK YOU for all the details!

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It is unbelievable how low CT’s calories are. And at his size + muscularity…it is less than the average recommended calorie for “regular” nonlifting people!

I think i saw a few other very big dudes (ripped) eating only 2500 calories or less every day.

Ironically the smaller guys can put away more (and still maintain shredss??)…

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Paul Carter sometimes goes lower than this. Dugdale at the same level. Meadows not much higher. More guys than you think. It not about how much you eat, its how much you absorb

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How does “double stimulation” work? Is it like a feeder workout?

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Christian

What supplements you will take to help keep staying lean and healthy?

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I pretty much never take suppléments specifically to get lean or stay lean (fat burners). IMHO they can do more harm than good if abused or not used properly.

Most of my suppléments are for health purposes… I find that the healthier I am, the better I look.

I take Flameout, Curcumin, whey protein, Superfood, MAG-10 (I don’t use PLAZMA at the moment because I’m restricting my carbs), vitamin C and from time to time (when I’m Under stress like when I give a seminar or film 60 capsules in one day) I take phosphatidylserine.

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For a type 3, you recommend having carbs at every meal and up to 2g/lb of bodyweight per day. So, the carb-cycling approach would probably not work very well, however is there any other way to manipulate carb intake, specifically for fat loss?

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hello coach,
pour la phosphatidylsérine., celle que l’on achète chez les revendeurs est elle de bonne qualité normalement ?, si non, avez vous une marque que vous préférez par rapport aux autres niveau qualité ??
merci

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Thank you for the sharing!

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How much protein you have per day?

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Hello CT, can you give a short explanation of this last sentence of yours ?

(I am talking about Post #7, under Sigil, don’t know how to quote …)

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You can go pretty low… you can have 20-25g of carbs 6x a day to help control cortisol levels which brings you to 120-150g on your LOW days. I would had 25 g peri-workout for a total of around 175g on moderate days and add another 25g on your last meal (for increasing serotonin) bringing you up to 200g on your higher days. This is not my suggestion for building muscle, but to get lean it shows you that even a type 3 can use a lower carbs approach

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Around 225-250g

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It’s not how much you eat but how much you absorb… meaning that some people might have digestive issues and do not absorb all (or even most) of the nutrients they ingest. So they have to eat more to get the same amount of nutrition to their body… ironically eating a ton will stress the digestive system which can make it even less efficient.

Guys with very healthy and efficient digestive systems can eat a lot less and still grow because they absorb nutrients better. The fact that I did intermittent fasting for a long time very likely improve my digestive system effciency when it comes to nutrients absorption. An old article by Ori Hoffmeklel (The Warriors diet) talks about that a little bit and Meadows has also mentioned it on one of his recent videos.

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Thank you. I will implement this approach going forward, I am strictly focused on bodycomp right now (bought the Thibarmy program) and I’ve been trying to figure out the best diet approach. Would it make sense to have moderate/low/high days coincide with lifting/energy systems/recovery days?