I’m pretty new to these forums, and am sometimes intimidated while entertained by the massive bashing at idiotic questions, but today i reached under my skirt, grabbed my sack, and am posting, because I need a lil info I haven’t yet been able to gleen from these forums (though it’s probably here somewhere.)
I’m strength training about 4 days/week and have a good system going. While building muscle, I have a considerable amount of fat to drop. I like lifting, enjoy doing it, and like seeing the gains I’ve been getting. Because my main goal is dropping weight, I’m running on a low-carb, almost ketogenic diet (can’t verify I’m ketogenic till my strips come in.) From what I understand, it’s quite easy to low-carb wrong, and have your body eating up an assload of the muscle you’re working so hard to build. As it is, I smell like Ammonia when I leave the gym every morning. So I guess I’m reaching out to those that have input on rolling with no carb, and how to maintain glycogen stores, etc, all of that good stuff. I’m working out almost every morning, weights before cardio, on an empty stomach. Post workout is a protien shake @ 40gms prot, and about 6 gms carbs. For the rest of the day, I do essentially clean protien, veggies, occasional cheeses and dairy, and virtually no carb in excess of the traces in the stuff listed above.
Sorry about the wordy post. Hope I gave enough info to get some input.
Hey my man,
HAve you looked into the T-Dawg Diet 2.0??
And after first glance, you are definetely NOT taking advantage of post workout nutrition. This is the one time where you DON’T want to be shy with the carbs! 6 grams post workout just ain’t going to cut it my friend! I am also concerned that you are working out in a fasted state as that can be very detrimental in terms of preserving LBM. Investing in some Surge would be highly beneficial. Drink 1/2 before/during training and the other half when you are done. Then wait 60 minutes and eat another P+C meal, albeit since you are low carbing it would be small (say 20-30 grams…1/2 cup of oatmeal for example). The rest of the day you will meet the 100 grams of carbs (via the T-Dawg DIet) through incomplete carb souces such as veggies, eggs and mixed nuts. Give it a glance, I think that diet would bode well for you!
Oh, by the way…Welcome to T-mag! Glad to have ya aboard!
I wouldn’t lift on an empty stomach. This will break down muscle FAST. Also, you can have carbs after your workouts. Just throw some sugar in there. Your muscles will thank you for this. It replenishes their glycogen stores so you recuperate faster. Try 80 g carbs, 40 g protein. You can make this most of the carbs you eat for the day.
I agree with Tony. I was having a dumb moment and couldn’t think of t-dawg 2.0. Definitely try that. As soon as you get carbs into your muscles, they will start to feel fuller and harder.
Hey, I don’t have much to say about your post - except eat more post workout.
As for being new and getting flamed - if you ask an honest question and follow up with it and think about what you are told and continue an intelligent discussion you will NOT get flamed. You can also ask follow up questions and look for more information and learn a lot. That is engouraged. Of course, you may get some good natured ribbing - but that comes with the territory. grin
If your first post is an indication, you’ll be fine.
Excellent advice from both of you. Thanks a ton! I will check out the T-Dawg today and see what the deal is, and change it up a bit. I really don’t want to lose any more LBM than I already have, and I can just almost FEEL my body eating up the muscle on me. Thanks again!
Great suggestions, T-Dawg 2 is perfect; however, one other option would be to not worry so much about fat right now.
I mean try to maintain your present percentage, but just “mass out” until you are happy with yourself muscularly, and then start cutting. I never try to gain fat, but I know a little bits gonna come when I’m bulking. I alternate bulking and cutting, but am nowhere near where I want to be mass wise right now, so I end up bulking a lot more, with occasional spurts of cutting to give my muscles a little rest and to drop the body fat percentage.
Now, I definately don’t mean yo-yo-ing. Even during bulkin my bf% stays around 15%, and with cutting i go down to 12 or 10%. Ultimately I’d like to go back to single digits, but my goal right now is bulk.
I guess my main thing is this: determine what is your focus right now, mass or fat-loss, and you could definatley do both using t-dawg 2.0 and some 4ad-ec. But if it’s mass your after, do some massive eating and mag-10, if it’s fat-loss try some hot-roxx.
wow, that was disjointed when I read back over it, but I’m in a hurry right now, so I hope it helps.
Lifting on an empty stomach is a bad idea, as the other guys said. Since you’re working out in the morning (I’m assuming first thing), have a small P+F meal about an hour or so before you lift, if possible. Wake up a little earlier if necessary. Something along the lines of cottage cheese mixed with grow & peanut butter. Also, the advice on post-workout carbs is solid. First choice would be Surge, but at least get some whey isolate & maltodextrin/dextrose for during your workout and the immediate post workout meal.
Wow, plenty more replies. I’l try to fire off responses as best as I can:
Body Fat: I have PLENTY of fat to lose, and it has to be my number 1 priority. “Cutting” is a nice way to say "Need to cut my bf% in half. I’m clubbin 275 lbs at 5’11, and the gut, etc has to go. So that’s my priority, but it was good to have that put into perspective.
AM Eating: I can wake up whenever. I’ll get up and grab some protien/fat combo before the gym, and hit up some carbs in my shake afterward. It even FEELS right when I do that, so I’m excited for it. Yes. That’s right. I said “Excited” for cottage cheese.
Flames: I see plenty of entertainment on here. If I write something flame-worthy, I must invite the wrath I guess, like anyone else. Tis a double edged sword though. Just dont’ call me fatass. Uncle Wally says that and it hurts.
Search for tdawag 2.0 (or use that nice link you are given). When doing search sometimes change the location of the search from default of t-forums to the t-mag or to all…
You must eat before workout, otherwise you will really end up being what we call “skinny fat”.
Same goes for post workout carbs, they are required for the same reason.
Take it from others who have done the low low carbs all the time, it’s just a muscle burner. I did it myself, and yeah I lost fat but lost muscle also, and really for no reason.
Now i’m doing tdawg with my surge during and post workout and my LBM is going up while my fat goes down.
Hey Guys, I’m new to this forum too. I just found this site and it rocks! Lots of good info. Been training about a year with some great response. Hey Kahunaman, I was in your shoes, go hard, it’ll come off! glad to be here.