I’ll try it. Would be less sad than what I have going right now. 15g oats is a sad amount of oats.
15g is really pretty damn sad.
If it feels good you can try to eventually get to the point where you have no carbs before training and an even bigger amount of oats at night
Can you help me understand the more of the trade-off here (other than the obvious one being MORE OATS)? Normally, you’d preload with carbs to raise insulin levels to reduce protein breakdown and keep catabolic hormones down as well as making sure that the nutrients you ingest are transported into the muscles.
Under this schema, I guess you’d already have more ample stores of muscle glycogen, and use that up at the start of the workout, and by the time the muscle glycogen has been mobilized you are already raising insulin levels with your intra-workout and thus keeping the catabolic hormones at bay?
1 Like
Pretty much yeah; load the glycogen stores the night before and as you don’t use that glycogen before your session you won’t be depleted. Start sipping your intra as soon as you begin warming up and you’ll be ensuring performance.
If anything, I’ve noticed that as I’ve moved to a no carbs before training - approach my sessions have been much more consistent. If I have carbs prior to training there is a risk of my blood sugar going down. The two ways to battle that are to either have a gigaton of carbs before training (I used to eat 100g of rye oats with whey and two bananas just before hitting the gym) or to not have any at all.
Which reminds me; if you feel bad with reduced carbs before training, try a couple of session without any carbs beforehand. I’m not saying it would work for everybody but it works for me and could work for you.
I’ve found my best pre workout meal to be a protein shake and a banana. It seems to be the sweet spot for pre workout carbs for me.
Any time I screw up and my blood sugar gets messed up I eat Starbursts (soft, chewy candy) as I’m lifting.
The only crash I’ve had was when I upped my pre-workout to 45g but adding cinnamon fixed that. To be fair, the only carb I’ve ever crashed on was maltodextrin. Plazma and another product with cyclic dextrin has been just fine.
At the beginning of my dieting (i.e. April) before I educated myself regarding workout nutrition I didn’t take in any carbs and I tried that sometime again. I’ve found it works if I’m doing more of a bodybuilding oriented session but I don’t think I could swing it for the workouts I’m currently running. If anything, this is because there isn’t a lot of time to stand around sipping the drink.
Are you an early morning lifter as well?
Sunday, 26th of August 2018
Weight: 76.1kg (-1.5kg since yesterday. +0.8kg over the week). Target weight for this week was 76.4kg
Sleep: ~9 hours
- Weight: 76.1 kg
- Shoulders: 114.5 cm (-3cm)
- (Lower) Waist: 79 cm (no change)
- Chest: 95 cm (+0.5cm)
- Arm: 30 cm (-0.5cm)
- Neck: 36 cm (no change)
- Calf: 35 cm (no change)
- Thigh: 55.5 cm (+0.5cm)
Think I looked better last Sunday. Ah well, dust it off and hunker down for the week.
Weekly meal plan:
Pre-workout (141 calories, 13.1p, 19.9c, 0.5f)
- 20g maltodextrin (-25g from last week)
- 16g whey
- 6-8g sea salt
- 5g Cinnamon
Intra-workout (323 calories, 39p, 43c, 0f)
- 45g maltodextrin (+5g)
- 40g BCAA
- 6-8g sea salt
Post-workout/Breakfast (356 calories, 54p, 25c, 3f)
- 100g blueberries
- 100g pineapple
- 1 scoop whey
- 1 scoop casein
Lunch (461 calories, 47.5p, 17.5c, 19.5f)
- 8g Omega-3s
- 200g ground chicken
- 300g frozen vegetable mix
Dinner A (Monday, Thursday, Friday) (429 calories, 28p, 19c, 24f)
- 6g Omega-3s
- 3 eggs
- 300g frozen vegetable mix
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Dinner B (Tuesday) (505 calories, 40p, 22c, 11.3f)
- 6g Omega-3s
- 250g cottage cheese
- 300g frozen vegetable mix
Dinner C (Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday) (404 calories, 31p, 17c, 21.5f)
- 125g salmon
- 300g frozen vegetable mix
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Pre-bed snack (499 calories, 36p, 34c, 23f)
- 25g almonds
- 5g glycine
- 10g gelatine
- 40g olives
- 100g quark 0.2%
- 100g saurkraut + a probiotic.
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp psyllium husks
- 40g rye oats (+25g)
- 5g cinnamon
Monday: 2118 calories, 218p, 155c, 69f
Tuesday: 2142 calories, 234p, 158c, 56f (I’ll add something here, maybe a rice cake. Planned climbing session. Or some avocado to a meal to up the fat)
Wednesday: 1830 calories, 172p, 75c, 87f
Thursday: 2118 calories, 218p, 155c, 69f
Friday: 2118 calories, 218p, 155c, 69f
Saturday: Similar to Wednesday. Might omit pre-bed rye-oats.
Sunday: Like Wednesday.
Today’s activities: 2h bouldering session. Not sure how much time I actually spent on the wall. Spent a lot of time just talking, and planning how to climb. And a one hour walk earlier this morning.
Total calories today: 2265 calories (206p/111c/102f)
1 Like
Nope. I hate mornings! My favorite and best time to lift is mid to late morning. I typically go to the gym around 11am on my days off. On one of my work days I have to lift after work and I don’t like it. I usually feel like crap or at the very least I just feel sluggish.
I like to get up and drink coffee in the morning. I’ll eat a bowl of oatmeal around 7:30–8:00. I’ll have a double protein shake around 10:00–10:30 and maybe a banana and then I head to the gym shortly after.
My current protein shake has 15g of carbs per servingt so I haven’t been eating my banana with it.
It may just be your posture, but I think your back looks better today.
1 Like
Looking back, I agree. Thanks man!
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your profession?
I’m a maintenance supervisor and procurement specialist at a nuclear power plant.
I’m a police officer in the U.S…
I asked JMaier, but for what it’s worth that sounds cool.
Cool, just tried to wrap my head around the time you hit the gym.
Lol, I’m on my tablet while my pc is in the shop, and the icons don’t always show up.
My schedule isn’t the typical work week. We have four shifts and work 10 hour days. My days off are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s kind of nice having weekdays off in terms of training because I can go to the gym whenever I want and I don’t miss any time away from my wife. My daughter started school this year but I still have my two year old son on my days off. The gym I attend has a Kid Zone and I can drop him off for up to two hours a day.
Monday through Wednesday I go around 11am and I’m usually there for 1.5 to 2.0 hours. I enjoy it. Thursday or Friday nights I have to go after work because it’s leg day. I don’t like to do legs early in the morning and it’s too big and long of a workout to do at work.
The final two days of the training week I go to my work gym during my lunch break. I only get 30 minutes so the workouts are short and I have to move quick. I’ve found that I can get a good upper body session done during this time so I do my upper pushing workout and upper pulling workout on these days. I also don’t get too hot and sweaty during these. I used to try to do leg sessions during this time and it was too much. I’d soak my clothes and have to wear them the rest of the day. I don’t change clothes; I just take off my vest and belt for my lunch break sessions.
As you can see I plan my week so that I do my longer and harder sessions on my days off. It works out pretty well. And on that note, I’m going to try to sneak down to the gym now and knock out my chest/shoulders/tri’s workout.
1 Like
Have a blast! Will check in on your log later/tomorrow!
Monday, 27th of August 2018
Weight: 76.8 (+0.7kg)
Sleep: 8-9 hours
Mirror: Meh
Other notes: woke up with a splitting headache, and creaky joints. Did a longer warm-up than usual as a result.
I really need to start doing my warm-up at the gym instead of at home.
Workout
Top-half seated overhead press 5,3,2,0@55kg [0]
Standing military press 6@40kg [1]
Push press 4@40 kg
Medicine ball push-press throw overhead 10@7kg
Feet elevated plyo push-up 8 reps
Top-half squat 5@160kg
Front squat 5@60kg [2]
Power snatch from hang or blocks 4@35kg. [3]
Jump squat with bar 8@35kg
Vertical jump series 8@40kg
Ergometer 250m [4]
[0] After I failed the last circuit, I stripped 5 kilos and managed 2 reps. Should have hit 6 reps each time.
[1] Except for on the last circuit, where I got 4 reps.
[2] It’s actually crazy how this is a lower weight on my strength movement than what I use on the bench press
[3] Finally went with a lower weight here, honestly my reps still suck
[4] I was very absent-minded today and forgot about this one completely. 
In closing, very sub-par. I had zero fire going into this workout and overall ended up having a very absent-minded morning as I forgot my shower gear, so I had to go back home after the gym.
Before that, I forgot the lock and my keys hanging on the locker so I had to go back to the gym half-way to my bike. I left the locker room still wearing my weightlifting shoes and had to go back for my normal shoes as well. And, of course, missing the ergometer during the workout.
2 Likes
Crazy hunger pangs throughout the entire day. Had an afternoon walk, could not think of anything other than how hungry I felt.
Climbing tomorrow afternoon, moved all the dinner veggies to lunch. Dinner is still cottage cheese (high protein blend) + a bar made out of some dates, almonds, cranberries and vanilla.
Walked 16k steps today. Lunch walk + afternoon walk + walking to the water fountain repeatedly adds up apparently.