Eric, great job bro! Those are truly awesome results. I am going to begin easing into a bulking cycle over the next few weeks using this diet (as you know), and hope I’ll be able to post some numbers like that too!
After reading about those pancakes I can hardly type, due to the fact that the drool has run off my chin and on to my keyboard…without knowing too many details, I think that your best bet may just be to increase your activity levels a bit.
All right fellas, after reading all this info and looking back to when I last dieted for a show 3 years ago (I used a very similar idea), I decided to jump on the bandwagon! Today is day one for me. Need to drop a least 15 pounds of unwanted fat gained due to birth of our baby 18 months ago!
Current stats:
5"10", 235 pounds, 17-18% body fat, Bench 405, squat 500, Dead 455. Left bodybuilding when son was born, now more interested in power lifting/strongman.
Because of financial reasons, no glutamine or BCAAs will be used to start off with. Hope to add them in the future. Will use Xtreme Formulations Relentless post-workout, very dilute Gatorade and Powerdrive pre and during workout. Low- Carb Grow for added protein and of course loads of fish oil caps!
On quick question for you all, my schedule is all messed up due to work, childcare, and church. I train on Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Renegade style! On “off days” I still do Rope work and swings in the morning! How do you think a carb up Saturday night through Sunday lunch will affect my dieting? I assume most if not all of you train Monday -Friday and carb up on weekends. I would be carbing up in the middle of the training week. Any thoughts to this wrinkle? When I followed a similar plan three years ago, I had one carb up meal on Wednesday morning without any ill affects, and don’t expect any now but interested in all your feedback!
Thanks and I will keep you all posted!
In faith,
Matt
Thanks for the update, bro. Honestly, The first couple weeks of this experiment I was very pleased. I lost a few lbs. of bf and what I presume to be a lot of water weight. This past week has been bad. I feel completely flat and I have lost definition in my shoulders and some mass in my chest and biceps. I feel that I’ve gained some fatty fat fat fat too. Fuck. I am considering tapping outta this one, fellas. Today (Monday) I started up with a GROW/oatmeal combo for breakfast and will gradually increase carbs over the week sticking, of course, to Berardi protos. I’m not sure what the fault here was. I was, for the most part, very tight about my micro breakdowns. Perhaps I just do better on higher carbs, no? Maybe it just burns down to knowing one’s own body. As always, your thoughts are desirable. Lata.
MBE: “Fuck flat. Since 1740.”
-Eric
Hey how come no one has posted in a while??
Any ways quick question…as I look at my bag of Baby Spinach from Trader Joe’s It says it weighs 170 grams. On the back it says there are two servings of 3 oz (85 grams…ok. then it says there are 2g of fiber per serving and 3g of carbs total!! So that works out to only 2 grams of carbs for then entire bag?? Am I doing this right?? So, I would have to eat 50 bags of spinach a day to hit the 100 gram carb mark??? Don’t tell me you guys eat enough greens for 50 salads a day??Somebody help me out here…
BTW, I am 162 lbs. 9.6% BF. looking to cut that in half in about 6-8 weeks. The rest of the diet is meal1) post w/o pro and simple carbs 2.) 3 eggs 3 pieces tuyrkey bacon, 1tbsp flax, 4-5 fish oil caps, large bowl of broccoli 3.) Chicken breast, bowl of spinach, 1 tbsp of flax, fish oil caps, 4.) handful of cashews or almonds, few slices of cheese, 1tbsp flax, fish oil caps, 5.) Lean ground beef burger or meatloaf, slice of cheese, 3-4 stalks of celery, 1 tbsp flax, fish oil caps …usually get around 5 solid meals a day.
Later
Actually it’s 50 grams or less of carbs from greens, and whatever you do for post-workout…either carbs or glutamine with whey protein depending on your current bodyfat.
So how many bowls of greens do you eat a day?? Does my diet sound about right??
Thanks in advance…
BTW, are you shredded yet?
Well my diet is a little closer to Don Alessi’s recommendations right now. Poliquin recommends 1.5-2 g. protein/lb, where Alessi recommends a little less than 1 g/lb. Here’s a typical day for me right now:
- 5 egg whites/2 whl. eggs, 1 tsp. liquid fish oil, 2-3 serv. green beans
- 4 oz chicken, lg. salad w. romaine lettuce, baby spinach, broccoli, cucumbers, peppers and 1 tbsp. ground flaxseed w. vinegar/oil dressing, 1 tsp. fish oil
- 17 oz. low-carb Myoplex or 1.5 serv. low-carb Grow, psyllium/guar gum/flaxseed fiber mixed w. water, handful of mixed nuts
- 4 oz. eye of round steak, 2 tsp. Udo’s or fish oil, green beans (same serving size as above)
- During workout: 25 g. BCAA’s/glutamine (Xtreme Formulations ICE)
- Post-workout: 40 g. whey isolate w. 20 g. glutamine
- 1 cup fat-free cottage cheese w. 1/2 scoop low-carb Grow, 1 cup broccoli, 1 tbsp. Udo’s or fish oil
Approximately 2000 cals or so right now. I’m very close to your stats (160 @ 7 percent). I’d shoot for six meals for best results. Get a 6-8 oz. portion of meat with your whole food meals and you’ll be good to go as far as protein.
Baby spinach doesn’t have much usable carbs…the one I buy has 7 g. all from fiber. I’d really hit the broccoli and green beans, and throw at least one if not two salads in each day. Don’t forget the small amt. of carbs that’s in your cheese, nuts etc. Good luck!
Well, since it’s back up front here, I might as well post something.
I initially started posting on this thread in a cut phase. I ended up doing okay, but not as well as I would have liked. I had done this diet once before (it was a cut phase as well) with about the same, sub-par or average, results. I kept the diet's protocol for a subsequent bulking phase, for which it seemed to work incredibly well. I would have to agree with what El_Machinae has said elsewhere on this board: For me, this diet kicks ass for bulking, but is not the right fit when I am trying to cut.
good thread guys, need some help with this diet…tried breaking it down the best i could, so let me get this right…
1.5-2 grams protein per lb of body weight
<30 grams carbs, coming from greens
50 grams of carbs in post-shake (surge)
how much fat???
how many calories??
stats: 6’1, 218, 13 %bf…looking to get down to 10 %
thanks for the help guys and gals…keep growin.
todd
If you want to go by the strict guidelines, I would not put the carbs in post-workout…use glutamine instead (20-40 g.). When you lean out a bit more, you can start using carbs instead.
Fat-wise…just load up on the fish oil (6-10 g. EPA/DHA), minimize saturated fats and use flax, walnuts, cashews etc. If you know your calorie level you need to be at, just subtract the protein and carb cals and get the rest from fat. I am 160 and I try to get anywhere from 10-15 g. fat per meal (except post-workout). Good luck!
If you decide to skip the carbs post workout, make sure you’re taking in a hefty dose of bcaa’s during your workout. I forgot that in my previous post.
Thanks bro…how long you been on the Cp diet? Have you dropped BF since you started? I’m shooting for at least 5% then I’m get up to 190…The lowest I’ve been before was 5.7-6%…rippped!
Anybody gain good muscle on this diet or should I switch to a higher carb…
Hey, is it me or do you not even miss carbb anymore?
BTW, I carbed last weekend and think I went overboard, I felt hugely bloated, I’m gonna cut back carbs to once every 14 days…
later
I’m pretty lean right now…at 5’7" and 160ish noone is going to mistake me for Mr. Olympia anytime soon, but I have to admit, I prefer the “underwear model” look for myself. Lots of big guys in my gym, but not a single one of them is in the single digit bodyfat category, so I get lots of compliments from people. Eventually I’m gonna hit a mass phase, but I’m happy where I’m at right now.
I’ve been on the diet for approximately a couple of months, with a “week off” right in between. The only time I have a problem with carb cravings is when I start my Sunday carb-up, which consists of one 200 g. carb meal a la Don Alessi (usually an 8 oz. serving of plain white pasta w. garlic pepper seasoning and I take alpha lipoic acid, a product with glucosol and phaseolamin, and a load of fiber beforehand, or sometimes I do a huge serving of oats w. Grow powder and a banana or something). I had been using T2 but for some reason I get excessively fatigued when I take this…anyone know why this might occur?
Damn!! you only carb up 1 meal?? What about cheat days? Why does Alessi prefer one meal to all day or based on leaness?? Where are Alessi’s diet recco’s??
I’m doing this right now to cut/maintain–goal is to get from 9% to 6%. Right now I’m tapering into maintainence (~2800 k/cal/day) from a 1200 k/Cal fat fast. It beats the standard CK diet, and I’m feeling and looking leaner. I really like it, especially the pounds of vegetables. How do you guys use this for bulking? Do you increase k/cal for each day, do more frequent carb-ups, or both? Also, I’m readying that you should get either 50 g, 100g, or 1g/lbs of carbs, not counting post-workout, what’s the deal?
Check out “The Next Poliquin” in the previous issues as well as the Iron Dog columns.
Okay, what I did for awesome anabolism (please note I was doing HST at the time as well).
I was carbing up for two meals in a row every 4 or five days (this is when I’d see the mad weight gain). All other days followed this protocol (I’m 185lbs, and numbers are based on body weight).
Protein: 370g / day including 50g post-workout. This also includes veges
Carbs: 105g per day from greens (100g of calorie giving carbs - make sure to factor out fiber). Plus I would have 80g carbs post-workout in the form of a sandwich. total 185g
Fat: 185g / day. Mixture of animal and fish fats.
I would slowly lose weight after the carb up days (duh), but by the next one I was still heavier than the last carb up day. Then, over the carb up day I’d put on massive weight and continue.
After a bit, I added in a cardio session in the morning (700 calories burned). I would have another 80gC, 50gP post-workout meal. The carbs added to my carb total (so, 185g + 80g). The protein didn’t (I still totalled 370g per day).
If I were eating Massive Eating style on these calories, I’d starve to death. But for some reason, I put on weight (easily a pound a week) with these numbers.
you say 100g of calorie carbs from greens…what are your green sources? It seeems one would have to eat an exorbetent amount of greent to hit that total. Right now I eat about 4-5 bowls of greens a day. Have you lost BF?
I had my best bulk results with this diet when undertaking a two week EDT cycle. I would carb up every Wednesday and Sunday on a split where I would lift M,T,R,F. I was getting 110g of carbs from my pre/post workout shake on lifting days.
Lifting days: 200gC, 435P, 200F
Regular off day: 140C, 420P, 200F
Carb-Up: 435C, 350P, 90F
I started at 211, 8%, and after two weeks was 213.5 with no change in bodyfat. I have done EDT-like volume plenty of times before this in bulk phases, but never seen straight LBM gain without accompanying fat gain. What was different? The diet. I should mention that I was also using Tim P's "Power Stack" during those two weeks as well.