Horrendously low, I think my body has this innate ability to withstand extreme dieting very well. Protein was at about 225 grams and overall kcals were in the ballpark of 1200-1400 calories, higher on lifting days, lower on off days.
To be honest with you guys I figured I would lose some muscle mass with such an extreme diet. I was willing to accept that. Last year I dieted using the T-dawg diet and was at about 1800 calories and at the time I thought I went too low and lost to much size, I was also lifting everyday. But in reality I didnt have the size I thought I had. But after bulking this whole year and gaining about 50# (which I did kind of dirty and am not proud of how fat I got, I did add quite a bit of muscle mass, so all in all it was a success.) The funny thing is as restrictive as this diet is, I feel I did well on it. I look ALOT bigger than I did last year, Im not as lean, but I also dieted for like 12 weeks that time. I also think cutting my training to 3 times a week going balls to the wall everytime was the break I needed to let my body possibly stimulate some growth while on such a restrictive diet.
As far as running it again, I think I’m going to take 2 weeks of, up my calories to maintenance, and than assess where I’m at after that. I want to mess around with Thibs para-workout protocol and keeping calories in check to loss another 10# over the next 1-2 months, and If that isn’t working I will probably run the RFL diet as a Cat 1.
Hope all get or had similar results, because it honestly works well[/quote]
Cheers mate.
I’ve nearly completed 8 weeks on a CKD where I’m averaging 1900kcals per day. To be honest, I know I would struggle on 1200-1400kcals a day. However, if I was desperate enough for a 1-2 week blast I would probably give it a try.
And I understand what you mean by losing weight and looking bigger. It was Arthur Jones who said most bodybuilders could look bigger if they lost 10lbs! I’ve shed 12lbs to date and 2ins off my waist - and I’m convinced my chest and lat V-taper is more impressive!
Regarding the Thib protocol, I’ve utilised whey hydrosylate pulsing for over a week now and added Workout Fuel (21g carbs) to my pre-workout shake. I’m not due to weigh in until Saturday morning but I don’t ‘feel’ any thinner, so suspect I may not have lost much weight (if any). Although that worries me, given all the ball-busting work and dietary compliance, I have detected a body comp change over the last 7 days, e.g. veins appearing on upper abs and just a feeling that my pecs are up, etc. It’s certainly inspiring enough to persist with for another 2-4 weeks then I’ll re-evaluate.
As promised, this was Monday after my carb load. I felt so much better…the bloat was gone after three days and I went from 188 back to 178. The 8 lb net is being chalked up to water and glycogen since I’m taking in between 250-300 g CHO on workout days. Cals are ramped up to near maintenance even thought I’ve increased my lifting two-fold. I feel 10000000 times better on a more moderate diet, lol.
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
As promised, this was Monday after my carb load. I felt so much better…the bloat was gone after three days and I went from 188 back to 178. The 8 lb net is being chalked up to water and glycogen since I’m taking in between 250-300 g CHO on workout days. Cals are ramped up to near maintenance even thought I’ve increased my lifting two-fold. I feel 10000000 times better on a more moderate diet, lol.[/quote]
Excellent work, I hope to be around that level of leaness in about 4-6 more weeks
So you are all done with the RFL, for now Phatkins? Did you just stick to the 2-3x/week training?
I think it would be a welcomed break for me! As it is I train 4x week+cardio at the end…starting to get a little burnt out.
I’m kind of looking forward to getting in and getting out, and just letting the diet take care of the rest…plus I’ll go walking on my off days.
[quote]mom-in-MD wrote:
So you are all done with the RFL, for now Phatkins? Did you just stick to the 2-3x/week training?
I think it would be a welcomed break for me! As it is I train 4x week+cardio at the end…starting to get a little burnt out.
I’m kind of looking forward to getting in and getting out, and just letting the diet take care of the rest…plus I’ll go walking on my off days.[/quote]
Yeah I’m done for now with RFL. I endured the Velocity and RFL diets and am so burned out. I realize a moderate deficit (~500 kcal) and the current level of exercise is more than sufficient to burn fat while maintaining muscle and strength. PLUS I FREAKING LOVE CARBS! Carb cycling, FTW.
I did two full body and light cardio sessions per week, so four total, over the 12 days of RFL. The workouts weren’t easy by any means. I’d recommend increasing your intensity and load while decreasing the volume. It’s all about maintaining your strength so you post-diet rebound will be productive.
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
As promised, this was Monday after my carb load. I felt so much better…the bloat was gone after three days and I went from 188 back to 178. The 8 lb net is being chalked up to water and glycogen since I’m taking in between 250-300 g CHO on workout days. Cals are ramped up to near maintenance even thought I’ve increased my lifting two-fold. I feel 10000000 times better on a more moderate diet, lol.[/quote]
Nice work chief! Although I hope that ain’t your wine collection in the background - all those carbs and alcohol!
[quote]JamesBrawn007 wrote:
Nice work chief! Although I hope that ain’t your wine collection in the background - all those carbs and alcohol!
[/quote]
LOL! Thanks JB. I will sparingly indulge. That’s my brother’s growing wine cellar. He’s a salesman for an alcohol distributor up here and sells fine wine. The only two wines I’m familiar with are red and white.
[quote]pumped340 wrote: I’m a little confused with what your saying for the first part, your saying he came up to your house or something for the carb up and you ate too much so your now going to try this diet?
and I’m assuming you mean this is more miserable than the v-diet? I wonder why since this has more whole food.
[/quote]
I’d been dieting. My metabolism was fried. So I re-booted it when my pal came up. Ate a lot of food over four days. So I was going to PSMF it for just a couple of days to get the extra stuff off.
Calories on PSMF are way less. I’m taking in 900-1,100. On V-Diet, I’d be at 1,500-1,800. Big difference.
Oh, don’t wanna plug another co. But the ONLY thing getting me through workouts on this (and it’s what I used when doing a low-carb for the past four weeks) is a product that has casein hydrolysate, leucine, beta alanine, caffeine/other stims, and arginine. Huge difference.
There’s a pre- and post-workout version. I add 5 gms of leucine to each shake.
Phatkins, you carb cycled with a refeed once a week for a bit and then did the RFL correct? If that was the case, do you still think it was a good idea ending with the RFL instead of beginning with it? I ask because my current plan is to carb cycle (<30 carbs a day w/ weekly refeed) until the end of July, then finish with the RFL. I’m hoping that will put me where I want to be, possibly just touching up with a more traditional carb cycle of 4 low, 2 medium, 1 high carb days sustained for a while.
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
mom-in-MD wrote:
So you are all done with the RFL, for now Phatkins? Did you just stick to the 2-3x/week training?
I think it would be a welcomed break for me! As it is I train 4x week+cardio at the end…starting to get a little burnt out.
I’m kind of looking forward to getting in and getting out, and just letting the diet take care of the rest…plus I’ll go walking on my off days.
Yeah I’m done for now with RFL. I endured the Velocity and RFL diets and am so burned out. I realize a moderate deficit (~500 kcal) and the current level of exercise is more than sufficient to burn fat while maintaining muscle and strength. PLUS I FREAKING LOVE CARBS! Carb cycling, FTW.
I did two full body and light cardio sessions per week, so four total, over the 12 days of RFL. The workouts weren’t easy by any means. I’d recommend increasing your intensity and load while decreasing the volume. It’s all about maintaining your strength so you post-diet rebound will be productive.[/quote]
Theres definitely a lot of improvement from the last pics I saw of you if I’m remembering correctly. So are you saying your still trying to get leaner but with a more moderate approach? Or your going to slowly put on mass now?
[quote]HulkSmash7 wrote:
Phatkins, you carb cycled with a refeed once a week for a bit and then did the RFL correct? If that was the case, do you still think it was a good idea ending with the RFL instead of beginning with it? I ask because my current plan is to carb cycle (<30 carbs a day w/ weekly refeed) until the end of July, then finish with the RFL. I’m hoping that will put me where I want to be, possibly just touching up with a more traditional carb cycle of 4 low, 2 medium, 1 high carb days sustained for a while.[/quote]
I started my cut with the V-Diet in late Feb. Then carb cycled pretty much like you’ve been doing for a month and a half. I ended with a brief 7 day PSMF because I went to Las Vegas for 3 days and ate/drank a ton. I did a sort of “cleanse” for the full 12 day RFL when I came back from Vegas.
I would say if you can incorporate enough breaks/refeeds into your cut then you don’t necessarily have to limit it to the “12 week max” minutae. I’m still dieting and it’s my 15th week now. I feel great eating at a deficit with adequate peri-WO nutrition and weekly cheat meals. If you plan on doing the RFL toward the end of your cut, I’d schedule a refeed right before you start!
Theres definitely a lot of improvement from the last pics I saw of you if I’m remembering correctly. So are you saying your still trying to get leaner but with a more moderate approach? Or your going to slowly put on mass now?[/quote]
Thanks dude. I want to see just how lean I can get over the summer, maybe around 8-10%, before I ramp up my cals towards Autumn and try to gain more LBM. I’m experimenting with a run of the mill carb cycling approach. I am definitely eating at a 500-1000 kcal deficit every day with carbs peri-WO and very low/no carbs on off days.
I’ve never really paid any attention to my diet when trying to gain LBM so that will be a whole other experiment for the future.
Nice fat loss. I can see why you want to get leaner. I’m about where you are, and people keep saying, “STOP!” Nah. See how far you can go down. THEN put on some mass.
Your anabolic rebound should be very nice.
I hope you’re smart about coming off your diet, because I’m betting you should gain an appreciable amount of muscle with little fat gain right off the bat.
[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Nice fat loss. I can see why you want to get leaner. I’m about where you are, and people keep saying, “STOP!” Nah. See how far you can go down. THEN put on some mass.
Your anabolic rebound should be very nice.
I hope you’re smart about coming off your diet, because I’m betting you should gain an appreciable amount of muscle with little fat gain right off the bat.[/quote]
Thanks CL. Yeah I know what you mean about friends/family nagging about how “thin” and “unhealthy” you look. What!? That sounds like a defense mechanism to me!
About coming off the diet, I’m neurotic as hell when it comes to logging macros/cals and getting my butt in the gym…it’s one of the benefits of being a single, FFB with a paycheck (thank god in this economy).
And a cat 3