Should I change my diet? a bit long

Training Bodybuilding
61

T-Bow, I can see that you are a thinking man, not one that follows people blindly. Good man!

Calories for me are secondary to hitting P/C/F numbers. Example, I tend not to count the protein found in non-meat sources (beans, low-carb tortillas, spinach). They’re not complete proteins (i.e., they’re lacking in some essential amino acids that make them “complete”; all of the essential amino acids are required for protein synthesis). It raises the calories, but doesn’t go towards meeting protein requirements.

But back to variations and discrepancies. On the one hand you try and hit the numbers as closely as possible. But realistically you’ll run high some days, a little low other; high one or two meals, a bit low on another. For purposes of precision, you try and get as close as you can, but for the sake of sanity, having put out the effort to be precise, you don’t drive yourself crazy 'bout it.

The reason for switching the order of P+F and P+C meals on workout and non-workout days is because there are two optimal times to take in carbs. The first is PWO. The second is upon rising. Those are the times we’re most insulin sensitive (a good thing).

Honestly, you have some flexibility on your non workout days. You can have the first meal or two P+F and the rest P+C or change it to suit your purposes. But on workout days, I very much want you to follow the eating patterns I gave you.

Myself, I am even more strict. I tend to eat P+F all day on non-workout days. I do have an apple (gasp), and I will use onions and peppers in my eggs or a low-carb tortilla from Tortilla Factory (they’re to die for!!! Order some if you can). But carbs probably run below 40g on non-workout days.

I don’t necessarily recommend that for you because carbs provide flavor and crunch and variety and are very much a quality of life thing for people when they’re swtiching from anything goes to restricted carbs.

My favorite low-carb veggies? Spinach, pickles and mushrooms.

BTW, T-Bow, your reply to roc was dead on!!! How quickly you’re assimilating this stuff and putting it into practice has been impressing the heck out of me.

This has turned into an awesome thread. Great Q&A.

62

Terry,

I just try to help you out sometimes. You are so busy helping everyone just figd I might try and lend a hand. Even though I, by no means, am near your expertise, I thought I might be able to lighten your load. :slight_smile:

Phill

63

Bow,

Hows it going. I’ll try and help once again.

#1. the 30grm figure on the protein intake is an atleast #, so if you go over that is not a problem. Just make sure you are getting that much each meal

#2. By taking in the carbs early in the day on non training days you are less likely to store them and more likely to use to fuel the bodily functions. The body is more receptive to carb intake after the night time fast. The carbs will also give you a spike in energy to get you going for the day, an added bonus. As far as the cardio @ lunch. I would say it wouldn’t be counterproductive.

But I am getting a little worried about you getting a little to tied up in the small points, just dont let yourself get overwhelmed and lead to burnout.

#3 The dairy situation is yet another very individual aspect. For the most part though I would say that we on this site try to get as close to completely cutting dairy out when we get serious about losing some BF%.

Hope That helps

Phill

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Once again! TT

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“Once again . . .” LOL! You gotta be quick!!!

T-Bow, Phill and I are philosophical twins when it comes to a lot of this body comp and dieting stuff. If we switched names for a week, you’d never be able to tell.

If ever I’m a little slow on the trigger (i.e., answering a question), you can take his advice to the bank.

Are we having fun yet? (grin)

66

TTT and thanks alot everyone. I think I have to rethink about when to eat fruit.

Another question for Bow and Terry, I notice that your on t-dawg (2.0 I assuming, I’m on the same diet myself) you are doing the p + f, and p + c setup. My question is a person not following t-dawg right if there not doing p+c and p+f (I don’t remember seeing anything about this in the article). Thank You

67

TT, Phil thanks for the great responses. I think I am finally getting a handle on this diet stuff.

You’re probably right though and I am focussing on the minutae but I just need to know this stuff. It’s just not good enough to say “you can’t have that!” - I just have to know why :slight_smile:

I reckon I might try the mostly P+F method on non workout and adding the correct P+C meals on non workout days. That way it’s a little easier and to be honest I am not eating a lot of carbs anyway other than my leafy greens.

One thing I noticed that was a bonus of eating this way is that I sweat heaps less. I normally sweat buckets during the day and was wondering is it the absence of carbs or the increased water consumption?

Anyway life happens and my refeed is tomorrow night at the office Xmas party so I’ll hold off on a weight/BF check until the weekend I think.

68

roc, T-Bow is on a modified T-Dawg. We’ve been tweaking it, adjusting it and optimizing it for him because his body was requiring less and less calories for maintenance. His metabolism was really slowing down because he’s been dieting awhile and trying to get by on less and less calories and more and more cardio. (Not good!)

Re your question, if you’re eating 6 meals and are allowed 70g of carbs on a non-workout day, you could have about 11g of carbs each and every meal. If those carbs were green veggie carbs, that would be perfectly acceptable and wouldn’t work against your goals. 'Round here a lot of us follow John Berardi’s P+F/P+C food combining, trying like the plague to avoid eating F+C in the same meal. But eating pizza is a whole different deal than eating 11 or 12g of broccoli with your chicken breast and EFAs.

I see no problem with your not following P+F and P+C on non-workout days. However, as has been discussed in this thread, my personal preference is that all carbs be taken in PWO when the body needs them most. PWO the muscles will suck up glucose like a dry sponge sucks up water. It’s just the ultimate/optimal time to be taking in your carbs.

Does that answer your question? If not or if you’re not seeing the progress you’d like, start another thread, and I’d be glad to help you tweak your diet. I’m sure T-Bow will be right behind me with his thoughts on the subject. (grin)

It’s just not good enough to say “you can’t have that!” - I just have to know why :slight_smile:

I’d say this was a nutritional/dietary match made in heaven. T-Bow wants to know WHY, and I can’t help myself, telling people WHY . . . whether they want to know or not!!! (chuckling)

Running hot, huh? Great news, T-Bow!!! (grin) We’re kicking your metabolism into high gear. Everything is coming together, and your thyroid is kicking into overdrive, causing your body to run hotter. You’re running hotter on a day-to-day basis, but have you ever noticed how you sweat like a pig when you overeat, say at Thanksgiving?

An interesting thing about higher protein intake (the kind you chew, not the kind you drink) is that it takes more calories to break down protein than any of the other macronutrients. Protein costs about 30 kCal per 100 kCal to process. Carbs cost about 20 kCal and fat about 10 kCal.

69

[quote]
You can have the first meal or two P+F and the rest P+C or change it to suit your purposes. [/quote]

I’ll take a bit of exception of this statement. If you’re going to eat carbs in latter meals, eating fat in your first meal or two isn’t wise. Fat intake can impair glucose tolerance for about six hours post-prandial.

70

TTT, hey Terry what if a person works out twice a day what would happen to the meal combos?

Hey Bow do you find it hard to meat your calorie requirments?

71

T-Bow, Thunder’s advice is worthy of consideration, as he has a lot of real-world and academic experience.

My recommendation remains the same, but you’re free to experiment and see what your body responds best to.

roc, when you say you work out twice a day, do you mean cardio and lifting?

72

Sometimes I lift and go to ju-jitsu (usuallu 4-5 hours apart).

73

roc, is ju-jitsu more aerobic (lower intensity, fat burning, endurance) or anerobic (high intensity, short bursts, like weightlifting)? How long are your ju-jitsu sessions?

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This is not my thinking, but rather Lonnie Lowery’s, who I’d say is one of the resident nutritional machines.

Frape, D., et al. (1997). Diurnal trends in responses of blood plasma concentrations of glucose, insulin, and C-peptide following high- and Low-fat meals and there relation to fat metabolism in healthy middle aged volunteers. Br J Nutr 77(4): 523-535.

Holmback, U., et al. (2002). Metabolic responses to nocturnal eating in men are affected by sources of dietary energy. J Nutr 132(7): 1892-1899.

75

Well Terry that is a hard because sometimes your going slow then a split second later your going a hundred miles per hour, short answear it combines both. I emailed Chris Shugert before and he said that BJJ was good enough for cardio but I want to do some more so I can burn as much fat as possible.

76

roc, okay. We’ll treat the bjj as HIIT cardio. You’re lifting weights in the gym and then doing “cardio” 4-5 hours later.

Well, what’s critical here is optimizing your PWO (meaning post-lifting) nutrition. Have you read the article, “Solving the Post Workout Puzzle” by John Berardi? It explains what’s going on physiologically PWO. Cortisol is sky high, muscle is being chewed up to provide amino acids that can be converted to glucose, and what little muscle glycogen you have (at 75g per day) has been depleted.

I’d really like to see you start another thread so that I could run the numbers for you. I imagine you’ve taken your carbs down so low because you’re highly motivated to drop BF. But with the bjj you’re doing (and your other cardio?) and the lifting, you are not taking in enough carbs to protect LBM while dieting.

T-Dawg is a great diet for a lot of people who work out in the gym, but cardio-intensive athletes have higher carb requirements. The carb numbers need to be adjusted for your activity level.

Bottom line, you need to be taking Surge any time you lift weights; higher carbs on days you lift. And since your bjj is more like HIIT than low-to-moderate, longer duration cardio, if it’s an hour in duration, you actually need some PWO nutrition (i.e., Surge) after bjj, too!

This is not my thinking, but rather Lonnie Lowery’s . . .

Thunder, it’s enough for me that you believe something. There isn’t anyone I respect more highly on the forum, L-Train included!

I promise to read the reference, chew on it and give it the consideration it deserves. My logic, though, is that 70g of carbs (of the green-veggie, high-fiber type) per day, divided by a few meals, is not going to stimulate much of an insulin response or to any great degree seriously impair glucose tolerance.

On non-workout days I’d like T-Bow to have some dietary flexibility/choice/control, since he has none on his workout days. The better a diet “fits” or suits a person, the more likely it will become a lifestyle.

77

Roc, I would say that from the sounds of it your ju-jitsu training most closely relates to HIIT. As far as the nutrition afterward I would have to say that depends on the length of the session, and how much your muscle glycogen stores are depleted.

My suggestion would be to try and stick with the P+F meal combos after this session to maximize the fat burning state, but closely monitor yourself. If not consuming carbs after this session has a negative effect on your weight training, (a drop off) then you are most likely depleting your glycogen a great deal during your ju-jitsu and should consume a surge type beverage PWO.

Phill

78

[quote]
My logic, though, is that 70g of carbs (of the green-veggie, high-fiber type) per day, divided by a few meals, is not going to stimulate much of an insulin response or to any great degree seriously impair glucose tolerance. [/quote]

I can’t argue with that.

79

Whoah!

This thread has gotten big now. Roc get off my thread :slight_smile:

Okay so the upshot of all this then is as long as the carbs are limited to 70/100g and of the approriate type then P+F and P+C meals can be combined no problem?

Quick update this morning… 79.2kg and 26% so the tweaking at this stage appears to be working.

80

Okay so the upshot of all this then is as long as the carbs are limited to 70/100g and of the approriate type then P+F and P+C meals can be combined no problem?

Instead of “combined” I might say “interchanged” or “the order of the P+C and P+F meals can be juggled to suit your purposes and preferences.”
But that’s only on your NON-workout days. On your workout days, I want you to follow the eating patterns I gave you. On workout days, I want your carbs taken in after your workout in two P+C meals; one liquid, one starchy carb.

…so the tweaking at this stage appears to be working.

LOL! Surprise!!! That is very good news, T-Bow. You’re doing a fabulous job of dialing in all the aspects of your diet, cardio and working out, and it’s paying off.

And what you may not have yet realized is that with the ABBH program, you are most definitely putting on some muscle. Dropping fat and putting on muscle is like burning the candle at both ends . . . in a GOOD way!

You’re on the right track, and it’s only going to get better.