I have a client that is partaking in a Biggest Loser type of contest.
She’s in the lead right now with 3.5 weeks left.
She’s gone from 150 to 134 lbs but has stalled for the past 2 weeks.
She’s also dropped 10% bodyfat, so obviously great results after 8.5 weeks.
She wants to win, and so do I.
For the final stage we’re going to have her around 1350 cals/day, with a re-feed once a week at 2,000 calories.
She’s supplementing with 1.5 servings of Flameout, ZMA, 4 pills of HOT-ROX, and I just decided to pull her off 1/2 serving of Surge.
My question is this.
Is it advisable to still perform HIIT while on a Very Low Calorie/Carb Diet (she works out 6 x week for a total of about 6-7 hrs)
Doing the math in the PN book I have her at 335 cals/meal x 4 with 28g protein, 10g carb, 20someodd g/fat.
Should I have her only do low-moderate steady state cardio and no HIIT?
She’s on a 4x week RT program right now, and I’m probably going to cut that down to 3x week for the remainder of the program.
Well, I’m no trainer, but I tend to lose muscle when I do HIIT, especially when carbs are low. However, I assume the dumb contest measures only scale weight, so it wouldn’t matter in this case.
All I know is what happens with me. If fat loss stalls for 2 weeks, metabolism has dropped, the body’s fighting to keep the remaining fat, and muscle loss is imminent (for me). I increase my calories and carbs substantially, and then drop a bunch more fat. And I’m surprised every time it happens.
Jehova, in my experience with HIIT, it can be real hell on a low carb diet. I’ve tried it before on low, moderate, and high carb diets(<75g, ~125-150g, 200g carbs respectively) and I feel like absolute shit when doing it on low carb. It just took too much out of me. Granted, this was also on top of intense lifting 4-5x a week. You can give it a shot, but maybe it would be more efficient to mix up HIIT and steady state together.
I’m on a low-carbohydrate diet at the moment, and I find that a series of Tabata bike sprints isn’t too overwhelming. I just do 3 minute warm-up, then do a set of Tabata sprints followed by 2 minutes of easy peddling. I repeat for a total of three 4-minute intervals, followed by a cool down.
If your client can handle HIIT, I don’t see why not. If she has stalled out on 6-7 hours of exercise per week, it may be too much. If she wants to maintain that amount of effort, I’d make sure she was on a cortisol-regulating supplement.
LOL, eggers, your opinion is as valued as anyone else’s. I don’t see why you need to degrade yourself to just “some guy”. What works for you may work for others as well :).