What Diet has Worked Best for You?

Nutrition
41

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
ajweins wrote:

That is what I do and I am making the best lean gains I have had. I use 2 high, 3 med, and 2 low days a week. Cals and carbs are highest on high days, lowest on low days, and fats are inversely related. Protein is lowered on the high days but kept at 1.5grams per lb of BW on med and low days.

What do each of your days look like in terms of calories/macro breakdown?[/quote]

Carbs on high days are around 600, 300 on med days, and 100 on low days…this is not counting trace carbs from veggies, protein powder, peanut butter etc.

Protein is at 1 gram per pound on high days, 1.5 grams per pound on low and medium days

Fats are as low as possible on high days, around 30-40 grams of added fats from nuts and olive oil on med days, and 60-70 added on low days…this is not counting fat from chicken breasts and other protein sources.

Usually once every week or two I will throw in a cheat meal on a high day or have a super high day with 1000+ carbs if I am not gaining.

42

[quote]ajweins wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
ajweins wrote:

That is what I do and I am making the best lean gains I have had. I use 2 high, 3 med, and 2 low days a week. Cals and carbs are highest on high days, lowest on low days, and fats are inversely related. Protein is lowered on the high days but kept at 1.5grams per lb of BW on med and low days.

What do each of your days look like in terms of calories/macro breakdown?

Carbs on high days are around 600, 300 on med days, and 100 on low days…this is not counting trace carbs from veggies, protein powder, peanut butter etc.

Protein is at 1 gram per pound on high days, 1.5 grams per pound on low and medium days

Fats are as low as possible on high days, around 30-40 grams of added fats from nuts and olive oil on med days, and 60-70 added on low days…this is not counting fat from chicken breasts and other protein sources.

Usually once every week or two I will throw in a cheat meal on a high day or have a super high day with 1000+ carbs if I am not gaining.[/quote]

When you first started this cycle did you lose weight? Was your BF% high, and if so what do you suspect that it is at now? How many calories are you consuming each day.

43

[quote]ajweins wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
ajweins wrote:

That is what I do and I am making the best lean gains I have had. I use 2 high, 3 med, and 2 low days a week. Cals and carbs are highest on high days, lowest on low days, and fats are inversely related. Protein is lowered on the high days but kept at 1.5grams per lb of BW on med and low days.

What do each of your days look like in terms of calories/macro breakdown?

Carbs on high days are around 600, 300 on med days, and 100 on low days…this is not counting trace carbs from veggies, protein powder, peanut butter etc.

Protein is at 1 gram per pound on high days, 1.5 grams per pound on low and medium days

Fats are as low as possible on high days, around 30-40 grams of added fats from nuts and olive oil on med days, and 60-70 added on low days…this is not counting fat from chicken breasts and other protein sources.

Usually once every week or two I will throw in a cheat meal on a high day or have a super high day with 1000+ carbs if I am not gaining.[/quote]

sounds great, I think we have somewhat similar body types so hopefully I will see similar results. Looks like your following Shelby’s guidelines to a T

44

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
sounds interesting. So I’m guessing calories would be cycled too with each of those 3 days right? Or are you keeping calories constant but just with different ratios/foods?

Waylander just a heads up, I sent the PM[/quote]

I responded as soon as I saw it, did you not get it?

45

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
sounds interesting. So I’m guessing calories would be cycled too with each of those 3 days right? Or are you keeping calories constant but just with different ratios/foods?

Waylander just a heads up, I sent the PM

I responded as soon as I saw it, did you not get it?[/quote]

Nope, never got it. I wonder if somethings up with my messages because I think this happened before with a message I sent. I guess just copy the message from your sent files and try it again

46

[quote]Mateus wrote:
ajweins wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
ajweins wrote:

That is what I do and I am making the best lean gains I have had. I use 2 high, 3 med, and 2 low days a week. Cals and carbs are highest on high days, lowest on low days, and fats are inversely related. Protein is lowered on the high days but kept at 1.5grams per lb of BW on med and low days.

What do each of your days look like in terms of calories/macro breakdown?

Carbs on high days are around 600, 300 on med days, and 100 on low days…this is not counting trace carbs from veggies, protein powder, peanut butter etc.

Protein is at 1 gram per pound on high days, 1.5 grams per pound on low and medium days

Fats are as low as possible on high days, around 30-40 grams of added fats from nuts and olive oil on med days, and 60-70 added on low days…this is not counting fat from chicken breasts and other protein sources.

Usually once every week or two I will throw in a cheat meal on a high day or have a super high day with 1000+ carbs if I am not gaining.

When you first started this cycle did you lose weight? Was your BF% high, and if so what do you suspect that it is at now? How many calories are you consuming each day.[/quote]

This is my diet focusing on gaining. It was following a cut that got me down to a little leaner than the pics in my profile. After the diet, I kind of had a couple week transition phase to where increased carbs slowly. I now arrived at this which comes out roughly to around 3400 calories a day, probably averages out to 4000 a day if I have a super high carb or cheat meal in there. This is allowing me to make great progress in the gym, scale, and mirror.

However, I am going back to DC training, so with only three training sessions I will most likely make them all semi-high with around 400-500 carbs. I will probably have 2-3 days with around 200 and maybe 1 or 2 very low days…Might add a carb refeed on an off day if I am not gaining, I am not sure.

Just pick out a template diet it, follow it, and adjust weekly or biweekly. Most of the time my diet changes every two to 3 weeks depending on if I gained too much weight (fat) or too little.

47

[quote]Mateus wrote:

By carb cycling, you seem to be referring to different times of the day and para workout. Do you not cycle the carbs from one day to the next with the traditional low/mod/high? If you don’t, what do you do on the days you train and the intensity is highest (for example leg day)? And then on your off days are you as low carb as possible or still following the same daily routine? I will dangerously assume that your caloric intake varies with what you have described, no?
[/quote]

You ‘dangerously’ assume correctly. The only difference between “carb cycling” and “calorie cycling” is that one term specifies which marconutrient is being cycled. So if you want to look at it under a microscope per se, I am actually “calorie cycling,” although the majority of the calories that I tweak are carbs.

For example, on leg days I will have more carbs during my para workout window than on chest and back days, likewise chest and back days will have more carbs than arms and shoulder days. I will also throw an extra scoop of protein in my PWO shake and eat a little more fat throughout the day on my leg days than on others. It’s really just choosing sources of fuel work for your body and eating enough to cover your energy expenditure (or knowing the appropriate deficit when cutting).

I don’t really count calories anymore, but I think that’s more a function of being at this long enough to know what foods work for me and how much I need to reach certain goals. The last cut I went on I only weighed myself twice - once on day 1 and once on day 56 - and it was by far the most effective to date for not only losing fat, but KEEPING MUSCLE as well.

To the OP: As another poster suggested (in not so many words), find a nutritional strategy that you are philosophically in sync with, test it out for a few weeks (at least) and really pay attention to how your body reacts and feels. Once you know how to eat for your own body, counting calories, marcos, etc. will all be things of the past unless you are shooting to get into contest shape (please note that this is merely speculation as I have never done one).

Hope that helps.

48

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:

50g whey 5g leucine
10 whole eggs +1 1/2 cups oats mixed with skim milk
75g whey +4 tbsp EVOO
Pre W:50g whey +30g waxy maize +5 leucine +5g creatine
Peri W: 25g whey+30g WM+5g leucine
Post W: 75g whey +60g WM +10g leucine +5g creatine
1.5 lbs ground sirloin +handful spinach leaves+salsa
75g whey +4 tbsp EVOO
2 chicken breasts +handful spinach leaves
4 tbsp natty PB +1 cup 4% cottage cheese
50g whey +5g leucine

[/quote]

Way, what do you think you’re putting down fat wise? 200g?

49

[quote]esk221 wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:

50g whey 5g leucine
10 whole eggs +1 1/2 cups oats mixed with skim milk
75g whey +4 tbsp EVOO
Pre W:50g whey +30g waxy maize +5 leucine +5g creatine
Peri W: 25g whey+30g WM+5g leucine
Post W: 75g whey +60g WM +10g leucine +5g creatine
1.5 lbs ground sirloin +handful spinach leaves+salsa
75g whey +4 tbsp EVOO
2 chicken breasts +handful spinach leaves
4 tbsp natty PB +1 cup 4% cottage cheese
50g whey +5g leucine

Way, what do you think you’re putting down fat wise? 200g?[/quote]

[quote]pumped340 wrote:

Just for the hell of it I wanted to see what your fat added up to and I got roughly 280g on workout days and 340 on off days…CRAZY! lol…[/quote]

50

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
esk221 wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:

50g whey 5g leucine
10 whole eggs +1 1/2 cups oats mixed with skim milk
75g whey +4 tbsp EVOO
Pre W:50g whey +30g waxy maize +5 leucine +5g creatine
Peri W: 25g whey+30g WM+5g leucine
Post W: 75g whey +60g WM +10g leucine +5g creatine
1.5 lbs ground sirloin +handful spinach leaves+salsa
75g whey +4 tbsp EVOO
2 chicken breasts +handful spinach leaves
4 tbsp natty PB +1 cup 4% cottage cheese
50g whey +5g leucine

Way, what do you think you’re putting down fat wise? 200g?

pumped340 wrote:

Just for the hell of it I wanted to see what your fat added up to and I got roughly 280g on workout days and 340 on off days…CRAZY! lol…

[/quote]

There you have it, he calc’d it for me, 280g on workout days and 340 off days.

Btw pumped it appears that I cannot send PM’s so I will just answer your questions in this thread tomorrow, if that’s cool.

51

Best diet for getting lean and gaining mass - the zone diet. I know it sounds boring and dull, but when on this diet and taking a healthy dose of fish oil - it just works. Whenever I tried low carb diets/mod to high protein with fish oil, anything less than 100 grams of carbs, when working out 3-5 times a week my muscles would feel flat and have low sex drive.

Whenever I ate plenty of protein and high carbs I would feel strong but pudgy. With the zone diet I lean up and have noticed my muscles get harder and have plenty of energy.

52

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Also making sure I only pair P+F or P+C, never all three or just F+C.
…
10 whole eggs +1 1/2 cups oats mixed with skim milk
[/quote]

I’m confused. I’ve seen this before about not having P+F+C at once, but wouldn’t the 10 whole eggs, oats, and milk have all 3?

53

[quote]DeeseB wrote:

waylanderxx wrote:
Also making sure I only pair P+F or P+C, never all three or just F+C.
…
10 whole eggs +1 1/2 cups oats mixed with skim milk

I’m confused. I’ve seen this before about not having P+F+C at once, but wouldn’t the 10 whole eggs, oats, and milk have all 3?[/quote]

Yes, thats the one meal he does it with.

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:

Btw pumped it appears that I cannot send PM’s so I will just answer your questions in this thread tomorrow, if that’s cool.[/quote]

OK thats fine. I’ll paste it here so its easier to answer/follow:

Hey Man, With college next year I’ve definitely been thinking about the food situation there. I’m not concerned with exercising because really thats only about 4-6 hours a week. Diet on the other hand is basically a 24/7 thing to worry about. Just a few questions for you if you don’t mind

  1. Almost all of the foods you listed seem like things you would buy. It is summer so that makes sense but during the school year do you plan on sticking to those same foods and not eating at the cafeteria?

  2. How do you find eating so much/often fits into having a social life and everything else at college? Not only is it the frequency (I’ll probably go to the cafeteria 4x and have 1 shake or something) but more so being able to go out. I spent a summer at a college last year and your obviously with friends almost 100% of the time. Did you just eat whatever everyone else ate and not worry about it and if so are you going back to that this fall?

I Was thinking of carb cycling but am also thinking it might take too much precision to worry about at college to the point where it would interfere with my social life.

Thanks

54

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
DeeseB wrote:

waylanderxx wrote:
Also making sure I only pair P+F or P+C, never all three or just F+C.
…
10 whole eggs +1 1/2 cups oats mixed with skim milk

I’m confused. I’ve seen this before about not having P+F+C at once, but wouldn’t the 10 whole eggs, oats, and milk have all 3?

Yes, thats the one meal he does it with.

waylanderxx wrote:

Btw pumped it appears that I cannot send PM’s so I will just answer your questions in this thread tomorrow, if that’s cool.

OK thats fine. I’ll paste it here so its easier to answer/follow:

Hey Man, With college next year I’ve definitely been thinking about the food situation there. I’m not concerned with exercising because really thats only about 4-6 hours a week. Diet on the other hand is basically a 24/7 thing to worry about. Just a few questions for you if you don’t mind

  1. Almost all of the foods you listed seem like things you would buy. It is summer so that makes sense but during the school year do you plan on sticking to those same foods and not eating at the cafeteria?

  2. How do you find eating so much/often fits into having a social life and everything else at college? Not only is it the frequency (I’ll probably go to the cafeteria 4x and have 1 shake or something) but more so being able to go out. I spent a summer at a college last year and your obviously with friends almost 100% of the time. Did you just eat whatever everyone else ate and not worry about it and if so are you going back to that this fall?

I Was thinking of carb cycling but am also thinking it might take too much precision to worry about at college to the point where it would interfere with my social life.

Thanks [/quote]

To Deese: Yah, I’ve learned that egg whites are pretty much worthless and I’m not dropping my oats, so that’s my one exception.

Ok pumped.

  1. Yes, I will be sticking with these same foods, I didn’t get a meal plan this year since I will be living off campus. I will just save my solid meals for when I’m not going to be in class and just carry around shakes the rest of the time.

  2. Once you get used to it it just becomes second nature. If I’m going over to a friends room or something I’ll just bring something to eat. If we go out to the club or w/e I’ll just down an extra shake before we head out. I don’t think it interferes at all, it’s easy to make it work once you get used to it. As far as what I ate, there was obviously some terrible choices but I did my best. For instance, they always had an omelet bar so I had a ton of those. I had a ton of rice,potatoes, beans, and I used a lot of deli meat along with milk. You can make it work.

As for the carb cycling, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s pretty much impossible to do any sort of leaning down/cutting on cafeteria food, but it’s a bulking treasure. I would use it to just get as big as you can, there won’t be many times were you have a buffet in front of you all day for a year.

55

I actually made a few changes to the diet these past 3 days since weight has stalled a bit.

The shake upon waking and pre-bed are now 75g whey 5g leucine.
Breakfast is now with 11 whole eggs along with the oatmeal
I changed one of the 75g whey 4 tbsps EVOO shakes to 100g whey 5 tbsp EVOO

Remember progression in calories is just as important as progression in the weight room :wink:

56

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
I actually made a few changes to the diet these past 3 days since weight has stalled a bit.

The shake upon waking and pre-bed are now 75g whey 5g leucine.
Breakfast is now with 11 whole eggs along with the oatmeal
I changed one of the 75g whey 4 tbsps EVOO shakes to 100g whey 5 tbsp EVOO

Remember progression in calories is just as important as progression in the weight room ;)[/quote]

Your nuts :stuck_out_tongue: Do you enjoy eating your food? I’m just adding calories back in now but am still under 2000 calories a day so I really volumize my food and make it taste good to where I really enjoy eating it but I do remember back when I was doing a keto diet (and your doing mostly P+F meals too so somewhat similar) I was really getting tired of some of the food. Granted now thinking about it it seems like heaven eating almost 4000 calories of high fat foods but I know at the time I really didn’t like eating some of the time.

As for the cafeteria food, I think cutting would just be a matter of keeping overall calories lower but I agree I should take full advantage of the food available (while remaining sexy enough to keep getting laid :wink: ).

When I was at the college for a summer I basically stuck to Chicken breasts, lots of eggs for breakfast, egg whites, broccoli/squash, hamburgers, turkey burgers, whey, nuts, and then if there were chicken wings or BBQ chicken I would have that occasionally. The only carbs were bananas and oatmeal in the morning. Other than in the morning they didn’t really serve any healthy carbs so I could only have them in the morning but thats what I would do anyway since I worked out in the morning and kept carbs to just around workouts.

57

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:
I actually made a few changes to the diet these past 3 days since weight has stalled a bit.

The shake upon waking and pre-bed are now 75g whey 5g leucine.
Breakfast is now with 11 whole eggs along with the oatmeal
I changed one of the 75g whey 4 tbsps EVOO shakes to 100g whey 5 tbsp EVOO

Remember progression in calories is just as important as progression in the weight room :wink:

Your nuts :stuck_out_tongue: Do you enjoy eating your food? I’m just adding calories back in now but am still under 2000 calories a day so I really volumize my food and make it taste good to where I really enjoy eating it but I do remember back when I was doing a keto diet (and your doing mostly P+F meals too so somewhat similar) I was really getting tired of some of the food. Granted now thinking about it it seems like heaven eating almost 4000 calories of high fat foods but I know at the time I really didn’t like eating some of the time.

As for the cafeteria food, I think cutting would just be a matter of keeping overall calories lower but I agree I should take full advantage of the food available (while remaining sexy enough to keep getting laid :wink: ).

When I was at the college for a summer I basically stuck to Chicken breasts, lots of eggs for breakfast, egg whites, broccoli/squash, hamburgers, turkey burgers, whey, nuts, and then if there were chicken wings or BBQ chicken I would have that occasionally. The only carbs were bananas and oatmeal in the morning. Other than in the morning they didn’t really serve any healthy carbs so I could only have them in the morning but thats what I would do anyway since I worked out in the morning and kept carbs to just around workouts. [/quote]

haha no I hate eating which is why I use a lot of shakes. The eggs and oats takes me a little over an hour of constant eating to finish. I can down the eggs pretty quick, but damn that oatmeal is tough.

yah man, sounds like you’re set. Just keep doing what you were doing and you should come out great.

58

Waylander,

Out of curiosity, do you have a particular flavor of whey? I’ve never done the whey/EVOO so I was wondering if any particular flavors make it better/worse, or if you just down it without really thinking about it. When I’m stuck at work and forgot to bring enough food I will do the shots of EVOO, and while not terrible, are not exactly pleasing either.

Thanks.

59

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:

haha no I hate eating which is why I use a lot of shakes. The eggs and oats takes me a little over an hour of constant eating to finish. I can down the eggs pretty quick, but damn that oatmeal is tough.
[/quote]

Thats too bad, I guess you just have to do what you can to make it taste good. I don’t know how you make your oatmeal but I think it tastes great with stevia and cinnamon added and twice as good with vanilla or especially chocolate mint protein powder added. Currently I just started adding 1tbsp of sugar free maple syrup to mine making it even better and that only adds like 10 calories so its all good.

60

[quote]TBT4ver wrote:
Waylander,

Out of curiosity, do you have a particular flavor of whey? I’ve never done the whey/EVOO so I was wondering if any particular flavors make it better/worse, or if you just down it without really thinking about it. When I’m stuck at work and forgot to bring enough food I will do the shots of EVOO, and while not terrible, are not exactly pleasing either.

Thanks.[/quote]

I prefer to use it with chocolate protein, I think it tastes great. But currently I use bulk protein straight from the factory which is unflavored (can buy flavor packets, but I didn’t want to) and damn I about puked the first time I did it, but I’m used to it now. Definitely chocolate though.