Throughout your program it is essential that you remain focused and motivated.
- Anthony Ellis
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malek256 20 November 2008 10 days until my vacation! malek256 14 November 2008 Hey Mr. World Traveller - back to lifting huh? We are off to the Dominican Republic Barnz! barnz2k 13 November 2008 Hey - still alive. Back IN London. At square one but back in the Gym.
Woohoo Malek - where you going? malek256 12 November 2008 17 days! malek256 11 November 2008 oh we will!!!!!
200/400/100 ( = 800 + 1600 + 900 = 3300 cals) is a good starting point for mass - and if mass isn't adding, typically I suggest you'd add more clean carbs to it but if your goal is to bring out your abs and lean out while preserving muscle, you need a different diet.
The best diet I've tried both personally and for others with consistent results for people is similar to but not a CKD diet - a cyclical ketogenic diet. 200/50/100 ( = 800 + 200 + 900 cals = 1900 cals) works for this purpose as a starting point and works well. This diet is ideal for use of an ECA stack.
50g of carbs isn't a lot - but it goes a LONG way to offsetting some of the energy crash that can follow, and helps your brain with available glucose so you don't become a mental zombie.
There are three variations -
1) Ectomorph (naturally small): you need to up your carbs before and after your workout; you simply cannot train 'empty' as you burn too hot/fast. You up the carbs on both Saturday and Sunday, you refeed the whole weekend.
2) Mesomorph (naturally big and muscular): you up the carbs on both Saturday and Sunday, you refeed the whole weekend.
3) Endomorph (naturally big and heavy): you refeed on EITHER Saturday OR Sunday, but NOT both.
On a refeed day, you revert back to the 200/400/100 diet. Ideally you do not use an ECA on the refeed day/weekend. Most people will as the removal of caffeine causes headaches.
Remember - the fats MUST be healthy fats, there MUST be fish oil in the mix and we MUST have some MCT's (medium chain triglycerides) in this mix. Without the fats, the diet WILL fail.
The MCT's are especially needed - you must trigger ketones to allow for protein sparing and insulin sensitizing or stubborn fat won't mobilize well; lean people do not generate ketones well. And there is a 3-4 day lag typically. MCT's cause the ketone production right away.
WARNING: MCT's can be overdosed and you'll have some nasty 'on the toilet' time if you do. There's no health issue but who wants that?
For protein, look to get some casein (low-fat cheese or cottage cheese is ideal) as it has small but significant protein-sparing effects rather than Whey. Now, obviously if you're vegetarian or cannot use Whey this optimization won't apply.
IF IT DOESN'T WORK: If you are not dropping body fat, cut the protein, carbs and fat by 20g each for the next week (80+80+180 = 340 cals off -> so 1560 cals). If it's still not budging the next week, cut the same again - but do no further cutting as it will be counterproductive! You must find ways to further up your activity instead.
Short of a very long and technical description about leptin signalling, CNS output this short summary I hope will suffice. This is actually a very long distillation of ideas and competing feedback loops in the body, I've tried to make very simple
Joined: 21.10.06 Location: Newcastle, Australia Posts: 14
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Posted on 26 March 2007, 04:18
Thanks malek - that's handy to know.
I was on AE's fatloss this time last year and lost 10kg in about 3 months, a lot of which I think was muscle. I think the reason why I lost so much was due to am cardio (fasted) and taking in minimal carbs before lifting.
When you're on fatloss - how do you train? Do you still do brute/volume? Is is ok to eat oats before training for fuel?
I read in the link below that HIIT is the way to go - I haven't tried this for fatloss yet but plan on starting this week. Not sure whether I can reduce the calories to as low as you've stated. I currently weigh 90kgs I imagine I would starve being that low. Any advice appreciated.
Oh you really really don't want to just let me make this simple do you? LOL
Yes actually Kuraudo I would. I think your metabolism has been slowed and/or there's a poor hormonal profile at work - so hard, heavy lifts and a slower focus on clean massing is the best approach because it slowly corrects the hormone profile.
People vary so much - there isn't an average really and if they 'are average' then after they start lifting their metabolism and body composition/hormone profile changes and they aren't average any longer again LOL
But I'd say average here is a male between 20-40 in good health, 160-180 cm tall.
Can I use MCTS on my 180 carb, 240 protein, 50 gram fat diet?
I don't know if that will help . I do refeed on saturday as it produces no fat gains for me.
Passion wrote:
So the 3300 calories is a "starting point" for?????
3300 = Starting point for massing, 1900 (with the calorie cycle) for fat loss. This is for everyone who has no idea where to begin but it's meant for a male between 20-40 in good health, 160-180 cm tall; others will need to adjust pretty rapidly based upon the first week's results
It's important to note that for a lot of guys, their body will NOT drop body fat at low calories. They get themselvs into a "starvation mode" and start dropping muscle while keeping calories.
Then they get frustrated as when they add some more calories it just stores fat.
They don't see how to get out.
Low cals: your body holds the fat and ditches the muscle because it is trying to KEEP YOU ALIVE. Muscle is dynamic and burns calories. Your body thinks 'gee if this keeps up this way we are going to die soon - quick, ditch the muscle and hold onto that fat as long as possible'. Reducing the calories more here won't help. You'll end up being a skeleton covered with fat.
Low cals + some more cals: Your body says 'at last, more fuel to store up as some fat. We're still starving but thankfully I can at least make some fat right now.'
So what do you do? The answer is to STOP STARVING. EAT MORE - not a little more, a LOT MORE!
Won't you get fat? NO! Not if you do it right.
If that's you, up your calories and up your activity. If you do it right, your body will take a few weeks to really 'believe' you aren't starving and will finally add muscle; in the meantime your body fat will fluctuate a little and the extra activity will burn those cals. The food intake is STILL SUFFICIENT TO GET YOU OUT OF STARVE MODE and you burn off what would be 'too much' so you do not get fat.
Your body uses the new cals to replenish the old, lost muscle. It actually would like it back - but you have to convince it that "it's okay, we're not starving to death."
Get the activity dialled in sufficiently and you'll do it while dropping a small amount of fat.
I've helped more than 20 guys out of this and am helping two of them right now with this exact process.