Fit But Fat?
“I may be a little fat, but I’m still fit!”
How often have you heard that one? Usually it’s from someone sitting on a recumbent bike, sweating away for an hour, and still rolly-polly. They think that because they can do some mindless cardio that they’ve insulated themselves against obesity related health problems.
Well, some new research indicates that carrying the extra weight may still be a risk for a heart-related illness. Subjects were 39,000 self-reporting women who were tracked for eleven years.
I will reserve some judgement until I can actually see the study, but it does have some interesting results. It indicates that exercise DOES help promote a healthier heart over a sedentary lifestyle, but when comparing two active people the overweight one will suffer a higher risk.
Some issues I see with the study are the self-reporting, the use of BMI, and the lack of other lifestyle conditions.
Self-reporting is sketchy at best anyway.
Body Mass Index, or BMI, is a very flawed measurement. It basically factors your height and weight and uses that to decide whether you’re overweight, healthy, obese, or whatever. There’s no accounting for bone structure, muscle mass, body fat percentage, or other factors. For example, almost every athlete that competes in the NFL would be considered morbidly obese, even the very lean running backs! Given that the subjects were mostly middle-aged women, it’s probably not that dramatic (few monster athletes there), but it does bear looking into.
There doesn’t seem to be an indicator of other lifestyle factors. For example, let’s think about smoking. Smoking has been known to potentially lead to cardiovascular disease. Now, I’m sure members of every group were smokers. However, I’d be willing to bet that there was a larger proportion of smokers in the sedentary groups over the active groups.
Bottom line: The jury is still out, but I feel it’s pretty safe to say that lean and fit is a whole lot better for you than fat and fit.
PS Getting lean isn’t complicated but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It definitely starts with a sound diet. A sound diet may come in a variety of flavors, so to speak, but they all have some things in common:
1) Balanced nutrition. A sound diet will give you the nutrients you need. Carbs, fats, protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and others. If you’re deficient somewhere then your diet is doomed to failure.
2) Enjoyability. Ok, this may not strictly be a requirement, but all of my clients have had a much easier time sticking to a diet when they can enjoy the food.
3) Consistency. You’ve got to follow the diet, plain and simple. If you are perfect for a day but then eat a couple of big ass fast food value meals the next day then you’ve not really gone anywhere.
One of the best little tricks I’ve found to maintain consistency for myself and clients is the use of Meal Replacement Products (MRP’s). I personally like Prograde Nutrition’s Prograde Lean MRP shake. It’s a fantastic tasting, smoothly mixing shake that you can pack dry in a shaker and take with you to work or school. Rather than having to stop at the fast food place when you’re hungry it’s easy to get some water in there and you have a perfectly balanced small meal!
Did I mention that it tastes great? It’s like having a dessert!
Weight… It’s Just a Number
I had a consultation with a (now) client last week in which we talked about weight and body fat. I realized that this conversation was one that I’ve had with almost every single fat loss client I’ve ever trained. I need to just start holding up a sign that says: “The Scale Sucks!”
See, here’s the thing, almost every woman I’ve ever trained has come to me with an often unrealistic weight goal. Where do they get this idea of weight? Society, I assume. They’ll talk about wanting to weigh 120 lbs, 125, or something like that. Or they’ll weigh 145 lbs now but want to “lose about 30 lbs”. That would mean that they weighed in at a whopping 115! Usually that’s just plain unrealistic. The thing is, they don’t know it’s unrealistic and they don’t really even know what that weight means. So if the number isn’t accurate then why do we care?
Here’s what’s important: Muscle mass, body fat percentage, and overall health. What these people are really saying is that they want to be smaller, and not fat. Muscle is much more dense than fat (please don’t ever say to me that it “weighs less than fat”) so a given amount of muscle weight takes up a great deal less space than an equal weight of fat. For example, we all know what five pounds of steak (muscle) looks like. Well, a five pound ball of human fat is about the size of a small throw pillow.
So if a client were to recomposition (change their body composition) ten pounds then they’d weigh exactly the same but look radically different. With ten more pounds of muscle mass and ten less pounds of fat this client would probably be down a dress size, even with no weight change.
If your goal is to be lean, fit, and healthy then the scale doesn’t need to be included in your goal. Your body fat percentage, measurements, and the mirror are all far more important. Do I collect weight data from my clients? Sure, but I only use it to help me determine muscle and fat gain/loss from their changes in body fat percentage.
Rather than stress about the scale focus on what really matters and you’ll be another step towards achieving your fitness goals.
Oh, and for all of you out there who are way overweight and are complaining that your weight isn’t going down as you gain muscle: Can it. The bodyweight will come down eventually as you continue to lose fat and gain muscle. If if didn’t we’d have a bunch of women running around at 185 lbs and 3% bodyfat. Since there are about 14,000,000 teenage boys who are trying to do that I think you’ve got something special if you manage that and can bottle it.
The Difference Between Advanced and Beginning Athletes
Beginning athletes should train like beginners. They should NOT train like advanced athletes. I see it all of the time in the gym, on forums, and in Q&A’s. Everything will be going fine and suddenly some 17 year old kid weighing a whopping 155 lbs with a copy of Supertraining will be asking about percentages of load to be used on weighted plyometrics for enhanced eccentric action or something of the like. At that point the athlete should be focused on simply gaining strength, size, and efficiency of motion.
Here’s the thing: What works for advanced athletes may not work for beginning athletes and may actually be detrimental to their development. For example let’s look at training with heavy single reps, say 90-100+% of the athlete’s 1-rep max. We’ll contrast a freshman high school football player in his first year of weight training with a third year pro who’s been in a good strength program for the past eight years and been lifting for twelve.
There’s a couple of things going on here. First and foremost is age and maturity. In this case the pro player is much more physically mature than the young player. His connective tissue, muscle mass, bone structure, and the like have physically adapted to high stress activities (heavy lifting and pro football) much more so than the young player. This player is better able to handle the stress of a near maximal attempt than the young player. Any structural weaknesses he may have will have been identified and at least somewhat strengthened by this time. A young player may have imbalances or weaknesses along his kinetic chain that have been until now relatively unstressed. Using extremely heavy weight could cause injury.
Another, and major, concern is neurological efficiency. The muscular recruitment level of the advanced athlete is going to be a night and day difference from the beginning lifter. Weight training is a skill. Sure, it’s usually performed in athletics towards other means, but it’s still a skill. The more you lift, and the more often, the better you’re going to be at it (minutia aside). Ask the pro to lift 95% of his 1RM squat for 10 singles in the same workout. Unless you’ve got a lot of time to rest, he’s going to have a hard time. He’s also going to be feeling that session for a week or more. Now ask the beginner. He’ll still have a hard time, but it won’t be nearly as grueling. He’ll also recover in a couple of days.
Now what does that tell us? It tells us that beginners need more work than advanced athletes. Imagine if the beginner had to take the same two weeks off from squatting that the pro probably would have to? He’d have a couple of days of recovery, be stronger for a few more days, and then probably a week to decline. The pro would probably just start noticing improvements a couple of weeks after the session.
A lot of people got their starts doing basic 3×8 or 5×5 routines. They got very, very strong doing it. These programs stress compound exercises, progressive overload, and frequent training. Eventually they stop working, at which point other methodologies come to relevance. Are they the perfect program for all beginning athletes? Of course not, but they do underline some great basic ideas.
Look, as much fun as it is to use all of the toys that the big boys use it’s more important to look at the real difference between the big boys and you first. What do they have that you, the beginner, doesn’t? Size, strength, skill, and maturity. Now, how did they get those qualities? It sure wasn’t jumping off a 48″ box with a 100lb weighted vest and landing on one leg, I assure you.
Medicine Ball Slams: When Trainers Assume Too Much
Tim C, aka, FORZA Trainer posted this fantastic video he dug out of YouTube that I just had to share.
Here we’ve got two guys who should be “professionals” in the fitness industry. I assume it’s from a show on FitTV or something similar. Either way, here’s why you shouldn’t assume, as a trainer, that your client is going to engage in common sense.
Pukey-time: Get Ready To Battle Tabata!
So we’ve established how cool High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is. We’ve established why it’s cool. Well, how do you do it?
For a quick refresher, when I talk about “Tabata” training, I’m speaking of a protocol involving twenty seconds of extremely high effort followed by ten seconds of rest. This is repeated a total of eight times, or four total minutes.
The original Tabata study was done on stationary cycles. This is a great way to do it, but gets kind of boring. I also like Tabata cycles that involve more of the body than just cycling. I guess I’m just nasty like that.
Here are some things to think about before you try this stuff:
1. It’s HARD. If you’re doing it right, you may easily feel like puking when you’re done. Chances are you’re not going to (it’s only four minutes), but it’s tough. If you’re not physically up to that kind of condition, then abstain for now.
2. You need to work as hard as you can. We’re talking 120% effort here. It’s four lousy minutes! Suck it up, buttercup, and go all out. You’re just cheating yourself if you don’t.
3. Since you’re going so hard, it’s difficult to keep time by yourself. If you’ve got a clock with second measurements right in front of you (not on your wrist) then it’s doable. However, it’s really better to have someone call out your start and stop times.
4. Your rest periods are only ten seconds. That’s ten seconds, total. Not ten seconds of hanging out, THEN getting into position for the exercise. Since you don’t have much time it’s usually easier to keep a hold of the bar or stay in the start position (as long as it’s restful).
Ok! Let’s try some different Tabata variations!
Squatting: Simple bodyweight squats. Get as many as you can in the twenty-second period. We’re looking at more than 20 reps, 25 if you can. Hell, 50 if you can manage that. You’re going to have to actively pull yourself into the squat with your hamstrings to be moving at your top speed. It also helps to move your arms forward in rhythm.
Thrusters: The next evolution. Begin with a barbell, dumbbells, or kettlebells, or sandbag (hardcore) braced on your shoulders as if you were about to do a military press. Keeping the bar there lower yourself into a deep front squat. Now fire out of the squat and as you rise press the bar over your head. Think of it as a really deep push press.
On the way down lower the bar and squat simultaneously. You can develop a good rhythm this way and get more reps. Start with less weight than you think, trust me. A fast Tabata with a 95 lb barbell is pretty badass, even for guys who front squat 300-400 lbs.
Combinations: This is where it can get fun. Combine multiple whole body exercises that focus a bit on different body parts. Alternate these exercises for the sprint portions of the Tabata cycle. I don’t really recommend more than two exercises, as you’ll have a hard enough time remembering which one. A pair I like are burpees and kettlebell or plate swings. So it would look like this:
Cycle 1: Burpees
Cycle 2: Kettlebell Swings
Cycle 3: Burpees
Cycle 4: Kettlebell Swings
Cycle 5: Burpees
Cycle 6: Kettlebell Swings
Cycle 7: Burpees
Cycle 8: Kettlebell Swings
Give some of these gut-busters a try and leave a comment with your thoughts!
The Skinny on Tabata Training
Ok, so you saw the teaser video yesterday. That particular vid had some good little notes on what the Tabata protocol is, but I’ll give you the full rundown.
Tabata training is named for Dr. Izumi Tabata, the primary researcher who along with his colleagues at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan performed the following study:
ABSTRACT
1: Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1996 Oct;28(10):1327-30.
Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max.
Tabata I, Nishimura K, Kouzaki M, Hirai Y, Ogita F, Miyachi M, Yamamoto K.
Department of Physiology and Biomechanics, National Institute of Fitness and Sports, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.
This study consists of two training experiments using a mechanically braked cycle ergometer. First, the effect of 6 wk of moderate-intensity endurance training (intensity: 70% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), 60 min.d-1, 5 d.wk-1) on the anaerobic capacity (the maximal accumulated oxygen deficit) and VO2max was evaluated. After the training, the anaerobic capacity did not increase significantly (P > 0.10), while VO2max increased from 53 +/- 5 ml.kg-1 min-1 to 58 +/- 3 ml.kg-1.min-1 (P < 0.01) (mean +/- SD). Second, to quantify the effect of high-intensity intermittent training on energy release, seven subjects performed an intermittent training exercise 5 d.wk-1 for 6 wk. The exhaustive intermittent training consisted of seven to eight sets of 20-s exercise at an intensity of about 170% of VO2max with a 10-s rest between each bout. After the training period, VO2max increased by 7 ml.kg-1.min-1, while the anaerobic capacity increased by 28%. In conclusion, this study showed that moderate-intensity aerobic training that improves the maximal aerobic power does not change anaerobic capacity and that adequate high-intensity intermittent training may improve both anaerobic and aerobic energy supplying systems significantly, probably through imposing intensive stimuli on both systems.
PMID: 8897392 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Ok, so what does that all mean? Here’s what went down. The researchers put their subjects, members of the Japanese speed skating team, through a six-week moderate intensity cycling program. This is pretty similar to what a lot of people do in the gym in an attempt to get in shape and lose weight.
The results of this indicated that the subjects did increase their VO2max (a measure of aerobic fitness). That’s great. They did aerobics and they got better at them.
Next they tested the same subjects on a very high intensity protocol where they sprinted for 20 seconds with ten seconds break, repeated 7-8 times. This is about four minutes of actual exercise. The session number (5x/week for six weeks) was identical. This intensity was VERY anaerobic.
It was observed that their V02max improved by 7ml.kg-1.min-1 as opposed to the 5ml.kg-1.min-1 from the aerobic training. Anaerobic capacity, which they were directly training, increased by 28%. So these athletes, already trained, gained MORE aerobic capacity from the high intensity training in addition to their increase in anaerobic capacity!
What about fat loss? Well, what about it? Here’s a study by Dr. Angelo Tremblay and colleagues at Laval University in Quebec.
ABSTRACT
1: Metabolism. 1994 Jul;43(7):814-8.
Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism.
Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Physical Activity Sciences Laboratory, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada.
The impact of two different modes of training on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism was investigated in young adults who were subjected to either a 20-week endurance-training (ET) program (eight men and nine women) or a 15-week high-intensity intermittent-training (HIIT) program (five men and five women). The mean estimated total energy cost of the ET program was 120.4 MJ, whereas the corresponding value for the HIIT program was 57.9 MJ. Despite its lower energy cost, the HIIT program induced a more pronounced reduction in subcutaneous adiposity compared with the ET program. When corrected for the energy cost of training, the decrease in the sum of six subcutaneous skinfolds induced by the HIIT program was nine fold greater than by the ET program. Muscle biopsies obtained in the vastus lateralis before and after training showed that both training programs increased similarly the level of the citric acid cycle enzymatic marker. On the other hand, the activity of muscle glycolytic enzymes was increased by the HIIT program, whereas a decrease was observed following the ET program. The enhancing effect of training on muscle 3-hydroxyacyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase (HADH) enzyme activity, a marker of the activity of beta-oxidation, was significantly greater after the HIIT program. In conclusion, these results reinforce the notion that for a given level of energy expenditure, vigorous exercise favors negative energy and lipid balance to a greater extent than exercise of low to moderate intensity. Moreover, the metabolic adaptations taking place in the skeletal muscle in response to the HIIT program appear to favor the process of lipid oxidation.
PMID: 8028502 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
This study on high intensity training versus a more normal endurance program was particularly enlightening. The endurance-training subjects took a 20-week program where they expended a mean of 120.4 MG of energy.
The HIIT program was shorter (15 weeks) and the subjects expended substantially less energy (57.9 MJ). There was a correction made for energy expenditure to equal it out. However, at the end of the training periods the HIIT subjects lost NINE times more subcutaneous (under the skin) body fat than the endurance subjects. They also showed enhanced markers of fat burning activity in their body. This means that not only was more fat burned from the high intensity expenditure the body adapted to become better AT burning fat as fuel.
Look into these and think about them a bit. Tomorrow we’ll go over some Tabata and other HIIT protocols!
Tabata Who? Tabata What?
Hey kids, sorry for the long time out of communication. I’m back in action now!
Since it’s getting close to beach time, we’re going to start talking about metabolic conditioning workouts. Basically the goal of these workouts is to build up your fitness and conditioning, and as a great side benefit they can shed fat like nobody’s business.
One of the more brutally effective protocols for developing great fitness and dropping bodyfat while maintaining muscle mass is the Tabata protocol. Tomorrow I’m going to get really specific about it, but I thought I’d give you a little teaser I found on YouTube.
Tabata With With Multiple Means
Now, this guy isn’t an elite athlete and he doesn’t have the best form ever, but you’ll get the idea of what I’m talking about and he works damn hard. Check it out!
Brett Favre and Warren Sapp Retire
I’m a football fan. I love watching two kinds of players on the field. I love the players that are just so good that watching them play is a marvel of skill and human ability. Players like this are Peyton Manning, who’s one of the most complete technical quarterbacks ever.
The other kind of player I like are the attitude stars. Both Brett Favre (Quarterback, Green Bay Packers) and Warren Sapp (Defensive Tackle, Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Bucs) are terrific football players. Favre is without question a first ballot Hall of Famer, and Sapp is definitely worth talking about for the consideration. In addition to their numbers and playing skill they brought something else to the game. They brought attitude. They actually brought some attitude with each other, given that they had a fun little feud for a few years.
Favre is known as a gunslinging quarterback, making impossible throws to score touchdowns and losing balls on other gambles. Sapp is a muscle-filled cannonball that had a non-stop motor. He just never quit on the field and even when double and triple-teamed he was always reaching for more.
Both players have retired officially in the past couple of days, and the NFL is going to be a little less good because of it. They’ve both had long, great careers and are due for a rest, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to miss them.
You boys have been great, and I’ve learned a lot about football and life by watching you both play. Thanks for the good times.
Training For A 12-Week Transformation
How you go about training for your body transformation is going to be quite variable. Factors such as your current condition, age, training age, strength, and other training goals will all come in to play. As such, I could give you a “stock” training program, but that probably wouldn’t do the job. What I’m going to do is offer some guidelines.
*****Check with your medical professional before engaging in any exercise or diet program*****
*****Always remember to warm up well before starting physical activity. A good warm-up will raise your body and muscle temperature, lubricate your joints, engage your central nervous system, and overall ready you for a workout. If you don’t have time to warm up correctly, then you don’t have time to work out. Warm-ups have been covered on this website as well as on a bunch of other places, so check them out*****
The Transformation Program
Ok, here’s where we get into it. I’ll break it down by activities.
Steady-State Cardiovascular Activity
Ah, the old enemy. Cardio! We all hate it, and it’s very much fallen out of favor lately. You know what? Think about the biggest, leanest people on the planet for a second… bodybuilders! What do they do? A bunch of steady-state cardio! You can make all kinds of arguments about genetics and drugs, and I admit that they do play a factor. The fact remains that a lot of people have been getting lean, drug free, for a long time by doing cardio.
I’m not going to recommend the obscene hours spent on a treadmill like you’ll see in the gym. What I will recommend is that you start or end six days of the week with 20 minutes of light cardiovascular activity. This ideally would be a walk, but your situation might vary. Nobody ever overtrained by taking a walk. Here’s why:
-It’ll chew up calories. Our 200 lb man will probably burn through about 150-200 calories in his walk. Over the week that’s a bit over 1,000 calories from our total.
-The walking will help blood flow and recovery. You’re not eating enough calories and carbohydrates to recover quickly from more strenuous exercise. The light cardio will help improve your blood flow. The improved blood flow will help remove damage from your muscles and bring nutrients to them, increasing your recovery rate.
-It will provide you with focus. Get in the habit of doing something. The more often you’re doing something, even a small bit of exercise, the easier it’ll be to focus on your goal.
Interval-Based Cardiovascular Activity
Here’s the fat burning cardio. I want you to, depending on your interests, goals, and fitness level, to sprint or perform intervals on the treadmill, bike, Stairmaster, or rowing machine.
This high intensity training will follow a schedule somewhat to the order of a light warm-up (about five minutes), followed by 5-12 intervals of as hard as you can muster for 20 seconds alternated with 40 seconds of light recovery. Follow this up with a light five-minute cool-down.
If you’re not used to this type of activity it can be very intense. Start with 3-5 intervals and try to add one every session until you hit 12.
This will be a fairly short session but it will burn fat for hours after your workout is over.
Perform 2-3 interval sessions per week. I would perform them on days following High Carb days. They work great for depleting stored carbohydrate in your muscles. If you’ve just come off of a Low Carb day and are on a No Carb day I would avoid the Interval training, as you probably won’t have the gas.
Strength Training
Your lifting schedule will vary depending on your goals but focus on putting your heavy weight training sessions on your High Carb days when you’ll have the most energy. The carbohydrates will be preferably sent to your liver and muscles for fuel and regrowing any muscle lost during the No Carb days. This is what we want.
Focus on compound movements, preferably with reasonably short rest times. I do want you to keep your training heavy as you’re going to maintaining that muscle that heavy training built. If you start training with light loads then your body will quickly shed muscle mass that it feels it no longer needs. That doesn’t do us any good!
There’s a quick run through the exercise program for a 12 Week Fat Loss Program! I’ve enjoyed working on this and am more than willing to discuss it further. Just send a comment below!
Intro to Carbohydrate Cycling Diets
So you want to lose fat quickly to look great for the summer. I’m afraid that a huge part of achieving success is going to be dialing in your diet. To best reach your goal of being lean and sexy for the summer season what we need is a diet that is going to:
A) Drop body fat
B) Retain muscle mass as much as possible
Traditional diets tend to focus entirely on calorie restriction to lose fat. This works for a while, but soon you run in to complications. Look, there’s no point in starving yourself to lose fat only to find that you ate up a lot of your hard-earned muscle mass in the process. Not only will your metabolism slow, but you’ll end up looking thin AND flabby as opposed to your current thick and flabby state. Nobody wants to be thin and flabby any more than thick and flabby. Think cracked out Lindsay Lohan versus healthy Lindsay Lohan. It’s just not a good look.
One of the most efficient ways to lose fat while maintaining (or even gaining in some cases) muscle is through a cyclical type of diet. Basically that means that not all dieting days will be the same. Instead of just picking a caloric intake below maintenance and eating that every day, your macronutrients and caloric intake will fluctuate from day to day. Given that this is a blog post I’m not going to go in to a whole lot of depth here, but you’ll get the idea.
*****Remember to consult with your medical professional before trying any change in diet or exercise.*****
If you’re not familiar with caloric intake, macronutrients, and other basics of nutrition then check out my FREE eight-day Basics of Fitness Nutrition e-course here. Remember, it’s FREE!
Carb Cycling for the Beach
There are all kinds of ways to utilize a successful cyclical diet, but we’re going to keep it simple. What we’re going to manipulate mostly from day to day is carbohydrate intake. Carbs are pretty much just energy for the body, and what we want to do is force the body to give up some of its stored energy (fat) without losing muscle along with it. If you go on a low-carb diet for an extended period of time the body will frequently respond by lowering its metabolism and potentially using up valuable muscle mass to fuel itself. We’re avoiding this by depriving the body of carbs and calories for certain periods of time to force the body to burn stored fuel (fat) but then consuming carbs and calories in surplus at other times to keep it happy and make our workouts productive.
The stable macronutrient in this diet from day to day is going to be protein. For the sake of simplicity consume the same amount of protein every day. Our goal is going to be 90% of your bodyweight (in pounds) in grams of protein per day. If you go over on any of your macronutrient totals for the day then make them protein. A little extra protein on this diet won’t hurt you.
You’ll also need to know your maintenance caloric intake. Check out my e-course for a quick but accurate method of determining that. For our example of a 200 lb, 25 year-old male we’ll just use bodyweight x 12. This isn’t the most accurate method of determining maintenance calories but it will do the job for our discussion.
200 x 12 = 2400 calories per day at maintenance
200 x 0.9 = 180g protein per day = 720 calories of protein
Basic Guidelines for the Diet
There are a few rules I want you to keep in mind.
1) Eat every 2.5-3 hours. This usually means you’ll eat a small meal about five times per day. Simply take your goal macronutrients and divide them up as necessary. On your No Carb days you may end up with some very small meals, so it’s ok to combine them into four meals.
2) Drink lots of water. Work up to 0.75-1.0 gallons of clean water per day. The water will help keep you hydrated and optimize your fat loss.
3) Be careful about condiments and sauces. A lot of fats and sugars will sneak in if you don’t keep an eye on them.
4) Pay attention to your fiber intake. Make sure you get lots of green, fibrous vegetables that are low carb like broccoli, spinach, lettuce, peppers, and cucumbers. Don’t count them towards your carbohydrate counts, so they’re basically a free food. Look for at least 30g of fiber per day (40g is better) so you may need to add in a sugar-free fiber supplement on Low and No Carb days.
5) Eat good foods. This diet can be done on fast food and from gas stations, if necessary, but that’s definitely not the best option. Your results and your body will be better if you eat healthy, non-processed foods. You’ll also get to eat a lot more food, as most non-processed foods are much less calorically dense than the more highly processed foods. Oatmeal and brown rice will be a better carbohydrate source than a low-fat donut every time, trust me.
The Mechanics of the Carbohydrate Cycling Diet
Ok, now that the ground rules are laid out it’s on to the actual diet. We need days of different carbohydrate and calorie intake levels for this to work. It’s easiest to do this in a No Carb Day, Low Carb Day, and High Carb day rotation. That’s what we’ll focus on for the sake of simplicity. The seven-day schedule, which you can alter to your lifestyle, will look like this:
Monday: No Carb
Tuesday: Low Carb
Wednesday: High Carb
Thursday: No Carb
Friday: Low Carb
Saturday: High Carb
Sunday: Low Carb
Low Carb Days: Think of the Low Carb days as your “middle ground” days. The Low Carb Days are more like a normal “diet” in that they allow protein, fat, and carbohydrate in the diet, all in moderate amounts. Focus on getting in your protein and keep your fat moderate. We’re looking for a caloric intake of about 350 calories or so below maintenance. This is basically just a slight diet.
Your carbohydrate intake for the day will be about 75% of your bodyweight (in pounds) in grams of carbohydrate. So our 200 lb dieter would be looking at about 150g of carbohydrate. Most of these should be consumed at breakfast, before your workout, and after your workout.
Your fat intake should be around 30% of your bodyweight (pounds) in grams. So our 200-pound lifter would take in about 60g of fat per day. Don’t go below 20g of fat per day, no matter what.
Also, I recommend at least 6g of quality fish oil per day, even on No Carb and High Carb days. This can be in pill form (easiest), liquid form (not the tastiest), or eating fatty fish such as salmon. The fish oil provides essential fatty acids (EFA’s) not found in most of our other foods that the body can’t produce on its own. A deficiency in EFA’s can stagnate fat loss and inhibit insulin sensitivity.
Example (our 200 lb 25 year old):
Calories: 1860 calories
gFat: 60g = 540 calories
gCarb: 150g = 600 calories
gProtein: 180g = 720 calories
No Carb Days: The No Carb days are pretty simple, you don’t eat carbs. Obviously carbs are present in trace amounts in a lot of foods, so I recommend keeping your carb count at 25g or less.
These days will be the bulk of your fat loss days as your caloric intake is very low. Normally you wouldn’t want your caloric intake to be this low but we’re only doing it for a couple of days per week. If you’re very small this number may end up below 1,000 calories per day in which case I want you to add fat or protein to your diet until you hit 1,000 calories. Perform a small amount of extra low intensity cardiovascular exercise to burn the difference. In other words if you were “supposed” do only eat 920 calories via the formula then eat 1,000 calories and walk off another 80 calories.
Example:
Calories: 1,360 calories
gFat: 60g = 540 calories
gCarb: 25g (max) = 100 calories
gProtein = 180g = 720 calories
High Carb Days: Yippee! The day you get to eat a lot of carbs. This can be fun after depriving yourself for a few days. On your High Carb Days I want you to focus on taking in your protein as normal. Fat should be kept low, think somewhere between 30-40g for the day. I want your overall caloric intake to be 350 calories above maintenance, so fill in the rest with carbs.
Example:
Calories: 2750 calories
gFat: 40g (max) = 360 calories
gCarb: 417.5g = 1670 calories
gProtein: 180g = 720 calories
Now calculate the weekly maintenance calories for this individual:
2400 calories x 7 = 16800 calories per week
Compare that to the dieted amounts:
No Carb Days: 2720 calories
Low Carb Days: 5580 calories
High Carb Days: 5500 calories
Total Weekly Calories: 13,800 calories
Net caloric intake: 16,800-13,800 = (3,000)
Out of our 7500 calories we need to be under maintenance for our two pound per week fat loss the diet has accounted for 3,000 of it. Next we’ll cover training for your 12-week lean body odyssey.