you are leaning out right? Not bulking? 300grams of carbs a day is not good. Heres a diet I like.
Remember to lift heavy and do cardio in the AM if at all possible. hehe nother long post.
Cyclical Ketogenic Diets Part 2
Last issue I presented a short review article of some research behind the cyclical ketogenic diet (hereafter CKD). This time I'd like to take that research and discuss proper application for those bodybuilders who have chosen to try the diet. The CKD can be used both for muscle gain with minimal fat gain or for maximum fat loss with minimal muscle loss. The primary difference in applications of the CKD would be in:
1. Training structure
2. Calorie levels
3. Amount and type of cardiovascular training
4. Length and quality of the carb-up phase
In this article, I only want to discuss the application of the CKD for fat loss prior to and leading up to a contest. The typical problem with pre-contest dieting is the invariable loss of muscle mass which occurs.
The CKD helps to solve this problem in two ways. First, ketogenic diets appear to spare muscle tissue loss during dieting. Second, the carb-up phase seems to promote anabolism to rebuild any lost muscle. I'll divide the application of the CKD for fat loss into three sections: the no-carb phase, the carb-up, and training structure.
The no-carb phase:
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>From a dietary standpoint, to establish and maintain ketosis, two criteria must be met:
1. Carbohydrate intake must be kept below 30 grams. However, there is some indivduality in this number. Some individuals can handle more carbohydrates while others may have difficulty establishing ketosis at this level. If you can't get into ketosis and everything else is in place, try cutting your carb intake to 20 grams or less. Also, many individuals choose to consume as few carbs as possible (zero) until ketosis is fully established and then increase carbs slightly (celery and cucumber are both good and add some nice texture to an otherwise bland diet) at that point.
2. The ratio of fat to protein should be 1.5 grams of fat *minimum* for every gram of protein and carbs in the diet. This is a 75% fat, 25% protein ratio with trace carbs. So, if you plan to eat 200 grams of protein, you need to eat at least 300 grams of fat. In most cases, the easiest way to meet the fat requirements of the diet is to pick your protein food first (most protein foods have some fat in them) and then balance the meal out with the proper amount of whole fat food such as vegetable oil, cream cheese, or mayonnaise and heavy cream (a great dessert is heavy cream with protein powder and Equal. Mix it up in a bowl and you've got pudding!)
Calorie levels: Calories should be set at maintenance or 10-20% below depending on how quickly you need to drop fat. If you don't know your maintenance calorie level, start with 12 calories per pound (or 11 calories per pound of lean body mass) and gauge from there. If you're dropping more than 2 lbs of fat per week, increase calories. If you feel that fat loss isn't happening quickly enough, lower them slightly or increase cardiovascular training. For the sake of example, let's say that your
caloric intake during the no-carb phase is 2000 calories.
75% fat = 2000*.75 = 1500 calories / 9 calories/gram = 166 grams of fat
25% protein = 2000*.25 = 500 calories / 4 calories/gram = 125 grams of protein.
These calories would be divided into three or four meals.
Training structure:
The other key to establishing and maintaining ketosis as rapidly as
possible is that blood glucose (normal is 80-120 mg/dl) must be lowered to 50-60 mg/dl. At this point, insulin levels decrease and glucagon levels (which are responsible for ketogenesis) rise. Simple carbohydrate restriction will cause ketosis to occur in three or four days. But proper training can put you in ketosis within 36-48 hours of stopping carbs. And, the more time you are in ketosis, the more fat you can lose.
Now, a typical pre-contest dieting practice has been to lower the weights on all exercise and use higher reps to 'cut' up the muscle. This is a fallacy and is about the worst thing a natural lifter can do while dieting. Heavy weights are necessary to maintain muscle mass while dieting. What should be loweredis training volume (i.e. number of total sets and days of
training) as overtraining becomes more likely on restricted calories. This point can't be too emphasized: while dieting for fat loss, it is almost impossible to gain muscle so don't knock yourself out trying. The best a natural can do is keep all the hard earned muscle he or she has built through heavy training. To keep that muscle, heavy training must be maintained, just at a lower volume.
Now, the key to dropping blood glucose quickly is to perform sufficient metabolic work. At first glance, this seems to contradict the suggestion to cut training volume. However, the amount of metabolic work done (which impacts how much glucose is pulled out of the bloodstream into the muscles) is dependent on the size of the muscle used. So, to rapidly establish ketosis, make sure to work at least the large muscles of the body (legs, chest and back) in the first 2 days of carbohydrate restriction. An
example training week be:
Monday: chest and back
Tuesday: legs and abs
Friday: shoulders and arms
Alternately, the entire body can be worked across Monday and Tuesday. This has the added benefit of allowing for muscle soreness to dissipate prior to the carb-up. Muscle damage causes short term insulin insensitivity which can impair carbing.
This would look like:
Mon: legs, back, biceps
Tue: chest, delts, tris, abs
Fri: high rep, circuit depletion workout
The depletion workout comes from Dan Duchaine's book, "Bodyopus". The rationale is that the further you deplete muscle glycogen, the greater an anabolic response you will get during the recarb. On the Monday and Tuesday workout, do 2-3 heavy sets of 6-8 reps to failure for 1-3 exercises per body part (larger muscles like back need more exercises than smaller ones like biceps). On Friday, a giant loop type of circuit seems to work
best. For example: squat, bench press, seated row, leg curl, shoulder press, pulldown, calf raise, triceps pushdown, barbell curl, abs, low back and alternate movements each cycle (flat vs. incline bench, seated vs. standing calf raise) to hit as many different fibers as you can.
Do 10-20 semi-fast, but controlled, reps per exercise and go nowhere even close to failure. A weight around 50% of the weights you used for your sets of 6-8 on Mon and Tue seems to work about right. Take 1' rest between sets and about 5' rest between circuits. You want to continue doing circuits until you feel your strength decreasing (trust me, you'll know when you get there). This indicates your glycogen stores are becoming
depleted. However, realize that not everyone has found the depletion workout to be necessary for good results. Again, experimentation and good record keeping is the key. I suggest you try both methods suggested above and see what happens. Prior to the depletion workout, it is important that you get out of
ketosis by consuming 50 grams of carbs (fruit is ideal) about 2 hours before the workout. The rationale is this: while in ketosis, the body will prefer ketones to glucose for fuel. To achieve maximal glycogen depletion in all muscle fibers, you need to exit ketosis. Fruit (which will preferentially refill liver glycogen) is the ideal way to do this. This will allow for maximal glycogen depletion during the workout. The carb-up should begin immediately after the final Friday workout and
continue from 24-36 hours at which point you should switch back to low carb
intake.
Cardiovascular training:
One nice thing about ketogenic diets is that you are burning more bodyfat for fuel at rest than on a high carb diet. Additionally, due to fuel inefficiency of ketones (they provide 7 calories/gram vs. 9 calories/gram for fat), you will burn up more grams of fat for a given caloric deficit. This means that less cardio training is necessary. For those who want to ensure maximal fat loss, doing 20-30 minutes of light cardio (60-70% of
maximum heart rate) on Wednesday and Thursday (or after training) can help. Additionally, 10' of easy cardio prior to the Monday and Tuesday workout as well as 10' of easy cardio afterwards will help to lower blood sugar levels and induce ketosis. Do not overdo cardio though as this is a guaranteed
way to lose some hard earned muscle.
The carb-up phase:
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This is probably the most critical part of the CKD. The carb up phase accomplishes two things:
1. rebuilds any muscle that might be lost during the week due to the
anabolic processes related to cell hydration
2. refills muscle glycogen stores for the first workouts of the next week
allowing you to train intensely enough to avoid muscle loss while on low
calories
There are two approaches to the carb-up phase:
1. Subjective approach: with this approach, you simply carb to your hearts content UNTIL you begin to feel yourself spilling water over to the skin (i.e. you'll get bloated and smooth). This indicates that muscle glycogen stores are full and additional carbs will go to the fat cells. The types of carbs you consume (simple sugars vs. complex carbs) will, to a great degree, determine how quickly your muscle cells become full. This approach also allows you to dial in your pre-contest carbing up to see how your body will respond and what type of carb-up will make you look the best. To enhance fat loss, it is recommended that you do not carb for more than 24-36 total hours. This turns the diet into 6 days of low carb and 1 day of carbing. And, again, more days in ketosis means more fat lost.
For those who need to lose fat very quickly, carbing every other weekend can have very positive results although it's not as much fun. In this case, I'd suggest one concentrated carb meal one hour in length right after Friday's workout and then go immediately back to low carbs. Unless you really overdo it, you will probably spike yourself back into ketosis by Saturday morning. The training structure for this approach might be:
Mon: chest and back
Tue: legs and abs
Wed: cardio
Thu: delts and arms
Fri, Sat, Sun: cardio (have your once concentrated carb meal on one of these days)
Mon: legs, back and bis
Tue: chest, delts, tris, abs
Wed: cardio
Thu: cardio
Fri: high rep depletion workout, begin carbing
The benefits of such an approach are relatively greater fat loss since you spend proportionally more time (10 days out of 14 vs. 8 days out of 14 if you carb every weekend) in ketosis. The cons are that it's rather boring and there may be a greater potential for muscle loss. Again, experimentation (and frequent body composition measures are key).
2. Objective approach: this approach is much more specific. After glycogen depletion, the muscles can handle 16 grams of carb/kg of lean body mass during the first 24 hours and 9 grams of carbs/kg lean body mass during the second 24. In terms of amounts and quality of carbs, you should emphasize
lots of high glycemic index carbs at the beginning of the carb load and shift to lower amounts of lower glycemic index carbs towards the end. For very specific recommendations as to quantity and quality of carbs during the carb-up, check out Dan Duchaine's Bodyopus book.
During the carb-up phase, several other things are important:
1. Protein: you should consume 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (or per pound of lean body mass) divided evenly across each 24 hours. 2. Fat: you should consume approximately 15% of your total calories as essential fatty acids (flax oil, olive oil and walnuts are good sources) especially near the end of the carb up to slow digestion. 3. Water: for every gram of carbs you consume, you need to consume 3-4 grams of water for optimal refilling of the muscles. This works out to 10 cups of water for a carb intake of 600 grams per day. Unless you're doing the final carb-up for your contest, I suggest drinking as much water as you
can put down.
Supplements such as vanadyl, chromium and magnesium may help the carb-up as they have been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and can help to lower blood gluco se. Also, using Hydroxycitric acid (trade name Citrimax) at 750 mg three times per day helps to shuttle carbs into the muscle cells
and prevent spill over to fat cells. Finally, creatine monohydrate taken during the carb-up phase should, in theory, lead to more cellular hyperhydration and possibly cause more anabolism. Definitely useful for the contest in any case.
Pre-contest week:
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Ideally, you should be pretty close to contest ready one to two weeks out from your show. This allows you to do the final dialing in of your physique without being rushed. The final countdown to the show begins 8 days out (this assumes a Saturday morning contest). During the next 6-7 days, it's important to keep water intake high. Beginning water restriction too early will cause the body to upregulate aldosterone, the hormone which makes the body retain water. Only on Friday and the day of the show should water intake be limited. Additionally, sodium loading and or restriction isn't recommended unless you've proven it
works well for you. Don't go out of your way to add sodium, but don't go crazy trying to avoid it. Adequate sodium is needed for a proper carb-up anyhow. Calories on the low carb days should be kept at maintenance or even a bit higher. You should already be as lean as you're going to get by this point so don't risk any muscle loss by panicking. The countdown to contest looks more or less like this:
Friday: last heavy day of training, low carbs Saturday: do cardio if necessary, stay in low carbs through this weekend
Sunday: last day of cardio if necessary, stay low carbs
Monday: low carbs, no training Tuesday: take in 50 grams of fruit 2 hour pre-workout, do depletion workout in morning, begin carbing with liquid simple carbs, goal is 16g carbs/kg
lean body mass in the first 24 hours. Wednesday: continue carbing switching to complex carbs, 9 g carbs/kg lean
body mass during the second 24 hours Thursday: continue carbing if not completely filled out yet, hard to say
just how many carbs to consume but go by your condition. If you're flat, eat slightly more (stick with complex though). If you're full enough, cut back to small amouts of fibrous carbs.
Friday: go back to mostly protein and fat with small amounts of carbs (perhaps 20%) at each meal, take a herbal diuretic (such as buchu leaves) as required but make sure that all carbing is finished Saturday: hit the sauna in morning if you're holding water and go kick tail at your contest
I feel that carbing prior to the contest should be similar to what you did each week. With good record keeping, you should have a good feel for how your body responds to different types of carb-ups. And, as the saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" Whatever carb-up got you in your best condition during dieting is the carb-up you should follow.
