bulkaholic

Hello All,

I am 6 days into a low carb diet, heres how it looks:

I am now 101Kg (was 103 last week) 5'10" 20% BF training 3 day push,pull and legs. will be putting in 40mins walk upto 6 days a week

around 250g protein, 40-50g fat and around 100-150 carbs.

I had decided on a carb up meal once a week and that happens to be a pizza.

First of all is that carb intake low enough for results? I am aiming to drop fat for summer and to see how long it takes for to get into shape from 20% BF(BF% in avatar).

Is this diet correct to maintain the muscle I have worked hard to gain or should I be looking to cycle carbs?

Looking at my figures above perhaps I should be aiming for higher fat? Should this be higher than the standard 90g or would that only be advised for very low carb diets?

Loads of questions i know but just trying to get a handle on this cutting business. I spent years wasted by trying to burn fat and gain muscle at same time. I have just finished a 3-4 month bulk with a little very gentle assistance and don't want to throw away all the gains.

I am considering competing in a few years if i can get in suitable condition and if I have the dedication it takes (this diet will soon let me know)

Sorry to go on

Colin

Tall

Fats are way too low IMHO.

Permanent low carb isn't a great diet - you won't be in ketosis, so your brain will be desperately after glucose, and you won't be feeding it with enough in the form of carbs.

If you are going to do low carb, then you should be doing something along the lines of:

Training days: Carbs Pre and Post Workout
Non Training Days: Carbs at breakfast time

With the remainder of your meals being P+F

bulkaholic

Thanks for the tips. So what amounts of carbs should I be looking at please? I was thinking around 150g training days and around 50g on off days.

What amount of fats would look good? I must add I am an easy gainer nowadays. To up fat I would eat almonds and other nuts such as walnuts and perhaps some lean red meat to keep saturated high enough for test levels etc. love seeds also but hate fish so may have to take capsules.

Cheers

Colin

Tall

Your fats should be worked out from your daily total kCals.

So if you were aiming for 2500 kcals per day:

2500 kCals
- (250P * 4) = 1000
- (150C * 4) = 600
-------------------
= 900kcals / 9 = 100g Fat on Training Days


2500 kCals
- (250P * 4) = 1000
- (50C * 4) = 200
-------------------
= 1300kcals / 9 = 145g Fat on Non-Training Days

Tall

Oh and 150g/50g *should* be fine. Just reduce and up fats if you aren't loosing 1-2lbs per week.

You should also check to see that strength doesn't decrease too much

bulkaholic

Ah it makes sense now. I wasn't looking at the overall calorie picture just at carbs.

I guess to do this properly I need to work out my calorie requirement properly. If i remeber correctly it's worked from your LBM correct?

So that makes around 80Kg LBM (doesnt sound very big without the blubber)

I will go do some reading on how to calculate.

Thanks for the help

Colin

bulkaholic

OK did some reading and it works out my BMR is around 2100 and my maintenance requirement is 2800 Kcals.

Working on the above i figured 500 Kcals will give reasonable fat loss so going to aim for 2300Kcals

This gives the following:

High carb day
250g protein = 1000Kcals
150g carbs = 600Kcals
700Kcals/9 = 78g Fat

Low Carb
250g = 1000Kcals
50g Carbs = 200Kcals
1100Kcals/9 = 122g Fat

S*** i must have been starving my body before

No wonder those carb cravings were so bad:crazy:

Cheers for pointing me in the right direction. am gonna go grab some nuts before bed (not those)

Colin

Pscarb

in my opinion BMR is just a guess and for me worthless...

your high day is not a high by any means..

the whole point to both low carb and carb cycling diets is to burn fat from the body, the issue with doing this is that your body adapts to what you are doing very quickly.

In my opinion low carb diets are not the best way to go for a bodybuilder carb cycling is the best way to drop fat some fail as they only have high carbs on training days i really dont see the point to this as then the energy you are using to train is from the food you have eaten and not the fat you have stored...

work out a carb cycling plan for a 7 day period and stick to it, no it will not be easy and yes you will lose some strength but that is to be expoected losing fat and maintianing muscle is not easy....

here is something to go by
Mon - Low
Tue - Med
Wed - Low
Thur - Med
Fri - Low
Sat - High/Refeed
Sun - Low

Low day - 50g carbs/300g protein/90g fats
Med day - 175g carbs/250g protein/75g fats
High day - 600g carbs/200g protein/50g fats

give that a try

bulkaholic

Thanks for the information.

That plan looks plenty achievable to me. I will run with that.

From what you said I take it I run the 7 day program and keep that a seprate issue to my training days? e.g. I run a 3 day split at present training every other day. this would run as normal so some days i would happen to be training on a med day and others on low day.

What do you think a good split for cutting would be? Carry on as is or jump up to 5 day split to expend more calories?

I have some pics from last month so will use those and post some progress pics in a journal.

I appreciate all the help

Colin

Pscarb

keep your traininas it is mate just make the rest periods between sets less, are you including cardio??

Tall

Agreed. Training should remain the same especially when cutting - how else do you know how the diet is affecting your peformance...

Cardio - Gentle walking each day - for 45mins to an hour. Something like HIIT or Tabatas after training for between 4 and 8mins.

jjb1

do you always carb cycle when dieting pscarb?

Con

Pscarb how essential is cycling your carbs?

I was doing a VERY low carb diet but now its looking like this...
m1: 8 egg whites 2 yolks 90 carb via oats
m2: 50p through talapia powdered greens
m3: propetide again 50 p
m4: 250gram lean beef brocoli
Training: 2 scoops superpump 50 carb after training 50 whey one hour later 50 carb from oats
m6: propeptide 50p with 5 fish oil

Basically what i am trying to ask Paul is can i just stick around 200-250 carbs through the week and then have one higher refeed meal once per week or is that not optimum?

bulkaholic

I will be starting cardio this week as had that really chesty cough going about last week.

I will stick to around 45 mins walk for cardio as suggested by TH&S. I will try and make that pre breakfast if i can drag my backside out of bed in time.

Got legs tomorrow so will see how much this diet affects my squats:lift:

Cheers

Colin

Pscarb

i did not used to but in 2004 i changed over and i have yet to lose a qualifier or local show....now i use Carb cycling both pre-comp and off season