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How
to get lean using a new approach to the old traditional low carbohydrate diet
For years, we were taught that carbohydrates were the
food of choice for high energy and optimum athletic performance. We were taught
that fat made us fat and carbohydrates made us lean and energized. Then
everything seemed to change. Low carbohydrate diets have been with us for
decades, but from the late nineties into the first few years of the new
millennium, there has been a huge resurgence of interest in the low carbohydrate
diet. Everywhere you look today there are low carbohydrate drinks, low
carbohydrate meal replacements, low carbohydrate frozen dinners – even low
carbohydrate pasta! Low carbohydrate dieting has definitely gone mainstream.
Unfortunately, this has created a torrent of confusion and controversy. For
every “guru” who says low carbohydrates are the ultimate fat burning diet,
there is another “guru” with the opposite opinion. Who is right? Because
of metabolic individuality, no single diet program is the best for everyone. At
certain times, for certain purposes, a low carbohydrate diet – done with a new
approach you are about to learn - can accelerate fat loss beyond anything
you’ve experienced before. This type of diet is not for everyone and it’s
also not for people who haven’t mastered the nutritional fundamentals first.
Before you proceed in such a low carbohydrate high
protein diet you should be training consistently and you should have mastered
the meaning of Diet. It’s pointless to try to use these advanced
carbohydrate-manipulation strategies unless you’ve mastered the eight
fundamentals of a fat-loss diet
1. Eating fewer calories than you burn
2. Properly balancing your macronutrient ratios
3. Eating five or six meals per day, properly timed
4. Eating lean proteins with every meal
5. Eating the right types of carbohydrates and avoiding
refined sugars
6. Eating low fat and choosing the right types of fat
7. Drinking plenty of water
8. Eating natural, unrefined foods
A
totally new approach to the low carbohydrate diet
There are three secrets to getting all the benefits of
low carbohydrate dieting without all the side effects it might cause such as
dramatic reduction in energy levels, it can affect negatively your mood and
mental state, muscle tissue loss etc. The first is carbohydrate tapering, which
is the practice of eating more carbohydrates early in the day and fewer later in
the day. The second secret is using moderate carbohydrate reductions, not the
removal of all carbohydrates. The third is carbohydrate cycling. When combined,
the results of these three techniques can increase fat loss beyond your wildest
dreams and expectations! Let’s take a closer look at each one.
A)
The carbohydrate tapering technique for maximum fat
loss
If you want to get leaner quickly, a simple way to
accelerate fat loss is to reduce the size of your late day meals. This technique
is known as “calorie tapering” or “carbohydrate tapering.” Simply cut
out the starches in your evening and late afternoon meals, leaving the green
fibrous carbohydrates, lean proteins and essential fats. Examples of late day
fibrous carbohydrate and lean protein meals include; (1) broccoli and chicken
breast with a 1 tbsp of flaxseed oil, (2) tuna fish in a green salad with olive
oil & vinegar dressing, (3) Asparagus and salmon. When you drop the starchy
carbohydrates from your last two meals, your ratios will automatically shift
towards less carbohydrates and higher protein. It’s an incredibly simple and
easy technique to use, yet it can cause dramatic fat loss.
How
the
low carbohydrate, very high protein diet can benefit trainees
For very brief periods, athletes/fitness competitors
often decrease their carbohydrates to only
about 25% of their total calories.
This is considered a “low carbohydrate” diet. This type of program would
only be appropriate for an extreme endomorph or a competitive physique athlete.
(This is why it’s often called the pre-contest diet’)
Pre-contest Diet
Low carbohydrate, very high protein
25-30% carbohydrates
50% protein
20-25% fat.
For the average male, this diet includes about 150 to
200 grams of carbohydrates per day. For the average female, the carbohydrate
intake is about 90 to 130 grams. This is just enough carbohydrate to stay alert
and fuel high intensity workouts. A larger drop would be overkill. The protein
intake is often extremely high for large and highly active individuals - as high
as 300 to 375 grams per day for men and 180 to 220 grams for women. This usually
works out to about 1.5 to 2.0 grams per pound of body weight. Most people- except the world’s best bodybuilders, of course – would argue that
this is far too much protein, which it probably is if you stayed at this level
all the time. However, if you reduce your carbohydrates to 25-30% of your total
calories and you don’t increase your protein and or fat to compensate, your
calorie deficit will be too large. Whenever the calorie deficit is too big, you
trigger the starvation mode. If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of
consuming this much protein, then you’ll have to make up the difference in
calories with essential fats (for example, 30% carbohydrate, 30% fat, 40%
protein). Keep in mind that the extremely high protein levels are temporary and
they shouldn’t be maintained for more than 12-16 weeks prior to the contest or
photo shoot. Afterwards, you would gradually shift back to a baseline diet with
more carbohydrates and less protein for maintenance.
Sample low carbohydrate menu
Meal
Meal
Meal
Meal
Meal
Meal
This menu also uses the carbohydrate tapering method,
only in this case, the starchy carbohydrates are cut off after 12:30 pm. Meals
one through three have a lean protein and a starchy carbohydrates while meals
three through six contain only lean proteins and fibrous carbohydrates. In
addition, the serving sizes of the starchy carbohydrates in the first three
meals has been reduced.
B) Carbohydrate “Cycling"
A low to moderate carbohydrate and high protein diet
will cause much faster fat loss than a high carbohydrate diet. However, it may
seem like the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. Fortunately, there’s a
solution to these problems and it’s called “carbohydrate cycling.” Some
people refer to carbohydrate cycling as “zig zag” dieting, “Hi-low”
dieting, “carbing-up” or carbohydrate “re-feeding.” Regardless of what
you name it, carbohydrate cycling is probably the most powerful fat burning
strategy on the planet. Nothing else even comes close. It is the only guaranteed
way to overcome the body’s starvation response when calories and carbohydrates
are low. Not only do you avoid a negative response, but you also invoke many
positive responses that do not occur when holding your carbohydrates and
calories at the same low level day in and day out. That’s the main problem
with conventional low carbohydrate diets – they suggest that you drop your
carbohydrates and keep them low. What I am suggesting is that you drop your
carbohydrates for a few days, then increase them again before your body figures
out what the heck is going on! Carbohydrate cycling has been a well-kept secret
of bodybuilders and fitness models for decades, but anyone can use it to
accelerate fat loss or break a plateau. The beauty of this method is that it
allows you to get all the fat loss benefits of low carbohydrate dieting without
the low carbohydrate side effects. Most important, it keeps your metabolism
elevated and prevents you from going into starvation mode.In fact with this way
this i managed to get rid of the excess body-fat and create a worthy physique
and if you don’t believe me check my page at:
www.sixpacknow.com/askpanos.html
Why you shouldn’t stay on low carbohydrates for more
than three days in a row
After three days in a row on low carbohydrates, your
glycogen levels will be
almost completely depleted. If you were to continue on
low carbohydrates for a fourth
day, fifth day, or beyond, you would notice your energy
and training intensity begin to
diminish. You would also notice that your muscles would
“flatten out” and become
softer. Your metabolic rate would begin to slow down
and your thyroid gland would
decrease its output of thyroid hormone. Basically, your
diet would become less and less
effective the longer you stayed on low carbohydrates
beyond the three day period. Your
body is so “smart,” it simply
makes changes in physiology and metabolism to compensate
for the
prolonged lack of carbohydrates (which it interprets as starvation). That’s
why you
have to keep your body
guessing, by throwing in a high
carbohydrate day every fourth day.
High carb days and Low carb Days
Carbohydrate cycling is based on the concept of
rotating low carbohydrate days with high carbohydrate days instead of keeping
carbohydrates low all the time. Every fourth day your glycogen levels are
restored with a “carb load” or “high carb day” Your energy stays up,
your muscles fill out and tighten and your metabolic rate gets a dramatic boost
. The high day also makes your entire diet easier to stick with because no
matter how difficult it is to get through those three low days, you have a
“high carb day” to look forward to. The “high carb day” also bypasses
all the side effects. You get noticeably leaner with every three-day low
carbohydrate cycle as your body dips deeply into stored body fat without the
carbohydrates readily available for fuel. Surprisingly, you may even continue to
get leaner even on the high carbohydrate days because of the boost in metabolic
rate.Carbohydrate cycling also prevents your body from becoming inefficient at
using carbohydrates for energy. When you cut your carbohydrates out for a long
time, your body begins depending on fat for fuel and it learns how to use fat
for fuel more efficiently. You often hear low carbohydrate diet proponents say
that the low carbohydrate diet turns you into a “fat burner” while a high
carbohydrate dieter turns you into a “sugar burner.” This may be true, but
there’s a huge downside to staying on low carbohydrates all the time and
becoming an
exclusive
“fat burner:” Your body becomes lazy and inefficient at burning
carbohydrates. When you eat them again after a long absence, your body doesn’t
know what to do with them. This is one of the reasons you will simply blow up
overnight and gain weight back the minute you re-introduce carbohydrates after a
long absence. Unless you plan on never eating a carbohydrate ever again, you’d
better think twice about long-term carbohydrate restriction. Low carbohydrate
diets are not lifestyle programs. What’s the alternative? Carbohydrate load
every fourth day. When you carbohydrate load a depleted muscle, the
carbohydrates are quickly soaked up by the muscle on that fourth day because the
muscles are “hungry” for carbohydrates. By repeated cycles of depletion and
re loading, your muscles become extremely efficient at storing carbohydrates as
muscle glycogen rather than partitioning them to body fat.
Fine tuning the carbohydrate cycling method
As you get leaner and leaner, you may find that you
lose weight too quickly on the 3:1 carbohydrate cycling plan. Furthermore,
it’s not a wise idea to lose more than 1.5 to 2.0 lbs of body weight per week.
If you lose more than two pounds per week, you are much more likely to be losing
LBM with the fat. If you lose lean mass or drop weight too quickly, you should
adjust your high to low day ratio by increasing your carbohydrates (and
calories) overall or by keeping your low days the same and adding more high
days. You can do three low carbohydrate days followed by two or three high
carbohydrate days. Taking two or three high days after three low days will not
only help reduce muscle loss, it may allow you to gain small amounts of muscle
as you lose body fat. It’s very
difficult to put down one single example of 3:1 carbohydrate cycling as I’ve
described it here and have it apply to everyone. A little bit of experimentation
and fine tuning will be necessary to discover what amount of carbohydrate works
best for your high and low days. It’s absolutely essential for these types of
advanced diets to be customized. On average, women would consume about 90-130
grams of carbohydrates on low days and about 200 to 250 grams of carbohydrates
on high days. Men would consume 150-200 grams of carbohydrates on low days and
300-400 grams of carbohydrates on high days. Here are examples of what
“typical” high-low cycles would look like on a fat loss program for the
average person:
Men/2200 calories/3 days low carbs:
Protein 45% = 990 calories = 247 g
Carbs 30% = 660 calories = 165 g
Fats
25% = 550 calories = 61 g
Men/2700 calories/1 day high carbs
Protein 30% = 810 calories =
202 g
Carbs 50% = 1350 calories =
337 g
Fats 20%
= 540 calories = 60 g
Women/1400 calories/3 days low carbs
Protein 45% = 630 calories = 157 g
Carbs
50% = 900 calories = 225 g
Fats
20% = 360 calories = 40 g
Women/1800 cal/1 day high carbs
Protein 30% = 810 calories = 135 g
Carbs 30% = 420 calories = 105 g
Fats
25% = 350 calories = 39 g
These are just averages, as every person is different.
The only way to determine how many grams of carbohydrates are right for you is
to experiment until you find your "optimal level" and the results
start coming. On your low carbohydrate days, eat protein and starchy
carbohydrate in your early day meals (meals one through three), then in your
late day meals (meals three to six) eat protein with only fibrous carbohydrates
like green vegetables and salad – no starchy carbohydrates! On your high days,
you can eat starchy carbohydrates with every meal (and if you’re going to have
a “cheat day” do it on a high day).
So that’s it! These are some very powerful
techniques, but remember; carbohydrate cutting taken to the extreme will do more
harm than good. Never cut your carbohydrates out completely and never stay on
low carbohydrates for a long period of time. It's usually not wise to go to
extremes in anything and this is as true for dieting as with anything else in
life: Moderation is the key.