# Carb help



## liam0810 (Jan 6, 2011)

I've been cutting for three weeks now and been doing low carbs the days I train (mon,tue,thu,fri) and on wed and sat I have high carbs with Sunday being moderate. (a bit like tinytom described in a thread)

My carbs have been around 60 grams a day on low days with them in the form of porridge with water in the morning and then in my PWO shake as malto. On high days I've been aiming for 300grams a day. Fats have been around 100g per day and protein about 250g per day. My daily calorie intake on low days is between 2500-2700 which as my BMR is 3100 I am in a calorie deficit. on high days i aim for my maintenance level this means an extra 100g carbs.

My question is are my macros right as i feel like im losing muscle as well as fat? Would it be more beneficial to drop to about 60g of fat and increase my carbs by about 90g? therefore i would be having 250g pro, 150g carbs and 60g fat. I have done CKD which i liked and did drop weight but was wanting to carb cycle for 8 weeks and then do CKD for 3 weeks after it.

My stats are 5ft 8, 190lb (86kg), bodyfat probably between 13-15%.

I am doing 30mins AM fasted cardio 3 times a week, weight train 4 times a week, 15mins cardio PWO and 2 more sessions of cardio at 45mins on Wednesday and Saturday. Furthermore I'm on 120mg clen 2 weeks on 2 weeks off

Any input would be great


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## liam0810 (Jan 6, 2011)

Anyone?


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## bayman (Feb 27, 2010)

Tweaking you carbs and fats will likely have no impact on the low days, youre still getting the same amount of cals in. Protein level is fine, so you shouldn't be losing muscle, but that does sound like a lot of training on a diet, more doesn't equal better. I'd ditch the extra cardio sessions on weds and sat unless fatloss stalls. Sounds well thought out plan, and you will always feel flat on a diet, it's not necessarily muscle loss but depeleted glycogen, high carb days I'd have no more than 50g of fat and make the rest of your cals up in carbs.


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## Andrew Jacks (Sep 29, 2010)

This is a common desire, to cut whilst building, without gear very hard to achieve, some people will claim it is possible yet few achieve it as the body has different modes of operation. I agree with Bayman switching days does nothing to the body as it takes up to three days to switch modes and does not operate on a 24 hour cycle, try lean building or cutting, but not both at the same time

No doubt the mods will now invent some scenario that bodybuilders are not human and operate on a different level, yet the basic human body is the same, just most do not need gear to achieve there dreams, people need to understand what can be done on gear is not the same as what nats can achieve not cheating, the bias on the forum seems to be more towards gear users rather than nats.


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## hsmann87 (Jun 22, 2010)

A lot of people say that you cant cut and bulk at the same time.

Whilst this may be true in some people. I reckon 95% of people who actually say it have never tried it themselves and just say it because they hear next man say it. (Not pointing any fingers by the way Andrew Jacks  )

So my advice would be to try it. You never know. Your body may be good at cutting whilst putting on muscle. Look at a lot of athletes. Rugby players (especially wingers) and sprinters and stuff. They have never really been fat. But seem to put on some decent muscle year on year....

Just try it man. Bump up your calories but do some extra cardio.

I tend to live by the notion that its better to eat more and do more cardio as opposed to eat less and do less cardio. See how your body responds.

You wont find the answer to how YOUR OWN body responds on a forum. You will find the answer by actually trying to see if it works.

Good luck.


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## Andrew Jacks (Sep 29, 2010)

There is also an ocean of difference between a professional athletes and regular Joe Public Mate, point all you want mate I am here to learn and express my own personal feelings and findings after building for nearly 20 years


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## hsmann87 (Jun 22, 2010)

Nah man no point in pointing fingers. Its a peaceful discussion board  .

Yeah i get you with the fact that professional athletes have superior genetics. But maybe a lot more people in the world have superior genetics? It could just be that they havent realised their true genetic potential? Or worse still, they may not even know that they have some sort of genetic potential? A lot of info on forums etc can be misleading IMHO, especially for new starters etc...


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## Doyles (Mar 17, 2011)

Hi,

As you said that you are loosing muscles also so you should increase a little bit carb quantity for you....

It will help to make stable you muscles and decrease the fats...

gym santa ana


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## liam0810 (Jan 6, 2011)

Thanks for the replies at least I know I'm on the right track, well sort of!

I did a cut last year and got in half decent nick and never felt flat but that was because I was on 1Rip for 8 weeks. This time I'm on nothing so it feels different. Plus for the life of me I can't remember my diet from last year so that doesn't help as I was obviously doing it right.

So is my macros of carbs at 60g per day and fats at 100g ok? Or is bumping it to 150g carbs 60g fat better?

I'm going to drop the extra cardio and if the fat stop dropping I'll add them back in.

On another note, have any of you got experience with clen? I did it last year but tapered up to 120mg. Now I'm at 120mg I don't have the shakes or anxiety so has my body got used to that dose? If so should I up it? My tabs are 40mg each so next dose would be 160mg


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## bayman (Feb 27, 2010)

hsmann87 said:


> A lot of people say that you cant cut and bulk at the same time.
> 
> Whilst this may be true in some people. I reckon 95% of people who actually say it have never tried it themselves and just say it because they hear next man say it. (Not pointing any fingers by the way Andrew Jacks  )
> 
> ...


Thing is mate, there's a large difference between being already lean and adding further mass and actually losing a significant amount of fat at the same time as adding a significant amount of muscle. In reality it doesn't happen outside of overweight untrained beginners. Why?

You need a calorie excess to build muscle.

You need a calorie deficit to lose fat.

You can't have both at the same time.

You can try accomplish both by running complex cyclical diets like high carb training days, low carb off/cardio days, or similar. But on these approaches fat loss tend to exceed muscle gain, and of course getting leaner is always going to give the impression of "getting bigger" too. In a worse case scenario trying to add muscle and lose fat at the same time leads to a person "spinning their wheels" and not actually getting anywhere.



Lyle Mcdonald said:


> So the idea of replacing every pound of lost fat with exactly one pound of muscle will be essentially impossible for the intermediate/advanced trainee. There's simply not enough fat/the fat cells dont want to 'give up their calories' and the ability to stimulate rapid muscle gains isn't there any more


Have a read of this: Losing Fat and Gaining Muscle Q&A


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## bayman (Feb 27, 2010)

liam0810 said:


> So is my macros of carbs at 60g per day and fats at 100g ok? Or is bumping it to 150g carbs 60g fat better?


Well the first (60g Carbs and 100g fat) equates to 1140kcal, and the second (150g carbs and 60g fat) equates to, yep, you guessed it: 1140kcal.

So neither is "better" than the other, it comes back to personal preference as to whether you do better hunger and performance wise on a lower carb or higher carb approach.


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## liam0810 (Jan 6, 2011)

bayman said:


> Well the first (60g Carbs and 100g fat) equates to 1140kcal, and the second (150g carbs and 60g fat) equates to, yep, you guessed it: 1140kcal.
> 
> So neither is "better" than the other, it comes back to personal preference as to whether you do better hunger and performance wise on a lower carb or higher carb approach.


I'll probably stick with the 60g carbs and 100g fat as the fat fills me more plus when I switch over to CKD I should find the transition easier. Cheers


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## zoco (Nov 23, 2010)

I know a guy who does a 24 hour overeating period followed bu a 24 hour fast.He does this once a week and that is the way he cuts.He eats moderate carbs other days.

So basically he overeats on a training day and does a fast on a non-training day.I never tried this method btw.

Another method is the intermittent fasting (info on leangains.com)


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## kernowgee (Jan 30, 2011)

How would you define overeating having seconds or gorge himself, the later should never be encouraged


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## liam0810 (Jan 6, 2011)

zoco said:


> I know a guy who does a 24 hour overeating period followed bu a 24 hour fast.He does this once a week and that is the way he cuts.He eats moderate carbs other days.
> 
> So basically he overeats on a training day and does a fast on a non-training day.I never tried this method btw.
> 
> Another method is the intermittent fasting (info on leangains.com)


What do you mean by the overeating? As in eating anything he wants for as much as he wants? And then the next day he doesn't eat anything at all?


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## bayman (Feb 27, 2010)

Liam, don't worry about methods referred to above, just carry on with what you had planned and see how you go.


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## liam0810 (Jan 6, 2011)

bayman said:


> Liam, don't worry about methods referred to above, just carry on with what you had planned and see how you go.


Cheers Bayman. I wasn't going to try it anyway, I was just curious as to what he meant as I've never heard of anyone doing that before


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## Fatstuff (Mar 2, 2010)

too many variables to say wether its possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time for an overweight noob its VERY possible. but to someone with a fair bit of muscle mass and low bf% its v hard i would say


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## BillC (Jun 11, 2009)

Right lets face facts, unless you are on gear, you've got to ecpect to lose a bit of muscle when you diet. It's just how the body works. Calorie defecit, your body looks for alternative fuel so hits fat. It doesn't like doing this, it likes the fat as it costs nothing to leave it there for a rainy day, protein in the form of muscle, uses a lot of energy as it's living tissue so of course your body would rather use that up if it sees a defecit.

Ideally do 3 low carb days - I personally would up your carbs and lower fats, 100g is excessive as you aren't on a keto diet so asking a lot from your body to diet with that going in.Then do 1 high day, but you need to go over maintenance to properly carb cycle, the idea is to trick your body into seeing a surplus, not just enough. If your strength goes down, add extra high days in there.

Whn i last cut, I was having 260g protien, 250g carbs, 50g fats on low days, 700g carbs high. Was unbelievably hard to eat that much extra to be honest , but it worked. Pretty much stuck with it now bulking apart from upping protien to 320g and doing 3 high 1 low and keeping fat off nicely.


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## zoco (Nov 23, 2010)

liam0810 said:


> What do you mean by the overeating? As in eating anything he wants for as much as he wants? And then the next day he doesn't eat anything at all?


He basically eats very clean all week.On the cheat day however he says he lets himself eat as much ice cream,pop tarts as he wants.He also eats twice the protein than the other days.Like I said I have never tried this, but the man is constantly around 5-6% bodyfat.He is also an ex powerlifter not a bodybuilder.

This is his videoblog

http://www.blogtv.com/people/exmgtoo


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