10c. How much protein should I consume during recarb?
Dan brain farted and didn't mention this in the book. He told me
20 grams of protein with each meal but I think that's overkill
for most considering the massive calorie intake on the weekends.
(In case you're unaware, protein requirements are related to total
caloric intake. As calories go lower, protein needs go up. Hence, as
calories go up, protein needs go down. If you're eating high quality
proteins like whey, egg and milk protein, amount is even less critical.)
Go for 1 gram per pound of bodyweight divided across the
12 meals and you'll be fine. Soluble protein powders will help with
insulin secretion during the first liquid carb meals.
10d. What do you eat at each meal? Understand that I only followed
Dan's recomposition plans during the first weekend. After that it
was eat until I got water retentive (NOT anal retentive although that
applies to me as well) and then stopped. Depending on how much I
pigged out, it happened anywhere from 24-30 hours after I started
carbing. Dan gives general food categories during recomposition but
no specific examples. Here's some excerpts for a diet I set up for
a competitive bodybuilder in Texas. Again, not giving you the numbers,
just examples of food choices for each of the meals.
Meals 1-4: liquid simple sugars with added soluble protein
Ultra Fuel (glucose polymers with some fructose since I have yet to
find a pure glucose powder, I've been told Carboplex is pure maltodextrin
but I can't seem to find it at the local health food store). It's too bad that
the nasty glucose solution they use for the oral glucose tolerance test
isn't commercially available. It would be a perfect, albeit nasty tasting,
substance to consume.
For protein: A soluble protein powder. I use Designer but any will do.
Meals 5-8: liquid simple sugars and solid high GI carbs (i.e. corn flakes)
More ultra fuel with Designer protein
Some type of grain cereal cereal. All are high in sugars so I'm not
sure if corn flakes would be exceedingly better than Lucky Charms
as long as the amounts were equal.
Meals 9-12: starches with liquid simple sugars
Ultra fuel/designer for liquids
baked potatos, rice, whole wheat bread for starches, you could probably
get away with higher GI foods like rice cakes and grain type bars
this early in the carb up since insulin sensitivity is still high
Second 24 hours:
Meals 1-4: more solid carbs and proteins
rice or potatoes and chicken or tuna would be good starch choice
Meals 5-8: relatively normal food (rice, potatoes, pasta)
Still sticking with rice/potatoes etc.
Meals 9-12: high GI liquid carbs
Revert back to Ultra fuel with protein powder
I talked about supplementation of vanadyl, chromium, and magnesium
during last week's FAQ. Sufficed to say you need to take all three
during the carb up to ensure maximal glycogen supercompensation.
If creatine is your thing, during the recarb is a good time to use it.
I can't since it makes me sick. Maybe I'll try it again some point.
11e. How much fat should I consume and when should I eat it?
This question actually came up on Paul Moses' Training and Nutrition
list. I hadn't really thought about it before but had to to try and
answer it. As far as amounts, in passing (the last sentence of
the recomposition chapter in Bodyopus) Dan recommends an intake
of Essential Fatty acids of 15% of your maintenance caloric intake.
Let's figure maintenance for most of you animals at 3000 calories.
15% is 450 calories or 50 grams of fat for each 24 hours.
Here's the conundrum. The point of the recomposition is to crank
lots of carbs into the muscles along with high insulin levels to
stimulate an anabolic growth response. And, Dan mentioned that
the lack or presence of fat can break or make the carb-up. So.
no getting around it, we have to take some in.
But, we know that the addition of fat to a meal will slow gastric
emptying and lower the insulin response to a given amount of
carbs. A real dilemma. I *think* I have the solution.
We know several other things:
1. Immediately after the depletion workout, insulin sensitivity is
super high so we can have (and need) super high insulin levels to
take advantage. So, we don't really want the fat here. (On which note,
I wonder if it's really important to take vanadyl, etc with these first
meals. Insulin sensitivity is sky high and they might not even be
needed.)
2. Right before stopping the carb up, we want to get an insulin
spike to cause hypoglycemia. Fat taken in here would limit the
insulin response. So, none during these meals.
3. The middle meals are when we are taking in considerable
amounts of carbs but insulin sensitivity is lower. So, slowing
digestion and lowering the insulin response would likely be a good
thing to avoid fat spillover. The fat goes here.
So, for the 24 meals of the recarb, I would suggest:
Meals 1-4: no fat
Meals 5-8: 1/8 of your daily fat intake with each meal (about 5-6
grams or a bit more than 1 teaspoon for the example person above)
Meal 9-12: 1/8 of your daily fat intake with each meal
Meal 13-16: 1/8 of your daily fat intake with each meal
Meal 17-20: 1/8 of your faily fat intake with each meal
Meal 21-24: no fat.
I could see some rationale for putting more of the fat on meals 9-12
instead of 5-8 since insulin sensitivity *should* be higher earlier
on but, for now, I think the above recommendations should be fine.
11f. Should your diet on Friday be any different than the rest of the
low carb days? This is actually a question I asked of Dan but it
bears discussion. Recall that the point of the whole recomposition
is to rebuild any lost muscle tissue and take advantage of the
increase in insulin sensitivity due to carb depletion and the high rep
workout we all love so much. Well, we know that saturated fats
decrease insulin sensitivity. Now, during the week, this isn't an
issue as there aren't any carbs in the diet. No carbs means no insulin.
But, on Friday we are getting ready for the big carb-up. Now, we
don't know how long saturated fats decrease insulin sensitivity.
It could be minutes, or hours or days (if it's days, we're fucked
from the get go and it doesn't matter).
So, I wondered if there should be any decrease in saturated fats or
increase in the use of insulin sensitizers (chromium, etc) on
Friday prior to the workout. Dan suggested that saturated fats
be avoided on Friday up to the workout. So, I've been shifting from
my normally high intake of saturated fats during days 1-4 (Mon thru
Thu) with eggs, butter, cheese, red meat to unsaturated fats. A typical
Friday eating pattern up to the carb up is:
Breakfast: designer with olive oil and flax oil (replaces eggs in butter)
Lunch 1 and 2: pink salmon with mayo
Since the Friday workout happens early evening, my normal dinner
meal of ground beef is avoided. Thus, no saturated fats prior to
the carb-up. A bit of a pain in the ass but probably worth it.
12f: The depletion workout. There seems to be a bit of confusion
regarding this workout. Common complaints are of nausea or poor
carb ups (no pump during the weekend). What I typically see happening
is one of two things:
1. Too short of rest periods between sets. This is a long workout, not
an impossible workout. Take 1' between sets and 5' between circuits.
Also, try to alternate either upper and lower body exercises or pushing
and pulling exercise. A good circuit might be:
leg press/squat, bench, row, leg curl, shoulder press, lat pulldown,
calf raise, tricep pushdown, barbell curl, abs, low back rest 5' and repeat.
2. Too much weight. Not sure how this got confused but this workout
is not supposed to cause any muscle damage. Heavy eccentrics (and the
damage they cause) cause short term insulin insensitivity, not what
we want for optimal carb up. I've found that using about 50% of your
best 6-8 rep weight is about right for 10-20 reps. And, you should
not be taking these sets anywhere close to failure. Stop at least
3 reps out if not more. And, keep the cadence of each rep fast but
controlled (a 1/1 cadence works pretty well).
Also, some have asked when do you know when to end the workout.
Dan mentions that it typically takes 2 hours and anywhere from 2
to 20 sets should be done. It's hard to describe the feeling but you
just 'know' when you're done. If you've ever done long endurance
training and bonked, this is the feeling you are looking for. It's sort
of the same kicked in the balls feeling you get the first week on Bodyopus.
Alternately, simply use a drop in reps with a given weight as an
indicator that your glycogen is getting depleted. So, if on leg presses
I went:
1st circuit: 300X20
2nd circuit: 300X20
3rd circuit: 300X20 (getting harder)
4th circuit: 300X18 (stopping short of failure)
I'd take that as a signal that my quads were getting pretty well
depleted. If other body parts will still strong, I'd keep working them
until the same thing happened. I imagine that larger muscle groups
will take more sets to glycogen deplete than smaller but it's just
a guess.
12. Water during recarb. This is something that just ocurred to me
this last weekend. Again, understand that the purpose of the recarb
is to ramjet glucose, electrolytes AND water into the muscles to cause
the swelling that seems to promote protein synthesis. We know that
for every gram of glycogen stored, an additional 3-4 grams of water
is stored as well. We are storing shitloads of glycogen in the muscles
on the weekends. For optimal growth stimulus, we need shitloads of
water. Lets say that over 24 hours I am taking in 600 grams of
carbohydrate and that 100% of it is going into the muscles. At 4
grams of water per gram of glycogen, we need 2400 grams of water
for optimal results. Now, 1 gram of water is equivalent to 1 cubic
centimeter (cc) of water. And there are 29.573 cc per oz of water.
So, 2400 cc/29.537 = 81 oz of water. 8 oz of water is 1 cup so that's
10 cups of water in the first 24 hours. Now, most foods have some
water content and you will be getting some in your first liquid carb
meals. But, for the sake of maximal recarb, I would suggest drinking
as much water as you can put down (assuming you're not carbing up for
a contest). You'll just eliminate (i.e. pee) whatever's extra anyhow.
For the same reason, I would suggest staying away from caffeine
or any other diuretic during this period. As talked about last time,
you probably can use some time off the ECA stack anyhow.
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