BodyOpus FAQ - Lyle McDonald

[Armando]

Lyle McDonald BodyOpus FAQ

Copyright Lyle McDonald 1996



So, here are some of the common questions I'm having to field about
the diet. It's strange, I write 10 weeks worth of diaries and all of a
sudden I'm the Bodyopus guru. Ah, well, I guess it saves Dan from
having to answer all this mail.

1. What's the best workout schedule you found for Bodyopus?
After much experimentation with both my own training and that of
my ex-girlfriend (who makes an easy control), I've decided on the following
in terms of training, sets, reps, etc. I'll present the exact workouts
I used with the ex-girlfriend as they consistently put her in ketosis
by morning of day 3 without the use of any glucose disposal agents.

*All work sets are presumed to failure. Time in parentheses is rest
interval between work sets.*
Mon: legs, back, biceps, abs
Warmup 5-10' on bike.
Squats: 2 warmups, 2 sets of 6-8 (2')
Leg curl: 1 warmup, 1 set of 6-8 (2')
Calf raise: 1 warmup, 1 set of 6-8 (2')
Assisted chins: 2 warmups, 2 sets 6-8 (2')
Seated wide grip row: 1 warmup, 2 sets 6-8
Barbell curl: 1 warmup, 2 sets 6-8
Abs: varies week to week
Cool down 5' on bike.

After all heavy work is finished, I then take her through a circuit
of one set of each of the above exercises. She uses 50% of the
weight used for the sets of 6-8 for a set of 20-25 with 1' rest
between exercises.

Tue: chest, delts, tris
Warm-up 5-10' on bike.
Assisted dips: 2 warmups, 2 sets 6-8
Incline DB bench: 1 warmup, 2 sets 6-8
Shoulder press: 1 warmup, 2 sets 6-8
Lateral raise: 1 warmup, 2 sets 6-8
Tricep pushdown: 1 warmup, 2 sets 6-8
Cool down 5-10' on bike although she'll likely start doing 20-30'
of easy cardio afterwards to hasten fat loss.

As with Monday, I have her do one set of each exercise for 20-25
reps in a circuit format after all the heavy work is done and before
cardio. She's never failed to get into ketosis by Wednesday morning
with this scheme. If she could train in the mornings, I bet she'd be
in ketosis early Tuesday. The key is a relatively high volume
of training on Mon and Tue (if you use a different split or split
across three days, make sure to get the large muscles: legs,
chest, and back on Mon and Tue) and I think the high rep backoff
set really helps as far as burning lots of glycogen/glucose.

Wed: 30'+ of cardio
Thu: 30'+ of cardio
Fri: the depletion workout.
Done in a giant loop format. A typical workout is:
Squat, incline bench, chins, leg curl, shoulder press, seated
row, calf raise, tricep pushdown, bicep curl, abs. Pant, pant.
1' rest between each sets using the same weights as for
the sets of 20-25 on Mon/Tue. Typically 4 or more total
loops are done. Depends on when we get started (gym closes
at 8pm and she works until 6:30 pm) and how quickly she gets
bored. I had to bribe her with treating for pizza tonight to get
a 4th loop out of her. No telling what I'd of had to offer to get
a 5th. Actually, I've got a pretty good idea but this is supposed
to be family entertainment. ;-)

Sat: off
Sun: off


The next three questions relate to the glucose disposal agents
vanadyl sulfate, chromium picolinate, and magnesium. I thought
Dan adressed this adequately in the book but it is a recurring
question so I'll answer it one more time here.

2. What doses of each should I use?

Vanadyl: up to 120 mg per day in divided doses. At some point
when I have the time, I'd like to really quantify what's the best
dosing schedule for vanadyl as far as lowering blood glucose
to ketone land. For now, I suggest 20mg six times per day or 30 mg
4 times per day. I was doing 50mg twice per day (morning and
evening) but I'm not sure that was the best choice.

Chromium: 800 mcg per day (most capsules are 200 mcg so 4).
Again, divided doses taken with the vanadyl.

Magnesium: 1000 mg/day (my capsules are 250 mg/cap so 4)
Divided doses taken with vanadyl and chromium.

3. Should they be used on low carb days?

Only until ketosis is established. Glucose disposal agents either act
like (vanadyl) or help along (chromium) insulin to do it's job. Once
you're in ketosis, there's almost no insulin present so taking these
substances is a waste of money.

4. Should they be used during recarb?

Of course, of course, of course. Use the same dosing schedule as
outlined above.

To summarize these three questions, here's a typical weeks dosing
schedule for me:

Mon: 120 mg vanadyl (20mgX6), 800 mcg chromium (200mcgX4),
1000 mg magnesium (250mgX4)
Tue: same as Monday
Wed: if ketosis established, discontinue use
Thursday: none
Friday: begin taking all three agents with carb meals. I typically
take 20 mg vanadyl, 200 mcg chromium, and 250 mg magnesium
with every other meal.
Saturday: continue with same dosing schedule.
Sunday: continue with same dosing schedule.

5. What foods do you eat during the week? Don't you get bored?
The 5 days of no carbs is the easy part of the week food wise.
Just about anything is fair game as long as three criteria are met:

a. fat intake must be at least 1.5 grams of fat for each gram of
protein/carbs. If you want a rationale, use Dejanews and track down
my discussion of the ketogenic ratios. If you want to try to
get into ketosis on less fat, it's your funeral. It will happen
but it will take much longer and not work as well. Please, please,
please trust me on this one. I've gotten far too much mail from
people who can't get into ketosis until day 4 or 5 of the week
because they are not eating enough fat on the diet. And, one day
in ketosis won't cut it for fat loss. With the proper combination of
ketogenic ratio, training (see last week's FAQ) and use of glucose
disposal agents (see last week's FAQ), you should hit ketosis
by late Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning at the latest.
That gives you almost 3 full days in ketosis.

b. Caloric intake is not too high. Calories should be set at
maintenance or 90% of maintenance for optimal fat loss. If you
don't know your maintenance value, shame on you. Dan explicitly
said to determine your maintenance calories before starting the
diet. Of course, I didn't either. IAE, if you don't know your
maintenance intake calorie level, use 10-12 calories per pound
of bodyweight (or 11 calories per pound of lean body mass) as a
starting point. Stay there for a week and see what happens.
If you don't lose sufficient fat, lower calorie intake a bit further.
If you're losing more than 2 lbs per week, increase calories a bit
as you will lose too much muscle losing fat that quickly.

c. You don't eat any freaking carbs. Or at least less than 30 grams per
day. This is really the most important of the three criteria
as even this few carbs (and they hide everywhere) is enough to
keep most people out of ketosis. Some may need to go as low as
10-20 grams and some seem to handle as many as 40 but don't
push your luck on this. Personally, I strive for as close to zero
grams of carbs as I can during the low carb phase.
(Which brings up another question I got: Is eating too few carbs
during the week a bad idea? Not that I can see. Ketosis is ketosis
whether you eat zero grams carbs or 10 grams carbs. However,
some carbs (I like cucumber with salt on it) may help psychologically.
A lower carb intake might lead to deeper levels of ketosis but
there's no way to know if this is indicative of greater fat loss or not.
Atkins thinks it is but Dan says maybe.)

This is one of the more common questions I get and I do not know
what the problem is. Anything is fair game as long as there aren't
carbs in it. That means: any meat, most cheeses, heavy cream,
any vegetable oil, etc, etc. No, not a particularly varied diet
but quit bitching. Dieting isn't really supposed to be fun and you
can eat for variety on the weekends. Note that many foods (hot
dogs for example) do not have nutrition labels. And, companies put
carbs in everything these days. If a food doesn't have a label, I
recommend you DO NOT eat it just to be safe. Look, go get a copy
of Corrinne Netzer's "Complete Book of Food Counts" and carry it
around with you. Memorize it if you have to. It has listings for just
about every food you might come across. Just don't eat carbs.

Some have asked me if it's ok to have a smidgen of peanut butter
or something like that. Again, as long as you're below 30 grams
carbs per day, it's fine. However, you have to be very careful
doing this. I'm the kind of person who, once I get the taste of
carbs in my mouth, I'm history. Give me a touch of peanut butter
and I'm likely to eat the whole jar, go buy another one, and eat that
too. Might even smear some of it all over my body just for the sheer
unadulterated hell of it. I basically shoot for zero grams of carbs
per day during the week and save my carbing for the weekend.
I'd rather not tease myself with a measly teaspoon of peanut butter.
I'd rather wait and have three peanut butter sandwiches on the weekend.
Preferably with very high GI grape jelly on some chewy wheat bread.
Whoops, better stop there before I get too hungry.

6. They say that caffeine raises insulin levels, can I still use the
ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin (ECA) stack?

I'm supremely tired of arguing the caffeine and insulin debate. Look,
the studies people are referring to find that, in some individuals,
caffeine intake will lead to greater insulin release if carbs are
eaten. Caffeine by itself DOES NOT RAISE INSULIN at least not
through any possible mechanism I can find. So please quit
asking. The ECA stack will definitely improve your results on this
diet. I took it and never had a problem. So has everyone else I've
talked to or coached on the diet. Yes, Atkins says no caffeine but
here's what I think happened: Some individuals are sensitive
to the citric acid (and/or Nutrasweet) in diet sodas. I think
some early Atkins dieters were drinking lots of diet soda and
couldn't get into ketosis. Atkins concluded that caffeine was the
problem when the real culprit was something else in the soda (again,
citric acid and nutrasweet seem to keep some people out of ketosis).
If you are having trouble getting into ketosis and are consuming lots
of Nutrasweet (Equal) or diet soda to stay happy, try dropping it
and doing just protein, fat and water and see what happens. You
may simply be sensitive to one or more of these compounds.

*On a similar note, someone asked me about smoking and insulin
release. Without getting preachy about any athlete who smokes,
all I can say is I think that smoking may be like caffeine in that,
if you eat carbs, you may get more insulin released than if you didn't
eat carbs. But, having not really looked into it, I can't say for sure.*

7. What doses of ECA did you take?
This was spelled out directly in the book but I'll answer it again here.
The research suggests a dose of 20 mg ephedrine, 200 mg caffeine,
and some amount of aspirin (hard to quantify just how much you need
but I've seen anywhere from 20 mg to 300 mg suggested). Dan suggests
50 mg ephedrine, 200 mg caffeine, and 81 mg of aspirin (a baby aspirin)
three times per day which is what I used. I tried taking 400 mg of
caffeine as well but didn't notice a big difference. Other than having
to buy caffeine pills (I use Vivarin) twice as frequently.

Note: Daniel Mowery, in his book "Fat Management: The Thermogenic
Factor" suggests cycling ECA 5 days on 2 days off which fits in well
with this diet. The rationale is that the adrenal glands need a break
from the stimulation of ECA. Also, clenbuterol has been shown to
lower insulin sensitivity which would affect the recarb and ephedrine
may do the same thing (being a related but weaker compound). So,
taking the weekends off of ECA isn't a bad idea. Also, ECA blunts
hunger which is definitely what you don't want when you have to eat
every 2 hours during recomposition.

->

[Armando]

8. Should I take ephedrine and clenbuterol while on this diet?

Not unless you want a stroke. Ephedrine is a weaker cousin of
clenbuterol although both work through similar actions. Taking
both is not only unnecessary but probably dangerous.

One interesting question I got was the possibility of alternating clen
and ephedrine intake (say 2 days clen, 2 days eph) to avoid the receptor
downgrade seen with clen. Not knowing enough about the compound,
I can't say for sure if this would work. Seeing as both ultimately
lead to receptor downgrade (as well as inhibition of T4 to T3 conversion),
while this might slow down the effects, only complete discontinuation
of the stack will allow for upregulation.

9. Are there any other substances to help hasten fat loss along with the
ECA stack?

I tried several different compounds but was not methodical enough to
know what did what. Some things worth trying are:

L-tyrosine: In rats at least, tyrosine has been shown to further
potentiate the effects of the ECA stack. According to Larry Hobbs
("The New Diet Pills" Pragmatic Press, 1996), there is reason to
belive (although he never gives those reasons) that it will do the
same in humans. Kind of like when you hear a sentece start with
"Well, they say..." They who? I want to start a company called
They,Inc. to put out all these pithy little saying like "Well, they
say that a colorful sunset means this." "And they say that caffeine
raises insulin." And charge royalties to people every time they use
"They say..." in a sentence.

Dose: 500 mg - 1 gram with each dose of ECA.

L-carnitine: This is a substance involved in transporting free fatty
acids into the mitochondria to be burned. Thing is, you need a lot of
it, on the order of 2+ grams per day to have any effect. And, typical
costs are $1/gram. Also, most of the research I've seen does not
support it's use assuming you're eating a normal meat based diet
(carnitine is synthesized from lysine and methionine) which you
should be on Bodyopus. It's possible that some could have a deficiency
and supplementation might be useful. Or that the particular
situation of a ketogenic diet would make it useful. But, I can't say
for sure.

Dose: 2 grams taken 30 minutes prior to aerobics.

Hydroxycitric acid (HCA)/Citrimax: Some have suggested that ingestion
of HCA prior to cardio may allow the carnitine transferase shuttle
to work more efficiently. HCA inhibits conversion of excess carbs
and protein to fat in rats (although, Larry Hobbs in "The New Diet Pills"
does not believe it will do the same thing in humans). I had the most
success using HCA on weekends during recarb since I tended to eat
too much. It kept me full and seemed to help me avoid fat spillover.
Seem to preferentially refill muscle and liver glyocgen while avoiding
conversion of carbs to fat.

Dose: 750 mg taken 30 minutes prior to cardio for fat burning.
750 mg taken 30 minutes prior to meals during recarb 3-4 times per
day.

Yohimbe: Yohimbe is a beta-receptor agonist. It may help women to
lose stubborn lower body fat but realize that fat tissue has poor
circulation and oral yohimbe may have little result. Direct injections
or possibly a yohimbe/DMSO combination might work better. However,
yohimbe did seem to help me maintain a higher body temp while dieting.
I recommend Twinlab Yohimbe Fuel as it's standardized. Most herbs are
not.

Dose: 8mg 2-3 times per day. Or get some of Twinlab's Dick Fuel
(aka Male Fuel) if you can't get it up for the girlfriend.

Cayenne pepper: Cayenne is another thermogenic but it works through
a different pathway than ECA. You can definitely feel this one working.
Almost immediately in fact. You'll get some hearburn and start sweating
really quickly. And, make sure and swallow the capsules fast or it will
burn your throat. Hell, leave it on your tongue too long and you can feel
it starting to burn as the capsule dissolves. Get Cool Cayenne if you can
find it as the normal stuff tends to give me heartburn.

Dose: 40,000 Heat units (HU's) - 80,000 HU's three times daily.

DNP: Just messing with you there. You can't buy it. You can make it
although you'll probably just blow yourself up. And, use too much and
it will kill you. Just diet for a week or two more and get over it.

Some other questions I receieved recently:

10. "How important is vitamin supplementation? In your week 6 and week 9
posts you "mentioned it in passing" but haven't really said whether
it's that necessary or not. I'm sure some of it would depend on how
you eat during the phases but it might be difficult to eat enough
non-carb high-vitamin foods."

Good one. In my quest to discuss all the esoteric supplements, I forgot
about the basics. Most of the books I've read regarding the ketogenic
diet (Bodyopus, Anabolic Diet, Atkins, the Epilepsy Diet book) seem
to agree that a bare minimum of a one a day multi-vitamin as well as
extra calcium should be consumed while on the diet. Now, while some
may use this as ammunition that ketogenic diets cause nutritional
deficiciencies, please consider that most American's eating a typical
mixed diet are typically deficient in one or more nutrients and, according
to research into intake patterns, literally no one gets adequate
calcium and a supplement is recommended to almost everybody. And,
while the research is still somewhat equivocal over whether or not
hard training athletes need more micronutrients than they get from
a mixed diet, I'd put forth that future research will support the idea
that this is the case. In any event...

I would suggest at the bare minimum a basic one per day multi-vitamin/
multi-mineral (I use Twinlab Daily One caps without Iron) as well as
a calcium carbonate supplement (600-1200 mg/day depending on
dairy consumption on the diet). I suggest using the cheapest calcium
carbonate you can find, usually the supermarket generic.

For those who are concerned about the high amounts of saturated fats
which may be present (although it's more than feasible to do a ketogenic
diet on unsaturated fats, it's just not as fun since you can't eat lots of
steak all the time and you have to smother your chicken in mayo)
additional anti-oxidants may be useful. Also, there is data that some of
the muscle damage and soreness following training is caused by free-
radical production so it's feasible that anti-oxidants might prevent
some of this. I generally take
Vitamin C: 1-3 grams (more on training days to help control cortisol)
Beta-carotene: 10mg/day
Vitamin A: 5k IU/day (And, yes, I know vitamin A can become toxic if
you're not careful. And I know that beta-carotene will convert to Vitamin
A if needed. But, beta carotene seems to have anti-oxidant functions
independent of vitamin A so I take both.)
Vitamin E: 400-800 IU/day of alpha-tocopherol

Others like selenium, NAC, CLA or whatever might also be useful additions
but it starts to get expensive fast. I stick with the standard ACE stack
(Vitamin's A, C, and E). Again, I typically buy the supermarket generic
or the GNC "Buy one get one half off" product.

11. Ok, the topic of this week's FAQ is Bodyopus Recomposition.
I find it strange that this is where people are having the most
problems since it's the one area of the book that Dan went into
the most detail about. Go figure. First, let me say that I'm not
going to give out the exact recomposition numbers. Buy Bodyopus
if you want the details. What I will answer is some of the main
questions I'm getting in terms of food choice, protein intake, fat
intake, supplement intake, etc.

12a: Should I still be dieting during the carb up? Should I still consume
25% protein and 75% fat in addition to all my carbs?

No, no, no. The whole point of the carb-up is to supersaturate the muscles
with carbs, water, electrolytes etc. This takes lot of calories so you
shouldn't be dieting. And, fat should be minimized to keep insulin
levels high. I'll discuss fat requirements and where I think the fat
should go next week.

10b. How many calories should I eat?

It's determined by the recomposition guidelines. Again, I'm not
giving you the actual numbers. Go buy a copy of the book. Sufficed
to say, it's a shitload compared to what you're eating during the week.
I'm pretty small and I, according to Dan's numbers, I have to put away
about 3500 calories or so of just carbs in the first 24 hours. When
you've been on 1500 calories during the week, that's a lot of food.

[Armando]

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.

[Armando]

Some interesting Bodyopus questions posed to me by SK:

1. What about the use of the glycerols that the bike freaks are hyping as
part of recomp?

For those who don't know, glycerol is a new (well, not new exactly)
compound being pushed towards endurance athletes. Some preliminary
reports show that it causes hyperhydration of the muscle cells when
taken with adequate water. Duchaine has suggested it as an alternative
to pre-contest diuretics because, if taken without adequate water,
it should pull water out of the body. I haven't had much time to look
at this thing (although the bike mags were big into it about a year
ago) but it makes sense that it could further help with the recomposition
phase of training.

2. How about some more recipes like the shake that R. Ames posted?
How about some liquid meal recipes for recomp as well.

Recipes are not my forte so I'll have to put out the call to all you low-carb
gourmands out there. I can eat the same meals day in day out and not
get bored. I mean, I have literally had pink salmon in mayo every day
for lunch for the last 18 weeks. I still look forward to it. So, I'm
the wrong person to ask for recipes because I'm too screwed up food
wise to care if it tastes good anymore.

3. I haven't found many powders or the likes that would fit the ideal recomp
meal drink; whereas the isocaloric diet works well with a metabolol,
met-rx, oil blend and fiber.

Again, I'm pretty boring here. The ideal recomp meal would have
pure glucose polymers with no fructose (I use glucose polymers from
Beyond a Century) with some type of soluble protein (I use Designer
but I'm sure there are others that would work just as well). I add
guar gum powder if I want some fiber and flax oil if I want some fat.
I don't see why you *couldn't* make a supplement powder like Iso^3
for the Bodyopus diet but I don't see much of a point either. It might
be more convenient of course but might be more expensive than just
mixing the stuff together yourself.

4. If you read Hardcore Muscle newsletter, have you any thoughts on the
ketogenic modifications based on blood types?

This is news to me. I don't read this newsletter (perhaps I should). Can
anyone provide more information on the idea of blood types for
modifying the diet? Actually, SK is sending me information on this
stuff. It sounds interesting but somewhat loopy. That is to say, I
wonder what assumptions are being made in terms of the metabolic
effects of different blood types.

[Lihualee]

Bump! thx !