Bodybuilding Forums

tallguy wrote:What can i do about vacillating blood sugar levels, if anything or does it just mean i have to have a steely resolve to withstand the attraction of Krispy Kreme !

Regretfully, I don't have a solution for this problem. It's what derailed my last attempt at Total Six-Pack abs. When your blood sugar drops below sixty or so, it actually affects your brain and shuts down some of the higher cognitive functions... leading to intense hunger, and an inability to resist it.

The only thing I've found that helps seems to be to focus on keeping my protein intake just as high on carb-up days as on low-carb days. The peaks are still just as high or higher, leading to jitteriness, but it seems to smooth out the lows some. It also means, though, that I have some trouble choking down the quantity of carbs I do if I keep my proteins lower. The other thing that helps me is making that protein really consistent and low-fat. Putting down 3 cans of tuna and 3 100g chicken breasts on my carb-up day hits my protein targets, and also provides the backbone of my six meals on a carb-up day.

It's not a guarantee, but it seems I was marginally better at sticking to my meal plan when I followed that kind of structured, high-protein carb up rather than the "anything goes" and "eat ice cream until you burp Rocky Road" approaches I'd followed previously. Still a work in progress!

Since I'm the big science nut with a blood-sugar monitor, maybe I should document once-per-hour blood tests to contrast blood sugar levels on low-carb to levels on a carb-up day one of these times. I haven't felt like getting that detailed in the name of science yet

--Matt B.

Matt thanks for the info. I can ignore the cravings - very determined !!! In fact i was considering not having a carb day, this is probably not a good option though, i train 5 times per week and towards the end of the week approaching carb day i am getting a little tired so probably do need the carbs. It's just the fog and the spaced out feeling that annoys me. I guess i've got to be a man and just get on with it !!!!!!! or is that women that do that ?!!??!?!!!

Maybe doing the 2 week induction again, would that help do you think ?? May 'reset' me as i haven't got ctrl, alt + delete !!!

Regards
Simon

tallguy wrote:par2 - marochka is on the ball about your peanut butter - sounds like "Whole Earth" brand, same as mine. total / net carbs = 10.1g per 100g. I found this out a few weeks ago - i was gutted !! I too thought 10.1g - fibre 7.3g = 2.8g net wow happy days indeed, but then found out that in U.K. they do the maths for us and total carbs = net carbs, and i thought i'd found the 'backbone' of my new diet !!!!!
Regards

Yep. Thanks marochka for pointing that out.

That's the exact PB I use tallguy but it still seems the best off the shelf PB. So here's another question. I average about 18500 calories per week and about 550g of carbs. I cycle the carbs daily so I have more of those carbs on heavy lifting days (120g, with most carbs around the workout), less on the medium lift days (80g, with most carbs around the workout), and next to nothing on rest days(25g). But averaging over a week, we're talking about 75g carbs per day. Am I a fat burner with a fat adapted metabolism, or do I need to lower those carbs more? I don't get any carb cravings and I figure 550g of carbs per week is not sufficent energy on a 5 day training routine so I must be metabolising fat as well?

tallguy wrote:Maybe doing the 2 week induction again, would that help do you think ?? May 'reset' me as i haven't got ctrl, alt + delete !!!

Definitely helps to reset you and keep you on the right track. It's what I just did, and I feel much better for it.

--Matt B.