Bodybuilding Forums

OK I been on mans diet for some time now, I'm getting fitter and my shape gbut I ot better but I also losing a lot of weight and at the moment I even start thinking that I lost to much weight. I see more results in weight loss and fat burn then in muscle gain and now I'm at that point where I don't want to lose any kg (except from my belly which I know is impossible to do only for belly) I always wanted to be large (bulky) not that much worried about fat, I rather be big guy with some fat instead of very fit but lean. Before I starting MANS diet my weight was about 82-83 kg now my weight is 75kg and I started to look to small for my self. I know that it might be a lot of my own fault so that I'm not growing as I want or maybe low carbing is just not for me. So what I want now is try to bulk up different even knowing that I might gain more fat. What I wanted to ask is what will be the main big differences If start eat like in normal usual bodybuilding diets, high protein, not avoiding carbs, low sat fat. (e.g. all those oats, pastas, fruits and so on..) but I still be on THT Training, the only thing I change will be diet. What I will not get what I'm getting now? As It will really make my life much easer and I think I still should make good gains as I will fallow all those THT Techniques.

P.S. As I told I'm not so worried about fat, I'm not a real bodybuilder which is worried about every bit of fat on the body, I'm just doing it for my self and I want to enjoy that and not make my life even harder with it (as at the moment its already not easy for me) and low carbing sometime can be quite hard for me. Thank you

If you're doing MANS and losing weight, you're not doing MANS - that is, you're not eating enough calories. Have you looked at GLAD to see if the extra carbs might make it easier to follow?

I know that but that's the problem with low carb diet if for some reason you haven't reached your calorie intake by tiny bit it will work as fat burner and sometime when I have really busy days its very hard to eat low carb food and also reach my calorie limit, its not a easy task to always to have something low carb to eat if I'm not at home, If I will be on the other diet as I told before I'm not gonna have this king of problem because its much easer to get that food If I need to, I can buy something which I can eat almost everywhere.

Yes I was interested in GLADs diet but I don't understand how to count those GLs and it looks like its not easy, but yes GLADS diet will be easer for me to follow. Could someone explain a bit more on how to count those GL's? Anyway the diet which I was talking before will have very similar food.

The reason I created this threat is to get some information what will change if I change my diet to which I was talking about. I'm going to gain more fat by trying to bulk up? I'm going to grow slower? In my opinion I should be as good as before if not better because MANS diet is not working for me as it should because sometimes I'm not following it 100% correctly because sometimes I just can't handle all things which is going on in my life and also stay strictly on this diet, and with other diet I should stay strictly because it will be easer for me, that's that I think.

sw1pe wrote:I know that but that's the problem with low carb diet if for some reason you haven't reached your calorie intake by tiny bit it will work as fat burner and sometime when I have really busy days its very hard to eat low carb food and also reach my calorie limit, its not a easy task to always to have something low carb to eat if I'm not at home, If I will be on the other diet as I told before I'm not gonna have this king of problem because its much easer to get that food If I need to, I can buy something which I can eat almost everywhere.

Buy something like cheese, my friend. Cheese is your friend on MANS, and it's a life saver. The little Babybel mini cheeses, for example, are about 100 calories a pop of fat and protein - both totally OK without limit on MANS - and they're all packaged in plastic so they don't make a nasty mess. Great snack to throw in your bag at the start of your day.

sw1pe wrote:Yes I was interested in GLADs diet but I don't understand how to count those GLs and it looks like its not easy, but yes GLADS diet will be easer for me to follow. Could someone explain a bit more on how to count those GL's? Anyway the diet which I was talking before will have very similar food.

Yes, yes I can, and counting them is pretty simple - it's finding the GIs that's a bitch. I'll even do it in under 50 words!!

GL = (Net Carbs / 100) X Glycemic Index

Tada! Done! That's it. 15 per meal, 6 times a day, all done. Limit your sat-fats, protein with every meal, at least 2.75 g/kg LBM of protein per day.

Under 50 words, as promised. Seriously, though, that really IS what it comes down to. Finding GIs can be tricky, but Mark's blog post describing GLAD (in way more than 50 words) has some values and some databases listed, and there's the Big GLAD Food List too.

sw1pe wrote:The reason I created this threat is to get some information what will change if I change my diet to which I was talking about. I'm going to gain more fat by trying to bulk up? I'm going to grow slower? In my opinion I should be as good as before if not better because MANS diet is not working for me as it should because sometimes I'm not following it 100% correctly because sometimes I just can't handle all things which is going on in my life and also stay strictly on this diet, and with other diet I should stay strictly because it will be easer for me, that's that I think.

Oh there was a question... ok... yeah cuz we all know how well I do at answering the ACTUAL question...

MANS is not working for you because, as you said yourself, you're not getting the calories. It really is that simple. Any effective diet plan to gain muscle mass will be an abject failure if you cannot meet the caloric requirements. End of story. Your failure to succeed here has absolutely zero to do with the macronutrient balance - there's just not enough food coming in.

Now, as to what will happen if you follow a "traditional" diet... you go to a gym, right? You know the guys that are BIG, but have no definition? They look fairly beefy, but not really muscular. The got the big shoulders, the big arms - though not cut, vascular arms, just bulky - and they probably got the big gut, too. That's the main big difference. You will not have a little extra pudge around the waist, you'll just cover everything over in a layer of fat. I know you're not worried about "some" fat, and you shouldn't be worried about "some" fat - you're bulking, you're going to put on some fat, the best we hope for is keep it to a minimum. You should be worried about a LOT of fat, and in the presence of grossly elevated carbs, and that's what we're talking about with those "traditional" diets.

What you will not get by going this direction instead of following a ketogenic diet plan or a GI-based diet plan are the metabolic and anabolic benefits - the body burns off fat, does not make new fat at any significant rate, and builds muscle fairly rapidly. I can get into the science if you really want me too, but the traditional carb-based diet simply will not create the right hormone levels to trigger the muscle growth you want - not without creating just as much if not more fat gain. Can you get away with not doing MANS to the letter? Maybe. You can probably do a sloppy MANS diet and get better results than you are today by just getting your calories. Could you allow your daily carb intake to go higher - to like the 60-70g range and just cut back the carb up? Probably, I'd have to test it to tell you for sure, but ketosis can be induced at carb intake levels as high as 90g/day, so it's not beyond the realm of plausibility that you could eat more carbs and still enjoy the benefits of a ketogenic diet. Will you get better results "correctly" following a "traditional" diet versus incorrectly following MANS? Not on your life. Incorrectly following MANS means no gains. Following a "traditional" diet generally means the kind of gains you don't really want.

We all know MANS and GLAD have their pitfalls and it can be hugely difficult to get the calories - but it sure beats every other cycle being a cut cycle and that whole level of diet neurosis. Find a way to adapt your diet to your needs. Maybe that will mean letting the carbs come up past that bare minimum threshhold and putting up with a little extra fat gain. Maybe that will mean carrying snacks around (pepperoni, beef jerky, cheese snacks, etc). Maybe that means your commute to work now includes a monster shake. But I have to assume you want to add muscle faster than fat. But THE big pitfall of the "traditional" type diets is that it is entirely too easy to get too much calories from carbs and thus too much fat gained. Nothing worth having will ever come easy, so don't take the easy out. If you're having problems, by all means, let's talk about your diet and your limitations and what happens to you that screws you up. You've got a better shot of working those problems out than you do getting desirable results from a traditional diet loaded up with a thousand calories a day in carbs.

JoH wrote:

sw1pe wrote:I know that but that's the problem with low carb diet if for some reason you haven't reached your calorie intake by tiny bit it will work as fat burner and sometime when I have really busy days its very hard to eat low carb food and also reach my calorie limit, its not a easy task to always to have something low carb to eat if I'm not at home, If I will be on the other diet as I told before I'm not gonna have this king of problem because its much easer to get that food If I need to, I can buy something which I can eat almost everywhere.

Buy something like cheese, my friend. Cheese is your friend on MANS, and it's a life saver. The little Babybel mini cheeses, for example, are about 100 calories a pop of fat and protein - both totally OK without limit on MANS - and they're all packaged in plastic so they don't make a nasty mess. Great snack to throw in your bag at the start of your day.

sw1pe wrote:Yes I was interested in GLADs diet but I don't understand how to count those GLs and it looks like its not easy, but yes GLADS diet will be easer for me to follow. Could someone explain a bit more on how to count those GL's? Anyway the diet which I was talking before will have very similar food.

Yes, yes I can, and counting them is pretty simple - it's finding the GIs that's a bitch. I'll even do it in under 50 words!!

GL = (Net Carbs / 100) X Glycemic Index

Tada! Done! That's it. 15 per meal, 6 times a day, all done. Limit your sat-fats, protein with every meal, at least 2.75 g/kg LBM of protein per day.

Under 50 words, as promised. Seriously, though, that really IS what it comes down to. Finding GIs can be tricky, but Mark's blog post describing GLAD (in way more than 50 words) has some values and some databases listed, and there's the Big GLAD Food List too.

sw1pe wrote:The reason I created this threat is to get some information what will change if I change my diet to which I was talking about. I'm going to gain more fat by trying to bulk up? I'm going to grow slower? In my opinion I should be as good as before if not better because MANS diet is not working for me as it should because sometimes I'm not following it 100% correctly because sometimes I just can't handle all things which is going on in my life and also stay strictly on this diet, and with other diet I should stay strictly because it will be easer for me, that's that I think.

Oh there was a question... ok... yeah cuz we all know how well I do at answering the ACTUAL question...

MANS is not working for you because, as you said yourself, you're not getting the calories. It really is that simple. Any effective diet plan to gain muscle mass will be an abject failure if you cannot meet the caloric requirements. End of story. Your failure to succeed here has absolutely zero to do with the macronutrient balance - there's just not enough food coming in.

Now, as to what will happen if you follow a "traditional" diet... you go to a gym, right? You know the guys that are BIG, but have no definition? They look fairly beefy, but not really muscular. The got the big shoulders, the big arms - though not cut, vascular arms, just bulky - and they probably got the big gut, too. That's the main big difference. You will not have a little extra pudge around the waist, you'll just cover everything over in a layer of fat. I know you're not worried about "some" fat, and you shouldn't be worried about "some" fat - you're bulking, you're going to put on some fat, the best we hope for is keep it to a minimum. You should be worried about a LOT of fat, and in the presence of grossly elevated carbs, and that's what we're talking about with those "traditional" diets.

What you will not get by going this direction instead of following a ketogenic diet plan or a GI-based diet plan are the metabolic and anabolic benefits - the body burns off fat, does not make new fat at any significant rate, and builds muscle fairly rapidly. I can get into the science if you really want me too, but the traditional carb-based diet simply will not create the right hormone levels to trigger the muscle growth you want - not without creating just as much if not more fat gain. Can you get away with not doing MANS to the letter? Maybe. You can probably do a sloppy MANS diet and get better results than you are today by just getting your calories. Could you allow your daily carb intake to go higher - to like the 60-70g range and just cut back the carb up? Probably, I'd have to test it to tell you for sure, but ketosis can be induced at carb intake levels as high as 90g/day, so it's not beyond the realm of plausibility that you could eat more carbs and still enjoy the benefits of a ketogenic diet. Will you get better results "correctly" following a "traditional" diet versus incorrectly following MANS? Not on your life. Incorrectly following MANS means no gains. Following a "traditional" diet generally means the kind of gains you don't really want.

We all know MANS and GLAD have their pitfalls and it can be hugely difficult to get the calories - but it sure beats every other cycle being a cut cycle and that whole level of diet neurosis. Find a way to adapt your diet to your needs. Maybe that will mean letting the carbs come up past that bare minimum threshhold and putting up with a little extra fat gain. Maybe that will mean carrying snacks around (pepperoni, beef jerky, cheese snacks, etc). Maybe that means your commute to work now includes a monster shake. But I have to assume you want to add muscle faster than fat. But THE big pitfall of the "traditional" type diets is that it is entirely too easy to get too much calories from carbs and thus too much fat gained. Nothing worth having will ever come easy, so don't take the easy out. If you're having problems, by all means, let's talk about your diet and your limitations and what happens to you that screws you up. You've got a better shot of working those problems out than you do getting desirable results from a traditional diet loaded up with a thousand calories a day in carbs.

Sorry for my late answer I couldn’t get to the internet all week. What I can say is wow man, someone should give you a gold medal for your posts in this forum All your answers are very helpful and clear After reading your post I don't want to go on "traditional" type diet anymore, because I understand the differences now. So I will try G.L.A.D.s diet instead of a "traditional" diet plan as I want to take a break from M.A.N.S diet.

I started to eat by G.L.A.D.s diet from yesterday, we will see how it goes. There is some things which I'm unclear about. Mark wrote in his G.L.A.D.s article what 80g Brown Basmati Rice boiled has 7GLs, so it means that 160g should have 14GLs, but then I check on the internet on various websites it tells me what 150g of long grain brown rice has about 16-17GLs, so it looks like 150g would be too much. So how many grams is it really ok to eat? Or is it because basmati rice somehow has even lower Gl when any other brown rice?

Another question, what sauces I can eat on glads diet? Can I also eat mayonnaise like I ate on mans? I'm talking about Hellmans Real Mayo it is low on sat fats and has lot of Omegas. Which other sauces not high in GL and are ok to eat on glads?

One more question If I'm in the shop and I want to buy something which I don't know if its high or low in Gl, Is it possible somehow to count anything or find out any other way (without internet) if its High, Medium or Low In Gls? Or is the internet is the only way to find it? Thanks a lot JoH!

JoH wrote:
MANS is not working for you because, as you said yourself, you're not getting the calories. It really is that simple. Any effective diet plan to gain muscle mass will be an abject failure if you cannot meet the caloric requirements. End of story. Your failure to succeed here has absolutely zero to do with the macronutrient balance - there's just not enough food coming in.

Now, as to what will happen if you follow a "traditional" diet... you go to a gym, right? You know the guys that are BIG, but have no definition? They look fairly beefy, but not really muscular. The got the big shoulders, the big arms - though not cut, vascular arms, just bulky - and they probably got the big gut, too. That's the main big difference. You will not have a little extra pudge around the waist, you'll just cover everything over in a layer of fat. I know you're not worried about "some" fat, and you shouldn't be worried about "some" fat - you're bulking, you're going to put on some fat, the best we hope for is keep it to a minimum. You should be worried about a LOT of fat, and in the presence of grossly elevated carbs, and that's what we're talking about with those "traditional" diets.

What you will not get by going this direction instead of following a ketogenic diet plan or a GI-based diet plan are the metabolic and anabolic benefits - the body burns off fat, does not make new fat at any significant rate, and builds muscle fairly rapidly. I can get into the science if you really want me too, but the traditional carb-based diet simply will not create the right hormone levels to trigger the muscle growth you want - not without creating just as much if not more fat gain. Can you get away with not doing MANS to the letter? Maybe. You can probably do a sloppy MANS diet and get better results than you are today by just getting your calories. Could you allow your daily carb intake to go higher - to like the 60-70g range and just cut back the carb up? Probably, I'd have to test it to tell you for sure, but ketosis can be induced at carb intake levels as high as 90g/day, so it's not beyond the realm of plausibility that you could eat more carbs and still enjoy the benefits of a ketogenic diet. Will you get better results "correctly" following a "traditional" diet versus incorrectly following MANS? Not on your life. Incorrectly following MANS means no gains. Following a "traditional" diet generally means the kind of gains you don't really want.

We all know MANS and GLAD have their pitfalls and it can be hugely difficult to get the calories - but it sure beats every other cycle being a cut cycle and that whole level of diet neurosis. Find a way to adapt your diet to your needs. Maybe that will mean letting the carbs come up past that bare minimum threshhold and putting up with a little extra fat gain. Maybe that will mean carrying snacks around (pepperoni, beef jerky, cheese snacks, etc). Maybe that means your commute to work now includes a monster shake. But I have to assume you want to add muscle faster than fat. But THE big pitfall of the "traditional" type diets is that it is entirely too easy to get too much calories from carbs and thus too much fat gained. Nothing worth having will ever come easy, so don't take the easy out. If you're having problems, by all means, let's talk about your diet and your limitations and what happens to you that screws you up. You've got a better shot of working those problems out than you do getting desirable results from a traditional diet loaded up with a thousand calories a day in carbs.

If I can vote for the best answer ever, this would be it. I think MuscleHack should upgrade this forum so that we could 'like' or vote a forum post. I would give this post 100 thumbs up!!

If I can vote for the best answer ever, this would be it. I think MuscleHack should upgrade this forum so that we could 'like' or vote a forum post. I would give this post 100 thumbs up!!

Same here!

sw1pe wrote:
I started to eat by G.L.A.D.s diet from yesterday, we will see how it goes. There is some things which I'm unclear about. Mark wrote in his G.L.A.D.s article what 80g Brown Basmati Rice boiled has 7GLs, so it means that 160g should have 14GLs, but then I check on the internet on various websites it tells me what 150g of long grain brown rice has about 16-17GLs, so it looks like 150g would be too much. So how many grams is it really ok to eat? Or is it because basmati rice somehow has even lower Gl when any other brown rice?

Another question, what sauces I can eat on glads diet? Can I also eat mayonnaise like I ate on mans? I'm talking about Hellmans Real Mayo it is low on sat fats and has lot of Omegas. Which other sauces not high in GL and are ok to eat on glads?

One more question If I'm in the shop and I want to buy something which I don't know if its high or low in Gl, Is it possible somehow to count anything or find out any other way (without internet) if its High, Medium or Low In Gls? Or is the internet is the only way to find it? Thanks a lot JoH!

Basmati rice is different from long grain brown rice. If you compare the two you'll notice how much thinner a grain of basmati is. Different types of the same food may have slightly different GLs.

You can eat mayo on GLAD. It's low in carbs and, therefore, low in GL.

As for guessing GLs (GL = GI/100 x Carbs), here are some simple rules of thumb. If it has a lot of sugar, it's likely high in GI. (Note that sugar includes sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose, etc.) If it has a lot of starch (flour, rice, potatoes, carrots) it is likely High or, at best, Medium, in GI. The more fat and protein something has, the lower its likely GI so Whole milk is lower GI than Skim milk, but unsweetened Almond Milk or Soy Milk is much lower than dairy milk because of dairy's lactose sugar. Most veggies are low GI. Meats are low GI. Nuts and seeds are low GI. FIbrous foods have lower GIs than non-fibrous foods so cooked carrots are higher GI than raw carrots, and processed foods will be higher GI than non-processed foods.

My final advice for maintaining low GLs - Watch Your Portion Size.