Bodybuilding Forums

It's so easy to mess up on a low-carb day. Today, for instance, I ended up with 100g of carbohydrates, 28g of fiber. That's over 70g of net carbs... all from the following:
* Strawberries, fresh from Costco. Yum!
* Soynuts. These ain't edamame soy, these are much carbier and I have to watch my portion sizes more closely!
* Hershey's Extra Dark. The carb difference between these and Lindt 85% is huge. I need to be aware and have no more than one square of the Hershey's stuff a day if I'm on low-carb. But they come in such huge bags!


That's it. How to ruin an otherwise perfect day of low-carb: a bit too much dark chocolate, a bit too many strawberries, and a bit too many soynuts. I'm not totally off the wagon, but boy, I more than doubled my carb budget for the day!

--Matt B.

And then there are the weeks when you (and by you, I mean me!) keep having one bad day after another. My inner child needs a severe beating. This week has been about 20% good, 80% utter shite.

Just don't give up! That's the only real mess-up, I think.

I hear you, I've messed up big time this week. I had a really clean carb up over the weekend and was really happy with myself but Monday came and I was craving something sweet and thats when I ate nearly a whole bar of 90% cocoa chocolate and even though low in carbs compared to others I racked up my carbs to atleast 100g, I also ate nuts and alot of them.
Then tuesday was okay but yesterday I had what turned out to be a full blown carb up so I messed up there, I had mars bars, m&m's and some haribos plus a whole host of others. Guess I wont be carbing up this coming weekend then. I think I should be less strict on my carb up and allow two 'anything I like meals' as being to strict only makes me crave more in the week. Back on track today, the cravings have only really been getting to me this past month so I'm sure it'll pass., I hope.

All the best to you

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. During my last twelve-week cycle, I felt like the Iron Man. This time around, I feel like the Jell-o Wuss. I like Michelle's phrase: "Don't be perfect. Just be better."

--Matt B.

redgiki wrote:During my last twelve-week cycle, I felt like the Iron Man. This time around, I feel like the Jell-o Wuss

ROTFLMAOPIMP! Good god. This week is a total scrub for me. I'm going to have to forget about calories for a wee while and just let myself eat cheeseburgers and sausage and ranch dressing and whatever just to keep off the carbs.

I feel like throwing up.

I have a lot of thinking to do about what my actual goals are. I think they're not going to involve a body fat under 20% anytime soon, because at this point my body is resisting me on all further attempts at anything resembling serious restrictions. And if I keep forcing the issue, I'm going to end up back over 150.

Now is not the right time for me, I think.

marochka_raduga wrote:...forget about calories for a wee while and just let myself eat cheeseburgers and sausage and ranch dressing and whatever just to keep off the carbs...Now is not the right time for me, I think.

I'm seriously considering the experiment, tried by many with great success, of keeping carbs very low (<20g/day), protein moderate (for me, around 200g/day), and just go crazy on the fats. Add fat to everything. Butter on my sausage in the morning, MCT oil with the eggs, heavy cream out the wazoo, etc. Lots of people have done this -- up to 5,000 calories per day! -- without putting on any body fat, and literally had to force-feed themselves to make themselves eat more, with no hunger at all.

Physiologically, what appears to happen is that their body temperature raises a degree or two to burn off the excess energy, they move around more, there is more futile cycling in the body to burn off extra calories, and a lot of the fat just... well, poops out. But the satiety is through the roof, and at some point within the 30 days they just don't even feel like eating. As long as you keep the carbs low and the protein moderate, while such a regimen may not lead to dramatic weight loss, it's a neat way to prove that the "a calorie is a calorie" people wrong: calories in, calories out, sure, but calories out can be in many forms other than exercise or gaining fat!

Probably after my vacation at the end of May I'll give that a try.

--Matt B.

redgiki wrote:Physiologically, what appears to happen is that their body temperature raises a degree or two to burn off the excess energy

That alone would be worth the price of admission. I'm so sick of being cold all the time. I live in Texas, ferchrissake! Actually, I'm comfy outside, but what happens is I come inside and they have already cranked the A/C down to like 68 or something and I freeze. I think I would probably keep it around 79 if I had my 'druthers (except when I'm running, in which case, crank it down to 65! ). Come on, I have biceps to show off here, I need to be able to wear girl-cut t-shirts, not multiple layers of long sleeves!

I have a weekend getaway next weekend, so maybe I'll try this after that. When you say keep the proteins moderate, how much are we talking here? For example, with my 50 kg of lean mass...

marochka_raduga wrote:When you say keep the proteins moderate, how much are we talking here? For example, with my 50 kg of lean mass...

If I understand correctly, you're mostly aiming for basically no carbohydrates insofar as you can avoid it, and maintaining proteins at the level at which you maintained muscle and fat levels prior to starting. So you have to know where your maintenance levels were on macronutrients before.

Will be a fun experiment; I may try it for 30 days straight to see what happens

--Matt B.

What would an average day look like? What kind and how much do you plan on having. Which veggies would you include? Can you tell that I am very interested in your experiment? It makes sense, especially when you think about traditional Eskimo diets.

angela wrote:What would an average day look like? What kind and how much do you plan on having. Which veggies would you include? Can you tell that I am very interested in your experiment?

Well, I think my average day would look almost the same as what I eat regularly. But I would have to cut back on the carbs to make room for consuming lots of heavy cream, butter, and other fat-containing stuff that also has some carbs. I think I would drop the carb-ups, too.

Guess I will have to draw up an advance food diary if I get serious about this notion