Bodybuilding Forums

Heya everyone.

Congrats on the great site Mark, great info and really cuts through a lot of the bull @#$* you read from so many sources these days.

Thought i would put a problem on here that ive been trying to fix lately and would appreciate any help

Im a hardgainer and have been lifting for about 4 years. Been making some really good gains around the last year with a high protein high carb diet and training hard of coarse.
However recently ive noticed my lower abs have started to get a bit flabby. Everything else looks great and you cant notice it when im standing up posing but when i sit down i can tell ive added a bit of fat there.
My protein intake per day is around 291 grams and carb intake per day is around 400 grams.
I work my abs twice a week and am not doing any cardio as i am just trying to add solid mass atm, and once a reach my goal weight then i will add in cardio.

Reducing the carb intake i think should fix the problem, just dont want to lose any muscle mass atm.

Thanks for all the input in advance.

There are a couple of methods you could use. You could cut for a few weeks, about 3 or 4 just to keep th fat in check. Or you could add in 1 or 2 cardio sessions a week for a while. Or you could cycle your carbs for a few weeks, taking in 400 on day 1 300 on day 2, and 200 on day 3. Then repeat. For me Carbs are the devils food , i just baloon up on the damn things, but i have bodybuilding friends who sware by carb cycling if they want to cut back some fat.

hope this helps.

Cool thanks man, some really good points.
the carb cycling sounds like a good idea, so on the high days you would get more insulin and then on the low days the body could burn the fat as energy.
On the low carb days you reckon you would replace the lost carbs with extra protein? And if not what would you replace it with to make sure your still geting good food into you?

Thanks 4 the great info.

Cheers.

I wouldn't replace the cabs with anything. Remember you are only going to do this for a few weeks just to trim the fat back a bit. If you are getting enough protein already adding more won't help. By reducing the carbs a few times a weeks you are forcing your body to use more of your bodies stored fat for fuel.