Ditto everything JK said!

OK - I brought up some of these issues many pages back, and was shunned.

Here is what I have learned, and I just became a certified Personal Trainer.

If you want to lift and lose fat, and low carb, than you need to embrace a cyclic ketogenic diet. That is several days, low/no carbs with cardio, with two days carb loading and weight training, for several days.

Bodybuilders have been doing this for years. Go to Amazon and look for books by Lyle McDonald and you will get a great low carb diet with body building aspects.

Yeppers, CKD, with it's LOOOOONG carbup, works like a hot damn for a lot of ... MEN.

Women, on the other hand, well, for some it works, for some it doesn't. Unfortunately for us females, almost ALL such research is done on male athletes. Almost NONE of it is done on women, and for good reason: our hormonal cycles screw up the results...

Body Opus was written by a man, for male bodybuilders, based on research performed on men. It's a GREAT method. But it often fails for women. I do NOT know why, but I have long suspected it has to to with our lower testosterone level, and smaller muscle mass and liver.

I do agree with you though - occasional carbups are absolutely necessary. TKD/NHE style carbups may be more effective for women, but some variant on the carb-cycling theme is definitely necessary for continuing success.

I didn't mention David Duchane, I mentioned Lyle McDonald, whose book the Ketogenic diet is chock full of scientific explainations on what happens to the body during dieting and exercise, in particular ketogenic diets.

Body Opus has nothing to do with what I am basically talking about, and here is why I didn't mentioned David Duchane:

In Body Opus the low carb diet is NOT the only diet he espouses, he actually rotates several kinds of diets and a big part of Body Opus is adding on supplements to the diet. David Duchane believed strongly in using supplements, such as Human Growth Hormone and ephredra to lose body fat. David Duchane's book was geared towards people who aren't fat to begin with, but are people who want to be perfect, essentially the professional or amateur body builder. Finally, David Duchane's workout's are not well thought out. If I had to endorse an author's weight training plan, I would either endorse Mike Metzer, "High Intensity Training".

So I didn't mention Body Opus, because it has no place in what I am talking about. This is what I am talking about:

NO MATTER WHAT YOUR GENDER IS - IF YOU WANT TO BUILD MUSCLE YOU MUST FEED IT GLUCOSE. Both men's and women's bodies need the same three macronutrients to maintain itself, it is not gender specific. If you lift weights, and maintain a low carb diet you are defeating the purpose.

So, I will repeat what I said again, because it didn't get heard the first time. If any one here really wants to learn scientifically what happens to the body during diets, especially ketogenic diets, than read LYLE MCDONALD'S, THE KETOGENIC DIET. Lyle McDonald is pro-low carbing and really knows his stuff.

I've been debating on whether or not to try the altering carb consumption to coincide with my weight training days. Your post bears so much confidence and conviction, that I've decided to try it and see how it works out.

I'll take your word for it rather than reading the books you've listed. I sort of eschew reading whenever I can.

Lyle does indeed know his stuff.

All of his research is based on men, too.

And although men and women need the same macro (and micro) nutrients to maintain and grow, the relative proportions of those macronutrients often vary according to relative muscle mass, even amongst men. Sadly, is not a given that a scaled-down version of the same programme that works for a man will work for a woman, and this difference is largely ignored by almost all scientific research covered in even the most prestigious scientific journals. I am a statistician by education. I am trained to pick apart flaws in published research.

There has actually been the suggestion that for women, gearing training and diet to coincide with our cycle may be reasonable: testosterone peaks in a woman's body at ovulation. I intend to do some experimenting with this notion in the near future, eating more carbs around ovulation and lifting in heavier, shorter sets during this time, more compound movements, more excentric movements (all of which stimulate testosterone in male lifters) and fewer carbs with somewhat longer sets and supersets during the rest of the month. Kind of like a bulking and cutting cycle in every month. Since I enjoy bulking so much, I'm thinking this might very well give me one more thing to look forward to with ovulation...

Oh, and imagoddess, there is another book you may find very interesting that discusses in great detail the endocrine relationships between feeding, training, and the body's response: Natural Hormonal Enhancement, by Rob Faigin. I am STILL chewing through the details of Rob's book, and I'm finding endocrinology more and more fascinating all the time.

Built: Let me first say that I respect your training in statistics. Also this is off the topic, one of my major "beefs" with this world is the misuse of quoting statistics to support an argument, and it something I always question when I see a statistic used. IMO statistics are only meaningful when you understand how they were derived, and quite often after statistics are published many people, especially diet, fitness books and politicians, gloss over that fact, they this the published number is enough.

ANYWAY...

I agree with you about the gender differences. It is just that I was arguing a basic point about carbs and weight training.

Personally, I have always dieted and worked out based upon my monthly cycle. I have found where I am in my cycle has an important effect on what I can accomplish and how I feel in terms of diet and exercise. I too have done my "bulking up" that one week before my period, because my appetite is so huge, I can eat enough to lift hard. Once my period begins, I make adjustments to my diet, because it is then that I am better at losing body fat.

And this can be annoying, because energy flucutations are such a pain for meneustrating women, but it is also effective, because the body can quickly reach plateaus, and so changing diet and exercise regimens every two weeks, it very effective.

It would be wonderful if research was done in this area. Unfortunately, when it comes to weight training specifically, it remains an area off limits to women. Women are told to lift light weights, take aerobic classes, in fact some people will tell women only to use nautilus machines or to only use neoprene weights. It is ridicolous.

And of course, there is more deviation in the female form that the male form in general. Females need more individually targeted weight training programs to achieve results, far more than men do. Some women have a propensity to build muscle well, and some don't, some women are well-proportioned, and some are bottom heavy or top heavy. So, I think it is a daunting task for anyone who would want to study diet, fitness in addition to endrocronology in terms of the female gender. To perform such a study, you would have to create so many sub-groups to truly understand the female body and its response to various diet and fitness regimens.

There probably isn't much incentitive for anyone to produce such a study. It seems that women themselves are so fearful of weight training to begin with, and fear straying from the starvation diet mode with heavy cardio mode. This is unfortunate, male body builders do know tricks that can be adapted for females.

Sadly, I believe you are correct. Women are often fearful of resistance training because of those who use AAS to become massive, and yet deny it. There seems to be a collective fear that this type of physique can happen accidentally, which of course, it cannot - those who achieve massive size have done so through a combination of good genetics, astonishing discipline and hard work on diet and training, and the best pharmaceuticals money can buy. It is the result of the deliberate pursuit of a particular aesthetic.

I still have issues with this phrase, though:


I just don't think this is true. Over the last three years, I'm guessing I've put on about 15 pounds of muscle. I built at least a third of this on strict low-carb (while dropping at least 20 pounds of fat, over about a 6 month period), and I had no trouble at all doing so. I've learned a lot since starting Atkins three years ago, but I built mass really well on under 40g carb a day for a LOOONG time before I started fiddling with TKD and other carb-cycling rotations.

I’m the first to admit that muscle-building is a whole lot more FUN with the occasional carbup, but for me at least, these carbups were not at all necessary to build up substantial mass. I’ve built up even MORE since fiddling with different bulking carb-cycles, but enjoyed excellent progress without. While it is certainly sub-optimal to build muscle with no carbups whatsoever, it is by no means impossible. I’ve done it. I am willing to bet money this works better while you’re still fat – everything gets harder, body-composition wise, once you’re muscular and fairly lean.

Maybe it has already been said in this thread. I admit I haven't read every single reply. However, it would have been nice to have a 5th option for the poll. That option would be to rotate daily between Weights and Cardio instead of doing them the same day. That is what I do and what many trainers recommend as the best of both worlds.

I find if I do the cardio first I burn out on the weight machines in the circuit. Although we do cardio with the machines. I don't find myself lacking in the cardio after or burning out. But then again I only do about 20-30 min of cardio after the circuit because you get 30 min of cardio from the circuit, so it's around an hour together.

I like to do cardio after weights. My theory being that after weighlifting, one is tired. Therefore, you MUST exert yourself while doing cardio. Then again, my only cardio is running on the treadmill from 6.5mph to 8.4mph. By exerting yourself close to the point of puking, the body is being drained and I love that feeling because it produces results. Then again, it is my unproven theory that works for me. Keep on working...

I split cardio in two 20 minute segments between weights. The first I do interval to max intensity (4 cycles - 5 minute cycles) and the second segment is just regular

Hey,
Ideally weights first because then you burn out all your glycogen and are fully on fat burning by the time you start cardio(that being said) I find it really hard to go as hard if I do weights first because I'm tired, but if you can do it thats the way to go. The other thing that is good is intervals when you do your weights. For example, either spot jog, jumprope, jacks,etc...for 30 sec-60 sec in-between weight sets and also you can try to split your cardio, 1/2 before and 1/2 after weights. That seems to work. Good luck!!!

this is my thinking....i usually do my lifting on a seperate day than my cardio...but if im pushing it the weights are FIRST and then the cardio....


xoxoxo

what works best for me to lose fat and lean up is cardio first then weights. I've tried doing it both ways and this way works better for me. For some reason I gain muscle very fast and can become too muscular if I focus on more weights. I do and hour of cardio and about a half hour to a hour of weights. I want the energy for my cardio and what I have left I use for weight training. I need to burn the calories and if I do weights first my energy level isn't there for the cardio. I also have a free day and try to stay low fat high cardio and that seems to fuel me for the next week and keeps me from cheating during the week. Every one is different and you have to see what works best for your body.