I am still not sure how many carbs I should take, but I am increasing it slowly to around 20gr. per day, maybe more next week.

But maybe I can stay on LC and insert a carb loading day every 7-10 (metabolic diet ) days or so, like many body builders in Germany do with the aim to lose fat and add muscles at the same time.

I would be very interested to hear, if anybody is doing this with BLF?

Hi Superflat,

You may want to check out the CKD forumn here, those folks do carb loading days too. I've never done a carb loading type diet, but I think there is more to it than just inserting a day of hi carb intake. I think you have to really watch your calories on the low carb days. I think most systems also have you doing certain types of workouts depending on where you are in the carb cycle.

Doing these things takes advantage of your bodies natural methods of partitioning where the carbs you eat are going, to muscle cells or to fat cells.

To my personal way of thinking it all gets very complicated. But it definately works for a lot of people. You might also want to check out Lyle MacDonalds e-book called "The Ultimate Diet 2.0" He explains all the science behind it very well. He even gives example workouts.

Arnie

Oh, one more thing.

When I started my first BFL challenge, I started at about 20 g of carbs a day, but found I was bonking in the middle of my workouts. I started increasing my carb intake and found that for me I could get by on 40 - 60 grams per day while doing BFL. In his book Atkin's comments that athletes may need as much as 90g/day.

I usually increased my carbs in the meals just before and/or after my workout.

Arnie

Here is what I have found with regard to carbs and working out:

Net Carbs under 30 - I will bonk on HIIT cardio as early as day 3 after carb-loading. :P

Net carbs around 50 - Cardio can suffer, especially near the end of the week, but I don't all out bonk. This level is 'do-able' for me when I am not trying to add muscle.

Net carbs over 100: no problems anywhere.

As for lifting, I do a dextrose spike if I'm low-carbing and my performance rocks.

Hope that helps.

Friday

~all,
thank you very much for your replies. It seems that increasing carbs might be necessary. I will increase it every week and I hope to find out what is best for me.



I have to have a look into Atkins' book again.

What kind of carbs do eat? Veggies, dairy or other kinds?

I eat veggies, bread, fruit, milk, oatmeal, yogurt, nuts.

When I see your stats it's working almost perfect. Congrats!

But is it still LC?

Hi Arnie,

I just read a German book about a variation of CDK called "Anabolic Diet". This version is quite simple: 5-6 days LC, 1-2 days carb loading. Some do heavy loading with simple carbs, other only for one day with complex carbs. You can stick to your training program. CDK seems to be much more difficult with a special training program, additional supplements e.g.

I will stick to BFL and will do LC for 5 days and 1 carb loading day with complex carbs. I will see what happens.

That's the way I look at all this, it is just an experiment and sometimes you just have to try something and see if it works for you or not.

Good Luck,
Arnie