Bill,
A previous post on your Anabolic diet experience interests me. On your 2, 24 hour carb loads, how many grams of carbs would you take in per load? And what was your body weight at the time? I’m curious because I’ve had some success with low carb diets but have a difficult time dialing in my carb loads.
If I was bulking then immediately after
a workout I’d usually consume half a
Hungry Howie’s pizza. This is about 144
grams of carbs (perhaps a little excessive
but it’s what I did.) After that,
another 200-300 grams over the course
of the remainder of the 24 hours.
When dieting, either no pizza or at most
three slices (about 72 grams.) The three
slices was fine but temptation to eat
more would be a problem, so I usually
didn’t do this.
The remainder of the 24 hours would be
approximately isocaloric, for about
2500 calories for the entire day.
Hungry Howie’s pizza, by the way, is 21.3% of calories from fat, 55.1% from carbohydrates, and 23.5% from protein. I would also have
a protein shake (was probably Designer Whey but may have been Met-Rx Protein Plus if that was out at the time, or would have been Met-Rx meal replacement if Designer Whey wasn’t out yet, I don’t recall) immediately after the workout and about 20 minutes before the pizza, so overall the macronutrient composition is quite good. I would NOT recommend consuming Pizza Hut pizza, or
other greasy pizzas.
I was 158 at 8% bf before starting
this program (this was as big as I’d been able to get with training as per Ellington Darden’s HIT recommendations) and if I recall
correctly was about 182 at mid 6% at the end of this program. This is at just over 5’11".
(I do not have good genetics for size: prior to training but at adult age, my LBM was about 135 lb.)
You said in the other post that this was when you were training naturally. 182 at 6% at 5’1" ain’t bad, as far as I’m concerned - especially for a natural trainer. Care to post your current (i.e. post gear) stats? Inquiring minds want to know!
Bill, when you were massing on this diet, how many calories did you eat on just your regular non-carbloading days? 2,500 hundred or so? What percent macronutrient breakdown for those days as well?
My best was a little over 210 at also
about 6.5%. I’m sure it would be possible
to do more than this but I’ve always preferred
being “off” more often than on, and personally
205-210 was my goal. (Though ideally with better calf size to be sure, and also better hams.)
Currently I’m well under that due mostly to illness. Fortunately I think I’ve just figured out why I’ve been chronically sick (not severely, but enough to result in quite a bit of fatigue, sometimes needing a lot of bed rest, and making all but the lightest workouts inadvisable, making me more ill on following days, serious workouts impossible, and on top of this GI distress for some of this period) when I normally am rarely ill for long. Namely, cigarette smoke exposure. I’ve never in my life been exposed to it much, but for the last couple of months have been exposed a great deal due to my girlfriend smoking and this being on a daily basis now. I probably might as well be a half-pack-a-day smoker, the second hand exposure has been so bad. I’m putting a stop to that. She cannot smoke in
the house any more, and I am not sitting in smoking areas any more. Some people can take the smoke but it seems I cannot.
On calories, yes, my maintenance level
was probably around 2500 calories but most of the time I was either bulking (fat gain
limited to preferably no more than 0.5 lb per week) or cutting.
Yes, it’s definitely well past time to get well soon and back to good training! This has royally sucked.
Bill,
Your problem with cigarette smoke making you ill could be a symptom of candida overgrowth. I’ve had some experience with this. It might be worth your while to check into it. Fatigue and muscle weakness due to tobacco smoke are common symptoms! It is a real drag if you have it, and a bear to get rid of it!!
What is candida?
How come Bill’s maintenance calories were so low? Does the nature of the diet play a role, or is it just lifestyle?
you say: I was 158 at 8% bf …to 182 at mid 6% at the end of this program.
It’s a very good result.
How many time you doing this program ?
The amount of calories was based on what
worked for me. Actually, it doesn’t seem unusual: 15 cal/lb LBM/day, which is about what that worked out to, is a pretty typical figure for most men. Some of course can consume more.
My recollection is that this period was over
a little less than 2 years so there were quite a few bulking and cutting phases in there, as well as a few periods of isocaloric maintenance eating (and at this point I don’t recall, but it’s possible there were limited periods of backsliding but if so, quite limited, not more than a few bad weeks.)
Delfuego, thank you for the suggestion, it wasn’t something I’d have thought of. I had not thought recurrent chest colds were symptomatic of that though. Already it seems that ending the exposure to cigarette smoke is giving improvement – we’ll see what happens and if it’s not reasonably trick, perhaps I should try a Candida diet (most of the things that should not be eaten in such a diet are things that can be done without anyhow.)
I am surprised to hear Bill say 2,500 actually. Maybe he meant that for maintenance, IM not sure. That does seem awfully low to me, but if it worked then what the hay. I am currently doing 2,500 to lean up, and I don’t think ill be seeing much lean muscle tissue from that, maybe a little though. FYI, IM 187lbs at 10% right now, shooting for 6%. I hope that Bill will repost if his mass calories during the week were higher.
Bill,
I hope you continue to feel better! I’ll bet your itching to get back to some serious workouts! Glad to hear that avoiding cigarette smoke is helping! Hopefully you’re fortunate and don’t have Candida. I had Candida overgrowth, got it from my lovely wife! I was mildly sick but she was VERY sick due to the systemic overgrowth. She became extremely allergic to cigarette smoke (which is basically a yeast). The Candida diet helped quite a bit for both of us. I found it easy and a good fit with a bodybuilding lifestyle!
Wrecker, yes, 2500 calories was maintenance for me then.
I now see where my post was confusing. It did look like I meant 2500 for the entire day when bulking. Not so, that should have
been for maintenance and also for what was allowed for carb days when dieting. When bulking I can’t give an exact figure but it
was probably 3500-4000 calories on carb
days and 2500 on keto days (the intention
was to grow while consuming the carbs and
maintain while not.)