Bulking with Glucose Disposal Agents

Diet and Nutrition
1

I’m experimenting with Glycobol on a 3 month bulk, looking to keep gains as lean as possible. GDAs essentially are used to help shuttle carbohdyrates into muscles instead of fat cells, so they’re directed to be taken 0-30 minutes before a meal containing 50-100g complex carbohdyrate twice daily. My query is though:

  • On a bulk diet WITHOUT gda’s, would it really result in fat gains if I were to have a dinner of around 60g complex carbs (i.e. wholemeal tortillas/meat)? The way my day works out, I train at lunch and the only real times I get significant carbs are breakfast/pre-workout, lunch (PWO) and dinner. Having caps with the PWO meal would seem to me to be pointless as insulin sensitivity is already at it’s highest here from the workout.

So the plan is to have this meal around 7pm as a normal dinner but have the GDA caps with this. Even with the GDAs though, I’m concerned that eating carbs so late will result in fat gain.

Thanks for any help, a little confused!

2

[quote]British Beef wrote:
I’m experimenting with Glycobol on a 3 month bulk, looking to keep gains as lean as possible. GDAs essentially are used to help shuttle carbohdyrates into muscles instead of fat cells, so they’re directed to be taken 0-30 minutes before a meal containing 50-100g complex carbohdyrate twice daily. My query is though:

  • On a bulk diet WITHOUT gda’s, would it really result in fat gains if I were to have a dinner of around 60g complex carbs (i.e. wholemeal tortillas/meat)? The way my day works out, I train at lunch and the only real times I get significant carbs are breakfast/pre-workout, lunch (PWO) and dinner. Having caps with the PWO meal would seem to me to be pointless as insulin sensitivity is already at it’s highest here from the workout.

So the plan is to have this meal around 7pm as a normal dinner but have the GDA caps with this. Even with the GDAs though, I’m concerned that eating carbs so late will result in fat gain.

Thanks for any help, a little confused![/quote]

Eating carbs late =/= fat gain AUTOMATICALLY. That’s typically a statement that pertains to sedentary individuals who eat carbs all day and don’t really need them.

Why not try the plan you mentioned, pay attention to your level of leanness, and make adjustments from there? If you seem to be giving up too much leanness, I would actually recommend cutting carbs from breakfast and making it a fat/protein meal and just splitting your carb intake between a postworkout lunch and a dinner (you could use your GDA at those times).

IMHO, breakfast carbs are overrated anyway. As long as you replenish your glycogen stores in the hours after your workout, you should be well-fueled for the next day’s workout.

3

[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:
Eating carbs late =/= fat gain AUTOMATICALLY. That’s typically a statement that pertains to sedentary individuals who eat carbs all day and don’t really need them.

Why not try the plan you mentioned, pay attention to your level of leanness, and make adjustments from there? If you seem to be giving up too much leanness, I would actually recommend cutting carbs from breakfast and making it a fat/protein meal and just splitting your carb intake between a postworkout lunch and a dinner (you could use your GDA at those times).

IMHO, breakfast carbs are overrated anyway. As long as you replenish your glycogen stores in the hours after your workout, you should be well-fueled for the next day’s workout.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply BigMac. In hindsight the post does seem a little naive, and I understand that these things are never definitive such as ‘carbs after 6 = FAT GAIN’. I think you got the jest of my post though. It just gets a little complicated trying to control overall carbohydrates, time them appropriately and space them out enough to be able to use the GDAs to their full potential. I know it’s a debated area about carbs, with some camps championing avoidance in the evening and some camps saying it’s about the overall daily intake not specific timings, and I’m not experienced enough yet to fit into either category. I’ll trial and error for now, had just wondered if anyone else with a bit more experience could relay their findings so that we could avoid making the same mistakes!

5

[quote]British Beef wrote:

[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:
Eating carbs late =/= fat gain AUTOMATICALLY. That’s typically a statement that pertains to sedentary individuals who eat carbs all day and don’t really need them.

Why not try the plan you mentioned, pay attention to your level of leanness, and make adjustments from there? If you seem to be giving up too much leanness, I would actually recommend cutting carbs from breakfast and making it a fat/protein meal and just splitting your carb intake between a postworkout lunch and a dinner (you could use your GDA at those times).

IMHO, breakfast carbs are overrated anyway. As long as you replenish your glycogen stores in the hours after your workout, you should be well-fueled for the next day’s workout.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply BigMac. In hindsight the post does seem a little naive, and I understand that these things are never definitive such as ‘carbs after 6 = FAT GAIN’. I think you got the jest of my post though. It just gets a little complicated trying to control overall carbohydrates, time them appropriately and space them out enough to be able to use the GDAs to their full potential. I know it’s a debated area about carbs, with some camps championing avoidance in the evening and some camps saying it’s about the overall daily intake not specific timings, and I’m not experienced enough yet to fit into either category. I’ll trial and error for now, had just wondered if anyone else with a bit more experience could relay their findings so that we could avoid making the same mistakes!
[/quote]

Just in my opinion I think a good way to use GDA’s would be like this:

Use the GDA’s at two meals where they can work somewhat synergistically with GLUT4/enhanced insulin sensitivity. I think the best two times to use them would be in the morning where there is a bit of enhanced insulin sensitivity from fasting. Then use roughly a hour or so after your workout where some glucose transporters will still be active after exercise.

This should allow for synergistic effect between your body’s enhanced insulin sensitivity from fasting and exercise coupled with GDA. Keep your carb intake to 3 times per day (morning, peri-workout, 1 hour or more postworkout). You then take advantage of 2 times per day where GDA’s can do there job better.

Like you said, I don’t think there would be much benefit to taking GDA’s with your peri-workout carbs. GLUT4 exercise induced activation will overshadow any activation from the GDA’s. Also, you have to think about this, the body can only uptake so much glucose regardless of when you activated the glucose transporters with your GDA. So, if your glycogen stores are full, a GDA isn’t going to result in the muscles taking up more glucose. Pair the GDA’s with times of the day where there would be a reduction in glycogen. The goal is to make the majority of the carbs you ingest go to your muscles, not increase the amount your muscles can store.