Carbs Without Excessive Water Retention

I’ve tried playing around with different sources of carbs during a carb cycling diet and have found that having oatmeal as my main source of carbohydrates makes me soft in the chest, lower abs and lower back region. When I had ezekiel bread alone, my look was a lot drier. I liked it a lot.

I am curious if there are other carb sources that I can substitute besides ezekiel bread that will help me achieve the same look. I bought steel cut oats but am afraid they might be causing water retention as well. Any thoughts on yams, grits, or any other popular sources that might serve as good alternatives?

(I know glycogen inherently draws water I just want a source that will do the least amount of damage so to speak)

It’s possible that you have a mild allergy to oats. It’s not that uncommon.

How do you react to rice?

I’ve never isolated rice to see my reaction. It’s always either just ezekiel bread or oats+brown rice+yams as my carb source. Do you suggest trying brown rice alone for a month to see if I am indeed mildly allergic to oats?

Well, the way to check if it’s a reaction to oats would be to only remove/add oats :slight_smile:

And to check whether you tolerate rice well (which I imagine you should) would be to add rice to your oat-less diet (i.e. the one that doesn’t give you any issues).

And don’t be afraid of white rice.

That makes sense.

From what I understand, the only time you want high GI carbs is during the periworkout window (i.e. sip gatorade while doing a high volume workout). Since I am doing more powerlifting, I have switched to sipping a protein shake during my workout and taken out the simple sugars. Both brown and white rice have a relatively high GI. What time do you suggest adding white rice?

Don’t worry too much about GI - it changes in a mixed meal anyway.

Other than immediately before and during training (Plazma in my case) I add whole food carbs first to my first post-workout meal (lunch), then second (dinner), then the remaining meal (usually breakfast, unless my schedule changes). So rice will go wherever I need carbs, although usually the two post-workout meals, since I cook it in 125g bags (100g of carbs). I usually have rice cakes and fruit with breakfast.

I mostly throw all the solid food carbs that don’t cause me issues (so no wheat in my case, at least not more than once or twice a month) in the same category and just pick whatever is convenient, fits the meal or simply I whatever feel like having at that particular moment.