Hello, fellow fasters. Anyone have any suggestions on how to end the fast? I am all most to my goal, but I would like to slow down, then stop and maintain for a month or slow before trying to put on some musle to even out my build. Any sugguestions? Crashing through a plate glass Donut Shop window is not an option.
I think berardi wrote about how to come off a low carb diet in his ‘appetite for contruction’ column at t-mag. check it out.
I wrote an article (q and a) about this very question in one of my last two appetite columns. Check it out.
OK, first off I have never done a ketogenic diet w/o any days off. I always do an anabolic type of diet where you do 5 days on and 2 off. So my body is still somewhat used to taking in carbs. While it does make sense to gradually introduce carbs into the equation I never have nor have I ever gotten fat from doing so. Sure I’ll gain water weight back from eating carbs again. I gain probably anywhere from 4-7 lbs. initially. This, however, comes back down and stabilizes after a week or so at about 3 or 4 lbs. more than I was when I got off the diet. To me this is acceptable because quite frankly there is nothing you can do about gaining water weight when you get off this type of diet. I would guess that gradually introducing carbs again would make this water gain occur more slowly and make it less noticeable, but I think it would still occur regardless. If one followed John’s guidelines in the appetite article I’m sure fat loss would be minimized. But since I haven’t had a problem with fat gain I really wouldn’t do so personally. The reason being to me doing so is just more dieting, and if I wanted to diet I’d keep doing it. I may, just to see if there is any difference, gradually ramp up carbs over the course of a week next time though. I think, for me at least, the single most important factor determining fat gain is whether or not I continue to lift. It seems the only time I ever get fat (other than a pound or two when really bulking) is when I stop lifting for a while. It seems that as long as I have the muscle mass, I keep the fat off. Of course I’ve never been really lean, 9% is about as far down as I usually have gotten so that might be a factor too, as it is said to be easier to maintain your body fat at a higher percentage. We’ll see this time round as I should be getting down to 6.5-7%.
Start eating carbs. But start very slowly. Add some postworkout carbs. Eat some veggies and fruit everyonce in a while. You may want to adhere to Massive Eating. I was a skeptic at first, but now I swear by it. I was 19% bf at 200 lbs., now I am 14% at 200 lbs.