Podge and others - how long can I go w/o carbs

Hey folks. I posted a few weeks ago about by proposed extended cutting cycle. My question is, after 1 initial week of keto and 6 weeks of fat fast, do I NEED a carb-up or refeed? Even though I dropped 23 lbs. over seven weeks, I’m still at around 20%BF. I really do feel great! My strength hasn’t gone down in any lifts, although I am using shorter, more frequent workouts. I am planning on starting t-dawg next week with minimal carbs and glutamine/bcaa postworkout, but I don’t know if I should bother taking in some carbs. I was thinking I would put it off as long as possible - say, until I experience a decrease in strength? Anyone had any experience with this?
Podge, I’ve read about your experiences and appreciate you replying to my first post. Any comments?

Good job on loosing 23 pounds !! that was the thoughest for me, loosing the first 20 was quick for me but “painful” so to speak. I would personally never go a day without carbs. One, maybe two ½ cup (measured dry) servings of oatmeal a day (from a tube, don’t buy the kiddie packs) and I’d have around 50 g. of dextrose/matlo Post-workout. For a total of around 75-100 g. a day. I take it that you’re doing your current diet for now, and wanting to change it drastically the next day to get to ketosis faster. I really feel it wouldn’t be worth it, taking in 0 carbs until you start to suffer. In my case 75-100g. a day was suffering enough ! you’ll be in ketosis soon, like within a few days, once you lower the carbs. Unless you’re on a ton of gear, keep things logical. Doing creatine will help some with the strength too, and lift heavy.

you said that he will be in ketosis unless on some serious gear? why? I am doing a low carb diet under 75 on workout under 40 on non workout, and I am using a 4 week mag-10 cycle along with some liquid clenbutrx, not the real gear, and sorry I couldnt get md6 but I am broke and bought it before I heard of this site haha, I am 185 6 foot at about 11 percent fat, want to break into the single digits, would mag-10 keep me out of ketosis? not that it matters too much cause i know im losing fat but… why?

What i meant was, is that not to do 0 carb type diets (ie: steroid dieting) unless you’re on juice or mag-10. i must’ve not written it clearly.

ahh…i get it. my fault i read it wrong, as long as strength gains are not going down is it safe to assume that I am keeping LBM? Would it be asking to much if I expect to lose 10lbs of fat in this 4 week cycle with the anabolic support of mag-10, and could I possibly expect and LBM added I am cycling my cals betwee 1750 and 2400…

i think it’s safe to assume that your not loosing LBM if your strength doesn’t go down. but, in my experience, my strenght did go down, a little, and i believe it was because i was worn down a lot. little carbs doesn’t do much for your energy level, that’s for damn sure !!.. some people say they get used to it, but i never really did. sometimes i’d get light-headed when working out. i’d just lifted as heavy as i could, for about 4-6 reps, and i don’t think i dropped farther than about 85% of my max poundages before my diet, and i did this for 4 months !! (after about a month and a half, Jason Norcross and Joel Marion finally talked me into having a cheat meal once a week, which helped me out mentally)… to really know if you’re loosing LBM, is to get a good set of calipers and read the past article that Jason Norcross wrote awhile back about how to correctly measure your BF. i used to measure my BF about twice a week, one 3-site method and a 7 site method. (call me obcessive/compuslive, but i’d measure my ab fat every damn day ! :slight_smile: )… i couldn’t really tell you what i think about your daily calorie intake without knowing a lot more about you. but i’ll tell you right now, i don’t know my shit well enough to be giving someone dieting advice. all i can really do is share my past experiences and results. i’ve gained a ton of knowledge from this site and from the people who contribute to the forum regularly.

Thanks for the ideas Podge. I’ll tell you, I must be one of those lucky bastards who reacts VERY well to keto. I feel better on less less than 10g of carbs per day than I ever did while eating more carbs. However, when I used to eat carbs, it was mostly from pizza and burgers and all that other good stuff … kinda how I got into this mess. I definitely plan on trying the Winning Formula when I get to less than 15%. My FF ends on Saturday and I plan starting T-Dawg the next day. The carbs I do get come from the clean foods that JMB recommends and I will definitely have the weekly cheat meal (I don’t think I can handle a whole day). Thanks again!