Some time ago there was a reader’s question about the ingredients of a post-workout drink while on an anabolic/low carb diet. Can anyone point me to this, or remember which issue it was in? I’ve tried the search engine but no luck.
Rick, I don’t recall that question, but I can share a few insights with you. When I was experimenting with the Anabolic Diet and writing the two “Eat Like a Man” articles, here’s what I would do: The diet called for only 30 grams of carbs per day. I would get 22 of them in my post workout shake, which was Grow. That was pretty tough because that only left me 8g of carbs to play with the rest of the day- meaning I ate hardly anything but meats, cheese, and eggs. But I wanted to get the benefit of post-workout nutrition so I did it.
Recently, I dropped around 10 pounds for summer. Even though I’m sensitive to carbs, I don’t think it’s necessary for most people to get so extreme about low carbs. I could give a shit whether I was in ketosis or not, for example. As long as the muscle was staying and the fat was going, who cares, right? So I busted out the food log, lowered cals a little, used the meal combining ideas of the Massive Eating plan, and took in around 120 to 170 carbs per day. On workout days, 49 of those carbs came post workout in the form of Surge. This big shot of carbs didn’t hurt my fat loss at all. In fact, I had to adjust cals several times because I felt I was losing too fast. (I was also on the new MD6 at the time and doing cardio only one day a week.) No flat feelings in the gym either and recovery was great.
I don’t think I’ll ever drop carbs so low again, like below 50g or even a 100g per day. Tattoo this somewhere: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A DIET IS NOT DETERMINED BY THE MISERY YOU GO THROUGH WHILE ONE IT. (That will be one of the themes of my Boston seminar this summer.) Hope this helps.
Chris- Sounds cool. Any more hints on what you’ll be talking about?
John- I’ll post details soon in the mag and in our seminar section, but I plan on covered a wide range of topics and cramming as much “real world”, immediately applicable info I can into four hours. Diet will be a major topic, but I’ll also cover the latest strength training trends, go over something I call the “The Bodybuilder’s Hierarchy of Needs”, cover the psychological aspects of fitness and BBing, plateau busters, supplements, etc. Should be pretty cool.
I am currently on the Anabolic diet. Actually its my own blend of the Anabolic diet, T-dawg diet, fat fast diet. I’ve done it many times so I’ve kind of tweaked it. Anyway, I digress. Basically I take in about 30-35 grams of maltodextrin/dextrose postworkout, followed by some MD6 or just 200mg of ALA an hour later. I figure that within the hour I have enough time to make use of some of the carbs and then by taking the ALA it should put me back into ketosis or at least near it. I too don’t care if I’m really in ketosis or not as long as the fat comes off and the muscle stays on. I just want to keep the carbs down. On workout days I probably take in about 60 grams of carbs, 30 or so otherwise.
Lately I've cycled some Androsol in there 35 sprays twice daily and cut calories to like 1300 a day. Boy have the pounds melted off. It seems like I do lose a tiny bit of muscle but my weekend carb up at a day and a half to two days usually makes up for it. I swear while I'm on the Androsol the weekends seem to replenish any muscle lost, if I don't end up gaining some back.
-Steve