How long does it take to fully deplete glycogen stores
I know there are alot of variables, but lets say you did 0 carb, how many days would it take to make your muscles really receptive to carbs (so you could load on carbs for a day and not worry about your muscles not being "starved" enough to create that desired sponge like atmosphere?
Like 3 days? 5 days?
Why didn't someone tell me?
[QUOTE=driven1;249694161]After I do a carb up, I do a depletion cardio workout. How long it takes will depend on your glycogen storage capacity in your muscles and liver. This will depend on how muscular you are and how large your liver is. Generally, a larger person will have a larger liver than a smaller person. You can actually have a sports physiologist tell you exactly how many grams of glycogen you are capable of storing.
Anyway, what I do (under a sports physiologist's supervision) is a depletion workout. This involves working at a relatively high heart rate until the signs of glycogen depletion occur. The signs are headache, fatigue, dizziness or weakness in the knees. As soon as I note any of these beginning to happen, the work out is over. My last depletion workout took 69 minutes before I 'hit the wall'.
Without doing this, it has taken me as long as 4 days to deplete. This is even if I do a zero carb diet for 2 days. For me, I get better results if I quickly get rid of the glycogen after my carb up. Otherwise I seem to just end up going back and forth and not really losing weight.
(PS) When you stop the workout, the headache and other symptoms disappear on their own within about 15 minutes. Drink LOTS while you are doing the workout.[/QUOTE]
What is this carb depletion you speak of? I have never heard this. Can you explain it. I work my tail off and eat well. I just think my timing and amounts are off. I'm always up for learning and trying new methods. I was military for so long and a hard gainer to boot. I've never been able to keep the mass I wanted. Now older, 35, I can't get rid of the small tire around my stomach. GOALS: build muscle and burn fat. Yes I know you can't do both. Right now I'm trying to lose body but maintain as much muscle mass as I can without losing my strength gains. Am I chasing my tail?