New twist on old Keto? Carb Nite or Carb Backloading

[DesertDude11]

Seems like a bunch of **** to me. Basically go Keto and binge on carbs once in a while? Am I missing anything? Isn't it pretty much a played out fact that there are no benefits to time of day food consumption?

How is it any easier to "diet" using Keto than "diet" counting calories? You still have to fukkin watch what you eat? I call bull****, anyone here try it or think its great?

http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition...ng-to-get-lean

[Ralikar]

It's from mens fitness... Time of day nutrition -- meaning per your training workout not cause the sun is out or the moon is full -- is not completely irrelevant but this plan is...

[DesertDude11]

The plan is from this dude: http://carbbackloading.com/

The Men's Health article was just a place I found that detailed it without buying his book or w/e

[acrawlingchaos]

It looks like a refeed to me. He just calls it something different.

Prolonged carb depletion results in empty glycogen stores and low levels of circulating leptin. Periodic refeeds (surplus with significant carbs) will replenish glycogen stores and increase circulating levels of leptin.

The leaner you are, the more useful refeeds become.


As for the article itself... meh... uses quackery to justify a useful technique.

[azeeb]

Many people in the powerlifting section subscribe to carb back loading, and swear it works.

[DesertDude11]

Many people in the powerlifting section subscribe to carb back loading, and swear it works.

I bet it does work... the thing I don't like about it is that it looks like more of the "same ole, same ole" just packaged in another wrapper and with a ice tidy bow on top to make some marketing dude rich...

My $.02

[MrNismo]

Looks similar to The Anabolic Diet by Dr. Mauro Dipasquale which is 20 years old now and I think even that was a re-write of something else but could be wrong.

I like those kinds of diets personally. I find it much easier to run a deficit when I'm lowering carbs instead of fat.

[sourmash1973]

Looks similar to The Anabolic Diet by Dr. Mauro Dipasquale which is 20 years old now and I think even that was a re-write of something else but could be wrong.

I like those kinds of diets personally. I find it much easier to run a deficit when I'm lowering carbs instead of fat.

Me too! It's easier to keep control of everything. Especially appetite and cravings.

[ljimd]

I bet it does work... the thing I don't like about it is that it looks like more of the "same ole, same ole" just packaged in another wrapper and with a ice tidy bow on top to make some marketing dude rich...

My $.02

That's what 99% of this stuff is. Manipulating carbs is nothing new.

[Marius_Ursus]

Do it and see if it works.

[MichaelCJ]

Dr. More-O Dipasquat? Dawg, wut?!


CBL looks like just what lifters want to hear. Or a more refined form of same, really - the most basic one is: "Eat whatever the phuck you want to eat, because it's all macros, broseph, yeah!"

People lurve dis sh!t, I wouldn't doubt.

[Keltron]

I have a little info on this. I've been doing Carb Nite since mid-March and I've kinda met the author.

Let me start by saying that if someone wanted to do the diet, the whole thing can be explained to to them in about 90 seconds w/no need to buy the book.

He was a trainer to my co-worker (yes, trainers sometimes have their own coaches/trainers) who has won a few figure/fitness competitions. I think she placed first in Miss Fitness USA in 2010 or something.

Carb Nite and Carb back loading are pretty much CKD and TKD.

Carb Nite in a nutshell:
6 days a week eat at ultra low carb levels to induce ketosis. Sometime in the late afternoon of your 7th day, get as many carbs in as you can for about 6-8 hours. No measuring, weighing, keeping track, etc. Pig out. Also, start and end your carb ups w/a sugary sweet treat like cookies, donuts, cake, pie, etc.

I'm not too familiar w/CKD but I'm assuming the only main difference between it and Carb Nite is that CKD is probably more controlled in that you probably want to limit your carb amount and that you'd want them from good quality sources like brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.

So what I did when planning my ultra low carb days was start w/enough protein (1g/1lb of bw) then filled the rest w/fat (cheese, cooking oil, avocado, fattier cuts of meat, etc) until my daily calories added up to 1700. I obviously threw in a good amount of leafy greens and a limited amount of cruciferous veggies but didn't really count those since the calorie intake is negligible.

On my first few carb up nights I was very wary of going ape shxt. I still weighed and measured everything and made sure I didn't go over 3500 calories. My workout sessions the following days were the same as they've been for the last few years. Fatigued from poor sleep and little improvements if not weaker some days in regards to my lower body related lifts (squats, deads, cleans, snatches, etc).

My coworker told me to stop being obsessive and just eat what I felt like so I tried it and to my surprise, my weight has been consistently going down. And I also perform better in the gym. My strength is always going to be shxtty until I get more than 4/5 hours of sleep/night but there was a significant improvement.

Here's a rundown of my last carb up night which is typical of most of them:

3pm: 3 chocolate donuts and 1 pint of fat free milk (I like whole milk but you dont want too much fat when you start your carb up because you're aiming for the biggest insulin spike you can get).
4pm: 1 slice of thick crust meat lovers pizza.
7pm:dinner at Mexican restaurant. Steak super burrito and the basket of bottomless chips w/salsa. I must have had 3 baskets of chips by myself.
9pm: Pho (vietnamese noodle soup)
10: 3 more chocolate donuts.

I usually have my high carb nights on fridays. I weigh myself on friday mornings. On saturday mornings I'm usually up by 3 or 4 pounds but I'm usually back down to my friday weight by Tuesday and pretty much every friday I'm 1lb less than I weighed the previous Friday.

Is it revolutionary? Fukk no.

Can one do it w/o keeping track of their calories during the regular six days? I dont know about others but I sure cant. I know from past experience that no matter what diet i do, I won't lose fat unless I weigh/measure everything and make sure I don't have too many calories.

Is it a good long term diet? I don't think so. I'm not a fan of sugary crap even if it you still look good and only have it one night a week. I'll stop once I've lost enough fat to not have a spare time and then go on to a lean bulk/strength gain program.

I like it because it's something that's sustainable for me. Previously I would just do straight keto w/no refeeds. People would warn me about no refeeds but I kinda started it around the same time I first did 5/3/1 and my lifts were going up so I didnt see a problem. This obviously didnt last too long but I attributed it to my bad sleep. Not to the lack of re-feeds (I think it's a combination of both really)

So what I would do was just decide, "No carbs as part of your regular diet!". I would stay focused for 4-8 weeks at a time weighing and measuring everything and then say, "Dude, you've been good.. It's OK to have a slice of pizza w/your friends". But it would have a snowball effect. I'd be so mentally and physiologically deprived that I would binge for a week. Sometimes longer. The old, "I've already messed up on my diet so one more shxtty meal isn't going to make a difference." But I'd end up saying this every day for sometimes as long as weeks.

With this, I get to have my carb fix every week but since it's considered a part of my diet, I have no desire to say, "ok, one more cheat meal" the next day. I have my weekly fix of as much of whatever I want, I wake up the next day not wanting to continue nor do I feel guilty or that I've fukked up.

And yes, a good amount of PL and strongmen use carb nite and carb back loading.

[sourmash1973]

I have a little info on this.

Do you do any kind of depletion workout before the carb re-feed? I'm about to start my carb re-feeds and this sounds much better than the 24 hr carb loads of a CKD.

[willybrokeback]

Certainly not new. There is a thread that started in 2001 that describes exactly this. I think its called CKD. I have read that quite a few people trying to add mass while staying on keto love it. I was doing it for a bit then realized I am too fat for that carb backloading and switched to straight keto (although, once in a while I will cheat and then I call it backloading).

[Keltron]

Do you do any kind of depletion workout before the carb re-feed? I'm about to start my carb re-feeds and this sounds much better than the 24 hr carb loads of a CKD.

No, I do full body Tues/Thurs/Sat

Tues:
Clean and Jerk or Snatch
Press
Pullups
Front Squat

Thurs:
Deadlift 1x5
bench
pendlay rows
Overhead squats

Sat:
Front Squats
dips
Chin Ups


and my carb up night is Friday nights since saturday is my toughest day. As such friday is a rest day so no depletion workout for me. I do have the book and it might discuss that but I didn't read much outside of the basic protocol.

[sourmash1973]

No, I do full body Tues/Thurs/Sat

Tues:
Clean and Jerk or Snatch
Press
Pullups
Front Squat

Thurs:
Deadlift 1x5
bench
pendlay rows
Overhead squats

Sat:
Front Squats
dips
Chin Ups


and my carb up night is Friday nights since saturday is my toughest day. As such friday is a rest day so no depletion workout for me. I do have the book and it might discuss that but I didn't read much outside of the basic protocol.

Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

[GiantGonads]

I did CBL and it worked well for me. However when I changed to early morning training I found it wasnt as effective and stopped.
It works best if you train between 4-7pm.

[drudixon]

Was hoping this would be where I learned of a 0 carb beer that tasted good. Guess ckds out for now.

[Keltron]

I did CBL and it worked well for me. However when I changed to early morning training I found it wasnt as effective and stopped.
It works best if you train between 4-7pm.

WHen it WAS effective, what kind of results did you see? Were you going for a recomp or just a lean bulk? What time were you initially working out?

[jonebone]

I'm doing CBL but actually counting calories and it has worked well for me. Strength shot up significantly but I definitely bloated too, I mean I was consuming almost 4k calories a day. Now I'm cutting at 2500 calories and strength is staying the same while weight is dropping.

I personally enjoy CBL because it is a diet that fits my lifestyle. I find it easy to eat low carbs during the day (whey / coco oil in the morning, nuts throughout the day, tuna / baby carrots at lunch), then get all of my carbs post workout. Makes it really easy to have a nice big dinner and even splurge on dessert while still fitting in your macros.

However, I would still count your calories while doing it. The daily macros are much more important than carb timing. But now that I'm used to CBL, I'll probably never have a starchy lunch ever again.

[2nd_chance]

It's called CKD and yes, you are missing something. I've run Keto and I've run CKD, both many times. CKD is much better for muscle sparing. I didn't read any other replies but I'm sure someone has posted up the correct info.

[hammerfelt]

Isn't it pretty much a played out fact that there are no benefits to time of day food consumption?

There are benefits to time of day food consumption.

Lets say you are doing IF, where two days you fast for 24 hours. Do you think you will be more successful over time breaking the fast at 9AM or 9PM? I would rather spike Insulin at 9Pm giving a much shorter window of time to eat before bed opposed to spiking insulin at 9AM and have an entire day of eating with reckless abandon.

These books are targeted toward people that have trouble loosing weight, myself included. Eating carbs at night lessens the chance you are going to screw up the diet.

[cmoore]

First thought: IIFYM

Second thought: try it, if it works, GREAT!

[donthitmedaddy]

From what I'm gathering here, it does work, but people have different names for it. Either way I feel like people are having way too many carbs. And eating the carbs only after working out to replenish glycogen stores is a way to cut back.
Because after glycogen stores in the muscle are replenished it goes into glycogen stores in fat.