calorie intake help.

Yay... Doctari approves

Pretty Stoked!

thanks for all the advice and help doctari,today is my first high carb/low protein day seeing i started dieting on sunday...

i knew that the high carb day boosts your metabolism but i also heard that it replenishes glycogen stores aswell as bringing your body out of starvation from restricting it from a carbohydrate source..from what i have been reading (i stand to be corrected here) they recon that after 3 days of constant low calorie / low carbs your body goes into a starvation/survival mode as it is not getting in enough calories from a certain food source,so when you switch the amount of carbohydrates and protein on day 4 your body thinks that it is getting an abundance of that food source and breaks starvation and it doesn't realize you are still restricting it from calories ( your carbs are high and protein is low so you still on a calorie deficit) and ignites your metabolsim again..

doctari is this true or even slightly true

325g is noting.....im currently eating 500g of protein a day (only 100g carbs though:) ) and about 100g of fat (peanut butter, flax seed oil, fish oil and the fat in my food).

If you want to build a house you need bricks. AA's are your bricks, so if you want to grow eat those bricks!!!

well you see some of us our students and its kinda expensive eating that way already so eat that amount u recon will break the bank...

djeasy, you have it right on about the way carb cycling works!

Mike007, it all depends on how big you are. If you weigh more than 100kgs, 4-5 gr prot/kg body weight can easily bring you up to those numbers. I use more than that at times, as I weigh in the 120kg+ group. But for a guy in the 70-80kg, that's way too much - it will stress your kidney function. You will not grow on a diet having too little carbs. Ask any body builder how much weight he gains in his last 6 weeks pre-contest when he is usually on very high prot/low carb diet. Very little of them will gain more than a kg Lean Body Mass - usually only due to the use of high doses AAS and GH.

You are right about the use of ample amounts of prot for building muscle, but it must be \"balanced\" to carbs in accordance to your training you do. A body builder will never grow on a diet of say 20-25%prot/20% fat and the remainder carbs, BUT this is usually the ratio marathon athletes use. Using too little carbs and you will not have enough fuel for the strenous workouts you need to stress the muscle tissue to grow.

So you see, it all has to do with balance and what you are planning to accomplish.....

Hi Doctori

I know all the above, im just currently cutting.
Im also carb cycling 2 days low (100g) 1 day high (400g). One question I have for you and if I understood you correctly I would like to kindly disagree. On my high carb days I keep my protein exactly the same (roughly 500), why would you recommend dropping the protein lower on high carb days?

As I see it most of my carbs will hopefully not be metabolised and will hopefully be used to replenish my dep;eted glycogen strores, the added insulin and other growth factrors relleased from the very high amount of calories will hopefully also trigger some growth which will need the high protein on the high carb day. I also think the high calorie day will also help your metabolism and prevent it from slowing down

What are your thoughts?

Forgot to give some stats

107kg's
7% BF
183cm

Mike007, Doctari is on leave for two weeks. Anyway, you can use Clen, ECA... to keep your metabolism high as well.

^^^ Thanks for that, but it is unfortunately not the answer, you cant stay on clen and ECA forever, you need to keep your metabolism high through cardio and diet. i do use ECA before training when im feeling tired, but I personally wont touch clen

Using Ketotifen with Clen will prevent down-regulation of beta 2 receptors, so you can use it for very long periods. I agree with you 100% about the cardio and diet, I just meant that Clen and ECA will help even more.

Why don't you like Clen? Do you experience any bad side-effects?

I can't tolerate ECA at all, but Clen is not so harsh on me at all.

Probably cause I havent done enough research on clen yet.

Mike007, what works for you, works for you - but not necessarily for the next guy. Body building is a very individualised sport. My info I give, is given in general. If you are at your stats as you say, then continue doing what is working for you. Obviously, you have in the past experimented with different calory intakes to come to your excellent stats where you are, but it has taken you time. Some people here are still novices at our sport, some more seasoned and still making mistakes. To prep for a competition, takes some experimenting.
For instance, you can go as low as 100gr of carbs a day and still keep your lean muscle, I cannot fall under 250gr on my low days, or I easily drop 2 kgs. I diet pre-contest on 3850 - 4000 kCal A DAY and will go in at 110-111kgs comp day. Give that to the next guy with my weight, and he will stay fat and never cut for a show.
To conclude, and I am sure I have mentioned it earlier on in this string - nothing is cast in stone and body building is definetely not an exact science.
And you are welcome to disagree. This is a open site for each and every one's opinions.

Remember too, I don't know everything - I learn a lot from people like you. I have been totally out of the sport for 12 years and only started come back last year August. It is nice to see how different people with even the same physiques, diet differently pre-contest and still come in highly competitive!

Help needed!

I calculated my daily caloric needs via the formula that Doctari supplied. My maintenace calories /24 hours is 2400 Calories.

Now, my objective is to shred some festive season fat and to start dieting for Muscle Evolution Gran Prix. I calculated a diet at 1800 Calories / 24hours at 50% protein, 30% Carbs, 20% fat.

My question is that when I have my \"cheat day\" on day 4, I consume about 16,67% (50% / 3)Protein out of the 1800 calories. That equals 71g of protein for the day!!

Now, I know all bodybuilders are paranoid when it comes to protein and stuff, actually I think we are all perfectionists. But, can't I maybe keep my protein at 50% of 1800 calories, and just increase my daily caloric intake to 2200 which means an extra 400cals of carbs for that day? 2200 is still under my lbw maintenance level at 2400cals.

Another thing. Doctari, you said in 1 post that a person should not consume carbs after 5pm. Now we all have different times of going to bed. Can you maybe re-phrase that by saying something in the line of no carbs within 6 hours of bed?

Thanx guys!!

Kraz

It all depends on what you want to accomplish. You are now trying to get rid of your body fat%. The best way to do this, is by increasing your lean body weight(lean muscle weight). If you decrease your calories too much at once, you will loose fat, but you will also \"starve\" your muscles from essential nutrients and thus loose lean muscle mass at the same time - not a good scenario!!

OK, what I'm about to teach you, is something you will have to experiment with, as it is also an individualised response. Say for argument sake you weigh 100kg with BF% = 12%. That means you have 12kg's fat and 88kg's muscle and skeletal tissue. Say you would want to decrease your BF% to 8%. That means you need to drop 4kg fat(and hopefully retain all the muscle or even pack on some more). 1gr fat = ±9,2kCal. Thus, 4kg's = 4x1000x9.2 = 36800kCals. Now let us say you want to loose this over 8 week period. That = 36800/56 days=657kCals per day. If you subtract that amount from your daily allowance of X amount of calories for maintenance, YOU WILL DEFINITELY LOOSE LEAN MUSCLE!! Always remember that, when \"cutting\", try and protect your LBW. It will help to be as \"anabolic\" as possibly during your endeavour, if you catch my drift....

Generally, dieting is about calory defeceites, irrespective from which source these calories come from. By the end of the day, you must have burnt up more or taken less than needed to maintain your current BF% status.

I believe it best to eat about 200kCals less than your calculated maintenance and do enough aerobics to burn the rest. In the case of (hypothetically) the 657kCals, I would suggest you take 2200kCals and cycle/aerobic the remainder of 457kCals. Up the intensity level of your stationary gym cycle to the level that you burn that amount of calories in a 20-30 min session.

The bigger athletes do well on the regime I supplied you. When they diet, they try to maintain their calculated minimum calories - 200kCals, and all they do is shift the amounts of prot vs carbs.
But, you will have to experiment and see what works for you.
If you look at Mike007's method, you will see that he consumes ± 3430kCals on his low carb days, but on his high carb days he will consume 4685kCals. That equates to an average of ± 4058kCals/24h over a 3 day period. If you look at his physical stats and you run the formula in his case, you will find that he is eating much more that what is required acc to the formula. But why??? Look at his BF% - it's 7%. He can eat that much and not get fat. Why? Because he has a high volume of lean muscle - and that is a absolute furnace for burning calories. He further \"tricks\" his body by shifting the \"gears\" so to say, by his way of carb cycling. You would probably do well with the same method if you only had 7%BF. But you need to get there first. So, the calory defeceite method is the way to go. I have seen many a body builder eat more and more calories as they get closer to competition day, in order to maintain the lean muscle mass. But they lost their BF% slowly during their pre-contest build-up, without having to crash Total Body Weight. If your BF% is 12% 8 weeks out from comp time, you will loose some lean mass in your indeavour to reach 4,5% BF. That is the typical example of \"crashing\" your weight pre-contest.

About the carbs. Try and have a serving of high and medium GI carbs right after your main workout. Vitargo is a excellent product in this case. Try and stay away from starchy type carbs after your post-workout meal/drink, especially if you are trying to decrease BF%. Stick to the cruciferous veg, like brocolli, cabage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts. You only need to replenish your liver and muscle glycogen levels without over compensating - the latter will lead to glycose then shifted to fat stores. Basically, you need to replenish just enough to have enough glycogen reserves to use during your recuperative period when you sleep. Next morning, upon waking, your glycogen stores should be totally depleted and your first carb meal again should be of high and mediunm GI origin, and then after that you build up on your reserves by eating low GI carbs, up to your workout time.

Hope this answers your question.

It does, thank you doctari

Doctari,

Would that mean that I have to do cardio every single day?

Thanx

Kraz, that depends. The norm is to do 3 -4 sessions of about 20 min of cycling per week \"off season\", and then to increase this to more days and longer sessions as you get closer to comp day. It all depends where you are know and over what period of time you want to drop the BF% with how much.
OK, let's assume you still need to drop that 4kg's we were talking of earlier. Lets presume you have 16 weeks instead of 8 weeks in which to do it. Then that equates to 3-4 sessions per week. Right?
The problem, however, arises when you have too much BF% to drop in too little a time. Then suddenly you need to drop, say 1200kCal per day - what then? That's an awfull lot of cycling to do every day - you will have to cut your food, and that is never a good thing....

Bottom line: try and stay at 9 - 10% BF at least 15 - 16 weeks out from comp day - then you won't need to take off large amounts of calories. Loose it slowly and evenly - the body adapts better to this and you will easily retain more lean mass, as you are not shocking your system.

Kraz, what is your weight and BF%? Are you prepping for comp? How much time do you have?

It makes sense what you are saying Doctari. This is my situation:

15% Bodyfat
96,6Kg at the moment (Got some water retention from Depo)
1,8m Height

Comp is about 3,5 months away, which means that I got about 14 weeks to go. I got clen, ECA (75mg) on me and getting my thyroid hormone on Monday. Started the clen and eca this past Monday. I'm currently using 200mg of Depo every 5 days and 350mg of equipoise once a week. Been on cycle for about 4 weeks now, entering my 5th week on this coming Monday.

Hope this give you some indication

Kraz
Did a bit of number crunching - you will need to drop ± 10 kgs of fat! That means you will have to cut your calory intake by about 900 kCals per day - that's a lot!

I would suggest the following:
Instead of working your maintenance out for 96kgs, do it for 90kgs. Then cut that by 200kCals per day and cycle enough to burn another say 400kCals per day. We will be aiming to get you in by 90+ kgs hard? Do this for the next 2 weeks and let's see where you end up. Don't do your BF% again before then. Always make sure that you have not trained legs for 3 days and chest 2 days prior to your measurements.

For the first 8 weeks, we do the BF% every 2'nd week - as we get closer to comp day, we do it weekly and even closer twice a week the last 2-3 weeks.

I would sugeest you start earlier with Anavar than normal - say 8 - 10 weeks out. It usually takes about 2 - 3 weeks to really kick in - I would want it in your case to run at optimum performance by week 7-6 already. We might need to cut calories if your BF% is not at about 8-9% then. You will need to be highly anabolic at this stage. Last 6 weeks options can be any of Winstrol or Tren. Start with Kessar now already, 10mg should be fine for now, you will probably need 20mg pd later on.

ECA at 75mg per day is fine now. You will build up tolerance, so we can slowly increase that as we go along, 150mg/24h being the max optimum in that case. It really starts losing its effects by 12 weeks use.

You are tall, the same height as Marius Dohne. We will have to remove the fat and put on muscle the same time, or else you are going to look stringy. Work out your cycle with gear that is orientated towards gaining lean, hard mass without water retention.

If you are willing and it would be grand as a \"project\" for this website, keep us updated on your progress. We might be able to give you some advice...

Thanx for you assistance Doctari Realy appreciate it.

Ok, I'm adding photos of me at my contest day which took place on 2007-07-21. I entered Juniours U/21 at 71,2kg completly natural at that time. My coach at that time was kind of old school and still believed in bulking up off-season and cutting calories to 1800 or less 12 weeks out of compo (crash dieting). I won't lie.... It did work, but I lost a lot of size.

Its only after about 2 months after comp and some bulking up again that I started doing some research into different and update methods to approuch the bodybuiilding industry. That when I realised that the method that my coach an I followed was completly off course. Thats the reason for my 15% bodyfat at the moment.

Ok... If I weighed 71,2kg at comp day about 7 months back, can I really aim to enter at 90kg Doctari? I thought that maybe after my first proper cycle I will be able to enter at 76 / 78kg max! If you can get me to 90kg by comp time and I'm hard, I'll promise I will kiss your feet

Ok... So I am faced with a dilemma here... My questions now is.... Should I try to compete this year, or should I get all my facts straight and prepare properly and enter WPF U/23 next year?

Doctari, If you can supply me with your e-mail address I will drop you an e-mail with the photos

Thanx again!

On second thought....

Here is the photos, avail to everyone.

Sozi everyone....

Size of photo is 2 big to upload.

Kraz

Let's aim for that 90!
But you will have to experiment with your diet.
The more times you diet down, the easier it gets and the better you will look. The more you compete, the more you learn what works for you and what not.
Do what I suggested and let's see what happens.
You will have to choose your Gear correctly, though. Try to get in the Anavar ASAP into your cycle - you need to get as anabolic as quickly as possible.

And never not believe in your self - that will make you not accomplish what you set out to do.

I'm very hunry to win... Lets try it!

kraz wrote:

Sozi everyone....

Size of photo is 2 big to upload.

Kraz, I'm going to update the site later today with some new photos in the gallery ect; I'll increase the upload size as well.