How To Mix The Anabolic Diet With Your Training
Oct 24th, 2007 by Mehdi Tags: Anabolic Diet, Nutrition
You need carbs for energy. The absence of carbs on the Anabolic Diet makes workouts at the end of the week harder. I received questions on how to mix the Anabolic Diet with your training. Here’s the answer.
Carbs Stores. Carbs are stored in your muscle glycogen. These serve as direct energy supply to your muscles for high intensity activities like strength training.
- Weekdays. Low carb intake, glycogen stores get depleted.
- Weekends. High carb intake, glycogen stores are filled.
Overcompensation. Your body overcompensates the low carb intake by filling your muscle glycogen more on high carb days than it would normally. Storage stops as soon as you go low carb again.
High intensity activities like strength training use glycogen for energy. Low intensity activities like walking use fat. The more high intensity activities you do, the quicker the stores get depleted. And when they are, workouts get hard.
Organizing Your Training. Perform high intensity activities when your carbs stores just got filled. If you load carbs in the weekend, Monday & Tuesday are your best days. Not a good idea to do a lot of volume on Thursday & Friday.
The Texas Method is a training program that fits the above schedule. High volume (5×5) on Monday, low volume (one heavy set) on Friday. This works perfectly with the Anabolic Diet.
Training on High Carb Days. I don’t like it as carbs make me tired on high carb days. If you’re carb sensitive & have that same problem: load carbs on different days (Su/Mo or Fr/Sa) or train on different days.
Cardio. The Anabolic Diet burns more fat than a regular diet. Going low carbs forces your body to use fat for energy. You don’t need cardio. But if you want to lose fat faster, follow these tips:
- Moderate Intensity. High intensity activities use glycogen. You need the glycogen for strength training. You should breathe heavier than when at rest, but not gasping. Let the cardio burn fat.
- Avoid HIIT. HIIT is high intensity. It will empty your carbs stores fast.
Midweek Carb Loading. If you’re very active, meaning you do soccer, football or rowing like Anthony: try midweek carb loadings. Be at least 3 months on the Anabolic Diet before trying this. Your body must be adapted to the diet first.
Do the midweek carb up on Wednesday morning. Go for 1000kcal carbs in a one hour sitting. Go back to low carb the next meal to stay in fat burning mode.
Tired of the way you look? You want to build muscle & lose fat while getting stronger? Click here to download my 52 pages 100% FREE eBook.
Articles You Might Also Like:
Subscribe with RSS
So, is this saying that only PL and BB can use this diet with success? I typically train with full intensity at a kickboxing gym as well as lift mod to heavy 3 days a week. Is this TOO MUCH VOLUME to benefit from this diet? That would suck because I’ve already bought all my Anabolic Diet groceries!
Low carb diets are never a good idea for athletes Jace. You can try mid week carb ups & see how you react.
Hi. I’m not an athlete, actually a just a busy college student trying to get fit, more specifically build muscle (I’m a skinny guy). I do full-body workouts 2-3 times a week (naturally alternates with the calendar) around 45 minutes to an hour with 2 rest days in-between. I tried every other day and that burned me out. How would I mix an anabolic diet with that? Also can you lift weights on high carb days? I know you stated it but I’m still not sure what you said.
@Kevin
What’s your question?
Oh sorry if I wasn’t clear. So with the anabolic diet, I just train like normal (like what I said in my previous reply) regardless of whether it’s a carb day or not?
@Kevin
From the article above:
i was reading and i lift 5 days a week monday-friday and take the weekends off….Monday’s i do chest and tuesday’s i do back. And i see it says to due high intensity once you’ve stored your carbs, so i could do legs monday since that is very high intensity workout and chest tuesday i’m figuring. And i can still follow the diet without the midweek thing?
Is there no way that I can incorporate HIIT into this diet?
If I am not wrong, if I load up on carbs on weekends, I can perform HIIT on Monday? Would HIIT once a week be too little for someone who wants to lose 16KG?
@Alex:
If you incorporate HIIT into this diet, you’ll deplet your carb stores, VERY quick. I tried this for losing weight for 2 months. By the end of those months I was absolutely worn out - everyday tired, never with energy… but I had good cardio. Still, I was not losing weight anymore. The more I ran, the more I had to eat, and the more I ate, the less I lost.
Solution? I stoped HIIT Cardio and began weightlifting. Now I don’t even do this Anabolic Diet! I do StrongLifts 5×5 and I’m losing weight. Average 5kg on the first month, with low carb diet. Now I need too much carbs, since I need energy for heavy lifts. So I’m losing 1 to 2 kg a month. Steady
Ah, if you like to HIIT, do it once in a while. But don’t do it with the purpose of losing weight.
That’s my suggestion.
I just started the anabolic diet last week. I lost five pounds and think I gained a couple back over the weekends, haha. I’m not a big guy, a little chubby, mostly muscular. The reason why I lost the weight (even without getting to the gym) was because something Mitelus mentioned.
I can tell you from experience and research, that Mitelus is partially right on. The reason that his weight training helps him lose more weight is that bigger muscles burn fat faster than smaller muscles. This is probably due to the fact that a pound of muscle takes 9 times the calories to maintain than a pound of fat (and why I lost so much weight in one week). I think he could stay on the anabolic diet and maintain a healthier weight. Plus, all the saturated fats and proteins are killer for muscle development.
I’m a little sick right now. I got a fever during the end of my carb-up weekend. I’m wondering if the diet had anything to do with the sudden onset of sickness by running my immune system down with the carb up-take or if I’m just an unlucky dude.