Adam's diet + nutritional periodization

[Ruma]

Links:

http://www.ironmagazine.com/article78.html

http://www.ironmagazine.com/article88.html

I recieved these 2 articles as a part of my weekly Alwyn Cosgrove newsletter. The second article talks about nutritional periodization. I did not quite get the concept. Some of the questions that come to my mind upon reading the article are :

1. What is the time interval you maintain to get "Periodic". Is it weeks or months? So you up your calorie intake once a month or once a week? How exactly you do that?

2. Once you have upped your calorie intake how long do you stay on that for before returning to lower calories.

3. When you up your calorie intake, do you do that by eating more of what has been prescribed in Adam's diet per meal? Or you do that by increasing the frequency of your meals?

4. When you have increased your calorie intake do you also increase the intensity and volume of your exercise to compensate for the extra calories?

5. How much do you increase your calorie intake in this "UP" cycle: 200/500/700/...?

6. How will you make a combination of Adam's diet and nutritional periodization work? Or are these 2 kind of diet totally perpendicular to each other or am I just DUMB?

Hope this was not too long.. Please help me figure this out.

Thanks.

[DKing]

First here is a good description of a refeed/overfeed. http://www.ruggedmag.com/index.php?type=Article&i=5&a=1

Just read the non-androgen part if AAS isn't your thing. There are a lot of other mentions of refeeds/overfeeds if you search the forum at rugged.

Somewhere between you and the author things are getting more confused than they need to be.

1. If you are talking refeeds, once a week is what most people start with.
2. Again assuming refeed, just a day.

If we are not talking refeed and you are asking about when he mentions not "chronic dieting" then its not as compicated as you make it. What he is saying is that if you spend too much time dieting then you run down your metabolism and shut off your bodys ability to burn fat efficiently. A lot of my answers would depend on your specific situation. From looking at past posts I can tell you have been dieting for a while, have you taken a break, or have you been dieting the whole time you have been here.

I would go on answering all the questions but I am not sure it matters much. What is happening is that you are reading a lot which is awesome, but you are also trying to use too much info at once. You see it a lot with people and weight routines. They constantly read about the newest and coolest way to structure the program so they switch and never make progress.

Better questions to be asking for now would be more situation specific. If you could give info like how long you have been dieting, how your days are set up (when do you lift, do cardio, etc.), what type of diet you have been following, what have your results been like so far, and anything else that relates to the topic. That way I can help you make needed changes to your diet.

I hope it doesn't bum you out that instead of answers you got more questions in return but answering a lot of these questions is pretty hard without getting specific to the person.

Oh yeah, and you owe me big for making me think about dieting and nutrition. I would much rather be thinking about how I can possibly eat more food or creating cool meal combos like the chicken/burger/chicken (see off topic post about access to advanced forum) [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

Danny

[mountn21]

I really don't think you can apply periodization to Adam's diet. Adam's is really based on autoregulation. By limiting yourself to certain types of foods (mainly protein, fat, and low GI carbs), you shouldn't have to think too much about HOW MUCH you are eating, just WHAT you are eating. I think Periodization defeats the purpose of Autoregulation.

[Ruma]

Danny,
I always had my diet written by a nutritionist(not a dietician). The only difference I find between the 2 is a Nutritionist writes a balanced meal plan taking the food pyramid into consideration and total calories amounting to 2000-2200. Dieticians tell you to restrict certain foods depending upon your goals. I may be wrong at the nomenclature but this is my understanding.

So my diet plan for a long time looked like what Adam suggested with little difference like:
1. Complex carb in every meal(Wheat bread, oatmeal etc 3 times a day) with veggies, beans, meat
2. Cheese(We call paneer) in one meal.

But I had no luck loosing the last 4 pounds following this meal plan. So I switched to low carb diet about 5 months back. And then Adam's post came along which validated the low carb diet I was following was almost correct. I do weights Monday, Wednesday, Friday and if the ONLY treadmill in the Gym is working then HIIT on Tuesday and Thursday. I have seen awesome results with this exercise cum meal plan. I am quite satisfied. Not that I want to change any of what I am doing right now, I got interested after reading the articles I mentioned.

Cool Combos... well share 'em!!

mountn21,
yeah I would think so too. I was just going crazy trying to fit this with that and then I turned around for some wise help ( I mean I turned here for the help)

Ruma

[mountn21]

Thats what I love about Adam's Diet is that, if autoregulation works for you, it makes meal choices and the entire diet just soooo easy to follow. As long as you know what foods you can eat and not eat, you do not have to count the calories. Your appetite will regulate them for you! Definitely a time saver.

[img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]