Go with the flow!

[Espi]

Putting what I wrote in Bytsi's blog in here as well as I've got a personal ETA

Originally Posted by Bytsi

Hey Jes, thanks for sayin' hi!
Reading Lyle McD's flexible dieting book - I want to learn about refeeds and diet breaks and how to do 'em right. If what I'm reading is right (and I checked on his forum but didn't get a great amount of info), if I do a 5-hour refeed, I should be eating over 2000 kcal of carbs during that 5 hours...

1.2 g carb / kg lean body mass (I have about 110 # or 50 kg lbm). 1.2 x 50 = 600. That means 600 g carbs = 2400 kcal!!!!!!

Anyone have experience with this?!?!? Seems like a crapload of kcals! If I eat "normally" before the refeed (he suggests eating normally, then doing the refeed for 5 hours before bed, so 5-10pm, for example), that's over 3000 kcal for the day (let's say I eat 800 of my "normal" 1500 kcal before 5pm). Yikes!!!!! Just seems SOOOO high!!!! I dunno if I could do it, but if I eat less, it might not serve its purpose...

I dunno... hope someone else has done this and has thoughts on it or could chime in with advice...

Not posting much in here but since I read everyone's log daily by email subscription and just started a thread elsewhere asking about optimal amounts of carbs, I'm answering the 'mail'. I've got the FlexDiet book and actually reopened it to do the MATH.

Actually my question got started because I don't retain nuch water at all from refeeds. Sometimes I've even lost weight a day later! So, I wondered if my refeed had been successful at all when I don't retain water. Turned out that success of a refeed shouldn't be measured by water wt gains , huge or small but by how pumped your muscles feel and esp. long-term if you start losing fat faster afterwards.

Generally people start by using math and then go on to go by feeling.

What I have to say is that once I'm really hungry for carbs (which mostly coincides with a peak in progesterone as well as right before I ovulate) ,
300g of carbs = NOTHING, zilch, nada.
400g might just hit the sweet spot but there's a good chance I'll 'rinse & repeat' a few days later which of course is bad news as overeating several days in a row (or EOD) will lead to fat gain.
This overeating will not happen though with something like 500-600g of carbs.. which just happens to be the upper end of my 1 day refeed allotment. Actually I had 630g the other day and that's way over...

Trouble is.. I've always planned for approx. 400g of carbs and anytime I go over, it's a very SLOPPY refeed = too much fat & too much fructose as I tend to have lost control by then.
Which I will remedy by aiming at the upper end of the 1day refeed on day 15 (pre-ovulation) and on day 25 (progesterone peak) when I end up being most hungry naturally. I may move both backwards or forwards depending on how I feel on that day. Originally I'd planned them on day 22 but it seems they come later when ovulatory temp surge is late, so when that happens.. postponing is a better idea as otherwise I'd do 1 planned and 1 unplanned refeed very close to each other.

Going back to the math GIRL YOU GOT YOUR NUMBERS ALL WRONG.

It's not 1.2 g/kg but 12g/kg and that's only for the 1d refeeds. Here's my counts for myself (LBM = 46kg)

a 5hr refeed every week @ 3-6g/kg LBM (140-280g)
- a 1day refeed every 10-14 days @ 6-12g/kg LBM (280-550g)

For you: 150-300g for the 5hr refeed & 300-600g carbs for the 1 day refeed.
You can start mid-range and see if this works, if it's not enough go up, if too much (when you're very insulin resistant, which I don't assume), go down.

...

ETA the main reason why I want to time my refeeds on day 15 & day 25 (or rather about 7 days after the ovulatory T-surge) is not just because appetite will be out of control on those days but also because I want to experiment w influencing the cycle.
I've noticed that when I'm very compliant w my diet, the T-surge gets delayed. One month when I had a huge binge day early in the cycle, the jump happened much earlier. When eating at mtn it's supposedly on day 17, hence why day 15 got picked.
Vice versa.. being too compliant post-ovulatory and prevent binges will make the cycle get shortened to somewhere around 23-25 days.
Sofar it's working.. it's day 28 today and TOM hasn't come yet after overfeeding on day 25.

[ljk]

Still, I find that deplorable. To steal personal belongings from someone moving? That's low!

Originally Posted by Espi

When you live in a student apartment complex with students that aren't having a lot of money, that was to be expected. They didn't know what they grabbed , just stole a couple of (closed) boxes that happened to contain my towels and cookbooks.

[Espi]

Tell me about it.. but what can you do?

The really sad thing was that I only noticed a few days later as I thought the towels were still in boxes that weren't unpacked. Not all of the towels were stolen, but most of the good ones (that I had taken with me from my parent's home) were. Now I all have cheap towels that I won't spill tears over when they go missing.

[Espi]

Today is the start of a new program.. I've ditched the UD2.0 like set-up.

Will be alternating between doing 3 workouts/wk at a slight deficit or surplus with rotating focuses (strength/tension/endurance) within a workout and doing just 2 workouts a week with discrete tension & strength workouts and having 5 diet days to arrive at a slightly larger deficit.

Nothing huge re deficit, just about 5-10% so that I may once again land in the sweet spot = simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss, which seems to be so elusive for a fat ectomorph like me


Wednesday July 30
Mix-it-UP A1

all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
The usual 10 exercises , including pushups.

strength
1 hang clean
week 1: 25x3-28x2-30x1-36x1 – 41x1 – 30x1
2 standing MP (preceded by hang clean)
Week 1: 30x5-7, PR for reps

1 pull through
week 1 : 36,3x12 – 38,8x8, PR for reps
2 kneeling cable crunch
Week 1 : 26,3x18 – 28,8x12

tension
1 db press
week 1: (2x16)x8-8-10
2 db rows
week 1: 16x8-8

1 OH triceps cable extension
Week 1: 13,8x15-17 PR for reps!
2 biceps curl (EZ-bar)
week 1: 17,5x13-12

endurance
1 leg press
Week 1 : 26x10 – 47x 20
2 chin up
Week 1: none (both cable station & Smith machine were occupied)
2 lat pull down
Week 1: 40,5x15, PR for reps
3 leg extension
Week 1: 35,5x12

Training statistics
Week 1: volume: 11309– sets: 32 – reps: 293 – avg reps/set : 9,2 – kg/rep : 38,6

Opinion: decent workout despite oppressive humidity & not having slept enough. The db presses & rows were probably disappointing due to having done heavyish cleans & MPs right before.

[stingo]

Umm, where's the Turkish Getups?

[Espi]

They only will get a place once a week. But actually you may be right about me putting them in today's schedule as the abs get done earlier and Turkish Get Ups require more attention than crunches you can do mindlessly.

[Espi]

I've just looked at my averages for the past few months. The first run of semi-UD2.0 went very well and I dropped quite a bit of bf% (again using 30d averages of Omron) but the 2nd time around... nothing.
Could be stress-related or could be because I've eaten too sloppily in the week I didn't have access to my food data and could only track and count everything 1 week later.

I'm also going to add some cardio back in. Now I've stopped mimicking UD2.0 mostly by ditching the high rep workout (felt like crap on the consecutive diet days), I will need something else to maintain a reasonable deficit.

Re the training plan: another small change.. will put RDLs back into the plan.
1 I miss them and
2 pull throughs don't make me feel that I hav worked the hams hard enough.
3 it may burn a few calories more?

[LisaS]

espi - I know you mostly read by email - I shot you a PM with a question

[Espi]

Both actually, but I can keep up w a lot more people that way. It takes far less time to read logs by email. Just can't read my own this way..must be the settings of the forum.

.............................. .............................. .............................. .....

Today is August 1, hence time for a monthly update.
Unfortunately the news is not as great as for the first watered down UD2.0 run.. goes on to show you shouldn’t mess w a program too much!

30d weight etc. averages Aug1/July1
August 1, 2008
61,7kg = -0,5kg
25,5bf% = -0,0%
F: 15,8kg=-0,1kg
= 1,7kg F to go to 60,0kg @ 23,5% = good bf% for my age bracket!

LBM: 45,9 = -0,4 kg
P-ratio: 80% LBM loss re to 30d avg wt loss!!! WTF!!!!

July 1, 2008
62,2kg = -0,6kg
25,5bf% = -0,6%
F: 15,9kg=-0,5kg
= 1,8kg F to go to 60,5kg @ 23,5% = good bf% for my age bracket!

LBM: 46,3kg=-0,1kg
P-ratio: 5% LBM loss re to 30d avg wt loss . IOW, barely any LBM lost at all. If I hadn’t been ill I’d even have gained LBM, but due to a stomach bug I lost the gained LBM again.

30 day average intake, maintenance & predicted expenditure
In July I was eating 1989kcal, which was 1,7% less than my actual maintenance of 2019 kcal, which led to 97g fat loss.
By using my own formulas, I had estimated to have a maintenance of 2140 kcal, so that’s 121kcal more than the actual maintenance, that’s a deviation of 5% w predicted mtn .

In June I was eating 1911kcal, which was 7,5% less than my actual maintenance of 2066 kcal, which led to 515g fat loss.
By using my own formulas, I had estimated to have a maintenance of 2156 kcal, so that’s 90kcal more than the actual maintenance.
Still more than the actual mtn like last month, but this time I was prepared and just ate less again to the tune of a 150 kcal decrease.

30 day average macronutrient breakdown
July
carbs: 189g (+15) | 38% (+2) | 3,1g/kg BW (+0,3)
protein: 133g (-1) | 27% (-1) | 2,2g/kg BW (0,0) = 2,9g/kg LBM (0,0)
fat: 77g (+1) | 35% (-1) | 1,3g/kg BW (+0,1)
sat. fat : 34% (-1)
fiber: 23g (-5)


June
carbs: 174g (-13) | 36% (+1) | 2,8g/kg BW (-0,2)
protein: 134g (-12) | 28% (+1) | 2,2g/kg BW (-0,1) = 2,9g/kg LBM (-0,2)
fat: 76g (-15) | 36% (-2) | 1,2g/kg BW (-0,3)
sat. fat : 35% (-1)
fiber: 28g (+2)



……………………………………………………………………………… …………

30d avg activity
July 2008
Amt of rest-WO-days: 18r-12T (-1/+1)
kg lifted : 5683 (-46)
activity: 88 min/day (+15)
Finally a month in which not a single workout got ditched due to overtraining or illness!

June 2008
Amt of rest-WO-days: 19r-11T (+2/-2)
kg lifted : 5729 (-198)
activity: 73 min/day (-15): worked out less and ditched all indoor cardio but kept volume fairly high.

Comparison rest vs training days
July 2008
Calories eaten: rest 1611 (+122) =75% (+5) of mtn | lifting 2557 (-84) = 120% (-7) of mtn
Carbs: rest 128g (+18) | training 281g (-4)
Protein: rest 118g (+4) | training 156g (-12)
Fat : rest 70g (+4) | training 89 (-4)g

June 2008
Calories eaten: rest 1489 (-360) =70% (-15) of mtn | lifting 2641 (+101) = 127% (+8) of mtn
Carbs: rest 110g (-32) | training 285g (+39)
Protein: rest 114g (-13) | training 168g (-2)
Fat : rest 66g (-21) | training 93 (-5)g

Drawing conclusions from this monthly summary and trying to come up with reasons why all of a sudden I’m losing LBM while calorie intake doesn’t seem to have changed much, is hard. It is tempting to think that perhaps the overfeeding on workout days is one of the key factors. Especially since I just looooove the concept of ‘diet hard’ vs. ‘eat hard’ which comes so natural to me and has so many anabolic advantages apart from just the FUN factor.
Yet, not making that change already.. but will be plugging along like I did. Let’s just wait & see what happens this month.
If it doesn't change for the better.. I'll be back at the starve vs overfeeding pattern which has always worked like a charm! Something like 60-70% of mtn vs 120-130% of mtn on rest/WO days.

Re training it also seems that while depletion style-workouts drain me, they are surely very effective. However, putting all the strength endurance work in 1 workout surrounded by a series of low carb/calorie days = a surefire recipe for misery.
There must be an easier way out.. which is: doing it the way I am so fond of doing by rotating emphasis on a certain body part within 1 week and do low / moderate / high rep exercises within a single workout.
Then for 1-2 weeks I'll be dieting harder and just go back to 2 workouts with discrete rep ranges (1 tension & 1 power WO) but leave out the too draining depletion workout.

[Espi]

Friday August 1
Mix-it-UP B1

all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
The usual 10 exercises , including pushups.
tension
BW chins
Week1 : BWx5

hang clean
week 1: 25x3-28x3-30x4-36x4, PR! – 35x1 – 30x1 – 28x1

front squat
Week 1: 45x9-8

OH lat pull downs
week 1: 45x9—8

strength
db press
week 1: (2x14)x10 – (2x18)x5 – (2x22)x5-4

Yates BB BOR
week 1: 50x5 – 62,5x5-4

biceps curl (EZ-bar)
week 1: 25x5-6

triceps rope pushdown
Week 1: 23,8x5-3

endurance

leg curl
Week 1 : 40x15

standing gluteus
Week 1: 47,5x15/15

standing db shoulder press
Week 1: (2x9)x15

Saxon side bend
Week 1: 6x12 (both ways)

Training statistics
Week 1: volume: 10196– sets: 33 – reps: 241 – avg reps/set : 7,3 – kg/rep : 42,3

Opinion: for half of the WO I was almost afraid to pass out for being so dizzy because of either low glycogen but more likely too low mineral levels and still being dehydrated.. must seriously work at getting in enough water & minerals when the weather is so humid.
Being more or less glycogen depleted (no prior carb loading) didn’t help either.. so strength was not there, didn’t push for failure in any exercise. Only thing that was relatively easy were the chinups, I’m foreseeing a 6th rep in the near future

[Espi]

Monday August 4
Mix-it-UP C1 (emphasis on quads &upper back)

all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
The usual 10 exercises , including pushups.

power
hang clean
week 1: 25x3-28x3-31x3-36x3

strength
weighted chins
Week1 : BW+6x2-2-2-2

front squat
Week 1: 45x5 – 50x4 – 55x3 – 62,5x2


tension
Romanian DL
Week 1: 50x5-10 – 60x8 – 70x6

standing MP
Week 1 : 23x11 – 22x10

Smith lunge
Week 1: 40x8 for each leg

endurance
push-ups
Week 1: BWx6-6-7 (first set as part of warmup)

seated cable row
Week 1: 31,3x20 with a really sloooooooooow negative.

pec deck
Week 1: 40x11

agility
Turkish get-up
Week 1: 2x2 .. and then I got a major cramp in my foot & calf , so abandoned.

Training statistics
Week 1: volume: 9914– sets: 30 – reps: 195 – avg reps/set : 6,5 – kg/rep : 50,8

Opinion: decent workout , except for the very last one, where I got cramps despite using sports drink.. I waited too long before drinking all of it and had been low carbing for 2 days = depleted glycogen (and mineral stores) despite the mini-carbup from quinoa.
Also tweaked something in the neck after doing the second last hang clean.. Gah, I’d love to drop the weight but I have to catch the barbells myself, and when catching it, I must have looked sideways or something. Hopefully it’ll clear up in a few days. For this upcoming week there will only be 2 workouts planned.. just 2 discrete tension & power workouts (not mixed like the previous 3).
BTW, I’ve been reading tons about DoggCrapp.. it’s quite overwhelming as so much is different. I may try a few tricks from the program, like paying attention to reallllly sloooooooow negatives for the endurance stuff I’m adding at the end or perhaps add 1 ‘widow’maker to a tension exercise (20 breathing reps for squats should do it ) .

[Espi]

Friday Aug 8
Mix-it-UP A2

all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
The usual 10 exercises , including pushups plus

Turkish get-up
Week 1: 2x2 .. and then I got a major cramp in my foot & calf , so abandoned.
Week 2: 2x5/5 for each hand , starting over again but now as part of warm-up when I’m still fresh.

power
hang clean
week 1: 25x3-28x2-30x1-36x1 – 41x1 – 30x1
week 2: 25x1- 28x1 – 31x1-1 – 37x1 – 42x1, PR for wt – 35x1 – 28x1 – 25x1

strength
standing MP (preceded by hang clean)
Week 1: 30x5-7, PR for reps
Week 2: 25x3 – 28x3 – 31x6-5, PR for reps

Romanian DL
week 1 : ---
week 2: 50x6 – 62,5x8 – 72,5x6 – 82,5x4-5

pull through
week 1 : 36,3x12 – 38,8x8, PR for reps
week 2: 31,3x12-13 (added them back in at last moment, hence the lower wt)

kneeling cable crunch
Week 1 : 26,3x18 – 28,8x12
Week 2: -----

tension
db press
week 1: (2x16)x8-8-10
week 2: (2x14)x8 – (2x17)x12-10

db rows
week 1: 16x8-8
week 2: 14x8 - 17x12 – 10 (pulled up more explosively)

OH triceps cable extension
Week 1: 13,8x15-17 PR for reps!
Week 2: 16,3x11-12, PR for wt & reps

biceps curl (EZ-bar)
week 1: 17,5x13-12
week 2: 20x10-7

endurance
leg press
Week 1 : 26x10 – 47x 20
Week 2: 26x8 – 49,5x22

1-leg leg press
week 1: ----
week 2: 26x5 for left / 19x8 for right leg (overestimated strength.. used to be able to do 10 reps for 26 & 20reps for 19kg)

chin up
Week 1: none (both cable station & Smith machine were occupied)
Week 2: BWx3

lat pull down
Week 1: 40,5x15, PR for reps
Week 2: 40,5x12

leg extension
Week 1: 35,5x12
Week 2: 35,5x13

Training statistics
Week 1: volume: 11309– sets: 32 – reps: 293 – avg reps/set : 9,2 – kg/rep : 38,6
Week 2: volume: 14567– sets: 45 – reps: 317 – avg reps/set : 7,0 – kg/rep : 46,0

Opinion: started to drag for a bit at the end.. no wonder, the volume was quite a bit higher, among others because I also cleaned the barbells when putting them back in the rack. Last night’s carbs (approx. 160g) barely seemed to make a difference but I think I’d never have been able to make it through the WO w/o them, never mind pull off a couple of PRs.

[stingo]

I was going to say - that's a loooong workout. I do like how you're listing week 1 and week 2 stats.

[Espi]

In case you didn't notice.. I've relocated the Turkish get-ups to the very start as I'm too clumsy to do them right at the end. This exercise is really totally NOT about strength but everything about balance/agility, even w stupid low weights.

Originally Posted by stingo

I was going to say - that's a loooong workout. I do like how you're listing week 1 and week 2 stats.

Decided to do that since so many people had no clue what I meant with the (+1 , + ... ) notation. This way they can see what pattern there is in the workouts, viz. within a cycle I'm supposed to either up the weights or up the reps re to the previous similar workout.