Plan A rapidly accelerates into Plan B
I had anticipated using a carb cycling diet during my contest prep; essentially a low carb diet with intermittent high carb days. The goal is maximising fat loss whilst preserving lean muscle, so you go into the show with a hard, lean look. I must also add, a "protein appreciation class" really should be added to the skills one must acquire for this sport, due to the gargantuan intake of this particular macro nutrient. I don't consider chocolate whey isolate a treat anymore!
In theory, carb cycling sounds really sensible and effective and there is no doubt this works for many people. However, I seem to always be the minority that responds to a completely different strategy. I really didn't fare well on this diet plan. To add insult to injury, I started really easy with two days low carb (65g/day) followed by a medium (98g) or high carb day (183g) and then back to two days low carb. (Protein was kept high throughout).
Aside from a cascade of "woman" flu and every conceivable respiratory "-itis", I found the "hunger" on the high carb days completely intolerable. This was followed up with a healthy dose of headaches and general sense of grumpiness. Now don't get me wrong, my tolerance for suffering is fairly good but there was an awful lot of negative side effects with very little change to body composition. The sum of the parts has to equate to some benefits being accrued, but on this diet, in this format I didn't get any. High carb day was a day to be feared. The day I would grow horns and turn into a devil.
So.. moving on - into Plan B
The ketogenic Diet
This is another widely used diet for cutting and contest prep and seems to have good efficacy in the short term. It is a high fat (low saturated fat), high protein, very low carb diet with no high carb days, designed to induce nutritional ketosis.
I haven't done it before so we shall see how this goes. Ultimately there has to be a permutation of a diet that works for you. It has to resonate both with your physiology and also psychology.
Ketosis
During lipolysis, triglycerides are metabolised to fatty acids and glycerol. In a process called beta-oxidation, the fatty acids get converted into acetyl-coA, a molecule which can be used in the citric acid cycle. During prolonged carbohydrate depletion, acetyl coA in the liver is converted to ketone bodies.
Some of these ketones can be used for energy including, acetoacetate and ß-hydroxybutyrate. In fact, heart and kidneys are thought to have a preference for ketone bodies as a fuel source. Although glucose is the preferred substrate for the brain, ketone bodies are small enough to pass the blood brain barrier and be used as a fuel source. Any good biochemistry textbook will give a good description of these pathways.
Assuming you still have a deficit of calories and are consuming enough protein, this should be a fairly anti-catabolic diet, resulting in preserving hard earned muscle mass and decreasing body fat.
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| A schematic of fat metabolism and ketone body production |
Calculating macronutrients
The short of this is answer is - outsourcing!!
The below "keto" calculator seems relatively comprehensive in terms of calculating macro nutrients. It also gives the options of setting your own levels of carbohydrate, protein and fat within the realm of achieving ketosis.
For your individual body weight, height, body fat %, you will get a recommended nutrient intake. The below is an example from my calculations, which should equate to approximately 2lb/ month fat loss.
2110kcal Daily Calorie Intake
- 25g Carbohydrates (5%, 100 kcal)
- 118g Protein (22%, 472 kcal)
- 171g Fat (73%, 1538 kcal)
These figures can be manipulated depending on whether you choose to have a slightly higher level of carbohydrate. I was recommended by other competitive bodybuilders to use 1g of good fat per 1lb body weight so you can keep a slightly higher carbohydrate intake to fuel workouts.
I haven't talked about micronutrients here on purpose. That's a whole other topic but I'm still not convinced of the value of taking quite so many vitamins and minerals. Again, I expect each individual will find a concoction of supplements they can not do without. Mine is Agnus Castus and Evening Primrose Oil - it keeps the "rage" away.
Low carb is not the same as no carb
The negative health consequences of ketogenic diets are always being hotly debated and challenged. It is my personal opinion that a very low carb diet works well in the short term but I would probably reign in the enthusiasm for sustaining such a diet in the long term. There is a lot of published research on the favourable impact of a ketogenic diet on body composition and to risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease and obesity. The following is quite an interesting read:
Despite all of this, I can't help thinking that there is little research on the long term effects on athletic subjects that are already very lean, so I'm going to apply the minimum effective dose to this diet.
The category of "low carb" diets will include both ketogenic diets and non-ketogenic diets. The latter will have enough carbohydrate to produce but minimise ketone body accumulation. This may well be sustainable long term and there are good examples of this in indigenous populations such as the Inuit and the Sami. They have a low incidence of morbidity and do very well on it. These indigenous diets of what I can see, still contain 20% carb as a rough estimate and the quality of meat is likely to be very different from what we are exposed to in Salisbury's. This higher level of carbohydrate maybe just enough to minimise ketosis and make it sustainable. Lifestyle factors will confound effects from diet and factors such as activity levels, sleep, social cohesion will feature highly in contributing to the overall health of these populations. Determining the effect of diet alone is therefore a slightly tricky one. Of course, humans are masters of compensation -we adapt; but although the negatives of a ketogenic diet are always being challenged, documented side effects include: constipation, low-grade acidosis and hypoglycemia (initial few days). A week in, I can report a little brain fog and tiredness but that's nothing new!
Tim Noakes, the South African sports scientist, controversially advocated a low carbohydrate (approx. 50g/day), high fat diet, even for endurance athletes. He maintains that this diet for a pre-diabetic or carbohydrate resistant person works well long term - as in for life. This is a letter he wrote for Runners World, defending his hypothesis.
All across the Internet, there will be tails of different diets that work for different people. There are lifestyle choice diets for long term health and then there are short term extreme diets for a particular goal. Being clear about the goal may make selection of a diet clearer and then it's just trial and error.
Individualization
What really has been a lesson learnt, is how in this sport not listening to your body really can cause a problem. A little bodily intuition goes a long way. Of course, managing fatigue and muscle soreness is part of the process but understanding what diet and training modalities are going to work for you both mentally and physically is really an individual thing. Nobody can tell you that.
The initiation into this project has most definitely had teething problems. My usual temperament would have thrown me headfirst into a project, but feeling slightly out of my comfort zone, I've sourced advice, heeded the advice, tried the advice and some things work, but a lot has not....so I've come back to my own sense of self and designing the training from what I objectively think will work for me. (This is where keeping a training journal works a treat!) So far, trialling lower rep ranges and more cardio (varying intensities) in the preliminary phases of prep is working well.
Sometimes one just has to have the courage of conviction in ones own ideas even whilst swimming with the sharks.
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| My courage most definitely does not roar-more like a geriatric cat. |
Excellent, thank you.
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