Subject: Bodyopus week 13 Copyright Lyle McDonald 1996 Date: 1996/07/28
Continuing in the vein of last week, here's the continuation of Lyle's Unofficial Bodyopus FAQ where I try to answer (for the last time?) some of the more common questions I'm having to field about the diet. 5. What foods do you eat during the week? Don't you get bored? The 5 days of no carbs is the easy part of the week food wise. Just about anything is fair game as long as three criteria are met: a. fat intake must be at least 1.5 grams of fat for each gram of protein/carbs. If you want a rationale, use Dejanews and track down my discussion of the ketogenic ratios. If you want to try to get into ketosis on less fat, it's your funeral. It will happen but it will take much longer and not work as well. Please, please, please trust me on this one. I've gotten far too much mail from people who can't get into ketosis until day 4 or 5 of the week because they are not eating enough fat on the diet. And, one day in ketosis won't cut it for fat loss. With the proper combination of ketogenic ratio, training (see last week's FAQ) and use of glucose disposal agents (see last week's FAQ), you should hit ketosis by late Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning at the latest. That gives you almost 3 full days in ketosis. b. Caloric intake is not too high. Calories should be set at maintenance or 90% of maintenance for optimal fat loss. If you don't know your maintenance value, shame on you. Dan explicitly said to determine your maintenance calories before starting the diet. Of course, I didn't either. IAE, if you don't know your maintenance intake calorie level, use 10-12 calories per pound of bodyweight (or 11 calories per pound of lean body mass) as a starting point. Stay there for a week and see what happens. If you don't lose sufficient fat, lower calorie intake a bit further. If you're losing more than 2 lbs per week, increase calories a bit as you will lose too much muscle losing fat that quickly. c. You don't eat any freaking carbs. Or at least less than 30 grams per day. This is really the most important of the three criteria as even this few carbs (and they hide everywhere) is enough to keep most people out of ketosis. Some may need to go as low as 10-20 grams and some seem to handle as many as 40 but don't push your luck on this. Personally, I strive for as close to zero grams of carbs as I can during the low carb phase. (Which brings up another question I got: Is eating too few carbs during the week a bad idea? Not that I can see. Ketosis is ketosis whether you eat zero grams carbs or 10 grams carbs. However, some carbs (I like cucumber with salt on it) may help psychologically. A lower carb intake might lead to deeper levels of ketosis but there's no way to know if this is indicative of greater fat loss or not. Atkins thinks it is but Dan says maybe.) This is one of the more common questions I get and I do not know what the problem is. Anything is fair game as long as there aren't carbs in it. That means: any meat, most cheeses, heavy cream, any vegetable oil, etc, etc. No, not a particularly varied diet but quit bitching. Dieting isn't really supposed to be fun and you can eat for variety on the weekends. Note that many foods (hot dogs for example) do not have nutrition labels. And, companies put carbs in everything these days. If a food doesn't have a label, I recommend you DO NOT eat it just to be safe. Look, go get a copy of Corrinne Netzer's "Complete Book of Food Counts" and carry it around with you. Memorize it if you have to. It has listings for just about every food you might come across. Just don't eat carbs. Some have asked me if it's ok to have a smidgen of peanut butter or something like that. Again, as long as you're below 30 grams carbs per day, it's fine. However, you have to be very careful doing this. I'm the kind of person who, once I get the taste of carbs in my mouth, I'm history. Give me a touch of peanut butter and I'm likely to eat the whole jar, go buy another one, and eat that too. Might even smear some of it all over my body just for the sheer unadulterated hell of it. I basically shoot for zero grams of carbs per day during the week and save my carbing for the weekend. I'd rather not tease myself with a measly teaspoon of peanut butter. I'd rather wait and have three peanut butter sandwiches on the weekend. Preferably with very high GI grape jelly on some chewy wheat bread. Whoops, better stop there before I get too hungry. 6. They say that caffeine raises insulin levels, can I still use the ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin (ECA) stack? I'm supremely tired of arguing the caffeine and insulin debate. Look, the studies people are referring to find that, in some individuals, caffeine intake will lead to greater insulin release if carbs are eaten. Caffeine by itself DOES NOT RAISE INSULIN at least not through any possible mechanism I can find. So please quit asking. The ECA stack will definitely improve your results on this diet. I took it and never had a problem. So has everyone else I've talked to or coached on the diet. Yes, Atkins says no caffeine but here's what I think happened: Some individuals are sensitive to the citric acid (and/or Nutrasweet) in diet sodas. I think some early Atkins dieters were drinking lots of diet soda and couldn't get into ketosis. Atkins concluded that caffeine was the problem when the real culprit was something else in the soda (again, citric acid and nutrasweet seem to keep some people out of ketosis). If you are having trouble getting into ketosis and are consuming lots of Nutrasweet (Equal) or diet soda to stay happy, try dropping it and doing just protein, fat and water and see what happens. You may simply be sensitive to one or more of these compounds. *On a similar note, someone asked me about smoking and insulin release. Without getting preachy about any athlete who smokes, all I can say is I think that smoking may be like caffeine in that, if you eat carbs, you may get more insulin released than if you didn't eat carbs. But, having not really looked into it, I can't say for sure.* 7. What doses of ECA did you take? This was spelled out directly in the book but I'll answer it again here. The research suggests a dose of 20 mg ephedrine, 200 mg caffeine, and some amount of aspirin (hard to quantify just how much you need but I've seen anywhere from 20 mg to 300 mg suggested). Dan suggests 50 mg ephedrine, 200 mg caffeine, and 81 mg of aspirin (a baby aspirin) three times per day which is what I used. I tried taking 400 mg of caffeine as well but didn't notice a big difference. Other than having to buy caffeine pills (I use Vivarin) twice as frequently. Note: Daniel Mowery, in his book "Fat Management: The Thermogenic Factor" suggests cycling ECA 5 days on 2 days off which fits in well with this diet. The rationale is that the adrenal glands need a break from the stimulation of ECA. Also, clenbuterol has been shown to lower insulin sensitivity which would affect the recarb and ephedrine may do the same thing (being a related but weaker compound). So, taking the weekends off of ECA isn't a bad idea. Also, ECA blunts hunger which is definitely what you don't want when you have to eat every 2 hours during recomposition. 8. Should I take ephedrine and clenbuterol while on this diet? Not unless you want a stroke. Ephedrine is a weaker cousin of clenbuterol although both work through similar actions. Taking both is not only unnecessary but probably dangerous. One interesting question I got was the possibility of alternating clen and ephedrine intake (say 2 days clen, 2 days eph) to avoid the receptor downgrade seen with clen. Not knowing enough about the compound, I can't say for sure if this would work. Seeing as both ultimately lead to receptor downgrade (as well as inhibition of T4 to T3 conversion), while this might slow down the effects, only complete discontinuation of the stack will allow for upregulation. 9. Are there any other substances to help hasten fat loss along with the ECA stack? I tried several different compounds but was not methodical enough to know what did what. Some things worth trying are: L-tyrosine: In rats at least, tyrosine has been shown to further potentiate the effects of the ECA stack. According to Larry Hobbs ("The New Diet Pills" Pragmatic Press, 1996), there is reason to belive (although he never gives those reasons) that it will do the same in humans. Kind of like when you hear a sentece start with "Well, they say..." They who? I want to start a company called They,Inc. to put out all these pithy little saying like "Well, they say that a colorful sunset means this." "And they say that caffeine raises insulin." And charge royalties to people every time they use "They say..." in a sentence. Dose: 500 mg - 1 gram with each dose of ECA. L-carnitine: This is a substance involved in transporting free fatty acids into the mitochondria to be burned. Thing is, you need a lot of it, on the order of 2+ grams per day to have any effect. And, typical costs are $1/gram. Also, most of the research I've seen does not support it's use assuming you're eating a normal meat based diet (carnitine is synthesized from lysine and methoionine) which you should be on Bodyopus. It's possible that some could have a deficiency and supplementation might be useful. Or that the particular situation of a ketogenic diet would make it useful. But, I can't say for sure. Dose: 2 grams taken 30 minutes prior to aerobics. Hydroxycitric acid (HCA)/Citrimax: Some have suggested that ingestion of HCA prior to cardio may allow the carnitine transferase shuttle to work more efficiently. HCA inhibits conversion of excess carbs and protein to fat in rats (although, Larry Hobbs in "The New Diet Pills" does not believe it will do the same thing in humans). I had the most success using HCA on weekends during recarb since I tended to eat too much. It kept me full and seemed to help me avoid fat spillover. Seem to preferentially refill muscle and liver glyocgen while avoiding conversion of carbs to fat. Dose: 750 mg taken 30 minutes prior to cardio for fat burning. 750 mg taken 30 minutes prior to meals during recarb 3-4 times per day. Yohimbe: Yohimbe is a beta-receptor agonist. It may help women to lose stubborn lower body fat but realize that fat tissue has poor circulation and oral yohimbe may have little result. Direct injections or possibly a yohimbe/DMSO combination might work better. However, yohimbe did seem to help me maintain a higher body temp while dieting. I recommend Twinlab Yohimbe Fuel as it's standardized. Most herbs are not. Dose: 8mg 2-3 times per day. Or get some of Twinlab's Dick Fuel (aka Male Fuel) if you can't get it up for the girlfriend. Cayenne pepper: Cayenne is another thermogenic but it works through a different pathway than ECA. You can definitely feel this one working. Almost immediately in fact. You'll get some hearburn and start sweating really quickly. And, make sure and swallow the capsules fast or it will burn your throat. Hell, leave it on your tongue too long and you can feel it starting to burn as the capsule dissolves. Get Cool Cayenne if you can find it as the normal stuff tends to give me heartburn. Dose: 40,000 Heat units (HU's) - 80,000 HU's three times daily. DNP: Just messing with you there. You can't buy it. You can make it although you'll probably just blow yourself up. And, use too much and it will kill you. Just diet for a week or two more and get over it. Next time: Recomposition confusion. Lyle On that note, anyone else out there have major unanswered Bodyopus questions that I didn't answer in either the diaries or this FAQ? If so, please send them so I can get the damn things answered once and for all. I guess I'll have to get my WWW page put together now so I can archive this sucker somewhere. ------------------------ The body composition log: Taken with Slimguide calipers first thing Monday morning upon awakening. Day Date Wt Pec Abs SI Thigh Sum3 BF% FM FFM -------------------------------------------------------------- Mon 7/8 152 3 20 10 6 29 8.5 12.75 139.25 Mon 7/15 157 3 20 11.5 6 29 8.5 13.35 143.65 Mon 7/22 159 3 21 13 6 30 8.5 13.5 145.5 Notes: Alright, another slight fat gain this week but, again, that's to be expected. LBM is up 2 lbs after a weekend of carbing similar to last weekend. Can this possibly be all muscle? Something tells me it's not but you can always dream. The assumption I'm making is that gains in water/glycogen are consistent from week to week. That means that, hopefully, any differences in bodyweight or FFM week to week are as muscle tissue but there's no real way to be sure short of being dissected. And I couldn't do that every week anyhow. Maybe every other week. Key: BF% = body fat percentage FM = fat mass in lbs FFM = fat free mass (total weight - FM) My week at a glance: ------------------- Sunday: Went for an easy 45' minute skate this morning with friends. Carbed until 6pm finishing with a small Ultra Fuel shake with Designer protein to get an insulin spike and start driving down blood glucose. For those tuning in late, here's the workout I'm following with sets and reps indicated (2/6-8 means 2 sets of 6-8 to positive failure). I'll post exact poundages at some later date (like when I get off my lazy butt and type them into the computer). Mon Wed Fri --------------------------------------------- Squat (2/6-8) DL (2/6-8) Squat (2/6-8) Leg ext. (1/12-15) Overhead press (2/6-8) Leg ext. (1/12-15) SLDL (2/6-8) Lateral raise (1/12-15) Leg curl (1/6-8, 1/12-15) Chins (2/6-8) Barbell curl (2/6-8) Seated row (2/6-8) Seated row (2/6-8) Inc.Hammer curl (1/12-15) Chins (2/6-8) Inc. DB bench (2/6-8) Tri. Pushdown (2/6-8) Machine bench (2/6-8) Machine bench (2/6-8) Kickback (1/12-15) Inc. DB bench (2/6-8) Pec deck (1/12-15) Abs (whatever) Pec deck (1/12-15) Monday: Nothing exciting to report here. Diet is the same. Training tonight. Only difference is that I'm using Twinlab Super Vanadyl Fuel this week. No real reason other than GNC was out of their generic vanadyl sulfate. Taking the suggested dose of 2 caps twice a day (25 mg total vanadyl with BMOV and some other stuff). Also going to try glutamine pre and post workout (2 grams each dose) see if it helps with recovery at all. Supposed to give a GH pulse at 2 grams on an empty stomach but then again so is having an orgasm. Perhaps pre and post workout masturbation will be the next anabolic frontier. Any volunteers? You should probably save this for your forearm day if you're on a split routine. The workout: Another killer workout. Again, as an example of some workout increases from last Monday: Squats: Last mon: 245X10,10 Last Fri: 245X15,12 Today: 265X10,11 plus a 6 second negative leaving bar on pins (This effort got a 'Good Set' from the guys doing leg presses with belts and knee wraps. Wimps.) Incline DB bench: Last Mon: 45X12,10 (done before machine benches) Last Fri: 45X8,7 (done after machine benches) Today: 50X11,7 (done before machine benches) Seated rows: Last Mon: 115X7,8 (done after chins) Last Fri: 125X9.5,8 (done before chins) Today: 120X8,6 (done after chins) The point being that, at higher weights each week, I'm at least maintaining (and occasionally increasing) the number of reps I'm getting which I take as a pretty good indicator that I'm getting stronger. Overall, another really good workout. I'm getting so strong (well, relatively speaking), I'm starting to scare myself. Also, curioser and curioser (said Alice to the grinning Cheshire cat), I'm in ketosis again tonight after just one workout same as last week. I can figure one of two reasons why: 1. Something about this workout in terms of volume or intensity is getting the job done faster. I can't see this as the primary cause since my Bodyopus dieting workouts were similar in scope. 2. My body is adapting to ketosis so well that it wants to get into ketosis faster. Jeff Krabbe has told me that he can get into ketosis almost instantly after a year on the diet so this is where I tend in terms of reasons why. 3. Change to Super Vanadyl Fuel: I can't see this as the big determinant since I was in ketosis this time last week when I was using generic GNC vanadyl sulfate. Tuesday: Hmm, back out of ketosis this morning. Here's what I think may be happening. We know that liver glycogen will keep blood glucose up and prevent us from getting into ketosis. That is the genesis of the no sucrose/fructose rule during recarb. I think my Monday workout may be intensive enough to drive blood glucose down immediately after workout but my liver still has some glycogen in it which is being released during the night so that I'm not in ketosis in the morning. Well, back in ketosis this afternoon. I might have been there earlier today but I didn't get a chance to check until 6 pm after my appointments. Off to torture the ex. Also, got the ex to take a pic tonight for comparison to the one taken at the start of this mass phase (July 4). I look a bit bigger. Chest is definitely fuller and there's only a slight decrease in definition. And, once again, it's 11:45 pm, I have a 6:30 am appointment tomorrow and it's time to go the hell to sleep. Something tells me this new internet provider is going to be my downfall since it's so much easier to use. I can waste even more time in front of this idiot box computer than I ever imagined. Wonder if I can personal train my clients by modem? Hmmmm..... Wednesday: Started the morning (and, with a 6:30 am appoinment, it was truly morning) with the carb spike. Same 'foods' as last time (1 small bag candy corns, 1 small bag jelly beans with 1 scoop Ultra fuel and 1 scoop Designer whey protein). I decided to do it first thing for three reasons: 1. After an all night fast, catabolism can be up and shuttling some high quality protein into the system with an insulin spike can't hurt things. 2. It gives me longer to get back into ketosis. 3. I was up this morning and didn't have time to scramble any eggs. *Note: this is the real reason I did the spike first thing this morning. Note: Back in ketosis at 5pm. I actually 'felt' when I made the shift back over again. I was dicking around on Medline looking up research on strength training and sort of got sleepy and bleary eyed. Then I was fine again. This is pretty consistent with what happens about day 2 of the diet when I first hit ketosis. Wednesday evening: Ok, lifts still going up but effort is increasing big time. The only thing that didn't improve too much was DL's. I decided to keep them at the same weight (225) all cycle since there's already a lot of lower back overwork from squatting twice a week and SLDL's on Monday. All other lifts went up and I either got the same reps at a higher weight or more reps at the same weight as last week. Thursday: Strange, I don't seem to be in ketosis this morning. Could have been that cucumber with salt I had last night before bed or who knows what. IAE, I'm not overly concerned about it since I still don't see that ketosis is absolutely critical for gaining mass on this diet. Nothing else to report. No cardio, ate and ate and ate some more. Starting to get psyched for the carb up tomorrow night. (Let's do the happy junk food dance.) Friday: Nothing to report today. Still eating same foods and in ketosis. My low back is a bit sore from deads Wed but I'll be squatting with a belt tonight. Still taking 2 grams glutamine pre and post workout. The workout: Well, much to my surprise, squats (my best lift) hung tonight. Got the same weight/reps as on Monday but I expected an increase. Several possible contributors to this: a. Lifted earlier in day. The ex got off work early today so we went to the gym early b. Lifted with the ex. I'm used to lifting alone these days. Changing stuff like this can throw me off. c. Overworking legs/low back. Wouldn't surprise me. MF tried to talk me out of Wed DL's but I was stubborn and kept them in. May drop them back to 185 next week. Also considering changing the workout scheme a bit for the next 3 weeks of the mass phase. All other lifts went up which is why I think the squat thing is more of a local problem than any type of systemic overtraining. Dropped leg extensions from the workout today to allow quads a bit more recovery. Started the carb-up right after workout. Saturday: Carbed and watched the Olympics. Women's diving on tonight. Is it me or are the divers just not on this year. No one, not even the Chinese, were ripping entries into the water. Ah, well, still pretty cool to watch those triple twisting 1.5 flips from 33 feet up. Sunday: It rained here all day so no skating this morning. Just carbing and watching the Olympics. Probably a good thing as it gives my quads more time to recover for tomorrow. Stopped carbing at 6pm with the standard Ultra Fuel/Designer shake to get a bit of an insulin spike and drive BG down. Also, took 2 tabs Twinlab Super Vanadyl Fuel. See ya next week. Lyle McDonald, CSCS