Subject: You guesssed it: Bodyopus week 14 Copyright Lyle McDonald 1996 Date: 1996/08/04
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. Well, in response to my request for any unanswered questions to be included in the FAQ, Brian Bucher sent in the following: "How important is vitamin supplementation? In your week 6 and week 9 posts you "mentioned it in passing" but haven't really said whether it's that necessary or not. I'm sure some of it would depend on how you eat during the phases but it might be difficult to eat enough non-carb high-vitamin foods." Good one. In my quest to discuss all the esoteric supplements, I forgot about the basics. Most of the books I've read regarding the ketogenic diet (Bodyopus, Anabolic Diet, Atkins, the Epilepsy Diet book) seem to agree that a bare minimum of a one a day multi-vitamin as well as extra calcium should be consumed while on the diet. Now, while some may use this as ammunition that ketogenic diets cause nutritional deficiciencies, please consider that most American's eating a typical mixed diet are typically deficient in one or more nutrients and, according to research into intake patterns, literally no one gets adequate calcium and a supplement is recommended to almost everybody. And, while the research is still somewhat equivocal over whether or not hard training athletes need more micronutrients than they get from a mixed diet, I'd put forth that future research will support the idea that this is the case. In any event... I would suggest at the bare minimum a basic one per day multi-vitamin/ multi-mineral (I use Twinlab Daily One caps without Iron) as well as a calcium carbonate supplement (600-1200 mg/day depending on dairy consumption on the diet). I suggest using the cheapest calcium carbonate you can find, usually the supermarket generic. For those who are concerned about the high amounts of saturated fats which may be present (although it's more than feasible to do a ketogenic diet on unsaturated fats, it's just not as fun since you can't eat lots of steak all the time and you have to smother your chicken in mayo) additional anti-oxidants may be useful. Also, there is data that some of the muscle damage and soreness following training is caused by free- radical production so it's feasible that anti-oxidants might prevent some of this. I generally take Vitamin C: 1-3 grams (more on training days to help control cortisol) Beta-carotene: 10mg/day Vitamin A: 5k IU/day (And, yes, I know vitamin A can become toxic if you're not careful. And I know that beta-carotene will convert to Vitamin A if needed. But, beta carotene seems to have anti-oxidant functions independent of vitamin A so I take both.) Vitamin E: 400-800 IU/day of alpha-tocopherol Others like selenium, NAC, CLA or whatever might also be useful additions but it starts to get expensive fast. I stick with the standard ACE stack (Vitamin's A, C, and E). Again, I typically buy the supermarket generic or the GNC "Buy one get one half off" product. 10. Ok, the topic of this week's FAQ is Bodyopus Recomposition. I find it strange that this is where people are having the most problems since it's the one area of the book that Dan went into the most detail about. Go figure. First, let me say that I'm not going to give out the exact recomposition numbers. Buy Bodyopus if you want the details. What I will answer is some of the main questions I'm getting in terms of food choice, protein intake, fat intake, supplement intake, etc. 10a: Should I still be dieting during the carb up? Should I still consume 25% protein and 75% fat in addition to all my carbs? No, no, no. The whole point of the carb-up is to supersaturate the muscles with carbs, water, electrolytes etc. This takes lot of calories so you shouldn't be dieting. And, fat should be minimized to keep insulin levels high. I'll discuss fat requirements and where I think the fat should go next week. 10b. How many calories should I eat? It's determined by the recomposition guidelines. Again, I'm not giving you the actual numbers. Go buy a copy of the book. Sufficed to say, it's a shitload compared to what you're eating during the week. I'm pretty small and I, according to Dan's numbers, I have to put away about 3500 calories or so of just carbs in the first 24 hours. When you've been on 1500 calories during the week, that's a lot of food. 10c. How much protein should I consume during recarb? Dan brain farted and didn't mention this in the book. He told me 20 grams of protein with each meal but I think that's overkill for most considering the massive calorie intake on the weekends. (In case you're unaware, protein requirements are related to total caloric intake. As calories go lower, protein needs go up. Hence, as calories go up, protein needs go down. If you're eating high quality proteins like whey, egg and milk protein, amount is even less critical.) Go for 1 gram per pound of bodyweight divided across the 12 meals and you'll be fine. Soluble protein powders will help with insulin secretion during the first liquid carb meals. 10d. What do you eat at each meal? Understand that I only followed Dan's recomposition plans during the first weekend. After that it was eat until I got water retentive (NOT anal retentive although that applies to me as well) and then stopped. Depending on how much I pigged out, it happened anywhere from 24-30 hours after I started carbing. Dan gives general food categories during recomposition but no specific examples. Here's some excerpts for a diet I set up for a competitive bodybuilder in Texas. Again, not giving you the numbers, just examples of food choices for each of the meals. Meals 1-4: liquid simple sugars with added soluble protein Ultra Fuel (glucose polymers with some fructose since I have yet to find a pure glucose powder, I've been told Carboplex is pure maltodextrin but I can't seem to find it at the local health food store). It's too bad that the nasty glucose solution they use for the oral glucose tolerance test isn't commercially available. It would be a perfect, albeit nasty tasting, substance to consume. For protein: A soluble protein powder. I use Designer but any will do. Meals 5-8: liquid simple sugars and solid high GI carbs (i.e. corn flakes) More ultra fuel with Designer protein Some type of grain cereal cereal. All are high in sugars so I'm not sure if corn flakes would be exceedingly better than Lucky Charms as long as the amounts were equal. Meals 9-12: starches with liquid simple sugars Ultra fuel/designer for liquids baked potatos, rice, whole wheat bread for starches, you could probably get away with higher GI foods like rice cakes and grain type bars this early in the carb up since insulin sensitivity is still high Second 24 hours: Meals 1-4: more solid carbs and proteins rice or potatoes and chicken or tuna would be good starch choice Meals 5-8: relatively normal food (rice, potatoes, pasta) Still sticking with rice/potatoes etc. Meals 9-12: high GI liquid carbs Revert back to Ultra fuel with protein powder I talked about supplementation of vanadyl, chromium, and magnesium during last week's FAQ. Sufficed to say you need to take all three during the carb up to ensure maximal glycogen supercompensation. If creatine is your thing, during the recarb is a good time to use it. I can't since it makes me sick. Maybe I'll try it again some point. Next time: more recomposition confusion and some other tidbits that occur to me. 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. ------------------------ Oh, one thing more about skinfolds, calipers, etc. As pointed out by MF, there was a bit of inconsistency in my reports on how Lange calipers (the US norm) and Slimguide calipers (the Canada norm and what I've been using) compare measurement wise. At one point, I reported that Slimguide gave consistently larger measures and, on another, I said it gave smaller. The problem was that I was taking measures with the Slimguide calipers at home before eating and using the Lange calipers at work at a different time of day. So, to answer the question once and for all, I took my Slimguide calipers to work and took measurements there. The results were: Site Slimguide Lange ---------------------------------- Pec 3 4 Abs 21 21 Iliac 14.5 16 Thigh 6 7 ------------------------------ Sum3* 30 32 *Sum of pec, abs, and thigh. Iliac only included for comparison purposes.* So, on me at least, the Slimguide give slightly smaller readings but it's within the error of measurement on each caliper (+- .5-1 mm). Ultimately, it's not any big deal as long as I'm consistent (see the Bodyopus week 2 diary for details) in my measurement and use the same caliper (Slimguide), under the same conditions (upon awakening Monday morning). Then, at least, the results are directly comparable. Or, if someone has 70,000$ they want to loan me, I'll buy a BodPod for my room and use that instead. (FYI, the BodPod is a new machine that estimates body composition by how much air you displace. Very similar to underwater weighing but you don't have to dunk your head underwater and it's faster. If they made it so it would do BMR at the same time, now that would be cool.) 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 Mon 7/29 162 3 24 15 6 33 9.4 15.2 146.8 Notes: Ok, bodyfat percentage is creeping up which is to be expected. As stated before, I'm trying to gain mass until either 6 weeks is up (this is week 4) or I hit 10% bodyfat. Then I start cutting again. I find it hard to believe that I put on 2 lbs of fat and only 1.3 lbs of FFM this week but I did seem to eat a lot more than usual. I'll have to sort of keep tabs on calorie intake from here on out. I also know I wasn't in ketosis all the time last week so that might have been a contributing factor. Key: BF% = body fat percentage FM = fat mass in lbs FFM = fat free mass (total weight - FM) My week at a glance: ------------------- Sunday: Just carbed today since it was raining and biking/skating was out of the question. Have decided to change my training routine a bit for the next 3 weeks of this phase. Will be dropping all isolation movements (leg extension, pec deck, tricep kickback, incline hammer curl) and concentrating solely on the compound movements. Will also be adding sets (for a total of 3-4 per exercise). After two progressive warmups (at approx. 50 and 75% of the first 'real' set), I will jump to the heaviest weight of the day to failure. On each succeeding set, the weight will be decreased by 5% (to take fatigue into account) in an attempt to keep reps (and time under tension) the same. An example would be tomorrow's squat workout: Warmup: 135X8 Warmup: 225X5 1st set: 285X8 (basing this on 265X10 last Friday) 2nd set: 270X8 (285X.05 = 15 lbs so I subtracted 15 lbs from 285) 3rd set: 255X8 4th set: 240X8 Additionally, since antagonistic bodyparts are being worked during each workout (more or less), I will interleave exercises to allow for more recovery time as well as what's called reciprocal inhibition (when you work one muscle group, that muscles antagonist relaxes through some neural mechanism. This, along with longer times between sets, helps with recovery. More recovery means heavier weights and, up to a point, heavier weights means more progress.). That is, instead of the typical format of: Incline bench, rest, incline bench, rest, incline bench, rest, incline bench chins, rest, chins, rest, chins, rest, chins, rest Interleaving has you do: incline bench, rest, chins, rest, incline bench, rest, chins, etc, etc. I will pair: incline bench/chins flat machine bench/rows barbell curl/tricep pushdown Squats could conceivably pair with calf raises but I don't work my calves. I do work my tibialis anterior (speed skating thing) but will probably just sit and try not to hurl between sets of squats. Technically, you'd probably pair delts with lats (more or less antagonistic) but that would mean training back three days per week on my current split. So, delts get worked by themselves. If you wanted to get really anal, you could pair front delts with rear delts, forearm flexors with forearm extensors, abs with low back, etc, etc. I'm anal but I'm not that anal. Not yet at least. So, the new workout look like this. Please note that number of sets are flip flopped on Friday for upper body. That is, I'm doing 4 sets of chins and inclines on Mon and only 2 sets of rows and machine bench but it is reversed on Friday. Thus, each movement gets relatively equal work per week. Mon Wed Fri --------------------------------------------- Squat (4/6-8) DL (2/6-8 or 5X5) Squat (2/6-8) Leg curl (2/6-8) Overhead press (4/6-8) Leg curl (2/6-8) Chins (4/6-8) Barbell curl (4/6-8) Seated row (4/6-8) Inc. DB bench (4/6-8) Tri. Pushdown (4/6-8) Machine bench (4/6-8) Seated row (2/6-8) Forearms (whatever) Chins (2/6-8) Machine bench (2/6-8) Abs (whatever) Inc. DB bench (2/6-8) Monday: Nothing exciting today to report. Same food, same supplements, same whiny clients (can you tell I'm getting burnt out personal training?). Monday workout: Another good workout chalked up. Felt really strong and all lifts increased yet again. There's something to this weekend carb-loading shit. I may be gaining some fat but I'm definitely getting stronger. Squatted 285X8 (ok, 7 since I cut one short) which is a new PR for me. Keeping this rate of progression, I'm set to squat 325 for reps in2 weeks (305 next Monday, 325 in week 6). My previous best is 325X1 so that's a pretty big increase for 6 weeks of training. Hope my low back can hold out. This new workout was pretty tough but good. Took longer than I wanted but only because the guy I was squatting with wanted to do more talking than squatting (which is why I don't have a regular workout partner). Still in and out of there in just over an hour. Interleaving bodyparts really helps to give great recovery while keeping workout time down. For anyone using multiple sets, I highly recommend the application of this technique. My chest, back, and even arms were pumped and felt thoroughly worked after this workout. Couldn't even clasp my hands behind my back and raise them to stretch out pecs like I usually can. I *feel* huge (which is, after all, what really matters. Who cares how big you are or how much you can lift? How big you think you are is all that counts.) Tuesday: Fat. Protein. Protein. Fat. Any questions? Actually, I hit ketosis again this afternoon. I still can't understand why I'm hitting ketosis earlier with a 2 day carb load than I did only carb loading for one day. Very strange. Not complaining mind you, just curious as to why. Wednesday: Great weather for a funeral today. Not joking or trying to be melodramatic here. Got to go watch a cousin get buried. He had a massive brain hemmhorage Friday night and they pulled the plug Sunday afternoon. I only mentioned it in that it did have some effect on my diet. Started this morning with the standard jelly bean, candy corn carb load (plus 1 scoop Ultra Fuel and one scoop Designer for a total of 1000 carb calories). Then appointments. Then the funeral. I wasn't able to eat anything after the carbs this morning so I went to the funeral hungry which was bad. Well, a particular Arab tradition is to have what's called a 'mercy meal' after the funeral. It's basically a time for all the cousins to get together, try to be happy, and basically get rid of any ill feeling they may have towards the deceased or each other. The basic idea being that, in a time of sorrow, there's little point in being pissed off at each other or the deceased. A nice idea if you ask me. IAE, it would have been very rude of me to just eat some steak at the mercy meal (Arabs have another weird tradition about food. If you don't eat what you're offerred, it's very rude) so I went ahead and had a carb meal and even some dessert (I'd say that this was out of grief or something but the truth is I wanted an excuse to eat some sugar). As expected, I'm not in ketosis as of this evening but we'll see if I can re-establish after tonights workout. Wednesday workout: Wow! Another great workout. As has been happening since the first week of this mass phase, all lifts increased by leaps and bounds. Got almost identical reps with heavier weights (jumping out of necessity 5 lbs on DB's, trying to keep jumps at 2.5 lbs on barbell movements). And, I'm back in ketosis tonight. Not sure what it is about this particular workout scheme but it's working wonderfully so far. Hitting ketosis faster, getting f-ing strong (well, for me) in the gym. Making progress far faster than I have before. I'm one happy camper. Thursday: More fat and protein today. Wasn't in ketosis this morning but did go back in by this evening. Spent some time with this girl I'm *still* trying to get together with. Still nothing going on there. How depressing. Is why I'm sitting working on this thing at 12:30 at night instead of sleeping and recovering like a good boy. Since I have early appointments tomorrow, it's time to go the hell to bed. Friday: Normal food intake today. One thing I've forgotten to mention (and will explain next week) is that I switch to primarily unsaturated fat during the day before I start carbing. Had two bananas two hours before my workout (even though I'm not doing the depletion workout, I might as well burn some glycogen out of there with the workout). Took 2 grams glutamine and some vitamin C 30 minutes prior to lifting. Friday workout: Damn! Another great workout. Despite being tired and having my low back bother me a bit, all lifts (even squats went up). I raised the weights on everything from last Friday's workout and proceeded to get the same reps as last time if not more. Sing the Rocky theme song with me "Getting strong now. Gonna fly now." Of course, I'm still a little weenie relative to most of the mass monsters at World Gym but I do seem to be getting some respect because I do work as hard if not harder than 99% of the people in there. I really push on all sets, fighting that last rep isometrically until it goes up. Not taking squats quite to failure as it's a pain in the ass to get the bar off the pins and up for the next set, but I'm damn close. As usual, started the carb-up with 50 grams Ultra Fuel, 20 grams Whey protein, 2 tabs Twinlab Super Vanadyl Fuel, and 2 grams glutamine. Then I went to the supermarket and started the real carb-up. Donuts, pop tarts, you get the idea. Sing the Rocky theme with me "Getting fat now. Eating junk food. Gonna pig out" Saturday: What do you think I did today? Ate carbs and slept. A typical Saturday. I'm feeling really sluggish. I think it's time to start adding a bit of cardio in to get ready to start cutting in 2 weeks. Sunday: Nothing exciting today. Went for a very easy 45' skate this morning with friends. Continued carbing until 6pm as usual. I feel and look fat today in the mirror but we'll see what the calipers show tomorrow morning. I've learned the hard way that the mirror can easily lie. The calipers give objective data. 2 more weeks of pigging out and then the real fun of dieting starts again. Oh, joy. Finished carbing at 6pm as per usual and it's back on the bacon and lard bandwagon (well, not really but you know what I mean). See ya next week. Lyle McDonald, CSCS