Carbbackloading?
So far I have tried numerous nutrition approaches of different “fitness gurus” and I thought why not share my experiences!
I will make this a series, in which I will try new approaches after several weeks or when I have enough data.
Each approach will have a seperate post on how to do it in detail.
every day I will write down my
Bodyweight
Macros
Weights in the gym
After the 2-3 months I will write down the pros and cons in regards to:
Adherence
- Was it easy or difficult to adhere to the diet?
Weight gain or loss
- Exact weighins
How I felt during the diet
- High energy, or moody, cranky?
Progression
- Did I make gains?
After several of these diets, I`m going to write down my conclusion about the experiment, but you can pretty much guess what that is gonna be!
I won`t change my workout routine, just slightly adjust frequency, volume and intensity according to the calories or the basic setup of the protocol!
During the experiment I will go into more detail!
In this one I will provide a basic overview about “Carbbackloading”!
CarbBackLoading or CBL by John Kiefer
is a simple diet, but most people make it way to complicated!
Fats and protein during the day, carbs in the evening!
Preparation phase
Why?
Your body is used to burning carbs for fuel, by restricting carbs to a bare minimum and eating enough fat your body will adapt to burn fat for energy!
This is called fat adaption.
However this doesn`t mean your body will burn bodyfat for fuel, if you are eating over your maintenance calories your body will just burn the fats from the ingested foods.
You don`t have to do the prep phase if you are already fat adapted. (If you are really lean or used to fasting / ketogenic diets)
How to?
First 7-10 days
- Carbohydrates at 0-30g per day
- High fat – the bare minimum is 0.5g per gram of protein, but in the preparation phase it is recommended to eat way more than that
- Hungry? Eat! Do not restrict your calories in the prep phase
- Eat animal products, saturated fat, vegetables and protein
- 7 days: If you deplete your glycogen stores through alot of training
(running, several workouts in a row, …)
-> you can reduce the prep phase duration to 7 days - 10 days: It is recommended to just stick to the 10 days though
Example prep phase day: only count macros, calories don`t matter in the prep phase
07:00 (am) wake up
drink water and coffee – go to work
do not ingest any calories
10:00 (am) hungry – first calories
200g of Salmon and 100g of Avocado (~40g protein, ~32.5g fat)
13:00 (1pm) lunch break
5 eggs in 10g of coconut oil and 200g of bell peppers (~37g protein, 40g fat, 12g carbs)
16:00 (4pm)
50g of 90% dark chocolate (5g protein, 27g fat, 7g carbs)
20:00 (8pm) dinner
250g of rib-eye steak, 400g Broccoli in 24g of grassfed butter (61g protein, 45g fat, 11g carbs)
Totals
143g protein, 145g fat, 30g carbohydrates
There are two different protocols after the prep phase: “Strength Accumulation” and “Density Bulking”
“Strength Accumulation” is better for losing weight and of course as the name implies “Density Bulking” is better for gaining weight!
I`m going to use both protocols for my experiment.
Strength Accumulation
OFF days or “Non-training days”
- Carbohydrates at 0-30g per day
- High fat – the bare minimum is 0.5g per gram of protein
- You practially eat the way you did in the prep phase,
-> if you are trying to lose bodyfat you have to restrict calories of course, which is the only difference compared to the prep phase
ON days or “Training days”
You eat like on OFF days until the evening or after the workout (if you train in the evening)
Example ON day with training in the evening
07:00 (am) wake up
-> drink water and coffee – go to work
-> do not ingest any calories
10:00 (am) hungry – first calories
-> 100g of Salmon and 100g of Avocado (~20g protein, ~22.5g fat)
13:00 (1pm) lunch break
-> 5 eggs and 200g of bell peppers (~37g protein, 30g fat, 12g carbs)
17:30 (pm) Workout
-> Intra workout shake 10g of BCAAs (Kiefer recommeds a different Intraworkout Nutrition, but the BCAAs are very convenient for me)
19:00 (7pm) back home, wait a little bit before the backload
-> Shower, cooking etc
19:30 recommended is a postworkout shake with whey or his own supplement carb shock. I won`t do that in my experiment though
the backloading window lasts around 2-4hours
-> 300g of Frosties, 1000ml of milk, 1 banana
-> 250g of chicken breast, 500g of sweet potatoes
Totals 3288 kcal
180g protein, 85g fat, 444g carbs
With training in the morning you would still eat all your carbohydrates in the evening.
Density Bulking
There is no real distinction between OFF and ON days anymore.
You eat your carbohydrates in the evening.
How much depends on your goals.
It is recommended to eat less carbohydrates on non training days though!
What to eat?
Recommended food sources for Carbbackloading
- during lower carb portions of the day
- mostly saturated fats and animal protein (saturated fats are healthy and the china study got debunked already years ago)
- eggs (from organic free range chicken)
- butter (from grassfed cows, like kerrygold)
- Organic cold processed Coconut Oil
- red palm oil
- dark chocolate
- beef (grassfed if possible, leaner meat and more butter if grain fed)
- salmon (wild caught if possible, leaner fish and more butter/coconut oil if not)
- poultry
- bacon
- whey isolate proteinpowder
- Coconut Milk (Aroy-D)
- avocadoes
- alot of vegetables
- fruits are practically a “nono” but some berries are ok, because they are lower carb
keep plant fats lower, but some nuts or olive oil and so on is ok,
but because of the omega 3-6 fatty acid ratios it shouldn`t be the main source of your dietary fats
recommended food sources for the carb backloads
Kiefer recommends high gi carb sources, a bit lower in fat
- white jasmine rice
- sweet potatoes
- white potatoes
- cereal (glutenfree cereal is even better, if you are trying to stay glutenfree, trust me with the food loads it`s gonna be a terrible with a high amount of gluten in the backload
- milk (skimmed milk is terrible, so try full fat, preferably organic/grassfed)
- Raw Honey (raw honey is even better especially before going to bed, I even imported this one to germany)
- whey protein
- ice cream (lower fat is better, like frozen yoghurt)
- french fries (I would recommend the lower fat one (you can still refat them with better fats if you want)
- for fruits, mangoes and very ripe bananas are ok
You should also get enough protein during the backload: Meat, Fish, Cheese, Eggs, Powder and so on.
You can eat everything you eat during the low carb parts of the day aswell.
-> you get the idea, high gi (glycemic index), high insulin spike,
less fiber and vegetable intake during the backloads, to get a fast and short insulin spike
Some sample meals for Carbbackloading
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBTTwIIPjQs/
https://www.instagram.com/p/7fi9IQvjQz/
https://www.instagram.com/p/yXENQNPjc1/
https://www.instagram.com/p/yeo_fEvjbW/
https://www.instagram.com/p/qhbKRQvje3/
https://www.instagram.com/p/15jFWmPjXs/
You can find out more about CarbBackLoading and John Kiefer at
http://body.io
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