Carbs required for growth??

[overhead]

I finished reading Dr. Pasquale's book "Anabolic Solution for Power lifters". Seems to make sense, and I am going to give it a shot.
I am comfortable with a low carb diet, I followed an Aktins type diet, under twenty carbs a day for about 10 months. Lost 50 pounds and have been slowly increasing the amount of carbs I eat as I train heavier. The problem I have found is that as I increase calories and carbs I put on an unexceptable amount of fat. In the three months I have increased carbs my weight has gone up by close to 20 pounds. I was down to 185 at about 16% body fat ( I should have cut more prior to increasing carbs, but I was over it ). I currently am closer to 205 pounds at 20%. I put on some muscle, but fat increased at a rate I am not comfortable with. Which is what led me to post the question in the first place. Dr Pasquale's diet is like CKD, low carb all week then a one or two day carb up every 7 days. He recommends staying at no greater than 15% body fat so I need to start by following his cutting diet. For me this will be somewhere between 2500-3000 calories a day during the week and under 30 carbs a day. From my experience with carbs I know that I will only need a one day carb up to refill glcogen. The carb up day should include more than 350 grams of carbs. Protein should stay high on all days but carb up, so I will be getting close to 300 grams of protein a day. I plan on cycling this every four weeks or so by increasing calories up to 3500 or so. I currently train west side style, four days a week with two days of light cardio. I may increase the cardio if the fat does not start coming off. My ultimate goal is to be able to compete next summer in powerlifting at 181. We will see how it goes. I may post up results in this thread, or maybe start another.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Sounds like a decent plan. You'll need to fine tune as you go however, it is a good place to start. Good luck.

 

[overhead]

Oh yeah, and I train natural, no steriods at all. Mass is not that important to me at this time, but increasing strength, or atleast maintaining it while lossing body fat is.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Keto diets are fine for natural trainees. Ketones are protien sparing, which is a big plus on a diet in the absence of anabolic agents.

 

[overhead]

Thanks for pointing to Dr. Di Pasquale. Good book for anyone interested in this sort of thing, but like many others he pushes his sups. pretty hard. I realize I may have to mess with calories to get the fat off. Because of the west side style of training I will know right away if I start losing strength. He actually recomends wsb as a good power lifting program, i was already using it so I have a head start.

 

[Him1]

Good luck fellas, but, I warn you, most people won't gain very well on this type of plan, although this seems to be a new trend on the net, so I suppose there must be some validity to it. I'm an endo, and even I can't gain well w/o enough carbs. When gaining, I try to keep the carbs moderate. And Fina, I'm pretty sure palumbo follows a moderate carb plan.

 

[JKurz1]

moderate carbs are KEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[overhead]

I guess I will find out. I think you need to take into account that different people may need different diets . I spend most of my youth eating high sugar, high gi carbs like soda, ice cream, white rice etc . I am pretty sure this has left my body in a insulin resistant state. I am also an endomorph and I have messed with carb levels a lot over the past two years and found that even at 100-250 carbs a day I still manage to lay down way too much body fat. My concerns at this point are more in gaining strength and losing weight being that I am training for power lifting. I am starting another thread so that I can track my own progress, we will see how it goes. I think after three months I will know if it will work for me or not. Thanks for all the comments

 

[Him1]

moderate carbs are KEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think thats pretty general. For a hardgainer, I think huge carbs and huge protein are important. For me, whem dieting, I get a total of abut 150g carbs, and I can get Very lean(7-8%) w/ that even as an endo.

 

[SubjectiveIllusion]

I've been slowly cutting my carbs over the past few months. I'm still gaining muscle and losing fat, but my energy levels seem to be relative to my intake of carbs,.. low.