Big Tex: Thanks very much! I thought the different rep ranges were in place to accommodate a variety of weights (roughly from 65 percent of one-rep max up to 85 percent of one-rep max), but I wanted to be sure before I started a new program. Do you think I should be doing a different exercise for each body part every day (for example, Monday, bench press 5x5; Wednesday, chest fly 3x15; Friday, incline dumbbell press 4x8), or should I do the same exercise every day and just alter the weight and rep range (for example, Monday bench press 3x15; Wednesday, bench press 4x8; Friday, bench press 5x5)? cgrimsl1: Thanks very much for the info. My goals are to put on muscle and get rid of some fat. At the end of 2013, I did a German Volume Training program, and it worked very well for me. I gained about 12 pounds of muscle but feel like I probably gained a few pounds of fat as well. I'd like to get rid of the fat I gained while still putting on more muscle. I've been doing a lactic-acid-training program for most of 2014, but I'm not seeing any real quantifiable results.

Because I'm an insulin-dependent diabetic (the result of a severe case of pancreatitis), I'm doing a modified version of CBL. I tried CNS, but despite the absence of carbs, my blood sugar kept spiking. I had no choice but to take insulin, making it impossible to prevent insulin spikes during the week between Carb Nites. I have found that a moderate version of CBL works pretty well for me. I go ULC all day and only eat carbs after I lift. I have coffee and coconut oil in the morning and three hard-boiled eggs and some salami at lunch. I time my insulin shot to coincide with the completion of my evening workout, and shoot enough insulin to account for the amount of carbs I'm going to ingest. The insulin takes about 30 minutes to start working and peaks at about two hours. I usually have a PWO shake (which prevents a dangerous drop in blood sugar while the insulin starts working) and a real meal (one cup of white rice and 6 to 8 ounces of turkey) about an hour later. If I time everything just right, I'm able to keep my blood sugar just right for the duration of the evening.

cgrimsl1: I really liked GVT. It's such a simple program to follow, and it was very effective for me. My lifts increased and I gained a noticeable amount of muscle. I’ll probably run GVT again in the future, but I wanted to try a different program for a few months and slim down a bit more. Diabetes does complicate things quite a bit. When I first got out of the hospital (I was 24), I had to take hundreds of units of insulin per day because my pancreas and my endocrine system were completely broken. I managed to get off insulin and Metformin by implementing a very strict diet-and-exercise program. Until I turned 30, I had the diabetes under such good control that I didn't have to take insulin or medication. I was, for all intents and purposes, cured of diabetes. According to my doctors, the pancreas naturally slows insulin production when a person gets to about age 30. Because my pancreas was already producing much less insulin than it should have been, this decrease brought back all the symptoms of diabetes. In my younger days, if I avoided carbs, my blood sugar didn't go up. Now, however, my blood sugar climbs even if I've avoided carbs or fasted completely. I didn't want to be on Metformin (I hate drugs, and Metformin inhibits mTOR), so I got back on insulin. On the best days, I only have to take insulin once. On some days, though, my blood sugar will spike unexpectedly. When I was attempting CNS, my blood sugar was high all the time. If I woke up with high blood sugar, I had to take insulin. I assumed this screwed up the diet (since we try to prevent insulin spikes until Carb Nite), so I’d try to get my blood sugar under control and start the ULC week over again the following day. On days when I woke with good blood-sugar levels, they still climbed during the day. By my evening workout, they were high enough that I had to take insulin. No matter what I tried (for about six weeks), I couldn’t keep my sugars down enough to skip insulin. One poster on this board suggested the combination of heavy lifting and the ULC diet was stressing my body (producing cortisol), which can cause blood-sugar to spike. I suspect the dawn phenomenon also played a role in my elevated morning blood-sugar levels. Anyway, I couldn’t keep eating the high-fat ULC diet while taking insulin because I was gaining weight (despite eating like a “90 lb. girl,” according to one poster on this board). That’s why a modified version of CBL seems to work well for me: I can take insulin once a day without breaking the rules of the program, and the only time I have an insulin spike is immediately following a workout (far from fat consumption but close to PWO carbs). It’s always a matter of trial and error because diabetes is so unpredictable, but I have a pretty good system in place. This modified version of CBL seems to work better than anything else I’ve tried. My PWO shake contains hydrolyzed whey (30 to 40 g), leucine (5 g), and creatine (10 to 15 g). Sometimes I have to throw in a few grams of dextrose to prevent a blood-sugar drop before I eat my PWO meal—it just depends on how my body is reacting to exercise and insulin that day. I measure my serving of rice after it’s cooked. I keep all my fats (coconut oil, eggs, salami, and the occasional serving of cheese) to the first part of the day and eat a lean meat (usually turkey) with my cup of rice after working out.Thanks very much for your advice. I’ll probably start the full-body three-day split next week and do some HIIT on nonlifting days (at least until I drop the weight I put on during my attempt at CNS). I’ll stay ULC on the nonlifting days, but I won’t eat any fats in the presence of insulin. I guess all I can do is try things and make adjustments until something works.

ibobland08: Thanks very much for the advice. I've been doing 5×5 for my main lifts and then drop sets of 8/12/25 reps with all my accessory exercises (two to three per body part). I usually end the workout with some sort of super set as well (for example, moderate-weight bench press to bent-over row). I'd like to give a full-body program a shot for a while before I do GVT again. Do you think I should spread the main lifts across the three lifting days or do all the main lifts on one day? I suspect spreading them out is the way to go, but I'm fine with doing an all-5x5 day as well.

ibobland08: Thanks again! I've been working out for many years, but, because of my medical condition, my focus has always been on overall health and fitness rather than on muscle building. I always did a ton of cardio with moderate weight training because that's what the doctors told me to do. I have only been focusing on building muscle--by that, I mean lifting really heavy four to six times a week and skipping most cardio (I do HIIT when appropriate)--for close to a year.After I read about resistance training's benefits for diabetics in Kiefer's books, I stopped doing hours of pointless cardio and started lifting. One day, I will visit the doctors who told me to spend all my time doing cardio and and snap their clipboards in half on my chiseled midsection and put their stethoscopes under heavy pieces of furniture that they can't lift on their own.Anyway, I think I could still benefit from a full-body routine at this point, so I'll give it a shot. 

ibobland08: Thank you once again for the excellent information. The internet is lousy with conflicting information about lifting and fitness, so it's hugely beneficial to come to this website and get advice from trustworthy sources. I was considering an upper/lower program--someone on these boards posted a link to the PHUL workout a while back, and I liked the setup. Perhaps I'll try full body for a few months and transition into something like PHUL when I've made sufficient progress.