CBL vs CBS – small, female, 3yrs 5×5/531 lifter ketogenic dieter

[E L]

Hi everyone. I am recently back to lifting after a few months off. I have lost a lot of fat on my usual ketogenic diet combined with intermittent fasting, a protocol that comes easily to me and the benefits of which mentally and hormonally i very much enjoy.

I have toyed with carb Nite solution in the past to little success, because of my history of eating disorders. However after a few months outside of the gym I have lost a lot of fat but also a little bit of muscle. I am eager to get back my gains!

I’m back on a three day split: Fri, sun, Tuesday with 1hr yoga, tennis, or rest on mon, wed, Thurs, sat.

I ended up reading CBL last night (rest day) and back loaded in order to do a fasted workout before my gym closed at noon. Felt like a super human and was able to lift for Xtra lbs, reps, AND sets.

Can someone offer me advice on a conservative way to incorporate carbs into this training routine? The only other way I felt better when training compared to how tired and weak I feel when I work out on a ketogenic diet was by pre-loading 15g glucose, however I found that I became hypoglycemic halfway through my workout and ran out of steam. Nothing like the backloading energy. I would be more psychologically comfortable with carb Nite however I fear that working out 3 times a week I will not have the benefits of the carbs during at least one or two workouts.

To be clear I still want to lose a couple more percentage points of body fat while gaining muscle back. I am 25 years old, 5’2 103lb and guessing 19 to 20% bf. Current (not pr) deadlift140lb, high bar squat 103lb, ohp 55lb, bench 72lb for 5×5. I calculated my maintenance calories at about 1550 based on how much weight I lost while dieting.

I Have aminos, whey, dextrose, and mct oil but no carb shock or proprietary stuff.

Thanks!

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk

[Makoto Tomizawa]

Hey Emirena, great to hear that you’re back at it in the gym.

Are you always lifting in the AM fasted scenario? If you are, and you feel good doing it, you could just backload the night before a session, and stay ULC on the days your train. I think I’ve also read/heard that if performance is your priority, then backloading the night before is more optimal, but for aesthetics, it’d be better to just backload in the evening of training.

What does the volume/intensity look like in terms of your current routine? That would determine the amount of carbs you might want to start out with, then adjust depending on how you feel in the gym/look in the mirror the next few days. How long and intense your tennis would also play a role in that.

Training Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuwHRdBaPVILxxLhXly_N1Ys66Hcwk4j-bM7nvKSLrI/edit?usp=sharing

[E L]

ありがとう、まことさん！

I am also glad to be lifting again, especially after reading through some of body.fm ep #40 where it was mentioned that a woman’s metabolic rate depends on only one thing: lean mass!

I should have mentioned, although I prefer to lift fasted in the morning, this was not my usual routine. Gym was closing early, so I had no choice.

I work 9-5, so I usually get to my gym on Friday and Tuesday nights between 6:30 and 7PM. Often this is about 4 hours after I last ate. I know this is also not ideal for something like carb nite, since you’d want to start loading earlier to get more spikes. All the more reason I think smaller backloads might be good. I have considered TKD options, but like I said, it only helped for about half my workout.

Two considerations if I were to lift at this time when ketogenic are:

1. am I getting enough fat energy/ food pre-workout? 4 hours since last eating could be a factor. is 2 hours better, for fat digestion timing?

2. Am I getting enough caffeine? The awesome workout I had while backloaded on Sunday was also on three cups of coffee instead of two.

As far as volume, I listed my current lift weights which I do for 5 sets of 5 (plus some empty bar warm up and accessory lat pulls, bicep curls etc if i have time) Last night I felt like all my weights besides deadlift (which I need to work on again) were VERY easy thanks to carbs. I struggled more, especially on the concentric motion, without carbs.

I’d like to preserve benefits of ketosis that work well for me: calm, mental clarity, fat loss, lack of hunger, sustained energy for low intensity activity, memory improvement, and perfect circadian rhythms.

However, I feel like progressing on my lifts in terms of adding weight has become arduous when eating purely ULC. I struggle getting my last few squat reps, especially on the concentric motion. I also struggle to get 5 reps on my strict/OH Press.

Finally, the DOMS symptoms are worse while ketogenic, too. If I overdo sugar on a carb load, they get WAY worse due to inflammation, but if I keep it cleaner/smaller, the soreness goes away in a day or two. Without any carb loading, it lasts ~4 days 🙁

Performance per se is not my goal, fat loss and muscle gains are – but performance is beginning to matter: I don’t want to dread going to the gym because I’ll be slow/lack explosive power, my 5×5 reps will feel like 1RM’s, and I’ll feel sore for a week!

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by E L.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by E L.

[Makoto Tomizawa]

E L wrote:

ありがとう、まことさん！

Hahaha, that’s awesome. どういたしまして！ 😀

Greg Nuckols also put out an article a while ago about basically when a man and a woman both have the same amount of muscle mass, contrary to popular belief, woman can handle carbs just as much as the man. I think here women have the advantage of being able to utilize fat for fuel while exercising (while men are more glycogen dependent), and their glycogen gets spared.

I don’t know when you go to bed, but assuming you have enough time after lifting to get a carb meal in, backloading the carbs after training would be a good way to go about it. Whatever carbs you eat then will be available come next session, unless you do something ridiculous like going absolutely bananas on HIIT session until you wipe out your glycogen stores on your off day (don’t do that).

If you pre-workout meal is high in fat, I’d at least give it 2 hours before you train. The fat will be available in your system for fuel by then, and probably far enough out to not have an impact with regards to digestion. As for caffeine, if you’re lifting that late in the evening, I would actually skip it, as it could interrupt with your sleep. But if you’re sleeping fine with it and helps you get more out of your training, then by all means go for it.

If you really want to stay ketogenic, I think you might be fine reducing the working sets to something like 3 sets of 5. But then again, I’m no trainer. But you can certainly lose fat while eating carbs (many people have done so, do so, and will continue to do so) and it does make a difference in training.

Considering you’re already lean, you might benefit from eating around or maybe even slightly above your maintenance calories, focusing on just training hard and getting better in your lifts, you can add some lean mass (and possibly lose some fat) which would help with when you want to diet down again. I think carb backloading makes this easy. If you’re lifts are going up and you aren’t visibly getting softer, that probably means you’re on the right track. I’ve always been in the “I have to diet down” mindset and kept spinning my wheels for a long time. Lately, I stopped worrying about fat loss, just focusing on getting better in the gym, and being more active has allowed me to eat a pretty substantial amount of food while also noticing I’m leaning out little by little.

Training Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuwHRdBaPVILxxLhXly_N1Ys66Hcwk4j-bM7nvKSLrI/edit?usp=sharing

[Brandon D Christ]

If I recall Greg actually advocates that women handle carbs BETTER on a gram per pound of lean mass basis.

[E L]

Thanks, the reassurance about carbs is a good thing to hear echoed 🙂 I am attempting to be less “afraid” of carbs after so long ketogenic. I always handled them pretty well before.

I sleep around 11 pm and the caffeine seems to not impact that, at least when ketogenic. I get exhausted after lifting and when my melatonin production kicks in. Oddly, the only thing that keeps me awake at night is too much thirst or digestion from a high-fiber meal.

As far as the 3×5 recommendation, Makoto, you mean trying 3 working sets if I keep my diet ketogenic in order to deal with the higher fatigue I described? It certainly seems to help if I rest longer between sets during these difficult ketogenic workouts, but with 5×5’s that means my total time in the gym goes way up.

The calorie/diet adherence issue is another good recommendation. I’m trying not to track anymore as I know I have a mindset born of eating disorders, despite my now healthy body and habits. I have a good handle on how much I am consuming in terms of protein and calories, but eyeballing carbs is something I need to practice.

I think I will try a little mct pre-workout plus a carb meal afterwards – with alternating workout days will one carb meal be just right? I assume that’d be about 50-75g high GI carbs. Any consideration to the other contents of the meal or timing post-workout? Things like avoiding fat, or having a certaing amount of protein with it/keeping under a certain amount of fat to ensure insulin spike.

Sunday I had a post-workout shake with ~15g whey, 80 calories of fat-free unsweeteened skyr/yogurt, ~2oz ripe mango, 1 tsp sugar, and 1 big tbsp karo light syrup with a few jelly beans. Guessing that’s about 50g carbs. later had meal with ~100g potatos, a small hot cross bun (~2oz), 3 pierogis, and some light potato soup. after some easter chocolate and small slice of cheesecake, I estimate total carbs for the day around 200-250g carbs and maintenance kcal. Since the sugary carbs were also high fat (chocolate, cheesecake) I saved them for evening and didn’t feel crappy the next day at all. Not too puffy, either – only slightly more water held in my face and muscles than normal. Way better tolerance than expected. My carb “meal” (with potatos, etc) was clean, so probably didn’t spike me that well. tried to eat potatos and roll first, but there were fibrous veg and some fat that might have dulled the response.

I think since I’ve already been tolerating higher amounts of carbs fairly well in recent days, I will try this method for ~4 weeks and see how I feel. If I don’t have good results I’ll go back to standard keto and just MCT oil pre-workout before transitioning into trained ketogenic diet / glucose preworkout with mct oil.

I’m lifting tonight, stronglifts workout B. Will let you know how deadlifts go. Grabbed a slice of danish from work for backload. :))

[Makoto Tomizawa]

Yes, if you’re always ultra low carb and ketogenic, I would suggest starting with 3 sets instead of 5. Over time if you’re recovering well and can handle more, maybe add another set and get used to that, and so on and so forth. But if you’re doing well with carbs and able to put more into training, I see no reason to deviate from that.

In terms of carb content/amount, as long as you get enough carbs in post-training and before bed, I think what really matters is the overall calorie intake. 1 g per lbs of LBM would be a good starting point, and gradually increase until you find your ceiling. Keeping it mostly starchy/glucose-based is by far the best bet. So something like dinner consisting of a good amount of protein with rice or potatoes (some vegetables shouldn’t really be a problem). Then maybe dessert that might be a bit fattier, depending on your overall calories. If you find that going ULC between training days is affecting your training negatively, you could add a small carb meal at night on your off day.

A month or so of trying it out to see how you react is a good idea.

Training Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuwHRdBaPVILxxLhXly_N1Ys66Hcwk4j-bM7nvKSLrI/edit?usp=sharing

[E L]

Last Night’s Backload Macros
Yesterday’s Kcal
Yesterday’s food

Well, I did more like 1.66g/lb LBM, LOL. LBm is ~80-85lb. However, I didn’t eat much earlier in the day, so I slammed some mostly starchy carbs. Besides a 1/2 cup of gatorade and tiny piece of cheesecake and slightly sweet roll, everything else was starch. (potatos, seasoned rice, white borscht potato soup, 2 pierogis)

This is about half of what I would aim for on a Carb Nite once a week, and last night’s training was my final in my 3 day split, so I have two ULC rest days to get through, so I don’t think I necessarily overdid the carbs.

When I dieted hard for a while I calculated based on my intake and weight lost that my maintenance kcal is about 1550. So this ~1600kcal intake would be good for a workout day.

I’ve noticed that I didn’t “feel” a huge insulin spike like when I did CNS and ended up on binges, but that also meant I didn’t end up with severe cravings, and because I am doing this post-workout with dinner and multiple times per week, I’m finding it easier to eat cleaner carbs and starches instead of wanting to have all the sweets AND pizza.

I think this may be a happy medium for me. My lifts were stronger and easier, too, and I felt no lack of energy, even at the end of my workout, and no hypoglycemia then, nor upon waking up this morning. A bit of hunger, but not unlike hunger when I am ketogenic. Again, only a tiny bit puffy.

Perhaps because of the multiple times this week I’ve “indulged” in carbs I am becoming more metabolically adapted to them again, and this is why I’m not hot, flushed, and full of cravings – but I feel better not having those severe reactions. Plus, lift 4 lyfe.

Makoto, since you’re my friend on MFP, may I ask if you’d be willing to occasionally advise me on the backloads I log? I am going to log during this experiment to get a better idea of how my body reacts and compare it to how I feel daily and in the gym. 🙂 I would much appreciate a little guidance before I “get it”. Thanks for the input you’ve already given!

• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by E L.

[Makoto Tomizawa]

Ideally I think you’d want to look leaner the next morning, but as long as you don’t look too soft and are feeling good, you’re off to a good start, especially given that you’re training is going better. Certain foods can also cause different reactions, so that’s also trial and error to see how much of what is your sweet spot.

As far as your macros, I think you could benefit from more protein. Whether you want to take some from your carb calories or fat calories is up to you, but I would still get at least 1/2 g of fat for every gram of protein.

Regarding nicotine gum, it’s best to keep it as far away as possible from your carb load, and I think the book says to do it upon waking. I know for SA, it says to also do it ~2 hrs before training, but I think you can skip that.

I’m no expert, but definitely willing to help out as much as I can!

Training Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuwHRdBaPVILxxLhXly_N1Ys66Hcwk4j-bM7nvKSLrI/edit?usp=sharing

[E L]

Thanks!

It was a strange occurance that I had so little protein. Usually it’s what I crave most, macro-wise.

That was my final piece of nicotine gum, I only really benefit from it as a stimulant accessory to caffeine, but it is too expensive and carries some long term health risks, so I won’t be buying more. I chewed it a good 6-7 hours before having any carbs.

I probably did have a little too high a carb intake this time, but hopefully it lasts me til tomorrow night’s lifting session.

I’m just glad I’m reacting well to the carb loads and not having cravings or being unable to keep to my intermittent fasting schedule the day after a backload.

Wednesday/yesterday was a rest day, I just did some yoga. Ended up high on protein and somewhat high on carbs, but all from fibrous veg. low total kcal, ~25% deficit. Craved veggies.

Will continue the convo on MFP messages, and thanks again for the advice 😀

[Sahar Ali]

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