I'm so miserable

[Miss24k]

^^^ SO Sorry Twinny ... hang in there. You know how to find me if you need anything.

No need to be sorry, it's a part of life, just too many things at once. I'll be alright!

 

[playmatesky]

From what I've gathered, your trainer put you on a 3 week regimen to drop some bodyfat to get to a new starting place. I'm not sure why he wants you low bodyfat unless you are trying to maintain a leaner look for the rest of the summer & then start in on the mass building phase in the fall.

Whatever the purpose, I understand you have hired a trainer and want to follow what he is saying to the letter now that you are focused back on a diet to get to a specific goal. HOWEVER, if you are feeling as shitty as you are, I think I took a short look at your diet -- it seems like its low cal and also low carb.

If you are not doing some sort of reasonable carb up on basis similar to a carb rotation, IMO your body is starved for carbs and trying to drop into ketosis, but since you are doing some carbs, you aren't going all the way in. You hear people who go thru the first 2 weeks of the Atkins diet w/ silly amounts of low carbing to go into ketosis and switch over to ketones as your energy source when the carbs run out. Note your brain needs carbs to run - that's why when you low carb you start gettign stupid in the brain. So you go thru this phase where your brain realizes there's no more carbs, but it can run on ketones as an energy source.

But the thing is, if you are depleted on carbs for any period of time, your whole system starts bogging down. That's why we all generally know the Atkins diet is great for dumping a lot of water weight initially and probably a lot of weight just from having a more restricted diet. But it sucks as a maintenance diet and certainly is useless for muscle building.

So now here you are feeling like absolute shit due to somethign about your diet. If the goal is to dump some bodyfat, it is at the cost of quality recovery. So what's the point? Seems the "gain" of the bodyfat you drop during this depleted state is going to be lost in some form either by bogged metabolism or just generally lousy "state of being" so you aren't really gaining anythign by continuing to suffer.

If you are concerned about the total carbs, say during the week, you could do a carb rotation similar to what I've done -- cut out all your complex carbs for 2 days, eat only fibrous carbs and replace the 100g or so of complex carbs you are pullign out w/ a fat source like almonds. Then on the 3rd day, replace the almonds back w/ a good complex carb source like a sweet potato say up to 150 g for the day. This is not a wild carb up and across the whole week you are getting 2 carb ups and ending up at the same total carbs.

For where you are right now, I'd just go straight into a "carb up" day-- give yourself at least 150 g of complex carb across the day & see if that helps you get yourself back to "normal". If you still feel like crap, do it for another day. Then you can go into the carb rotation schedule for the next week. Not sure when you are going to hook up w/ your trainer, but I don't think a couple days of well scheduled carb ups is goign to kill your diet. But at least you will be getting carbs before you crash from prolonged depletion.

Hope that helps girl. I just don't think the extended depletion is going to get you anywhere if it is costing you quality sleep & general well-being.

***************************

If you are concerned about the total carbs, say during the week, you could do a carb rotation similar to what I've done -- cut out all your complex carbs for 2 days, eat only fibrous carbs and replace the 100g or so of complex carbs you are pullign out w/ a fat source like almonds. Then on the 3rd day, replace the almonds back w/ a good complex carb source like a sweet potato say up to 150 g for the day. This is not a wild carb up and across the whole week you are getting 2 carb ups and ending up at the same total carbs.



SASSY.....

I am wondering if I am understanding this right as I am also interested in doing a carb rotation. When you cut out Complex carbs for 2 days and replace with Fibrous carbs, is it okay to have fibrous carbs at each meal? And what about berries? Im sure probably not the berries but how about in the first meal for breakfast?
Im allergic to eggs, oats, and soy so I eat plain organic yogurt usually or a bfast sausage with an Ezekiel tortilla.

And when you do a carb up carb down is it something like:

Mon & Tues: carb up
Wed & Thurs: carb down
Fri& Sat carb up
Sunday cheat or carb down depending on your current situation.

Im trying to cut at least 5% before Oct 31st.

Thanks!!

Sorry for my personal question in your post Miss 24k

 

[playmatesky]

Damn babygirl....you are having one hell of a week arent you?
Just remember to listen to your body. YOu are a knock out no matter what!

 

[jenscats5]

Hope your feeling better today......

 

[Sassy69]

***************************

If you are concerned about the total carbs, say during the week, you could do a carb rotation similar to what I've done -- cut out all your complex carbs for 2 days, eat only fibrous carbs and replace the 100g or so of complex carbs you are pullign out w/ a fat source like almonds. Then on the 3rd day, replace the almonds back w/ a good complex carb source like a sweet potato say up to 150 g for the day. This is not a wild carb up and across the whole week you are getting 2 carb ups and ending up at the same total carbs.



SASSY.....

I am wondering if I am understanding this right as I am also interested in doing a carb rotation. When you cut out Complex carbs for 2 days and replace with Fibrous carbs, is it okay to have fibrous carbs at each meal? And what about berries? Im sure probably not the berries but how about in the first meal for breakfast?
Im allergic to eggs, oats, and soy so I eat plain organic yogurt usually or a bfast sausage with an Ezekiel tortilla.

And when you do a carb up carb down is it something like:

Mon & Tues: carb up
Wed & Thurs: carb down
Fri& Sat carb up
Sunday cheat or carb down depending on your current situation.

Im trying to cut at least 5% before Oct 31st.

Thanks!!

Sorry for my personal question in your post Miss 24k

There are lots of different ways to "carb cycle". The idea is to burn thru the carbs you have stored in your body without adding any more (complex) carbs in via meals. Then just as your body starts to realize it is not getting the regular amount of carbs it would normally be used to, it gets ready to slow down metabolism to preserve the energy sources it has left. Just when this is about to happen, you throw in some complex carbs and your metabolism will continue to burn at the more efficient rate.

You can do an escalating sequence of carb increase days and call that a cycle, e.g. 0 g Day 1, 50 g on Day 2, 100 g Day 3, 150 g Day 4, repeat. Or you can do what I've done with my current trainer -- 2 days of 0 complex carbs (only fiibrous) and then on day 3, go to 100 or 150 g carb in the form of sweet or russet potatos. Day 4, start the 2 low days again.

Do berries count? Well note that I'm in competition mode so I really have no room in my diet for excess anything. Berries are not a fibrous carb, but rather a simple carb - i.e. a quick source of energy. Including them in small amountns won't hurt. They are a good source of "good stuff" for your diet, but at the cost of being a simple carb, which again I don't have room for in my competition diet. But generally speaking a varied diet is good.

Will 2 days low, 2 days high help you? I don't' know - why don't you try it? Again my total cals and cals relative to other days are critical so I am following what I am following. I would say try the 2 on / 2 off thing. If you are interested in being aggressive w/ that diet, see if you start to feel flaky in the head on your 2nd low carb day when you are dieting on that schedule. That's when you know you are really burning through all your stored carbs. If not, then you will probably feel better (less fuzz brain) but you may not be setting up optimal fat burning. Try both schedules & see if you notice a difference

Hope that helps.

 

[playmatesky]

There are lots of different ways to "carb cycle". The idea is to burn thru the carbs you have stored in your body without adding any more (complex) carbs in via meals. Then just as your body starts to realize it is not getting the regular amount of carbs it would normally be used to, it gets ready to slow down metabolism to preserve the energy sources it has left. Just when this is about to happen, you throw in some complex carbs and your metabolism will continue to burn at the more efficient rate.

You can do an escalating sequence of carb increase days and call that a cycle, e.g. 0 g Day 1, 50 g on Day 2, 100 g Day 3, 150 g Day 4, repeat. Or you can do what I've done with my current trainer -- 2 days of 0 complex carbs (only fiibrous) and then on day 3, go to 100 or 150 g carb in the form of sweet or russet potatos. Day 4, start the 2 low days again.

Do berries count? Well note that I'm in competition mode so I really have no room in my diet for excess anything. Berries are not a fibrous carb, but rather a simple carb - i.e. a quick source of energy. Including them in small amountns won't hurt. They are a good source of "good stuff" for your diet, but at the cost of being a simple carb, which again I don't have room for in my competition diet. But generally speaking a varied diet is good.

Will 2 days low, 2 days high help you? I don't' know - why don't you try it? Again my total cals and cals relative to other days are critical so I am following what I am following. I would say try the 2 on / 2 off thing. If you are interested in being aggressive w/ that diet, see if you start to feel flaky in the head on your 2nd low carb day when you are dieting on that schedule. That's when you know you are really burning through all your stored carbs. If not, then you will probably feel better (less fuzz brain) but you may not be setting up optimal fat burning. Try both schedules & see if you notice a difference

Hope that helps.

Very cool. That totally explained it to the T. Thanks so much!!!!

 

[Daisy_Girl]

Daisy damn when you put it like that I sound a mess haha. I know that to put on mass I should be eating more, and didn't understand why he (trainer) lowered my calories, but he said it was to lower my bodyfat because it was apparently at 19.5%

LMAO, sorry. Didn't mean to make you sound a mess. Was jus trying to summarize - lol.

No flippin' way you were 19.5%. I cannot IMAGINE that in the, what, 3-4 weeks you took off dieting post-comp you added like 5% BF (or so)? You would have had to be living off lard and not getting out of bed. I bet you were just retaining a ton o' water. Granted, I haven't seen pics of you at the supposed "19.5%" but I just flat out don't believe it.

 

[Sassy69]

This is what I don't like about talking about bodyfat %. It is so misleading and introduces the chance for so may inaccuracies. I agree I don't think that looked like "19.5%" but if you were holding a lot of water I could see I guess. Is your guy consistent in his measuring? But regardless, I have been meaning to say that whatever your bodyfat, you hold it very well -- you look fantastic & healthy in those suit pictures. Keep that in mind and stay focused on where you are going with it all an dyou will be fine!

In fitness, the destination IS the journey.

 

[Daisy_Girl]

This is what I don't like about talking about bodyfat %. It is so misleading and introduces the chance for so may inaccuracies. I agree I don't think that looked like "19.5%" but if you were holding a lot of water I could see I guess. Is your guy consistent in his measuring? But regardless, I have been meaning to say that whatever your bodyfat, you hold it very well -- you look fantastic & healthy in those suit pictures. Keep that in mind and stay focused on where you are going with it all an dyou will be fine!

In fitness, the destination IS the journey.

I agree. Plus, a certain BF% looks TOTALLY different on different people. You can see two people, at the exact same BF%, and they will likely look very different.

Even pre-PG, I stopped setting number goals for myself. Not just weight number goals, but BF% number goals too. Some people need numbers, but I just work better with going by sight, pictures and how my clothes are looking/fitting.

 

[Miss24k]

Thank you Sassy and Daisy.

And Daisy I'm with you on the numbers thing, I like to go by how I'm looking and how my clothes fit more than the numbers, hell my old way of getting my bf% checked, was asking Shadow to guess what it was. lol

Sassy when he measures my bf, he uses the calipers and pinches me at 9 spots, always the same ones.