Nutrition

May 04, 2022

Are you making these 5 mistakes with cheat meals?

If you want to know the 5 biggest cheat meal mistakes and 5 rules for cheat meals without getting fat, then you should read this article.

Sometimes it feels good to let yourself go - stop striving for goals and trying to control everything and just give in to your impulses.

You know, just being human once in a while.

When it comes to dieting, we all know what that means: ignoring the plan and "cheating".

No counting calories, no estimating macronutrients and no worrying about what you should and shouldn't eat.

There are different options when it comes to cheating.

Some people believe that even small deviations from the diet plan will prevent them from reaching their goals.

Others believe that you can deviate from the plan as long as you stay away from certain foods.

Still others throw caution to the wind and stuff themselves with whatever they feel like.

And all these people are misguided.

You can certainly enjoy cheat meals without ruining your progress and you don't have to rely on a short list of "approved" foods, but you can't eat yourself into a coma every week without paying a price.

And that's what this article will be about:

How can you get the maximum pleasure out of your cheat meals while minimizing the downside?

Ultimately, cheating done correctly can actually make it easier for you to stick to your diet and see results.

Let's find out how...

The truth about cheat meals

When I talk about cheat meals, I'm not talking about eating sugar or dairy or other foods that have been declared "unclean" by one "guru" or another.

I am not even talking about eating anything that is not part of your diet. All I care about is calorie and micronutrient intake, because when it comes to body composition, how much you eat is much more important than what you eat.

"Cheating" means eating more calories than you planned, regardless of what you eat, and not worrying about the nutritional content of the food.

Cheating consists of eating a lot more food than you would normally eat and/or ignoring the nutritional value.

For example, if you've been eating on plan all day, but end the day with a high-calorie meal at your favorite restaurant, that's cheating. No surprises so far. This is the kind of cheating that gets most people into trouble. Another form of cheating, however, is more or less sticking to your calories and macronutrients but ignoring the nutritional value.

For example, if you skip fruit, vegetables and whole grains for a day to fit fast food into your day, that's cheating too.

If you do this occasionally then it won't cause you any problems of any kind, but if you do it too often then it can lead to nutrient deficiencies. (And your goal shouldn't be to gain muscle and lose fat in the most unhealthy way possible).

The 5 biggest mistakes you can make with cheat meals

Cheating in itself is not a mistake. In fact, I believe you should cheat. It makes your diet as a whole much more enjoyable and improves long-term diet adherence and therefore long-term success more easily.

However, the important thing is how you cheat.

The biggest mistakes I see people make when cheating are...

Cheating too often
Eating too much food at a cheat meal
Scheduling cheat days instead of cheat meals
Consuming too much dietary fat
Drinking too much alcohol.

Let's look at each of these mistakes in detail and learn why the consequences are so devastating.

1. you indulge in too many cheat meals

This mistake is actually self-explanatory. Cheating involves overeating, so cheating too often negates much of the calorie deficit needed for sustained fat loss.

2. you eat too much during a cheat meal

Many people don't realize how many calories are in the food they eat during their cheat meals. And many are shocked when they research the amount of calories in their cheat meals.

One of the biggest problems is restaurants, as their job is to produce delicious meals, which usually means generous amounts of oil, butter and sugar.

This helps explain research conducted by scientists at Tufts University, which included an analysis of 360 dinner orders at 123 restaurants in San Francisco, Boston and Little Rock between 2011 and 2014 (1).

The researchers found that restaurant meals averaged 1,200 calories and that American, Italian and Chinese restaurants were the worst, averaging nearly 1,500 calories per meal.

This agrees with a study by scientists at the University of Illinois, which concluded that there is not much difference between restaurant food and fast food in terms of calories (2).

All this means that if you eat out regularly, you're likely to struggle to lose weight.

3. you use cheat days instead of cheat meals

Many people believe that if they've stuck strictly to their diet plan throughout the week, they can let loose nutritionally at the weekend. Here, however, the wish is more likely to be the father of the thought.

If you stuff several thousand calories into yourself on a trip to your favorite restaurant, you can imagine how deep you can dig your dietary grave in just a few days.

4. you eat too much fat

Many people believe that eating large amounts of carbohydrates is the safest way to get fat, but they are wrong.

If you want to build fat as quickly and efficiently as possible by eating too much, then you should eat large amounts of dietary fat. (And you should add alcohol, but we'll talk about that in a moment).

To understand this, we need to look at the physiology of how our bodies increase fat stores.

From a chemical perspective, carbohydrates are very different from the type of molecule stored in the body's fat cells and the process of converting carbohydrates into body fat is known as de novo lipogenesis (DNL).

The first thing you should know is that DNL rarely occurs under normal dietary conditions.

If you look at studies that have looked at excess food intake, you will see that carbohydrate intake needs to be very high (700 to 900 grams per day over several days) for DNL to contribute significantly to fat gain (3).

There are of course exceptions, such as a large infusion of pure glucose (150% of daily calorie needs) (4) and people with hyperinsulinemia (5), but the above applies to healthy people following a normal diet.

This is not to say that you can't get fat by eating too many carbohydrates.

The primary reason for this is that eating carbohydrates reduces fat oxidation (6). In other words, carbohydrates tell your body to stop burning fat for energy and start burning carbohydrates instead.

This means that when you eat carbohydrates and are in a state of caloric surplus, more or less all of your dietary fat is stored as body fat instead of being at least partially burned for energy.

And since your body fat mass is regulated by energy balance, you can probably see the role that carbohydrates play:

Eat a lot of carbs and you'll store most of the fat you eat and burn very little body fat throughout the day.

And if you've now got a flash of inspiration about how you could "hack" your metabolism by eating a lot of carbohydrates and very, very little fat, then I have to disappoint you.

Not only would this be bad for your health - scientific research also shows that when your fat intake is too low, the DNL is ramped up to supply the body with vital triglycerides.

Our bodies are far smarter than we think.

And remember, none of this overrides the laws of energy balance. If you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose body fat regardless of how many carbohydrates you eat. And if you are in a calorie surplus, you will gain fat.

What I was getting at was simply to show how these macronutrients directly affect the physiology of fat burning and storage and how you can apply this knowledge to your cheat meals.

5. you drink too much alcohol

According to some people, you will get and stay fat even if you sporadically drink little alcohol.

This is a strange statement considering the fact that moderate alcohol consumption is actually associated with lower body weight (7).

I know this may sound blasphemous, but just like in the case of carbohydrate vs. fat consumption, it starts to make sense when you dig a little deeper and look at the physiological processes involved here.

Let's start with a study that involved an analysis of the diets of 1,944 adults aged 18 to 74 and concluded that an increase in the amount of calories in the form of alcohol did not result in the weight gain that would normally be expected when that increase in calorie intake is in the form of carbohydrate, protein or fat (8).

In fact, people who drank alcohol regularly consumed on average 16% more calories than people who did not drink alcohol and had the same level of physical activity. Despite this, they were no fatter than those who did not drink alcohol.

It's almost as if the calories from alcohol didn't count.

A similar effect was seen in a study of obese women on a fat loss diet, where one group consumed 10% of their calories in the form of white wine and another group consumed 10% of their calories in the form of grape juice (9).

After three months, the white wine group had lost about 2 pounds more than the grape juice group.

There are several likely explanations for these results.

It is known that alcohol can reduce appetite, which is conducive to weight loss (10). In addition, alcohol can improve insulin sensitivity, which has positive effects on fat oxidation (11).

More importantly, however, is the fact that alcohol cannot be stored as body fat. In other words, there is basically no way your body can convert ethanol (alcohol) into a lipid that can be stored.

So why do I say it's a mistake to drink alcohol with a cheat meal? Well, much like carbohydrates, alcohol blocks fat oxidation, which in turn speeds up the rate at which fats you've eaten are stored as fat (12).

In short, it's not the calories from alcohol that can make you fat, it's the junk you eat with alcohol that you find hard to resist as your alcohol levels rise.

How to enjoy your cheat meals without ruining your diet

Now that you know what not to do when you cheat, let's take a look at how to do it right.

Here's what I would recommend you do:

Cheat once a week and try not to exceed 150% of your current daily calorie intake on that day

This will allow you to let yourself go a little and enjoy your food without undoing most of your weekly diet progress. (and please note that I said 150% of your current calorie intake and not your daily requirement). How you distribute these calories throughout the day is up to you, with most people preferring to eat the extra calories during a meal as this helps them avoid passive overeating throughout the day.

In other words, they eat more or less normally on this day and indulge in one meal that is more substantial than usual (usually dinner).

Try to keep your intake of dietary fat below 100 grams on cheat day

Not only will this help you keep your calories under control (remember that one gram of fat provides 9 calories), but it will also help minimize fat storage.

Eat a high-carb diet on cheat day instead of stuffing yourself with your favorite high-fat foods

Scientific research clearly shows that a high-carb meal causes less immediate body fat gain than a high-fat meal (13).

For this reason, I recommend a high-carb diet instead of a high-fat diet when cheating, which results in less immediate fat gain and has other benefits.

One of the downsides of keeping your body in a calorie deficit is that it reduces plasma levels of a hormone called leptin, which is produced in fat tissue (14).

Simply put, leptin tells your brain that your body has enough energy stored in its fat cells and that your body can use energy at a normal rate, which includes metabolically "expensive" functions such as muscle growth or pregnancy, and that it can eat normal amounts of food and maintain normal levels of physical activity.

When you restrict your calorie intake to lose fat, energy production decreases, which tells your body that it is in a state of energy deficit and therefore needs to use less energy and consume more energy.

Your body accomplishes this through several mechanisms (15): a reduction in resting metabolic rate, a reduction in unconscious physical activity, and a stimulation of hunger, to name a few.

Increasing your leptin levels reverses these effects, which is the reason you feel better when you stop restricting your calorie intake.

This is why some people recommend cycling your calorie intake with periods of high and low calorie intake throughout the week, where you are in deficit on some days and eat your maintenance calorie intake on other days.

This is a way to deal with some of the negative effects associated with dieting, although I don't like that this can greatly slow down the fat loss process.

If you eat your maintenance calories 3 days a week then it will take you twice as long to reach your goals.

I prefer the refeed strategy, which involves eating large amounts of carbohydrates once a week on the cheat day.

The reason this works well is that carbohydrates do not greatly affect fat storage and they also increase leptin levels - much more than proteins and fats.

Save calories if you want to eat a lot

If you're like me and many others and you like to eat several thousand calories during a cheat meal, then I have a simple tip for you:

Save yourself calories by eating nothing but protein in the time leading up to that cheat meal. For example, my cheat meals are almost always in the evening and I balance them out by eating some protein every few hours on those days, but avoiding the carbs and fats I would normally eat.

Then when dinner time comes around, I have a big buffer of carbs and fats (and therefore calories) before I even reach my maintenance calorie count for the day.

If I cheat at breakfast, the strategy is the same: I eat my daily total of carbs and fats at breakfast and just protein the rest of the day.

Expect the worst when you eat out

A palm-sized piece of prepared meat at a restaurant has at least 120 to 150 extra calories from fat absorbed during preparation.

A cup of pasta or potatoes has between 180 and 200 calories, but if a sauce or other source of fat is added, this can easily double. Even vegetable dishes can contain large amounts of hidden calories in the form of added butter, oil or cheese.

And as for dessert, 25 to 50 calories per tablespoon is a good rule of thumb. The point is that you need to pay close attention to what you order when you eat out. It's not hard to eat a few thousand calories in just one meal.

The first step is to familiarize yourself with the types of foods you like to eat in restaurants.

There are a number of sites on the internet that can help you make a rough estimate of calories. If you eat in larger chain restaurants, you may be able to find more accurate calorie counts online. In this case, I would advise you to add 20% to these values, as many restaurants embellish their calorie information.

The point here is not to track every calorie of your cheat meal, but simply to prevent you from undoing all the progress you've made during the week.

If you want to be able to drink alcohol and still lose weight efficiently, then on cheat day you should...

Have no more than one drink a day.
Limit your fat intake.
Don't combine high-fat foods with alcohol.
Stay away from carbohydrate-packed drinks such as beer and fruity alcoholic drinks (stick to dry wine and hard liquor).

Conclusion

Incorrect cheating is one of the main reasons why so many people "inexplicably can't lose weight no matter what they do."

They simply don't realize that you can starve yourself to near death all week long and then make up for it in a weekend.

If you cheat correctly, on the other hand, you can have the best of both worlds: the satisfaction of indulgence without the penalty of major weight gain.

References:

Source: https://www.muscleforlife.com/cheat-meal/

From: Michael Matthews

May 02, 2022

The devil's stuff or necessary? - Carbohydrates in the diet!

Alongside fat and proteins, carbohydrates are one of the three macronutrients and provide the body with energy. Unlike the other two, the human body could theoretically do without carbohydrates for its entire life. But does that make sense?

First of all: No. Carbohydrates are neither "bad" nor unhealthy, nor are they harmful to the body in any way. On the contrary, they are a valuable part of every person's diet, especially that of an athlete! As fat and protein are essential for the body (i.e. they cannot be produced by the body), carbohydrates are usually the key for people to cut calories when dieting. Because, as we all know, the only way to lose fat is to get into a calorie deficit. But now we'll explain why it's not advisable to cut out carbs completely when dieting.

Energy supplier number one

Why are carbohydrates so interesting for us athletes? Quite simply, they provide the body with quick energy. On the one hand, they are digested more quickly than protein and, above all, fats, and on the other, they are less complex for the body to digest and therefore provide more "net calories". For us, this means that if you want to achieve maximum performance, you should focus on carbohydrates just beforehand. Even in the diet. For example, meals such as rice pudding with a little whey or rice pudding are recommended approx. 1-2 hours before training. These ensure a sufficiently high blood sugar level during training. By absorbing carbohydrates quickly, the body can convert their energy optimally during training. Fats, on the other hand, should be avoided around training, as they literally sit in your stomach for a long time and hinder your training performance.

How much you should consume at the pre-workout meal depends on the athlete. As a rule of thumb, we recommend 1g of carbohydrates per 1kg of body weight and approx. 0.5g of protein per 1kg of body weight. In concrete terms, this means that if you weigh 80 kg, you should consume 80 g of carbohydrates and 40 g of protein before training. A pre-workout meal is now standard among ambitious athletes. Because a machine needs fuel.

No carbs, no drive

This sentence sums up well what happens if you cut back too much on carbohydrates during the diet. You feel limp, listless, tired, bored and can hardly get up for anything. In addition to the general lack of calories, this is due to the lack of sugar. For this reason, more and more athletes are now advising against extreme low-carb diets such as the ketogenic diet. The benefits of ketosis do not outweigh the reduced performance in training. (If you would like to find out more about this form of diet, please read our article on the ketogenic diet) Because one thing is clear: if you only eat protein as a pre-workout meal and avoid carbohydrates, you will definitely miss out on gains.

Nevertheless, carbohydrates are and will remain an adjustment screw that should be tightened as part of a diet. How does this fit together? Quite simply: Meal timing. Ideally, you should only eat carbohydrates when you really need them. This is the case on two occasions, you guessed it: Immediately BEFORE and AFTER training. This way you get all the benefits of carbs by providing you with full energy during training, but you don't consume unnecessary fast calories. Because carbohydrates have one major disadvantage: they don't really fill you up. You're probably familiar with this: you eat a plate of pasta or a bowl of rice and as soon as you've eaten it, you're ready for the next one. Fat and protein are far more filling and should make up the majority of your diet outside of training, especially protein. This is because the body needs more protein during the diet phases so that it does not have to metabolize the muscles it has trained in its emergency situation. Here it can make sense to consume more than 2g of protein per kilogram of body weight.

So remember: if you want to give 100% in training, carbohydrates are a MUST!

Clusterdextrin - Super+ for the muscles

Now it's time to find the right source for your carbs. In old-school bodybuilding, tricks such as apple juice in training or similar were often advised, but today there is a new insider tip: clusterdextrin. Clusterdextrin is a relatively new and much sought-after form of carbohydrate. Extracted from starch, it is much more soluble than other fast carbohydrate sources such as dextrose or maltodextrin. In addition, maltodextrin can be absorbed, processed and absorbed into the bloodstream faster than any other type of intra-workout.

And that is the great advantage of the substance: it is so quickly and easily digested that it can be drunk just before or even DURING training without hesitation. It doesn't sit in your stomach, it doesn't make you sluggish or tired, quite the opposite. It literally floods the body's glycogen stores, giving it the energy to perform at its best.

We need to dispel one myth about training during a diet once and for all: When dieting, it doesn't make sense to drastically increase volume or do sets of 30 reps to sculpt the muscle. On the contrary, it makes sense to increase the intensity of the training in order to maintain as many strength values as possible. Depending on the athlete, training level and performance, it is sometimes even possible to get stronger during the diet.

Due to the rapid digestion of cluster dextrin, it places only minimal strain on the digestive tract and the athlete can give full performance during training. However, cluster offers a decisive advantage: while other sources of carbohydrate quickly flow completely into the bloodstream and quickly "fizzle out", which can lead to a sharp and sudden drop in performance, cluster is released into the blood more evenly, so that blood sugar and performance remain constant. And that's exactly what we want as athletes: constant performance, consistent blood sugar and a regulated insulin output.

Your health will thank you for this effect, because blood sugar fluctuations are not healthy in the long term. Clusterdextrin is therefore ideal for strength and endurance athletes.

The ideal dietary macro distribution

An optimal distribution of macronutrients and especially carbohydrates in the diet is more difficult to find than you might think, as it depends on many individual factors. Studies also show that different people react differently to different diets. Simply put, low-fat works better for some people, while a balanced reduction in fat and carbs works better for others.

Similarly, some people tolerate high calorie deficits better than others. However, a rough rule of thumb can be given to you. In principle, you won't go wrong with the following formula:

2-2.5g protein/kg body weight
0.6-0.8g fat/kg body weight
You can fill up the rest of your calories with carbohydrates.

As a rule, you always have some leeway to eat according to your mood, even as part of a clean diet, because the less you have to force yourself, the more likely you are to stick to it. We can also highly recommend the following sources of carbohydrates:

Oatmeal (it's cheap, contains lots of zinc, iron, protein and other nutrients, and is more filling than almost any other carbohydrate)
Rice (the classic in boybuilding, take advantage of its lack of satiety before training) - Rice cakes (low in calories, high in volume, very cheap)
Fruit (contains a lot of valuable vitamins and spices up your meal)
Skyr (rich in protein and filling, combines well with fruit)
Vegetables (have virtually no calories and also provide you with vitamins and minerals)

Mar 25, 2022

How you can use calorie cycling to build muscle and lose fat Part 2

After looking at the basics of calorie cycling and its use while dieting and maintaining a low body fat percentage in the first part of this article, in this second part we will look at how you can use calorie cycling while building mass and go into more detail about creating a calorie cycling nutrition plan.

Is calorie cycling good for building muscle?

The answer is yes and no.

If you are relatively new to training with weights and want to build muscle, then calorie cycling is not for you. As long as you are eating enough calories and protein in general, you will make rapid progress and making this process more complex by calorie cycling will only distract you from the important points.

Even for a somewhat advanced exerciser, which I define as a person who has been exercising properly for at least two or three years, is eating right and has already reached 50 to 80% of his or her potential, it's probably better to keep it simple when dieting and building mass.

This means eating about 10% more calories than you consume, doing a lot of heavy training and, with a body fat percentage of 15% for men and 25% for women, dieting back down to 10% for men and 20% for women before the game starts all over again.

In terms of building muscle, calorie cycling is most useful for advanced exercisers who have been training properly for several years, have reached at least 80% of their genetic potential and want to continue to make steady gains in strength and muscle mass while staying lean.

Specifically, I am referring to exercisers who want to keep their body fat percentage in the range of 8 to 12% for men and 18 to 22 for women.

The reason that calorie cycling works so well for these people is that once you have built up most of the muscle and strength that your genetic potential allows you to, the process slows down to a lethargic crawl. After five years of proper nutrition and training, you'll be lucky if you gain a pound of muscle every six months.

When you start training with weights, your body's muscle-building machinery is ready to run at full speed, whereas in the later years of your training career it will never run faster than first or second gear.

This machinery is metabolically expensive and requires a large amount of energy and raw materials, and the more muscle it builds, the more food it needs. If you are new to the sport, your body will be able to utilize excess energy more efficiently than later when you are more experienced.

Thus, during the first 12 months of your training career, you can achieve excellent results with a larger calorie surplus - up to 500 kcal above your maintenance calorie intake - due to the substantial muscle building demands your body is exposed to. However, as these demands decrease - and they will decrease as you become more advanced in the gym - your body will no longer need as many extra calories to meet these demands.

In other words, it takes a much larger caloric surplus to build 20 pounds of muscle (which many men can do during their first year of training) than it does to build a few pounds (as will be the case in later years). In the latter case, only a few hundred calories above maintenance calories are required.

For me, this equates to around 3,200 kcal per day, as my maintenance calorie allowance is 2,900 kcal.

The good news is that while muscle gain is slower and slower as we get more muscular and stronger, the smaller calorie surplus needed for further progress produces smaller gains in body fat - so little that you can do a low-fat mass gain for several months before your body fat percentage gets so high that it necessitates a definition phase. And if you use calorie cycling during a low-fat mass building program, this phase can last even longer.

By maintaining a calorie surplus for four or five days a week and a calorie deficit for two or three days, you create a type of "maintenance calorie intake with benefits" where you are able to build muscle with minimal increase in body fat.

It can look like this:

I work out five days a week and take time off from training with weights on the weekends, but usually do 30 minutes of low intensity cardio on those two days. When calorie cycling during a low-fat bulking phase, you should maintain a calorie surplus during your training days, which in my case means that I eat more than I consume five days a week.

Since the calorie surplus doesn't have to be particularly large, 300 kcal above the maintenance calorie amount is more than enough, resulting in a total calorie surplus of 1,500 kcal during my five training days before my weekend starts with its non-training days.

Approximately half of the weight gained during low-fat mass gain is muscle, and my body needs to draw on the calorie surplus to build that muscle. It is also realistic to assume that I will have stored about 750 kcal in the form of fat by my first non-training day.

Then on the next (non-training) days I could eat 700 to 800 kcal less than I consume in order to lose the fat built up on my training days without having to sacrifice muscle or strength. And the net result of all this - at least in theory - would be a slight increase in muscle mass without any visible change in body fat percentage

I say "in theory" because things never work that optimally in real life. For one thing, muscle growth is a process that starts in the gym and is not completed after a few hours, but several days later. By restricting your calories even a few days a week, you are slowing down this process and sacrificing at least some of your potential gains.

Many people also find it difficult to stick with this plan because it takes some of the fun out of low-fat mass gain. Even if you're not a big gourmand and are striving to build flawless low-fat muscle, it's nice to be able to eat off-plan here and there without any real consequences.

However, if you're using calorie cycling, you'll need to pay closer attention to your daily calorie intake. And since most people work out during the week and keep the weekend workout-free, a calorie deficit on non-workout days makes eating out, inviting friends over, and other things along those lines less enjoyable.

However, as with anything fitness related, you don't have to be perfect at calorie cycling to make it work.

If you eat a little too much on one or two of your days with a calorie surplus, you can compensate by eating a little less on your days with a calorie deficit. And if you eat a little too much on a day with a planned calorie deficit, so that you come closer to or even exceed your maintenance calorie amount, then you can compensate by eating less on your next day with a planned calorie deficit, or by making your next day with a planned calorie surplus a day with a calorie deficit.

For example, let's say your plan is to eat a 10% calorie surplus four days a week and a 10% calorie deficit on the remaining three days, and on your first planned calorie deficit day you eat about as much as you consume. To make up for this, you can either simply maintain a 20% calorie deficit on the following day or eat 15% less than you consume on each of the following two days. Of course, the fewer "mistakes" you make, the better your results will be in the long run, but as long as you do things right most of the time, you can benefit greatly from calorie cycling.

If you are wondering whether it would also be possible to maintain a slight calorie surplus on training days and eat your maintenance calorie intake on non-training days, this may make sense if you only train two or three days a week as this will significantly reduce the build-up of body fat. However, if you train more often, such an approach will not really help you, so in this case I would suggest using a low-fat mass-building phase followed by a short diet phase or calorie cycling. So the bottom line on calorie cycling and muscle building is this:

The whole thing is unnecessary and often even counterproductive as long as you are not a more advanced exerciser who wants to stay relatively lean over a longer period of time.

How you can put together a calorie cycling nutrition plan

If you've read this far, you probably want to learn how to put all of this into practice, so let's get down to business and create a sample plan.

There are many possible approaches to this, but I would recommend rotating between three different levels of calorie intake depending on your goals:

A high calorie day, with about 10% above your maintenance calorie level.
A day with a low calorie intake, about 20% below your maintenance calorie intake.
A day with a medium calorie intake in the range of your maintenance calorie intake.

There are extreme versions of calorie cycling that involve alternating between very low and very high calorie days, but I don't recommend these approaches.

While some of these protocols may work, they involve far more discomfort than they are worth and usually produce worse results in the long run than the method I will describe here.

When creating a calorie cycling diet plan, remember that you still need to plan and monitor your macronutrient intake if you want to achieve the best possible results.

How to put together a calorie cycling diet plan for weight loss

Before using calorie cycling during a fat loss phase, the first thing you need to consider is your body fat percentage.

As you may recall, if your body fat percentage is over 15% for men and over 25% for women, calorie cycling doesn't have much to offer beyond regular dieting (with the same calorie and macronutrient intake each day).

If your body fat percentage is below 15% (for men) or below 25% (for women), then it may make sense to consider calorie cycling while dieting.

In this case, I recommend a diet plan that includes five low-calorie days and two medium-calorie days per week. You can arrange these days however you like, but I recommend that you have your two medium-calorie days on the days or days when you are on a low-calorie diet. calorie intake days on or before the days with your hardest workouts.

If you train first thing in the morning, then you should schedule your medium calorie days on the days before, and if you train in the evening, then you should schedule those days on your training days.

This way you give your body enough time to maximize its muscle glycogen levels, which will have a positive impact on your training performance.

Here is an example of what this might look like:

Monday (Press): Medium calorie intake day
Tuesday (lower body): Low calorie day
Wednesday (shoulders): Medium calorie day
Thursday (pulling): Low calorie day
Friday (upper body): Low calorie day
Saturday (no training): Low calorie day
Sunday (non-training): Day with low calorie intake

If you train in the evening, it could look like this:

Monday (press): Low calorie day
Tuesday (lower body): Medium calorie day
Wednesday (shoulders): Day with lower calorie intake
Thursday (pulling): Day with medium calorie intake
Friday (upper body): Day with low calorie intake
Saturday (non-training): Day with low calorie intake
Sunday (no training): Low calorie day

Next, let's talk about macronutrients. Here I would recommend the following:

Your protein intake should be 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight
Your fat intake should be 30% of your daily calorie intake
Your carbohydrate intake should make up the rest of your calories

A low-calorie day for me looks like this:

195 grams of protein (780 kcal)
55 grams of fat (495 kcal)
280 grams of carbohydrates (1,120 kcal)
Approx. 2,400 kcal

A day with an average calorie intake would look like this:

195 grams of protein (780 kcal)
65 grams of fat (585 kcal)
410 grams of carbohydrates (1,640 kcal)
Approx. 3,000 kcal

Once you've calculated your calorie and nutrient amounts, the next thing you need to do is put them into a nutrition plan that you can follow over time.

How to put together a calorie cycling nutrition plan for muscle building

If you want to use calorie cycling to build muscle, I recommend the following:

For four or five training days per week: five high-calorie and two low-calorie days per week
For two or three training days per week: four high-calorie and three low-calorie days per week

As the size of the calorie surplus on the high calorie days will be smaller than the size of the calorie deficit on your low calorie days, your calorie intake over the week as a whole will be more or less in the range of your maintenance calorie intake.

However, if you notice that your weight is dropping over time, then you should swap one of the low-calorie days for a high-calorie day. And if you notice that your body weight is increasing too quickly, then you should swap one of the high-calorie days for a low-calorie day.

How you distribute your high-calorie and low-calorie days over the week doesn't matter and you can also shift them from week to week. Personally, I like to schedule my high-calorie days on my training days.

If I train from Monday to Friday and the weekend is training-free, then it would look like this:

Monday: High calorie day
Tuesday: High calorie day
Wednesday: High calorie day
Thursday: High calorie day
Friday: High calorie day
Saturday (no training): Low calorie day
Sunday (non-training day): Low calorie day

If you train less than five days per week, I would recommend that you start with five high-calorie days and two low-calorie days per week and make adjustments later.

If you only train two days a week, then I would recommend that you follow a different training program to build muscle.

Now let's take a look at how your calories would be divided between the individual macronutrients:

Your protein intake should be 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight
Your fat intake should be 20% of your daily calorie intake
Your carbohydrate intake should make up the rest of your calories

For me, a high-calorie day would look like this:

195 grams of protein (780 kcal)
75 grams of fat (675 kcal)
460 grams of carbohydrates (1,840 kcal)
Approx. 3,300 kcal

And a low-calorie day would look like this:

195 grams of protein (780 kcal)
55 grams of fat (495 kcal)
280 grams of carbohydrates (1,120 kcal)
Approx. 2,400 kcal

How to put together a calorie cycling nutrition plan for the maintenance phase

If you want to use calorie cycling to maintain your body weight, I recommend the following:

Four or five training days per week: five high-calorie and two low-calorie days per week
Two or three training days per week: four high-calorie and three low-calorie days per week

And as far as macronutrients are concerned, you can combine them in the same way as for low-fat mass building

The bottom line on calorie cycling

Calorie cycling is a method of nutrition that involves planned increases and decreases in calorie intake throughout the week, typically achieved by increasing or decreasing carbohydrate intake.

Most calorie cycling protocols involve high calorie days where you increase your calorie intake and low calorie days where you reduce your calorie intake. Many people claim that calorie cycling allows you to "hack" your metabolism so that you can...

Dramatically increase your fat loss by boosting your metabolism, reducing hunger and giving your body more energy for your workouts.
Simultaneously build muscle and lose fat by using the calorie surplus to stimulate muscle growth and using the calorie deficit to lose fat.
Achieve consistent gains in muscle and strength while staying rock hard and defined

The truth is, however, that calorie cycling does none of this.

When it comes to fat loss, calorie cycling has no benefits to offer as long as your body fat percentage is above 15% for men and 25% for women. In other words, calorie cycling only makes sense if you are already lean and want to become very lean.

In this case, calorie cycling may make getting lean more enjoyable, but it has no inherent fat-burning benefits.

When it comes to staying lean, calorie cycling may help you maintain a lower body fat percentage more easily than traditional dieting methods. However, it will not reverse the negative side effects of a very low body fat percentage.

And when it comes to building muscle, calorie cycling has nothing to offer beginners and slightly more advanced exercisers. Until you've tapped into most of your genetic potential, it's more of a hindrance than a help.

However, if you are a more advanced exerciser and want to continue to make slow but steady gains in strength and muscle mass while staying lean, calorie cycling can help you. Your progress will be slower than with a constant calorie surplus, but you will gain less fat.

And just to be clear: By "lean" I mean a body fat percentage of 8 to 12% for men and 18 to 22% for women.

If you've already reached this level of leanness and want to make maintaining the status quo more enjoyable, then calorie cycling can help you mitigate some of the negative side effects of being lean.

Although calorie cycling will not 'cure' these problems, it may extend the period of time over which you can maintain this state before you feel the need to increase your body fat percentage to a more maintainable level.

Source: https://legionathletics.com/calorie-cycling/

Mar 11, 2022

Mini - Cut The dreaded diet

Many people have heard the term before, but what exactly is the mini cut? This is a deliberately short and very aggressive diet, inserted between two build-up phases in weight training. It is usually caused by the fact that the athlete in question has increased their body fat percentage a little too much during the bulking phase and no longer feels completely comfortable visually. Or they want to get in shape for a specific event such as a wedding, a class reunion or simply for the beach.

A mini cut should therefore deliver visible results very quickly and reduce the weight or body fat percentage to a level that will not be maintained in the long term. Some experts even recommend interspersing mini cuts with your training instead of the classic, longer diet over several months. The advantage is obvious: due to their short duration, there is a much higher chance that you will really stick with it.

The duration

The motto is simple: it has to be short and painful! Choose a duration of at least two to a maximum of four (in exceptional cases up to six) weeks. This may sound short and easy to manage, but you will realize after the first week at the latest that this is not the case at all. The high calorie deficit will quickly become noticeable. However, this limited duration will allow you to maintain (almost) all of your muscles. Because that is the primary purpose of the mini cut: temporary fat loss in order to be more defined and then be able to get back into full training.

The deficit

Speaking of the deficit, how high should it actually be? Choose a high deficit of 800 to 1,000 kcal per day. This will enable you to achieve maximum results in a short space of time. It's hard, but it's worth it. We are talking about up to 1 kg of pure fat loss per week. During this time, your training must be correspondingly hard and relentless in order to maintain your strength during the starvation period. To increase your deficit a little more, diet-supporting products such as Fahrenheit 108° from GN will help you. "It increases the body's thermogenesis, curbs appetite and increases energy levels during times of dieting!" says Michael Zakel, one of GN' s best athletes himself.

Volume!

When training during this time, it's best to focus on intensity rather than volume when eating. What does that mean? Food with a high volume (= large quantity, low calories) will be your best friend here. Go for vegetables, fruit, lean meat/fish and limit your drinks to water, tea and black coffee. You should eat these foods every day, especially vegetables in large quantities! 500 g to 1,000 g per day is a good guideline. Bread, pasta and rice are less ideal as they are less filling in relation to the calories they contain. High-calorie foods such as chocolate bars, cakes, potato chips, etc. should be avoided as much as possible (as in any diet). "

In addition to fat, water in the form of deposits under the skin also makes the body look spongy, undefined and soft. To remedy this, we recommend Shred Cuts from GN, one of the best dehydrators ever developed."

Step by step

In the truest sense of the word. Walking is the easiest way to increase your NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). You burn calories on the side without making your body overly hungry. The best way to do this is to increase your daily activity rate, i.e. the number of steps you take. 10,000 steps per day is a good place to start. If you find the time and motivation, it's no problem to increase this to 15,000 or even 20,000 steps.

Distraction

Often forgotten, but an important aspect of any diet. Out of sight out of mind, as the saying goes. Make sure that you don't give the feeling of hunger any space in your head! Stay as busy as possible by working, studying or playing activities that keep you focused. This will help you deal with hunger much better.

Mar 04, 2022

Protein - Everything you need to know!

There are countless different sources of protein. And they are all an essential part of our path to a healthy and strong body. The classics are of course meat, whey, eggs, fish and dairy products such as skyr. But some plant-based foods such as pulses are also surprisingly high in protein! Let's take a closer look at the basics.

What are proteins?

Quite simply, proteins are one of the three macronutrients along with fat and carbohydrates. This means that they provide the body with energy (measured in kilocalories). Micronutrients, on the other hand, cannot supply the body with energy. Proteins are macromolecules made up of amino acids. They are found in every cell in our body. What are amino acids? Quite simply, they are chemical compounds that are found in all living organisms. There are 20 canonical proteinogenic acids, 8 of which are essential amino acids. The body cannot produce these itself and must obtain them from outside through food. This means that a person MUST consume proteins (and also fats) on a long-term basis in order for the body to survive! In theory, we can do without carbohydrates for the rest of our lives. The quantity

How much protein should you eat every day? Of course, as with most substances, this depends heavily on the athlete's body weight. For a long time, there was a persistent rumor that consuming more than 1.4g/kg body weight would damage the kidneys in the long term, but this is really just a rumor. No such connection has been proven to date. Don't be afraid of protein!

According to many studies and the opinion of the vast majority of the bodybuilding scene, a protein intake of around 2g protein per kg of body weight per day is ideal for building muscle. If you weigh 75 kg, that's 150 g of protein per day. When dieting, you should increase this value slightly to prevent muscle loss.

The timing

In principle, the overall protein balance is far more important than the protein timing, but this also has an influence on your training success. You can maximally stimulate protein biosynthesis with a protein amount of around 30g in a meal. In simple terms, this means that you can stimulate muscle building as well as possible for a few hours. However, it is a myth that only 30g of protein is consumed per meal. You can easily consume 80g of protein per meal.

The value

The value of the protein plays a not insignificant role. The motto here is variety instead of monotony! Different foods also have different compositions in the protein structure (amino acid profile). Therefore, make sure you get your protein from as many different foods as possible in order to provide your body with the best possible nutrition. If you only eat beef or soy, to give a striking example, you will miss out on long-term gains because you may have supplied your body with a lot of protein, but it was not varied enough to cover all the needs of a complex mechanism such as the human body.

Plan B

2g of protein per kilo of your own weight EVERY DAY? For many people, this is not so easy to achieve when you consider that everyday life doesn't stop at anyone. Quite a few of us have children to bring up, full-time jobs, relatives to care for, a household to run and a social life of our own. So what can we do to always be on the safe side?

Supplements are the magic word. In addition to the unbeatable classic whey protein, which usually contains around 75% protein, almost 4 times as much protein as meat, you can never go wrong. Simply drink it between meals (or with a meal such as pancakes) in the form of a protein shake with water or milk (all milk alternatives can also be mixed with whey. In addition, there are now high protein variants of many common foods that make it much easier for us to achieve our desired protein levels. These include delicious protein bars, or protein-enriched versions of pudding, semolina and even chocolate or potato chips.

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