Refeeds on Keto

[DreamWeaver]

How often for an endo who needs to lose a lot of weight for a contest. I was thinking every 5 days what do you think.

 

[MySoulFindsRest]

Depends on weight, bf%, amount of muscle...

If I remember correctly, your 20% or so? Every five days should suffice. Once you break your setpoint, refeeds should occur more often. Over at mind and muscle, the guys dieting at sub 10%, diet for 42 hours, then refeed for 6.

 

[DreamWeaver]

Yah I only plan on doing this diet till I get close to 10 and then i'll swiich to my regular precontest which is tried and true for me.

Thanks 5 days should be good then.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

Depends on how long you've been dieting. When I start I don't even refeed until around 14 days. Then I do a couple weeks at 10 days, then 7, 5, etc....The less fat, the more you need to carb up to prevent any muscle loss. At 20%, you won't have to worry about that at all.

 

[DreamWeaver]

lol yah not all that concerned at this point. Muscles is a lot harder to lose than a lot of people think. I believe a lot of people mistake low glycogen for muscle loss. Reduction of muscle tissure is not a common occurence really. This is from my experience as a natural I don't know about when you are using things like T1 pro I am a rookie in that department.

Now you have me rethinking my refeeds I might go back to once a week for one day.

 

[2demon2]

Depends on how long you've been dieting. When I start I don't even refeed until around 14 days. Then I do a couple weeks at 10 days, then 7, 5, etc....The less fat, the more you need to carb up to prevent any muscle loss. At 20%, you won't have to worry about that at all.

Well-said.

 

[dez/null]

what exactly is a refeed?

 

[Biggs]

Taken from Blindfaith's sticky:

The Weekend Carb Load

Since muscle glycogen is the main source of energy for anaerobic exercise such as weight training, we cannot simply deplete all stores while working out and not fill them back up. If that does happen, be rest-assured that the body WILL use protein for fuel then. But this won’t happen on the CKD.

Your one and a half days of "freedom" allow you to do two things: First, reward your carb cravings from the previous days, allowing you to enjoy pleasures like pizza, pasta, breads, etc. Second, eating these things are physiologically rewarding as insulin levels run high, storing amino acids and carbs, as glycogen, into the depleted muscle allowing you to be able to workout again the following week.

Your "carb-up" should begin Friday night and last until around midnight Saturday. Now the next important issue to address is how many carbs. Some lucky individuals find that they eat whatever they want for the 24-30 hour time interval and receive perfect glycogen compensation, while others rely on a better statistical number.

What has been recommended by other authors of the CKD is 10-12 grams of carbs per kilogram of lean mass. Again, time to do math. Our example had 160 pounds of lean mass, so divide that by the conversion factor of 2.2, and we get roughly 73 kg.

100 Grams of easily digested liquid carbs along with around half as many grams of carbs in protein (here 50) as a whey shake or something of that nature should be taken right after the last workout (which I will address in the workout section of the article) when insulin sensitivity will be at its greatest.

A few hours later this individual will start to spread the remaining 630 grams of carbs, along with the important number of 160 grams of protein (remember, keep this constant) during the remainder of the compensation period

 

[DreamWeaver]

Yah biggin I read that I agree with the piinciple I am just tailoring thinngs to my own needs.

Bobo I like your idea and I think I'll go with it 14 to start 10 then 7 untill I get low and then i'll do 5 etc...

In the Keto article it said to refeed for about 32 36 hours I believe. I did only want to refeed for 24 what do you guys think go with the 36 hours how long do you refeed for.

 

[Biggs]

Well, it seems to depend on the individual to an extent but I like the 36 hour approach, something like Fri afternoon- Sat evening. Some people will begin to add shorter, 6hr refeeds during the week after their bodyfat really starts to drop, Wed evening for example. I agree tailoring is excellent because it seems everyone can respond to this in markedly different ways, so tailoring is important to keep yoself functioning prolerly just wanted Dez to get that refeed description.

 

[WYD02]

I give myself about 24 hours every weekend...usually Friday night - Saturday night... During this time I usually eat pretty much whatever I want while trying to stay within my calorie range somewhat. For the rest of the week, just straight keto. If I get sub 10% bf, I will incorporate more frequent refeeds as bobo suggested.

WYD

 

[DreamWeaver]

One thing to note about refeeds they are not cheat days, you should be eating low fat higher carbs and lower protein on these days. Your refeeds should be calculated as much as your regular diet.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

Keep protein levels the same. Just replace your fats with high GI carbs.

 

[Draven]

How do you guys work out the 36/hr refeeds. I know on a 2 day refeed you do 2x the weekly cals at 70/15/15 and then roughly 1.5x week cals at 25/65/15 but I can't figure out what's best for a 1 1/2 day refeeds. If you start Friday afternoon and go to Sat night, how many cals do you take in the half day?

 

[Dwight Schrute]

How do you guys work out the 36/hr refeeds. I know on a 2 day refeed you do 2x the weekly cals at 70/15/15 and then roughly 1.5x week cals at 25/65/15 but I can't figure out what's best for a 1 1/2 day refeeds. If you start Friday afternoon and go to Sat night, how many cals do you take in the half day?

Truthfully, I don't really count calories. Most of the calories will go to restoring muscle glycogen and rarely will you ever have a spillage into adipose tissue in that short of a peroid.

 

[DreamWeaver]

I'm going with the 60 30 10 split for calories. I'll plan out day one and then eat the same on day 2 up untill noon.

 

[Timbo]

At a present 20% fat and just the beginning of a calorie-restricted diet, I see no need for refeeds. As per Bobo, perhaps a doubling of carbohydrate once in the first ten to fourteen days should suffice. This is simply to restore some muscle glycogen so performance does not suffer.

As you start to get lower into percentage bodyfat and fat loss stalls more readily, then refeeds may need be on the order of anywhere from three to five days. However, as contest time approaches, you will probably eliminate refeeds altogether in preparation of depletion training and nutrition.

It sounds like you're experienced with contest dieting, so you should need not need to experiment with the loading process. However, the earlier you can prepare the better. If you're ready a few weeks in advance, you can maintain relativley low carbs and then up the calories from fat to a maintenanace standpoint. This will only give you leverage against the other competitors who are likely under the supposition that they must diet all the way up to the show, and, unfortunately, come in flat and energy-drained. Good luck.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

At a present 20% fat and just the beginning of a calorie-restricted diet, I see no need for refeeds. As per Bobo, perhaps a doubling of carbohydrate once in the first ten to fourteen days should suffice. This is simply to restore some muscle glycogen so performance does not suffer.

As you start to get lower into percentage bodyfat and fat loss stalls more readily, then refeeds may need be on the order of anywhere from three to five days. However, as contest time approaches, you will probably eliminate refeeds altogether in preparation of depletion training and nutrition.

It sounds like you're experienced with contest dieting, so you should need not need to experiment with the loading process. However, the earlier you can prepare the better. If you're ready a few weeks in advance, you can maintain relativley low carbs and then up the calories from fat to a maintenanace standpoint. This will only give you leverage against the other competitors who are likely under the supposition that they must diet all the way up to the show, and, unfortunately, come in flat and energy-drained. Good luck.

If its only 20% then a refeed is only required to restore letpin levels as they lower. Muscle glycogen is not really the issue but it always helps to restore them. During the last week I've seen several people do it different ways. I have a friend who actually does a 3 day carb up and one that does it the day before the contest until around 5pm. I know some who don't do it all. For those who haven't seen the documentary on A&E, it showed what Craig Titus consumes the day before. Its pretty funny as its nothing but pure junkfood. The site of seeing him with boxes of pop tarts surrounding him was amusing

 

[Timbo]

Yep, Bobo, the master of the carb-up is quite individual. In fact, when I was once preparing for a photo shoot, three days of carbing up did little to nothing to restore muscle glycogen. I came in flatter than a pancake.

In addition, I have been throwing around some discussion with a guy who regularly assists competitors, and he was discussing not only a carb-load but also a subsequent fat-load. That is, three days out the loading is strictly carbs, the following day fat is added and the third day anything and everything is game.

Pop tarts, oh man, I think that's my one weakness. What is it about those pieces of junk?

 

[DreamWeaver]

I peaked early last year so my I will not to a 3 day carb up, will probably try 2.

So you guys are saying that I shouldn't do a refeed at all that I should just increase my carbs for a couple days. Doubling up my carbs won't be too hard a banana would do that lol. After 14 days you'd think a refeed would be necessary. Now i'm confused what ratio of carbs should i be doing. Only 5% of my diet is carbs now all fibrous just about.