Why do I hate carb up day???

[Val.Leseberg]

Personal info:
Goal: lose 5# bodyfat
Data: Female, 153#, 5'3", powerlifter and very athletic. I don't have an accurate bf%.
Diet: I drink at lease 1 gal water every day.
Acceptable carbs: fruit, honey, sweet potato, chicken peas and black beans, veggies, some dairy.
Absolutely NO: wheat, corn, grains, rice, barley, etc...(Wheat Belly program, which is really hard for carb ups). These all make me sick like the flu.

I need some opinions on how I can do this better....before I quit this diet. I love the high fat days, and I can barely tolerate high carb days.

I started the anabolic diet 21 days ago. I did the first 6 days at 18kcal x bw at 2,800kcal, second 6 days at 16kcal x bw at 2530kcal. These days were at 30g. Net Carbs or less.

First carb up day was on day 13. I felt so lethargic and tired, I slept half the day which is very unlike me. I tried to mix complex and simple carbs throughout the day. I only did this from 7am-9pm. The thought of doing it Sunday made me sick.

I went to a 2150kcal this week sun-fri and did my second carb up yesterday getting closer to 3200kcal in all day. I targeted more fruit, higher on the GI. 7am-1pm I ate 90% of the carbs this way. Trying to get it done faster, in hopes of a faster rebound. I had a Quest protein shake. Got a bad headache about 3pm and barely finished my shortened workout.

I went to the movies and had a dirty cheat of Swedish Fish and an ice cream bar. Protein shake right after the movie.

Came home for dinner a couple hours later and had sweet potato chips/bean/cheese/salsa nachos and a cup of vanilla yogurt and a square of 100% cacao with 1 tsp honey.

I feel okay right now, but yesterday was still not a good day. Even though it was better than my first carb up experience.

Anyone have a good suggestion here? I am very athletic, a personal trainer, and need this to work correctly. I have a lot of goals and my nutrition is top priority. Am I doing something wrong???

 

[snowwolf]

Typically I recommend when trying to do a recomp or loosing body fat to get nearly all of your carbs from complex carbs.
Personally and professionally ive seen better results when someone avoids sugars for the first few hours of the day and keeps the carbs below 80g for those first few hours(which is easy to do, honestly). Around lunch you can begin introduction of sugars small quantities along with your complex carbs in your meals. I wouldnt discourage you from eating a single piece of fruit between meals to get meet your macro requirements your program or trainer requires.
One thing I personally really love doing is adding highly branched cyclic dextrin (hbdc) to my gallon of water so throughout the day I'm getting little bits of carbs introduced. For me as a male with some muscle mass it helps me feel fuller when attempting to cut weight and helps fend off low blood sugars and feeling light headed. You can buy it in bulk just by searching for it online. When trying to loose weight I would only recommend adding maybe 80g to your gallon of water tops.

I would struggle not being able to eat my rice and rice cakes lol

 

[Val.Leseberg]

Snowwolf, thank you for the suggestions. I will have to try up to 80 g of complex in the morning next Sat before I introduce fruit for the day. To get most of the 375g of carbs on my carb up day through complex carbs puts me over the protein allowance of 15%. That's my struggle. Since apples are 23 g. carbs, no fat or protein, those fit the puzzle. Black beans carry 14 g of protein for every 30 net carbs. It's like trying to fit a circle peg into a square hole sometimes.
If I can avoid the headaches, that would be ideal. I know it's the insulin surges. I will look into the hbdc option as well.

 

[snowwolf]

Snowwolf, thank you for the suggestions. I will have to try up to 80 g of complex in the morning next Sat before I introduce fruit for the day. To get most of the 375g of carbs on my carb up day through complex carbs puts me over the protein allowance of 15%. That's my struggle. Since apples are 23 g. carbs, no fat or protein, those fit the puzzle. Black beans carry 14 g of protein for every 30 net carbs. It's like trying to fit a circle peg into a square hole sometimes.
If I can avoid the headaches, that would be ideal. I know it's the insulin surges. I will look into the hbdc option as well.

You have a protein allowance?
Is this through a Doctor, coach or is it an online/magazine type program?

 

[snowwolf]

Im going to assume here why the diet doesnt want you to ingest protein on your high carb days so ill jusy go ahead and explain why i think thats not a good practice. By definition when your body has extra energy and extra glucose it will redirect the flow of amino acids away from gluconeogenesis and ATP-producing pathways and instead convert them into lipids. The resulting lipids can subsequently be stored as body fat for later use. This is a rather hard process to go through though, and if you are dieting and you have high levels of extra energy id severely question your diet lol. I'm not saying you should feel like your are dragging your rear end but i definitely am saying if you're bouncing off the walls your diet sucks. You know as a lifter how important protein is so i would NOT avoid any, get what you can! And even if you did somehow manage to go through this process of protein being turned into fat the value of energy left would be very low compared to what it started with in the initial process. Turning protein to fat is much more demanding energy wise compared to the process with sugar so rest easy getting your much needed protein. Youll need those amino acids to recover and maintain your muscle and strength.

 

[Val.Leseberg]

Im going to assume here why the diet doesnt want you to ingest protein on your high carb days so ill jusy go ahead and explain why i think thats not a good practice. By definition when your body has extra energy and extra glucose it will redirect the flow of amino acids away from gluconeogenesis and ATP-producing pathways and instead convert them into lipids. The resulting lipids can subsequently be stored as body fat for later use. This is a rather hard process to go through though, and if you are dieting and you have high levels of extra energy id severely question your diet lol. I'm not saying you should feel like your are dragging your rear end but i definitely am saying if you're bouncing off the walls your diet sucks. You know as a lifter how important protein is so i would NOT avoid any, get what you can! And even if you did somehow manage to go through this process of protein being turned into fat the value of energy left would be very low compared to what it started with in the initial process. Turning protein to fat is much more demanding energy wise compared to the process with sugar so rest easy getting your much needed protein. Youll need those amino acids to recover and maintain your muscle and strength.

Thank you for that well thought out reply. I don't really understand how a big carb load can help either, but is was how the program was laid out. I'm going to give this plan another 3 weeks and if things don't balance out then I will return to a slightly higher percentage of carbs each day in place of some of the fat and not do the carb load day.
The last thing I want to do is create instability in my nutrition plan, and this rocks the boat a bit. Lol
Thanks again!

 

[snowwolf]

Thank you for that well thought out reply. I don't really understand how a big carb load can help either, but is was how the program was laid out. I'm going to give this plan another 3 weeks and if things don't balance out then I will return to a slightly higher percentage of carbs each day in place of some of the fat and not do the carb load day.
The last thing I want to do is create instability in my nutrition plan, and this rocks the boat a bit. Lol
Thanks again!

No problem. my boss is on of the best prep coaches in the country, she is a retired IFBB pro and successfully competed at the olympia 5 times. Of her clients there are many amature and pro figure and bikini girls who do extremely well with only 140 carbs a day when cutting, there are also just as many who must have no less than 200 and some that need even 300. There is not much weight difference at all between them so on paper and with pictures you may not understand it but everyone's body is different and when you do a cut or bulk the success of it rest about 80 percent on how well you know your body's needs micronutrient wise.

 

[Val.Leseberg]

No problem. my boss is on of the best prep coaches in the country, she is a retired IFBB pro and successfully competed at the olympia 5 times. Of her clients there are many amature and pro figure and bikini girls who do extremely well with only 140 carbs a day when cutting, there are also just as many who must have no less than 200 and some that need even 300. There is not much weight difference at all between them so on paper and with pictures you may not understand it but everyone's body is different and when you do a cut or bulk the success of it rest about 80 percent on how well you know your body's needs micronutrient wise.

I absolutely agree.

 

[JudoJosh]

If you hate the carb up days, than don't do them.

/end thread