Thread: Low carb dieting, while gaining some muscle

Gaining LBM and lowering BF% is not mutually exclusive as people preach... time your carbs right and try to keep 'em post WO for a slin spike and repair and I think it can work. Did fer me

Your question is more of a diet one than a training one so I'm gonna move you over there.
In order for you to loose weight, you need to take in less calories than you burn, I'm also on a low carb diet and the one thing I first noticed was the drop in strength and energy, it got better after the first couple weeks.
So far I've managed to drop fat (I can tell by the mirror) and my body weight has only gone down 5lb (about 3 weeks) so I know a good portion of it has been fat.

How many carbs were you eating a day on you bulk and how? Also you have to be resonable. What bf% are you starting your cut at and what are you trying to get to. 1 month(4weeks) isn't exactly a solid amount of time to loose a bunch of fat. However, if you have bulked but managed to keep yourself pretty lean you may only be 4 weeks away from a really good physique.

Like cornfed said. The carbs are all about the timing. I usually take a little carbs in the morning, at my first meal, and then some more carbs post w/o.

I was on 320g of carbs when I was bulking. Eating carbs post w/o could be a problem because I train at 7 in the evening and I want to stop eating carbs around 5. I have a protein powder which also contains 36g of carbs plus maltodextrin and dextrose, so should I leave this or take it in the morning? When you say "you need to take in less calories than you burn", if I consume 2500 calories I should burn at least half of it?

Also, would drinking green tea with meals help burn fat faster?

Someone will correct me here if I'm wrong but as I recall, for a cutting diet, you should consume your bodey weight x 12, so for you that should be 2412 cals

Green tea may helpa bit.

When I am cutting I ditch the dextrose post w/o to try and keep in a fat burning state after my w/o. I use raw/uncooked oatmeal and whey protein. Then 2 weeks from the date that I want to be cut for I drop carbs and reaplce them with fat. So post w/o I take whey protein and flax.

I personaly wouldn't use that protein powder on a cut becuase of the high sugar content.

How many calories are you eating now? Just lower them a bit and you should start to loose some weight. Taking in less than you burn means that you are eating under your caloric needs to maintain your current bodyweight.

BW x 12 is a good place to start

Thanks for the help guys! What do you think the most amount of carbs i should take daily? 80g? With my whey protein it has about 6g of carbs, should this matter after 5 o clock? Also, should I ditch the skimmed milk and start mixing my whey with water? Is it possible to make my arms a bit bigger while cutting?

Ditch the skim and mix your shakes with water and heavy cream or Flax. If post workout mix with water and eat some oatmeal.

80g of carbs seems like a good place to start. MAybe even higher if you want? Are you going to be doing a re-feed once a week?

Whats a re-feed? Is that when I take in more carbs? Yeah, I'll take more on Sundays. Is Flax oil the same as olive oil? I'll ditch the skimmed milk now, its gonna be hard drinking whey though!

Flax oil is different than olive oil. Do a search, in the past week there have been a number of posts about it.

A refeed would be when you take in more cals in the last meal of the day, maybe like your last meal every sunday night. In order to reset leptin levels. If you drop your carbs lower you may want to think about having a carb up twice a week.

Originally posted by P-funk
A refeed would be when you take in more cals in the last meal of the day, maybe like your last meal every sunday night. In order to reset leptin levels.

Thats a carb up, buddy. A refeed is purposely eating over maintanance calories with the goal of spilling over to fat stores and boosting leptin.

A carb up's goal is to refill glycogen stores. One meal with a bunch of carbs in it, is a carb up not refeed . I'm a bastard aren't I?

Is 80 grams of carbs and 300 grams of protein ok...this will ultimately come down to how much fat you consume to come up with a reasonable daily caloric figure. Personally O'd up the carbs to more like 125 or so....keep protein at 300 and go for about 90-100g fat or so.....should be about 2500-2600 cals or so....

A carb up's goal is to refill glycogen stores. One meal with a bunch of carbs in it, is a carb up not refeed . I'm a bastard aren't I?

lol. Thanks Yan, I was waiting for you to reply. Actually, right as I clicked submit I was thinking "Man, I can't wait till Yan reads this."

Your right though, it is not really a re-feed. I just threw the term out there because I couldn't think of anything to call it. I didn't want to call it a carbup because in my opinion 80g of carbs is to high to have a carbup. Bascically the whole idea behind the meal (lets call it a little somethin' somethin' )is to trick your body into thinking that you are not dieting. Also, since he only has 1 month (aprox. 4 weeks) to cut a refeed is not needed. If I cut for 12-16weeks I'll do a weekend refeed every 4 weeks or so on an as need basis. He is basically doing a mini cut so The small high calorie meal at the end of the day on Sunday may be beneficial for him to keep burning fat. It always worked for me in the past .