How come.....

**mjsturg1** · 03-24-2003, 09:01 AM

Ok ..when a person does the "low carb" diet say and then tries to eat more carbs as say maintenance level ...i understand the initial quick weight gained is water and glucose filling the muscles back up BUT then why do you keep on gaining after that??

With me for example it's like I have completely turned my body over to low carb and now it won't do anything but....before I could eat anything I wanted and my weight would just maintain...

I used to have the mentality that if I was maintaining on what I was eating that if I added just cardio to the mix (this was b4 I started lifting) that I would lose weight with more activity but that wasnt the case either then I cut cals and that didnt help so I started low carbing and can lose the initial 8 lbs of water but then I lose my willpower so I have now been doing about 50 carbs a day vs. 20...and high protein.

**Yanick** · 03-24-2003, 11:29 AM

Well, one explanation could be the fact that you were dieting. Which means that you lose weight (a combo of muscle/fat). Your metabolism is slowed from the diet itself (because it tried to adapt to lower cals) and there is less weight for the body to move around, so the body has to do less work to move you around which = less cals burned. This means that your maintanance calories will be lower than they were before you started dieting (you get an initial spike in weight the first week or two because of the water/glycogen etc, then you're body is in calorie surplus so you'll be adding fat/muscle back onto your body which will increase your metabolism to a point). So if you started dieting at 3000 calories, by the time your done you're maint might be 2700 kcals, if you go back to 3000 your already in surplus.

**mjsturg1** · 03-24-2003, 12:23 PM

One of the books I read they suggested for maintenance that you eat normally to gain 3 lbs then " low carb" to lose it then keep doing this cycle and eventually you will raise your metabolism up to where you would be able to eat 3000 cals a day.....does this sound feasible or more diet "bunk"?

**Yanick** · 03-24-2003, 01:21 PM

Originally posted by mjsturg1
One of the books I read they suggested for maintenance that you eat normally to gain 3 lbs then " low carb" to lose it then keep doing this cycle and eventually you will raise your metabolism up to where you would be able to eat 3000 cals a day.....does this sound feasible or more diet "bunk"?

You have to define 'normally' for me, i don't really know what 'normal' calories are.

I'll assume for a second that by normal you mean over maintanance (since you are talking about gaining 3 lbs). You eat over maintanance for a period of say 3 weeks (1lb a week, realistic goal), and eat under maintanance for a period of 2 weeks to cut off some fat that you may have accumulated during the short 'bulk.' If done correctly, you should gain LBM and lose fat and your maintanance calories will increase too.

I, however, don't understand why you would want to increase your maintanance calories. I understand increasing LBM and having an increase of maintanance calories as a side effect, but i don't see a point in specifically trying to increase maint cals.

If you are asking how to find your maint cals, a simple way is:

12cals per LB of BW to lose weight
15cals per LB of BW to maintain
18cals per LB of BW to gain

These are just guidelines and will probably need to be adjusted as necessary. IE if you're gaining weight at 15cals/LB of BW then drop cals a bit till your maintaining.

Thread: How come.....

Thread Tools

Display

How come.....

How about this....

Re: How about this....

Posting Permissions