Thread: Diet for the Highly active

Same as anyone else. To cut just drop calories by about 10% and go from there. Keep protein and fat up high enough to preserve lean tissue.

I'm scared to ask this question, having read the other argumentative thread.

Cut 10% of total cals, or keep total cals and reduce carbs? Or both for that matter?

If you don't reduce cals then you won't lose weight. If you reduce carbs but replace it with calories from other stuff then your still going to be eating at maintence. If you reduce carbs which in turn reduces calories and don't add the cals elsewhere, then yes reducing carbs will work.

I am also into martial arts and train 5 days a week 2 hrs each - what I do to cut weight is try to lower my carb intake and totally cut it out past about 4-5pm and get some cardio after dinner to burn off some of the calories

Originally Posted by tatteredsaint

I am also into martial arts and train 5 days a week 2 hrs each - what I do to cut weight is try to lower my carb intake and totally cut it out past about 4-5pm and get some cardio after dinner to burn off some of the calories

Does that actually make sense though? What if you're like me and train at 8-9PM usually? Setting an actual "time" to stop eating carbs doesn't make sense since conditions differ from person to person.

Originally Posted by danzik17

Does that actually make sense though? What if you're like me and train at 8-9PM usually? Setting an actual "time" to stop eating carbs doesn't make sense since conditions differ from person to person.

Agreed. I dont think he was talking about limiting calories anyway, hes extremely active.

Why do you limit your calories like this? Unless your on a hard cut why is this necessary when you doing that much activity?

To the OP:

Considering how active you say you are, I think all you need to do is drop a few hundred calories below maintenance and it will be that simple. Carb cycling and UD 2.0 are great, but for someone as active as yourself you're not going to want to walk around glycogen depleted, you'll be miserable.

Does your maintenance change with exercise??
Like if your maintenance is say 2800. And you do 400 calories worth of exercise. Does it go up to 3200?

If so you can just eat maintenance and "work off" those extra calories on days you're doing martial arts

Originally Posted by danzik17

Does that actually make sense though? What if you're like me and train at 8-9PM usually? Setting an actual "time" to stop eating carbs doesn't make sense since conditions differ from person to person.

that was just an example of what I do ,yeah training time would make a huge difference in when you train and I am a morning trainer ,that's how I cut weight from winter bulking to spring , it just seems to me that a large ammount of carbs close to the time u sleep would make it difficult to cut

I don't think cutting off carbs at a certain point of day is necessary, or even beneficial, depending on your training schedule. Target your carbs appropriately around your workouts, and make sure you stick to your daily macro count. If you do those things I think you're good to go.

Thanks for all the responses. I'm definitely not a on a 'hard cut' per se, I just want to see if I can drop 10lbs or so. I'm feeling sluggish rolling, and not to mention, can't lie, summer is finally here.

I'll try just cutting the cals and targeting carbs and see how that goes.