Help Understanding Refeeds

[ABCs]

Ok, It is time for me to incorporate refeeds. It's becoming more and more difficult for me to drop fat as my body gets leaner. Anyway, I read as much as possible and am still having some questions here. Sorry if they've been answered.

1. Is it OK to do a refeed on an off day? Or should I schedule my refeed around a workout day? If so, should I do it on one of my 3 lifting days or one of my 3 cardio days?

2. I am 198 lbs, what should my macros look like on a refeed day?

3. How often should I do a refeed?

3 . Anything else that will help me get this first refeed right.

As always, thanks to everyone for the help.

 

[ABCs]

Bumpity. I know a lot of you have crazy amounts of knowledge on refeeds and these questions should be no brainers for those individuals. Stop holding out on me.

 

[Tom_B]

1) I would defintley suggest combining a refeed with a training day. Take full advantage of this 'anabolic window'! You'll have increased energy, increased strength and just a much more overall productive workout, put those carbs to use!

2)Well that's more of an individual thing .. you'll have to play around and see what works best for you and your body. But generally -
~3-4G of Carbs per pound of LBM (2-3G of those carbs divided during your workout, post workout, PPWO meal and the meal following that.)
~1 - 1.25G of Protein per pound of Bodyweight
~ Keep fats to AN ABSOLUTE MAX of 50G (perferably you want 30-40G .. the less the better)

3) This depends on just how lean you are, how low calorie/carb your currently going and your genes. Start off with 1 a week .. if you feel you need more bump it to every 3rd-4th day and adjust from there.

4) Make sure that the majority of your carbs (2-3G x LBM) occur within a 5-6 hour period around your workout. So something like
~.5G x LBM during your workout (chew on something like Sweet Tarts .. Something that is pure glucose)
~.5G x LBM Post workout (once again something that is Pure glucose)
~ 1G x LBM in your Post Post workout meal
~ .5 - 1G x LBM in the following meal (should be about 2 hours after your Post Post workout meal.)

*Also know that because some of your earlier meals will be so close together it'll be alright to have your last meal a bit earlier than the 1-2 hours before bed like you would normally do. You'll be in such an anabolic state from all those carbs, the little extra time won't matter.

 

[ABCs]

Whoa, EXACTLY the information I was looking for. Thank you very much Tom.

Now, chewing on Sweet tarts, like the actual candy, right? During and after my workout will be a good source of carbs?! What else is the best source of refeed day carbs? I just want everything in order.

I have selected Friday as my day to do this so I have a few days to come up with a solid plan. Any other info to help me out would be appreciated.

Thanks again!

 

[Tom_B]

Yup Sweet Tarts as in the candy. Basically you want something that is a really fast acting, and is all GLUCOSE, so Dextrose (which is basically all those sweet tarts are) is perfect.
Other foods that can be eaten throughout the day include stuff like:
Kid Cereal
White Bagels
White Bread
Rice cakes
Fat free muffins
Fat free Pancakes
Rice Krispie Squares
Etc.

Basically starchy fast acting processed carbs. Now then, try and Limit Fructose (Do have a LITTLE bit bit before your workout..) and Lactose as much as possible, your main goal is to overfill muscle glycogen stores, not liver. You also want to limit Table Sugar to a certain extent as well. (Remember Table sugar = 50% fructose & 50% Glucose)

Personally I like to use these food choices during that 5-6 hours where your taking in the 2-3G x LBM ... then for the rest I like to stick with healthier, more vitamin/mineral packed sources such as oatmeal, oat bran, sweet potatos etc, but that's just me. If you choose to do this however watch the fiber amount, and make sure it stays on the lower end of things ..
You can also have a TINY bit of veggies (just not in that 5-6 hour period), but like I said watch the fiber ...

Hope all that helped. Just remember your body may react differently, just use this as a template and then apply it to your current situation/results as you go along. You may find you need more carbs, you may need less, you may need more frequent refeeds, you may need one only every 10 days, you may like to have refeed food items throughout the entire day .. etc. It's an individual thing.
Good luck with your goals!

 

[Big G]

Good post Tom. Thanks.

I have a question based on what you wrote...

I've heard that fast acting carbs are best for post-workout meals in general, but I don't really understand why. My understanding is that rapid increases in blood sugar results in significant amounts of insulin being released. High insulin levels prevent the shuttling of nutrience to the muscles for growth. Additionally it promotes cortisol and reduces glucanol thereby prohibiting the breakdown of fat for fat loss.

Some thing like that anyway!

What's wrong with just having a bowl of oats and a protein shake after working out?

 

[ABCs]

Hey Tom, you are the man! I came up with a plan based around your advice/knowledge. I am going to stick to the 6 hours of carb craziness around my workout and then stick to the clean carbs for the rest of the day. I will keep my last 2 meals of the day very simple as in chicken and very little veggies and a shake with some almonds.

Breakfast will be a plain bagel with 4 egg whites (no yolks due to fat restraints).

Pre Workout will be a bagel with some sweet tarts and serving of NO Xplode.

Durring workout will be sweet tarts.

Post workout will be a bagel and rice crispy treat with a scoop of ON whey

I will possibly have a few more processed carbs right before going to work at 4pm which will consist of cereal.

At work it will be back to normal with chicken and veggies then a shake and almonds before bed.

How does this sound? I drew this up VERY quickly so please rip it apart.

Also, how the hell do I calculate LBM? I have never been tested for bodyfat %... yet. I am 5'10", 198lbs, 33inch waist.

 

[Tom_B]

Good post Tom. Thanks.

I have a question based on what you wrote...

I've heard that fast acting carbs are best for post-workout meals in general, but I don't really understand why. My understanding is that rapid increases in blood sugar results in significant amounts of insulin being released. High insulin levels prevent the shuttling of nutrience to the muscles for growth. Additionally it promotes cortisol and reduces glucanol thereby prohibiting the breakdown of fat for fat loss.

Some thing like that anyway!

What's wrong with just having a bowl of oats and a protein shake after working out?

Ok .. firstly you have some of your information wrong ..

Think about what takes place in the human body, during and after a workout. You are putting your body under STRESS, your depleting muscle glycogen store, breaking down muscle protein etc. You are actually promoting the catabolic hormone Cortisol, a workout is actually quite catabolic. This is why Pre/During/Post workout nutrition is so important! Lets take a look at the state in which our body is after a workout .. depleted glycogen stores, theres a period of muscle break, high levels of cortisol etc. So our bodies are actually quite sensitive and 'willing' for an uptake of amino acids, glucose, nutrients, insulin sensitivity has increased and theres increase in muscle protein synthesis .. this is what's generally referred to as 'The anabolic window' . So in order to take advantage of this 'Anabolic Window', our goal is to rapidly stimulate the production of the STORAGE hormone Insulin. Insulin will PROMOTE (it does not prevent) the uptake of glucose into muscle Glycogen stores, helps with the uptake of amino acids, shuttles nutrients into our cells, BLUNTS cortisol (it doesn't not promote cortisol, they are antagonist hormones to each other) and all that fun GROWTH promoting stuff.
This is why alot of people prefer say dextrose over Rolled oats in a Post workout shake. The rolled oats will certainly not increase Insulin and release so much glucose so quickly when compared to dextrose. My only issue with say using a pure Dex + Whey drink Post workout is there aren't many vitamins/minerals, so your losing out in that aspect of the increase nutrient partitioning effect. This is why I'll always recommend Some Skim milk. Although Milk has a low rating on the glycemic index (this is becuase once the lactose is digested half of it is glactose which first has to be processed in the liver before being realesed into the blood..) it actually secrets insulin quite rapidly. Milk is loaded with vitamins/minerals, has a high content of BCAA's, and contains both whey and casein protein (casein is actually benefical post workout, it 'settles' in your stomach while the whey fraction is digested and used. So even after the whey + gluce is digested your body will still have casein + more glucose {after the glactose is processed into glucose in the liver} to keep providing a stimulus for growth.)
So a combination of Whey + Skim milk +/- Dex is a PERFECT post workout shake.

And yes all of this will blunt fat loss .. BUT ONLY FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. Worry about 'fat loss' at other points throughout the day, take full advantage of that anabolic window, don't let your workout 'go to waste.'.

Hope that helped clear some things up for you ..

 

[Tom_B]

Hey Tom, you are the man! I came up with a plan based around your advice/knowledge. I am going to stick to the 6 hours of carb craziness around my workout and then stick to the clean carbs for the rest of the day. I will keep my last 2 meals of the day very simple as in chicken and very little veggies and a shake with some almonds.

hahah thanks. Everything I've learned has been from the great Emma-Leigh .. god she's just a fountain of information!
Okay I know today is friday so this may be a bit late, but I'll critque your plan so you can use it for your next refeed.
(PS not sure if you eat Cottage Cheese normally, but Cottage cheese is still alright for your last meal of the day. Remember you just have to LIMIT your dairy intake on these days, doesn't mean you have to completely avoid it. Also in your last meal it's alright to have a tiny tiny amount of fat .. eg. 1/2 a TBSP of PB, 7-8G of nuts etc. On my refeeds days My last meal of the day is Some Cottage Cheese, some strawberries, wheat bran, cocoa powder and 6 fish oil pills)

Breakfast will be a plain bagel with 4 egg whites (no yolks due to fat restraints).

Okay .. you can have the bagel if you want, but you could also opt for a 'healthier' carb source here if you'd like (such as sweet potatos, oatmeal etc.)
A little bit of Dairy (say 2/3 a cup of Yogurt) would be alright as well, not needed though.
Also if you don't add a bit of dairy I would up the egg whites to 5.

Pre Workout will be a bagel with some sweet tarts and serving of NO Xplode.

How long is this meal before your workout?
Okay the bagel is fine .. but once again you could have a slower carb such as oatmeal.
Drop the Sweet Tarts.
Add a bit of Dairy (about 2/3 a cup of Yogurt)
Add a bit of Fruit (about 10-15G of carbs worth)
Add some protein (say about .75 scoops of whey)

Durring workout will be sweet tarts.

Okay good. Just chew them inbetween sets. Have about .5G of carbs x LBM worth

Post workout will be a bagel and rice crispy treat with a scoop of ON whey

Drop the bagel / rice crispy treat. You still want a REALLY fast pure glucose carb here, so have:
More Sweet tarts. (once again .5xG LBM)
Scoop of whey
+/- your Creatine

I will possibly have a few more processed carbs right before going to work at 4pm which will consist of cereal.

Yup you still need a Post Post workout meal about an hour after your pwo nutrition ... So here you can have the bagel, the rice crispy treat, some kiddie cereal (if you want milk with the cereal, you can have about 1/2 a cups worth) etc. Have carbs at 1G x LBM.
Don't forget some Protein.

At work it will be back to normal with chicken and veggies then a shake and almonds before bed.

Okay I would have one more meal about 2 - 3 hours after your Post Post workout meal with Carbs in it. You could do either all fast carbs, or a mixture of fast/slower carbs ... don't forget your protein and no/little fat. Have Carb amounts anywhere from .5 - 1G x LBM .

Then you could do another meal of Say some Chicken/tuna + Veggies +/- a tiny bit of carbs
And then have your next meal as your last meal of the day, either being something like Cottage cheese +/- some berries, a tiny bit of fat (fish oil, nuts, nut butter etc.), Or you could do the Chicken/tuna + Veggies + a bit of fat.


To give you an example, today I had a refeed and it went something like this:

Pre Workout:
Quick oats, Apple, Whey, Yogurt, Creatine ( 67G of carbs, 27G of protein)
During Workout:
Sweet Tarts ( 57G of carbs)
Pwo:
Sweet Tarts, Whey, Creatine (60G of carbs, 19G of Protein)
1 Hour Later:
Rice Cakes, Fruit Loops, Skim milk, Egg beater (109G of Carbs, 19G protein)
2 Hours Later:
Rice Cakes, Oat bran, Egg beater (122G carbs, 31G Protein)
3 hours Later:
Lettuce, Yogurt, Whey, Oat bran (37G of carbs, 27G Protein)
4 Hours later:
Lettuce, Yogurt, Whey, Oat bran (37G of carbs, 27G Protein)
3 Hours later:
Cottage Cheese, Strawberries, Fish oil, Cocoa powder, Wheat bran (30G of carbs, 33G protein, 10G of fat)

For a Total of:
3134 Calories
33G Fat
519G Carbs (28G of fiber, not including the lettuce)
183G of Protein

Now Ideally I would reduce that protein to 165G and add some more carbs .. but I find I respond better with the little bit of extra protein.
It would also be Ideal for me to Drop the Fiber a bit and cut it off at about 20 - 25G .. However I'm not 'dieting', and jsut sort of recomping right now .. and 30G of fiber is very little to me, I normally eat about 60G of fiber, and 20 Cups of veggies a day (it takes ALOT of food to fill me up ..)
But like I said before refeeds are very indiviudal and you'll have to tweak things a couple of times to figure out what works best for you and your body.

Also, how the hell do I calculate LBM? I have never been tested for bodyfat %... yet. I am 5'10", 198lbs, 33inch waist.

If you haven't tested your bodyfat then you'll just have guestimate.. Would you say your about 12 - 15% ? If you could, you could post a Picture and I could try to Guess for ya.

 

[sara]

This is just confusing.. try something simple and get you to your goal faster

 

[ABCs]

Hey Tom, thanks again man. I actually was critiquing this refeed all day in my head yesterday and came up with close to what you just recommended. So far it's been:

Meal one upon awaking: 1 Bagel with 4 Egg whites (a little of the yolk dropped in there)

Workout an hour later: Chew on Sweet tarts between sets

Post Workout (where I am as I write this): Just had a scoop of Whey with less than a 1/4 of oats and the rest of the package of sweet tarts.

In about 45 minutes I will be having: A Bagel and a half with egg whites

2 Hours after that: Small portion of chicken breast with half cup of brown rice.

3 - 4 hours after that: Same thing as above

Final meal: Mixed Fruit and Almonds with a scoop of whey right before going to bed.

Whew... that was a little confusing to construct but I think I did a decent job. BTW, my workout today was out of this world. My strength and stamina were through the roof. I didn't even want to stop.

Ok, so my game plan for the future is to see how my body reacts to what I do today and then tweak from there. I will either continue Friday re-feeds or spread them out even further depending on how my results come along.

As for BF, I will have my lady take a picture this weekend and then PM you with it to estimate what the percentage is. That is just until I get off my ass and go get a set of calipers.

Again, thanks Tom and everyone who helped. Critique the above if you have time so I have a clearer idea of what to do for next re-feed.

 

[Big G]

For a Total of:
3134 Calories
33G Fat
519G Carbs (28G of fiber, not including the lettuce)
183G of Protein

Tom. Thanks for the feedback on my post above. Much appreciated. I read somewhere (maybe Tom Venuto's BurnFatFeedMuscle book) that it's possible for there to be too much insulin around and your muscles can kind-of close their doors and stop even nutrient-shuttling-insulin in.

Also, I have to say that your protein intake seems very low. How much do you weigh? If this wasn't a refeed day for you wouldn't you take in 1.5-2g of protein per pound of body weight?

 

[Tom_B]

Tom. Thanks for the feedback on my post above. Much appreciated. I read somewhere (maybe Tom Venuto's BurnFatFeedMuscle book) that it's possible for there to be too much insulin around and your muscles can kind-of close their doors and stop even nutrient-shuttling-insulin in.

Also, I have to say that your protein intake seems very low. How much do you weigh? If this wasn't a refeed day for you wouldn't you take in 1.5-2g of protein per pound of body weight?

Yes people can become resistant to insulin, the term is "Insuliun Resistance", but this occurs after secreting LARGE amounts of insulin over a LONG period of time. Basically because you keep bombarding peripheral tissues (like your muscles) with such high amounts of insulin these peripheral tissues become resistant to insulin by taking away some of the receptor sites along the surface of the tissue that are responsible for uptaking things such as glucose, energy, and vitamins and minerals like you mentioned. So because all of this glucose can not enter other cells, it overwhelms the liver with TONS of energy, too much for for it to process all at once meaning all this extra glucose is converted to fat.
But also take into consideration that if your body can not get insulin into these peripheral tissues, not only well it overwhelm the liver, but your body will actually start to try and secrete even more insulin in an attempt to "force" it all into the peripheral tissues, thus continuing a cycle. Eventually the pancreas will become worn out from producing too much insulin, and will just eventually stop (or significantly slow down) leading people to develop Type Two Diabetes.
So now instead of having all this excess insulin flowing through your veins, your stuck with excess Glucose/sugar flowing through ya, sort of like a really thick syrup traveling throughout your blood which makes you susceptible for other medical conditions such as heart disease, heart attack, stroke etc.

Basically the more Insulin Resistant one is, the fatter and unhealthy they are, that's why you'll hear of so many people trying to improve there insulin sensitivity.
But you certainly don't need to worry about Insulin Resistant from a Refeed! Like I said, you need to be someone secreting HUGE amounts of insulin over a very long period of time for this to happen.

And regarding the protein .. right now I'm at 140lbs, with about 128lbs of LBM. So yes 185G of protein on a refeed for me would be a little 'much', and that's also why I stated that it would be more ideal for me to get about 165G.
On an average day I'll eat anywhere from 200 - 240G of protein (depending on if I'm going lower in carbs that day or not, too much protein while low carbing it really goes against the whole idea or reasoning of why someone would reduce carb! Excess protein undergoes a process called "Gluconeogenesis" and is turned into glucose, basically as if you had of eaten carbs.).
Generally I advise people of eating 1.5 - 2G of protein per lbs of LBM (not bodyweight), on the lower end for people bulking, on the higher end for people cutting, and somewhere around the middle for people looking to maintain/recomp. People just need to experiment more with their bodies and figure out what works best for them.

 

[tucker01]

ABC sorry about not responding to your PM. Just been crazy with work.

Tom explained things better then I ever could have.

 

[ABCs]

Haha it's cool man. The refeed worked wonders. Got me over a 2 week plateau.

 

[Big G]

Well, Tom. That's awesome! Thanks. I'm going to go back and re-read Tom Venuto's book once I get done with Arnold's Bodybuilding Encylopedia (not long to go now!). I've managed to completely change my entire body in the past five months. Every one of my muscles has grown (Significantly!) and my bodyfat has dropped from 20% to around 8%. I'm actually hoping to get it down to maybe 6 or 7% (which, I know, I know, is crazy lean, but I don't care, I look fantastic lean, end of story!)

All this and I never did a refeed (hence reading this post to begin with). Tom probably mentions refeeds in his book, but I only read it one time (It's changed my live forever, no doubt) and I expect I just forgot that bit.

Still... You obviously know your stuff. Thanks for sharing. Rest assured I'll do likewise as my wisdom and results continue to sore.

Meanwhile... Lift Big. Eat Big. Rest Big! Crush the wall between you and massive! Grr!

 

[Double D]

Incredible post Lewie!