Ultimate Diet 2.0 by Lyle Mcdonald

[Zin]

Just wanted to see if anyone has read this or has any thoughts on this approach... essentially it is a carb cycling diet stuffed into a 7 day period with different training in each phase...this following is a very simplified explication:

day 1-4 - very low carb/calories almost ketogenic with volume training(low weight high reps) to deplete muscle glycogen

day 5-7 very high carb/calories with tension and power training (high weight low reps) to "supercomensate" muscle glycogen and build muscle

Then the cycle repeats itself.

I feel as though the physiological science behind the diet is sound (the goal is to deplete muscle glycogen and burn fat the first 4 days then when carbs are upped again, the body will route energy to building muscle rather than fat on the last 3 days) but it seems to me that this approach is very extreme and it would not be healthy to yo-yo your body this way every week.

He says that it is possible for average people to burn fat while at the same time build muscle or at the very lease maintain what muscle mass one has. I am not sure this is possible for most people though...

Any thoughts?

 

[juggernaut]

Once you get past the initial phase, its a great diet. In the first week, I lost 4 lbs. Just watch how much protein you take down, as this diet is FAT reliant not so much protein reliant. Protein is needed, but not as important as the fat. I am really enjoying myself on this diet.
For days, I couldnt understand why I was unable to get into ketosis. It turned out that my protein was too high. I dropped it to about half, and increased my fats, low and behold I finally got a trace reading on my ketostix.

 

[juggernaut]

Also, be VERY careful how you carb-up. There's a wealth of data out there, especially for the type of diet that I am on, similar to yours. It's the CKD diet.