Cheat mode for Dieters

This was the first article in the Cheat Mode series. Since it’s inception there has been 4 In-depth articles and 1 Cheat Mode Cheat Sheet which you can find here)

Cheat mode for Dieters; or cutting with KFC and McDicks

I’d like to say that the following idea is revolutionary, super-easy, makes your phallus bigger (and/or boobs, works for both genders), and will get me a book deal within the hour; but in all honesty you may have already thought of it if you just visit blog A and blog B and were able to put 2 and 2 together.

The plan(s) that encompass what I colloquially call ‘Cheat Mode’ is merely a combination of leangains style Intermittent Fasting, with John Kiefer’s notion of Carb-backloading.

Obligatory links for accreditation before I start talking:

  • Martin Berkhan’s blog can be found over at Leangains

Overview of this sample plan

The plan seems very simplistic on the whole, and in all honesty it is. If anybody has any preconceived notions of meal timing and composition for what the government has denoted as ‘health’ you may have an aneurysm reading the following:

  • Breakfast: You aren’t having any
  • Lunch: Probably not having this either if your company eats at noon
  • Pre-workout meal (2 hours-ish prior): Since eating in relation to your weight training workout matters more than some relation to society’s circadian rhythm. Eat something low in carbs that sits well in your stomach. This is a good time to get your veggies.
  • Before/During your workout: Either just sip on some whey protein, or have a fancy shake with glucose and whey; your regular workout nutrition really.
  • After your workout: E…ver…y…thing. If you’re cutting, everything divided by two. Get your protein, and eat healthy-ish; adding in a treat (or a few) to this meal in addition to the healthy food is fine.

For being more technically precise. The main notions are you uphold an elongated fast (16 hours is the standard of intermittent fasting including sleep, a good goal to start with initially), you save the carbs for the evening, and that you consume the carbs only after a weightlifting workout. If you had a rest day or did some simple cardio, sucks to be you because you aren’t binging tonight.

Whether or not to have carbohydrates with your workout is a personal choice. I have not seen it recommended with traditional carb-backloading but do it personally. Try both and see how your body reacts.

Basic benefits of Intermittent fasting

I’ll be blunt, it’s not my job to completely break down every major or minor metabolic benefit or drawback to fasting. Even if I did I’m sure that the accreditation to leangains would become somewhat moot. I’m borrowing knowledge here, so paying the blog a visit for traffic would be kind.

However, since it would be pointless of me to not cover it; the reasons why I chose leangains style intermittent fasting for the purposes of this cheat mode combo are thus:

  • Highly flexible and easy to work with
  • Fasting is correlated with many metabolic benefits
  • Gives a daily feeding period which can be manipulated
  • You’re not eating, unless you do something stupid during this fast you will be burning fat

Basic benefits of Carb-backloading

The general gist is around getting glucose into the muscle cells. GLUT4 sensitivity is higher in the morning for both fat and muscle tissue and lower at night. Resistance training (muscle contraction) can create another path for glucose to get into muscle tissue only. So resistance train at night, and you have a path open for muscle yet the path for fat has been downregulated. A partitioning effect favoring muscle is the result.

The basic benefits include, in pretty bullet form:

  • You’re eating a lot of carbs, which is pure dopaminergic bliss
  • Protein synthesis and glycogen replenishment typical of bulks with a much reduced rate of fat gain due to fat insensitivity
  • Carbohydrate ingestion helps produce serotonin, which then helps melatonin production. If these benefits improve sleep quality there are a plethora of downstream benefits. [x]

How they complement each other

It would probably be best to go over the concept of ‘Nitrogen Retention’ before going further.

Nitrogen retention is merely Nitrogen intake – Nitrogen excretion. Nitrogen is in protein pretty much exclusively and excreted almost exclusively through urine (some through sweat, but minimal). Nitrogen is only stored in the body as muscle tissue (smooth tissue, such as organs; cardiac tissue, or skeletal tissue, which is sexy-flexy muscle), or in the free amino acid pool temporarily. Thus it is reasonable to assume that the more nitrogen retained, the most muscle you grow (as organ and heart size does not change significantly and the amino acid pool is fairly constant).

Mathematically, if we take measures to reduce fat stores (–) while minimizing losses of nitrogen during the fast (-), and then focus on retaining as much nitrogen as possible during the workout ( ) while trying not to store too much fat ( ), were at left at the end of the day with a small surplus in muscle growth ( ) and a small deficit in fat stores (-).

Leangains style intermittent fasting is of such a length that muscle loss is insignificant or negligible, and supplementing with BCAAs or Leucine can alleviate it further. Carb-backloading is a style of rapid feeding which is great for not adding too much unnecessary fat stores while not sacrificing an intake needed for muscle growth.

In addition, carb-backloading is a transient state of a massive caloric surplus. These surpluses (and especially since they comprise carbohydrates) influence leptin levels in the body, acting as mini daily refeeds. Leptin also has downstream effects on testosterone and dopamine, amongst other hormones/neurotransmitters; and via leptin/T3 can also burn more fat during your fast (in which fat burning is optimal due to low serum insulin concentrations).

What do on rest days?

This is where harm-preventative Kurtis comes in to make sure people don’t kill themselves somehow on this diet. (I can’t see it happening, but if luck affects me like it usually does, it will happen when I blog about it)

Eat normally, you may fast if you wish, but try to spread out mini-meals over the course of your allotted eating time. I like paleo for this reason but it is not needed. Also, eat the veggies you most likely didn’t eat during workout days; maybe even some more.

This is mainly because of looking at the drawbacks of the above plan. Your first meal (if your choose to have it) will be digested normally. Your workout nutrition will be as well, but these things are not all that dense in micronutrients (Calcium is high, and that’s pretty much it; maybe some sodium and magnesium, but like 2% of the RDA for each). The delicious feast after will have a lot of micronutrients, but I cannot begin to fathom any adverse interactions with them. Calcium intake can wholly interact with iron, magnesium and zinc absorption; zinc and copper adversely interact with each other as well. Any lectins or phytates from grains or beans eaten can also adversely affect mineral absorption, and the fiber in this meal with the aim to slow down absorption (lest you poop everything out) may also chelate micronutrients out of the body.

Plus, any sensation of an ‘upset’ stomach you may have could be indicative of digestive dilemmas.

The rest days are in place for micronutrient ‘health’ purposes (I use that term loosely, I’ll blog later about why I hate it). Just to make sure you’re actually getting a lot of nutrition outside of the macronutrients for muscle building. Nothing major needs to be stated as to composition on these days. Eat healthy, eat your veggies, try to eat balanced assortment of foods for all micronutrients (or supplement with them).

My life isn’t perfect, are there any workarounds

Most critically, if you don’t do resistance training, you are not doing carb-backloading. No exceptions if you actually want to improve.

Carb-backloading must also be late enough in the day to warrant downregulation of GLUT4. It’s usually recommended around 4pm from what I have read, however if you do an 8 hour fast from leangains and break it with a meal, and then give that meal time to digest, you should be fine. (Waking up at 6am would make your fast last until 2pm, a workout can follow at 4pm and happy-time at around 6pm or so).

Ideally, the above would be best. Workarounds exist, but they are not as effective.

  • If you must work out earlier, don’t attempt all out carb-backloading. Just have a decent post-workout meal, don’t go incredibly crazy on it since GLUT4 would still be active; very much so early in the morning. Consider fasting for the final 8 hours of the day if tolerated, or consider just doing 1-2 nonconsecutive day long fasts similar to the recommendations from Brad Pilon as it may be more tolerable.
  • If you don’t want to fast, it is not needed per se to get benefits, but that would just be a Carb-backloading approach rather than a Cheat mode approach.
  • No workout with weights, no post-workout binge; it had to be said again.
  • If you don’t want to give it your all in the gym and slack, get used to that extra carbohydrate going to your fat stores as well (you need to open up the alternate path into muscles, this won’t happen if you half-ass it)

Any ways to better potentiate this?

Its going to be very hard to potentiate the carb-backloading portion. There is so much food in your gut at once that any nutritional intervention would just get caught in a massive hunk of chyme, and the release rates of such would approach insignificant levels.

If anything, digestive enzymes, particularly those that break down lipids and proteins, would help with digestion speed and get compounds from the food into your blood faster (carbs are broken down easily enough). You may also experience higher peak levels of amino acids and insulin/glucose in the blood with enzyme supplementation, but that last sentence is conjecture on my part.

There may be benefit to doing more volume in your workouts to better affect the metabolic ‘opening’ of the muscle, but this is also conjecture on my part. I see no reason why it would not work, but don’t have any evidence to suggest changing a routine to a higher-volume one would result in more muscle growth when compared to a regular routine when both done hard.

As to potentiate the fast, stimulants.

Given how this is the outset of the blog and I want a more community/colloquial based medium, I should disclose that I am a stimulant whore. If caffeine was personified she would be my lady-pimp. I would only leave her watch to go chill with ephedrine and yohimbine in the HCl club (This will most likely continue until I get beat in a back alley somewhere by tachycardia, but I’m managing so far)

There is good reason for this though. Most fat loss supplements (that work at least) require a state of low serum insulin to better affect fat oxidation. Barring a metabolically challenged individual, low serum insulin accurately depicts the body during periods of fasting. The stimulants may also have many appreciated benefits in the realm of neurology, as it may compound the already slightly euphoric state of fasting to better get you started on your day.

(Finally, if you follow this protocol you will most likely have last nights feast in you colon when you wake. Caffeine is a cathartic agent, meaning it makes you poop. Having a nice dose of caffeine from your chosen fix in the morning can get you ready for the day in more ways than one.)

Best of luck if you wish to modify your plan to become more in line with the above.

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