Any low carbers out there?

[sophierhymes]

My current goal is fat loss and I'm trying carb cycling to see how that works for me. The problem that I'm having is that I can't seem to get my carbs below 45%. This is fine for highg or moderate days, but on low days I'd like the macro to look more like 30%. It's a snap for meat eaters, but I'm having trouble figuring it out as a vegan. Below is a sample mean plan. The only thing I can come up with to reduce carbs on low days is to drink more than one protein shake, but I would rather not do that. Does anyone have any good low-carb suggestions? Thanks a bunch!

 

M1: Tofu scramble w/ whole wheat tortilla and .5 cup black beans

M2: banana

M3: Small piece of lasagna made with spelt noodles, spinach and tofu and a green salad with avocado, tomato and cucumber

M4: (post workout) Gemma protein shake w/ H20 and a piece of fruit

M5: garlic hummus, tempeh and sprouts on two pieces of nori; handful of almonds

[Duncan_Idaho]

Why cut the carbs? Make them work for you! Fats burn in the flames of carbohydrates. The carbs will provide enough energy for the cardio workout. The key is to get your body to metabolize your fats, which happens with aerobic activity (the fats have to be transported into the mitochondria to be decomposed and the mitochondria work only in an aerobic environment). And you need pyruvate (from the carbs) in order to activate the aerobic glycolysis, i.e. to do a proper aerobic training. So, don't quit the carbs, do aerobics, get your metabolism working and with time the fats will be decomposed.

[sophierhymes]

Why cut the carbs? Make them work for you! Fats burn in the flames of carbohydrates. The carbs will provide enough energy for the cardio workout. The key is to get your body to metabolize your fats, which happens with aerobic activity (the fats have to be transported into the mitochondria to be decomposed and the mitochondria work only in an aerobic environment). And you need pyruvate (from the carbs) in order to activate the aerobic glycolysis, i.e. to do a proper aerobic training. So, don't quit the carbs, do aerobics, get your metabolism working and with time the fats will be decomposed.

 

I do plenty of cardio. Usually 4-5 days for 45 mins unless its HIIT. The problem is my body fat has been hanging around the 17% mark for a while and I'm experimenting to see if I can cut more fat. I'm not saying I want to cut carbs down to the Atkins level (20-30 gms/day). A low day for me is 80-100 gms.

[seitan_man]

Maybe get your protein from low carb sources such as tofu, tempeh, seitan and shakes and make up the rest of your food intake from fruits, veggies and some nuts and flax for good fats?

 

Bread, potatoes and pasta are terrible for preventing me from lose weight and pasta especially I try to avoid.

[rendermatt]

I <3 carbs

[Gaia]

Good luck in losing your bodyfat. I was not able to do it all the way for a comp this past summer. I am in my bulking season now that winter is here (though I plan on not gaining a whole lot of weight as the fat is not coming off like the all chicken breast diet I use to do). I tried a low carb/keto diet in which it was seiten sausage with salads, no fruit, no pasta (I even cut out my oatmeal breakfast!), and basically gemma protein/hemp protein/and brown rice protein shakes. I still was not able to get my carbs low enough. You might just want to take out a meal on low day (have 4 instead of 5) and make the other meals 4 hours apart instead of 2 to 3 hours. Maybe you could also do just one scoop/or half of what you are using for the shake, and have 2 a day. And what are you doing in your cycling? 3 days on, or the whole week? What do you eat on your cheat day?

[sophierhymes]

Good luck in losing your bodyfat. I was not able to do it all the way for a comp this past summer. I am in my bulking season now that winter is here (though I plan on not gaining a whole lot of weight as the fat is not coming off like the all chicken breast diet I use to do). I tried a low carb/keto diet in which it was seiten sausage with salads, no fruit, no pasta (I even cut out my oatmeal breakfast!), and basically gemma protein/hemp protein/and brown rice protein shakes. I still was not able to get my carbs low enough. You might just want to take out a meal on low day (have 4 instead of 5) and make the other meals 4 hours apart instead of 2 to 3 hours. Maybe you could also do just one scoop/or half of what you are using for the shake, and have 2 a day. And what are you doing in your cycling? 3 days on, or the whole week? What do you eat on your cheat day?

 

Thanks for the advice. This is kind of a trial run for my first comp, which is not until next summer. Right now it's basically higher carbs on my 2 leg days a week, moderate on upper body days and as low as I can go on off days. The lowest I've been able to get is 90-100 gms. If I get any lower, that usually means I haven't gotten enough cals in. Honestly, I've only been cycling for a couple of weeks, so 100 gms, may be low enough, but I doubt it. I could handle cutting out pasta, rice, and even oats (that would be a tough one though), but I don't know about cutting out fruit. I feel like fruit and the carb-heavy breakfasts that I usually have are what fuels my workouts. As for cheat days, sometimes its brownies if i want something sweet and sometimes it's cheeseless pizza or french fries if i want something salty.

[sophierhymes]

I <3 carbs

 

Me too!!! If there ever was a carb lover, it's me!!

[veggieprincess]

Honestly, I've only been cycling for a couple of weeks, so 100 gms, may be low enough, but I doubt it.

 

I dieted down to about 13 - 14% bodyfat on 125 grams of carbs with no carb cycling, so its not necessary to go to 100 grams. But I could have never done it on my own. I hired a professional to help me figure it out.

[sophierhymes]

Honestly, I've only been cycling for a couple of weeks, so 100 gms, may be low enough, but I doubt it.

 

I dieted down to about 13 - 14% bodyfat on 125 grams of carbs with no carb cycling, so its not necessary to go to 100 grams. But I could have never done it on my own. I hired a professional to help me figure it out.

 

I honestly thought about hiring you, but my budget won't allow it right now. I guess all I can do is continue on with the plan and see where it takes me. Thanks for your input!!

[Mik]

i couldnt live without an abundance of carbs; cutting them out makes me irritable, hungry, hollow, lethargic and desperate to eat junk.

[sophierhymes]

i couldnt live without an abundance of carbs; cutting them out makes me irritable, hungry, hollow, lethargic and desperate to eat junk.

 

That's why I cycle so that the low days are few compared to the high days!!

[sydneyvegan]

I have been doing the 4 to 5 days low carb, 1 or 2 days good carbs thing for a while and it definitely works.

I find I can't do it for weeks and weeks, so I switch back to normal eating for a while and give my body a rest,

like anything, your body gets use to it after a while as well.

I didn't find my workouts suffered, I just had to keep them under 90 mins, as towards the end I would get the

shakes and feel a bit sick (Very similar to The Bonk - to use a cycling term)

Hope it goes well.

[CollegeB]

Are you worried about cycling carbs and insulin spikes? I would think that once your body has some days off from carbs, the times you do eat carbs will spike insulin more than usual. I've read that insulin spikes aid in fat storage. Not sure if all of this is fact though.

[veggieprincess]

insulin spikes are more due to the kind of carb consumed than the amount.

 

2 small cookies will spike your insulin more than triple the amount of calories when consumed in oatmeal. It is the "bad" carbs that cause excess insulin to be produced.

[Guest]

But how to manage a low-carb diet if you're a vegan? Soy, seitan, nuts, veggies, flaxseed oil and some occasional fruit? Not too much variety, which could lead to malnutrition (micronutrient-wise), no? Or is it supposed to be maintained for a short period of time (say, a month or so) to cut fat? I'm currently recovering from an illness due to which I've already lost some weight (mostly muscle) and strenght, so I'm considering a short to medium lenght cut before starting to lift and eat all-out again. But I'm only doing this if I'm sure it will bring positive results rather than nothing or, indeed, a further decrease in strenght and muscle.

[Gaia]

So have you tried the low-carb diet for the short period of time? Finding any results for your body? And what are you doing working out wise?

 

I would never try the low-carb diet after being sick though. You have to have your immune system in tip top shape to try it for longer than a couple of days. And please know, that most of us who have tried the low-carb diet do increase carbs slightly on certain days in order for our metabolism to not shut down. We also try to maintain our muscle mass while dieting this way, and not to gain muscle mass, but lose bodyfat yes.

[DV]

Great advice from Gaia. A woman who has actually competed and been there, done that.

[Guest]

Yeah, it's my second week into the low-carb (or, more precisely, lower-carb) experiment. And yes, I do notice some nice improvements in my body composition - I'm down to 12,9% BF (was about 14-15% before) and succeeded in maintaining my strenght, although not energy, so far (which, I hope, means I haven't lost much LBM).

 

I know it's good to cycle the lower-calorie, lower-carb days with higher-calorie days, but I'm not sure whether I should up the calories in the form of more carbs, more protein and fat or all three?

[Gaia]

Protein should be the same (so the muscle mass is supported always), so that is not what you should experiment with. I would do either carbs or fats. Personally I get my usual fats from either Vega EFA oil (so I get the oils that are essential) or nut/avocados (though I do only seiten for my protein food source, with pea, hemp (not so much of this as it has too much fiber!), and brown rice protein powder shakes to keep my intact up to 150-200 g/day). I play with the carbs. I will add in some brown rice (nutritious and easily digestible, and should not have any immune reaction to it - water holding for example), well actually extra brown rice to the amount I take in after a workout. And when I experiment with carbs, it is the complex only. I eat as many veggies as I want (though I usually get to a point where I don't want to eat them anymore).

 

Listen to your body is all I can advise. Notice if you have puffy bags under your eyes (water holding), dry mouth (dehydration), constipation (need to drink more again), feeling achy (deficiency of something or immune system weakening), fingers swollen (too much salt perhaps? check your tomato pasta sauce that was the culprit for me), and cramps in calves is another thing (cut out the sodium in the diet the week before comp and woke up screaming!potassium and magnesium supplements helped that for the week, but went off of them right after comp (have to be careful that you don't start messing around with those minerals for too long - complications of the heart set in (irregular rhythms is one).

 

As for energy, have you tried green tea? I am just using that to boost my energy levels for my workouts (I am very sensitive to caffeine, so the little amount in there gives me alot of energy but no jitters).

 

As long as you can lift your medium weights for the usual reps in the set, your LBM should still be there. You might not be able to lift your heaviest weight with the same amount of reps while dieting down, but see if you can on the day after a carb loading day (lots of glycogen waiting in the muscles to be used - stored from the day before).

 

Have fun experimenting! (a journal is a good thing to have).

[Guest]

Thanks a lot for your input, Gaia! I'm currently just playing with the low-carb thing to see whether it works for me, but I plan to start a more serious fat-loss program a bit later, after I finish reading Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle", if I still need to lose any by the time.

 

I find that book to be very informative and piss-easy to read, btw! Recommended.