Getting Ripped With Carb Back Loading | Cut and Jacked

GUIDE: Getting Ripped With Carb Back Loading | Cut and Jacked
Posted 28 October 2012 by Jeremy Scott 

Conclusion

Overall my thoughts,... it’s a fun program to follow that allows you to eat some of the foods you love on a more regular basis.

Going forward I will probably be practicing a hybrid of intermittent fasting mixed with a little backloading. 

GUIDE: Carb back loading

Sitting here tonight writing this article eating ice cream is a little out of the normal routine for a fitness professional and competitor like myself. As we all know eating things like ice cream and pizza are reserved for only extreme cheat days, or at least I thought that was the case. However, over the past few months I have amerced myself deep into the world of Carb Back loading. Eating things like ice cream, cookies, and various “cheat foods” post workout all while keeping my body fat in single digits during that span. Now many of you are wondering what the heck is carb back loading?

What is Carb Back Loading?

Well to get started quickly Carb back loading in a nutshell is when you back load your carbs so you are eating no carbohydrates before you workout, only proteins and fats throughout the day and saving all your carb consumption for post workout.

Yes, you are reading that correctly you only eat carbs after you strength train and ZERO carbs before.

I am not talking just eating brown rice and oatmeal after training, I am talking ice cream, cookies, milk shakes, and pizza in fact according to the research those simple sugars work best with back loading. Now before you do condemn me to the mad house, this theory was made popular by a guy named John Kiefer a Physicist who became a nutritionist, so there is some science and education to this method.



Now I come from the world of 'IF' intermittent fasting, (fasting for a minimum of 16 hours and eating for the remaining 8 hours of the day) so many of the principals in carb back loading came easy to me, as there is a fasting concept inside the back loading.

Before I get into that, let’s start from the main idea, when you sleep you are fasting essentially and when you wake up your body is a fat burning monster. Research has shown that cortisol which we know is a stress hormone rises while we sleep, and for most people on a regular schedule it peaks in the early morning around 7am.

The idea with carb back loading is to wake up and eat nothing, that’s right the whole breakfast is the most important meal of the day idea is gone. In fact if you guys end up researching carb back loading on your own you will hear John Keifer say “breakfast sucks”. The reasoning for this is you want your cortisol level to drop, which they do naturally later in the day a few hours after waking up. To break it down you wake up, drink nothing but coffee or water and let your body just burn fat like crazy until you eat your 1st meal.



So, assuming you train later in the day after work let’s say 6pm, what does one eat during the day when they are carb back loading? It’s simple really, just proteins and fats and ZERO carbs during the day before you workout. I know most magazines and professionals will disagree with this as they suggest eating carbs pre-workout is essential and needed for energy.

Honestly I use to think the same thing years ago, that I needed carbs before I workout or I will have no energy and be sluggish. The reality is you don’t need them pre-workout you can train all out hardcore on proteins and fats. The idea behind it is just like the short morning fast, without eating carbs pre-workout you can burn even more fat will you train during the session. I have found I feel more energized, motivated, and train like a maniac on no carbs pre-workout; you will be surprised when you give it a try for the 1st time how well you perform.

The Plan

Here is the basics on how to get started if you think this is for you.
To prime your body for this new eating style and lifestyle honestly you must go extremely low carbs for 10 days – Kiefer prescribes 30g or less each day. That’s right 10 days of 30g carbs or less, and trust me on this, it’s the hardest part of this whole program. We are only talking 10 days, which anyone can struggle through if they are serious about training and making changes.

Protein intake is pretty standard 1g per pound – so if you are 200lbs eat 200g of protein per day. You can also eat as much fat as you like; now keep in mind proper judgment on this. Things like cheese, avocados, bacon, whole eggs, coconut oil and the list goes on and on. The restrictions on this program are limited, it’s based heavily on how you look in the mirror and feel from day to day.



On the 10th day of your low carb intake after you train that evening you can, as they say “carb up”. Your body will be ready to take in some serious carbs, and this is where the fun starts.
Consume around 1g of carbs per pound of bodyweight so if you weight 200lbs eat 200g of carbs or a little more if your body can handle it. The main thing to remember here is these are high-glycemic foods, ice cream, cup cakes, cookies, fries, pizza and so on.

You will probably go to sleep full and bloated feeling happy and fat, upon waking you will probably find yourself looking lean and ripped.

Now you are in the world of carb back loading, from here on out, on all days you strength train (lift heavy weight) you can carb backload. On days you don’t strength train and just do cardio or have rest days eat as you would during the 1st 10 days with 30g of carbs of less just eating proteins and fats.
That in a nutshell is the basics of carb back loading and how it’s done.

A few other tips and my thoughts
before you get started -

• Protein intake is 1g per lb per bodyweight.


• Fat intake is at your own discretion, just be cognizant of the number.


• Carbs on your off days 30g per day or less.

Carbs on backloading days range from 1 - 2g per lb of your bodyweight so for a 200lb man that would be 200g-400g carbs per back load.  If your looking to lose more body fat keep the carbs closer to the 1g, if you are looking to gain a little size keep it closer to the 2g per lb.

If you train in the morning there are modifications in the book Kiefer put out and he breaks down exactly how to do it.

Keep your protein and carb numbers in mind while you eat, but more importantly just check the mirror to see how you feel and look each day. If you are looking lean and ripped after time you are on the right path, if you feel bloated and look doughy odds are you might be overdoing the back loading so cut back on the carbs for a few days.

Conclusion

Overall my thoughts,... it’s a fun program to follow that allows you to eat some of the foods you love on a more regular basis. It also allows you to eat with friends and family enjoying pizza and ice cream from time to time. It’s not for everybody, but if you really struggle with your cheat meals this just might be the thing that gets you to the next level. It’s been a fun few months backloading as I love pizza and ice cream just as much as most people. Going forward I will probably be practicing a hybrid of intermittent fasting mixed with a little backloading.

From a health stand point there will be arguments on eating ice cream and pizza every week, from a personal standpoint my blood work has been as clean as ever even while integrating these foods into my life over the past few months. Again do a little research on your own and become educated on what best fits your health and training needs before moving forward. Best of luck and happy eating!

Resources: CBL 1.0 – for more info carbbackloading.com

Author - Jeremy Scott is the creator of www.jeremyscottfitness.com , PROLAB Sponsored Athlete, Nationally Published Author, and currently lives in and trains in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Fat Burns In the "Flame of Lean Muscle Mass"

The Daily Lipid: When Fat Burns In the Flame of Lean Muscle Mass -- Better Put That Butter Either on Steak or Potatoes

In 1895, a biochemist by the name of Rosenfeld coined the expression "fat burns in the flame of carbohydrate." This was based on observations that cells could break down fatty acids into ketone bodies but without sufficient glucose the cells could not break them down fully into carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

The aphorism offered a simple explanation for why ketones are elevated to extreme levels in diabetes: diabetics do not use glucose efficiently, so glucose levels in the blood rise; since their cells are starved of glucose, the fat stores of these diabetics release their fatty acids and their livers break the fatty acids down into ketones, but these ketones cannot be used in the absence of glucose, so ketone levels in the blood rise and then the ketones are finally lost in the urine. Thus the diabetic is effectively in a constant state of starvation.

We now know that fat burns in the flame of oxaloacetate, which can be derived from either glucose or amino acids.

When we break down fats or carbohydrates for energy, we turn them into acetic acid, or acetate, which is a two-carbon unit. A little shuttle called coenzyme A, which is made of pantothenic acid, carries the acetate around and together we call the complex acetyl CoA. Pantothenate is also called vitamin B5 and is found abundantly in many foods but liver and egg yolks are among the highest (along with certain mushrooms, seeds, and yeast).

In order to fully harvest energy from acetate, we need to send it through the citric acid cycle, also called the Krebs cycle or the tricarboxylic acid (TCA cycle). This cycle will break the acetate down into carbon dioxide and hydrogen. In doing so, it will also release high-energy electrons whose energy can then be harvested to synthesize ATP, a major usable energy currency of the cell. Entry into this cycle is dependent on a compound called oxaloacetate.

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In the presence of glucose, we convert glucose to oxaloacetate. Thus, as oxaloacetate leaves the Krebs cycle cuz it's got things to do and people to see, we can just use glucose to replenish it. In the absence of glucose, we do the opposite: we turn oxaloacetate into glucose. Thus, oxaloacetate gets depleted in the absence of glucose unless we have some other source of it. We can make oxaloacetate from a variety of amino acids, but not from fats. Thus, in the absence of dietary protein or carbohydrate, the only place to get oxaloacetate is to dig into the lean proteins found in our muscles and internal organs.

One thing I really like about The Perfect Health Diet is that although the authors advocate a low-carb diet, they devote a lot of attention to the body's need for glucose, rather than coming up with some silly aphorism like "there are essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, but there is no essential carbohydrate." The body may be able to survive without dietary glucose, but only because it can make glucose from protein. Give it only fat, and it will make that glucose — and oxaloacetate — from lean muscle tissue.

Better get a steak or potato to go with that butter!

May 4, 2011 1:48 PM

Emily Deans, M.D. said...

Chris - I doubt you need to be burning predominantly ketones for the brain to see some benefit from ketosis. Zooko sent me links to so,e interesting studies on twitter - I think I will do a post on it, actually. They are familiar papers but the graphs are very interesting.

May 4, 2011 5:26 PM

Chris Masterjohn said...

Emily, I don't doubt it, but the brain selectively gets the glucose when it is initially limiting, with muscles getting the ketones. Under more extensively glucose deprivation this shifts towards muscles using fatty acids and brains using ketones, which spares lean mass by reducing the need for gluconeogenesis. This is my understanding, at least, though I do need to look deeper at the primary literature on this and the differences between ketogenic diets and prolonged fasting. But my point in response to Dana was that even on a very low-carb diet with a moderate amount of protein, the brain, while perhaps using ketones to some degree, is probably still using primarily glucose. I'm very open to changing this view as I consider it tentative. I look forward to reading your post. Chris

May 4, 2011 5:32 PM

Emily Deans, M.D. said...

I should say that a strict anti-seizure benefit would have to be from strict ketosis to up regulate the GABA reliably and consistently. But other conditions seem to benefit from dips into ketosis, or ketosis that just turns a ketostix. Well, post coming one of these days...

May 4, 2011 5:57 PM

Chris Masterjohn said...

Hey Dr. Deans, In my experience, I can get ketostix purple just by exercising intensely and feasting on carbs. I'd be willing to bet that my brain was running almost entirely on glucose when my ketostix were as purple as they could get (granted I was eating plenty of fat including coconut fat during this time). I'm definitely not claiming dips into ketosis won't be of benefit -- I'm just saying (in my response to Dana, which I'm assuming that's what you're responding to) that in calculating the physiological glucose requirement of the brain you can't assume that a low-carb diet is going to substantially reduce it. Most low-carb diets probably keep the brain running mostly on glucose is my guess, and that's all I was saying. Chris

May 4, 2011 6:12 PM

Paul Jaminet said...

Hi Chris, Great post, and thanks for the shout-out! Here are a few thoughts I had while reading: The “fat burns in the flame of oxaloacetate” discussion is an elegant summary of why 95% fat diets are unhealthy. Re Dana’s point, the body consumes a lot of glucose whether it is consumed or no. If you want to exclude carbs from the diet, you’d better eat sufficient protein! Even if you do, it’s far from clear that manufacture from protein is the optimal way to meet glucose needs. I don’t believe it is. Re ketogenic diets, I’ve migrated to the view that the optimal ketogenic diet even for clinical use should have minimal excess ketones, few excreted ketones, and a fair amount of dietary carbs and protein. Once ketones are being excreted, few tissues are taking up marginal ketones. I think the clinical ketogenic diets often overshoot the optimal amount of ketones, and undershoot the optimal amount of carbs and protein. Re Ned’s point, I’ve eaten a moderately ketogenic low-protein diet for a long time and my albumin levels have never budged. Of course I’ve never eaten a 95% fat diet … but I would imagine you would lose a lot of lean muscle mass before serum albumin levels would start to decrease. Anyway, great thought-provoking post! Best, Paul

May 4, 2011 6:32 PM

John said...

Another great post Chris. The way I see it is that fat can burn in the flame of anything that keeps the TCA cycle going. Even though oxaloacetate is drawn off, you can replenish it via every intermediate in the TCA cycle, because it will eventually be turned into oxaloacetate anyway. Glucose and amino acids are just two of the TCA cycle replenishing options. Another option would be odd-chain fatty acids. They can burn (somewhat) in their own flame, because the last cycle of their β-oxidation will provide propionyl-CoA, which can be turned into succinyl-CoA, a TCA cycle intermediate (not shown in the TCA cycle diagram BTW). And what about the substance that gave the cycle its name: citric acid. Perhaps that's the reasoning behind the lemon diet: burn fat in the flame of citric acid. The citric acid (and some sugar) from the lemons should be able to keep the TCA cycle going, so that would spare protein. But when you know all this, why go for the sour taste of a lemon diet? Using a sugar drink should do the trick just as well. Hmmmm, burning fat with a sugar drink? That sounds a lot like the Shangri-La diet by Seth Roberts. John

May 5, 2011 10:08 AM