My Diet | Cardio Is For Suckers

Carbohydrate cycling (or calorie cycling)is by no means, anything new. It’s been around for ever, much like many fundamental diets. However, fad diets come and go, and often the basics are over looked. I believe carb cycling is forgotten because typically you won’t see results as fast as some of the other diets. What is key about that, is I believe with the slower fat loss, you are preserving more muscle than any other diet, and possibly even building lean body mass, while in a calorie deficit. I’m sure some will argue and say building lean mass while dieting is IMPOSSIBLE, and I wouldn’t doubt if someone even had studies to back up their claim. However, when I’m losing fat, and my strength is increasing, I will take my word over anyone else or any study.

Another benefit to carb cycling, is you are very seldom on ‘low carbs’. You’ll see many (not all) people on low carb diets, Palumbo’s diet, etc., and they feel awful. They have no energy, feel weak no motivation, and can’t stand the diet. With carb cycling, you have high days, medium days, and low days, so you are very rarely running on ‘low’.

As with most diets, there are two keys to the diet being successful.
1)You have to know how many calories YOU need. Everyone is different. This is something you will experiment with.
2)Keep your protein high.

Calories
This is often the hardest part, finding what works for you. There are many calculators out there that give you an idea of how many calories one should take, but as I said, everyone is different. When I was doing CKD, I was taking in roughly 2800-3000 calories a day. When I plateaued, I tried going down to 2500, and up to 4000, but it didn’t help. Lyle MacDonald told me in some instances, people have to go extremely low to burn fat.

I’m 6′3”, 240lbs, it was a pain trying to find the right about of calories to take, and a pain at times to get in my daily calories… one of the drawbacks of being tall! lol

I sit at the computer all day. I walk my dog at a slow pace (he’s lazy) for 30 mins a day. I don’t need a lot of calories during the day. When dieting I take in between 2000-2300 calories a day… which would ’shock’ a lot of the ‘gurus’.

The key is, you want to be patient. I’d rather see you start too high, and not lose anything, then start too low. When you start high, you can always come down. But when you start with your calories too low, it makes it a pain adjusting down the road.

The Foods
Now before I get into this, I need to explain a few things. I eat clean during the week, and have a cheat day on the weekend, where I eat anything I want. When I’m really lean, I’ll even cheat both days if I feel like it, and my body is fine with it.

I eat six meals a day, like clockwork, and have for the last 10 years of my life. It’s my lifestyle, and it’s hardwired into me. My day is planned around my meals, I don’t go out unless it’s planned around my meals. Sad? Yes, but it’s the lifestyle I’ve lived for the last 10 years, and I’m totally fine with it. I don’t have things that are out of the way on a regular basis, so it’s really not a big deal. You can argue that frequent meals aren’t necessary (I’ll get into that in another post), but as I said, it’s my routine, and I’m stuck on it. I also eat the same foods on a regular basis. Occasionally, I will make a good dinner and enjoy it, but for the most part, eating for me is just part of my day, get it down, and get it over with. I’m not saying this is required for everyone, it’s just the easiest way for me. We’ll get into other options as we come across it further down.
Proteins
I consider chicken my main source of protein, even though I only have it twice a day. Cooked to the right temperature, I never get sick of it. Chicken should be juicy and flavorful, if yours isn’t you need to cook it better!

I will have beef, usually a steak, once or twice a week. I don’t have beef often because I want to enjoy my steak, and I will only make one meal’s worth at a time. When I cook chicken breast, I will make 6-9 breasts at a time.

One meal a day is cottage cheese. I buy the big container from Costco, unfortunately it is not low fat, but it’s really not that big of a deal. I will have one cup, plus ¾ scoop of protein powder.

When I did the CKD diet, for months and months, I would have six eggs in the microwave every morning. Now I rarely want to see scrambled eggs, so I will have eggs and egg whites about once a week or every two weeks.

Protein powder, I use a blend from TrueProtein.com. It will contain slow and fast digesting protein. An example would be, 20% whey concentrate, 20% micellar casein, 20% whole egg, 20% egg white, 20% milk isolate. LG Sciences has a similar blend, which I haven’t been able to try yet, but I was surprised that a company made a blend so close to what I use. And best of all it is affordable.

Carbohydrates
This isn’t going to sound too appealing, but I’m not going to lie… 90% of the time my carbohydrate meals are oatmeal. I get old fashioned oatmeal, I will sometimes sprinkle cinnamon (health benefits) on it, add enough cold water to absorb into the oatmeal, and I spoon it down. A third of a cup contains 27g of carbohydrates, and takes about three spoonfuls to eat. It takes me about two minutes, I have no problem eating it, I don’t have to cook anything, and it’s one of the best carbs for you, period.

I add mixed fruit to my shakes, twice a day. This is bad practice, but I’ve never counted these carbs in my day, and it’s not a small number of carbs! But I’ve done it from day one, and never counted them, so if you are taking my word, add the fruit and don’t count them into your day. Sorry for the poor coaching (lol)!

I will eat brown rice, but I put a lot of soy sauce on it(!), and I still feel like I have to choke it down, and it takes forever to eat, especially if I’m on a higher carb day.

Once and a while I will have a sandwich, or sub from Subway. Breads or sugars are usually on my ‘high’ days or ‘low’ days. My theory is my ‘high’ days, I don’t expect to burn a lot of fat, so if I feel like having some bread, I will have some. On my ‘low’ days, my carbohydrates are so low, I’m not worried about the types of carbs I’m eating, and I will even have foods with sugars in them, if I feel like it. This will also include Baked Lays…. but not too often!

I love yams and sweet potatoes. I will make them into fries and they are one of my favorite foods, dieting or not. The only problem is they are a pain to cut up, then take about a half hour to cook. I will usually have them about once a week.

Fats
Majority of my fats come from nuts. I try to have a variety of nuts, so I will buy peanut butter, almonds, cashews and walnuts. And I will try and get them into my diet. Nuts not only have good fats in them, but they have great health benefits.

The actual carb cycling diet.

Okay, I’ve talked about the diet, talked about the calories, and talked about the foods. Now I’ll go over a typical week for me, including the foods and macro nutrition breakdown. Each day has six meals.

Protein – I am for 300g of protein per day, which does not include my post work out shake. Protein may seem high, but I prefer it in terms of getting my daily calories in. I believe 1.4-1.5g of protein per pound of lean body mass is effective for this diet. Many will say that is too high, but it’s what I do.

Carbohydrates – Carbs are taken in the first four meals of the day. You take your daily carbs, and divide them by four, it makes for easy measurements.

Fats – The last two meals of the day contain fats and protein. On top of that, the first four meals of the day will also have a bit of fat with them.

Sample week.

Day 1 – Sunday – 200g of carbs = 50g per meal.
Day 2 – Monday – 160g of carbs = 40g per meal.
Day 3 – Tuesday – 120g of carbs = 30g per meal.
Day 4 – Wednesday – 80g of carbs = 20g per meal
Day 5 – Thursday – 120g of carbs = 30g per meal (sometimes will go to 160g to change things up)
Day 6 – Friday – 80g of carbs = 20g per meal
Day 7 – Saturday – Cheat day

Calories
Using 5g of fat with first 4 meals, and roughly 20g last two meals each.
60g fat = 540 calories. 300g protein = 1200 calories. Fat and protein = 1740 calories
Day 1 – 200g carbs + p/f = 2540 calories
Day 2 – 160g carbs + p/f = 2380 calories
Day 3 – 120g carbs + p/f = 2220 calories
Day 4 – 80 g carbs + p/f = 2060 calories
Day 5 – 120g carbs + p/f = 2220 calories
Day 6 – 80 g carbs + p/f = 2060 calories

With this method, calories are ranging from 2540 calories to 2060 calories with a difference of 480 calories. I believe this is a good range, you could also go a wider ranger. But I wouldn’t go too much more than 700-800. The main goal is to have a deficit on what should be your maintenance calories, so with a range of 500-800, we aren’t going too extreme.

Meal sample.
This is what I eat almost every single day. Carb totals are adjusted according to the day, protein and fats stay the same. In this example we’ll use the 160g carb day.

Meal 1
1/3 cup of frozen mixed berries from Costco (remember I said I’ve never counted the fruit into my carbs)
2 scoops of protein blend
½ cup of oatmeal.
Blend in the Magic Bullet (small blender), and that’s my first meal. I will also take 2g of fish oil for my fats for this meal.

Meal 2
1 cup cottage cheese.
½ cup of oatmeal.
¾ scoop of protein powder.
Small handful of almonds. (Small as in 5-10 almonds)
I will often put the protein powder and oats in the same bowl, it tastes good!

Meal 3
Same as Meal 1, but I’ll put a tbsp of peanut butter in the shake.

Meal 4 (Usually preworkout)
Chicken breast (50g protein)
½ cup oats in water.
Small handful of walnuts or another nut.

Meal 5
Chicken breast
More nuts (More than a small handful, enough to get in 15-25g of fats)
or
Scrambled eggs using egg whites, two whole eggs, and a bit of cheddar cheese

Meal 6
Protein powder
1-2 tbsp Udo’s 3-6-9 oil

And that’s the diet, with sample meals. To some, this will be easy to follow, to others, they may think it’s hell. For me, it’s so easy to follow, and very little time is spent preparing food.

The diet is what you make of it. You can switch up the carb sources, make different recipes, etc. This CAN work for everyone. I’ll also be posting recipes every so often. I don’t like spending a lot of time on my body. I want to be in and out of the gym fast, I don’t want to spend hours cooking and cleaning, I keep everything as simple and efficient as possible.

This is what worked for me. I’ve tried different types of cardio, different fat burners, supplements, etc., and when it came down to it, none of those things really helped, and were a waste of money and time!

This is my first draft of the diet, I’m sure I will need to add/edit things as I remember, or you guys ask questions. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, and I will try and answer them. Remember, I am not an expert, I’m just speaking about what works for me. Feel free to criticize my diet, I’m always looking to improve my diet and there are certainly a lot of people out there that know a lot more than me!