Sport The Anabolic Diet

[Phate89]

Does anyone here have any experience with the Anabolic diet? I started reading up on it a while ago, and it seems very similiar to what I started doing, but not exactly the same.

For those that don't know what the anabolic diet is:

The Anabolic Diet is Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale’s solution to build muscle & lose fat. The basics are:

* High protein, high fat & low carb from Monday to Friday.
* High carbs, low protein & low fat on weekends.

The protein of choice is fatty, red meat. Fatty red meat is high in cholesterol and saturated fat which increases your testosterone levels. The absence of carbs for 5 consecutive days forces your body to use fat for energy.

It seems to be extremely popular around T-nation, and they say it works.

For the past couple weeks during weekdays I'd be eating a low carb intake, high protein, high fat. Carbs usually around 100 grams or sub. Then on the weekends i'd usually have more breads, etc. But also keep my protein/fat intake high ( which results in a surplus ). Not exactly like the anabolic diet because they say to keep carbs to 5% on weekdays, and low protein/fat's on weekends, but meh. I think I could lower body fat, and continue strength gains doing this.

What are your views on the anabolic diet?

 

[realworksuks]

Does anyone here have any experience with the Anabolic diet? I started reading up on it a while ago, and it seems very similiar to what I started doing, but not exactly the same.

For those that don't know what the anabolic diet is:





It seems to be extremely popular around T-nation, and they say it works.

For the past couple weeks during weekdays I'd be eating a low carb intake, high protein, high fat. Carbs usually around 100 grams or sub. Then on the weekends i'd usually have more breads, etc. But also keep my protein/fat intake high ( which results in a surplus ). Not exactly like the anabolic diet because they say to keep carbs to 5% on weekdays, and low protein/fat's on weekends, but meh. I think I could lower body fat, and continue strength gains doing this.

What are your views on the anabolic diet?

This is a ketogenic diet. You could gain a lot of fat if you don't do this properly.

If you are eating a lot of fat, and over something like 30-50 g of carbs (after fiber is subtracted) you will store a lot of fat...

In other words, if you have insulin (coming from carbs), and eat a high fat diet with it, you'll get fat.

For this to work well you have to keep carbs under 30g or so on the weekdays... coming mainly from green veggies spread throughout the day.

On the weekends when you are eating lots of carbs keep the fat as low as possible.

The ketogenic diet is unique in a few ways... you can have a huge calorie surplus and still not gain weight.. meaning it isn't the best way to build muscle. Insulin is one of the most anabolic hormones in our bodies and while on this diet we don't have much.

It's great for cutting, though, your body starts using fat for energy (certain activity (weight training, HIIT) it still uses glucose and glycogen as the primary fuel, hence the carb up days) and that's a great tool for shredding off fat.

Plus fat is very satisfying and you won't get as hungry like on a regular diet.

 

[matt182]

why cant people just have a normal healthy diet... arghhhh

 

[Phate89]

This is a ketogenic diet. You could gain a lot of fat if you don't do this properly.

If you are eating a lot of fat, and over something like 30-50 g of carbs (after fiber is subtracted) you will store a lot of fat...

In other words, if you have insulin (coming from carbs), and eat a high fat diet with it, you'll get fat.

For this to work well you have to keep carbs under 30g or so on the weekdays... coming mainly from green veggies spread throughout the day.

On the weekends when you are eating lots of carbs keep the fat as low as possible.

The ketogenic diet is unique in a few ways... you can have a huge calorie surplus and still not gain weight.. meaning it isn't the best way to build muscle. Insulin is one of the most anabolic hormones in our bodies and while on this diet we don't have much.

It's great for cutting, though, your body starts using fat for energy (certain activity (weight training, HIIT) it still uses glucose and glycogen as the primary fuel, hence the carb up days) and that's a great tool for shredding off fat.

Plus fat is very satisfying and you won't get as hungry like on a regular diet.

Well, I didn't say I'm going to try the Keto diet, but 2 weeks ago i started vastly reducing carb intake, thinking that it will help lower my BF since insulin wouldn't get spiked as much. Macros were usually around 40%protein/35%fat/25%carb , and my diet before was around 40% carbs, 30-35% protein, and 20something% fat. A high protein/fat low carb diet is better no?

 

[realworksuks]

Well, I didn't say I'm going to try the Keto diet, but 2 weeks ago i started vastly reducing carb intake, thinking that it will help lower my BF since insulin wouldn't get spiked as much. Macros were usually around 40%protein/35%fat/25%carb , and my diet before was around 40% carbs, 30-35% protein, and 20something% fat. A high protein/fat low carb diet is better no?

That's not the anabolic diet at all. And the anabolic diet = a ketogenic diet.

The change you made to your macros won't significantly change anything IMO.

 

[[Focus]]

Phate if this sort of thing interests you, I'd recommend you check out Jeff Volek's TNT Diet. As Der says, what you're doing is sort of a half-assed carb cycle. Which, in my experience, has little effect, except the occasional ruination of my energy levels.

I prefer the TNT Diet because Volek doesn't try to sell you on anything other than clean eating, and I feel the accessibility of his explanation of cyclical and targeted ketogenics diets (the former being what AD is essentially a fancy name for), among other things, is vastly superior to Pasquale's. The Anabolic Diet reads like Biotest ad copy... and I ain't down with that.

Basically what rws said + the book recommendation. There's a fair amount of science and evolutionary "theory" behind the ketogenic diet itself, though, so I would say give it a shot (though I won't be doing so myself for a little while yet). But, if you do it, do it all the way, otherwise you're wasting your time, at best.

 

[realworksuks]

But, if you do it, do it all the way, otherwise you're wasting your time, at best.

Agreed 100%

 

[Phate89]

Well, I wont be doing Keto anytime soon just because the way my lifestyle is set up. Can't afford to eat red meat, chicken, etc daily, so maybe in the future.

But what do you mean that even that i lowered my carb intake drastically, hell, i used to have 6-7 pieces of bread a day sometimes and now its 1 or 0, how can that not have a positive affect on my insulin levels, therefore reduce fat storage.

 

[[Focus]]

That's not quite what I said, The Anabolic Diet itself is a carb cycling diet, and carb cycling can actually have great effects.

Sorry, guess I should have written, "along the lines of what Der said", which is what I meant. I'm not questioning that the Anabolic Diet can often be very effective, either. I was referring to the "berardi-like but basically just cheating on the weekends" diet he said that he's been on recently.

I'm also pretty sure that I didn't actually say anything concrete against that, either. Merely that it (berardi-like eating with weekend "cheats") hasn't been effective for me and what I would recommend (also a function of my experience - which includes my various reading thus far). It all comes down to what works for you, Phate.