how long should it take for me to start seeing results from a twice weekly carb up meal? I am currently 181 lbs. and 10%bf. here is my diet

meal #1
6oz. chicken breast (baked)
3 whites and one yolk
1/2 grapefruit

Meal #2
2 scoops muscle provider, 1 tbsp milled flax seed, and 4 strawberries.

meal #3
8 oz. prior to cooking baked chicken
1.5C greenbeans
1tbsp milled flax

Meal #4
6oz. tuna
3 whites
1 tomato

meal #5
6 oz. chicken breast, turkey breast, or 96% lean beef
1 cup salad with calorie free dressing

mondays and thursdays:
6th meal
1.5C oatmeal before cooking
10 oz. sweet potato
4 oz. banana
1 C veggies
1 tbsp butter

supplements:
superpak w/ meal#1
4 Ultra 40 w/ each meal
4 GH factor and 2 energy reserve three times daily on empty stomach

any input would be greatly appreciated I am very new to the whole body changing process and just want to know what kind of results I should be seeing.

thanks,
Jake

Jake,

It didnt take long at all for me to get awesome results on a plan that was very similar (a few less calories, 2600 to be exact). I was just down at Beverly this past Saturday, and found out that I had lost four pounds of fat and gained seven pounds of muscle in one month. Just be 100% faithful, and you'll more than likely be noticing results in no time!!!

BAHart82,
thanks for your response, I had my first carb up last night and man is that huge sweet potato good. I will write back with some updates in a few weeks.

jake

Jake - The carb up meal probably has the most impact when you are in the final stretch of a pre-contest diet - say the last 4 weeks. At that point you have been restricting calories for a while and your metabolism starts to slow down a bit (the bodies natural response to not getting enough food) so the carb up meals are intended to balance that metabolism slow down response by boosting carbs and calories twice a week in a way that will both replenish partially depleted carb stores and get your metabolism revved up again.

If you are now at 10% and not really restricting calories a lot below maintenance you might not see quite the same affect from the twice weekly carb up meal. Putting them in your diet plan is not a bad idea, but the affect may be lessoned a bit when you are on a higher cal diet and when your level of leaness is not yet down below 7%bf.

MadDog,
I figured my calories up for what i am eating, and they came to 1400. is that considered high caloric intake? i think that it is pretty low. if not what kind of level is considered low? I thought that maintenance level was about 12kcal per pound.

Jake

Jake - When I talk about what a persons caloric maintenance level is it is more of a real life measurement than it is applying any formula. Let me explain.

My caloric maintenance level is that amount of food intake, based on a certain level of activity, which allows me to pretty much stay at the same body weight, not gaining nor dropping weight. There are BMR charts which will try to indicate how many calories an individual needs just to maintain themselves, but adding in calories burned for daily activity makes those charts/formulas a little less accurate. Generally a formula based on amount of LBM is best, i.e. the person with more muscle at a given weight uses more calories, but that is a bit simplistic as the rest of your body also uses some calories (energy) to sustain itself, just less than muscle needs pound for pound.

Anyone who has been doing this (BBing) for some time will have a feel for thier own caloric maintenance level. If, for example, you have been lifting hard for a year and have not gained more than a pound or two of LBM (Muscle) you are likely eating at or near your maintenance level (unless you have been burning off a lot of body fat for energy). Generally to add muscle you need to eat more. The fine line is not eating so much more that the extra calories become new body fat. Supplements and training style also affect this anabolic (muscle building) environment for the extra calories to be effective in.

I have not tried to calculate your daily caloric intake, but 1400 strikes me as being low for what you have outlined. If in fact you are eating 1400 calories a day now, at a body weight of ~180 and 10%bf you are not eating enough. Even on a cutting diet you don't want to be much less than 500-1000 calories below your maintenance level and your maintenance level has got to be above 2400/day. When you drop down that low your body will do a couple of things. It will start to also burn muscle for energy, what you do not want, and it will slow down your metabolism across the board in order to conserve itself (it also tries to conserve fat! as it thinks that it is heading towards starvation).

Are you working with a BI advisor/coach? If so chat with them about all of this to get their thoughts. If not consider it, the service is free and they are very good. What are your current goals and timetable? Most 180 lb male BBers are going to eat 6 meals/day with the carb up meal being meal number 7 on those days, although at times it can replace meal number six. I see that you are at 5 meals a day which would be more typical for a females diet plan, someone who needs fewer total calories each day.

I can tell you that I would be starving at 1400 calories a day, and I weight about 180 myself. My lowest pre-contest daily caloric level is about 2600 and I'm dragging then! My maintenance level is about ~3200.

Question/Comment #1 -- isn't the purpose of some of the boatload of supplements we take to prevent muscle loss on a below maintenance Kcal. diet (pre-comp.).

Question/Comment #2 -- My husband is on 5 meals per day and he is around 180 -- he is also working with a Bev advisor.

Comment #3 -- I agree mostly with what you stated VAMadDog however when comp dieting all rules kind of go out the window. I have found my body adapts very quickly to diet changes and lowering kcals. I put off adding cardio until the final part of prep and focused solely on diet.

Comment #4 -- I think it is more important to massage or bring your metabolism back up to speed post-comp by gradually adding kcals. back which will prevent post-comp fat gains. As opposed to going from a very low kcal. comp diet to a lean gain diet. You have to be strategic and slowly up the calories and let your body & digestive system adapt to more food.

I love these kind of discussions. I would like to hear others input.

Vanessa

MadDog,
I am working with steven wade AT BI and have been for about 2 months now I asked him about only eating 5 meals instead of the six that i was eating before, he said that he was going to five so that we could really cut calories and kind of shock the system, however he said that if i feel that i am not getting enough food or going to long before bed after my last meal that i could add a meal of 6 egg whites or a 1 scoop muscle provider shake. I feel like I am doing just fine at this caloric level. I am supposed to email him and let him know how things are going again in two weeks. I am currently trying to get down to about 170lbs. so he kind of tailored it to that goal.

Jake

I never intend for my comments or suggestions to be contrary to any advice that anyone is getting from a BI staff person. As far as I know they are all very good at what they do plus they have excellent internal resources to consult. If you have confidence in your coach/advisor, whether from BI or elsewhere, my suggestion is to stick with that one persons advice. It is fine to ask them questions, perhaps based on the input of others, but too many cooks (coaches) in the kitchen is never a good idea.

When I make comments or suggestions they are based either on my own personal experiences, what I know to be the actual experiences of others or from reading of resource materials that I beleive are sound.

There is more than one way to meet your goals. I generally subscribe to what I'll call a go slow approach which means that I will start my precontest phase diet very early so that I do not have to drop more than one lb of bf a week. Many folks have a schedule that necessitates 1 and 1/2 to 2 lbs a week or even more than that. That faster approach just does not work for me and I don't like the potential negatives that can come with it. Others have good luck with it. I also do not get more than 10-15 lbs over contest weight in the off-season so that impacts my overall diet strategy and what alternatives work best for me for both cutting and gaining phases.

May the force be with you if you are one of those folks (for the guys) who can continue to function on 1400-1800 calories a day. If I tried that I would be a) Very grouchy b) very hungry c) light headed half the day and e) loose metal sharpness - and I have little to spare! lol

For Vanessa - yes, the various BI supps do very much help in retaining lean muscle mass during a cutting diet, as does meal timing and meal composition but at some point if calories drop low enough no amount of supplements are going to spare muscle from also being used for energy. The body works the way it works, we can manipulate it to some extent but we can not change basic metabolic processes.

It is all very interesting and each of us are different in how we will react to any particular approach.

I have an additional question. Why does the carb meal that we replace #6 with not contain any protein whatsoever. Seems we should be getting carbs in addition, not instead of. Just curious.

I meant to say, why doesmeal #5 not contain any protein when we substitute the high carb meal. Kelly

Kelly

The carb meal is to replace glycogen stores, boost calories, and maintain thyroid hormone production.

You are getting your protein the rest of the day.

Ray