Drop 50% fat

Tighten carbs and sculpt with this excellent strategy.

Picking a diet is a bit like finding investment advice: there's a lot of information available, everyone has a different opinion, and sometimes conflicting ones make sense.
How do you find a diet that really works? Read on - I'll describe the best one for you.

Before we tell ourselves what to do, we should make it clear once and for all what not to do. In bodybuilding and beyond, diets completely free of carbohydrates are very fashionable today. For most people, this is a dead end because such diets effectively prevent you from training hard. Once you can't train, you can't even sculpt. So rule number one is clear: you must never trade your ability to train for overly aggressive carb-tightening.

Halving and not halving

This diet works on a rotation basis: periods with low carbs alternate with richer ones. The benefit of lowering carbs is that it reduces glycogen stores (carbohydrates stored in the muscles). In such a situation, the body prefers to burn fat. But there is no need to go to zero carbs. Just reduce the doses you normally take. You can do this well by cutting your traditional carbohydrate intake in half.

This will make things easier for you. There's no need to measure anything and you don't need to know your exact carb intake. Just cut your current servings in half. Can you train hard and at the same intensity if you cut your carbs in half? Sure. You can also manage to drive fast with half a tank in your car.

The problem is how long you can do it before you crash. When you empty your glycogen stores, you risk burning muscle as an energy source. You'll drag your feet and feel like you can't handle the workouts. That's when you need to do the opposite and add carbs. This will give you the ability to train hard again. Adding it will also prevent your metabolism - the rate at which your body burns calories - from dropping. Further, it prevents muscle loss. So once again, I'll come back to the golden rule. You have to add carbs because the intensity of the workout is more important than tightening them.

I recommend tightening carbs by half for five days before returning to normal for two days. However, rules like this are always flexible. Some people will feel crappy after three days, some people can stand to train intensely for seven days without carbs. Once you feel bad in the gym - and this will be different for everyone - it's time to add carbs. In addition to rebuilding your glycogen stores, this will stop your metabolism slowing down.

Carbohydrate cycling

For the average bodybuilder with a standard metabolism and proper training, I recommend five days of tightened carbs in a row and two days that will approximate your pre-diet intake. Repeat the cycle as long as necessary. You should lose ¼ to ¾ of a pound in those five days. When you indulge in carbohydrates, your body may temporarily draw water. You haven't gained. When you return to the tightened carbs, your weight should be lower than at the end of the previous sequence.

At the end of each five days of reduced carbs, the weight should get to a new low. If you are not losing weight, take the next steps. Put carbohydrates in only two of the five tightened days in two meals. And that's in your first meal and in your pre-workout meal. This will deplete your glycogen stores even more and, more importantly, trick your body into not going into starvation mode yet. If this happens, the body will drastically slow down the metabolism to indicate to you that the diet is too hard. And it is extremely difficult to lose weight in such a state.

A few words on protein

Are you going to add protein? If you have to resort to those two carbohydrate meals a day for two of the five tight days, you should add an extra third of protein to your meals on those days. This increase should prevent the muscle loss that often occurs with low carbohydrate intake.

Example of a dietary pattern

INITIAL DIET

• MEAL 1: 4 slices of whole wheat toast, 8 egg whites
• MEAL 2: medium chicken breast, 1 potato
• MEAL 3: medium chicken breast, 350g rice
• MEAL 4: protein drink, large banana
• TRAINING
• MEAL 5: protein drink, 1l Gatorade
• MEAL 6: 230g pure beef, 350g rice
• MEAL 7: protein drink

MODIFIED DIET

• MEAL 1: 2 slices of wholemeal toast, 8 egg whites
• MEAL 2: medium chicken breast, 1/2 potato
• MEAL 3: medium chicken breast, 170g rice
• MEAL 4: protein drink, small banana
• TRAINING
• MEAL 5: protein drink, 0,5l Gatorade
• MEAL 6: 230g pure beef, 170g rice
• MEAL 7: protein drink

MODIFIED DIET #2

• MEAL 1: 2 slices of whole wheat toast, 12 egg whites
• MEAL 2: large chicken breast
• MEAL 3: large chicken breast, 170 g rice
• MEAL 4: protein drink*
• TRAINING
• MEAL 5: protein drink*
• MEAL 6: 340g pure beef
• MEAL 7: protein drink*

NOTES: In the modified diet, carbs are tightened by half in five meals per day; in modified diet #2, carbs are only in two meals.
Apply this to two of the five days you tighten carbs. Protein is one-third higher on these days.

* Increase the protein by one-third. For example, if a regular drink has 40g of protein, add enough powder so that the drink has 55g of protein on the days you eat carbs with only two meals.