A new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast is now up. This episode is all about why we overeat and how to stop. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Low Carb
Seven Things to Expect When Carb-Cycling With Dirty Carbs (Written)
Carb-cycling is generally thought of as a healthy part of your low-carb lifestyle. This means that as part of your eating protocol it is OK and even beneficial to eat a large amount carbs once every week or two. However, this brings us to an important question: What kind of carbs should you eat on your heavy carb-days? For example, should one carb up with a bunch of bananas or a pizza? Does it matter?
The truth is different experts have different opinions on this topic. Some recommend a cheat meal where no food is prohibited. Some (a very few) recommend that you should only carb-up with things like pizza and ice. Others recommend that you should only use fruit and starchy vegetables on your high-carb day.
This article is not intended to sift though all this information and tell you what is the right protocol for you. Nor am I your moral judge who is going to think less of you if you eat a pizza on your carb-day instead of a sweet potato. The truth is, I have had carbed up using both. However, if you do chose to eat “dirty” carbs for your high-carb meals, here is what you can expect:
Cravings
What I have noticed is that if I carb-up on “clean” carbs, I do not have strong cravings for bad food the next day. However, if I eat, for example, Chinese food, I really want more high-carb food the next day. In fact, I have noticed that it takes a day or two for my cravings to go away.
Over Eating
Another problem is overeating. Many dirty carbs have MSG and other excito-toxins that stimulate appetite. This is why, personally speaking, I can open up a bag of Doritos and eat the whole thing, but if I open a bag of organic, non-GMO corn chips, I cannot eat the whole bag. I’m sure many of the readers could identify.
Weight Gain
Weight gain happens any time you carbo-load. This is mostly water and has to do with glycogyn and processes I’m not going to go into here. But, in my own personal experience, I gain much more when I carb up with dirty carbs.
In addition, I have noticed that it takes much longer to lose this weight. For example, if I carb up with clean carbs I’m normally back down to my regular weight by the end of the next day. But with dirty carbs, it takes at least two and sometimes three days to lose those extra pounds.
Headache
Headache is another phenomenon. This has to do with inflammation. Carbs in general can cause inflammation on their own. However, inflammation is heightened with dirty carbs because of all the added toxins found in these carb sources.
Brain Fog
Brain fog happens for the same reason as headache. Toxins in your food will have an affect on your ability to think clearly.
Sluggishness
It’s not only your brain that suffers. Your body suffers too. Toxins just make you feel lazy like every movement takes extra effort.
Diarrhea
Finally there is disaster pants. This happens because the body is just trying its best to get those dirty carbs out of your system. Why? because if you eat low-carb and clean all week long, you body gets use to those types of foods. It is not use to not high-carb, refined food. When it hits your system your body just wants to get rid of it.
Should You Cheat With Dirty Carbs
Given all the above data, some might wonder if they should eat dirty carbs or not. Like I said above, I am not your moral judge. If you decide to carb-cycle with pizza instead of bananas, that is up to you. In fact, I have chosen the dirty carb over the clean one more often than I would like to admit. In fact, what I have noticed for myself is that when I first started to carb-cycle, I pretty much used all dirty carbs. This was due to the fact that those were the foods I was craving. So when I would have my free meal, I would go nuts. But the longer I have been healthy, the less I want those foods even on a free day/meal. So if you want to eat a dirty carb, that is your decision. You just need to be aware of the results and take them into consideration when you make that choice.
What to Expect When Carb-Cycling With Dirty Carbs
A new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast is now available. In this episode, we talk about the seven things you can expect when you use dirty carbs for your cheat meal. Also, what makes a carb dirty as opposed to clean.
Re-introducing Carbs Back Into Your Diet?
A new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast is now available. In this episode we will talk about why I have been experimenting with re-introducing carbs back into my diet and what the results have been. Enjoy!
Why Low Carb Is Not Enough (Audio)
In this episode, Ian Carlin talks about why low carb dieting is a great place to start but it will most likely will not get you to optimal health. Also, what you need to know about switching gyms. Enjoy!
Ways to Make Your Commitment to Weight Loss Easier (Audio)
In this episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast, Ian gives advice on how to make keeping your goals much easier. Enjoy!
Intermittent Fasting Wars PT. 3
There are many, many IF plans out there. It is the latest craze (for good reason). However, in my opinion, there are only three main protocols. Everything else is a variant of these three plans. So what are these there plans.
- Alternate Day.
- Eat Stop Eat.
- The Warrior Diet.
Alternate Day
First there is alternate day fasting. It is what it sounds like. You fast for 24 hours every other day. For example, on day one, you would wake up and eat normally until 5 P. M. Then you would stop eating until the next day at 5 P. M. After that, you repeat the process.
Eat Stop Eat
This method advocates two 24 hour fasts a week. Then, the participant can eat normally throughout the non-fast days. So it may look something like this: Thursday, stop eating at 5:00 P.M. Fast until Friday 5:00 P.M. Then eat normally over the weekend until Sunday at 5:00 PM. Fast until Monday at 5:00 P.M. Then eat normally from Monday until Thursday.
It’s important to note that eating normally does not mean that you eat like it is Thanksgiving . However, it does mean that you can eat more high-carb foods. So if you are going out for breakfast, you do not have to eat just the eggs and bacon. You are welcome to eat the hash-browns, and toast as well. Likewise, if you are going to have a steak for dinner. You can also eat a potato.
Warrior Diet
The Warrior Diet is a daily fast of 20 hours. Then there is a four hour eating window. During the four hour eating window you are encouraged to do a few things. One is to eat a salad and a good amount of protean. However, you can eat anything. This would include pizza and ice cream. Also, you are encouraged to overeat. That’s right. You are encouraged to overeat.
Other IF Plans
Many other plans are simply a mixing or modification of the three above. For example Bulletproof IF is like Eat Stop Eat in some ways and in some ways it is like the Warrior Diet. You may only choose to IF two days a week. In that way it is like Eat Stop Eat. But you may fast for 20 hours on those days. In that way it is like the Warrior Diet. However, it is not recommended on Bulletproof that you eat high-carb or processed food. So you cannot eat just anything. Also, you are allowed to have Bulletproof coffee which contains fats.
Another plan in Lean Gains. This is kind of like the Warrior diet. On this plan you daily fast but for only 16 hours. However, your meals should be sensible without a lot of high-carb foods.
Over Simplification
I have to admit that I am over simplifying these diets quite a bit. I do this for two reasons. One is for the sake of time. The second reason is that I do not want to give away these authors diet plans for free. That would be unethical. So if there is something I missed please remember that I am over simplifying on purpose.
Closing Remarks
The list of IF plans is plentiful. In the final article of this series, I will talk about the plan I used to lose 20 pounds in 5 weeks, which plan you should choose, and some closing observations about IF.
What You Need To Try Before You Give Up (Audio)
A new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast is now available. In this episode Ean Carlin talks about why we want to give up on trying to lose weight and what you need to know before you do! Enjoy!
The Intermittent Fasting Wars Pt. 2 (Written)
If you really want to lose weight, you need to eat 6 small meals a day. And you never want to skip breakfast! Right? Well, that is what I was told my whole life. In fact, fairly recently I did a review (audio) on Chris Powell’s book, Choose to Lose: The Seven Day Carb Cycle Solution. In that book, he advocates six small meals a day. I followed it for a while and I lost weight!
Well the truth is I lost a little weight. And the reason I lost it was not because the diet was so great. Rather it was due to the fact that I was on a plateau and it changed things up enough to get my metabolism working again.
The six meal a day plan can work for some of the people some of the time. For example, if you take someone who is eating a bowl of granola in the morning and/ or a bagel, and switch them to 4 egg whites and half a banana, you will see results. Out of the two, the former is way worse for your blood sugar. So the six meal a day diet can work, but it does not work nearly as well as intermittent fasting (IF).
Why IF Works
There is lots of science regarding IF. I do not have the time to go into all of it here. However, I will quickly mention that the reason it works is that it allows your body to tap into your fat reserves. Your body only runs on two types of fuel–sugar and fat. When you eat 3 or 6 times a day you are fueling your body with sugar and training your body to prefer to run on sugar.
However, when you go without food for a significant period of time, you use up all your sugar. The only fuel left for your body to run on is fat. And in fact, your body runs better on fat than sugar. And the more often you run on fat, the more your body wants to run on fat preferentially.
There are lots of big words I could have used to explain the above paragraphs, but it really is that simple. If you do not have sugar in your body, you will run on fat.
Starvation Mode
But what about starvation mode? If you have been led to believe that 3-6 meals is the way to go, and that you should never skip breakfast, you may have also heard of the dreaded “starvation mode.” This is the belief that if you do not keep feeding your body every 2 hours or so you will store fat instead of burn it. Why? Because (they say) your body thinks it is going though a famine and will want to hang onto fat.
The fact of the matter is that this is simply not true. In order for your body to go into “starvation mode,” you have to go without food for a few days. But even then, you will eventually start losing weight. So do not fear. Going without breakfast, or even going without food for a day, will not not make you gain weight!
IF Programs
There are many IF programs to choose from. In the next article, I will list them and let you know which protocol I chose to lose nearly 20 pounds in about a month!
The Intermittent Fasting Wars PT. 1(Written)
I recently did a podcast on different intermittent fasting protocols. In light of that, I thought I would write this blog based on that podcast. I’m doing this because I want to get the information out there and realize that not everyone listens to podcasts. That is to say that some people like to read more than they like to listen.
This will not be a word for word transcript of the podcast (that would just be too lengthy). What I wanted to do was talk about the different kinds of intermittent fasting plans available and which one is right for you. However, before I do that, I wanted to write a little on why I have taken up this topic.
Last October I had a shocking eye opener. Over the course of the summer, I had re-gained about 15 pounds. While I was no where near 300 pounds (the estimated weight I was at when I started to take my health seriously), I was still very depressed to have gained that amount of weight back.
How did I re-gain the weight. Well quite honestly it was just though neglect. One too many cheat meals, eating too often, not pushing myself as hard as I could have in the gym…the list goes on. And also, the fact that I was not near my original 300 pounds made it easy to over look the “relatively” small amount of weight I was gaining back.
At the first of the year, I once again got serious about my health. In about 5 weeks, I had lost the 15 pounds plus a few extra. I started giving it my all in the gym, making sure I was counting my carbs. I was also eating clean. But the big factor was tighting down on my intermittent fasting.
But one of the decisions I had to make was choosing an intermittent fasting (IF) protocol. This caused me to study which IF programs were available. So which ones are available, and which one did I choose to lose about 20 pounds? And which one should you choose? These questions will be addressed in our next post.
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