Yeah all right mum
Time for another fad diet! I'm 3 years into low carbohydrate eating and on the whole it's been great; lost a load of weight, gave energy to exercise and blunted the majority of type 2 diabetes risks.
That's been great but I need a new project. One of the downsides is that despite losing a lot of weight I'm a bit skinny fat; slim but carrying more midriff weight than I'd like and a little punier than I'd prefer. And I probably weigh a little more than I'd like. I think my body has got pretty efficient running under low carbohydrate regimen and after hitting a low of 11st 12lb in the early days I'm settled at around 13st. For 6'2" that's okay and huge improvement over the heady heights of 17st but my I'm not hitting my goals. I'd like are a bit more muscle mass (particularly in the core area), lose some fat to get a little lighter and ultimately have a better build for running / cycling.
So time to try something new and this time it's Carb Nite; an ultra low carbohydrate (ULC) diet punctuated with weekly carbohydrate backloading while swapping out cardio for strength training.
The theory is on a low carb diet your body can get the idea it's starving and cling on it to is fat. On Carb Nite ULC forces the body to metabolize fat while a weekly carb pig out stops you going into starvation mode.
It could be cobblers but there's a graph and everything :D
Play to your strengths yeah? I do best when I have some sort of framework to fit activity into irrespective of how stupid that framework is. It won't kill me and I'm measuring my progress pretty closely to see if it's something works for me.
Cutting down cardio and doing gym work again has been fun but a bit painful. Cycling's given me a good base level fitness but there's a shit load of muscles I haven't been using that have taken a bit of a battering in the weight room. Basically it's given me horrible arse DOMS. That'll soon go.
Day #5 right now and your initial Carb Nite is supposed to be on Day #10. Having not eaten carbs in any meaningful way for a couple of years now this is going to be an interesting experience. Not sure what I'll choose for that evening yet either but I'm pretty sure that there'll be a Twix on the menu :D