Phase 2 cutting carbs.

So here we are, I’m moving to phase 2 tomorrow as opposed to Wednesday as it makes no sense starting it mid week.

But what is phase 2?

Well, simply, now that I’ve rebuilt a nice base after my lay off, phase two consists of cutting merely cutting back the carbs to bew tween 120-170 per day, some of that of course will be negligible “post workout carbs” so, in reality if myfitnesspal says 170g of carbs, I’ll take 40g off as they will be my PWO carbs.

But why are they neglible? Well they’re negligible in that after an intense work out your body is craving fast acting sugars(carbs) and proteins. This 1/2 hour window (or an hour depending on who’s literature/research you buy into) means you can literally eat any fast acting carbs you want and they will be absorbed into the blood stream/muscles.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can eat a slice of fish and a can of irn bru, well you could, but why? I’d suggest a fast acting glucose drink like lucozade(other brands ARE available) which would deliver the right amount of electrolytes, carbs etc and a fist sized piece of protein. Another option is the excellent PHD 2:1 recovery,
Which will deliver 25g protien(about a chicken breast) and 50g of carbs(a serving of rice) in a handy 500ml shake!

So, given that I’m now cutting the carbs by 50-70g a day, what will replace them? The answer:

Healthy fats.

Nice calorie dense healthy fats.
To reduce the effect of less carbs, I’ll use 2 teaspoons of either walnut oil or rapeseed oil on my vegetables. Fats like this are calorie dense, holding about 9 cals per g as opposed to protein/carbs which have 4cals per g.

Make sure you chose healthy fats, peanuts, walnuts, fish oils, sesame oil, walnut oil, rapeseed oil etc. You do to want to be using saturated fats like double cream( you know who you are!)
and the fat from your meats to make up the cals. Lack of carbs will no doubt increase appetite, but not hunger so I’ve invested in one of these:

Which is a one lt “bobble” water bottle. Simply, it filters the water as you drink it, even if you add slight flavouring to it like I do. I find filtered water like this, makes it “smoother” for some reason And makes me want to drink more. It’s oft recommended that being “hungry” isn’t actually hunger, but thirst, so it will be interesting to see if this staves off the hunger.

So now, on a running day food should look like thus:

0800 1x toast with 15g peanut butter/15g Nutella, 2x bacon/2x egg

0915 run

1000 juiced grapefruit (for energy prior to)

10.10 bodyweight workout

11.00 PHD 2:1 recovery

13:00 meat(fist sized) 2x 80g serving of veg 2tspn oil

16:00 25g nuts, protien shake.

18:00 meat(fist sized) 2x 80g serving of veg 2tspn oil

21:00 protein shake.

22:00 amino 1 drink before bed.

On a BJJ day should be this:

0800 1x toast with 15g peanut butter/15g Nutella, 2x bacon/2x egg, juiced grapefruit.

1100 banana for energy

13:00 PHD 2:1

14:00 meat(fist sized) 2x 80g serving of veg 2tspn oil

16:00 25g nuts, protien shake.

18:00 meat(fist sized) 2x 80g serving of veg 2tspn oil

21:00 protein shake.

22:00 amino 1 drink before bed.

These timings I can mess about with on early shifts, back shifts and night shifts but the same rules apply.

This weeks training will this:

Whilst starting nights tomorrow(26/1/15) for 4 nights, so it should be interesting.

Calorie wise, even by changing this I’m still going to be eating about 22-2300 cals a day, which according to my BMR calculations is still a deficit of about 500 cals a day, which should ati equate to a healthy 1lb a week weight loss or there abouts.
As can be seen fat is up(but to compensate as an energy source)
Cals remain about the same as before!