I saw a testimonial from Brian regarding the use of the carb backloading; would you still recommend it to lose some body fat while maintaining/ gaining strength?
I saw a testimonial from Brian regarding the use of the carb backloading; would you still recommend it to lose some body fat while maintaining/ gaining strength?
Hi Chad,
Carb backloading works, but as with many things weightlifting related, less is more. Swapping carbs out of your breakfast for fats, and maybe your lunch too for a period of time will work well for most people. A lot of folks try to push the backloading too hard and too long though and crash – as long as your calories are the same, manipulating the amount of calories that come from fats or carbs and what time of the day will be helpful because your body needs to adapt to it, just like your training program. Your body will also get used to it over time, and if it’s too restrictive it will backfire on you, these are the horror stories we’ve all heard. Just like how switching your training routine works for a while, and if you push too hard it’ll backfire, the diet works the same way. Swapping out 1-2 meals out of their 4-6 meals during the day is usually plenty for people, and after a couple months when the fat loss slows down, swapping back to a mostly carb based (clean carbs) diet will work well.
I’d also recommend focusing on just fat loss or just strength gain. You can maintain your overall strength (not peak strength) while losing fat, but trying to get stronger and lose weight without a good coach watching over you is a recipe for disaster. Take a couple months to eat clean, drop some lbs and keep training hard and you’ll be good to go.
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