My guide to cutting up

I am by no means an expert nor do I have the credentials of a degree or certification in the exercise or nutrition field, but through trial and error and dieting again and again I have found something that works for me. Now this is myself I'm talking about here, so I'll give you some genetic background first. I was always a thin guy until I was around 18 or 19 years old and had been lifting weights for a couple years. I used to race mountain bikes and my metabolism was lightning fast. I stopped riding at 17 because it was burning too much energy for lifting and I wanted size. But by 20 years old my body started changing and the metabolism slowed down, so diet became more of an issue to further enhance my physique. Nevertheless though, I'd still most likely be a slim guy w/out weights. The first secret to my diet is this. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PERFECT EATING. Nope, doesnt exist. Even if it's healthy all the time you can shortchange yourself, or overeat. To my knowledge, we have no way of hooking our bodies up to a machine everyday and having that machine tell us what to eat at what times or what we're lacking, the only way to truly gauge what you need(aside from a BMR) is by the mirror and how you feel. Low carb, lets talk about this for a minute. I have been feeling this trend lately w/ low carb diets, especially on the board here. But what is low carb? Is it 100 grams/day? Is it 200 grams/day? Who knows, it all depends on the person. Myself, a low carb day would be 200 grams, 300 would be moderate, I just train too hard for any less. However John Dough may need to cut his cabs down to 120 grams/day to see results. It all depends on the person. I am a huge advocate of cycling carbs, and cycling fats, and I'll tell you why. You need to keep your body guessing, it constantly needs a shock. That shock could be from carb depletion, carb loading, fat load, cutting fats, protien load, etc etc. I try to never do the same thing for more than a few days w/ the diet. The foods may be the same, but the quantities will change depending on my look and how I feel. I also change fat sources constantly. If this week I eat mostly natty pb, next week it's all flax, maybe the few days after it's a combo of flax and almonds. We get adaptive to the same things quick, variety of foods is also an important factor. Also, carbs metabolize fat, you cannot go carb depleted for more than a few days w/out going flat or feeling nautious or sick, or eventually hindering progress altogether. Sure, you may lose weight, you may get thin. But you will not look as muscular, you wont have that bodybuilder pumped physique, an underwear model is more of what you'll look like. And I know I sure as hell dont wanna look like that!! Cheating, gotta do it. Keeps the sanity, fires a slow metabolism back up. I usually cheat twice a week, but in meals, not days. And I try to always cheat in the morning or afternoon, never at night if I can help it. This way the food has a chance to burn off a little bit, it doesnt just sit in you and then go to bed w/ you. And personally, I always have a cheat meal on either a workout day, or cardio day. Makes alot of sense actually, the energy from my food may give me a better workout, may allow me to train heavier, hence burning more calories anyways aside from the fact I'm burning alot of what I ate off. The quicker you can get out of that mind frame that cheating also means sitting on the couch all day, and not hitting the gym or at least some cardio, the quicker your on your way. I suppose I wrote this because maybe it might help some people if they understand theory more than just "here is a good diet; meal 1, meal 2, meal 3, bla bla bla." That and I'm bored,hahahha. Thanks

Good read...good insight

:thumbsup:

Much appreciated

good read

could have done with some separation in the text though - paragraphs maybe
my eyes hurt now :?:

very good read bro......

alo

Thank you for sharing!

Good read! Some very good points in there!

Good read!

Nice!

bump

good stuff. go back and space it out though mayne.