Somewhat confused about the midweek spike on the anabolic diet

Question

I have been on LeanGains for the past 3 months, on what started as a cutting diet (but somehow ended up a recomp). So, now I have the following stats:

• 72 kg (from 76 kg)
• 162 cm
• 88 kg deadlift
• 80 kg bench press
• 86 kg squat
• 60 kg overhead press

I'm training on the usual LG program, reverse pyramid:

Monday
Bench Press and Chin-ups

Wednesday
Deadlifts and Chin-ups

Friday
Squats and Overhead Press

I currently started to incorporate sprints in my program on Wednesdays & Sundays ( mainly because of a need of better conditioning ). Also, I'm strongly considering the switch to the Anabolic Diet, in order to reach my goal of 65kg. The thing is, I'd like (as much as it is possible), to at least maintain or improve the strength gains I have made for the past months. Therefore, I read about having a carb-up meal in the middle of the week (e.g. Wednesday).

My question is, if I have the meal in the middle of the week, should I reduce the weekend carb-up to just one day? I'm thinking that having both Saturday and Sunday as carb-up days might hurt the weight loss process.

Answer 1

The more calories you consume, and carbohydrates are calories in their simplest form, the less quickly you will lose weight.

Example : If you were to consume 1400 calories/day and burning 1750 calories/day you will lose 1 pound in 10 days. Adding 175 calories in carbohydrates/day to your diet you will lose that same pound in 20 days. This assumes that the only changing variable in your body was calories in and calories out.

From the math standpoint, yes you should cut out the carbs on the weekend if your goal is to lose weight at your current rate.

There are many other factors that one could argue about leaving in the weekend carbs.

To add another point in here, protein is the food source that will help you build and maintain muscle mass. However, consuming more than 2g protein/1kg body weight, even for elite athletes is mostly wasted. Your body also processes real protein (fish, chicken, tuna, eggs, etc.) better than whey powder. Yet, if you feel you can not meet your protein intake with real food, supplements are what you should look at.