- You haven’t read the book. Click “buy now” to fix that.
- You are treating Carb Backloading like it’s a Fasting protocol.
- You spent only 5 minutes on the Free DH forums and now you “know it”.
- You don’t engage / comment when you have questions about it.
- You heard it’s a junk food diet and got excited to eat unhealthy!
- You haven’t taken notes and tweaked the program to suit your needs.
- You have buddies that told you skip breakfast, eat carbs after training and you figure that’s all there is to this simple program.
- You hate paying for information when you can find it for free.
- You are waiting for somebody to upload it to Scribd.
- You _____________________________________.
Be Fit, Stay Strong!
Marc David – CPT
Hey how are you. I have a question on carb backloading.
I am a firefighter and work 24 hour shifts. Days on shift i can only workout at the peal time (4-5pm) and days off i have to workout in the a.m. 9am or 10am. How can I make this work for me. I will purchase the book but would really like your expertise in the matter if you can.
Thank you for your time
Aaron Reilly
@Aaron – Doing well thank you. Sounds like you have a busy schedule but one that is possible to work with CBL. If you are going to train the next day, you backload the night before. So your days on shifts, kinda work perfectly with his timing theories of training in the late afternoon. On your days off, you are working out in the morning which is covered in the book on how to deal with those days. You’ll just have to adjust your schedule a bit regarding when you backload as not to overdo it. That being said, it’s not impossible. You certainly don’t have to follow it to the absolute letter and you can adjust as necessary to fit a busy schedule. I just keep in my mind “if I am training the next day, I backload that night. If not, I get some carbs in my post workout and skip the backload. When training in the morning, I get up, have some coffee,coconut oil and whey protein in my coffee once or twice and hit the gym. After is a shake with minimal carbs. Save the bigger backload for that night IF you had an on shift the next day. Or you’d skip it. Far as I can tell the overall theory of CBL is to keep the fat burning going as long as possible, then workout, then re-fuel your muscles with glycogen and hit the weights again. You’ll just have to adjust a bit given your schedule. But not too much because you know you’ll be working a set number of On days and then switch to the morning options in the book when you have your Off days. Very workable.
Kinda late. Just wanted to add something:
You carb-backload nights before ONLY IF you are training fasted in the morning the next day. Otherwise, you backload AFTER the training. It’s all in the book.
Also, on back-to-back off days, you carbload on the second day too.
Hi Marc, so i have two questions
1. Can I use coconut milk instead of coconut oil for my a.m. accelerator shake?
2. I train at 4 pm so after my training can i eat my carbs untill i sleep or is it better to eat all of them like within 4 hours?
3. I use Kiefer’s Shockwave training program, is it acceptable for Carb Backloading and do you know some workout programs that can be effective with Carb Backloading?
1. Yes but the oil has way more fat in it. I initially started out with coconut milk and upon doing the macros, realized it was lacking in the fat department and overall calories. I switched to coconut oil, which melts really nice and gives it a light flavor. If you can, go with the oil. If not, then maybe heavy whipping cream? But that won’t last as long.
2. Shorter windows are better. Do your backloads in that 4 hour window before bed. That’s about what I did and it worked like a charm. Although I should have toned down my loads about 50% to start and work my way up if I wasn’t seeing results. Instead I took the 400g from the book that I calculated from the 10 day prep phase and started at that point. I could have started with 275g and worked my way up.
3. His HeavyDuty program is better suited to CBL. Shockwave as I recall was for Carb Nite? I may be incorrect on that. But his HD (heavy duty) program was more reps, more sets, more exercises.. in essence what works for CBL according to him is volume. You want to deplete those glycogen stores and load up for the next workout. So volume based workouts do the trick where as Shockwave was and is cool but not enough volume so says Kiefer.
Hey thanks for answers, so any training with high volume is effective with CBL? I searched his HeavyDuty program but most of the times i workout alone so i can’t do it properly.
And another question is, how is your fat intake while backloading? I had to ask it because most of the carbs i love, are also containing fat.
Higher volume training programs are said to be more effective with CBL than other lower volume, heavy weight style. Fat intake the last time I read this was about 2:1 (2x protein, 1x fat). So if you had 200g of protein; you’d have 100g of fat. You’ll have to manipulate that macro to fit your needs. I really can’t encourage eating a stick a butter a day as a good idea. I’m not a medical doctor and by no means an expert in reading studies myself but sometimes people take things to the extreme. I like to think in terms of moderation. So in the example above, maybe 200g of protein and 75g of total fat intake for the day. Something along those lines. And adjust as you feel necessary based on personal preferences, existing health conditions and goals.
Can we have cinnamon flavored foods for our backload? Like cinnamon rolls or Cinnamon Toast Crunch? I know it raises insulin sensitivity (cinnamon) so I’m not sure if it will effect results. Please let me know your thoughts and answers!
Thank you, Joe
I don’t see why that wouldn’t work? I always like a mixed of high glycemic (white potatoes) and high glycemic (corn flakes) as mixed backloads. Just ensure you aren’t overdoing it. That would be my only complaint. If you follow the book and use the numbers, you may overdo it. Much better to take whatever numbers you think you should use, reduce that in half and then adjust as necessary. I like the cinnamon flavored option.