P90X

When bodybuilding I came across something called the anabolic diet. From what I gleaned off the literature the gist was to eat low carb, high protein for two weeks, then eat high carb, low protein on the weekend, then back to two weeks of low carb, high protein, and so on… I used it for 12 weeks in preparation for a contest and had good results (body fat down to 1.9% at 181lbs). After the contest I experimented with the diet and did a moderately low carb/high protein for 5 days, then ate normally on the weekend, and followed this routine for about 4 months. This was much better than a strickly low carb diet as I was able to keep my body fat down to around 6%, but was able to get my weight up to 196 and was just as strong as ever. Obviously results will vary, but I was fascinated by how body composition could change so drastically through diet modification and calorie burning. My diet currently is actually the best it's ever been quality-wise, but I eat however much I want thanks to swimming. :banana: I'm guessing you went off the Anabolic Diet because it's hard to train for swimming with low carbs? People like the diet, but the reasoning behind it is just pseudoscience. It has that name (actually I think it got renamed to the Metabolic Diet?) because it supposedly mimics the effects of steroids. Ummm, how? That part never seems to get explained. There's some talk about peaking or manipulating hormones, but if you read the actual published research on these hormones, the diets take quite a leap of imagination. I'm not saying AD (or any other diet) doesn't work. But bodybuilders are often guilty of pretending they are much more precise and scientific than they actually are. Swimmers do this, too! Some things work or appear to work for completely different reasons from the ones you would suppose.

When bodybuilding I came across something called the anabolic diet. From what I gleaned off the literature the gist was to eat low carb, high protein for two weeks, then eat high carb, low protein on the weekend, then back to two weeks of low carb, high protein, and so on… I used it for 12 weeks in preparation for a contest and had good results (body fat down to 1.9% at 181lbs). After the contest I experimented with the diet and did a moderately low carb/high protein for 5 days, then ate normally on the weekend, and followed this routine for about 4 months. This was much better than a strickly low carb diet as I was able to keep my body fat down to around 6%, but was able to get my weight up to 196 and was just as strong as ever. Obviously results will vary, but I was fascinated by how body composition could change so drastically through diet modification and calorie burning. My diet currently is actually the best it's ever been quality-wise, but I eat however much I want thanks to swimming. :banana: I'm guessing you went off the Anabolic Diet because it's hard to train for swimming with low carbs? People like the diet, but the reasoning behind it is just pseudoscience. It has that name (actually I think it got renamed to the Metabolic Diet?) because it supposedly mimics the effects of steroids. Ummm, how? That part never seems to get explained. There's some talk about peaking or manipulating hormones, but if you read the actual published research on these hormones, the diets take quite a leap of imagination. I'm not saying AD (or any other diet) doesn't work. But bodybuilders are often guilty of pretending they are much more precise and scientific than they actually are. Swimmers do this, too! Some things work or appear to work for completely different reasons from the ones you would suppose.