Matt Porter:
All right, we're going to do another segment of In The Car With Matt. We're on our way home from the Apple store. Nice little exciting trip to good old Apple store. They really like seeing us because we are good customers. So anyway, I'm going to talk about, real briefly, carb cycling. Just my thoughts on it. I think it's one of the many approaches that a lot of us use.
Rachel:
What does that guy want? He keeps flashing his lights.
Matt Porter:
Just calm down. Crazy Vegas drivers. So carbon cycling is great method, a great tool to use. A lot of people use it in various forms, different periods of their prep or their dieting phase. Some people will actually use it right out the gates. They'll just start it more so like a newbie or someone that's more kind of a novice, will just read about it and then start it right out the gates, and a lot of times it'll work really well. Usually anything works really well whenever you are doing things that aren't so productive to begin with. Whenever you are not recording your macronutrients, you're having cheat meals here and there, you start anything new right out the gate, you're going to get good results.
Matt Porter:
However, in my opinion... This is just my opinion, there's no right or wrong way to utilize this method. I would like to use it after a steady regimented dieting period. So I'd have my athlete starting at a hypothetical off season body fat of 13, 14% or what have you, and we would set his numbers perfectly, his caloric threshold as a set number, as set as it can be. Whether that's, for example, would be 400 carbs, 300 protein, 45 grams of fat. We would start him there, I'd implement the cardio that I think fits his current situation, the training, et cetera. I'd gauge his intensity, he'd give me feedback. We'd go from there.
Matt Porter:
We would of course give the diet, or the first phase at least two to three weeks. Let the awkward phase set in, and what that is is that initial stage whenever you're still holding quite a bit of subcutaneous fat but you get flat from dropping water retention, some glycogen. So now you're basically, it's an awkward stage where you're depressed, it's flat and fat. You feel deflated and your body fat's still high. So once you get past that awkward two to three week phase, body starts clicking, the diet usually should start working, you start dissipating body fat and the muscles start holding water intracellularly, et cetera. Milk that phase for as long as you can, then start manipulating the carbohydrates, calories in total, whether it's fat grams or carbs. Then manipulating the cardio, whether it's style, machine type or duration. Start milking results from that area.
Matt Porter:
Adding thermogenic compound if you can tolerate caffeine and what have you for stimulating effects to increase your calorie expenditure. Milk that. Once you get down to that extreme single digit body fat when things get really difficult, that's whenever you can implement something like carb cycling. But what I would like to do is to get people really close to that contest, that final form that they want to look their best at. So their body fat's super low, so now whenever you implement carb cycling, you can really get a picture perfect idea of how a zero carb or a 50 gram carb day affects their muscle fullness. You can gauge how a 400 gram or 800 gram carb day on a high day affects their fullness, their subcutaneous water retention, the rate of spillover, their bloat, their distention. All these are basically notations that a coach or you yourself can make note of, of how you react to certain carb amounts and carb types.
Matt Porter:
Whenever you're at a very lean phase, which should... Let's say you're five weeks out, you should be close to stage ready, you should be able to implement something like this and really get a good gauge on how you react to different things. So that's how I would personally, or how I do implement carbs cycling for most people. I will make sure they're already... The meat and potatoes is done. They've milked the regular phases, the good old hard work of increasing cardio, dropping macros, carbs and fat, until they get to that sticking point, or they're just at a lean set point where I can experiment with carbs. That'll lead you really perfectly into the final few days of your show to help you peak properly and manipulate carbs, and you'll be familiar with carb types, et cetera.
Matt Porter:
There's another topic I could go on to about carb types because some people will introduce very crazy high-glycemic bogus carbs at the last minute they never dieted on prior, which is really crazy for your stomach distension and what have you. Anyway, wrapping this up, keeping it quick. Carb cycling is a great tool, there's no right or wrong way to use it. There's just the method that I prefer, and that's whenever you're already conditioned and very close to stepping on stage so you can really tell what's going on with your physiological self. So that's about it.
Rachel:
Wrap it up.
Matt Porter:
And I'm wrapping it up, as Rachel said.
