It's the time when everything is most likely to go awry.
In order to enjoy Christmas it is expected that you gorge yourself with so much food that you can barely stand, and then keep going.
It is expected that you will put on weight, and that you will need to hit the gym in January to make up for it in time for summer.
It is also expected that you continue this practice for the best part of a month
But it doesn't have to be that way!!!! You can have your cake and eat it too. It is a cold hard fact that you can gorge yourself silly on Christmas day and actually turn up to the NYE party leaner than you were on Christmas eve.
How is this possible?
Re-feeds: and here's how it works:
First you cut carbs. When you go from a high carb diet to a low carb diet, your body continues to produce the insulin that it is used to producing. But on the new programme your body does not need this insulin and so is keeping it in reserve. To put it very simply your body is storing the insulin because it doesn't need to use it on your new diet.
The low carb diet is a simple concept. As you reduce carb intake you increase the utilisation of fat as a fuel source in your body (assuming protein stays the same). At the same time your performance will decrease, you will feel tired (as your serotonin levels will drop) and generally the black clouds will come rolling in.
Then comes Christmas day, and you can go nuts. On this day all that insulin that you saved up will be used to turbocharge your metabolism. All the carbs in your system, accompanied by the increased insulin sensitivity and insulin load will mean that your metabolism will speed up massively.
So assuming you have done your maths right, and you eat 8000kcals in one day, your resting metabolism will be able to match that; and the best part is in the calorie hangover. When you go back to the low carb diet on Boxing day you will still be operating at that level. So your metabolism will be through the roof and it will have to grab calories out of your stores.
Glucose metabolism also significantly increases your struggling leptin levels which govern the utilisation of fat as a fuel source. So all the extra energy burned will be used to shift fat out of your system.
The result is that over the next 4 or 5 days you quickly lean out, ready to begin again.
Conditions for entry:
- You must already be on a high carb diet. If your body is already used to dealing with lots of carbs from all angles then it will be shocked when they are taken away. If you are on the Atkins diet all that will happen is you will get a bit fatter every few weeks, which leads me onto my next point
- You have to earn your cheat day. By the time your cheat day rolls around you need to have suffered a lot. If you have any doubt that you deserve a cheat meal then you should put it off and continue. Things to look out for are needing lots of sleep/naps, a significant reduction in performance in the gym and low mood (not so appealing now right?)
- You must be quite lean already. High levels of body fat (>20% women/ >15% men) will mean that you have too much insulin resistance/ leptin resistance for it to be really effective. You would be better off just following a normal diet for a few months and seeing results that way.
- You need to be training hard. It will not work on diet alone.
- Your re-feed should not contain food toxins. Consuming 3 litres of coke may feel good but the truth is that fructose will not have the desired effect. Only glucose will. Eat dark chocolate (Terry's dark chocolate orange), low fructose dried fruit (dates), starchy vegetables (roast potatoes), rice (rice pudding), oats (porridge).
- Don't consider it if you don't take basic supplements.
- Give the alcohol a miss. Consuming all this food with a bottle of port will render it pointless.
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