Carb Night Protocol

I am not a guy that follows workout programs outlined in fitness magazines. I also rarely pay much attention to the articles on nutrition. The latest Men's Health magazine has changed that a bit for me though. This months article entitled CARBS ARE NOT THE ENEMY written by John Kiefer of dangerouslyhardcore.com really grabbed my attention.  At first glance you see a fork full of spaghetti and you automatically think this is another article on how great carbs are and how everyone should be eating more of them. But it's not like that at all.

There are two carb protocols outlined in this article: one called Carb Nite and one called Carb Back-Loading. For the sake of this post, I am going to focus on my interest in Carb Nite.  Once my goals are achieved, I may look deeper into Carb Back-Loading.

What really caught my attention on the Carb Nite protocol was that it most closely resembled what I am already trying to do;  lose fat while retaining muscle mass. It just stepped up the game a little bit and gave me something more specific to follow.

It's also pretty simple to grasp. Some call it a refeed, John calls it Carb Nite. Go low carb (less than 30grams/day) for 10 days. On the 10th day make it a carb night eating pretty much whatever the heck you want. Just do it after 5pm. The next day start over with the low carb but shorten the duration. That is pretty much what I was doing before except that I was going higher carb on my workout days (100-150grams).  I am going to test John's method and see if it cannot help me to achieve some fat loss in time for this contest I involved in at work.

Day 1

Day 1 went pretty well. I calculated that I finished just a little bit above 30grams. Going that low was harder than I thought it would be. Who knew that onions and peppers had that many carbs in them!  Side effects were at a minimum. I had good energy all day. The only noticeable change to my day was a stomach ache that I attribute to some milk I had the night before. So far I am on day 2 and doing well. I should come in well below my 30grams.

Visual Inspection

I don't see a noticeable difference yet since its only been one day. I will say that doing my own version of this the last 2 weeks has brought some positive changes to my stomach area.  The little bump that was right below my belly button has now flattened out. I can only hope that my upper abs will start showing themselves within the next week.  My initial weigh in for this ten day challenge is 188.6lbs

Stick around over the next ten to see what happens.

P.S. Check out John's site over at dangerouslyhardcore.com.  I checked it out when researching his stuff and he clearly knows fitness. I left very impressed.