Carb Nite Progress – Day 12

I am roughly 30 minutes away from starting my carb refeed on the Carb Nite protocol and I thought I would give an overview of what has transpired since my last post update at Day 5. (just a note. The original article stated to do a refeed at day 10 but that for me was on a Saturday and not a workout day. Therefore, I decided to push it a couple of extra days until today when I do a great chest and back workout)

NutritionI have continued to be low carb with my max intake being right around 30/grams a day.  Calories continue to remain around 2000 but I have gone as far as 2500. Fat intake has been around 100-150 and protein has been around 150-200.  Below is a typical eating day for me.

Breakfast

• 4 egg omelet


• diced ham


• shredded bacon


• 2T of salsa


• 2T of sour cream


• 1/4C of cheese


• Coffee with 1T of creamer

Lunch

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

Snack

• 2 scoops of protein powder


• 1/2C coconut milk

Supper

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

I have also done a few 16/24 hour fasts to help supplement my days.

Workouts

My lifting workouts currently consist of P90x Phase I. I am doing the M-W-F workouts and have done 1 day of plyometrics.  I continue to take walks with my family and have done some light shooting around at the basketball courts. I also did one 40 minute session on the exercise bike. I am trying to keep the cardio limited because 1) I hate cardio and 2) the original article stated that weight loss could be obtained even without exercise. I will not give up my weight lifting though.

Up until today, my workouts have been intense and my energy levels have been high. Today, though, my energy level was down and my enthusiasm to be there was low. I also noticed a decrease in the amount of reps I could perform on certain exercises. I left the gym feeling run down. I should point out that I entered the workout on a 16 hour fast but this is something I have done many times before with great results and high energy levels.

Weight

My weight was stuck at exactly 187.8 for about a week into this test. As of this morning though, I officially dropped to 186.  I do have a sneaking suspicion that some of that could be water weight though.   My wife has continued to notice an increase in muscle definition and I swear I saw my upper abs in the mirror yesterday.

Day to Day Operations

My day to day life pretty much stayed the same. My energy levels were always high and my sleep at night was always good. I never lost focus on the tasks at hand and I never felt hungry or like I was being deprived of anything. In fact, as time went on, my cravings for carbs diminished to the point where I wasn't really looking forward to tonight's refeed.

One thing I noticed was my recovery time from workouts. I constantly was feeling sore. It seemed like I could never recover from a workout and I always felt like I pulled something.

**Post Refeed Update**

I more than likely I officially done with my refeed for the night. At least I had better be. I cannot imagine eating any more carbs this evening. I feel sick to my stomach. My head aches, my body aches, I have zero energy, and all I want to do is go to bed.  What's crazy is that I didn't have anything that I would consider out of the ordinary from a "normal" persons day. Over the course of 3 hours, I ate a few sandwiches, some rice cakes, a few cookies, a few handfuls of candy corn, and a latte. Compared to what I normally eat in a day calorie wise, that is nothing. It's just what is in that food that is really getting to me right now. This had all better be worth it in the end. One would think that a free pass to eat whatever you wanted would be awesome.  Let me tell you...that is not the case right now.  Once you have cleaned up your diet, doing these refeeds suck big time.