Carb Backloading

Carb Back loading is a specific way of eating carbohydrates so that you take advantage of the way your body deals with dietary sugars.  It’s all about using timing and certain high glycemic carbs to manipulate the way your body uses insulin to your benefit.

Doing this correctly leads to fat loss and muscle gain simultaneously.  Something previously thought of as impossible.  There is alot of science behind the way this works, but I’m going to keep it as straight-forward as possible.  If you really want to dig into the reasons this works, you can purchase the manual from the creator of the program at the end of this page.

Carb Back loading all comes down to timing your intake of high GI (glycemic index) carbs. The point of doing this is to create an insulin spike that is then used to drive sugars into the MUSCLE, rather then fat.  Obviously when insulin pushes sugar’s into fat cells, you put on fat.  Whereby when it goes into the muscle, it increases the size and work capacity of that muscle.  The second one is what we’re shooting for here.

Insulin is the hormone that feeds your cells.  It’s the transporter that gets sugars into the cells…be they either fat cells or muscle cells, etc.

To carb backload properly, you only want to:

Eat carbs on work out days only

Eat carbs in the p.m. only

Eat clean, high GI carbs such as white or brown rice, potatoes (all kinds) gluten free pastas and bread, etc.

Wait?  I thought we weren’t supposed to eat any grains?  This is true, for the most part.  That’s why I included this in the exercise section as opposed to the diet section.  This is not necessary for health or building muscle, but it’s VERY effective for getting big, quick.  You decide whether to incorporate it or not.  Most guys are very pleased with the results and can’t believe that they get to eat carby meals right before bed and wake up thin!!

And by eating NON glutenous grains, such as rice, oats, etc, you limit any type of inflammatory response that might be created.

Why does this work?

In the morning our bodies are super sensitive to insulin and as the day goes on, the sensitivity decreases markedly.  This is why we want to eat NO CARBS during the day.  Just protein and fats.

When we lift heavy weight, our muscles become very sensitive to insulin, which is a good thing.  This sensitivity lasts for hours and hours after your training session.  By lifting heavy weights, our muscles become primed to take in sugars to be refueled. To take advantage of this sensitivity, we want to save our carb intake for the evenings of training days ONLY.  At this time our fat cells have a decreased insulin sensitivity while our muscle cells have an INCREASED sensitivity.

By waiting until the nights to take in carbs on the days you trained, you’re making sure that the insulin sends the nutrients into your muscle, rather then stores it as fat!  It’s rather ingenious really and super simple.

So how do you know when to eat carbs?  Have you trained with heavy weights that day?

Yes…

Is it dark out?

Yes…

If you’ve said yes to BOTH of those questions, eat until your hearts content.

How many carbs should I eat?

That depends on you.  It depends on how hard you’ve trained and how much fat your currently holding onto.  Most guys can take in 200-500 grams of carbs in one night and wake up nice and lean the next day.  You’ll know if you’re over doing it based upon the way you feel and look the next morning.

If you’ve over done it, you’ll be holding extra water and will have a little bit of a bloat to you.  You’ll be a little jiggly…. You’ll know when you get it just right when you wake up after eating carbs and your stomach is flat and shredded.  You’ll also notice a slight pump through out ALL of your muscles.  This is how you know you hit the nail on the head and your muscles are topped off with glycogen and ready to go for that day.

You’ll start to get a feel for it as you go along, just like anything else you do in life, you learn by doing. Once you have it dialed in you’ll know exactly what you can get away with and still keep yourself lean and muscular.

Another trick is to make sure that if you ever cheat on your diet, you cheat on a back-loading day.  This way you’ll at least be able to take advantage of this process and use that insulin spike for muscle building purposes!

If you want to dig deeper into the mechanics of why and how this works, you can purchase the manual right here: Carb Backloading

Now that you’ve been buidling up your bodies muscular system, we want to start working on it’s cardiovascular system.  The best way to do that isn’t with long grueling hours on the treadmill but with….High Intensity Interval Training.

“Sometimes you wish it was easier, but if it was, everyone else would do it.  Then you remember, you don’t want to be like everyone else.”