Carb Cycling and Cardio

Nathan emailed me the new diet. We are going to try and cycle my carbs. This is pretty common, and I probably should expect my diet will stay like this until contest. It is a pretty cool thing really, I've been reading up on carb depleting and loading and what benefits it can have on weight loss and also your contest look.

So now, on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm eating what I have been eating:

Breakfast
1/2 grapefruit
6 egg whites

Snack
whey
1/2 grapefruit
1 tbsp almond butter

Lunch
40 grams quinoa
3 oz chicken
2 cups green beans

Snack
100 grams shrimp
2 cups green beans

Dinner
whey
2 cups cucumber

Snack
3 oz chicken
1 bell pepper
2 cups green beans

+ a before bed shake (with whey and fruit) and a postworkout shake

Now, on Tuesdays and Fridays, the carb depletion diet looks like this:

Breakfast
instead of grapefruit now there is 0.25 cups of oats

Snack
Now it is just whey and 0.25 cups oats (I'm going to try and cut some of the whey and replace with egg beaters to make my oat pancakes since that is easier to pull off at work)

Lunch
no green beans, just the chicken and quinoa

Snack
Substitute quinoa for green beans

Dinner
whey
10 almonds

Snack
3 oz chicken
2 cups cucumber

+ post workout shake and a pre-bed shake (only no fruit in the last shake of the day)

Basically what this does is on the "normal" days, I'm eating about 100 grams of carbs. Now on the depleting days, I only have about 60 grams. That is going to make the workouts pretty brutal on Wednesday morning as well as Saturday morning since I won't have a ton of energy. Plus, my cardio on Tuesday is 75 minutes, so I'm probably going to have to do a morning and afternoon workout now to fit it all in, so my gas tank will really be empty doing cardio in the evening! It will be a really interesting week seeing how I respond to this!

If you are wondering about Saturday, well it is still my day to fit in a cheat meal and so it is a carb load day. I believe this day is going to change in about 3 weeks because I'll have to eliminate all sugar and junk from my diet completely.

As for the workout...here is what it currently looks like:

Monday
70 minutes of steady cardio
Glutes/Hams/Abs

Tuesday
75 minutes of steady cardio
Shoulders/Arms/Calves

Wednesday
60 minutes Interval Sprinting: 1 minute sprint:1 minute walk

Thursday
Back/Calves
60 minutes of interval sprinting

Friday
Plyometrics/Crossfit class (45 minutes)
25 minutes of steady cardio

Saturday
40 minutes steady cardio in am
40 minutes steady cardio in pm

Sunday
Rest

Cardio comes out to be a little more than an hour each day on average. It's only 3 weight workouts, but plyo/crossfit usually is a strength training workout as well since weights can be involved. But mainly the only weight workout I gave up was quads and the thing is sprinting and plyo is really geared towards working your legs, so it isn't like I gave up much.

It's a lot. Plus I have 2 days a week at a minimum to work on posing. I've really only been getting one good day in on this because on weekends is when it is really easy for me to use the cardio room at the gym to pose. I guess I'll have to make myself do it in the mornings as I get to about 8 weeks out from contest. I'm feeling a LOT better about posing though since I've had two sessions with Mary and really can see my shoulders and quads leaning out now.

Now, tomorrow I'm calling Amy to chat. I'm hoping to make a trip to Dallas to see her before my show so she can help me with some last minute details on posing and overall presentation. She is amazing at stage presentation so I really care about getting her to give me some one on one pointers.

And hey...today is Saturday! So guess what I get to eat today? I ate oatmeal for breakfast which was super exciting. And I'm going to eat a luna bar for a snack, and for another snack I'm going to have 2 rice cakes with peanut butter (real peanut butter!). As for the main cheat meal, I'm fitting in a sweet potato, broccoli, and steak followed by chocolate cake. Oh, how this contest diet has made me appreciate healthy foods even! It is only a 2200 calorie day after all is said and done and I know I'm going to cherish every moment of it!!!!