A Sample Week of Carb Nite

Lot of Twitter questions about what a week of Carb Nite looks like for me. ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE. I'm not a huge breakfast fan, so I don't really get down on it that often. You could do just fine subbing one of the shakes for some eggs/bacon/sausage/etc if you absolutely want to have some breakfast in the morning. When I do have breakfast, it's almost always bacon and eggs with some raw butter and some veggies.

1/6
Slept in til 8am
8:30am: Coffee w/ Coconut Oil and a small bit of protein powder
During workout: Coffee from a gas station (I'm so thirsty I could drink coffee from a gas station)
1pm: Chipotle Salad with half chicken/half steak, fajita veggies, sour cream, cheese and pico w/ fistful of fish oil
7pm: Steak Fajitas w/ guac and sour cream (I mix everything into a big mess. No beans, no tortillas, no chips) with another fistful of fish oil.
Pre-bed: Biotest ZMA and Mineral Support (I used to wake up at all hours of the night; these help me stay asleep once I'm down for the count.)


1/7
Rise @ 5:30
6am - Americano made from an Aero Press and  from Kaladi Brothers (best coffee in town). Aero Press looks like something out of an "As Seen On TV" commercial, but it makes an awesome cup of coffee.
7:30 - Coffee w/ coconut oil and protein powder
9:30 - Coffee w/ heavy cream and protein powder
11:30 - Buffet from Garbanzo (tough to go wrong with chicken, beef, tons of veggies and feta) with fish oil
6:30 - Leftovers from Garbanzo; mostly cucumber salad with a side of steak and chicken + fish oil
9:30 - ZMA/Mineral Support cocktail


1/8
Rise @ 5:30
6am - Americano
7:30am Coffee/Coconut Oil/Whey
10:00am Coffee/Heavy Cream/Whey
11:30am Sliced Steak Salad, no dressing w/ fish oil
PWO shake is a scoop of leucine and 30-40g whey isolate
7:30pm - Chipotle Salad w/ Veggies, sour cream, cheese, chicken and steak PLUS a bunch of leftover veggies, fish oil, a swig of probiotics and a glass of raw milk.
9:00 - Casein shake
10:00 - Contrast shower and ZMA/Mineral cocktail


1/9
Rise @ 5:30
7:30am Coffee/Coconut Oil/Whey
9:00am Coffee/Heavy Cream/Whey
11:30 - Small cup of Cioppino stew, some chicken cacciatore, teriyaki kale and string cheese from Whole Paycheck.
6:00 - Three eggs in raw butter, a couple links of sausage and some ham from Niman Ranch along with some fish oil, kale and probiotics.


1/10 - Carb Nite
7:30am Coffee/Coconut Oil/Whey
9:00am Coffee/Heavy Cream/Whey
11:30 - Cheese Omelette and Bacon from Zaidy's Deli along with a fistful of fish oil
4:30 - Large Americano with a healthy pour of heavy cream
7:00 - Muscle Feast Anabolic Recover PWO
8:00-bedtime - Gummi bears, a spotty banana, Reese's cups, two doughnuts, Grilled Chicken Pho. The pho totally stuffed me up like nobody's business, so I didn't have my usual "everything but the kitchen sink" Carb Nite.

1/11
Rise @ 5:30
6:30am Coffee/Coconut Oil/Whey
9:00am Coffee/Coconut Oil/Whey
11:30 Kung Pao Beef - no rice w/ fish oil
7:30 Chicken and Cheese sausages, broccoli salad, two strawberries

1/12
8:00 - Coffee w/ coconut oil/whey
During workout - Coffee
12:00 PWO: Scoop of whey with leucine
1:00 - Chicken and Cheese Sausages w/ fish oil
7:00 - Cup of Cioppino Stew, bunch of meatballs in marinara sauce, fish oil, kale salad, string cheese, (crashed the Whole Foods hot bar)

1/13
8:00 - Coffee w/ coconut oil and whey
During workout - coffee
No PWO shake(Sundays are kind of a "whatever" workout while my hand is healing, so it's usually a ton of abs, neck, KBs and things like that. Nothing really worth having a shake over, so I just get a meal in when I get home. Not every workout demands a post-workout shake/insulin spikes/glycogen replenishment/etc.
I actually have no idea what I had to eat tonight,

The Training Week That Was - 1/6 - 1/12

I put up a separate post with my eating for this week. This was about as close to an ideal Carb Nite week as it gets, so I wanted to get it down for posterity and for anyone who has questions. The squatting set-up is a variation on the "Texas Method" with a few tweaks that I picked up from Glenn Pendlay. The old tricks are still some of the best tricks.

1/6
Training
Bunch of sled dragging using a dip belt
Abs x300 (incl low back)
Four Way Neck Machine
Traction

1/7
Squat Sitting

1/8
Longish Warmup
SSB Squat barx5x2 70x5 90x4 110x3 120x5 125x5x2 130x5x3
GH Raise - 50 reps bw
Standing Abs/Hypers/Cal Extensions - a ton of each
Traction

I also got my hand examined and more x-rays. Apparently I have a bone chip wedged in my hand someplace. Pretty sure that's not good.

1/9
Epsom salt bath and a lot of sitting in a squat

1/10
Front Squat barx5x2 60x4x2 90x3x2 110x3 122x5x5 125x5
(Need longer warmup; squats didn't start feeling good until 3rd/4th sets at 122)
Cal Back Ext and Standing Abs - 3x12 of each
Rev Hypers and Hanging Leg Raise - 2x12 each
Traction

Carb Nite Wk Two - Measurements

Neck: 16 3/4"

Chest: (at the nipple line): 40.5"

Waist: (around the belly button): 34 3/4"

Hips: (at the widest part): 42.5"

Thigh: (at the largest part): 25.5"

Bicep: (unflexed, at the widest part): 15"
Weight: 208.8

1/11
Some foam rolling and squat sitting, nothing special.

1/12
Longish Warmup
SSB - bar x5x2 70x5x2 100x4 120x3 130x5 145x5 155x4 140x5x3
-first non-PR in awhile. Since I didn't make a PR I had to get my five sets done. Dieting might be kicking in, but I also took a bad jump from 145-155. I should have done a set of 1-2 at 150 just to feel it a bit. Hindsight 20/20; get it next time.
GH Raise - bwx6x2 10kgx6x2 15kgx4x2
Standing Abs - 5x10
Hypers and Traction

I'm still waiting for the MRI results, but right now I know I have a bone chip wedged in my hand. It's been six weeks since I hurt it and it is getting better, very slowly but surely. Most of me really wants to just get it removed so I can get on with training. The surgeon that I saw seems to think surgery won't be necessary and just said it'll be sore for another few months. I'm wondering if maybe it isn't so displaced that it needs to be taken out? I have a laundry list of questions to ask when I talk to him on Monday. Either way, I'm resisting the urge to start testing it out until I get back from Iceland. That'll be approx nine weeks post-injury and a good 6-7 weeks of actual rest.

The Training Week That Was - 12/30 - 1/5

The Caveman Cafeteria is a Denver food truck serving very delicious and high quality foods. They're doing a Kickstarter campaign right now to open a food cart on 16th Street. A small disclaimer: it's not your usual $8 hot dog or $9 grilled cheese. The January menu consists of wagyu beef sliders, bistro steaks and deep-fried brussel sprouts. LEGIT.

12/30-12/31 - Off. Did some epsom salts and some time sitting in a squat, but nothing special.

1/1
Abs x 100
SSB Squat barx5x2 70x5 90x4 110x5x2 120x5x3 125x5 130x5
GH Raise 5x10 + Neck Machine 5x12+12+12
Abs x150 and some kettlebell swings

Since I only have one good arm to use, it seems like an excellent time to get back into KB work. Glenn Pendlay from MuscleDriver actually reminded me of this when he posted some vids of himself doing the RKC test (100 snatches in five minutes w/ 24kg 'bell). They're boring vids (sorry man, but it's five minutes of a guy snatching a kettlebell), but what does it say about me that I watched them? Anyways, I'll start throwing these in at the end of workouts to get some variety going on as well as keep the hips snappy. Five minutes of work a couple days a week isn't gonna break me.

1/2
Foam roller work

1/3 - Carb Nite
Measurements

Neck: 16.5"

Chest: (at the nipple line): 40 1/2"

Waist: (around the belly button): 35 1/4"

Hips: (at the widest part): 42"

Thigh: (at the largest part): 26"

Bicep: (unflexed, at the widest part): 15"
Weight: 211.6

Longer Warmup
Front Squat - barx5x2 60x5x2 80x5 100x4 110x4 120x5x6
GH Raise - BW x6 10kgx6x2 15kgx6x2
Reverse Hypers - 3x6 heavy
Traction
- I forgot about my KB work, so I did five minutes of snatches with a 20kg kettlebell. No idea on the reps; I think around 7-10 sets of 8? Boy do they suck when you can't change hands.

Contents of my Carb Nite: Two scoops of Muscle Feast Anabolic Recover (my favorite post-workout shake), some brownies, a quarter of a cherry cheesecake, half a gallon of raw milk, slice of berry pie, bit of chicken breast along with a couple shakes with leucine. Much heavier on fat and sweets than I prefer but I got a late start at the gym and had a short window to get my feed on, so I went with what I had in my freezer.

1/4 - Epsom Salt

1/5
Front Squat with Straps - barx5x2 60x5x2 (could NOT get loose) 90x4 110x3 130x3 142x3 147x3 152x2 (I think the last three are all PRs)
GH Raise bwx5x2 10kgx5x2 15kgx5x2 20kgx5 20kgx4 15kgx7
Heavy Rev Hypers/Standing Abs/GH Situps - bunch of each
Traction

My partners have been working with Josh Bryant and they tested their squats and deadlifts. Reggie squatted 525 and pulled 605, Beau squatted 525 and skipped the DL, Justin squatted 455, pulled 585 and lost 605 just above his knees. Your brother from another mother did the filming and took some pics. Reggie's max squats and pulls are on his YouTube channel here. Justin's are also listed here. Great work by those guys and super happy for them.  

The Training Week That Was - 10/21 - 10/27

“Reality's all you've got. But here's the real secret, the real miracle: it's enough.” 

― Brad Warner, Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality


By popular request, I'll start slipping in some of my diet as I've been getting some hits on Twitter asking about Carb Backloading.

10/21
Back Squat 60x3x2 90x3 110x2 125x2 140x2 150x5 130x5 135x5
(150 felt shitty, didn't warm up enough; not enough reps)
Front Push Press 50x3x2 75x2x2 87x2 92x5 97x4+1
Iso DB Fat Gripz OH Press 3x8 60lbs
DB "Chinese" Row 100lbsx8 110x8 115x8x2
GH Raise/Lat Pulldowns
Cal Back Ext/Curls for the Girls/Four Way Neck

10/23
High Hang Snatch (Max Double) 50x2x2 60x2 70x1 80x1 82x1 90x1 95x1 100x0x2 (made one @ 100) 97x0x1 - Down Sets 80x3x3
High Hang CJ (Max Double - Clean, Jerk, Drop, Clean, Jerk) 60x1x2 80x1x2 95x1 105x1 110x0x2 95x1
Down Sets (Three Cleans + Jerk the last rep) 90x1 95x1 100x1
Safety Squat Bar Squat 3x5 @ 120
BB Rollouts + Cal Back Ext - 5 Sets each
Weighted Planks 2x10+10
DB Side Bend 2x10

10/24
Light High Hang Clean Work (my timing is off, going to the toes way too early)
Behind Neck Strict Press 50x5 55x5 52x5 52x5
Chins 4x5
Axle Pendlay Rows 4x10 + Four Way Neck x100

10/25 (low "box" is 25kg plates, bar at about mid-shin)
Lower Box Snatch 40xsome 60x2x2 70x2 82x1x2 90x1 95x0 95x1 100x1 105x0x2 102x0x2
Down Sets 85x2 87x2x2
Lower Box CJ 50xsome 70x2 90x2 100x1 110x1 117x1 122xFJ 122x1
Down Sets (2 Cleans + 1 Jerk) 100x1 105x1 110x1
Front Squat up to 115x3 120x3x2
Cal Back Ext 5x10
Hanging Leg Raises and Reverse Hypers

Nutrition:
Wake-Up @ 520am
Coconut Oil/Whey Isolate in a two shot Americano at 6:30
Another one at 9am
11am: Salad from Noodles and Co, Cioppino Stew, string cheese, 5g fish oil, 10g creatine
3pm: Coconut Oil/Whey/Coffee during training
6pm: PWO Shake: Two scoops of Muscle Feast Anabolic Recover w/ 5g creatine and leucine

Hourish Later:
Small bag of Surf Sweets Gummi Bears
One small spotted banana
30g Whey Isolate w/ Leucine and Creatine
Half a baked yam
Little bit of homemade chicken korma

Hourish After That
S'more/Chocolate Chip Cookie (gluten free, from my friend Claire at Simply Sweet Justice. Will post recipe when she posts it)
Small Bowl of Rice Krispies in Raw Milk (poor planning; ran out of cereal)
Shake w/ Leucine

10/26 - Off-Day Sample Nutrition
5:20 wakeup
One coconut oil/whey/coffee during the day, then mainline green tea the rest of the day
(I avoid coffee during off days after the first one to keep the caffeine down and diversify my sources. Plus green tea is wicked good for you and I'm fighting getting sick. If I'm blasting coffee and I miss a night or two of sleep, it fries it pretty quick. Plus our coffee at work is awful, so I prefer to make it at home in my Aeropress)
11:30am Cioppino + fish oil, string cheese and small salad
4:30pm Three eggs over easy in coconut oil and some leftover homemade barbacoa.
8:30pm More Cioppino and an epsom salt bath

10/27
Snatch 40x2x2 60x2x2 75x1x2 85x1x2 92x0x3 92x1 97x1 102x0x3
(bar kept getting too far out in front on 92. All wasted lifts.)
CJ 50x2x2 70x2x2 90x1x2 105x1 115x1 120x1 125x1 130x0x2
Clean Pulls 130x2x2 135x2 140x2 145x2 150x2

I'm being more mindful of my warmups. I'm guilty of coasting through them instead of really ripping them up, so I'm focusing on snapping them off. It definitely made me a little inconsistent as I got to limit weights, but I think it'll pay dividends in the future.

10/27 Nutrition
7am wake-up
Coffee, slug of coconut oil, creatine and whey
Coffee only pre/during training
Train 9-11:30am
Isolate/Creatine/Leucine PWO shake
90mins PWO(?): Chipotle Salad
330pm:  Garbanzo Greens Salad w/ all the veggies
7:00: Whey/Leucine shake, baked yam, another smore/choco chip cookie/adobo chicken w/ 5g fish oil
8:30: Whey/Leucine shake, bowl of Cocoa Krispies in raw milk, choco chip cookie
10:

My longest sets of squats are sets of five and everything else is in a very low rep range, so I'm not really blowing through glycogen. My biggest mistake on my first go round of CBL was definitely overdoing my carbs; my backloads are pretty tame compared to what you'll read some people putting down. I also keep things as gluten free as possible, which was biggest mistake #2. Wheat and I are not friendly, especially in concentrated doses. About the only pastries that I get after during a backload are turnovers, baklava or Udi's Gluten Free muffins. Tip on the Udi's: DO NOT buy the ones from the freezer. Get the ones sitting out in the bakery section.

I'm also staying off the scale. I'll start sweating making weight (94kg = 207lbs) when I'm closer to meet day. When I hit the scale consistently, I tend to get fixated on the number rather than paying attention to my lifts and the mirror. In lieu of the scale, I'm using a pair of jeans as my "Fatass Barometer". Yes, dudes evaluate the fit of their jeans. I have a pair of 34" waist jeans that fit perfectly when I'm on point. If those start getting tighter, I know I need to either scale down my backloads or do more work.

The Training Week That Was 9/23-9/29 and Carb Backloading v2.0

Training 9/23 - 9/29

-Nothing

-Absolutely nothing

-Zero

My back has been giving me fits since Estes Park. I've been trying to train though it with zero success. With that in mind, I've done something that I haven't done in probably a year: I did nothing. No training. No sled dragging or Prowler. No reverse hyper. No yoga. No bar work. No tempo work. Nothing. I saw the chiro twice this week and my back hasn't felt this good in ages. Proof will be in the pudding as I'm restarting training for my next meet tomorrow. 

On to vastly more interesting topics: Carb Backloading. I've tried a number of different diets with my training, from Carb Cycling to a modified version of the Warrior Diet to Intermittent Fasting. I have found my most success from Carb Backloading and its sister plan, Carb Nite. I used Carb Nite for ten weeks right after my last meet and moved from 214-202 and lopped an inch and a half off of my waist, which has stayed off. I must say that I would HIGHLY recommend people try a wide variety of nutrition programming (including ALL of the previous programs) and see what works for you.  

So the basics of carb backloading: skip breakfast, stay ultra low-carb and stick to protein/fats/veggies during the day, train hard and then pound high glycemic carbs til bedtime. That's the 50,000 ft view; the actual mechanics are much more detailed than I can (or should) go into in a blog post. I highly recommend you pick up the book and read it for yourself. There are literally about fifty pages of references for the protocols to scratch your nerd itch, and these protocols are backed by the science. 

I won't go into big picture details, as none of these ideas are mine and I want to protect Kiefer's intellectual property. I will, however, give you some details on what has been optimal for me specifically. This is my second go round and I learned quite a bit from my first run of CBL. 

1. Gluten free is the way to go: I've never had any noticeable issues with gluten in my life. Having said that, I experimented with going gluten free for a week of backloads and the results were fantastic. No bloating, no feelings of impending doom, no issues with sleep and no morning-after carb hangover. I stick to white rice for my first post-workout meal, typically a bowl from Tokyo Joe's, a stir-fry at home and/or a yam and sweet potato. I get a little dirtier for my second meal, which is usually a bowl (or three) of Cocoa Krispies (with raw milk), some Rice Krispie treats or a Fro-Yo. I'm also terribly partial to Udi's gluten free muffins. The cinnamon and chocolate are the shiznit. 

 

2. Paleo is the way to go: I'm no expert on the Paleo diet, but it's very tough to make an argument against the idea of eating whole foods from smart sources. Carb-Backloading, within the Paleo realm, is still incredibly easy. Sweet potatoes, white potatoes, bananas, mangoes and cherries all make excellent high-glycemic backloading foods. Personally, I've noticed that I don't get as good results when my backloads are high in fruit, so I stick to the potatoes with a mango or banana or the side rather than the other way around. Honey and agave aren't the best ideas either, as they're actually quite low on the glycemic response scale. 

3. Find your upper and lower ranges: The first week I pushed the backloads very hard to see my upper limits and the second week I pushed them low to see my body's response. For me personally, staying at the lower end and cleaner works best as far as refueling and feeling good. It's probably a function of my style of training (Olympic weightlifting) that I stay at the low end as it isn't terribly glycogen depleting. Carb backloading isn't a one-size fits all protocol; you need to dial up the particulars for your personal situation. 

4. Watch out for too much fat in the morning: My "breakfast" is typically coffee with a half scoop of whey isolate and some combination of coconut oil and heavy cream. When I go overboard on the fats in the morning...the phrase "gastrointestinal distress" some to mind. If/when you go too far, you'll know. 

I like to think of the whole backload process as an extended post-workout shake. Pretty much the entire fitness industry agrees that a post-workout shake is a good idea in most cases. The ideal shake is typically high-glycemic carbohydrate and a fast acting whey protein, rich in leucine. So imagine the backload process as multiple meals within the post-workout window rather than a single meal. 

So that's that. Visit Dangerously Hardcore. Read the book. Listen to the Biojacked Radio podcasts, either on Soundcloud or through the Dangerously Hardcore website. Be open minded. Ask questions. I've implemented both diets with success. Be moar healthy and moar awesome.