I’m Back

October 22, 2011 By 87 Comments

Explanations…

Once again, I’ve taken a hiatus from DangerouslyHardcore.com, all but ignoring the site and audience responsible for getting me into EliteFTS.com, Muscle & Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Flex, Power Magazine and as of today, T-Nation. So yeah, I kind of feel like a douche.

I don’t like feeling like an odor-eliminating hygiene device, and, to that end, I’ve actually teamed up with a behind-the-scenes manager who’s promised to kick my ass if I ignore my site again. For me, it means longer days, longer nights and focused activities. For you, it means frequent content, better material and the all important publication of Carb Back-Loading™ and, tight on its heels, The Shockwave Protocol manual. It also means video and audio. To get the best information in the industry out to the masses, I need to use all the tools at my disposal.

The price of doing so is launching a site that’s not 100% ready for primetime. Please bear with me as I refine and transmogrify the site into my vision, which may take some time. Things may break (like the forums), things may disappear (like the forums), random stuff may appear (like the forums will shortly) and the whole site might crash like it did earlier this week, leaving DangerouslyHardcore.com pointing to a GoDaddy parked-for-free-page. I promise to keep glitches at the irritating level at worst, but not devastating.

From here, I can discuss what’s been happening, about the top notch experts I’ve worked with over the last six months or my indoctrination into fitness’s soft underbelly, but, really, it’s nothing that you don’t already suspect, nothing that I haven’t repeated about a thousand times. People are full of shit, and those who aren’t are too busy practicing their craft to be heard. That’s the fine line I rode the past few months—sure I was able to work with high-level athletes, but I had to ignore the community at large to do so.

No more ignoring.

 

You’ve Got Questions

I thought I’d use this comeback post to answer a few of the frequent questions and comments I’ve received over the last few months via email, Facebook and various sites.

Question: What carbs can you ignore during an ultra-low carb regimen like the first half of the day when Carb Back-Loading or during the week of Carb Nite?

Answer:  Ignore only fiber. It’s that simple.

Truth always has a way of finding itself squished by two extremes, and this time is no different. There are two opposing camps. The first says you can’t ignore fiber, that even fiber can introduce too many carbs. What this camp lacks is a full understanding of how fiber metabolizes in the body. Fiber causes none of the normal reactions of carbohydrates, such as raising blood sugar levels or causing a release of insulin, let alone impeding fat burning1-4.

I don’t mean to imply that fiber doesn’t metabolize because it does…with a little help from the gut bacteria we carry. Fiber ferments into short chain fatty acids which then get absorbed through the intestinal wall and used for energy5-29. In general, the body gets about 2.5 calories per gram from fiber. Keep in mind: these calories derive from fat, not carbs. To think or say otherwise is, well, ignorant.

The other camp likes to exclude polyols—sugar alcohols—from the carb count because they claim that eating them affects neither insulin nor blood sugar levels. This is the card Atkin’s played so he could load his diet bars with these creamy-textured, semi-sweet nutrients.

This is true in most cases, sugar alcohols are not glycemic nor insulinotropic substances, but that doesn’t matter here. The body still metabolizes polyols for energy and does so in the absence of insulin, utilizing specialized members of the GLUT family to do so. With all this polyol burning going on, the body stops burning fat30-37. And it’s odd that so many ketogenic diets allow them in such high quantity because it’s been know for about 50 years that polyols stop ketone production38-42. So you tell me, why would anyone market an antiketogenic product to people on a ketogenic diet?

Be sure to include these in your carb count to ensure you don’t go over the 20 to 30 gram mark.

 

Question: What’s the difference between the Modified Warrior Diet and Carb Back-Loading?

Answer: Where do I start?

For one, Carb Back-Loading is based on science and years of experience and gets results with stupid-simple implementation. For example, the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Richmond, Virginia, Jay DeMayo dropped 9% body fat and gained 7 lbs of muscle over 12 weeks while Carb Back-Loading. His diet couldn’t have been more basic: bacon and eggs during the first half of the day, Wendy’s spicy chicken filets, fries and a frosty for dinner.

Modified Warrior Diet…How ’bout Weekend Warrior Diet?

The Warrior Diet, by Ori Hofmekler, is Carb Back-Loading taken to its logical conclusion. When doing the Warrior Diet, you pretty much avoid eating for the majority of the day and load up at night. Not eating anything during the first half of the day is metabolically equivalent to not eating carbs for the first half of the day. Then, at night, eat whatever you want. It works for fat loss and works well, but unless you’re massively obese at the outset of the diet, don’t get your hopes up about gaining muscle like Jay did with Carb Back-Loading.

The Modified Warrior Diet (MWD) does not belong to the same ilk as the Warrior Diet or Carb Back-Loading. The technical name as studied in the research is Calorie Back-Loading and it works well for preserving muscle while losing fat43-47. Although MWD’s main proponent often references the science behind Carb Back-Loading to explain why the MWD might work (actually, he just links to my pages about Carb Back-Loading), the same arguments don’t apply. By eating carbs all day, even small amounts, you forfeit the advantages gained by Carb Back-Loading48.

I’m not saying the Modified Warrior Diet won’t do anything—it can help you lose body fat while preserving muscle—but dreams of gaining muscle while losing fat, no matter how many carbs you sneak in, are unwarranted and unfounded.

 

Question: Should I be eating complex carbs like brown rice or whole grains when back-loading?

Answer: Hell no. You should be eating junk.

If you don’t want to eat junk, then eat the high-glycemic, high-insulinemic clean carbs like white, sticky rice; sweet potatoes, red waxy potatoes, or even pumpkin pie. People consistently fail because they try to eat what’s considered healthy for average people instead of eating for high-performance phenomenon like losing fat while gaining muscle.

This is also where the Modified Warrior Diet goes wrong, by recommending low-glycemic carbs in the evening. This ignores essential hormonal reactions that make Carb Back-Loading seem like magic. The high, sharp spikes of insulin trigger glycogen storage and resynthesis, and also increase the muscle’s ability to use carbs during subsequent training sessions49-55. The spikes also subside quickly when eating junk. The spikes are down to baseline or below shortly after going to sleep. Why is this important? Because your nightly rush of growth hormone won’t take place until at least two hours after insulin levels fall back to baseline56-57.

For some reason, I really want to eat these cookies…

By eating low-glycemic foods at night you actually stop a great deal of fat burning that would normally occur throughout the evening. Cookies, donuts and French fries for all…

 

Take-Away Message

I’m not like most of the people in the industry who have their pet ideas, say outrageous things and hope all goes well. Sure, sneaking carbs into the first half of the day, even if keeping calories light (the Modified Warrior Diet) is easier than Carb Back-Loading, but it destroys the effectiveness. And low-glycemic carbs might sound like a good recommendation since Dr. Oz says so, but that’s for average, fat, inactive people, not Super-Heroes In Training (SHIT™—that’s right, I’m trademarking SHIT, deal with it).

I do my homework and there’s a scientific and experiential reason why I say to do anything and everything. That’s why Carb Back-Loading seems like magic.  That’s why Carb Nite® shreds people down. I don’t have to sound sciency to convince anyone—just try it. A recent comment by someone on Facebook says it all: I lost four inches on my waist and I’m still not sure if I understand what the hell Kiefer said. In short, my SHIT™ works.

That’s it for now. This is only a teaser to let everyone know I’m still alive and well and back on track to create the most reliable resource of scientifically based training and nutrition information in the world.

 

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