Anabolic Diet: Introduction
The anabolic diet is a carb-cycling diet that’s aimed majorly at bodybuilders and strength and power athletes.
It is a cycle where the person’s diet revolves between the periods of low and high carbohydrate intake with the aim of generating optimum conditions for building muscle and burning body fat.
Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale introduced this diet to the world in 1995, as a twist on the already popular cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD).
Basically, this diet has you eating very low carbohydrates for the majority of the week, while keeping both fat and protein high.
This is done for 5-6 days of the week. For the other 1-2 days, you would eat high levels of carbohydrates, moderate protein, and extremely low fat.
Aim of this diet
The aim of the diet is to boost fat burning while maintaining or even building muscle mass.
How Anabolic diet work?
An Anabolic diet works in three phases- Introduction or Maintenace phase, bulking phase, and cutting down phase.
These phases have special qualities to help you achieve that perfect body and weight.
All these phases are described in detail down below-
Introduction/Maintenance phase
During this phase, people ate a strict ratio of 60% fat, 35% protein, and only 5% carbs, eating calories equivalent to 18 times their body weight.
This Maintenace or start-up phase follows the same 5+2-day format for around 4-6 weeks.
It’s designed to allow your body to become accustomed to the low-carb intake at the beginning of the diet and is used as a maintenance level throughout.
You may not see massive increases in strength or body composition in this phase as your body will need to adhere to the diet.
Stay focused and trust that the diet will work.
Bulking phase
The second phase gives your body a short break from the carbohydrate drains.
This phase should not be skipped, even if your goal is weight loss it is important to set your body into a highly anabolic state so that you do not lose muscle mass.
The bulking phase should be done for an excess of 3-4 weeks, or until you have achieved the level of muscle tissue you desire.
To do this, you would need to consume20-25 calories per pound of desired bodyweight every day.
If you have no interest in putting on muscle you can enter the cutting phase directly from the induction phase, but be mindful that you may lose muscle density.
Cutting Phase
This is when the real results will start to show. During the cutting phase is when you will lose weight, effectively burn fat and improve overall body competition.
The carbohydrates give you energy and stimulate the metabolism again of weekend calories.
In this phase there should be 60 to 80 percent intake from carbohydrates, with 10 to 20 percent from fat and 10 to 20 percent from protein.
Continuing this phase in 5+2 with maintenance phase can let you achieve good results ahead.
Advantages
1. Increase Fat Loss
2. Easy Weight Gain
3. Keep blood sugar level stable
4. Your body is supplied with all nutrients and a balanced diet
Disadvantages
1. Increase fatigue
2. Cause lack of energy
3. Increased Cholesterol Levels
4. Low Fiber Intake
5. Acid Indigestion and Bloating
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