Carb Backloading (A 2 Week Experiment)

On July 16, 2012 by Juliet

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know I have a tendency to get sucked into trendy diets. What? I can’t help it. I’m also really wishy washy and go back and forth. Whoops. Talk about your average stupid dieter. IFing one day, counting one day, not the next, yar yar yar.

Finally I’ve found a way of eating that works for me and I don’t want to f*ck with it. For the last few months I have been:

  • eating a solid 3 meals a day with an occasional snack or something pre-workout
  • don’t weigh or measure my food, track macros/calories, or do anything fancy
  • fast if I’m not hungry, eat if I am but not according to any ‘protocol’
  • eating paleo but not at the expense of enjoying going out with friends and living life

I found a secret pool in Blacksburg to go to for free. We were the only ones there yesterday and it was glorious until the thunder crashed our party.

Eating this way has allowed me to maintain my leanness, put on a WEEE bit of lean mass, increase my strength, and genuinely not give a shit. Basically, I am not going to mess the good thing I have going. So…… carb backloading?

Well, I’ve been reading a lot about it and it has me curious! Don’t you roll your eyes at me.

Stop it. I’m not going to mess anything up.

Because it’s kind of how I already eat. DURDADURRRRRRR

I almost peed from laughing when I saw this. My couch did not appreciate the scare.

For example, my day kind of looks like this:

  • Today I had 3 eggs and an avocado.
  • For lunch, I typically have some kind of salad or meat and veggies and a piece of fruit.
  • I might have a snack before I train. This varies a lot. Usually  it depends on what is in my friends…a smaller portion of meat, MAYBE another piece of fruit, etc.
  • PWO/dinner I’ll have a boatload of veggies, a bigger portion of ‘protein’, a hunk-o-carbs like sweet potato.

To carb backload, all I need to do is move my fruit to dinner time. Hell, I’ll probably just call it “dessert”. Really though, that’s all I need to change and that is a mindless detail.  If you’re curious to learn more about CBL, here are some great places to start exploring:

  1. http://www.dangerouslyhardcore.com/1394/julia-ladewski-competing-on-carb-back-loading/
  2. http://www.julialadewski.com/2012/04/carb-back-loading-explained-faq-and-is.html
  3. http://jcdfitness.com/2012/07/fitsmart-podcast-ep-9-sean-hyson-discusses-carb-backloading/

Personally, I am just going to gauge progress on my lifts, how I feel, energy, etc. I’m just tinkering with it because I’m a big ol’ sucker and this stuff makes me geek out.

PALEO CHALLENGE UPDATE:

Save for some wine and half a black russian (I gave it away after drinking half LOL) on Saturday, I’ve been doing fine. I’ve had only one small cup of coffee in a week. No desserts or meals out.  I haven’t had any cravings either, which is good. That was my main reason for doing this since my sugar cravings were pwning me at every opportunity.

Category :
Nutrition/Diet
  • http://www.sweatlikeapig.com/ Tara @ Sweat like a Pig

    I followed a mutated form of CBL for a while. I’ve stopped for now, but I might try again once my upcoming vacation(s) are out of the way. It’s the only “fad that’s not a fad” type diet I’ve been drawn into – mostly because I don’t really care that much about carbs, but I feel like I need to have them at night. The only problem is I work out in the morning. My schedule is super flexible so I could train in the afternoon/evening if I had to, but it’s more of a preference thing. I don’t know if I could handle fasted training. I think I’ll just start my own diet, called ‘eating carbs throughout the day’. Haha

  • http://www.followingfit.com/ Kristen @ Following Fit

    Carb backloading (and other diets, too… OK, all of them) make me geek out too. I think it’s just a fascination with different diet ideas for me — timing, macros, etc. all fascinate me. I would worry about the same thing as Tara if I backloaded — I work out at the a$$ crack of dawn these days. But it sure would be fine to eat a ton of carbs at night.

  • Stephanie @itrainthereforeieat

    I’ve also toyed with the idea of CBL, but I have the same concerns as Tara and Kristen, although I have done some reading on how to “tweak” CBL if you are a morning trainee. It seems to still be doable, with just a few alterations on timing and not quite as much carbs as those who train at night. Honestly every time I read about it I go “Hmm…Maybe I’ll try that” and then I don’t. HA! Maybe one of these day’s I’ll be more than just talk. :)

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  • Jennifer Lynn Hudy

    I love me some carbs.. and this “diet” sounds awesome. I’ve been trying the semi-paleo thing for a month or so now (complete kudos for eggs and avocado breakfast – I do that daily!), but feel like without my high-carb-goodness I just cannot get enough calories to fuel my body! I read a lot that Julia Ladewski has had to say on it, but still debating on going all out.
    Did you buy the book?

    • http://heyjoob.com Juliet

      You’d be REALLY surprised. I was scared when I cut carbs out of breakfast like… 8 months ago (?) but it really is not bad. I have had zero energy crashes and feel completely fine!! And no, I didn’t buy the book. I didn’t feel the need to pay $90 for someone to tell me to eat my carbs at night.

  • Jennifer Lynn Hudy

    Thanks for the reply, Juliet! So you think it’s that simple? I’ve been doing good about not eating my carbs during the day (eggs/avocado for breakfast, chicken/veggies for lunch, meat and some veggies for dinner (I’m picky and only eat a couple veggies.. spaghetti squash, cauliflower, spinach (in stuff), sweet potatoes (only like them “hashed” from PaleoOMG lol.)

    I just tend to float around 1400 calories, when I know I should be eating 1900 on normal days, 2300 on workout days. I usually fill in the gaps with fruit, bananas/almond butter. But still hard sometimes. I really like the backloading premise though!!