Weight loss : strategies to optimize it

Re: #1, I try not to carry a caloric surplus on rest days, but that may just be broscience. Assuming you worked to failure, you need to replenish something like 200-400g of glycogen (~100g of liver glycogen, and ~1-2% of lean mass of muscles worked to exhaustion... correct me if I'm wrong there), so the caloric requirement in terms of carb intake is going to be significant.

Regarding the cycling, unfortunately no. in the 19' scientists studied the effect of carbs loading. it has been discovered that :
- a complete depletion would take over 3 days, with a maintained low CHO diet, coupled with high intensity exercices, and around 1 day to deplete the one outside the muscles.
In other words, we rarely deplete the glycogen totally. Depending on the capacity (genetics + trainings), we indeed store about 400 g of glycogen in our muscles and around 100 g in the liver.

During our resting day, two cases could occur :
- The loading exceeds the muscles storage capacity
- The loading is slightly under, top notch sized based on the glycogen we were already carrying

When the first case happens, the body switch from fat usage to carbohydrate usage during both strength and training days
For the second case, the body directly switches to the fat stream.
We know muscle glycogen is not available to other tissues, because muscle lacks the enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase, every muscle uses it's own glycogen.
So having a too important load, would simply.....delay the lipolysis :-) - even worse, by being high on CHO (500-600) and average during rest (250-300), you simply... rarely exploit the full potential of lipolysis. It takes around 1 day to deplete the glycogen not stored in the muscles

I suppose waiting longer after workout to replenish could provide for more lypolysis?

Exactly :-)

The interesting timing would allow us to get rid of fat on less irrigated zones, since we have here all the requirements :
- catecholamines
- GH
- high blood pressure
- enhanced lipolysis

It's just a matter of personal preference here, I'm myself don't want to wait an hour after a training, since the protocol around fat mobilisation starts when we put resistance on our training. In the end it is like fasting 17 hours overs 16 hours :-)

Re #2: I have been doing LeanGains for a few months now, and have been able to preserve strength even with a substantial deficit on rest days (I've even managed to get some marginal gains on some movements). My lifts are all high enough that maintaining lifts is not likely due to functional improvements (~135lb. BW, 8x230 deadlift, 8x170 squat, 8x140 bench, 8x90 strict press... not competitive, but not bad either, IMO. Squat would be higher, but my right knee is gimpy.) I suspect that someone with more body fat would be able to still see noticeable strength gains. I have only done one month of bulking on this protocol, but saw linear gains in line with previous bulks, but without the fat gain.

All anecdotal, but hopefully helpful.

Nope very interesting :-) that makes the transition easier

We know that for most people, the total depletion rarely happens, (happens over 18 hours of fasting) the cycling make us move closer to it, but is it cancelled after a strength training, assuming you eat your carbs after you row :

1- Overload, due to muscles and liver full BUT in deficit : glycogen is used over fat
2- Overload, due to muscles and liver full AND in excess : conversion to Acetyl-CoA for storage

So cycling is an interesting way to manage the glycogen levels, and being able to perform, and avoid excess, making the weight loss going, and lean mass coming :-)

What about our protein nutrient, does the same logic apply ?

re: carb refeeds
Currently, my strategy is as follows:
Work out Su-Tu-Th
Fast a minimum of 16 hrs/day.
Rest days are ~80g carb. Two rest days/week are 20-24 hour fasts.
Work outs are in the morning, around 12 hours fasted (would do noon/afternoon fasted if it were feasible with work schedule). Post-workout fast is continued for 4-6 hours, with BCAA supplementation to prevent loss of muscle mass. Workout day meal is ~2.5g-3g/kg protein, 20-30g fat, ~6-7g/kg carbs (350-400g in my case).
Next workout follows a 16-24 hour fast, lowish carb day, and 12 hour fast.
Results are extremely fast, with changes noticeable within a week, even in single-digit body fat %.
On the other hand, the relative carb restriction makes workouts a lot harder (I am able to maintain weight/reps, but level of effort feels greater, and I reduce volume from 3 reverse pyramid sets of 2 'big lift' movements plus two sets of accessory movements to just the big lifts to compensate... figure i'm not adding much mass during a cut anyway).
I can maintain full energy/intensity at around 120-150g carbs on rest days, which seems reasonable for recomp or bulk.

Either way, that ensures we can use at least some fat during our weight training sessions.

Again, thanks for your feedback, much appreciated :-)

I'm myself follow mainly the same strategy
1/2 day : strength training, using bodyweight, with a progressive load. I then make sure to make to progression possible, and avoid a setpoint.
1/2 day : cardio, where fasted window priors for the trainings

The more lean mass you put, the more efficient your fat loss is.

You are actually cutting, meaning you can even more reduce the caloric restriction during rest days (-15 ON/ -10 OFF is enough), the more excess you are in during training, the biggest your rest day should be in term of intakes, otherwise, you may hit soon a fatigue feeling, and exhaustion.


Regarding the reesterification of the FFAs, in order to avoid it, we simply need to make sure of itheir oxydation after their mobilisation.
The most efficient way to mobilise them it to induce an activity intensive workout, several minutes are enough, (5-10 minutes tops), fasted or not, since that training would bring down the insulin levels

http://jap.physiology.org/content/96/1/101.full

Being inactive just after their mobilisation just leads to their reesterification, so a low HR training after that make sure we use them :-)

re: protein
From everything I have read, you need at least 2g/kg minimum to maintain nitrogen balance when doing heavy resistance training. While calorie restricted, I have seen estimates up to 2.6-2.8g/kg, so I generally eat somewhere between 2.5-3g/kg. The effects on satiety, and deliciousness of meat mean that I would never really be tempted to go under this level on a regular basis anyway.

It seems that if we are designing an optimal weight loss strategy, high protein intake should be part of it, as in addition to good satiety, and the ability to create muscle and thus increase BMR, the TEF of protein provides an additional ~1 calorie/g caloric deficit. Lean meats are integral to my diet, personally.

Bingo, the last studies showed that in fact the TEF of protein is slightly higher than carbs (more 3,2 kcal than 4). I myself think the satiety effect would work in most cases as a placebo. They work better when it comes to losing fat since more energy is used in order to oxydate them.
http://www.jacn.org/content/23/5/373.full


Let's go back to our trainings, and let's see how we could ensure our muscle gain is optimum, but before that, we know resting is crucial if you want to maximise muscle gain.
Why the REM sleep matter, and if resting is that important, don't our cardio sessions are counter-productive in a point ?

QUOTE "Regarding the reesterification of the FFAs, in order to avoid it, we simply need to make sure of itheir oxydation after their mobilisation. The most efficient way to mobilise them it to induce an activity intensive workout, several minutes are enough, (5-10 minutes tops), fasted or not, since that training would bring down the insulin levels

http://jap.physiology.org/content/96/1/101.full

Being inactive just after their mobilisation just leads to their reesterification, so a low HR training after that make sure we use them :-) "
END QUOTE

Are you talking about doing some steady state cardio after a HIIT session or a resistance session so that the mobilized FFAs are used up for energy rather than going back into the adipose tissue for storage?

Exactly. Another study (I can't find it sorry) showed an even more interesting fact
eating just after your low-intensity cardio doesn't cancel the ongoing lipolysis, which mean you can eat directly after while the FFA's will still be used

Regarding the reesterification of the FFAs, in order to avoid it, we simply need to make sure of itheir oxydation after their mobilisation.
The most efficient way to mobilise them it to induce an activity intensive workout, several minutes are enough, (5-10 minutes tops), fasted or not, since that training would bring down the insulin levels

http://jap.physiology.org/content/96/1/101.full

This may be a dumb question, but

if 5-10 minutes of steady-state cardio brings down insulin levels, and insulin inhibits lipolysis, and insulin is secreted when you eat, then would doing the few minutes of cardio after eating lower the insulin and enhance fat loss?

Not really, when you start to eat it is released, and it remains as long as you have glucose above the regulation rate. Since you juste ate, it is still here,the idea beyond lowering the insulin part means you can drop the levels, assuming the regulation job is done. That is also why we consider a fasted stated 3 or 4 hours the last meals :-)

Ok.
I'm trying to process all the information you presented here. So you're saying that for intermittent fasting the fasted state doesnt begin until 3-4 hrs after the last meal. And you said earlier that fat burn occurs after 16 hrs fasted? is that 16 hrs after the last meal or 16 hrs in the fasted state which would be 20 hrs after the last meal?

The metabolisms switching to the fat stream mainly depends on the kind of training (or simply activity) you are having. Let's present the the energy pathways :-)

The nutrients you eat get converted to ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), the breakdown of these last allow muscles cells to contract, however, every nutrient has unique properties that will determine the way it will be converted to ATP.

CHO are used for moderate to high-intensity exercises, while fat can fuel low intensity exercises (for a longer period of time). Proteins are practically never used for powering up a muscle activity.

During an exercice, the ATP is continually created, since the storage of ATP is not that easy (the stored ATP gets used in few seconds).
We have several ways in order to convert nutrients to energy :
- Aerobic metabolism
That metabolism provides most of the energy for long duration activites, that stream uses oxygen to convert nutrients to ATP, that pathway is slower than the other ones since it depends on the circulatory system to transport oxygen to your muscles before the creation of the adenosine triphosphate. That metabo. is used for endurance exercices

- ATCP anaerobic (phosphate system)
10 seconds worth of energy in that stream, mainly used for bursting exercices (sprint) that stream doesn't require oxygen to create ATP, is first used the ATP stored in muscles (3 seconds worth tops) then creatine phosphate is created (CP) for ATP sythesis until we exhaust one another time the ATP (8 seconds), when that stream is over (meaning not any more energy can get obtained from it), the body either moves to the aerobic or anaerobic streams for providing the ATP

- Anaerobic (glycolysis)
Here, ATP is mainly created from CHO, the lactic acid being a by-product, that pathway provides energy by breaking-down glucose, without oxygen, used for high-intensity bursts, (no more than a couple of minutes) before reaching the famous lactate threshold (lactic acid build-up)

As soon as you have a type of activity, the body chooses the adequate pathway, in out case, the aerobic one :-)
You don't burn the energy you just ate, since time is required before even using it, as you dont use purely one nutrient over one another. the last stream uses both fats and cho to create ATP.
That is what happens every time you have an activity.
Why would happen after hours of fasting regarding our aerobic stream ? :-)