Muscle Loss-- considering Metabolic Diet

I looked up some information on the web about the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet. It is similar to the diet you mention, Kstubble. And although carb loading sounds like lots of fun, it appears that it requires quite a bit of food micro-managing and self-control.

I'm really enjoying reading all the feedback on this topic, as I was getting totally discouraged and was almost ready to give up weight-training altogether. You all are re-affirming, for me, that anything is possible and I just need to find the winning combination for myself to get there.

I forgot to mention that if you choose to carb cycle, you might benefit from doing the higher carb-loading on days that you DO exercise so you burn the carbs instead of really "load" them on. KWIM?

Sararay, I think I understand. Although, I thought that the objective was to load the muscles' glycogen stores, so that I have them during the week of low-carbing and exercising. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

What you're describing is a Targeted Ketogenic Diet, which is basically just carb cycling. They're talking about a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet, where you completely deplete your muscle glycogen through weight training, and at the end of the cycle have a carb-up which supercompensates the glycogen levels in your body, but is short enough to keep your body in a state of ketosis.

It absolutely does. It definitely made my weight training awesome, but like I said, planning to all 3 macros was difficult at times & it got a little old. If I ever did it again, it would probably be once I reach maintenance & want to make a focused effort on building muscle.

sbutler1, Question: How does one know when the muscles are completely depleted and when/how much to "carb-up". I'm going to do some more research on that. Have you tried this method? Any good results from it?

Kstubblefield, I'm going to see it if will work for me. I'm at a stand-still with gaining muscle, which is paramount to me as muscle burns fat. If it becomes too much of a hassle, I can always try another avenue.

Just an update...after a weekend of questionable eating due to indecision about which road to take, I've decided today to pursue the Targeted Ketogenic Diet. I suppose I should eat just enough calories in carbs as I plan on working off. I will eat this about 1 hour before my workout then resume a low-carb diet. I really hope this works. I will update yall on the progress!