So I've been very dedicated, about 1.5 years lifting now I haven't really been keeping up with top nutritional info and I know you guys are on top of all the latest science so I figured I would lay out what I've been doing to see if you guys notice any ways I can optimize.

I've been doing the 5x5 for a while, making good gains all that jazz, I've been in France for the last 4 months so the jump to KG was a little weird I'll mark my PRs when I come back in lbs but if I had to guess something like:

BW: 185
Squat:325
DL:435
Bench:205
Row:195

My diet consists of tuna, frozen hamburgers, eggs, sausage, turkey/chicken, the occasional steak, and fruits and veggies. I eat probably on average 9 whole eggs a day, 2 hamburgers, and a can of tuna for protein with other food scattered throughout of course, I would guess somewhere around 250g protein/day. Eat about every 3 hours if not more frequent. I get a decent amount of fruits and veggies probably not enough but I can deal with slacking on those for a few months until I get back to the States and everything is twice as cheap.

For carbs, I usually will have pasta, white rice, baguette (I can't say no I live in France!), but I always aim to keep the portions relatively small in comparison with the protein, my roommate cooks a lot and he is chunky and cooks a lot of pasta and rice so I can't decline. What I definitely DO do is focus the carbs in the morning, and pre and post workout. I have experimented with doing some lowish carb cycles for a couple weeks but I didn't notice a huge difference in body composition, I'm naturally lean and carbs don't seem to give me too much trouble.

I'm not necessarily trying to "bulk" or "cut", don't really believe in those but I try and eat pretty clean, high protein, lowish carb with the carbs at good times. For fats I use a lot of olive oil and eat nuts occasionally, but not a huge fan of the taste so mostly animal fat and olive oil. I don't have any protein powder or fish oil tablets here, didn't have room in my suitcase to bring and they are quite expensive here, and I figured I could go without for a few months. I'm going back to the States in less than 2 weeks.

So any comments etc? I will probably upload some pics in the next week or two.

The carb timing isn't actually important. It is a little better to place it around the workout but for someone not on a restrictive diet it is insignificant

Personally it sounds fine to me as long as you are getting some fruits and veggies and fish oil.

I think that you should definitely eat your carbs. There's nothing nutritious about bagels or pasta but they provide lots of tasty carbs and if you aren't getting too fat from them I don't see any problem. Have you discovered sweetpotatoes?

Your diet is decent but I would think about replacing some of your lean meat with some good saturated animal fat from steak. Your protein consumption is almost definitely too high to be efficient. For now, your pasta/rice intake is not hurting you because your fat cells are not that sensitive to insulin. This could change in the future.

What are you doing in France? Semester abroad? No alcohol in France? The wine is cheaper than the water. At least it was for me in Paris.

that's true that you probably don't need that much protein unless you are using special "supplementation"

Really? Seems to contradict this article

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=811783

which illustrates a fairly non-restrictive diet. I figure why not, as long as I try to eat my carbs early its not too difficult.

Yeah taking a semester abroad in Montpellier, been an absolute blast, just taking some French language classes. And yes wine (especially champagne!) is so much cheaper than beer, and slightly cheaper than water . Also yeah so I do drink, not as much to excess as one would expect but a couple nights a week a couple drinks with the occasional hard night. Rest of the time I drink water, I can't seem to stomach the French milk.

J'ai pas su que tu parles francais! C'est trop tard de parler avec toi a RPI mais comment es la vie?

That article is really wrong, and I read it when I started lifting and trying to maximize gains via nutrition, and even though the principles of carb cycling can be potentially useful, the article is based on a ton of false information. A lot of the tnation principles that are repeated over and over are not backed up by anything and in some cases are just complete lies.

There are absolutely benefits to keeping carbs around your workout, but under normal training conditions they are far overstated. The same is true for eating carbs before bed. It doesn't make you store fat. Or macronutrient partitioning being better for controlling insulin levels and fat storage and allowing for increased calories- this one is complete bull****.

Some of the more relevant issues for the average trainee for carb intake are:

(1) carbohydrate intake from a well balanced meal 1-2 hours preworkout is very good for a number of reasons. And sipping on fast acting carbs pre and peri-workout can also be good, although combining them with protein is basically just stupid. (buy more surge!)

(2) carbohydrate intake after a fasted state (waking) refills liver glycogen, which is responsible for blood glucose elevation and makes you much stronger. The liver holds around 50g of carbohydrates with some variation, and can hold up to 100g when glycogen supercompensation occurs.

(3) carbohydrate intake post workout, combined with the obvious protein intake, is also good. But adding fat probably doesn't actually do anything bad. And for MOST trainee's, on the average training protocol, recommendations such as "have one gram of fast acting CHO per pound of lean body mass" are absolutely outrageous. In fact, for most trainees, there is probably no anabolic advantage at all to spiking the insulin excessively with a large post workout shake.

There are a lot of articles and books that detail this stuff. I'm partial to Lyle Mcdonald since I've been doing his plans recently. Reading these articles after following some of these t-nation protocols just makes me angry. Like, it boggles the mind. Biotest is just so FOS. Not that there isn't good information to be learned from the articles and that they don't have qualified people or some good products.

The article you linked is just the perfect example of tnation misinformation and is likely one of the single most misleading and factually incorrect articles ever posted on that site. The fact that they so frequently ignore the nature of ones training and just advise certain protocols is rooted in the nature of the business. Surge PWO shake is the best selling product they have. Double dose that sucker! YEAH BUDDY!

Heres an article from the journal of physiology on post exercise carb consumption. They had subjects take a 100g carb vs a 0 cal placebo shake an hour after 10 sets of leg presses.

Here are the highlights

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/96/2/674

Greeksquared -

Is whey protein a good pwo source of amino acids?

(We get amino acids from protein right? I'm a nutrition noob.)

Heres an article on postexercise protein consumption

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/96/3/951

I haven't looked at protein supplements and think they could be fairly useless. Meat has all the essential amino acids you need, though it probably won't hurt to supplement a little.

It's pretty important to note that the above study is about the effect on protein synthesis- not recovery. I'm sure there are some other considerations as well.

Also, the first statement is silly because net protein balance is always negative following intensive exercise. What's more relevant is the effect on protein synthesis over the next day or longer. And on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

This is also just relevant to the immediate post-workout period. We're talking about the benefits of slamming a high GI protein shake. And without going into much more detail, providing amino acids and carbohydrates for replenishing glycogen stores and a variety of other functions including recovery and hormonal response IS beneficial.

Anyway this is kind of derailing the thread a bit. The point I was trying to make is is that partitioning your carb intake is basically irrelevant as long as you are taking in an appropriate amount throughout the day and the minimal amount PWO necessary to replenish glycogen stores. If you are lifting with really high volume, this is going to mean a lot more.

Unless you actually prefer some other way, it is advisable to just have carbs with all of your meals, and either way you aren't really going to make a difference in your training or results (unless you do something ridiculous like have all of your carbs in one meal or train without having any carbs after waking)

Not sure about other people but the reason I use whey is convenience. A lot faster and easier to mix up some whey + milk than cook a piece of meat.

Shakes are superior to whole foods for PWO for a variety of reasons. Not the least being convenience.

I found a study that attempted to look at all the research to date on nutritional supplements. This is what they concluded. Its an easy article to read so you may want to check it out.

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/94/2/651

Heh, I never encountered French milk and I'm glad for it.

I don't speak French though. German and English is all I'm capable of.

@ Actionjeff et al

Interesting stuff. There has been a disproportionately large amount of misinformation in the bodybuilding world, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's tough to just give up what I assumed to be true, T-nation one of many sites that endorses timing carbs, but I will probably end up deferring to you guys.

Next assumption I have ready to be debunked - Mixing fats and carbs, specifically simple carbs. I love sausage, but I'm aware it's very fatty so I try to separate it from the times I splurge on a baguette or some rice. The science they present seems sound, boosting insulin putting our bodies into storage mode, whether that be protein or fat. Is there anything wrong with this theory?

@ Scary

Oh OK. Funny, I haven't been to Paris yet! If I go it will be this next weekend but there is a distinct possibility that I do not make it to Paris after living in France for 4 months. I don't regret it, but it's pretty ridiculous when Paris=France for most people. I asked how was life, I haven't talked to you in a long time.

Or rather I should say France=Paris, a bit rusty on my logic operators...

yeah, a ton.

It pretty much assumes that insulin is the only hormone relevant for fat storage and demonstrates a misunderstanding of digestion. This is along the same lines that absolutely you have to massively spike insulin levels with a high GI P+C shake PWO for anabolism. And it comes from the SAME guys who recommend massively megadosing BCAAS- which are highly insulinogenic. I've heard some argue, well that's OK because it's in between meals- lol. As though the food from several meals prior isn't still digesting. But those guys aren't getting fatter or showing bad results on that protocol either. Because the insulin spiking just isn't that important.

Rather than run down the issues, I think this thread covers a lot:

http://forums.lylemcdonald.com/showthread.php?t=1585

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...a-calorie.html

I assume your reading on this was Berardi. He hasn't actually written about this theory for a long time because he figured out that it was wrong and got a LOT of flack for it.

I've heard that he now describes it as being a function of having enough carbs pre workout and a postworkout shake- which combined with breakfast are probably the most crucial times to have carbs. Which is fine, but also isn't what he originally said.

I've also heard that despite this, he will immediately start spewing P+C and F+P partitioning crap to new clients looking for nutrition consultation, which IMO is intellectually dishonest to say the least.

Hah yeah, the rest of France to me was just a train ride through starting in Zurich. Life is good, the whole health and fitness thing is going much better without worrying about not graduating or having 5+ drinks 4+ nights a week.

Interesting, interesting stuff.
You recommend the body recomposition site/forum?

Last urban myth to be debunked - the intra week carb cycling, ie having higher calorie, specifically carb, days on my workout days. I'm pretty sure this is just common sense, but I have the feeling you are going to say that you are building muscle constantly, not just the days you work out, so it's not worth complicating things.

nope, I think carb cycling is a pretty solid approach =)

although having a low day before or after a big workout could be problematic.

it's a good forum, even though it's mostly Lyle explaining his books and berating people trying to modify his diet programs. It's also pretty small.

I think the articles are great though, really informative.