Summer Travelers: Gain Muscle While Staying Lean, Part 2

In the last installment, we talked about how to train during the summer if you want to pack on maximum muscle and minimum fat. Now lets look at nutrition. Everyone knows that nutrition is really the deciding factor in how you look.

So what kind of diet do you follow during the summer? One that involves carb cycling. Carb cycling is something I’ve only briefly mentioned in previous posts.

What is Carb Cycling?

Carb cycling is basically alternating between days of high calorie and low calorie days. Most bodybuilders use this method to help them drop fat. They go on low carb diets for a few days, then throw in a high carb day to shock their bodies and to maintain some level of sanity.

Low carb dieting is very difficult, and is not sustainable for long term. In fact, it is actually very dangerous to consume low or 0 carbs for an extended period of time.

That is why I am against highly restrictive diets. But for a short period of time, lets say 12 weeks, you can use carb cycling to build lean muscle and drop fat.

Getting Started

Since we’re focusing more on muscle gain, your high carb days must match or equal those of the low carb days. So for example, you can go high carb for 3 days, followed by 2 days of low carbs.

Your training should match this cycle, as should your social interactions.

With regards to training, do the harder stuff on your high carb days, and the easier stuff on your low carb days. Steady state cardio for fat burning is best done on your low carb days.

High carb days should be devoted to intense strength training and metabolic circuits. Don’t do metabolic circuits on low carb days. Trust me. You will hurt yourself, or at best faint and be embarrassed in front of your friends.

In terms of social interactions, you can schedule your cheat meal during your high carb days. But this does not give you the permission to binge for 3 days! That’s a stupid diet.

Sample Programs

I feel uncomfortable providing sample meal plans or nutritional programs because I don’t consider myself an expert in nutrition. Also, nutrition is a much more personal thing than training.

So I’ll just point in the right direction.

There are two programs I want you to be aware of. The first is the recently released Xtreme Fat Loss Diet, developed by Joel Marion. Joel Marion is the guy who started telling people to cheat on their diets.

He’s created a great fat loss program that involves eating cheat meals once every 5 days. You can use his 25 day program right before your mass gain cycle, and right after your mass gain cycle to help you drop maximum fat fast

Click here to grab your copy of the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet.

The second program is Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto. I’m sure you’ve heard about this program. Tom Venuto’s eBook is literally the “Bible” of nutrition.

It gives you tips on how to practically change your diet for long term results. In addition to Burn the Fat, Tom Venuto has also written an eBook titled “The Holy Grail Body Transformation Program,” which shows you how to manipulate your diet and training to build muscle and lose fat at the same time.

He will be releasing this program next week. So watch out for that.

Click here to learn more about Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

comments