FT Questions....

[Altamir]

VERY good question, yet again.

First thought is that some of what you're experiencing just reflects your need to cruise, as well as being in the depths of dieting. Training just gets tougher and you can tend to find that glycogen levels progressively decline.

Second thought is that there are many guys who do much better with a pre-workout carb containing meal. This can just be b/c it pulls them out of ketosis (which you may be in after a no-carb day previous after this period of time and dieting for this long) and that it helps will the pump/ fullness and thus how well they connect with the muscles training initially (which sets up a psychological state).

What you do during the IC depends on you, and your goals. It sounds to me like I might make the IC a change to *at least* eat at maintenance (~15kcal / lb) and set yourself up metabolically for further fat loss during the next Blast.

Recall that the purpose of the Blast when trying to grow is your main goal would be to create a taper / rebound effect, so you should be eating at least as much as during the Blast and this may mean using a training day diet on non-training days (since your training frequency will be less during the IC). To harness the effect of slightly overreaching, you want to kcal to be there to support the muscle growth. What you're describing sounds exactly like a case where you could grow really well from simply eating more overall, as well as including a mixed macro meal (if that keeps blood sugar stable for you) pre-workout.

-S

Thanks as always for the response Scott. Not trying to cut right now. Need to wait my turn . My wife is cutting now and we have a very strict "No two people cutting at the same time" rule as to keep the peace and sanity.

What you said at the end really struck a cord with me. After the last blast, I stuck to the non-training day diet on non-training days and the training day diet on training days and it worked fine. This time, going with the non-training diet days, two days after training, I am REALLY hungry, I can feel my blood sugar dipping. Not sure what the difference is, besides obviously having more muscle! So I'll just bump up the calories a bit and see if that makes it go better. If not I'll start with the mixed macro meal. I'll follow John Meadow's advice on that, as it seems very sound.

Thank you once again!!