Under-Carb or Spill?
 

I have a quick question. Is it better to under-carb or is it better to spill? I'm always paranoid about spilling when i'm carbing up. My carb ups usually last from friday night-saturday night. Sunday i'm back to my CKD.

My stats are 5'8" 170.6 ~ about 13%. Now i'm not sure if i have to worry about declining leptin levels just yet, so i doubt that i have to overcompensate on my carb-ups. Some people have been telling me however that i should start carbing up and spilling, to increase leptin levels, i don't really know. Any advice?

I say don't spill should be the major goal, but at least carb enough to be able to work through the next cycle, otherwise raise the carbs.

my .02
 

With such a short carb-up, I doubt you have to worry about spill ... assuming you eat EVERY 2 hours (including thru the nite)

If you are not eating thru the night, I have serious doubts that you will spill.

Gotcha,

Another quick question. When i get to lower bodyfat levels and leptin becomes an issue, what would be better in terms of carb ups, bi-weekly, or extend the weekly carb up until sunday night?

-Ah, finally, someone bringing the 'leptin issue' to life on this board. Personally, I think a 24 hour carb-load would be enough to reset leptin levels enough for the following week. Carb-loads (or 'refeeds') that are performed more frequently- do not need to be as 'extreme' as a typical carb-load. In case you haven't already looked into this web-page... do so. It has a lot of good info. regarding leptin: http://www.theministryoffitness.com...s/article18.htm

Thanks for that article Zeus. I don't have time to read it, but i just skimmed through it and saw that the author recommends eating 130% of your AMR (I'm assuming its AMR, since BMR is useless in active individuals).

Correct me if i'm wrong, i'm no expert in leptin by far, but to raise leptin levels you essentially need to over-eat. You need to saturate your muscle/liver glycogen and then let the extra cals to spill over to the adipocytes to raise leptin. So in essence i should just stick to the 24 hour re-feed, but stuff my face as much as possible? Because i would probably need somewhere around 500g of carbs and 300g of protein to "over-feed" myself and attempt to raise leptin levels, thats a lot of food (for me atleast).

Thanks for the advice.

-Your assumption is correct.



-Yes, you do need to over-feed hence a 'carb-load' (which, raises leptin very nicely). As for stuffing your face- I don't see why you shouldn't. When I have my 24 hour carb load... I stuff my face. The only 'catch' is that you have to keep fat intake low. Which means- no pizza, donuts, etc. ...however, I think you could get away with SOME fat during the carb-load... just don't go over-board. The reason being is that fat does not do anything special to leptin (like raising it) therefore over consumption of it will just be harmful (in terms of 'spill-over').

stuff my face, gotcha :D

P.S. That article was great, it answered a few lingering questions that i had about leptin. Thanks.