Hi again!
I haven't read Lyle's book, yet...... but I've read excerpts, I haunt his board.... I really like what he has to say. Can't wait to get my paws on his book.
Goooooooood, you weight train. Then you should give CKD a try..... you need to get 25 posts here so that you can enable your private messaging; then I can send you some really good links. In the meantime...... to try to answer your questions:
1 & 2: As far as ratios go, they'd be the same for males and females....... Day 1 of the Carb Up is 70%carb/15%fat/15%prot. Day 2 is 60/20/20. Supposed to do high GI carbs day 1, and taper it to lower GI by end of day 2. The difference between males and females, is the total amount of calories.....usually suggested to be 1.5 times your maintenance. Some stuff I'm reading now suggests that females, especially lighter ones such as yourself, might benefit from a 1 day carb up vs a 2, and/or just doing hi GI the first half of the day, low GI the second. It's REALLY important to keep your fat low during carb up! I think males can get away with higher fat, but I bet we can't. You need to experiment and see what works for you. right now, I'm thinking of keeping the 2 day carb ups (for leptin increase), but being religious about keeping the second day low GI.
I would go with the higher calories........the point is to really dump it on your system. I was reading today about the issue of "spillover", and Lyle himself said that it'd take 4 or 5 days of eating excessively high carb to get an appreciable spillover. Anyway, if you think about the math, as he also points out, it will be really difficult to eat 3500 calories above your maintenance plus activity for the day, in one carb up.
I'm still playing around with the carb up issue, too.
3. Fruit/fructose. I have seen alot of misunderstandings here. You need to restore liver glycogen first, to kick yourself out of ketosis..... to prime your muscles to use up any remaining glycogen during your depletion workout, so you can supercompensate them during the following carb load. So it's actually 50g of FRUCTOSE, not fruit, that you should eat, 2 hours prior to depletion workout. That's a butt-load of fruit. I haven't managed to hit 50g yet,
Today was 1 banana, 1 orange, and a pound of grapes. I have a download from USDA that lists fructose content of fruit, if you want it.
Incidentally, that's why you should avoid fruit during the carb up.....once the liver is full, you could spill over to fat if you consume too much fructose. Theoretically,
4. The point of a CKD is to lose fat, while preserving muscle. It's not going to help you build an appreciable amount of muscle. However, to preserve it, and get in some good lifting, you need to get supercompensation of muscle glycogen. So, you need to fully deplete it, and then load up the carb. So it's really key that your carb up begin immediately following your depletion. If you need to move your depletion workout around, you can.....I've read many variatons of it. But it's CRUCIAL to chug down protein and dextrose immediately post depletion, and then 50-80g C ASAP, and even better to eat carbs every 2 hours or so. At least the first day. You say you don't like protein powder, but it's really the fastest way to get protein to your muscles. However, I've read some guys on the CKD board that used egg whites instead, with success.
5. supplements..... I talked a bit about this already, but alot of the people on CKD also use a caffeine/ephedrine/aspirin stack. I don't, as I'm still breastfeeding my baby.....I'm not too keen on that stuff. Coffee is as far as I'll go.
Cardio........ the only early morning cardio, empty stomach if possible, that you "need" to do, is the first morning after you're done with your carb up, to help you get into ketosis. This should be 30-45min of slow easy cardio. I usually do this, and then later in the afternoon, a walk with the family. I'm usually in ketosis by Mon. Cardio during the week is optional, but I've read women need to do extra.....at least 3 days, if not 5. Wah. This can be 20-30minutes, however you like. I try to stick some HIIT inthere, if possible. You can fit the cardio in wherever you want, but I agree with others that immediately before lifting is a bad idea, as you want to save your energy for getting the most out of your 2 workouts!
Lyle's traditional CKD workout plan is lower body on Mon., upper on Tues, then full body depletion on Fri. alot of the hard core guys I talk to do their usual 4 or 5 or 6 day routine, and no depletion. I'm considering going back to my 4 day split, and using HIIT on Friday for final depletion.......not sure yet.
Um, ok, I'm done for now. Got some pasta calling me,