Most of my advice is for the average person trying to lose some body fat and be healthy. Yes on paper I can cut carbs and never eat rice again and take it really extreme and be miserable. Even pro bodybuilders and fitness models and pro athletes don’t maintain these extreme diets. I got to 5% body fat and it was miserable. I’m saying make your diet sustainable and eat healthy but make some small adjustments instead of going extreme and be in a huge caloric deficit and cut all carbs and hate your meals. That’s just not realistic. What works on paper isn’t always what works best in life as we have to consider the human nature factor.
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@Andrew0409: personally I eat very few carbs, but I don’t get obsessive about it - if I want to pig out on pizza or burgers or curry-with-rice (I do occasionally get the urge) then I just do it. I’m not big on self-denial 
However, I’ve been doing “low carb” so long I don’t even have to try. You just get used to it. But I don’t look at every plate and think oooooh I can’t eat that bit, it’s got 8.9 grams of carbs in it. I agree that there’s no need to get extreme about it, simply because of the usual law of diminishing returns. I can get the results I want by eating more-or-less what everyone else eats. Going down to 20, 25g total carbs per day would just be a huge pain in the ass.
I do about an hour in the gym four days a week. Very heavy, low reps, to failure (typically 8+ sets). I used to do interval training at up to 95%maxHR - I had to stop because of joint discomfort. I never feel low on energy because I eat plenty of fat; on the rare occasions I eat a carb-heavy meal, I “crash” badly; I feel bloated and I want to sleep.
My advice above was intended to correct a common mistake (implicit in robrdis’s post). It’s this: people think “low carb” means “high protein”. It doesn’t. Or it shouldn’t. If you’re bodybuilding, fine, eat a bit more protein, but don’t force your body to use protein as an energy source. The problem is that people are so obsessed with eating less fat - which makes some sense in the context of an ultra-high-carb US-style diet - that they end up eating nothing but lean meat when they try low-carb for weightloss. That’s guaranteed to make you feel awful, because you’re basically starving to death. There’s nothing in lean meat that your body can use for energy.
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I’ve created a new plan, it’s called
“the have no self control, eat way to much (4000 kcal,), reduce the calories the next day (1000 kcal), train 3 hours of open mat Jiu-Jitsu in those two days and walk more than 10 miles in those 2 days plan”.
It’s funny, I need to stop doing that, but I am losing weight still. Haha, i guess it’s akin to intermittent fasting. 
I’ve been on a beer diet. Meal replacement at lunch. A couple of beers after work (see pic), which is enough cause I’m starving by then, eat a light dinner with a smile on my face. Still losing weight. 
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It sounds like you found a healthy everyday diet that is sustainable with enough carbs. I think one mistake is when people tell me they are on a low carb or high protein diet. Most of the time they can’t tell me what that even means, does for them or the amount of carbs or protein they are getting. Or even how much or how little is consider low carb or high protein. We get too caught up in these things.
I also found that many people who go on diets or try to eat “healthy” end up using a lot of stimulants for energy. It just shows me they might not be getting enough nutrients and carbs and even fats for energy. And it can be a vicious cycle as a lot of caffeine can mess with your adrenal glands and mess with sleeping patterns. One thing I ask is how much coffee or caffeinated drinks do people drink a day and it’s shocking how much people drink. Me, might have 1-2 caffeinated drinks a week. And rarely for energy. And I easily work out 1-2 hours a day with a busy schedule noted I do spend many work hours at the gym. But still, I’m on my feet most of the day and still don’t need coffee to function vs somewho is sitting on day and eats awful.
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You are funny
I call my plan, “Controlled destruction” 
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Hi Andrew,
May I please ask you a question? Can your body go in and out of Ketosis? I only ask because I have been doing 2 hours of open mat a day 7 days a week, on top of walking 6-8 miles a day. I eat 2500 calories per day, but I feel really good, then rundown, then really good, and so on. Can it be the “ketosis flu”?
I have no idea for your question. I keep it simple, not a fan of ketosis diets. I feed my body what it needs, I’m not perfect so any diet that requires me to follow something strictly won’t work. I know what I can get away with and I’m not afraid of eating a big meal full of calories and fat if it’s a good meal. It’s only when I am competing or trying get into crazy shape for whatever reason that I am more strict with dieting. I keep my body about 1-2 months away from my goals at all times instead of having a Hollywood body or competition shape all year around. It’s almost impossible unless you’re a pro athlete or like a fitness body actor or something.
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Couldn’t you take a day off and find out? I mean even with a single day you could very possibly have your answer. Maybe intermingled rest days would also be good for injury and burnout prevention down the road.
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I second the idea of rest days.
I thought I was unstoppable about 2 months ago when I was in the best shape ever while on the bike. I schedule a back to back high intensity and difficult rides and ended up injured for a month.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t recovering correctly after rides and could’ve prepped better by having a solid warm up.
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I can probably give a few pointers.
Firstly, ‘ketosis’ is not an either-or thing. Various bits of your body will be burning different fuels at any given time. A positive ketone test simply means that you’re using a lot more ketones than glucose, and in fact it’s not necessary to be continually in ketosis to lose weight (if that’s your aim). You only need to remain like that for a couple of weeks to get your body ‘used to’ the idea of fat burning. I have no idea why this works, and AFAIK nobody else does either, but it does work. You feel a bit weird the first 3-4 days (‘ketosis flu’ feels nothing like flu - you’re just a bit lightheaded is all).
My experience is that, if I eat a load of carbs - a big rice or pasta meal, say - I feel very lethargic for a few hours. After that, I’m back to normal. I assume that I’ve “dropped out of” ketosis but never bother to do an extreme low-carb cycle; I just continue eating normally again (normal for me, that is).
As someone else hinted, you’re more than likely just overtraining. I do very hard workouts on low-carb and don’t feel any energy dip at all, ever. That is, in fact, one of the incredible advantages of low-carb - if you do it right, you have access to a far greater reserve of energy than glycogen, with similar metabolic efficiency.
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A good diet and exercises. But, sometimes the stress makes you to gain weight. Sleep deprivation is he worst. When I quit a job about 2 years ago, I didn’t go to gym. I was drinking water, eating potatoes, carrots and yorgut daily. I would walk in the park in the evening. Sometimes, I would skip a meal. When I was hungry, I would sleep. I swear I lost 10kg in 2 months.
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Watch the sugar content of so-called “health foods”
Some thoughts after losing 7 kilos and keeping it off now for about two months.
It’s harder than I previously imagined keeping weight off that you lost. I’m still eating a very small lunch during the week and I’m starving by the time dinner rolls around. I’ve been good about keeping away from sugar, but surprisingly, I still love my chocolate and all varieties thereof- I just force myself to stay away for the most part. People talk about how things you loved previously end up tasting too sweet, etc. That’s total BS- at least it has been for me.
I think if I wanted to lose more, I would have to make a big change, such as no booze for a while, having my small meal at dinner instead of lunch, keeping things going over the weekend, and maybe some other things. I eat normally over the weekend, but this has been fine since I workout hard every Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine.
Final thought: I’m convinced that front-loading calories as discussed in the above article is a very smart way to approach weight loss. It’s an additional tool, in my opinion, and shouldn’t be relied upon for your whole approach, but people who dismiss the idea are wrong.
marasan, if you’re starving it’s because you’re simply not eating enough. You can’t possibly go through life feeling hungry. Eat more. Just don’t eat things that make you fat. If you’re still working out, load up your plate with meat, eggs, and vegetables. You’ll feel a whole lot better and you’ll keep gaining. I’m putting on muscle mass while losing fat at the same time, which I was always told was impossible. Most days I have an enormous evening meal - one of the more expensive huo guo offerings, or one of the all-you-can-eat Japanese-style BBQs.
Eating small meals is absolutely guaranteed to result in failure. You’re craving sugar because your body is being slowly starved to death. It’s trying to keep you alive in the only way it knows how.
You don’t describe what “eating normally” means, but again, if it involves lots of starches, it’ll stop your weightloss dead. Most people hang onto the idea of a “normal” diet as being overloaded with bread, rice, potatoes and the like. There’s nothing wrong with these things in moderation, but the USDA definition of “normal” - which everyone has got used to - is absolutely outrageous.
The “front loading” thing really works for me. It does take some getting used to, but you’ll soon start to look forward to it. I have a huge breakfast with plenty of grease: eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes fried in butter, plus a bowl of salad on the side and a portion of yoghurt with fruit. Sometimes a bit of muesli. I then have a very small lunch, eg., a quesadilla with a bowl of guacamole, salsa, and more yoghurt (=sour cream), or a smallish bian dang with just meat and veg - no rice. Obviously, you’ll want to pick different things to suit your tastes. Point is, there’s no need to deprive yourself.
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This is such a lie thats passed down over and over again. A lot of it is people who go on these dirty bulks thinking thats the only way to gain muscle. I would say this is the best way to shed body fat. Slowly gain some muscle eating enough proteins and nutrients while working out. Purely trying to lose body fat often causes muscle mass loss from being in a catabolic state because people who cut calories are often also cutting important nutrients like protein, vitamines, etc.
Exactly. I feel awfully sorry for those fat guys in the gym: they’re trying hard, but I bet they’re getting garbage advice on diet.
I’ll definitely give a change a try. Hell, if I see the scale tipping upward again I can always go back to what I’m doing now. A couple of questions.
a) Let’s say I go to my favorite Japanese restaurant at work and get one of the ding-shr meals. Stir-fried beef, salad, miso soup, vegetables, one of those egg things (in the little cup with surprises mixed in), and rice. So how would you handle that meal? Basically, ditch the bowl of rice?
b) Can you direct me to an article? I think I get basic idea of lots of fats and low carbs, but I want to learn more.
Thanks.
Peter Attia seems to have stopped updating his blog, but there’s some good articles there. He’s a pro-level cyclist as well as a doctor, so he does practice what he preaches:
I’d also recommend “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance”, Phinney and Volek. It’s only $6 or something from Amazon. Like Attia, these guys are medical researchers and fitness nuts. They know what they’re talking about. If you read nothing else about dieting, read that book. It’s good stuff.
Worked for me 
I used to do exactly that. They’re usually happy enough to just not serve the rice. I don’t buy them so much these days because (a) they’re a bit on the small side and (b) the only one near to me closed down.
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