Eat Up!

Hey Shaun,
What are your thoughts on Kiefer's carb backloading plan for an MMA/submission wrestling competitor? Seems like the results (more muscle mass at the same weight) are a fighters dream.
Thanks.

I am actually a fan.

To me, post workout is the perfect time to get the carbs that you need to recover, but minimize fat gain. I use a very similar diet myself, and now feel that I train much better this way. I'm not bloated or tired at training time, but rather just the opposite. I feel that the post workout carbs also supply plenty of glycogen for the following day's training. This enables me to go low-carb, but not sacrifice the losses in strength and energy. Any modifications can be made from one individual to the next. I like to focus on highly nutritious foods through the day. My concern isn't so much macronutrients, but micronutrients. I eat a ton of veggies, healthy fats and some lean protein throughout the day, but I'm able to pound carbs after training.

I ate this way after a long lay-off from an injury. I lost 20 pounds in about five weeks before the fight, and was in awesome shape. I had tons of strength and energy. I was training very hard, so I had no problem ingesting up to 200 grams of carbs in my post workout time frame. Weight was dropping so fast that sometimes I had to eat really high calorie, cheat-type foods post workout. Nothing crazy, but a big ol' plate of spaghetti with meat sauce and some garlic bread was not out of the ordinary. That being said, everybody is different, so you may not want to go that high. I found that with really intense training, I could almost eat anything for my post workout meal and still lose bodyfat. I kept the rest of the day really low carb, but lots of healthy veggies. Ideally, I try to stay sort of paleo, or at least gluten-free, even in my carb backload portion. However, when I have a fight coming up and I'm training extra hard, sometimes I just have to double down. Ha! Also, if I am training twice a day, I may follow the first workout with 100 grams of carbs, and the second with another 100 or more. I prefer to have the larger carb meal the second time around if I need it, so that my second training session I don't feel like a lethargic piece of crap.

Go for it! I hope this helps. I think that this concept, with the right foods, is one of the best for fighters and combatants.