Hello all,

I stumbled on CKD about a week ago when reading about refeeds and have decided to do it. Problem is, there've been a lot of discrepancies in all of the articles I've read on the subject so I'm a little confused. If anyone would help me out, I would be very, very grateful

1. First of all, I'm a female, so I assume the amount of carb and fat will be slightly different? How much different would it be? Any females out there have a regular formula you use for carbloading?

2. I'm doing only a 24hr carbup, and all of the calculators out there only do 2 day carbups, so what would be a good formula to follow? An average of the two days? However, when I use a standard CKD equation, I get around 2000 calories (barely maintainance) but when I use the one by the Ministry of Fitness, I get anywhere from 2200 - 2400. Would it be better to spill over or to restrict a little to be safe?

3. Some people say not to eat any fruit ever, but others like Lyle say to eat 50g of carbs from fruit (that's quite a lot of fruit... is this amount right?) before doing the depletion workout. Could somebody clear this up?

4. My plan currently runs something like this:

Saturday morning: cardio
night: depletion, then normal lowcarb meal

All day Sunday: carbup

Note that I don't have an immediate carbup after my depletion... is this detrimental to fat loss? I'm not really looking to build muscle, so I'm not concerned about that.

5. Is it possible to only take zinc and ALA as the supplements, or do I have to take fatburners and a bunch of other stuff? I really don't have the money to buy a lot of supps, and would rather not take fatburners...

Again, will be very grateful for any help! Thanks!

Hi Alyn!

I'm currently in my 4th week of a CKD, and BOY let me tell you...I had ALL your questions, and then some!! I found the "answers" to them all, and am still working the program. I am happy to help you, but first.......are you doing weight lifting? This is a program designed to lose fat while preserving muscle, and weight training is a MUST. Otherwise, if you're doing cardio only, I'd suggest what some call "carb cycling". The whole point of CKD is to deplete your muscles of glycogen, and weight training is the way to do this.

If you are doing weight training, and want to do the CKD, then I'd suggest starting a journal or gym log, and come visit me in mine, and therefore I can fill your head with all this wonderful info,

BTW....... from everything I've read, the consensus on supplements seems to be protein most important (protein powders, watch the carb counts), and then creatine, glutamine, and omega 3 FA's. The rest of the stuff out there doesn't seem to be much benefit, unless you're a professional bodybuilder preparing for a contest. I just do PP and omega's, but will probably add creatine sometime soon.

Yup, I do weight training. Love the effect it has on my delts

I'm a little iffy on protein powders though... something about the unnaturalness of it all puts me off. That, and I'm allergic to dairy (it makes me gain fat and bloat) and I don't want to eat any soy. Apart from that anything is fair game.

I've read a bit of your gym logs and -wow-. I don't think I would have enough energy to do all of that... I'm getting a little better though, because I did a carbup last Sunday and I guess it kicked my metabolism up a bit. Morning cardio for me is doable but not completely practical - I still go to school so my normal wake up time is 7AM; cardio would knock it back to 6:30, and I usually go to bed at 11PM. It's not horribly bad but I'm one of those types that just doesn't function without enough sleep.

So... yeah. I'm completely willing to work, it's the eating part of the diet that gets me. My library has Lyle McDonald's The Ketogenic Diet but it's checked out right now, so I'm planning on reading it when it gets returned. Hopefully by then I won't have screwed up too much...

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,

Wow, that was a really comprehensive post.

So, just to make sure, I'm going to line out my plan:

Mon-Tues: weight train, keto

Weds-Fri: cardio, either morning or afternoon (before dinner), keto

Sat: some fruit (should I eat protein with this or no?), depletion, carbup (50-80 carb and ?? protein)

Sun: full day carbup, going from high to low GI

Avoid fructose, avoid fat.

So I should eat around 1.5x maintenance? That would be around 3000 cal for me... WOW. Does that sound right? Last week's carbup was "only" 2200 and I felt almost sick eating that many carbs, though it could have been that I was trying to be too clean and ate too much fiber.

That fructose content of fruit list would be helpful. It would be great if you could upload it 50g of fructose from fruit is a hell of a lot of fruit though, isn't it? eating that much fruit before exercising must be a real pain...

Thanks for the info by the way! I'm a lot more informed now..

Morning Alyn!

I just checked out your gym log, and will be heading back to post there. But a few things here:
Depends on when you're working out. I do my depletion in the morning, after breakfast, so as the fruit should be consumed ~2 hours before (give digestion some time, I assume), what I used to do was eat a normal keto breakfast (eggs) around 8, then some fruit (butt load of fruit) around 9, then the depletion w/o at 11. This last time, I did coffee w/cream ~7-ish, then 8-8:30 a protein shake w/fruit (even more fruit, <whew>, then the depletion at 10:45. Didn't notice a difference in the w/o, no tummy issues, so I'd say try what seems right. I'm a bit hesitant to eat a keto breakfast with all the fruit..... I am leery of the fat in the breakfast being stuffed into storage by the carbs in the fruit. So I figured, get my fat in early, give it time to get used, then have the fruit.
Now, if you're doing an afternoon depletion, then eat normal keto in the morning, have lean protein w/your fruit (fat slows digestion) 2 hours prior to depletion, then the Dep., then immediate carb load of 50-80gC and about 28-36gP (slightly larger than a normal svg of 21-28gP). THEN........ continue your carb up through the evening.........! The most supercompensation occurs in the first 6 hours (sources say after depletion, so you need fast carbs, and lots of them. This is the time for sugar (dextrose is best, but sugar is ok), white refined starches. Stay away from fiber! It is NOT your friend on high GI carb day! I made that mistake my first carb up........ felt like a bloated blowfish. Now I have no trouble getting the carbs and calories in.

Yes........ highest calories/carbs the first day. Just do the best you can, cause you need to find out how it works for you, then you can start adjusting.

Here's the section of fructose content of fruit, from USDA:
bleah........ can't copy it...it's in PDF format. I can e-mail it to you; when your private messenging is enabled here (the day after you make your 25th post), PM me your e-mail address. (anyone else who wants it....PM me) In the meantime...... here's a few common fruits and their grams of fructose (not total carbs) per 100g fruit:
Apple 7.6g
Apricot, dried 12.2g
Banana 2.7g
Blueberries 3.6g
Grapes (american) 6.9g (european) 7.6g
Oranges 2.5
Peaches 1.3
Pears 6.4g
Prunes 14.8g
Raisins 33.8g
Strawberries 2.5g

Obviously the dried fruits are concentrated sources, but since I only eat fruit (other than berries) on pre-depletion, I want nice juicy fresh stuff,

You're very welcome! I wrote all this, because when I was researching CKD, I had such a hard time sorting through all the misinformation out there........ it would have helped me so much to find it all in one spot, plus someone who was actually doing it (right), and female. I did finally find a female mentor, but not at this site. She's still helping me, too.......invaluable.

Well this sucks..... I just came across this from one of Lyle McDonald's writings:

http://low-carb.org/lylemcd/cyclic2.htm

I could have sworn I've read somewhere he said it was 50g fructose. Granted, the quote is from a 1996 paper, so maybe things have been revised. I'll post more as I find it.

lol, I'm sorry to hear that, but at least now you won't have to eat over a pound of fruit every depletion workout (or is that a bad thing? )

I had two apples, which was 48g carbs, so I think that's enough for pre-workout. I wanted to buy strawberries, but I figured that would take a LOT of strawberries to reach 50g and a flat cost $27 :-O so I decided against it. Maybe I'll try oranges next week

I am sooo happy I opened this thread up!! I have been reading through the forums here and at ~~~~~ for days now and was very confused. This kinda of cleared things up a little more for me. Can I trouble you guys and tell you what my CKD diet (or version of) will consist of and maybe you can critique it???
Well before I begin here are my stats... I am a 31 yr old female standing ~ 5'8" and 225 lbs (YUCK).
I would really love to lose fat and tone. I have the food breakdown's - down ( I think). per the calculator on ckd on my carb up days I should take in 2955 carb cals the first 24hrs and 1773 the second. On my keto days I should take in 2700 calories ( now this is based on 12cals/lb/day calculation). Isn't that high? wouldn't that just maintain the weight I am at currently? Should change the calculator to show the numbers to me on 10cals/lb/day?
My other confusion is the working out. I joined a gym about 3 weeks ago and I am proud to say I have been going everyday (only cardio workouts - because I am clueless and intimidated when it comes weight training!) Also I can only work out in the mornings..and I am more comfortable working out on an empty stomach..( i wouldn't be able to go to gym mornings AND afternoons. - I can go earlier in the morning to have more time tho... see I am not trying to make any excuses )
BUT I do want to follow this diet and excercise correctly...would this be ok for my work out scedule? :
Well being that I would like to do depletion on Sat and begin carb up on Sat it would go like this:

Monday AM; Intensed Cardio on empty stomach w/ fat burner - to get back into ketosis. Chest, Upper-Back, shoulders, arms, traps, abs - also in AM ( Isn't there something else I can take that will help me too? like flaxseed oil?)

Tuesday AM: 30 min cardio morning/ workout: Legs, (includes, calfs, hams,quads), lower-back (once I am done with cardio should I eat something for weight training?

Wednesday AM: 45 min cardio morning

Thursday AM : 45 min cardio morning

Friday AM: 45 min cardio morning

Saturday: before carb-up…early in AM do a full body circuit workout 3-5 times (very light 20-25reps), then IMMEDIATELY begin CARB-UP.

Sunday: Carb up - Lo GI NO exercise.


Does this sound ok? Can start the weight trainging on the weight machines on the gym? And when only doing upper body or lower body.. how many reps should I be doing??
Also should it be light weights? i don't really want to bulk up.

I really look forward to your replies...thanks so much.

OH one more thing...I am starting the low carb thing today Wednesday Nov. 30th so I won't start the carb up until Sat. December 10th is that right??

Sorry for the long descriptions and all of the questions.

Thanks Again!

Having a couple apples prior to your depletion workout is nice, but from what I have heard from others and based on my own experience isn't always necessary. I would not get too hung up on it.

Dee

About your weights lift what you are comfortable with, don't got too light. You're not going to get all bulky and huge, most women don't have the hormones to produce muslces like men naturally. If you feel like you are getting too "bulky" cut your weights back. But don't worry you aren't going to wake up one morning and be huge. Just remember the more muscle you build the more calories your body is burning. I wouldn't do this "toning" crap that I hear so many women talk about. They lift a light weight for tons of reps in hopes to reduce fat in that area. "Spot Reducing" is a myth, being toned is the absense of body fat. Let your diet and cardio take care of that. When you are lifting weights, lift to build muscle. That will speed your metabolism up the most.

12 calories is a good starting point, you may want to work down with time. But wait and see how you feel on this diet. Going to low and exercising can be really rough on your body. You might feel fine the first couple of days, but by the end of the week you'll be feeling like a zombie. Who know's you may want to go up a bit. It varies from person to person. A general rule is never drop below 10. Personally I don't get to hung up on my calories being exact. I'll figure for 10-14 and set that as a range. Works fine for me.