First of all, hello to all and well met! I'm new to here, but in reading some of the posts there are alot of knowledgeable people chipping in.

My wife and I have been working out pretty regularly on our bowflex, with limited results in the fat loss area. Our strength has gone up lots, but still pretty unhappy with our body shape.

We did a SouthBeach sprint in 2004 and lost a bunch of weight for our wedding, worked great till we got off the diet.

We started a carb free, Ketogenic diet today....

Now to my questions, which type of diet is right for this type of workout (below)?

Cyclic Ketogenic? 5 days of no carb, then a regular, carb-full diet on the weekends.

Timed card diet? Eatting a ton of carbs after each workout

Lutz? I see this mentioned in these forums, but havent read about it yet, other than its a low carb, not Ketogenic. (Anyone have a link?)

Something else?

Our workouts are 3 times a week, 45min to 1 hour of high rep on the bowflex. Includes a warm up and sit ups till I wanna puke. Heart Rate and Breathing are quite elevated.

Our goal is to be trim and fit, no desire to be bulky.

Well, thanks in advance, I look forward to the responses.

I'd encourage you to read up on CKD/TKD as much as possible. I don't know anything about the Lutz plan.

A regular CKD is probably best done with an intense weight lifting regime, at the intermediate level. At the beginning level, you're not really lifting heavy/intense enough to deplete muscle glycogen sufficiently to warrant a weekend carbload. At least, this has been my experience.

A TKD is usually my preference for low carbers, because it allows you to get your carbs for lifting (best taken before and/or during lifting, not after), and then return to ketosis soon after the workout. This seems to work best for people who are "carb sensitive".

Another approach I have tried that worked well, was a CKD/TKD hybrid. TKD during the week, and then every other weekend I had one refeed (carb load) day. These refeeds are normal protein (usu. ~1gP per pound of LBM), LOW FAT (no more than 50gF total),LOW SUGAR (no more than 100g) and then high carb, up to about maintenance calorie levels (or as much carb as you can cram in with the above restrictions).

It's been my observation that the only ones who tend to do really well on a traditional CKD with the big ass weekend carbload were advanced male lifters. Beginning level men, and women, seem to have more issues with bouncing up and down the scales with long carb loads.

Really, if you want to keep your muscle mass and lose fat, the best things you can do are to maintain a caloric deficit (and for me this is easier/more comfortable to do on a lower carb diet, usu. TKD style), and lift HEAVY. This means "heavy for you", basically lower rep/higher weights. You may want to research this further, and consider trying this with your bowflex.

HTH! (Hope This Helps!)

You can do a google search on Wolfgang Lutz or his only english book - Life Without Bread. His various books are more intended to deal with his treatment of disease with low-carb, and he advocates 6 Bread Units (roughly 70 to 80 grams) of starchy carbs per day. He does not advocate very low levels of carbs.

He doesn't go into much detail on low-carb for sport, but I've followed his plan for years, and find it suitable for any physical activities.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think we are going to stay with a straight Ketogenic diet until we reach our goals, then switch to a stable lowered carb diet. Thanks!

bowflex is probably a great
machine but you NEED aerobic
exercise in my opinion to lose
weight quicker.

Your dedication to Low Carb is great,
but you will mostly just gain muscle and
strength with the bowflex IMHO.

Just my two cents, good luck to the
both of you in your weightloss goals.

Low carb is great, NO carb is a disaster. You need plenty of leafy green veg, and if you are lifting hard (as Dane said, that's hard for you), you need a post workout recovery meal of protein and carbs. Ideally, a whey and dextrose shake, but even something like bread and chicken breast would do.

It sounds to me as if the TKD approach would suit you best. Eat a SMALL carb meal before long cycles or hard works, and then a PWO shake after. For shorter or slower cycles, or workouts that don't involve wanting to puke, you don't need to eat first.

Check out the Anchell diet in the general low carb section, it might interest you.

I don't have a problem with strength on extremely low carbs. The above diet isn't extemely low though.

Expect your bodyweight to go back up when you do this, at least a little unless you drop your overall calories to balance the added carb calories.