Can you give me advice for getting lean for summer?

The only real difference in my approach over the solid advice Mark has given you, would be to switch your sugary carbs to pre-training and utilise a carbless PWO approach. This applies to resistance training, not LISS.

Reasoning behind this is that the insulin spike will protect muscle tissue from being catabolised during the stress of training. It will also give you the energy needed during resistance training to maintain your strength. If you are lifing as heavy, then you have not appreciably lost muscle mass. Since muscle mass is metabolically active, the best way to maintain an elevated metabolism is to hold muscle mass.

The average gym goer does not really need PWO carbs, since they do not require the glycogen restoration, because they are not an athlete, training for prolonged periods every day. In the PWO environment, the metabolism is elevated. Where will the body get its energy from? Well some from fat and some from glycogen. Muscle tissue will be spared to a degree because of the resistance training you have just undertaken - as long as you do not overdo it. If we consume PWO carbs, then the insulin elevation blunts the bodys' fat-burning ability.

Further: If, as Mark says in another post, resistaince training blunts insulin sensitivity immediately PWO, then your PWO carbs are not going to be absorbed as efficiently as you would want anyway.

If you want to take your physique to the next level, then I would suggest you read up on intermittent fasting. The concept of small regular meals can work for some people but is alien to how our ancestors would have eaten IMO. Intermittent fasting more closely mimics our hunter/gatherer past and seems to confer impressive physique changes in most people. It also does a grest job of re-sensitizing the body to the presence of insulin. Since IMO you MUST have great insulin sensitivity if you want a great physique, ypu can see why I'm a fan of the IF approach.

No, the body doesn't really catabolise muscle tissue during the relatively short period of an 8-16 hour fast, but consuiming an amino acid drink (leucine especially) will help insure against this if it concerns you. The on/off nature of this sort of approach wrt to nutrient ingestion, seems to convince the body to really utilise all the nutrients that you do absorb.

I'm not saying that other strategies (eg carb cycling, paleo, etc) don't work, god knows I got decent results with most of them. However the IF approach has totally blown me away with its simplicity and results. No more food prep, meals eaten like clockwork, restriction of sugary carbs, etc. is heaven.

I'm bigger, stronger and leaner than ever, since I switched to IF. I doubt I'll ever eat a different way again. Unless I'm on holiday in thailand, lol. LOVE that thai food ;)

Hi Nic,

The only problem with pre-workout carbs is that you will access less fat for energy during the workout. This is self-defeating if, as you state, you want to "get lean".

Once you adapt to low carbs, you shouldn't need excess carbs before or during exercise unless you are trying to maximize performance (most people only experience moderate loss of strength or performance after becoming adapted to lower carbs). If you goal is to get lean, then the last thing you want is excess carbs or insulin in your system during exercise. Insulin specifically prevents the release of fat from fat cells and during exercise is the time when the most dramatic use of fat for fuel can occur.

Once you have further exhausted your glycogen (carbohydrate energy stores in muscle) as a result of the exercise session, adding carbs and boosting insulin is more desirable because the carbs are more likely to be stored in muscle for glycogen and the liver, leaving less available to provide energy that could be used instead of the fat that you want to burn for fuel.

Also, the body naturally increases glucose levels by up to 10 times during intense exercise. It does this to make glucose available to muscles so as to maximize performance. If you get the timing of pre-workout carbohydrates wrong or use insulin sensitizers, then you could find that you cause lower blood glucose levels and this can dramatically hamper your performance.

Studies also show that you will actually burn more calories in the 24 hours after exercise if you have protein prior to exercise - this enhances the so-called "afterburn".

Overall, the last carbs you want to cut are your post-workout carbs as you gradually decrease your carb intake but in some cases (like extreme dieting) they have to be gradually cut also.