Day 57 - The ABCDE Diet

Sunday marked the start of my new diet plan, the Anabolic Burst Cycling of Diet and Exercise. Here's the deal: for 12 days I consume an additional 1500 calories over my maintenance level (around 3200)l. These should be quality calories - so not pigging out on junk food. The idea is that my body will be freaked out and go into this mode where it puts on a lot of lean muscle mass fast. If I do any cardio on a particular day I need to add 200 calories to compensate. After 12 days though the body has adapted to the high caloric intake and switches modes to fat storing. So at day 13 I will drop to a reduced calorie diet (around 1500) for 12 days. The body again gets freaked out and goes into a mode where it burns off fat quickly.

For workouts during the bulking phase I'm supposed to be doing heavy lifting with minimal cardio. The three heavy P90x days are perfect for that. I will be swapping out Plyo for a dumbbell leg workout. I'm not sure yet what I'll do instead of Kempo. I will not be skipping my hockey or volleyball games.

Will this work? That's the big question. If all goes according to plan I should put on some good muscle and some fat during the bulking phase. Then during the cutting phase I should actually drop more fat than I put on. That's the theory, at least. I have read (and spoken with) people that had awesome results doing this. I have also read some criticism that says I'm just going to get fat. If the former is the case, party on, Wayne. If it's the latter, at least I tried.

What happens after 24 days? Well, assuming I don't turn into a tubby sack of shit then I can continue to cycle bulking/cutting phases. I'm currently 140 and still scrawny - not as scrawny as I was a year ago (as you'll see tomorrow), but scrawny nonetheless. I would love, LOVE, to be 160 without having any more fat on me than I do now. I don't know if that's possible though.

The big ABCDE Diet article
Corrections to the plan in the article
Criticism