My Experiences With Carb Back-Loading!

I'd just like to establish a disclaimer than I am in no way being paid to write any of these posts (not yet, at least), and these are solely my personal anecdotes not endorsed in any way by anyone. What you're about to read, are my honest experiences and opinions.

I remember writing in a previous post that I would experiment for one month with Carb Backloading and all the specific guidelines Kiefer has outlined for simultaneous maximum fat loss and strength gains. Well, I'm on month two and I can honestly say I'm loving every moment of it:

Left: Me in March 2012. Right: Me today. (Sorry it had be in the stupid bathroom.)

During all of January (prior to discovering Kiefer's principles), I did a month-long of what one might call a traditional bodybuilder's diet - eating 6-7 meals a day with perfectly fractioned macronutrients in every meal. Lean meats, whole grains, low-fat everythang (shit got expensive, I swear). That meant a few days of meal preparation per week. That also meant 2-3 hours of cooking and washing dishes for every day that I did meal prep. When you work 40 hours a week, go to the gym, take care of your child[ren for those who have more than I do], the last thing you want to do is spend hours cooking and portioning out meals on tupperwares and cleaning the mess afterward. There was literally no time for rest until bedtime.. and usually bedtime got pushed back really late, almost midnight - resulting in 5 hours of sleep.

Five hours of sleep a day is barely enough, for anyone with such a schedule, to funtion normally or in any sane manner. It was also not enough for recovery time from high-volume resistance/strength training 5 times a day.

I do remember complaining about feeling burned out often within the first few weeks of beginning my new training & nutrition lifestyle. I was afraid I was not going to make it. I thought about giving up often, for the sheer fact that I was consuming too much food and feeling like I was eating so much more than my family was. Not that anyone starved.. no, no one starves when I take care of them. But the fact of the matter was, I was slowly killing myself.

Enter carb backloading..

I stumbled upon (and in retrospect, what a major blessing it was that I stumbled) carb backloading while trying to research ketogenic diets. I knew that cutting carbs out of your diet was a surefire way to lose body fat; however, I didn't just wanna jump into it without knowing what the heck I was doing.
At first I looked up -keto- on reddit, as my really good friend (and fellow fitness enthusiast) suggested I do. Somehow, I clicked on one thing, then another, then ended up on Google, and clicked and read a few more things, then -BOOM- I found this. I began reading about Kiefer and his Carb Nite Solution, followed by Carb Back-Loading.

I was extremely skeptical at first. Especially since Kiefer seriously advocates skipping breakfast altogether [CNS/CBL], refraining from carbs during the day, and worst of all - [for CBL] eating trashy, high-glycemic foods at NIGHT, NEAR BEDTIME! GASP! Oh, the abomination! I'm POSITIVE he got some backlash for suggesting such outrageous things!

Yet, for some crazy ass reason, this intrigued me further! I got curious!

I looked up CBL and CNS on external websites, just to see if anyone had seriously negative experiences with these "diets." I wanted to find something wrong with it, to debunk the strange claims. It made me think, "have I been going about it all wrong this whole time?"

And before anyone rips my head off, I would just like to say that no, I am not trashing on the traditional contest/bodybuilding diet (strictly eating clean, 6-7x/day, 1 cheat meal/week) whatsoever. I got results in that first month of doing it, I really did! I cut out all junk. I learned portion control. I only had one or two days where I either had one beer and some starchy, fatty party food.. and there was a true occasion for such things (it was at a wedding, perfectly acceptable). I ate tons of veggies, oats, sweet potatoes, brown rice, lean chicken breast and fish and olive oil and nuts. It was a good, clean diet, and I was never hungry because I ate every 2 to 3 hours.

And believe me, if it hadn't taken up 8-10 hours out of each week just to PREP food for ONE week, I would have kept doing it. I loved my food, and I made it tasty and satisfying for me. If it didn't cost so much money out of our food budget just to feed ME, I would have kept doing it. If I didn't have a time-consuming job, If I didn't lose sleep and free time with my family over meal prep and divvying up every gram of every carb/protein/fat perfectly for every meal, If I didn't burn out every 2 days from lack of rest, I would have kept eating clean 6-7 times a day.

And I don't mean any of that with any sarcasm whatsoever. If my life revolved around training and diet everyday, I would have seen no reason to look to other methods of proper nutrition and fat loss. I thought I was stuck, though. And I guess that really wasn't working out for me after all.

The reason I'm glad I found Carb Backloading is because everything about it perfectly fits MY schedule. And the most important thing about any training & nutrition plan - whether it is a clean eating protocol, ketogenic, intermittent fasting, Paleo, whatever - is that it should be tailored to YOU.
It needs to fit YOUR life. Of course, if your life is mostly spent doing unhealthy things, you should probably restructure the way you spend your days toward more healthy and positively rewarding activities - that is, if you have those kinds of goals. But mostly, if you want results, you need to be able to maintain it as a lifestyle and not just "go on a diet" like most morons like to tell other people to do.

For me, I don't get to work out until later in the afternoon. I work a sedentary job where I don't really require much food intake for energy. And for me, I have specific goals that I'm shooting for - like gaining muscle, losing fat where I've never lost it before, and transforming my body into Superhero status.

The best thing, is that not only have I gotten some phenomenal results so far, but for me, applying Kiefer's principles in real life is very simple so it makes it easy to adopt as a lifestyle. Screw crash diets and periods of "being good," only to totally screw up later when you've felt deprived for long enough. Carb backloading for ME is easy. Hell, even Carb Nite - which, instead of backloading in evenings after a brutal lifting session, is a prolonged ultra-low carb period of about 7-10 days followed by one "Carb Nite," then repeat cycle - is easy too.

And here's why:

-I don't need to prep meals every damn day. That automatically saves me 10 hours each week that I otherwise would have spent cooking, washing, counting, and measuring. I can come home and play Angry Birds with Kaeden, cuddle on the couch with my boyfriend and watch a movie, or maybe even have time to clean the house and do laundry on time. SIGH, THANK THE LORD!

-I don't need to worry about eating first thing in the morning. I never get to do it anyway, I'm so busy getting up and getting ready. Besides, the morning is when the body becomes an infernal fat-burning furnace - to eat some high-carb breakfast would just interrupt that simple process. Skipping breakfast is actually beneficial to me. I can fuel the fat-burning further with coffee and coconut oil.

-I don't need to count calories. For the sake of contest prep, I am calculating my specific macros, and doing a hybrid of CNS & CBL.. which meals less backloads, more ultra low carb days. My goal is currently fat loss, so I need to measure my protein, carb & fat intake by the gram so I can tweak if necessary. Also, as long as I eat enough protein for the day, and enough fat to help properly synthesize that protein, and eat all my nutritious delicious veggies, I'm fine. I don't feel deprived, and my body's now used to not relying on carbohydrates for energy - tada, fat loss.

-It's easy to refrain from carbs for the majority of the day. For me, now, at least. I'm not really complaining about eating Norwegian smoked salmon, or cottage cheese, or nuts, or cheesesteak salads, or fresh Polish sausages or even a wide array of cheeses. Hell, I've even discovered a recipe for almost-no-carb casein BROWNIES (I'll post the recipe soon) that are actually super freaking delicious for a protein brownie. Again, I don't feel deprived.

-To me, it's much more rewarding to eat my dirty, delicious carbs post-workout. I'll never go overboard though.. well, sometimes maybe (damn awesome friends and weekends, LOL). There is never a "cheat meal" as long as you eat your carbs post-workout, since the carbs are being used by your body in a much better way - to gain muscle.

[Side note: I used to eat like this in high school anyway- barely anything at all during the day, snack here and there, run in gym class, go home, work out with my best friend at the community gym, then slam some Burger King or pizza right after the workout. And I always wondered how the HELL I stayed 114 pounds with good muscle definition when I did that. And now I know why.]

-I don't crash in the middle of the day anymore since I've cut carbs out of my first-half-of-the-day intake. I feel more energy, I have more focus, and I am actually hitting some crazy good PR's (personal records) in my lifts and strength gains. I've even been considering taking up powerlifting soon. POWER-FREAKING-LIFTING. Yes.

Lookadat, my baby muscles are growin'!!

-It is giving me exactly what I want: I want muscle but I want fat loss as well. I feared I'd have to bulk & cut like the rest of the fitness world, but now I can maintain my strength while losing fat.

[Another SN: I have never looked or felt so good in my life, and to think, this is only the tip of the iceberg.]

-Carb backloads post-workout give me such a good night's sleep every time I backload. After eating all those carbs, my body literally turns into a brick shortly afterward. More and deeper sleep? I'll take that over burn out ANY DAY.

There are a lot of people - fitness professionals, powerlifters, NPC competitors, even Crossfit folks and strongman trainers, and the regular old people like us who just wanna get in shape - who have adapted this to their own needs and goals and experienced some amazing results following Kiefer's protocols. It's customizable, and it is really good for athletes and athlete-wannabes. Like I've said before, different things work for everyone, and this also applies to CNS and CBL. Yeah, it's kinda new, and a lot of people don't really accept it (they'd either only accept broscience, or they just don't know about it), but it's working for me so far. So, for those of us who have adopted these into our lives, it's definitely working for us.

HELL.. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger here talks about slamming down pies at night - days before stepping on the stage. Arnold carb back-loaded before the term was even coined. And we all know about Arnold:

Arnold: He's THE MAN.

I've become a regular reader of DangerouslyHardcore.com, where Kiefer regularly writes articles. There are also a lot of good post from other very smart people in the industry as well. I find the articles refreshing, knowledgeable, and very informative. I love the brutality and sincerity of their writing, and I love the material. Even the forums are helpful, and lets me know there are others out there who find this stuff legitimate and worth listening to, as I have. Kiefer says Dangerously Hardcore material is for Super Heroes In Training (S.H.I.T.s), and I'd like to think I'm a little S.H.I.T. slowly building her way up to awesomeness. ;-P

It's too bad carb backloading won't get me to develop any cool superpowers though.. but we can't have everything now, can we..

So there ya go.. this is my honest, brutal report on my current experiences with Carb Nite and Carb Backloading. I'd love to post before and after pictures soon - but the transformation is definitely beyond physical. I've been training diligently for 3 months now - 3 months was the longest I ever became diligent with training & nutrition after high school.




Carb Back-Loading won't make you an X-Men, unfortunately.
Or an Avenger. But you can still pretend!

Since I'm 3 months in now, and I don't plan to stop, we're going to see a different Jenina than has ever existed. I'm slowly uncovering the little girl deep down that I knew all along existed beneath the layers of self-loathing and depression. I can honestly say for the first time in my life, that I love being me.