The Cycle Diet: When, Why, and How to Use Refeeds and Cheat Days to Optimize Metabolism and Stay Lean Year-Round by Scott Abel

Author:Scott Abel [Abel, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-08T18:30:00+00:00

When “More” Refeeds Are Necessary

Other exceptions to the Cycle Diet can run the other way as well. Often, one or two days of refeeds may not be enough. I’ve seen this as well. When someone is deep, deep, deep into supercompensation mode, very often a longer refeed may be in order as well.

The faster someone’s weight returns to normal after a calorie spike and refeed with no sustained energy bump to go along with it, the more likely it is that a longer refeed duration may be in order.

I once had a client dieting for a National championship. Her body fought with her in the initial stages of the diet, and then it all came together, and fast. She ended up being contest ready 5 weeks out from the show. I knew from her biofeedback there was no way she was going to be able to last 5 more weeks of dieting with just one cheat day. Psychology aside, her body would have become flat and stringy. There was no doubt in my mind.

What I had her do had everyone commenting how crazy I was and that I just ruined her prep and all her hard work and blah, blah, blah. At five weeks out from her competition I had her take 5 days completely off diet and training. She ended up hopping on a plane to Florida and completely enjoyed herself and let loose. She gained about 15 lbs or something in those 5 days. She came back home, resumed training and lost 12 lbs the first week and another 5 lbs the next week. She went into her contest and won Nationals and won her pro card. No one else looked even close to as prepared as she was.

This was all possible because I was starting to understand the real-world of metabolism and how it works, when and how to optimize it, and what signs to look for when you may be stressing it too much. Many, many contest-prep gurus even to this day have no real idea of how this all works. The closer a contest date looms, the tighter they make their client’s diets and training, regardless of what that client’s biofeedback may be saying. This is why all my articles stress biofeedback, and why I sound like a broken record but I don’t care. Too many coaches would have restricted her calories or increased her exercise even more, when what she needed was the opposite!

I knew my client needed more than a one-day refeed and I knew that she was burning out from her training. I also knew that we had time on our hands with the contest being 5 full weeks away. So I gave her five days off training and diet and the result was exactly what I thought it would be. Her body responded positively and she was easily ripped up for her contest.

Now was this an exception? Absolutely. That is why I include here. There are exceptions to every rule. But

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