Cardio phobia and high protein madness
Well guys, welcome to another blog care of your favorite chiroprator, the good doctor! haha!
I want to use this blog to talk about 2 things i find interesting in the bodybuilder world, a seemingly "cardio phobic" mentality amongst gym junkies, and protein consumption (which to me) borders on insanity.
When i did my last contest, a lot of my friends, fellow gym users, patients ect were asking me: What did i do to get so cut up?
The answer: lots and lots of cardio.
The funny thing is, every time i’d mention this to a fellow lifter 90% of the time they would be seemingly gobsmacked.
What do you mean a lot of cardio? like a daily walk right?
Nope
Towards the last 5-6 weeks, i was doing 2 45 minute, all out, high intensity interval training sessions on the stationary bike, one in the morning, one in the evening. When i told them this, the reaction i got is that they thought i was lying! When the realised that i wasn’t lying the first question was: "but didn’t you lose a lot of size?"
Nope
I’m hardly a guru at any of this (i am very new to all this) but from a purely observation point of view in my opinion incorrect nutrion and not cardio is responsible for muscle loss. If you are a natural ectomorph, certainly i would recommend keeping cardio to a bare minimum, but if you are a natural endomorph or have some endomorphic tendancies (which i do), cardio to me seems to be a vital element in getting really, really ripped.
Bare in mind too, I didn’t do double cardio at the start of my pre contest phase, nor am i doing much atm the moment (i try to limit my cardio to 3-4 40 minute sessions per week, alternating between brisk walking and interval training). Why? metabolic adapation. You see, the more cardio you do, the more energy effectient your body becomes, thats why a lot of the time when you start doing cardio you can lose weight quickly and then all or a sudden dont seem to lose much weight. That is something you need to prevent, and besides, if you are doing cardio twice a day in the off season, what the hell are you going to do come contest time??
The point that i am trying to make here is dont be cardio phobic. A lot of the time people are under the impression that they are going to lose muscle, and for the vast majority of people out there, that is simply not true.
The other thing to remember here is my personal philosophy: do as much as it takes
So if you can get ripped without cardio, all the more power to you. But if you have to end up doing double cardio, do it! Hell, if i had to i would have done cardio 3-4 times a day if thats what i meant i had to do! Too many "gurus" say that you have to do this, or you have to do that……..geez at least have some flexibilty in your approach! Experiment with it, and find out how much you need, but never limit yourself, do simply as much as you have to do.
The other thing that i want to talk about here is a seemingly overwhelming trend of "high protein mania" that has gripped the bodybuilding fraternity. Now having lots of friends who lift and compete, you get some intersting perspectives on diet and its variations. To any bodybuilder, high protein dieting is nothing new. However, what seems to be new is the ammount of people who are working on dietary ratios of like, 70, 80 even 90% protein!
Jesus!!
Let me tell you something about high protein dieting, it will definately work. BUT, there are a couple of big drawbacks. One, prolongued high protein, low card dieting leaves you lazy and inefficient at processing carbs, which means it is really (in my opinon) not a good long term solution in terms of diet. I mean what are you going to do, never eat another carb again? God damn, i could think of nothing worse. The thing is though, a lot of my friends keep on pre contest type diets year round! The other drawback, if you are anything like me, a high protein, low carb diet will leave you lethargic and irritable. Towards the end of my pre contest phase, i was down to 110gms of carbs a day.
I’ll be brutally honest with you, life was hell! I looked great but i felt absolutely god awful and i wasn’t just grouchy, i was downright mean! I have sworn, i will never go that low in carbs again. If i can, i will try to keep my carbs to no lower then 150gms towards the end of a pre contest phase, ever! How people do ketogenic type diets, i will never know. If i felt that bad on 110gms of carbs, i dread to think how bad i would have been on 30, 20 even zero carbs!!
To me, high protein, low carb dieting should be used only for certain purposes (ie, photo shoot, contest, ect) and not sustained year round.
"But that might mean i wont be able to keep ripped year round"
Well, yeah! Unless you are a natural ectomorph, or you really want be ripped year round (ie, you make your living by being a model or somthing and have to keep ripped) what is the point? To me, that would be akin to torture! life is too short to me personally, i’d rather have some fun. Thats not to say i am not in good shape atm, my bodyfat is currently pretty stable at 7.8%. but i’m certainly not walking around cut and dried as i am in my profile photos year round. Hell i partied up a storm on the weekend, and a lot of bodybuilders would be agast. But to me my physique is not the be all and end all. Personally, live, have some fun, and save the really hard stuff and strict diet to peak periods. I mean, dont go gorging yourself every day on pizza in the off season, but live a little too 
In short, to me super high protein, low carb dieting is not a good year round dietary solution, and most people, would lean up very nicely on a more balanced diet of about 50-60% protein 30% protein, and 15-20% fat. Again, the key here is experimentation and finding what works best for you
The good doctor
