The MANS Diet - Nutritionally Clear

Last month I posted about being Nutritionally Confused. Since that time I've stayed low Glycemic Index and I've managed to stay in ketosis most of the time, and I think a large contributing factor to that has been the MCT oil I've been taking as a supplement. As I posted before, medium-chain triglycerides are thermogenic in nature and I think this boost to my metabolism, combined with the higher-intensity (read: uses more glycogen reserves for fuel) workouts has kept me in ketosis even with a little higher day to day carb consumption.

Lately I've started reading Mark McManus' blog, MuscleHack and he makes a lot of sense with his Cyclical Ketogenic Diet approach to bodybuilding. His specific plan is called MANS - 'MuscleHack Anabolic Nutritional Strategy.' I've decided to adopt this strategy as a trial, myself.

Mark's theory, in a nutshell, is to low-carb during the week with a 36 hour carb-up from Friday evening to Saturday night. The idea is that the body treats the carb-up as a stressful situation and responds by releasing Testosterone, HGH, and IGF-1 - the hormones that make us build muscle.

In my specific case I'm not a hardcore bodybuilder but I would love to add some more muscle to my chest and arms and I'm definitely adding muscle to the legs through the cycling so a nutritional strategy that supports muslce building just makes good sense. Besides building muscle, I have a high intensity ride every Saturday and the increased carbs would support that training while the long, lower intensity ride on Sunday would help clean the glycogen out of my system and get me back in ketosis faster.

Looking at it now, the strategy is obvious. Thanks Mark - I should have been doing this all the time!