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if you are a Gym Rat, it's the one diet you can go on, and Lose Fat, Gain Muscle, and increase stregnth, simultaneously.

I would be interested to know if this is true. I am a gym rat, a competitive body builder. In the off season I weigh 190 pounds and for contests I get under 176 pounds.

But even when I am cutting weight, I do not eliminate carbs entirely. I simply reduce them. Muscles need carbs, or they lose size. During this cutting phase I will lose 1-2 pounds per week over 12-16 weeks. But my carb intake at its lowest point during this period does not go below 125-175 grams per day. Simple carbs are shunned, breads, rice, pastsa, etc., as well as fruits. I rely on complex carbs like oatmeal or red skin potatoes and veggies, mainly broccli and cauliflower.

I have had to diet too hard at the last minute to shed fat, where my carb intake has been as low as 40-50 grams per day for a week. But I lost a tremendous amount of muscle in the process.

But even when I am cutting weight, I do not eliminate carbs entirely. I simply reduce them.

Did you ever try the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (or Targeted Ketogenic Diet?) by Lyle McDonald? His ideas were all the rage a few years back. I used those techniques to get to an alltime body fat low, while maintaining all my strength (I assume I kept the large majority of my muscle).

Basically, you go lowcarb, but you time your carbohydrate intake for either specific days (2 day pigout) or specific times (30 minutes before a workout, and up to an hour afterwards).

Broccoli Alert: members of the cabbage family such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts contain a compound the produces estrogen-like activity. Do a google search on broccoli and estrogen or indole-3-carbinol to research this. This estrogen boost may explain their cancer fighting qualities, however indole-3-carbinol pollution has also been attributed to small sized penis formation in alligators. Personally I'll take my cancer like a man. Women intuitively know to eat broccoli, but George Bush Sr. intuitively knew not to. He may be on to something... and he became President, not to mention sired one too!