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I follow the keto diet, CKD (carb cycling) been so for 2years or more now.

Im constantly reading about other carb cycling approaches in other books, but they all use the common volume training methods. Usually 2 depleting workouts, consisting of either the whole body, or upper/lower workout, with lots of sets and exercises, but never to failure. Then a few days rest with ′the′ workout, followed by the carbup. Theres many different approaches to calorie amounts, carb types, timing etc… I don′t want to get too technical

I was curious on average, how many HIT workouts would it take to become depleted, or near, If you stopped eating carbs and trained the HIT way.

Also, when exactly does the body use glycogen from muscles when your not weight training? I work physically, but my heart rate is never high, I would only sweat if it was a hot day and i never get lactic acid build up, but im moving around. Would my body use glycogen?

the whole point of the post is I would like to carb cycle more effectively, but only with HIT workouts. I want to move into Fullbody training, like Mikes consolidation routines with 4 – 6 exercises.

Anyone in the know, your help is appreciated.

Lyle McDonald has written a lot about ketogenic diets (he even has an entire book devoted to them). In his Ultimate Diet 2.0 you do about 12 sets per bodypart at 12-20 reps with a TUT goal of 45-60 seconds. That combined with low carbs for 4 days doesn′t even reach full depletion. I forget the exact number, but needless to say to acrue any significant glycogen depletion on a HIT workout is really not going to be possible.

Martin Berkhan has some good ideas about combining HIT and carb loading though. His blog is www.leangains.com. He has his trainees eating lower carbs (not low or zero) and high fat on rest days. Workout days are when he replaces fat calories for carbs. He typically has people do a 3 way split similiar to Heavy Duty 1 though, so they are getting carbs 3x a week. These are not the huge carbups like you′ll see people doing on keto diets though because they haven′t burned enough glycogen to warrant that.

Your brain will run best off from glucose. And yes, your body will use up the glycogen. Even if you eat a good amount of carbs, your body should still burn it all up, so long as you aren′t eating way too much. The problem however is that in the presence of too much carbs, your body will store the extra fat as fat. So you have to have the right balance.

So it is quite clear that this stuff can get rather complicated. But I can honestly tell you that a balanced diet is what has worked out to be the best for me, at least for keeping the fat off that is. I learned from Clarence Bass, who was also influenced by Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer. What Clarence explained to me is that uniform eating was the best. What I mean is it is best if you eat and burn generally the same amount of calories every day.

Why uniform eating? Because non-uniform eating puts you on a roller coaster and makes it way too hard to keep track of where you′re at. The result of non-uniform eating is that it makes it way too easy to overeat or undereat.

If you eat uniformly and know what you eat every day, all you have to do is increase or decrease your calories slightly as needed. You check your weight at least once per week.

I can also tell you that I definitely didn′t believe in Clarence′s approach at first. Just like how many had to try HIT to believe it, I had to try Clarence′s eating style to believe it. Clarence′s approach was similar to Mike′s approach to diet. I just think there were some things Mike understood better and other things that Clarence understood better.

Don′t believe me just because "I said so" though. Judge for yourself. That′s what I did. I′ve tried low carb diets before and was once brainwashed by the low carb advocates into thinking carbs were the devil. But I eventually came to my senses. Low carbs made me feel like crap all the way and hindered my ability to think well at work and perform well in the gym, and I eventually found a way that works better. I always felt much better with moderate carbs in my diet, with dietary fats adjusted accordingly. That′s the issue that comes up. Carbs make you store different macronutrients as fat, which is why you can′t overdo your fat intake when you have carbs present. You have to be more reasonable, with a balanced approach.

Another thing to consider is the fact that I do office work which requires minimal movement during the day. So does Clarence Bass just as he always has. And we both eat plenty of carbs every day.

Considering the fact that in your specific case you do physical work for a living, I would definitely say that you should require more carbs than I do.

Remember that fat doesn′t make you fat either and you need it. But with the presence of carbs, you′ll definitely have to watch your fat intake too, because insulin causes fat to be stored as fat. As long as you take it easy on foods that are too dense in calories by fat, you should be fine. For example, 95% lean beef might be better than 85% if you need to cut calories. If you′re trying to cut and that′s still too high, lean steak, chicken, and fish are your better bets. If you′re bulking on the other hand, the extra fat is going to help because it aids in better testosterone production, again providing you aren′t overdoing it. As far as muscle gains go, we should only be concerned with lean gains, not fat gains. And it is possible.