Did you ever wake up early in the morning, and drift in and out of sleep for what seems like forever? I spent like two days in between the hours of 2 and 4 this morning. Sleep time like that is odd.

So I woke up, weighed myself - 131.2 - ooOOooh! 1.2 pounds lighter than yesterday. Before I go into a diatribe, I wanted to post something Lyle MacDonald said on his website recently:

This whole neurosis reminds me of the hangups folks have about either refeeds or taking 1-2 weeks off of their diet to upregulate metabolism. They are so concerned with the short-term changes that they lose sight of the big picture. Yeah, fine, maybe you gain a little bit of fat back during 2 weeks off the diet. If it means that the next 6-8 week diet cycle works that much better (compared to taking time off), you still end up better off in the long-run.

When you diet, it is a good thing to do refeeds (which simply means eating normally, NOT pigging out) maybe once every 1 -2 weeks, depending on how you feel. Then it's a good idea to take a week or two off every couple of months. Doing this will help keep your body from wrecking its metabolism.

I'm bringing this up because I felt great in the gym this morning (back and biceps). I mentioned being tired last week. What was the difference? I'm wondering if it wasn't because I cheated Sunday. I didn't cheat bad; all in all I ate about 2000 calories worth of food. Well, 1/2 of that was beer. Beer still has carbohydrates in it, which my body is either burning or storing as glycogen at this point. Glycogen is a fuel reserve stored in the liver and muscles (and every part glycogen bonds with 4 parts water, which explains how I magically gained 2.6 pounds and lost 1.2 all in the space of 2 days, more or less) and is burned as fuel when the bloodstream has nothing left in it from eating. Weightlifting is especially good at depleting glycogen stores.

So what the hell am I saying? I'm saying I'm thinking that going ahead and setting aside Sunday as a refeed day. As best as I can tell, I average burning about 1700 calories in a day. I'll try to do a switchover - instead of low carb, I'll make it high carb/lean protein/ very little fat. I'll probably eat a little more than 1700. That way the extra carbs will be stored predominantly as glycogen and I'll have a bit more oomph during the week in the gym. It will also tell my body "hey, just kidding, we're not starving so don't shut my metabolism down!"

This cycle, incidentally, is referred to a cyclical ketogenic diet.

Boy, I'll do anything to justify a bagel. Bagels, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.