Low Carb and HST

I've managed to put on a fair amount of muscle and up my max weight in all my exercises this past six weeks or so in the new gym here in my new home town, but I've also put on some fat, my work-outs are taking a little too much time for my schedule, and from experience I know that when you reach your max, you're likely to plateau there for awhile unless you mix it up. So, it's time for a change. Today I started in on a low carb diet and am switching over HST work outs for the next six weeks or seven weeks.

I say low carb, because I still plan to still eat some carbs in the form of fruits (mostly bananas and blue berries) and vegetables, and some of my supplements contain enough carbs to technically violate the induction phase rules for Atkins. But I found last time I did this that I still managed to go into and stay in ketosis, probably because my work-outs were intense enough to burn off any glucose I was accumulating, which was nice because you simply feel better (and I'm guessing it's just plain healthier) when you eat fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.

I haven't started my HST workouts yet, as I still have a couple of more days of strategic deconditioning before I start lifting again. I'm guessing that I'll either be in ketosis by then, or I'll be just on the edge and the lifting will put me over. But since I'm still doing fairly intense cardio at the gym, it won't surprise me if I get into ketosis sooner. We'll just have to see.

I'm really hoping that combining HST and low carb, along with keeping my work-outs very intense, will be the magic bullet in terms of fat loss and no muscle loss. Perhaps it will be extra extra magic and I'll even gain some muscle too (conventional wisdom is that you can't "cut" and gain muscle or strength at the same time)! Yeah, I'm not holding my breath on that last one, but it would be nice and I have heard more than once that high intensity work-outs stimulate the body in ways that allow for muscle growth even when dieting.

It really is time to loose some fat though, both because I want to look better, but also because I've apparently started snoring. The snoring could very well be the result of something else, but I'm guessing that if I loose 15 to 20 pounds that I'll stop. That said, I'll be very happy if I loose 10 pounds in the next six weeks, so if I'm going to hit my goals, I'll have to keep on going past my current plans. But I've found that for me (and in game development) six week goals work well; six weeks is short enough that you can visualize and feel the finish line, but are long enough that you can still set significant milestones to aim for. I'll set a new six week goal once I finish this one.