Strategically Scheduling Cheat Meals

This was a question asked to Hany Rambod (elite trainer to the pro's).  This was taken from musculardevelopment.com and thought it was a good quick read.  Almost every week now my cheat meals have been falling on the day before I do arms and I always get my best pump the day after a good cheat.

Question - A couple years ago, I recall reading in one of your columns that you recommended scheduling cheat meals around the training of your weaker body parts. Could I apply this same concept to FST-7 training?

Hany -  Absolutely. I would especially suggest using this strategy if you happen to be following a very low-carb diet. A key point to understand with this is that it takes a certain amount of time for carbohydrates to be converted to glycogen in the muscles and it also takes time for sodium to get into your system. Many bodybuilders don’t realize this and believe that the meal they eat 1 hour or so before the workout is the one that makes the difference, when in fact it’s more critical what you eat the day or night before. Getting back to the subject of early morning trainers, it’s even more important for these people to have their cheat meal the day or night before. It takes time for the body to super-compensate its glycogen stores, more so during a low-carb diet. Those of you who have followed the standard carb depletion and loading strategy for bodybuilding competition should remember that it took at least a couple days to properly “fill out.” If you are going to carb load for the training of a weaker body part, clean carbs like plain rice or sweet potatoes are good choices, but you also need to make sure you have plenty of sodium via condiments like ketchup or teriyaki sauce. You could also have a high-carb, high-fat meal like burgers and fries, but be judicious. Otherwise, you could set back your fat-loss goals. The large amounts of sodium in foods like these will go a long way toward facilitating an excellent pump, but don’t go overboard with them. So, getting back to the original question, by all means have your weekly cheat meal the day or night before you train a weak body part. This will give that muscle group the best possible chance of achieving a maximum pump and stretching out the fascia tissue, allowing growth to take place.