Anabolic Burst Cycling of Diet and Exercise
The Anabolic Burst Cycling of Diet and Exercise plan is commonly known as the ABCDE plan. But that has changed to the new revised ABCDE diet also known as the Delta 1250 program. The original ABCDE plan did not get rave reviews simply because it worked but you couldn't see how because of fat-gain.
The plan is simple, you pig out for two weeks eating whatever and whenever you can, eating as much as you want. You then spend the next two weeks on a serious diet of 8 calories per pound. This starvation type diet for a bodybuilder could very well undo any muscle gain achieved in the first two weeks.
The whole idea of the ABCDE plan is to increase natural growth hormone release like testosterone and HGH. This in turn speeds up recovery and the rate of protein synthesis, like taking steroids, but it's your own home-cooked brew. The theory is based on studies that were done by legitimate institutes, but the implementation of the ABCDE plan just increases body-fat, so any increased muscle gain cannot be seen.
Sports science has already taught us that when your muscles are restricted by a 900 to 1000 calorie deficit, the whole body will go into metabolic slowdown. Which would explain the severe fat gain seen in the second loading phase when doing the ABCDE plan.
The improved version of the ABCDE plan is the Delta 1250 program. You need a little math, but it makes sense and has shown itself to work. The program consists of two, 5 day adding calories (overfeeding) followed by 5 days of reducing calories (underfeeding). The underfeeding stage is multiplying your bodyweight by 12 to 14 calories.
12, 13 or 14 will depend on your metabolism speed. 12 would be a slow metabolism, 13 will be a moderate metabolism and 14 for fast metabolism. After five days eating and drinking this amount of calories per day, you then start the five days of overfeeding.
Whatever your underfeeding total calories were you now add 750 calories per day to that total. If your underfeeding total was 2400 calories a day, you then add 750 and get to3150 calories for your five-day bulking phase. If you take a look at a 5-day bulk cycle and a 5-day loss cycle, you reduced your daily count of calories by 500 per day on the loss cycle and you gained 750 calories per day on the bulk cycle. You would then have eaten a 1250 calorie surplus calories, a "delta" of 1250.
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