My new choice of dieting

For those who don't know, I have picked up and moved to an island in the Caribbean. It happens to be an extremely mountainous island. My first days here were spent gasping for air, sweating profusely, and feeling an incredible "pump" in my quads as I climbed these mountains and hills DAILY. Along with this I dropped a lot of body weight. I went from 210lbs to 198lbs in a matter of a month (give or take a week). Luckily I have been able to bring myself up to a scrawny 204lbs at about 13.5% body fat. Funny thing, I was just 202lb and 12.5% about three weeks ago.

Now my challenge is to climb back up to 210lbs and remain at this bodyfat or lose some. My training is progressing fine ( you can check it out here). My sleeping and recovery patterns can use a bit of tweaking. Now my diet... Shit! I need a serious amount of muscle saving calories. My RMR is close to 2000 k/cal and my COA (cost of activities) is close to 3700 k/cal ( I used John Berardi's Precision Nutrition site to figure this stuff out). So I need AT LEAST 3800 for the calories to be used for mass building. Well, being the busy guy I am. I simply do not have the means to drop six to eight meals down my hatch. So I need to get these calories within four to five meals.

Now my first week I started at 2800 k/cal and shifted up to 3000 k/cal. The second week I shifted it up again to 3250 k/cal. I found this to be my limit with my available calories (keep in mind I live on an island). So, now on my third week I decided to change things up to get the calories in my body when it counts. The macronutrient that works for me, to keep fat down and maintain muscle mass, is high protein, low carb, and moderate fat. I have researched a bit in Joel Marion's cheater diet, Berardi's metabolism based nutrition, and CT's carb cycling codex. From these diet pointers and my own knowledge of what works for me, I am now doing "High Insulin Carb and Lots of Fat Cheat Diet on Hard Training Days". Yes, the title sucks but it basically explains what I'm doing.

I know I can not reach the next level for caloric intake without changing my habits a bit. On mild training days I will attempt to sustain 3200 k/cal at the current macronutrient ratio. On my hardest days I will increase the caloric intake to 3800 - 4000 k/cal. My protein intake will be lowered unfortunately. My carbs will be loaded at a higher amount near the multiple training times. While the fats will be raised a bit near the normal meal times. I will have plenty of insulin release to get the desired anabolic effect. I will continue to monitor the body fat to make sure I do not leave this phase with a belly suited for XXL shirts.

I'll let you know how it ends. I have about three to four more weeks of this hypertrophy dominant phase.