cycling carbs

[wilson6]

"If this is the case then technically the best way to either lose fat and/or gain muscle would be to eat how ever many carbs, but keep fat as low as possible. I thought low fat diets had been discredited, though?"

Who discredited low fat diets?

Prudent consumption of carbs, not how ever many.....

I forget what culture has a ritual where the guys overconsume massive amounts of only carbohydrate over a fairly short period of time and gain substantial amounts of fat, but the excess is quite large. I have to find the study that looked at this. So yes, gross excess intake of carbs only will increase body fat, but smaller amounts simply prevent fat oxidation and or fat storage, but not de novo synthesis of large amounts of triglycerides.

I've never supported high fat, low carb diets for athletes. They just make no sense from a performance perspective.

I think what we've been discussing on this board (rotating carb diets) seem to be working the best for most of us trying to get lean, maintain muscle and be able to continue to lift heavy. While it hasn't been looked at in the literature, and probably never will, I think that is the best way to go at this time.

W6

 

[makedah]

Thanks, w6 and spatterson, this is good stuff. It's the most even-handed discussion of high-carb and low-carb diets I've seen so far. It can be such a contentious issue...

 

[SteelWeaver]

Who discredited low fat diets?

Prudent consumption of carbs, not how ever many.....


W6

Mmm. No-one official.

But the talk around here is always about how the FDA's (?) food pyramid is up to shit and there are too many carbs in it. And if you go over to the diet board, and browse around BB internet sites, you'll find a large band of keto and low-carb troopers willing to bet their bottom dollar that theirs is the way to go, and that they have tons of energy on keto .... they're convinced that mod-high carb diets (which would naturally be low fat if you're getting enough protein), are completely unnatural, and will make you FAT FAT FAT.

I meant how ever many carbs your activity level, macro ratios and caloric requirements dictate, not just how ever many - sorry, I wasn't clear.

Can we talk about what sort of ratios of carbs and fat are more, or less likely to result in fat storage? For cutting and gaining. I guess there aren't there any studies on this?

"gross excess intake of carbs only will increase body fat, but smaller amounts simply prevent fat oxidation and or fat storage, but not de novo synthesis of large amounts of triglycerides."

Surely this mostly depends on how many excess calories the gross excess intake works out to? If you ate gross excess of protein body fat would increase, too.

Maybe we need to experiment on this board with different ratios. Have some women do straight ratios, some do limited carb cycling, and some do extreme carb cycling. Anyone up for that?

 

[wilson6]

SPAT already tried the extreme carb cycling and we know what happens

I trained a client a couple of years ago that lived on a keto diet. About 30 grams of day of carbs, everyday. While he survived my intense leg workouts, it took him much longer to recover and get his strength back in his legs and he couldn't lift as intensely as the other normally feed clients.

He was morbidly obese and that was why he was on the keto diet. He lost 130 lbs on the diet that consisted of mostly higher fat and high protein foods. As he would say, I had a sirloin and eggs for the main course and filet for dessert.

It took him many months to adapt to this diet.

Based on human physiology, we need carbs and cannot perform high intensity exercise without glucose and glycogen, and we cannot make carbs from fat. Insulin is also necessary for the uptake of amino acids into the cell and chronically low insulin levels will only limit protein synthesis.

BTW, as soon as this client added carbs back in on a limited basis, he started gaining fat at an exponential rate. That makes me wonder what will happen to some of the keto freaks when they finally add some carbs back in.

We're beginning to see long-term gene regulatory changes that occur as a function of extremes in diet and even brief hormone exposure. I'd be careful not to turn on some genes with extreme measures that may come back to haunt you later. Case in point is the central fat regain in rehabbing anorectics or the long-term down regulation of metabolic rate following chronic dietary restriction.

W6

 

[SteelWeaver]

We're beginning to see long-term gene regulatory changes that occur as a function of extremes in diet and even brief hormone exposure. I'd be careful not to turn on some genes with extreme measures that may come back to haunt you later. Case in point is the CENTRAL FAT REGAIN in rehabbing anorectics or the long-term down regulation of metabolic rate following chronic dietary restriction.

W6

Uh oh This sounds bad.

We just finished a discussion on fat distribution patterns, and a few of us, myself included, appear to have more male-type fat distribution. The reason I asked the original question, if fat comes back in the same places, is that I seem to be gaining even more fat than I used to have in my abdominal area, but my legs and arms are staying fairly lean. I was wondering if it's an optical illusion. Have you got any more info on what you said?

One can "turn on" genes?

What ratios would you stick within, then, if extreme changes are a no-no? Also, what about high carb refeeds and leptin levels - refeeds are extreme by definition, and yet they work wonders.

 

[wilson6]

This brings up an interesting point. Considering what happens with anorectics and refeeding, I wonder, depending on the extremes and length of the precontest diet, if a similar phenomenon could occur in female bodybuilders, particularly natural ones? And having said that, I wonder if continuing on a course of oxandrolone if that was what the competitor was taking for contest prep, would reduce abdominal fat re-deposition and/or in some prevent the gluteal-femoral regain fat regain?

It also makes me wonder if a low dose course of oxandrolone would be helpful for recovering anorectics for a number of reasons?

Food for thought so to speak.

W6

 

[SteelWeaver]

But don't AAS tend to redistribute fat regain in woman to a more male type pattern anyway? Wouldn't that make it worse for recovering anorexics?

 

[hardasnails73]

Ok let me present another possible solutioin to the puzzle. If there are cycling their carbs. Why not suggest a refeed meal like right before they goto bed on a monday and thursday night. say about 1 cup of oatmeal dry. 6 oz yam, 1 cup veggies, 1 tabls spoon flax seed. this will jumpstart metabolisms and replenish the glycogen they may gave depleted from the previous days. And may be add in some BCAAS before during and after work out to prevent loss of lean tissue while in a semi catabolic state? Just a suggestion. I did this for my final 6 weeks of contest and it worked perfect. my carbs where still around 50-75 complex but i also had another 50-70 fiberous as well. I think alot of it is calorie based and other factors such as genetic, and life style and how hard they actually train and say what they really do !!

 

[SteelWeaver]

It depends how you're cycling. My understanding of carb cycling is that, although the carb numbers change, you're still below maintenance, even on the higher carb days.

A proper refeed uses carbs (a large chunk of them high GI) to take cals 20-50% ABOVE maintenance for 12 - 48 hours. As far as I understand Par Deus' articles, and the discussions on the diet board, leptin levels won't increase if you don't go above maintenance levels.

Of course if your carb cycling system takes you above maintenance every few days, then everything's fine.

 

[SteelWeaver]

No, AMR. Check out these threads:

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112853&highlight=AMR

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=138316&highlight=AMR

And check out the articles on leptin at Par Deus' site (the URL is in that first thread, but it's a long thread:

avantlabs.com

I used refeeds during most of my comp-prep, and I think they helped me maintain energy, sanity and muscle. I didn't do them carefully enough, though, in hindsight. Next time I intend to actually do the numbers