Aren't Healthy Oils Still Just Fat?

Nutrition
1

I was thinking about this recently as I start to tinker with ideas for my next cut. The power foods articles on here heavily influenced my diet several years ago, and really was the start of me getting to where I am now. I still eat mainly foods from those articles. I noticed the recommendations for olive oil and it was 3 tablespoons per day. Couple that with a tablespoon of say EV coconut oil, and that’s 4 tablespoons, and about 75g of fat. Throw in something like an ounce of walnuts and you’re almost at 100g of fat before you even consider any of your protein sources, which usually have a decent amount of fat in them.

At some point doesn’t all that fat you’re consuming actually interfere with something like cutting, and become counter-productive?

2

The idea is that you need a certain amount of fat for hormonal/body regulatory reasons. Anything beyond that is extra calories, but you need to hit that minimum for a consistent healthy diet.

3

Some vitamins are water soluable others come from fat.
Fat is good, well quality fat is needed.

4

[quote]BHappy wrote:
Some vitamins are water soluable others come from fat.
Fat is good, well quality fat is needed.[/quote]
True. Fruit fats and most animal fats are good. Avoid grain/seed fats. Also keep in mind that even during a cut, you have to fuel your body and protein is the least efficient fuel. In fact you don’t want your body burning protein, you want it to use protein as building blocks for muscle, repair, etc. With that in mind you have to have some fats and carbs for fuel, with fats being the required one of the two.

5

Just lower your carb intake. You don’t even need to be drinking EVOO everyday if you’re getting enough fat from animal sources. John Meadows is a big fan of fats. He contends people who burn fats are healthier than those who burn sugar all day. Just cycle your carbs.

6

I agree with you OP. I typically keep fat intake low, around 60-80g a day. This way I can eat a good amount of carbs and still keep fat loss up. It seems like a lot of people have success with higher fat and lower carb intake though, which leads me to believe caloric intake is far more important than the carb/fat ratios you get, given protein intake is constant.

7

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
I was thinking about this recently as I start to tinker with ideas for my next cut. The power foods articles on here heavily influenced my diet several years ago, and really was the start of me getting to where I am now. I still eat mainly foods from those articles. I noticed the recommendations for olive oil and it was 3 tablespoons per day. Couple that with a tablespoon of say EV coconut oil, and that’s 4 tablespoons, and about 75g of fat. Throw in something like an ounce of walnuts and you’re almost at 100g of fat before you even consider any of your protein sources, which usually have a decent amount of fat in them.

At some point doesn’t all that fat you’re consuming actually interfere with something like cutting, and become counter-productive? [/quote]

You probably need 125-150 grams of carbs (plus post workout) and 150 grams of protein for optimal health. 125-150 grams of carbs is actually the optimal amount (non-training) for insulin sensitivity, as I.S. decreases at under 100gs and over 200gs generally. So if you are getting that amount, you are at 1100 cals from carbs and protein. On a maintence diet, the rest would basically be filled out with fat, though maybe you would sneak up to 200gs of carbs and protein.

Since you really need 125-200 gs of carbs and 150-200 gs of protein at a maintence of 2500 cals, the cals that you cut SHOULD come from dietary fat primarily. Your body will be using stored bodyfat to fill out those 2500 cals anyway. Plus if you keep your carbs and protein around 150, your metabolism won’t drop much and you wont lose much muscle.

So lets say you are maintaining at 150gs carbs and 150 gs protein (plus extra on training days) and 1300 cals from fat, you will need to cut those
500 cals from fat. You probably CAN cycle your carbs up and down in the 75-200 gram range, but on average you are not going to get cals down from cutting carbs below maintenance.

The problems with cutting fat is a) lower fat soluble nutrients and b) lower testosterone.

However lower BF will mean less test conversion to estrogen. Going much below 10% bodyfat long term though is not generally healthy. Less than 10% can be as unhealthy as more than 15%. The main problems are that it requires either a) deficiencies in fat solubles, b) low test or c) more work (more free radicals) than optimal for health.

(I would add that a small percentage of the population will be at optimal health at a little under 10% long term, just as a small percentage will be at 15-17%).

8

I would add that a small percentage of the population will be at optimal health at a little under 10% long term, just as a small percentage will be at 15-17%.

9

By the way, what is “cutting”? If you are over 15-17% bodyfat your bodyfat percentage is going to go down naturally with training and optimal (non reduced) diet. I don’t think you need to cut calories at all to get down to 12-14%. And getting below 10% is not really long term healthy and sustainable for 95% of the population. It is a short term “lets see what I can do” type of thing.

10

I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.

11

Well, we label fructose a carbohydrate, but it is metabolized different, and most of the time gets converted to triglycerides by the liver. We call protein 4 calories of energy, but the body can’t get 4 calories of energy from it, and ideally will not use protein for energy anyway.

12

[quote]Nards wrote:
I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.[/quote]

It’s funny. People fail to realize that their cells are basically membranes, structural proteins and enzymes, and the membranes are all lipids.

The body prefers that the ultimate fat of dietary lipids be to a) fuel muscles and b) build membranes, while the primary fate of carbs is to be stored as fat unless glycogen stores are low. Of all your cells, muscle cells actually are best at using fatty acids.

13

During surplus periods I consume 180 grams per day; during restrictions it’s 125.

14

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:
I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.[/quote]

It’s funny. People fail to realize that their cells are basically membranes, structural proteins and enzymes, and the membranes are all lipids.

The body prefers that the ultimate fat of dietary lipids be to a) fuel muscles and b) build membranes, while the primary fate of carbs is to be stored as fat unless glycogen stores are low. Of all your cells, muscle cells actually are best at using fatty acids.

[/quote]

Curious: How to muscles use fat as fuel? I thought they used glycogen, from carbs?

15

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:
I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.[/quote]

It’s funny. People fail to realize that their cells are basically membranes, structural proteins and enzymes, and the membranes are all lipids.

The body prefers that the ultimate fat of dietary lipids be to a) fuel muscles and b) build membranes, while the primary fate of carbs is to be stored as fat unless glycogen stores are low. Of all your cells, muscle cells actually are best at using fatty acids.

[/quote]

Curious: How to muscles use fat as fuel? I thought they used glycogen, from carbs? [/quote]

So fatty acids are broken down in mitochondria (which are contained largely in red muscle fibers) by beta oxidation into NADH and FADH2 (which make ATP) and acetyl-CoA which is the same thing that sugar ultimately gets turned into, to enter the Kreb’s cycle.

So it makes ATP the same way really that glycogen does from oxidation, It does not however rebuild glycogen stores by that pathway. The thing about Glycogen is that it can produce ATP by glycolysis without oxygen (good for short bursts).

Keep in mind too that if you are not low on glycogen, all the carbs you eat basically get turned into triglycerides and stored as adipose, but the fats you eat typically enter muscle cells for beta oxidation which fuels by far most of your metabolic needs.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcXEQyQtTmMgAcv.JzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyMWFucGFzBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM1ZTVkNDVmY2Y5NGViZjI5MDc1N2ZhMjcyZmM0ODUxNARncG9zAzEEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dcalories%2Bburned%2Bfrom%2Bfat%2Bversus%2Bcarbohydrates%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326-s%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D1&w=911&h=623&imgurl=fastforwardsports.files.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2Fryan-wood-carb-fat-calorie-burn-rate-picture.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffastforwardsports.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F18%2Fgoing-anaerobic-at-boulder-performance-lab%2F&size=122.7KB&name=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&p=calories+burned+from+fat+versus+carbohydrates&oid=5e5d45fcf94ebf290757fa272fc48514&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326-s&tt=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&b=0&ni=288&no=1&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=12tf2mqgn&sigb=149v3sdtq&sigi=12uvmffu5&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326-s

By the way, there may be a false assumption made that since weight training is high wattage (a 300 pound full squat by a 200 pound person performed in 1.5 second concentric is about 200-300 watts (about 150 plus “inefficiency”)) that it uses carbs. Not true. For up to about 10 seconds (maybe 1-6 reps) you are using almost only ATP and CP, and this gets replenished by fatty acid oxidation. Though Fred Hatfield said that ATP and CP gets used up within 1.5 seconds with a maximal squat. Still low rep strength training gets ATP and CP rebuild from fatty acids. The Russians firmly believed that sets of 2-6 reps were optimal for power, and that would only be true if CP and ATP stores were basically large enough to fuel those reps.

In fact this strongly suggests that the post workout window for carbs may not apply to pure strength training, because glycogen is probably not depleted at all in 1-3 rep sets. But if you do deplete glycogen by getting into the lactic acid zone then the glycogen can only rebuild by actively transporting glucose into the cell. Its hard to pin down just how long a set has to be to deplete glycogen because generally ATP and CP lasts for 1.5 to 6 seconds of full out work like sprinting or a single max squat, but when doing multiple reps there is little energy being used on the eccentric, and so its not like a full sprint. If you feel H-LA then you are depleting glycogen though.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcX.T0AtTKaoArmGJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyOHVqbHRkBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM3OWExNDM2YWU5ZGEzYzNhNWQwNmJjNjVlYjQwMmJjMgRncG9zAzUEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Denergy%2Bpathways%2Bduration%2Bexercise%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D5&w=416&h=358&imgurl=www.brianmac.co.uk%2Fpictures%2Fphysiology%2Fenergy.gif&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brianmac.co.uk%2Fenergy.htm&size=14.0KB&name=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&p=energy+pathways+duration+exercise&oid=79a1436ae9da3c3a5d06bc65eb402bc2&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326&tt=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&b=0&ni=288&no=5&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11469g5kn&sigb=13rbcpn2t&sigi=11h4723tm&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326

16

Great info mertdawg.

17

OP, you are right… healthy fats are only healthy as part of a balanced nutritional approach. They are generally deemed “healthy” for their ability to either increase HDL, decrease LDL, or both. Some have additional health benefits like being antioxidants (EVOO) or antibacterial (coconut oil). And these are all good things. But “healthy” has to be considered in the context of the whole diet (as with ANY use of the word “healthy”).

Eating too many calories will still make you fat regardless of the calorie’s source, and eating more than you can expend leads to higher triglycerides and weight fat gain. Both of which are predictors of heart disease.

Now for cutting, you can still aim for a balance of healthy fat intake while being hypocaloric. Over 100g of fat is pretty high. I’ve seen recommendations for around 40-50% of LBM (lbs) at the high end down to 20-30% on the low end (see some of Nate Miyaki’s articles on here).

18

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:
I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.[/quote]

It’s funny. People fail to realize that their cells are basically membranes, structural proteins and enzymes, and the membranes are all lipids.

The body prefers that the ultimate fat of dietary lipids be to a) fuel muscles and b) build membranes, while the primary fate of carbs is to be stored as fat unless glycogen stores are low. Of all your cells, muscle cells actually are best at using fatty acids.

[/quote]

Curious: How to muscles use fat as fuel? I thought they used glycogen, from carbs? [/quote]

So fatty acids are broken down in mitochondria (which are contained largely in red muscle fibers) by beta oxidation into NADH and FADH2 (which make ATP) and acetyl-CoA which is the same thing that sugar ultimately gets turned into, to enter the Kreb’s cycle.

So it makes ATP the same way really that glycogen does from oxidation, It does not however rebuild glycogen stores by that pathway. The thing about Glycogen is that it can produce ATP by glycolysis without oxygen (good for short bursts).

Keep in mind too that if you are not low on glycogen, all the carbs you eat basically get turned into triglycerides and stored as adipose, but the fats you eat typically enter muscle cells for beta oxidation which fuels by far most of your metabolic needs.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcXEQyQtTmMgAcv.JzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyMWFucGFzBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM1ZTVkNDVmY2Y5NGViZjI5MDc1N2ZhMjcyZmM0ODUxNARncG9zAzEEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dcalories%2Bburned%2Bfrom%2Bfat%2Bversus%2Bcarbohydrates%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326-s%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D1&w=911&h=623&imgurl=fastforwardsports.files.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2Fryan-wood-carb-fat-calorie-burn-rate-picture.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffastforwardsports.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F18%2Fgoing-anaerobic-at-boulder-performance-lab%2F&size=122.7KB&name=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&p=calories+burned+from+fat+versus+carbohydrates&oid=5e5d45fcf94ebf290757fa272fc48514&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326-s&tt=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&b=0&ni=288&no=1&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=12tf2mqgn&sigb=149v3sdtq&sigi=12uvmffu5&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326-s

By the way, there may be a false assumption made that since weight training is high wattage (a 300 pound full squat by a 200 pound person performed in 1.5 second concentric is about 200-300 watts (about 150 plus “inefficiency”)) that it uses carbs. Not true. For up to about 10 seconds (maybe 1-6 reps) you are using almost only ATP and CP, and this gets replenished by fatty acid oxidation. Though Fred Hatfield said that ATP and CP gets used up within 1.5 seconds with a maximal squat. Still low rep strength training gets ATP and CP rebuild from fatty acids. The Russians firmly believed that sets of 2-6 reps were optimal for power, and that would only be true if CP and ATP stores were basically large enough to fuel those reps.

In fact this strongly suggests that the post workout window for carbs may not apply to pure strength training, because glycogen is probably not depleted at all in 1-3 rep sets. But if you do deplete glycogen by getting into the lactic acid zone then the glycogen can only rebuild by actively transporting glucose into the cell. Its hard to pin down just how long a set has to be to deplete glycogen because generally ATP and CP lasts for 1.5 to 6 seconds of full out work like sprinting or a single max squat, but when doing multiple reps there is little energy being used on the eccentric, and so its not like a full sprint. If you feel H-LA then you are depleting glycogen though.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcX.T0AtTKaoArmGJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyOHVqbHRkBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM3OWExNDM2YWU5ZGEzYzNhNWQwNmJjNjVlYjQwMmJjMgRncG9zAzUEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Denergy%2Bpathways%2Bduration%2Bexercise%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D5&w=416&h=358&imgurl=www.brianmac.co.uk%2Fpictures%2Fphysiology%2Fenergy.gif&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brianmac.co.uk%2Fenergy.htm&size=14.0KB&name=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&p=energy+pathways+duration+exercise&oid=79a1436ae9da3c3a5d06bc65eb402bc2&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326&tt=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&b=0&ni=288&no=5&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11469g5kn&sigb=13rbcpn2t&sigi=11h4723tm&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326

[/quote]

Ridiculously good post man…thanks

edit: if I’m sprinting for like 12-13 seconds on a 100m sprint, and doing this several times (let’s say 10), thus putting me between 120-130 seconds over about a half hour window, does that mean I’m using carbs, as opposed to oxidizing fat for the energy needs by the end? I’m just confused about that part, because after I sprint I crave carbohydrates to the point that I can’t concentrate on anything until I get some.

19

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:
I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.[/quote]

It’s funny. People fail to realize that their cells are basically membranes, structural proteins and enzymes, and the membranes are all lipids.

The body prefers that the ultimate fat of dietary lipids be to a) fuel muscles and b) build membranes, while the primary fate of carbs is to be stored as fat unless glycogen stores are low. Of all your cells, muscle cells actually are best at using fatty acids.

[/quote]

Curious: How to muscles use fat as fuel? I thought they used glycogen, from carbs? [/quote]

So fatty acids are broken down in mitochondria (which are contained largely in red muscle fibers) by beta oxidation into NADH and FADH2 (which make ATP) and acetyl-CoA which is the same thing that sugar ultimately gets turned into, to enter the Kreb’s cycle.

So it makes ATP the same way really that glycogen does from oxidation, It does not however rebuild glycogen stores by that pathway. The thing about Glycogen is that it can produce ATP by glycolysis without oxygen (good for short bursts).

Keep in mind too that if you are not low on glycogen, all the carbs you eat basically get turned into triglycerides and stored as adipose, but the fats you eat typically enter muscle cells for beta oxidation which fuels by far most of your metabolic needs.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcXEQyQtTmMgAcv.JzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyMWFucGFzBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM1ZTVkNDVmY2Y5NGViZjI5MDc1N2ZhMjcyZmM0ODUxNARncG9zAzEEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dcalories%2Bburned%2Bfrom%2Bfat%2Bversus%2Bcarbohydrates%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326-s%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D1&w=911&h=623&imgurl=fastforwardsports.files.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2Fryan-wood-carb-fat-calorie-burn-rate-picture.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffastforwardsports.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F18%2Fgoing-anaerobic-at-boulder-performance-lab%2F&size=122.7KB&name=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&p=calories+burned+from+fat+versus+carbohydrates&oid=5e5d45fcf94ebf290757fa272fc48514&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326-s&tt=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&b=0&ni=288&no=1&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=12tf2mqgn&sigb=149v3sdtq&sigi=12uvmffu5&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326-s

By the way, there may be a false assumption made that since weight training is high wattage (a 300 pound full squat by a 200 pound person performed in 1.5 second concentric is about 200-300 watts (about 150 plus “inefficiency”)) that it uses carbs. Not true. For up to about 10 seconds (maybe 1-6 reps) you are using almost only ATP and CP, and this gets replenished by fatty acid oxidation. Though Fred Hatfield said that ATP and CP gets used up within 1.5 seconds with a maximal squat. Still low rep strength training gets ATP and CP rebuild from fatty acids. The Russians firmly believed that sets of 2-6 reps were optimal for power, and that would only be true if CP and ATP stores were basically large enough to fuel those reps.

In fact this strongly suggests that the post workout window for carbs may not apply to pure strength training, because glycogen is probably not depleted at all in 1-3 rep sets. But if you do deplete glycogen by getting into the lactic acid zone then the glycogen can only rebuild by actively transporting glucose into the cell. Its hard to pin down just how long a set has to be to deplete glycogen because generally ATP and CP lasts for 1.5 to 6 seconds of full out work like sprinting or a single max squat, but when doing multiple reps there is little energy being used on the eccentric, and so its not like a full sprint. If you feel H-LA then you are depleting glycogen though.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcX.T0AtTKaoArmGJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyOHVqbHRkBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM3OWExNDM2YWU5ZGEzYzNhNWQwNmJjNjVlYjQwMmJjMgRncG9zAzUEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Denergy%2Bpathways%2Bduration%2Bexercise%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D5&w=416&h=358&imgurl=www.brianmac.co.uk%2Fpictures%2Fphysiology%2Fenergy.gif&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brianmac.co.uk%2Fenergy.htm&size=14.0KB&name=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&p=energy+pathways+duration+exercise&oid=79a1436ae9da3c3a5d06bc65eb402bc2&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326&tt=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&b=0&ni=288&no=5&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11469g5kn&sigb=13rbcpn2t&sigi=11h4723tm&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326

[/quote]

Ridiculously good post man…thanks

edit: if I’m sprinting for like 12-13 seconds on a 100m sprint, and doing this several times (let’s say 10), thus putting me between 120-130 seconds over about a half hour window, does that mean I’m using carbs, as opposed to oxidizing fat for the energy needs by the end? I’m just confused about that part, because after I sprint I crave carbohydrates to the point that I can’t concentrate on anything until I get some. [/quote]

Yes, at 3 seconds of sprinting carbs have become the major power source, and at 6 seconds of sprinting you are pretty much having to use all carbs to replenish ATP as you continue, first by glycolysis, then Kreb’s cycle with oxygen. ATP has been depleted and your not giving a break that would let fatty acids do it alone-only with carb involvement can you keep up. Every extra second you run is going to use more carbs. And the glycogen will only be rebuilt by bringing more glucose into the cell. So each run will reduce glycogen a little more.

20

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:
I realy wish all the fats in foods were called lipids or something like that instead of fat because it causes a lot of confusion as we also call that blubber that accumulates around outr bodies fat too.[/quote]

It’s funny. People fail to realize that their cells are basically membranes, structural proteins and enzymes, and the membranes are all lipids.

The body prefers that the ultimate fat of dietary lipids be to a) fuel muscles and b) build membranes, while the primary fate of carbs is to be stored as fat unless glycogen stores are low. Of all your cells, muscle cells actually are best at using fatty acids.

[/quote]

Curious: How to muscles use fat as fuel? I thought they used glycogen, from carbs? [/quote]

So fatty acids are broken down in mitochondria (which are contained largely in red muscle fibers) by beta oxidation into NADH and FADH2 (which make ATP) and acetyl-CoA which is the same thing that sugar ultimately gets turned into, to enter the Kreb’s cycle.

So it makes ATP the same way really that glycogen does from oxidation, It does not however rebuild glycogen stores by that pathway. The thing about Glycogen is that it can produce ATP by glycolysis without oxygen (good for short bursts).

Keep in mind too that if you are not low on glycogen, all the carbs you eat basically get turned into triglycerides and stored as adipose, but the fats you eat typically enter muscle cells for beta oxidation which fuels by far most of your metabolic needs.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcXEQyQtTmMgAcv.JzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyMWFucGFzBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM1ZTVkNDVmY2Y5NGViZjI5MDc1N2ZhMjcyZmM0ODUxNARncG9zAzEEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dcalories%2Bburned%2Bfrom%2Bfat%2Bversus%2Bcarbohydrates%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326-s%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D1&w=911&h=623&imgurl=fastforwardsports.files.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2Fryan-wood-carb-fat-calorie-burn-rate-picture.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffastforwardsports.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F18%2Fgoing-anaerobic-at-boulder-performance-lab%2F&size=122.7KB&name=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&p=calories+burned+from+fat+versus+carbohydrates&oid=5e5d45fcf94ebf290757fa272fc48514&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326-s&tt=ryan-wood-carb-<b>fat<%2Fb>-calorie-burn-rate-picture&b=0&ni=288&no=1&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=12tf2mqgn&sigb=149v3sdtq&sigi=12uvmffu5&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326-s

By the way, there may be a false assumption made that since weight training is high wattage (a 300 pound full squat by a 200 pound person performed in 1.5 second concentric is about 200-300 watts (about 150 plus “inefficiency”)) that it uses carbs. Not true. For up to about 10 seconds (maybe 1-6 reps) you are using almost only ATP and CP, and this gets replenished by fatty acid oxidation. Though Fred Hatfield said that ATP and CP gets used up within 1.5 seconds with a maximal squat. Still low rep strength training gets ATP and CP rebuild from fatty acids. The Russians firmly believed that sets of 2-6 reps were optimal for power, and that would only be true if CP and ATP stores were basically large enough to fuel those reps.

In fact this strongly suggests that the post workout window for carbs may not apply to pure strength training, because glycogen is probably not depleted at all in 1-3 rep sets. But if you do deplete glycogen by getting into the lactic acid zone then the glycogen can only rebuild by actively transporting glucose into the cell. Its hard to pin down just how long a set has to be to deplete glycogen because generally ATP and CP lasts for 1.5 to 6 seconds of full out work like sprinting or a single max squat, but when doing multiple reps there is little energy being used on the eccentric, and so its not like a full sprint. If you feel H-LA then you are depleting glycogen though.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcX.T0AtTKaoArmGJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIyOHVqbHRkBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM3OWExNDM2YWU5ZGEzYzNhNWQwNmJjNjVlYjQwMmJjMgRncG9zAzUEaXQDYmluZw--?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Denergy%2Bpathways%2Bduration%2Bexercise%26fr%3Dyfp-t-326%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D5&w=416&h=358&imgurl=www.brianmac.co.uk%2Fpictures%2Fphysiology%2Fenergy.gif&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brianmac.co.uk%2Fenergy.htm&size=14.0KB&name=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&p=energy+pathways+duration+exercise&oid=79a1436ae9da3c3a5d06bc65eb402bc2&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-326&tt=<b>Energy+Pathways<%2Fb>&b=0&ni=288&no=5&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11469g5kn&sigb=13rbcpn2t&sigi=11h4723tm&.crumb=W0j8a0jYowZ&fr=yfp-t-326

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Ridiculously good post man…thanks

edit: if I’m sprinting for like 12-13 seconds on a 100m sprint, and doing this several times (let’s say 10), thus putting me between 120-130 seconds over about a half hour window, does that mean I’m using carbs, as opposed to oxidizing fat for the energy needs by the end? I’m just confused about that part, because after I sprint I crave carbohydrates to the point that I can’t concentrate on anything until I get some. [/quote]

Yes, at 3 seconds of sprinting carbs have become the major power source, and at 6 seconds of sprinting you are pretty much having to use all carbs to replenish ATP as you continue, first by glycolysis, then Kreb’s cycle with oxygen. ATP has been depleted and your not giving a break that would let fatty acids do it alone-only with carb involvement can you keep up. Every extra second you run is going to use more carbs. And the glycogen will only be rebuilt by bringing more glucose into the cell. So each run will reduce glycogen a little more. [/quote]

Got it! And ultimately this is why people on Keto end up feeling miserable with this type of exercise, because the glycogen isn’t getting replenished?