This does not seem optimal for maximum size, strength, or athletic ability.
However it does seem a very well founded approach for one’s overall health.
[quote]Med Pro wrote:
DrGregEllis Well said!!!
Personal story that lead me to the same conclusion:
Buddy died at 33 from a heart attack.
I went to get a medical work up as I was unhealthy.
Found:
Cholesterol to be 244
BP 160
60Lbs overweight
Overwhelming stomach acid
I was prescribed a bag full of med samples.
Refusing meds I cut carbs.
30 days later with zero exercise I lost 30lbs
Cholesterol dropped to 150
BP dropped to 120
Acid was gone.
90 days later I lost a total of 58lbs & no exercise.
Cholesterol still 150
I kicker was I ate cheese by the lbs, meat, eggs and more veggies than I ever ate before.
I ask patients all the time. Why is a cow so fat when all it eats is grass?
Answer, grass is carbs.
I ask, how do you fatten up a cow?
Answer, Grain feed them. Every farmer knows this.
[/quote]
how is he a doctor…do you ACTUALLY think just due to the fact he has a DR in his screename?
[quote]truetomuscle wrote:
how is he a doctor…do you ACTUALLY think just due to the fact he has a DR in his screename?
[/quote]
[quote]truetomuscle wrote:
how is he a doctor…do you ACTUALLY think just due to the fact he has a DR in his screename?
[/quote]
If you google him, you’ll see he has a Ph.D. in physiology. His web site is one of the first hits if you google: “Greg ellis” and Carbs. Coincidentally, he also has a book for sale.
Good marketing tactic, showing up on a forum with his real name and lots of info to get people to find his site and perhaps buy his book. 
[quote]ds1973 wrote:
[quote]truetomuscle wrote:
how is he a doctor…do you ACTUALLY think just due to the fact he has a DR in his screename?
[/quote]
If you google him, you’ll see he has a Ph.D. in physiology. His web site is one of the first hits if you google: “Greg ellis” and Carbs. Coincidentally, he also has a book for sale.
Good marketing tactic, showing up on a forum with his real name and lots of info to get people to find his site and perhaps buy his book.
[/quote]
He even has his own Youtube channel. Someone should post one of his vids to prove he’s real…
Hey guys, sorry I could not respond this weekend … I will read all of your comments and questions and respond.
However, to the user that said this was a marketing technique I will respond. This is not a marketing technique. If you read my website, you will see that my target market for my products are NOT the people on this forum. My background is bodybuilding, as i did this for many years, so I always will have a interest in this. I am just trying to share with everyone my research, because I do feel that it can help you gain muscle and mass, as it did I. I will never try and “sell” you anything … this is not the place for that.
Dr. Greg,
Your free e-book was a great read and I related to a lot of what you had to say about Atkins. Those are similar issues that I saw with people that I trained.
@collinD624
Thank you for your words. I hope my research can help you in your quest !!!
I am willing to send anything to anyone on here for free. Just drop me your email. I am not on here to make money I am on here to share my research !
Dr. Greg,
I am very interested to hear your thoughts regarding the following;
The potential long-tern negative effects of elevated cortisol due to daily fasting (ie LeanGains)
The potential long-term negative effects of high insulin spikes post-workout. (ie Carb Backloading)
I understand you may not have definitive proof for either case, just interested in your opinion.
Thank you,
[quote]ds1973 wrote:
[quote]truetomuscle wrote:
how is he a doctor…do you ACTUALLY think just due to the fact he has a DR in his screename?
[/quote]
If you google him, you’ll see he has a Ph.D. in physiology. His web site is one of the first hits if you google: “Greg ellis” and Carbs. Coincidentally, he also has a book for sale.
Good marketing tactic, showing up on a forum with his real name and lots of info to get people to find his site and perhaps buy his book.
[/quote]
oops i apologize i jumped the gun
hey guys … here are some answers to some questions I received …
QUESTION
So Dr… how does one go about setting up an eating plan under your guidelines if one’s goal is muscle gain? Do we start with our lean mass protein requirements and go from there (a’la Barry Sears)? And if excess protein is as much a culprit in conversion to glucose, how do we intake more animal fats when the sources are protein sources?
ANSWER:
Consume 70-80% of your calories as primarily saturated animal fat – so fatty cuts of meat. This will yield about 20-30% of your calories as protein. The fat will spare the breakdown of muscle. This is where you start, not with any calculations of protein needs.
QUESTION:
If the body is getting ample amounts of carbohydrates to use as fuel. Why would the body convert protein to glucose at a rate of 66%? Gluconeogenesis is not very efficient, and doesn’t make sense from the body’s point of view.
ANSWER:
First, you want to avoid using carbs as fuel and the only way to do this is restrict carbs and consume more fat. It’s not a question of why the body does this conversion because that has no answer. This is just what studies of this show.
COMMENT:
Well I am certain a small amount of protein conversion to glucose happens with everyone, even in the presence of fat or carbs. Type II diabetics for instance have shown to use gluconeogenesis at a rate of three times greater than a normal person. The thing that jumps out at me is the 66% conversion, that just seems ridiculously high, and isn’t making sense to me, for an inherently healthy individual of course.
(comment on above questions, from another user)
Gluconeogenesis is stimulated by the hormone glucagon, which works in a see-saw fashion with insulin. When blood sugars decrease, glucagon is produced to increase gluconeogenesis and raise blood sugars. This would not occur to any substantial degree, let alone 66%, when your diet is primarily carbohydrate.
RESPONSE:
From Physiological Reviews 72: 419-48
Jungas, Halperin, Brosnan
“the net effect of the oxidation of amino acids to glucose in the liver is to make nearly two-thirds of the total energy available from the oxidation of amino acids accessible to peripheral tissues”
QUESTION:
I currently follow IF (intermittent fasting). I lift weights 4-5 days a week with a 6th day devoted to sprinting. I have a very active job as a courier where i deliver/pick up 100’s of 50lb boxes a week. What would you suggest my diet look like, pertaining to macros (Fat, Carbs, Protein). When you say “EAT FAT!”, you’re speaking of strictly animal fats? how about nuts? or oils (olive, coconut,etc)?
In the extreme you’d eat no carbs so 70-80% fat, 0% carbs, 20-30% protein. If you’re going to eat carbs then you have to decide how much and adjust the others accordingly. Yes, you can eat some of those oils but not more than about 5% of you total calories.
I hope the above helped !!!
Apparently I misjudged your posting intentions. What is your opinion of the following style of eating:
Intermittent fasting: 8 hr eating window (noon to 8 pm)
Rest days: low calories, very low carbs maybe 100 grams for the day, mainly at dinner. Two meals of about equal size.
Training days: High calories - similar lunch as rest days, low carb whey/casein shake 30 minutes prior to training, high carb meal after training. On this day, about 60 percent of the daily calories are consumed after training. Carbs ~ 300 grams all after training. Things like rice, potato, beans, some whole grains, followed by more sugary carbs for the insulin spike to aid in driving nutrients into the muscles which are more insulin sensitive due to the resistance training.
The concepts here are as follows:
- The 16 hour fast (ala Leangains) keeps insulin low and gets the body accessing fat stores for fuel.
- The eating window starts with a low carb lunch, maybe 30-40% fats. body continues to use fat for fuel.
- On rest days, carbs in the evening (ala Kiefers carb-backloading)
- On Training days, carbs in the meal after training to spike insulin. Evening carbs take advantage of the fact that fat cells are less insulin sensitive in the evenings (again per Kiefer).
- Overall goal of building muscle or losing fat is determined by weekly calorie surplus or deficit.
What’s your opinion of this, in particular the use of carbs immediately post workout or in the evenings?
Cortisol is a stress hormone but I don’t think it will create that much problem for you since you are only doing what humans have done for millions of years.
On the other hand, insulin is a nasty hormone. But why do you think you will get an insulin spike because of a workout?
Insulin Increases Eating and Fat Storage !!!
The hormonal stimulus causing the reduced carcass fat in the low-carbohydrate fed animals is the low levels of glucose and insulin and the high level of glucagon. These two hormones control the use of fat and carbohydrate. High insulin leads to fat storage; low insulin leads to fat release and glucagon kicks-up the ketone producing machinery in the liver.
High insulin levels are a characteristic feature of obesity. Administration of insulin to experimental animals, eating what they wanted, caused a large increase in food intake and, hence, obesity. Insulin, acting directly on the feeding center in the brain and indirectly by clearing the blood of fuel, stimulated appetite and eating. Remember, it‟s all about calories.
Researchers wondered whether insulin caused an increase in fat mass, independent of eating behavior. Here was the question: If calorie intake was the same, would insulin, by itself, make the animal fat?
Their results demonstrated that increases in body fat occurred as muscle and water decreased. Insulin caused animals to gain fat and lose muscle. All groups had been fed exactly the same number of calories through feed tubes inserted into their stomachs, a method that removed the effect of variations in calorie intake on any changes in body composition. Bodyweight gains were similar among the groups.
Amazingly, insulin treatment of animals that ate the same number of calories as animals not treated with insulin led to increased body fat and decreased muscle. The Energy Balance Equation was still obeyed as fuels came from different sources. If fuel is stored in body fat, energy must come from somewhere, if we control calorie intake, to meet energy requirements. The Energy Balance Equation must be satisfied. Here, the muscles provided the fuel as insulin drove calories into fat storage away from burning in the active tissues.
Low-carbohydrate eating reduces insulin release, and high-carbohydrate eating increases insulin release. The body composition changes occurring from eating a low- carbohydrate diet include the preservation of muscle and loss of fat. Conversely, a high-carbohydrate diet increases insulin release, fat gain, and muscle loss. This body composition effect even occurs whether consuming the number of calories needed or consuming fewer, although its degree varies with calorie intake. A lower calorie intake will lead to smaller changes. These fluctuations are a function of energy-partitioning.
It‟s astounding that one can gain fat while losing bodyweight, but this is a direct effect of carbohydrates.
To reverse these effects so that fat loss occurs and muscle increases, one must eat a low-carbohydrate diet. These positive effects from a low-carbohydrate diet begin when carbohydrate intake drops to less than approximately 25% of total calories.
I observed that fat storage occurred when carbohydrate content was 25-30% or higher of total calories. Below this amount, fat storage from carbohydrate slowed, and fat burning increased. Obviously, an individual‟s calorie intake affects these variations in the storage of fat from carbohydrate.
You can see that you have a much wider range for carbohydrate gram ingestion for this diet type to be effective than that offered by the misinformed ?experts? (such as Atkins) who promote a very restrictive, low, and virtually impossible-to-maintain daily carbohydrate intake.
Is a 0%-carbohydrate diet the best? I don‟t know. We need further studies to find out the best percentage. Studies of Alaskan sled racing dogs have found that decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate in the dogs‟ diet improved their performance. The best performance was on a 0%-carbohydrate diet. Here‟s the problem: few people ever maintain an extremely low or 0%- carbohydrate diet. It‟s just too hard to do. I maintained a 0%-carbohydrate diet for four months, but that was it.
I argue that the combination of carbohydrates and fat, our typical diet, is the most fattening. Insulin, the fat storage hormone, increases from eating carbohydrates.
The result of high blood insulin and glucose levels is a stimulation of storage of both carbohydrates and fat as body fat. When carbohydrate (hence insulin) is low, fat from the diet burns as energy. As long as carbohydrate intake is low, fat comes out of the fat cells and circulates in the blood, available for burning as fuel by muscle and organs.
This Low Carb Diet works because it obeys the body‟s laws of fuel metabolism and hormonal control. The mechanism of the low-carbohydrate diet is not a guess, not an opinion; it‟s based on biochemical facts. The low-fat diet fails because its framework doesn‟t rely on biochemical facts. The low-fat diet defies what we scientists know about cellular biochemistry.
The body releases insulin to control its level of blood glucose (blood sugar). Insulin‟s primary function, as I‟ve said, is to control the release of fat from the fat cell. Its secondary job is to maintain the blood glucose level within very narrow limits, which insulin does by storing some (a little) glucose as glycogen (a chain of glucose molecules) and most of it as fat. Glycogen storage amounts are small. The liver can hold 1⁄4 pound and the muscles hold 3⁄4 pound of glycogen. The body contains 60 times more fat than carbohydrate reserves.
Glucose not used immediately (for energy and for storage in the liver and muscles as glycogen) converts into fat. This conversion occurs both in the liver and in adipose tissue, but mostly in adipose tissue.

The most important action of insulin, however, is to slow the release of fat from fat cells. It‟s also the most powerful hormone stimulating the conversion of carbohydrate to fat. I say this again and again because I want this fact burned into your memory.
Remember: insulin is a fat-making hormone. High insulin levels from eating a high-carbohydrate diet, along with lots of calories, makes you fat. High insulin also stimulates hunger and you eat too much. It‟s that easy.
And if you eat fat along with your carbohydrates, the fat stores as fat too. No, it doesn‟t go directly to body fat. That‟s the simple, super-market magazine tale. Ingested fat is first broken down and then built back up into a different fat (chylomicrons) which are burned or stored. Fat making enzymes do this. The continued eating of a high-carbohydrate diet locks the fat inside the fat cell.
When insulin is low (as in the low-carbohydrate diet), fat cells release fat. Organs and muscles burn fat for energy. One eats less, loses weight, and feels great. When insulin is high (as in the high-carbohydrate diet), LPL is low in muscle and high in fat cells. The fat load in the blood is then forced into storage. The fat cells suck up the carbohydrate, converting it to fat. Conversely, when insulin is low (as in the low-carbohydrate diet), LPL is high in muscle and low in fat. Now fat from the blood goes into muscle where it‟s burned for energy. This satisfies the muscles‟ and organs‟ need for food and reduces food intake. That‟s because the muscles are no longer starving.
Sorry that was so long … I probably went over board …
[quote]DrGregEllis wrote:
Sorry that was so long … I probably went over board …
[/quote]
Not at all.
It has been a brilliant read
DrGreg,
I have a few questions… keep the new information coming… very interesting!
I am going to assume due to your last post that you are against spiking insulin levels postworkout via carbs to help enhance and lengthen uptake of amino acids into muscle cells?
Also, are you advocating maintaining low circulating insulin levels as much as possible? What if someone is trying to build muscle?
You say that when maintaining a low carb diet that essentially your muscle cells will become sensitive to fatty acids to be used as fuel, and that fat cells will become desensitized to storing fatty acids. Is it then optimal for the muscle cells to use fatty acids as fuel during moderate to intense anaerobic work like lifting weights, or short duration sprinting?
Finally, to my knowledge the body cannot use fatty acids to restore glycogen levels. So, is the 20-25% carbohydrate recommendation enough to fill glycogen levels? If its not, isn’t this promoting the body to use gluconeogenesis to fill glycogen storage then?
That was like 50 questions I know, like I said interesting stuff though, thanks for your time.
Awesome post, thank you Dr.Greg.
The insulin spike I referred to was due to a typical PWO shake and meal with plenty of simple sugars.
So just like in the other thread. What about the people that lose weight and fat and get into contest condiditon with a much higher percentage of carbs than you are advocating otimatically is stored as fat? What about the people that dont even workout and can continue to eat carbs and not gain fat? What about the others that do workout and are eating 300-600 day in and out and not getting fat? See other thread about my post about my mother and grandmother but i do not consider them genetically elite in anyway (in terms of body comp maybe in the brains category) and do not workout an eat lots of carbs and maintain a good body comop. Genetically annomilies? Love to hear a direct anwswer to these posts. (sorry about the typos i am hurrying to type this no time to fix)
How is one supposed to refill their glycogen levels with 0 carbs?
The way i am reading glycogen doesnt matter as the body is using fat for fuel