Thanks for all of the replies friends. I think I will try a more strict low carb approach once my soccer season is over, but at the moment I still need to get some carbs in around my “training window” to prevent myself from passing out.
[quote]JK29 wrote:
I use this little trick from time to time. When people (I don’t really know) start giving me a hard time at a restaurant for eating a chicken salad with no dressing or not eating the bread or chips, I just tell them I’m a diabetic and they instantly stop.
Explaining my diet to them takes too long, and besides; they’re going to just tell me I’m unhealthy anyway.
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This.
Although I still am trying to teach my girlfriend to shut up when people start to question me about my “strange diet habits”. I usually use the diabetes excuse, although on a few occasions my GF has butted in and starts to explain how we eat high protein/low carb blablabla. She is a bit naive and just assumes people will understand, but in reality people look at you like you have some rare disease.
I really like this subject, and applaud the OP for creating it in such a constructive way. I just studied this for about a year at a highly ranked research college (I say this just to get across the fact of being taught by “research” done within the last 1-3 years) and was fascinated about what we’re talking about now.
I love to share my opinion about things also, and will first say how I eat normally.
Carbs are my number 1 best friend, I eat on the regular 300-500g of carbs, and really don’t worry about much about ingesting too little or too much fat. As long as I am taking all the EFA’s and omega 3’s and 6’s (which I get with Flameout and FA3) I couldnt really be content with not having any fat all day.
While I agree with the history many are talking about, the fact that humans millions of years ago not having access to many carbohydrates, I will also agree with knowing that humans millions of years ago probably weren’t sporting 200-250lb beastly muscular frames that we are all striving for today. That, and furthermore the fact that humans millions of years ago, even to the time right before agriculture was founded, were not nearly as mentally evolved as we are today. This is where I don’t agree with paleo diets in terms for the pursuit of performance.
I’ll try to simple bullet the reasons I agree with high carb diets.
I know that carbohydrates aren’t the direct cause of insulin resistance - the accumulation of ceramides/DAGs (fatty acids) is.
2)I am terrile with the gym on anything less than 250 carbs a day, that is super low, I think.
to the contrary that someone stated before, you’re body can’t create glucose (transportable, usable glucose) once the kidneys and liver have been depleted. Glucose is crucial to most processes people like us are interested in doing - from lifting heavy to thinking
Quite frankly, I don’t agree with any of the reasons people bring to the table about why going high fat over high carbs is in any way better because of what I have learned.
(abbreviated GNG) is a metabolic pathway that results in the generation of glucose from non-carbohydrate carbon substrates such as pyruvate, lactate, glycerol, glucogenic amino acids, and fatty acids (both even-chain[1] and odd-chain). It is one of the two main mechanisms humans and many other animals use to keep blood glucose levels from dropping too low (hypoglycemia).
For the record I still eat carbs… Just once a week. I take in around 700-1000g in a 24-36 hour window. Tops off my glycogen stores for the week. The longer you follow a low carb plan, the better your body gets at partitioning and holding on to glycogen… At least that’s my experience. Even when I should be dead tired (the day before my carb up), I generally have plenty of energy and full strength in the gym (Less of a pump though, but this is obvious).
I’m an engineer by trade. My day job generally requires a “high output” of mental strain (at least I like to think so!). Using myself as a case study, I can say that my mental sharpness is in general better on a low carb diet. When I carb up on the weekends I get a little more lethargic and mentally sluggish for sure. I was also more lethargic daily the last time I followed a high carb “tratitional” bulking diet.
The worst thing about low carb living, which has been touched on a bit already, is fat people telling you CONSTANTLY how all that fat is clogging your arteries.
[quote]JK29 wrote:
I had a 300 pound woman at the checkout line tell me (a visibly in shape person I might add) that I’m unhealthy and I need to get my cholesterol checked when I was buying 5 dozen eggs. Took everything I had not to unload verbally on her.
You’ll be amazed what you hear eating this way!
JK29
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“I’ll be interested in reading more about it, what’s the study this research was in?”
It usually follows with " my aunty know someone…" or “my sister does weight watchers…” type response
Which you can follow with “well, my doctor says I’m pretty healthy, my blood work is good. Maybe our diets and lifestyles aren’t so similar?”
I know that there are more there one way to skin a cat, but I was wondering what my fellow T-Nationers think about the low carb/high fat diet vs. a high carb/low fat diet. From what i have seen on the training logs, people tend to choose one method over the other.
I was wondering what are your thoughts about the advantages and disadvantages on each diet? Which diet has more solid science evidence backing it? Which option is better for the long term? Which is better for health? Which diet is better for cutting and which is better for bulking? Do some people suit one diet more than the other(genetic influences)? Feel free to add your own experience of the 2 different diet philosophies.
Go.
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i would recommend reading all of lyle mcdonald’s and alan aragon’s nutrition stuff. actually intelligent people that know their shit are rare among nutrition “gurus”
i find when i bulk with alot of fat, i put on way more fat. this makes sense, the whole “you cant store fat as fat” is nonsense and the mating call of the low carb guru. in a deficit it doesnt matter as much because you are burning through most of what you eat.
I’ll stick in my two cents worth with the usual caveats. I’ve dropped from 182 to 168lbs. I have been inspired by Gironda-style training and so took on his diet approach (basically 3 days or so low carb, followed by one high carb meal; hardly rocket science or worthy of a book but damn effective). Sometimes I go longer without the carb meal, at other times my overall carbs may creep up a bit although are still in the ‘low’ category. Sometimes, I have hit ketosis; sometimes not. The main point is I’ve kept up a good training intensity, sometimes doing twice daily sessions, and rarely felt hungry. For me, that’s what really matters along with the obvious affect of positive body composition.
[quote]JamesBrawn007 wrote:
I’ll stick in my two cents worth with the usual caveats. I’ve dropped from 182 to 168lbs. I have been inspired by Gironda-style training and so took on his diet approach (basically 3 days or so low carb, followed by one high carb meal; hardly rocket science or worthy of a book but damn effective). Sometimes I go longer without the carb meal, at other times my overall carbs may creep up a bit although are still in the ‘low’ category. Sometimes, I have hit ketosis; sometimes not. The main point is I’ve kept up a good training intensity, sometimes doing twice daily sessions, and rarely felt hungry. For me, that’s what really matters along with the obvious affect of positive body composition.[/quote]
It always impresses me to think how far ahead of his time Vince Gironda was. Truly the “Iron Guru.”
[quote]Joeyc123 wrote:
I really like this subject, and applaud the OP for creating it in such a constructive way. I just studied this for about a year at a highly ranked research college (I say this just to get across the fact of being taught by “research” done within the last 1-3 years) and was fascinated about what we’re talking about now.
I love to share my opinion about things also, and will first say how I eat normally.
Carbs are my number 1 best friend, I eat on the regular 300-500g of carbs, and really don’t worry about much about ingesting too little or too much fat. As long as I am taking all the EFA’s and omega 3’s and 6’s (which I get with Flameout and FA3) I couldnt really be content with not having any fat all day.
While I agree with the history many are talking about, the fact that humans millions of years ago not having access to many carbohydrates, I will also agree with knowing that humans millions of years ago probably weren’t sporting 200-250lb beastly muscular frames that we are all striving for today. That, and furthermore the fact that humans millions of years ago, even to the time right before agriculture was founded, were not nearly as mentally evolved as we are today. This is where I don’t agree with paleo diets in terms for the pursuit of performance.
I’ll try to simple bullet the reasons I agree with high carb diets.
I know that carbohydrates aren’t the direct cause of insulin resistance - the accumulation of ceramides/DAGs (fatty acids) is.
2)I am terrile with the gym on anything less than 250 carbs a day, that is super low, I think.
to the contrary that someone stated before, you’re body can’t create glucose (transportable, usable glucose) once the kidneys and liver have been depleted. Glucose is crucial to most processes people like us are interested in doing - from lifting heavy to thinking
Quite frankly, I don’t agree with any of the reasons people bring to the table about why going high fat over high carbs is in any way better because of what I have learned.
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I do far far better on high fat virtually 0 carb. Health wise greatly improves my blood work. My performance increases. I stay lean.
So yes, you can absolutely perform on low carb. The only real thing I have a problem with is gaining weight. I have serious problems stuffing my face enough to get my weight up, despite the fact that I am eating far more calories now than when I was heavier and eating carbs. I can eat far more fat calories than carb calories and stay lean. 4500 calories in a fat based plan is better than 3500 calories on a carb based one. I don’t go hungry, I don’t track anything, and I’m staying far far leaner than before.
And FYI there are actually studies that show improved cognitive function with the brain running on ketones. I for one am far more alert and engaged without carbs.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
…if you are going to do this, you have to get all the bullshit government driven fear of fat out of your head. Eat the chicken skin, get the fattier ground beef, put butter on stuff, add heavy cream to your coffee, saute your veggies in bacon grease, quit throwing out egg yolks. If you try it and are afraid of these things, getting the necessary calories from avocado and olive oil will fucking suck and you will be miserable.
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x2
People that want to switch to low-carb, high-fat without understanding this will do it all wrong. Fatty cuts of meat, butter with your veggies, coconut oil in anything…that’s the way to go, for taste and health reasons! It’s kind of funny to see people trying to get “healthy fats” in their diet by eating nothing but boneless, skinless chicken breasts, adding a tablespoon of olive oil for the “healthy fats” - don’t they know that they could just eat some duck breast/legs with the skin on? Or cook a couple nice thick strips of bacon, then sautee a giant pile of spinach or kale in the grease?
Another favorite of mine is an easy vegetable puree (carrots, cauliflower, parsnips, etc): boil a pound or so of your favorite root vegetable with a few pinches of salt, about a cup of water, and a few heaping tablespoons of good grass-fed butter. Simmer until most of the water has boiled off, then puree in a food processor. Easy. Fantastic. Low-carb, high-fat.
I did the anabolic diet (5 days high fat/no carb then 2 days of carbs) for about a year and loved it, but I had to stop due to digestion issues. (I have digestion issues in the first place).
If I had to do it all over again, I’d have eaten a lot more veggies. I was eating quite a bit, but I’d still add more. I’d also put a lot of emphasis on using betaine HCL and other digestive enzymes/probiotics with it.
After about a month of low carb, my body looked better, felt better, my mental clarity was improved, energy went up. Weekend carb ups left me bloated and sluggish, though. Still, I’d recommend it.