First of all, does a low carb, high protein diet even make sense? I feel like by having a low carb diet and working out, my body would simply use all my protein as fuel and not so much for muscle maintenance and growth.
Basically, my goals right now are to drop body fat as much as possible without losing muscle. I don’t have much to spare…
if your goal is to simply drop body fat without losing muscle, just reduce your calorie intake and do cardio; losing weight isnt rocket science. keep lifting, and dont slash calories too low and you shouldnt have any trouble keeping your muscle.
as for your question about low carb, high protein diets, i’m not an advocate of these types of diets (keto). they may work to lose weight but, at what expense to your body/organs/brain? personally, i would just reduce the amount of starches you’re eating (notice i said REDUCE, this does NOT mean remove) and when you do eat them, keep them earlier in the day.
and eat lots of vegetables and fruit, they’ll keep you feeling full, are packed with nutrients, and are a lot cheaper then meat. as for the meat/protein intake, i wouldnt go too crazy. do the research (REAL research, not bro-science) and figure out what works best for you.
edit: if you’re going to take the low-carb route, i would keep at-least 50-100g carbs/day in my diet.
[quote]bdiddy78 wrote:
First of all, does a low carb, high protein diet even make sense? I feel like by having a low carb diet and working out, my body would simply use all my protein as fuel and not so much for muscle maintenance and growth.
[/quote]
The goal of a diet is to have your fat being used as fuel.
The higher protein intake is for many reasons, the thermic effect of protein, satiety value, and as a sort of prevention of excessive muscle loss. Yes it will be inefficient use of protein, but it will help spare some muscle and burn some extra calories for digestion.
[quote]
“He made me realize all that talk about not gaining muscle without carbs or horrendously high calorie diets is just plain BS”
…well, how?[/quote]
Carbs are great for building muscle because they are a quick and convenient energy source, as well as being able to spike insulin. Those two factors are good for building muscle.
They are not exclusive to carbs though. Insulin can be spiked through dairy products, BCAA’s, L-Leucine in particular, and fast digesting proteins.
As for energy sources, you could go with MCT’s (Coconut Oil), but carbs are really optimal here. Although if you are looking to lose fat, you should be trying to make your fat stores your energy source.
the benefits of low carb diet is that fat is then the preferential energy source and by lower carbs u lower/stabilize insulin which helps reduce appetitte and if u get into ketosis this helps appetitte suppression as well as anticatabolic affects on muscle tissue.
I think if your naturally an endomorph u can gain muscle on low carb diet but if u try to drop weight on low calorie diet u get hungry all the time unless u cut carbs out.
If your an ectomorph and looking for muscle then eat lots of food in general, make sure u eat plenty of protein and total calories into that 4000cal range. Me being an endomorph i can eat 4000cal/day before lunch, lol, but 4000cal is hard for ectomorph, thats when a protein drink with high carbs is good, alot easier to drink calories then to eat them.
[quote]bdiddy78 wrote:
First of all, does a low carb, high protein diet even make sense? I feel like by having a low carb diet and working out, my body would simply use all my protein as fuel and not so much for muscle maintenance and growth.[/quote]
You’re leaving out one major variable in dietary fat intake, which leads me to believe you don’t have a good handle on this.
Many people follow high fat/moderate protein/low carb diets, however. Just follow any of the threads here on the Anabolic Diet.
I don’t believe that such diets are the answer for most people who want to build muscle, but I have seen exceptions.
[quote]bdiddy78 wrote:He did not get into real specifics on his diet but he said Don Alessi convinced him that its possible to build muscle without carbs.
“He made me realize all that talk about not gaining muscle without carbs or horrendously high calorie diets is just plain BS”
…well, how?[/quote]
Wouldn’t it make sense to ask him or Don Alessi if you want to know what they do/recommend?
One of the trainers at my gym used to weigh 200lb. In the midst of dropping the weight, she tried a month on a low-carb diet, high protein. At the end of the month, she’d lost 10 lbs. However, according to the differing body fat percentages between the two months, all 10 of those lbs came from muscle.
Get to know your body, there’s no definitive guide. Every person is unique. Do you handle carbs well? If so then use them to your advantage. Do you gain fat easily? Go low-carb and see where it gets you. It’s all trial and error.
The thing about low carb diets is the work differently on different people. There are those who don’t respond well to high carb diets and a low (or lowered) carb diet is the way to go. But there are those who don’t need to. There is no point comparing results of the two without knowing the if the person’s insulin resistance is high or not. Not to mention insulin resistance can change over time with improvement to diet and fitness.
The only thing to do is experiment and pay close attention to individual results, tweaking as necessary. And be prepared to change as goals, needs and how the body responds to foods changes.
[quote]Oleena wrote:
One of the trainers at my gym used to weigh 200lb. In the midst of dropping the weight, she tried a month on a low-carb diet, high protein. At the end of the month, she’d lost 10 lbs. However, according to the differing body fat percentages between the two months, all 10 of those lbs came from muscle.
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What was her BF% beforehand?
This is an important question because it will go a long way to show how much she actually knows about training herself and others.
[quote]Oleena wrote:
One of the trainers at my gym used to weigh 200lb. In the midst of dropping the weight, she tried a month on a low-carb diet, high protein. At the end of the month, she’d lost 10 lbs. However, according to the differing body fat percentages between the two months, all 10 of those lbs came from muscle.
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If it’s not body fat that doesn’t mean it’s automatically muscle; she could have easily dropped 10 pounds of water. Kinda easy to do when you drop most carbohydrates for a month and add in a macronutrient in it’s place that has a diuretic for a metabolite (urea).
Edit: And given how SHE was 200 (unless 6’2), she most likely had a lot of water to lose.