I’ve seen it a thousand times on T-Nation: some kid complains about his progress, and is susequently bombarded with replies advising him to “just fucking eat”.
It makes sense. I mean, in order to put on new mass, you would have to give your body extra fuel in order to make this new mass.
However, when I start to think about it, I can’t understand what roles carbs and fats play in muscle building.
I mean, I know why I need to eat a ton of protein, seeing as it is the building block of muscle.
And I know that glycogen is stored in muscle. I also know that lots of fat=healthy test levels.
My question is this: does fat play any role other than increasing T? Do carbs do anything other that provide glycogen?
Thanks…
Carbs = insulin response which is a great anabolic hormone. Carbs + fats are used for energy but fats + protein have tons of uses in the body from a structural (make cells and such) or functional standpoint.
That’s quite short but it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
[quote]abominabelsnoman wrote:
I mean, I know why I need to eat a ton of protein, seeing as it is the building block of muscle.[/quote]
its not that simple… . do you know what protein synthesis means? it means the body is making protein… . the body doesnt need dietry protein for this but extra protein on its own apparently jump starts this process. …
thanks for the replies. what you said makes sense and yeah, I pretty much knew most of it already. I guess i would need a phd to understand it to the fullest. I’ll just lift and eat and forget about how everything is working.
You guys are forgetting the most essential part of cellular metabolism, the generation of ATP. ATP is the energy currency in the cell, and carbohydrate and fat, can both generate ATP. Even amino acids after de-aminating can generate ATP.
All cellular processes use ATP(or some derivative of it), to make whatever chemical process go in the non-spontaneous direction.
FAT’s energy density(i.e. the amount of ATP generated per unit volume) is much higher than that of carbohydrates. ofcourse, it can only deliver this ATP AERObically, where as with CHO you have the opportunity to go through a very inefficient anaerobic pathway to deliver ATP.
Long story short, yes they do things other than the aforementioned, they used to keep your cells alive.