[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]ElevenMag wrote:
[quote]The3Commandments wrote:
ElevenMag, you are totally confusing necessity with what we’re actually interested in: optimizing efficient muscle gain. Your line of reasoning would be similar to my looking into the minimum amt of protein I need (…like .5g/lb) and using that as my base point. No one here is interested in necessity–we’re interested in the extra things that our bodies can use to make the best gains.[/quote]
Actually, its is 100% correct for optimizing efficient muscle gain. What do you think all these carbohydrates do when you eat them. They get stored to be used as energy. This is either as glycogen if you stores are low or as triglycerides which go to fat cells for long term storage. You have small reserves of glycogen in all your muscles and a extremely large storage, in comparison, in your liver. This glycogen is used as primary fuel to move the weights in high intensity situations (i.e. lifting weights). Eating carbs all the time, before working out, or after working out doesn’t somehow boost your amount of glycogen avaiable. Therefore you just get fat storage as triglycerides when you eat too much. Triglycerides are terrible for you. F*cking sugarholics
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Wow. No. Unless I am misunderstanding you, you’re completely wrong. Studies as far back as the 1960s have supported the idea that you can increase time to exhaustion under heavy exercise with a variation in diet, AS WELL AS increasing the total amount of glycogen available. here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1716.1967.tb03720.x/abstract That was in 1967 and there are literally hundreds of other studies supporting the same or similar.
So wrong on both counts.
Furthermore, ingestion of carbohydrates during workout has been shown to increase time to exhaustion in both endurance and strength training. Longer time to exhaustion equates to a greater growth stimulus being sent to the muscles as well as increased performance. So you are indisputably wrong on that note too. Again, there are literally studies upon studies showing an increase in performance and time to exhaustion. Oh, and it has also been shown by a bunch of studies that a protein + carbohydrate drink increases time to exhaustion over a carb only drink on a second exercise session. Here: Europe PMC And there are dozens more.
Oh and triglycerides are ESSENTIAL for you. You do not get fat mobilization or usage without them. Chylomicrons in the blood are the main transport mechanism for fat to be used as fuel. TOO HIGH a content of blood triglycerides is bad for you, but you need these tryglycerides to shuttle them around to the tissues they need to be broken down in.
So no, you’re wrong. There is no such thing as an ‘essential carbohydrate’ for survival since the body can synthesize them from cough these unhealthy triglycerides. Fine. But we’re not talking survival are we? No. We’re talking muscle size and strength gains. And the jury is absolutely positively in: carbs help. Carb + protein drinks help. And so does consuming them around the workout–if the workout is hard enough and intense enough.
Now if your argument is that VLC diets are “healthier” long term, in sedentary individuals, then maybe ok. Lower insulin load is linked to a lot of health benefits. Of course anything overeaten is bad. And of course I agree with you that people eat and drink too much sugar these days, at all points during the day. But no, you’re wrong on all of the science. Further you might be interested to know, there are specific patterns of glycogen depletion inside the muscle tissue that take place during exercise, so not all muscle glycogen is created equal either. [/quote]
First off, your liver converts amino acids into glycogen, not the reverse of carbohydrates into triglycerides. I know that triglycerides are necessary to health but most people, even lifters, have way to high of a ratio of them. Hence the generalization of them being bad. Soon enough they will be proven as the biggest risk factor for heart attacks, give it ten years.
I think you are misunderstanding me. I’m merely taking a quick glimpse and providing an analogy to the fact people eat way too many carbohydrates, lifters included. I gave a glimpse at the workings of ones body which in fact requires ZERO carbohydrates to work. It can produce it’s own and store large amounts of glycogen. Most people aren’t even aware of this. I’m all for experimenting and figuring out how much carbohydrates you need to bodybuild. The problem is most people fail to do this and just over consume. Some even think they need these at every meal flooding their blood with triglycerides all day since there is no place for glycogen to be stored.
I didn’t read your study, but I read the abstract. From that, I feel it has nothing to do with weight lifting performance and everything to do with long term aerobic capacity to exhaustion. My workouts are short, sweet, more intense than 99% of people i see in the gym. I don’t talk in between sets and rarely rest more then 15-20 seconds. I’m done by the 45 minute mark. I can tell you personally I only need carbohydrates every 3-4 days for 100% performance depending on how much manual labor I do outside the gym.