Is there anyone out there who actually eats carbs apart from after training? i’ve been observing questions from the forum and reading articles from t-mag over the last few months and this is really screwing me up! whats wrong with carbs? in particular fructose. is there any athletes out there who are on a low carb diet, because if you are i would love to now your reasoning. I can understand not consuming high GI carbs, except after training but whats wrong with low Gi carbs with a given ratio of protein and fats? is there a secret about carbs that no ones telling me?? surely you are not at full strength with a low carb diet weight training, unless lifting for low reps and long rest periods. the primary energy used for a given exercise over 11 seconds is Glycogen and glucose so for a typical bodybuilding set with t.u.t around 60sec… can some one explain the reasoning. any views would be helpful. thanks
Read the ‘diet manifesto’ article at
t-mag. Low carbs aren’t the way to go for most people when trying to
build mass or if they’re an in-season athlete. People talk about low
carbs a lot because low carb diets work great for fat loss, at least for
a lot of people. For mass, you need some carbs, especially after
training. You’re getting athletes mixed up with people who just want to be lean.
There is nothing wrong with low-glycemic carbs during the day. I will let you in on the real secret. Everyone is different when it comes to diet. Whether you do well on a lower carbohydrate diet or not depends on your degree of insulin sensitivity. In my experience, people with poor insulin sensitivity do better on lower carbohydrate diets, consuming the bulk of the carbs after a training session. This allows mass increases with the minimum amount of fat. Those with a higher degree of sensitivity do well on higher carb intakes. You may have heard that insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body. Well, consuming carbs over the day divided into many meals will offer the benefit of higher mass increases because insulin levels are relatively stable throughout. Conversely, fewer meals with lower carbs per day will offer a greater percentage of fat loss because insulin is low and glucagon is high. The problem is that if glycogen stores are high any extra glucose not being used will be stored as fat, hence the reason for consuming the bulk of your carbs after a workout. You must find out what suits you best by experimenting. Try a variety of methods. Consume the same calories per lean body mass throughout, vary your carb intake times and amounts, keep track of your weight and bodyfat percentage, and keep your training the same. I believe Cy Wilson or John Berardi has a good plan for deciding how sensitive a person is to insulin. This would also be good to know.
I may be way off base here, but I’ll try to explain the concept of low carb dieting with some basic biology.
The body aquires energy(in the form of ATP) through a few processes.
- Glycolosis takes a glucose molecule, and splits it into pyruvic acid.
- Cellular respiration takes this pyruvate molecule, removes a CO2, leaving acetyl coenzyme A, this acetyle CoA goes through cellular respiration and makes more CO2, and NADH
- NADH goes through a respiratory chain, and makes a specific number of ATP molecules.
Anyways, the first step(glycolosis) uses glucose, but what happens when there is no glucose to be used? The mitochondria(or cytosol), being the diligent little guys they are, get a hold of fat molecules(long chains of carbon and hydrogen) and break these into smaller two carbon molecules. Or acetyle CoA, which can enter at step 2, and start creating ATP.
Note though, that not only can we use the fats to make acetyle CoA, but amino acids can be denitrified to do the same thing…
My apologies if I’m way off here, but I thought I’d try and answer your first question “Why low carbs??”.
At the seminar, John Berardi had much to say about insulin. First off, to make sure that everyone understands correctly, Insulin Sensitivity is a GOOD thing, while Insulin Resistance is BAD. He stressed this in the seminar.
Next, he gave two separate ways that one could determine their glucose/insulin sensitivity: (1)Oral Glucose Tolerance Test: Overnight fast of about 10-12 hours, then take a glucometer reading upon waking, the immediately consume 75 grams of glucose beverage, and take glucometer readings every 30 minutes until back to baseline or below. Record fasting glucose (first reading) and glucose at each time point (subsequent readings). Fasting glucose should be at or below 110mg/dl (John also said that many young weight training individuals will be at or below 70mg/dl). Peak glucose should not exceed 180mg/dl, while again many weight training will peak at or below 140mg/dl. Glucose levels should be at or below baseline by 2 hours.
The second method is called a Fasted Blood Sample, and requires you to do this with your physician. They can tell you, based on the results whether you are insulin sensitive or not.
thanks guys for the input. any views on fructose? how much do you guys consume? if any like most people seem to do. whats the problem with fructose?
Field- Read the article called “the forbidden fruit” at T-mag by Cy Willson. Not everyone thinks fructose is bad.
I consume between 200-400 grams of carbs each day. I learned from John Berardi that you can eat carbs with high protein and low fat. Or you can eat high protein and high fat with low carbs. This is something he goes over in his Massive Eating diet (He told us about at the Orlando Seminar).
John doesn’t agree with the no carb diets either. And I agree. I have never been able to go without eating carbs. I have done days where I consume the lower end of 200g of carbs, but my typical day is about 300 grams of carbs in the form of fruits, vegetables, yogurt, some bread and ocassionally rice. So carbs aren’t that bad as long as you don’t consume too many (especially the wrong kinds). And be sure to never have high carb and high fat meals together. That is the one thing you must avoid, per John Berardi.
nate dogg thanks for advice. you said not to eat high carb with high fat is this to do with a high insulin release? glad to see you have the same views on carbs i would find it almost impossible to find high protein, high fat, low carb meals without consuming half a dozen meal replacements.
Field, yes, the high carb and high fat meals have to do with the insulin response and GI. I think John said that the high fat slows absorption, which causes the carbs to be stored as fat. I will have to pull out my notes for specifics.
Or maybe John would like to comment on this since it is his idea. It makes great sense to me. I’ve been doing the diet for about a week and a half now. My bodyweight is up about 2-3lbs. It is hard to keep my calories high enough…even with two MRP’s and eating a total of five to six meals. But I’m working on it! John should be posting his Massive Eating diet on T-mag soon. I hope that helps.
If you want more info about the plan, just let me know. I’ll pull out my notes and give you the forumulas to figure out the real amount of calories you need to gain muscle. Also, I can put in some of his tips about supplements and meals.
ok, so what do you guys think about eating 6 meals a day, but eating 3 high fat/mod. protein meals and 3 high protein/mod. to high carb meals.
i started my mother on this diet(as a test subject) and she lost 7 lbs. in a month with no exercise.
was this from elevating her metabolism or did the food cycling do it?
Nate Doggy Dogg, what’s up, bro. I just wanted to chime in real quickly. I’ve caught several of your posts since the seminar, and the one’s that refer to Dr. Berardi’s Massive Eating lecture sound to good to be true. I do believe that my caloric intake has not been sufficiently consistent, which seems like it was your major roadblock as well. I would really like to hear more about the diet plan, especially the formula for figuring calories and the nutrient make-up and timing of meals, if they were discussed. However, if you don’t feel like sharing this info, I understand. I’ll just have to be Tiny Timbo till the article comes out 
BTW, Nate Dogg, congrats on packing on some mass. Keep up the hard work–in the gym and in the kitchen!
nate dogg - would be great if you could put me on the right track and seems youve come across a few gems. please let me know the figures, meal timings, supplements. ect. help much appreciated. field
Timbo, thanks for the comments bro! I learned so much at the seminar that it is unreal. It’s back to basics for me. I realized I wasn’t taking in enough calories or protein. So I’m working hard on getting them in. And my training is going well with some new tips from Ian. My shoulders are feeling much better, and I think I’m going to be making some good gains in the next couple of months.
Okay, as for John Berardi’s Massive Eating plan, I’m going to start a new thread. I only have some of the notes with me at work. So I’ll post what I have and then you can ask questions if I missed something or you need more details!