High Carb Dieting - Recipe for disaster?

[Edgaron]

Okay I don't get one thing, how do you not lose muscle on a high carb diet?

 

Say you need 2500 calories to maintain and you eat 2000 calories.

 

Since you're in a caloric deficit your body is going to have to pull the energy required to sustain metabolism from somewhere.

 

However, if you're in a deficit that means you burn up all the carbs for energy and then have to get some more calories. It would be awesome if you could just pull the fat out of your BF stores and use it for energy, but since you're constantly feeding your body with carbs, insulin is elevated, burning fat for fuel is inhibited. Your body also prefers carbs for energy since you've been pounding the glucose to it all the time. So where is it going to get it from?

 

Protein! (From AAs in your blood stream and later from muscle tissue).

 

And the story ends here. I don't think I need to say more.

 

Could anyone prove otherwise? 

[Vinni Williams]

You really should take a basic college nutrition course before you post things that are absolutely false. You need to do a little more research. Go and read the nutrition sticky's.

[Joshua Naterman]

Okay I don't get one thing, how do you not lose muscle on a high carb diet?

 

Say you need 2500 calories to maintain and you eat 2000 calories.

 

Since you're in a caloric deficit your body is going to have to pull the energy required to sustain metabolism from somewhere.

 

However, if you're in a deficit that means you burn up all the carbs for energy and then have to get some more calories. It would be awesome if you could just pull the fat out of your BF stores and use it for energy, but since you're constantly feeding your body with carbs, insulin is elevated, burning fat for fuel is inhibited. Your body also prefers carbs for energy since you've been pounding the glucose to it all the time. So where is it going to get it from?

 

Protein! (From AAs in your blood stream and later from muscle tissue).

 

And the story ends here. I don't think I need to say more.

 

Could anyone prove otherwise? 

You don't understand the circumstances that cause protein in body tissues to be broken down and used as energy. They are broken down to be turned into carbohydrates, and this only happens when dietary carbohydrate intake is too LOW to adequately replace the carbs you use throughout the day.

 

The simple way to understand human metabolism is this: Fat is burned in a carbohydrate flame. Carbs are always being burned. They are essential as an energy substrate. They are so essential that your body will not hesitate to turn its own organs into carbs if it really needs to, which I am fairly sure I do not need to point out is not an ideal scenario (even though I just did). Proteins are also important, and you may not realize that a fairly large portion (~50% in a reasonable diet) of excess dietary carbohydrates (those that go beyond what the body needs in the moment for energy) are actually turned into proteins. This is done via a process called trans-amination.

 

A higher carb diet actually helps protect you from protein loss during periods of caloric deficit.

 

Additionally, in physically active people more carbohydrate actually tends to LOWER serum insulin concentration instead of raising it. I do not know if this is the case beyond a 65% carb diet, but there are replicated studies (meaning that different people, with different athletes, in different places all found the same results) showing that the circulating insulin levels actually went down by around 33% when moving from 45% to 60% carbs.

 

As has been stated, you do not know enough about nutrition to make correct statements. I don't mean that as an insult, but I just don't see any other way to say this. You're going to need to embark on a journey of self-education if you want to really know what's what.

[Anze Merhar]

I read it as more of a question than a statement.

[Edgaron]

They are broken down to be turned into carbohydrates, and this only happens when dietary carbohydrate intake is too LOW to adequately replace the carbs you use throughout the day.

 

The simple way to understand human metabolism is this: Fat is burned in a carbohydrate flame. 

I realize that. I supposed that since you're in a deficit you'll definitely burn all the carbs you ate (because you couldn't use another energy source with insulin elevated) and therefore convert the protein into more carbs since you're lacking energy (As I thought about it, no carbs left for transamination OR even if it converted to protein, you'd run out of carbs even faster and have to convert the protein back to carbs, which is inefficient)

 

Also, just to let you know what I have found, ''fat is burned in a corbohydrate flame'' only in the liver, not in skeletal muscles (Robergs RA, Roberts SO. Fundamental Principles of Exercise Physiology for Fitness, Performance, and Health. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2000.)

 

or

 

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2129159/

 

********************************************************************************************************************************************

 

These aren't exactly my ideas as I brought them from the Iron Addicts's forum, but I do think they make sense.

 

The only time I didn't lose strength (and therefore supposedly muscle mass) was on a low carb diet (1 carb meal/day). All other times I lost strength (and likely muscle) rapidly, I was weaker every gym session Something I regret not discontinuing. 

 

I also seem to have higher maintenance calories on a higher fat diet. Looking back at my old log, I was eating 2400-2450 calories on a cut weighing only (if) a few pounds more. And now I bulk on those calories (with 50-60% carb) - and gained a couple of % I didn't want. But it might have been the every other day 40 min runs that I was doing.

 

And yeah it was more of a question than a statement, I just couldn't figure out where to put a question mark there so that it looked like one  . I'm just trying not to repeat the mistake I've done in the past again.

 

And guys like 

vinni20

messages such as yours are useless, please don't spam the post.

 

Thanks Josh.

 

EDIT: Sucks having OCD I actually believe this could of been the reason of my past High Carb cutting failure.

[gravy]

And guys like 

vinni20

messages such as yours are useless, please don't spam the post.

That wasn't spam. You have a lack of fundamental understanding. A nutrition class would fix that.

[Aaro Helander]

I'm have become pretty convinced that losing muscle mass for natural trainers dieting with sufficient resistance training is pretty much a non-issue, unless you do some really stupid stuff with your diet.

 

I've been on a cut for about three weeks now and haven't seen any signs of muscle loss or performance issues. (As a sidenote, I follow some sort of LeanGains philosophy with my dieting).

 

An interesting writing: http://rippedbody.jp/2012/03/02/why-is-leangains-so-effective/ on muscle loss in general.

So far I don't know if Intermittent Fasting really has any other benefits than it being so utterly simple to follow for me.

 

I remember Josh saying in some conversation that it was far beyond optimal, but so far I have not seen any reason to give up on it.

[Edgaron]

I have tried IF, lost strength, too, but it wasn't that bad.

 

I wish the muscle loss being ''non issue'' was true for me. Either I have to do something extreme with my diet or I was overtraining back then and failing to recover... Which would be very surprising.

 

it surprises me how some can get away with a low protein vegetarian diet and not lose muscle and I seem not to be able to keep it on a high protein diet...

[Brad Greyeyes-Brant]

I have tried IF, lost strength, too, but it wasn't that bad.

 

I wish the muscle loss being ''non issue'' was true for me. Either I have to do something extreme with my diet or I was overtraining back then and failing to recover... Which would be very surprising.

 

it surprises me how some can get away with a low protein vegetarian diet and not lose muscle and I seem not to be able to keep it on a high protein diet...

 

Out of curiousity, are you primarily using your strength levels as a proxy for assessing muscle loss? Short of a before and after DEXA comparison to truly tell, I'd suggest keeping track of your neck circumference; a rapid decline in neck circumference appears to correlate to significant skeletal muscle loss far better than tracking any other body measurement.

[Edgaron]

I wasn't too fat to begin with at that time (15-17%), however, I lost an inch off my arms (the only thing I truly bothered to measure), my legs got significantly smaller (from size 36 to 30-31) and shoulders narrowed down some (judging from the way my upper body fits in the bath). I didn't measure my neck, though.

 

I definitely lost fat, no doubt about that, but muscle came along with it, too. I lost around 30 pounds (180-146 quite flat) which translated to 8-10% of body fat. I lost a crap load of strength on all lifts.

 

Quite a bit of that was leg mass though since I wanted to lose some mass off them (didn't train legs when cutting).

 

It's funny how I've never really felt good since starting the cut and almost a year has passed already. I probably have some other health issue.

[Larry Roseman]

Okay I don't get one thing, how do you not lose muscle on a high carb diet?

 

Say you need 2500 calories to maintain and you eat 2000 calories.

 

Since you're in a caloric deficit your body is going to have to pull the energy required to sustain metabolism from somewhere.

 

However, if you're in a deficit that means you burn up all the carbs for energy and then have to get some more calories. It would be awesome if you could just pull the fat out of your BF stores and use it for energy, but since you're constantly feeding your body with carbs, insulin is elevated, burning fat for fuel is inhibited. Your body also prefers carbs for energy since you've been pounding the glucose to it all the time. So where is it going to get it from?

 

Protein! (From AAs in your blood stream and later from muscle tissue).

 

And the story ends here. I don't think I need to say more.

 

Could anyone prove otherwise? 

Our heart is powered by nearly 100% fatty acids which accounts for around 20% of our metabolism, so if fat weren't able to be burned under the influence of insulin, how is it that we are alive? Do you think that the body would rely 100% on circulating triglycerides for survival? The fact that you are walking around breathing is proof that fat burning occurs even under the influence of insulin.

 

Secondly, the body will burn about 2-5% body protein under normal conditions anyway. It may come from AA pool, or labile body tissues before muscle is broken down.  Body protein breakdown increases during exercise to a varying degree with intensity, but it will be replenished after meals.

 

Under high resistance muscle issue may be broken down. This is usually viewed as a positive, since

it is rebuilt and grows in response - which enables greater strength potential.  But during workouts andenaline rises to some extent, and has the effect of releasing fat from fat cells, so during a workout you will not be restricted to burning carbs.  (Cortisol also may increase during exercise, and counteract the influence of insulin).

In any event, insulin is not continiously elevated as you suggest in most people.

 

Even if you happen to burn more carbs during a workout this would deplete more of your glycogen. So when you ate there would be more room for storing carbs before converting them to fat. This would reduce your fat storage compared to if you only burned fat during workout. So whether you burn fat or carbs during workout in the entire context of your diet may be a moot point. And if you are eating enough protein, you will rebuild your protein base that was broken down temporarily during your workout.

 

During weight loss period most people reduce carbs somewhat as they are a common source of extra calories. But the bottom line is, if you eat enough protein, avoid extreme exercise and maintain a moderate deficit when/if desired you won't have any problem maintaining muscle.