Paleo/Primal and the role of carbs.

Hi all,

I believe the biggest impact on body composition is what we eat and have recently been doing as much reading as I can on the subject. I've been Primal (Mark Sissons take on the paleo approach) for about a month and I feel great for it. However I wonder if I'm hamstringing my potential gains. At the moment I currently trying to lose weight as I got a bit of a beer belly and being Primal has really helped with the weight falling off each week. Once I reach my target weight however I want to eat in a way that is most productive for strength gains.

From what I've read carbs are crucial as they trigger your cells to become receptive, ideal post workout when you want them to take in all that protein. Following a paleo/primal diet advocates low carb, does this impair muscle production by not triggering the cells?

Currently I have very few carbs except around my workout. I eat meat, seeds, vegetables and include things like coconut milk and eggs as well. I don't have any grains or oats though I might start having quinoa and other seed-like grains that I've read about on here.

Now for the carbs I do have: I eat one peice of fruit in the morning just before my workout. I have a post workout 'shake' that consists of coconut milk/whey protein/powdered whole egg/water though I'm thinking of swapping the water for full fat milk (300ml) for the extra cals and 15g of carbs (sugar if that makes any difference).

Are the carbs around my workout all I need and and the few extra carbs I get throughout the day from veg enough or do I need consistent carb intake like protein? What do you guys think?

Thanks.

Murray

p.s. What do you guys think is the right amount of protein, I'm 150lbs? I've heard anything from 1, 1.5 x bodyweight lbs (150g to 225g?!) to 1 x bodyweight in KG (68g). A big difference between to two.

The lower carb you are the more protein you will need, because your body is going to make sugar no matter what.

Low carb approaches completely ignore the innate desired functional requirements for carbs. No matter what size you are, you need a minimum of 110-ish grams of carbs because your blood and your brain run pretty much exclusively on carbs and that's what a 150 lb person requires at bare minimum. If, by chance, you're doing a ketogenic diet (which there is a whole spectrum on) then your brain can run up to 60% on ketone acids but this requires more minerals to be used in buffering which can lead to bone mineral loss AND requires more gluconeogenesis (GNG) to supply the carbs, because your body IS going to get the carbs. It is simply your choice whether they come from converted protein or dietary carbohydrates. Your body WILL make 200g per day for sure, that is the known unadapted "maximum" rate of GNG in humans, so why the hell wouldn't you at least get that?

it takes 1.6g protein to make 1g of carbs, so if you start looking at that and your carb requirements are 300g for example (not an outrageous amount, I assure you) it would take over 450g of protein to supply those carbs. That is beyond our physiological capability to process, which is why you start seeing ketone body production and maximal rates of GNG. Between the two our bodies get what they need for normal living, but there are some severe long term effects that include excessive stress on the kidneys due to abnormally high nitrogen compounds in the blood (cleaved from the protein) and bone mineral density loss.

Just with regular metabolism, sitting in your chair, assuming you are 150 lbs, your body needs about 1800 kcal. 30% of that needs to come from carbs. That's 540 kcal, which is 135g carbs. It will take 216g of protein to give your body that many carbohydrates.

Disregarding the fact that a portion of that is coming from your body's protein stores (your lean tissue), that's a hell of a lot of nitrogen. Just walking around increases that requirement, and if you're working out... well, it goes through the roof. You can easily reach a point where your body is going to have serious issues in the long run.

If you want a real life example, a good friend of mine started seeing his ankles swell about two months ago. Freaked him out. He's a bodybuilder, lots of protein ( close to excessive amounts) and not so many carbs. Been doing this for years, and he is pretty damn huge. You know what they saw on the blood tests? Liver enzymes were high and kidney enzymes were way too high. He was overworking his internal organs. One of the first signs of organ failure is edema in the extremities. He was slowly killing himself and had no idea for years. He switched his diet around and started having more carbs and less protein, with the protein spread out during the day. Still gets great results in the gym and the swelling is gone. No one knows what kind of long term damage he did, but he isn't going to die this year or the next, most likely anyways. That should scare you. It scared me.

What I hope you see is that this kind of diet can barely supply the carbs you need for everyday life. When you start talking about high performance training, well... it can't keep up, especially with anaerobic training requirements because those proteins can't be burned anaerobically. Only stored sugar in the muscle, and whatever gets released into the blood by the liver while it has enough, is burned anaerobically. You also have your creatine, which can keep you going for 5-6 seconds in a full sprint, but after that you've got enough sugar for a few more seconds because your glycogen stores are constantly depleted and you crap out. That's during just one sprint. You start doing repeat performances, like multiple sets of exercises, and you are not going to be able to do what you SHOULD because you literally won't have the right fuel.

This is why, on low carb diets, you simply cannot match the high intensity anaerobic performance on bouts lasting more than 6-15 seconds of a person on a higher carb diet. With pure aerobic exercise it won't matter, you'll be on par with anyone in the field for the most part (at least until you run out of sugar, which you won't have as much of), and you should know that strength training is anaerobic in nature. So, completely aside from ruining your kidneys, what you are doing is not what your body needs.

Keep in mind that how you feel is not necessarily an indicator of your health. People feel great on crack, but it's not very good for them. Our bodies sometimes release chemicals to mask the symptoms of certain deficiencies.

The biggest problem with all those books is that they aren't based on true science. They are not grounded in the body's energy systems. Since most people don't know what these are or how they work they simply don't have the knowledge to make good choices with their nutrition. They don't know how to properly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each commercial diet and they haven't got the slightest idea what the long term effects of these diets can be. It's not fair, but that's the way it is.

You need carbs. Don't deny your body what it needs, it's just going to do it's very best to make them anyways and in the process will cause a number of issues.

I think youll also find that many of the popular paleo advocates are starting to reconsider the carb amounts they reccomend. Some are calling it Paleo 2.0. Its been known for a while that athletes often have trouble performing using these low carb approaches. The perfect health diet is one example, and Robb Wolf wrote an article in the Performance Menu a while ago talking about higher carb for athletes. People seem to think that because we are able to use other systems to create necessary nutrients, that we need to use them exclusively. I am of the opinion that the body is just very good at adapting and surviving by using these as backup systems, and I tend to switch between them in phases. Think periodized diet. (note this has little scientific basis and is just something I am experimenting with)

For further evidence: I knew a girl that ate a pretty good diet consisting of slow digesting carbs and protein with "good fats". She started crossfit which put a little muscle on her, then her gym told her she should start eating strict paleo. She did this and her muscle mass dropped and her fat percentage went up. This wasnt an uncommon occurance at that gym. Several other people who ate a good diet before the "paleo lockdown", went down in performance. In fact, they thught the machine had been miscalibrated... (done on the new bodpod). However, the already fat people showed great gains in both areas and of course several people stayed exactly the same using the same diet. I know there are other variables involved and we really dont have all the data, but just an observation made by myself.

Question for Josh:

I've read several articles basically saying if you have low carb (low insuling response) that you will really wont store fat. I understand that insulin has a role in fat storage but then Ive also read that a large percentage of unused fat calories get stored as fat. Does this happen always. I definately understand that to loose fat you have to have some sort of caloric deficit so that your body uses the body fat for fuel. This can happen under a total deficit, and just a fat deficit right?

the fatter you are, the more likely you are to lose fat regardless of how you redesign your diet, so long as you create some sort of a net deficit.

The more in shape you are, the more important it becomes to actually do things according to the preferred energy pathway of our bodies.

In both cases, excessive protein + very high fat + very low carbs will cause longer term issues that may not and often will not show up for many years.

Burnham: That is not accurate. The main thing that is happening is that fats and proteins are often poorly absorbed in large quantity compared to other nutrients, which is why very high fat diets can give you some jelly in there with the poop. it's unabsorbed fat. You start eating 40-50g of fat per meal for 5-6 meals per day and you're going to have some... residue. There is adaptation to this, but it still happens to some extent. The fat that is absorbed will be stored when in excess, but most people on those diets are at a caloric deficit. They don't realize that the thermic effect of their food is extremely high due to the GNG going on, and that total caloric absorption isn't as high as it would be if carbs were in the mix.

Insulin does play a role, but there are non-insulin dependent mechanisms for fat storage. Additionally, the majority of research is finding that high fat diets are causing insulin resistance. This is a complicated subject.

You don't even need a calorie deficit to lose fat. You simply need to be storing less fat than you are using. A properly structured diet causes this to happen.

One more comment: Protein causes a significant insulin response on its own. You eat protein and fat together, you're going to have an insulin response. You have a large dose of protein, you have a larger response. If you are consistently carb deficient your body is going to try and fix that, and the only way to absorb what carbs are there (and to get other nutrients into the cells for energy and GNG) is going to be more insulin as the body becomes more and more insulin resistant.

As I said this is really complex.

Take home message should be that for a multitude of reasons, this is not a healthy way to do things and you will hurt your high-intensity performance and muscular gains as well as your health.

Rafael David said:

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/895/Myths_About_High-Protein_Diets.aspx

Poliquin and I are saying the exact same thing.

The researchers concluded that daily protein intake as high 2.8 g/kg won’t damage the kidneys in healthy athletes.

That's a direct quote. I have said the exact same thing here.

I do not consider anything equal to or under 2.0g/kg to be high protein.

To me that's what you should be eating. We know for sure that our bodies can process that much safely and use it, and anything over that amount is guaranteed to be oxidized because we can't process it at the tissue level fast enough to use in protein synthesis beyond that level.

I believe that flirting with the known limit of 2.8g/kg is a bad idea because it's simply too close for my comfort and I cannot in good conscience condone something like that since for 50% of the people, on average, it will be too high. If you want to roll the dice there go ahead, but you will never hear me say it is a smart move.

I think that, realistically, 2.2g/kg is a reasonable and safe cut-off for those who want just as much protein as they can get safely, even though we're quite sure it offers no additional benefit beyond 2.0g/kg.

In contrast, purified protein sources (casein, lactalbumin, wheat gluten, dried white eggs), which don’t have the phosphorous do appear to lead to greater calcium loss in the urine and a lower pH.

For people who are eating real foods, phosporus is typically never an issue. If all you're eating is industrialized garbage then... well... you may have a problem.

Again, as he said there are a number of factors that play into this, but in this case I'm not talking about the protein intake being the only cause, though when you go in excess you will see the same thing (excessive calcium loss). I think you may have missed where I specifically said that the ketone acids from which come from incomplete fatty acid oxidation that happens due to the combination of very low carbs and high fat are a large contributing factor. They do change blood pH (which is why severe ketoacidosis kills you) and also require additional filtering by the organs on top of the extra filtering caused by excessive protein, which is when you pass that 2.8g/kg barrier.

You will never see a study on that because it would never be approved, and that's because there is so much solid medical science showing that when you pass the safe limit you do see kidney damage AND you can see bone mineral loss.

A reasonable protein diet (up to that 2.0g/kg) will help bone mass because you will be making more collagen, so you can create more cytoskeletons that can then be ossified (which just means you can make more bone cells in the collagen matrix and that they will then absorb more minerals, and increase mineral density).

So, for those who aren't clear: An excessive protein intake is over that 2.8g/kg but to be safe I would NOT go over 2.2-2.4g for any reason. That's a TON of protein, there is simply no need to be ridiculous and get yourself hurt down the line.

I am going to go back and change "high protein" to "excessive protein" so that this kind of misunderstanding doesn't continue.

Poliquin is wrong about 50% of bone being protein. In healthy bone, 67+% -ish is mineral. Maybe 50% of that 33% of non-mineral matter is protein, since there are membranes as well as the collagen skeleton that the cells are implanted into, but if your bone is more than 50% protein in raw weight then you have serious mineral deficiencies.

the key to getting best results with a high-protein diet is to eat foods that will counter the acid from protein.

This, quite simply, is everything I have ever said here. Ever. It is very simple: You need to be taking in enough calcium to allow your body to handle the buffering with your diet instead of your teeth and bones. The real situation is just that the amount going into the bones is greater than the amount going out, but that's kind of irrelevant to the big picture.

The comment about milk is also incorrect. pH of foods is irrelevant. Mineral content is what matters. Stand in the sun for 15 minutes with your shirt off once or twice a day and you'll get more vitamin D than your body can use, unless you're in Scandinavia or Seattle... or similar climates. In those cases supplements are a great idea, as they are when you choose not to get some sun.

Take home message:

Eat your greens. They have the highest concentrations of calcium and the highest absorption rate. Know which ones are oxalates, and blanch all oxalates. Google is your friend on this. Oxalate = plant that contains significant amounts of oxalic acid, which will bind to the calcium and prevent absorption. 30s in boiling water or 2-3 minutes of steam is all it takes.

As long as your protein intake isn't excessive, you will be better off when you consume the human anabolic limit of 1.5-2g of protein per kg bodyweight.

Obviously, if you are at risk for or have kidney disease do not increase protein intake without consulting your doctor.

Good stuff Josh - I'm going to sticky this as I think it's a fairly neat summary of the situation.

Thanks

Hej,

Just a quick question about the carbs. Is it ok to get most of your carbs from fruit? maybe a lil bit from root vegetables or something but mostly fruit because truth be told I am a lazy cook and fruit is so simple just pick it up and eat? I prefer to stay away from wheat or anything of the sort ever since I stopped eating it I have noticed a difference and I feel better all round but I have heard all sorts of things about fructose and just don't know what to believe when it comes to getting your main source of carbs from fruit or from root vegetables or something else?

Get carbs from tubers (yams, sweet potato, etc) and limit the fruits (breakfast and post workout). Choose the most low-glycemic/high-antioxidants ones.

thanks for the post raefel but I prefer not to follow information blindly what is the reasoning behind your reply? why limit the fruits and focus more on things such as yams and what not?

I think he's thinking that the liver glycogen will be most depleted in the morning before breakfast and

after working out. That's generally true, although also it will be somewhat lower between main meals.

He's probably thinking that way fuctose is less likely to be turned to fat.

Regarding the discussion of protein, keep in mind that ammonia (byproduct of protein metabolism) can be excreted through the breath and the skin, when the kidneys are maxed out. If you have that body odor it means you're probably eating too much of it!

ok so what the hell is the deal with fructose is it more likely to turn into fat than other carbs in general? and would snacking on fruit make it more difficult for weight loss? Also for slizzardman if I were to eat at east 200 grams of carbs and have 2g per pound of bodyweight in protein then all that I would have left is around 50 grams of fat to eat a day. and considering most of the calories I'd eat after a workout would be carbs and protein again it seems like 50 grams or so would be too small amount of fat in my diet? and should all the carbs I eat come from vegetables is there anything good about the fructose from fruit?

ausswe said:

ok so what the hell is the deal with fructose is it more likely to turn into fat than other carbs in general? and would snacking on fruit make it more difficult for weight loss?

This is a subject that is well covered. Fructose cannot be used directly for energy like glucose. It must be metabolized in the liver and turned either into fat or glycogen. If your glycogen stores are full then it goes into fat.

So yes it is more likely to get turned into fat depending on when you eat it. And although it does not cause an immediate increase in insulin like glucose it has been shown to lead to insulin resistance in the liver.

Poliquin steaks on it here. http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Blog/tabid/130/EntryId/1205/Tip-347-Avoid-Fructose-To-Lose-Fat-For-Summer.aspx He mostly refers to high fructose corn syrup but the same principles apply for a lot of fruit.

Basically you can eat fruit just limit the intake.

The difference between fruit and HFCS is the rate of absorption. It is much slower with real fruit, but even so you can overdo it. Having most of your carbs from fruit is not a healthy way to go if you are getting enough carbs in you diet, that is just way too much fructose for my comfort level, and if you are not gettng enough carbs then that is an issue that we have already covered in this thread.

ausswe said:

Also for slizzardman if I were to eat at east 200 grams of carbs and have 2g per pound of bodyweight in protein then all that I would have left is around 50 grams of fat to eat a day.

AFAIK slizzardman was talking about 2g per kilogram of bodyweight which is cca 0.91g per pound of bw .

Very interesting, Josh. Thanks for those of us who don't spend our head in books and on google and other forums reading like a maniac anymore. Heh.

dzejkej said:

ausswe said:

Also for slizzardman if I were to eat at east 200 grams of carbs and have 2g per pound of bodyweight in protein then all that I would have left is around 50 grams of fat to eat a day.

AFAIK slizzardman was talking about 2g per kilogram of bodyweight which is cca 0.91g per pound of bw .

ahhh sorry i meant to write 2g per kilogram not pound... then I would have only around 50grams per day of fat in my diet and it just seems like such a small amount considering I was under the assumption that unless we exert ourselves we are using fat as our main source of fuel. Is that right?

You have body fat to run on, and even the leanest of us have enough for quite a long time. A week, at least, for those at a true 5-6%, and for most of us quite a bit longer.

I am making a new topic for the discussion of the role of fats in the diet. Will edit the link in here soon.

This is FutureIsNow's reply, which is also the first post of a new thread. I think we're going to wrap this one up pretty soon... right now it is still easy to navigate and I want it to stay that way. I did add a few small things, but this is like 95% FIN. A really great post.

Carbs and Paleo are not at odds, it's just the sources of carbs that come under question. It's possible to eat at relatively high carb levels with paleo, however eating at lower levels carb is more common. This produces a quick water weight loss, but over the long run isn't any better for fat loss than simply maintaining a deficit. So in short, eating low carb isn't necessary with paleo or other eating patters.

Personally, I believe it's best to separate goals: fat loss from muscle gain from athletic performance. So pick one as primary and make the others secondary. It sounds like your main goal is fat loss and not athletic performance.

The big picture is that eating higher protein and fat diets tend to be more filling. Often paleo people are eating less than they need for maintenance purposes without trying. That's great for fat and overall weight loss purposes but not great for athletic purposes. It's all a matter of degrees though...

A beginner to working out may not notice any difference because they are working out at a low level and capacity anyway, and haven't yet gotten to where their adaptation to exercise is limited by their nutrition. Chances are you could get away with it for a while, but it will eventually limit your progress. That may not be an immediate concern. For the time being you can go by your feelings. If you feel sluggish working out or can't recover, add more carbs. Also hydration is more an issue with lower carb diets, since it is shed, so maintain water intake...

You may not know this, but a muscle that isn't fully hydrated can't synthesize protein very quickly, which means that if you aren't getting enough water (especially around the workout) you will not get stronger from that workout because the rate of synthesis will be kept low while the rate of protein breakdown goes higher. This usually result in a wasted workout. Don't freak out, like everything else this is on a sliding scale and as long as you are staying hydrated around the workout you'll be fine.

In terms of muscle growth 1.6-1.8g/kg protein has been shown to be useful for bodybuilding. Gymnastics isn't bodybuilding probably has higher carb and fat source requirements, so I suspect that you could use 1.5g/kg and still benefit. Eating at a deficit the main emphasis is maintaining and revealing existing muscle mass. Eating at maintenance it is theoretically possible to grow muscle and lose fat at different times during the day, though how well this works beyond the beginning stage is often questioned. Typically eating at a sustained energy surplus is required to grow a lot, and this may not be ideal for fat loss and athletic performance.

Around 20g fat per day is essential and used in the body for other purposes than energy generation.

You burn around 70% (67%) fat at rest only. Gymnastics (overall) is moderately intense and burns half carbs at least, and probably more. If your glycogen is low, having carbs around working out makes sense to maintain and restore glycogen levels.

Fat requirements that aren't met by diet will be met by burning your fat stores. These will last a very long

time. Even a 150 pound person at 10% bodyfat about 10 pounds of fat to burn (assuming that 3% is permanent and not going to be burned). If you're burning a few ounces of this on your active days it's no problem and actually desirable. There is no guarantee it will first come off from you beer belly though! That, sadly, is usually the last place we see it disappear.

Monitor your feelings especially working out, and how well you recover. If you're not satisfied you could cut down protein to 1.5g/kg, and increase carbs esp. around workout and possibly fat. Also, Ignore the first 5 pounds of weight loss. It will tend to come back once you stop eating low-carb.

Nice title, Joshua.

"Moderator & Resident Encyclopedia"

Wow... What an incredible response.

I was looking for my post to see if anyone had replied but when I couldn't find it I assumed it had disappeared due to zero responses. Imagine my surprise when I went to reread the stickies.

I really want to thank you Joshua for taking the time to reply in such detail. I've only had a brief chance to read through it all but I can assure you I am going to rethink my diet especially in regards to carb amounts and source. I've tried to read all your posts and I think there are a lot of people here who have benefited from what you have to say.

There are a lot of diets all of which claim to be based on science (I don't dispute this, I just don't have the academic background to look seriously at the studies and the conclusions) and it can leave someone at a real loss knowing what advice to follow. It's great to be able to come to a forum like this and get such a great wealth of information.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply.

Murray

mtruelove said:

There are a lot of diets all of which claim to be based on science (I don't dispute this, I just don't have the academic background to look seriously at the studies and the conclusions) and it can leave someone at a real loss knowing what advice to follow. It's great to be able to come to a forum like this and get such a great wealth of information.

This is far and away the single biggest problem with health and fitness worldwide!

We are lucky to have a community here where we can get truly solid advice that is based on science that delivers excellent results with real world experience and is geared towards overall health as well as top performance, as opposed to a mish-mash of anectdote and 'science' that always ends up like this:"this study + that study must mean blah blah, plus bogus testimonial, so buy this book!"

You're welcome, and I want to think all of our forum members that contribute regularly to so many discussions. You guys and gals are what make this place special and unique!