Jodi

Most of us don't eat low carb or zero carb diets

Essence EFA

Built

A lot of us do, though. And likely a lot more of us should, in light of the current obesity and type II diabetes epidemic. Lower carb diets can be a Godsend to anyone with these problems.


Biggly, the guideline for protein I like to use is pretty much what you are recommending - and seems fairly standard among athletes and strength-coaches I respect (Berardi, McDonald, Thibaudeau and many, many others...): set protein at no lower than a gram per pound lean mass. I further suggest setting a fat minimum at half a gram per pound lean mass.

The small problem here is that most folks don't walk around knowing their body composition. That part's easy to ballpark though - experience has shown me that most people have a pretty good idea in their mind's eye of what weight they'd have to be at in order to see abs.

I call this the "pipe-dream" weight.

For most folks, this looks roughly like 10% bodyfat for men, and roughly like 20% bodyfat for women, so that's what I suggest as a ballpark. Generally, people overshoot this weight, but really, it'll be close enough for our purpose - this is just to set a protein minimum anyway.

Unless you're in a renal unit getting kidney dialysis, under or overshooting even 20 or so grams of protein isn't going to do you any harm at all.

Armed with this guesstimated LBM and average calories, the rest is pretty mechanical. For more detail, I have a few posts on this in my blog:
Got Built? » Eat less and move more
Got Built? » How to set up a diet - basic carb cycling

Biggly

OK, thank you. Will read your blog posts in a minute.

Biggly has a "Biggly Body Index" score, from 0 to "100% Biggly", which uses a complicated formula but for body fat targets it's set as 9% for men, 12% for women. It uses other factors to figure out if you're just very skinny or actually ripped. For example you won't score 100% if you're a male at 9% but a low BMI and hips much wider than your waist, as that's just scrawny (for a male).

Basically I just wanted something more useful and informative than the BMI scale, which is pretty useless or misleading by itself. I probably will change the woman's figure though, as I think 12% is perhaps asking too much, even at body building levels. I'll meet you in the middle at 16%

Anyway for calculating body fat levels it already does that, with multiple methods, though this version will have target figures and I could incorporate your figures in there with that, somehow. I'll figure it out.

Silly question alert - is there any recognised name for this method? I was thinking of calling it "Flexible with Minimums" but is there a well-known widely-used term I'm missing somewhere?

The sw is already a lot more sophisticated than v1.0 but I still have about 3 pages of notes for future enhancements (including a free online version that can sync with the paid desktop product). Carb cycling is detailed in the accompanying book but I'm not sure how to incorporate it into the sw. It's easy enough to figure out what you're doing cos the info is in front of you but I'd like to figure out an automated method. I suspect though it varies too much with individuals - I don't think there's a formula per se but any ideas are welcome.

Off to read your blogs.. thanks again


B.

Biggly Bodybuilding Software "The sensation of hunger can often be alleviated and even mitigated entirely with the consumption of food.[citation needed]" Wiki

Built

I don't consider bodybuilding standards for "normal" folks. Most bb have a pretty good idea of their bodyfat percentage and LBM - my guesstimate is close enough for those who have NO clue.

12% is very lean for a woman - bodybuilders typically compete at 9-11%, figure at 10-12% (although they'll generally be morons and say they're leaner than this because some idiot trainer calipered them at 7% and they believe it). I'm 14% (confirmed by DEXA) in my avatar here and I had veins in my abs.

By contrast, 9% is nice and lean for a man, but not diced. I'd say 16-18% is a nice "athletic lean" for a woman.

B-Cubed

Then why do you insist on touting a method that isn't?

I'm all about simplicity.

Any amount of protein above and beyond what the body needs is really just an expensive form of carbohydrate. Expensive as in protein costs quite a bit more than carbs do.


I guess on of the major questions is this:
When cutting calories to get lean, do we cut fat or do we cut carbs? Fat is an essential nutrient. Fat gives flavor and texture to food and is satiating. On the other hand, carbohydrates are non-essential. And, because of the insulinogenic response that many people (particularly women or anyone who is the least bit IR) have to them, they make people more hungry instead of less hungry. Not exactly ideal when you've reduced your caloric intake and trying to stay compliant on a diet.

So, why do many people have such a hard time low-carbing it?
Part of the problem I see, and had myself when I first went low carb, was that when I first reduced my carb intake I felt sluggish and out of it. Many people report feeling this way when starting a low carb diet. But as time goes on our bodies adapt to using fat as fuel, and when that happens the sluggishness disappears.

From an evolutionary perspective, eating primarily meat (poultry, lamb, bison, cow, fish, etc.), fat (nuts, olives, meat fat), and fruit makes total sense. And even then, fruits and such were only available to us on a seasonal basis. Before the advent of modern day farming (relatively recently in human history), grains weren't a major part of the human diet. Our bodies aren't designed to process grains. We didn't evolve that way.

But this is quite off topic now, eh?
LBM dosing method: Direct, simple and universally applicable. (This is the sort of simplicity that we strive for in mathematics.)

Ratio dosing method: Indirect, more complicated, and not universally applicable. (This is like a proof by exhaustion and starting with Case 1:... when there are infinitely many cases.)

Biggly

It's hardly complicated when A. you have software in front of you doing the calculating and B. you're a dedicated bodybuilder. Carb cycling is complicated, heck I recall trying to explain it to my brother in law once, should have seen his face. He thought it was the most complicated and ludicrous thing he ever heard.

Bodybuilders do it all the time and often try to find the best of various carb cycling methods, so horses for courses I guess.

Heck, try explaining to the average couch spud the fun of lifting weights? To some the very idea of "reps and sets" is complicated, throw in rest period, tempo, reverse reps.. "Can't I just go jogging? This is all hard work and complicated.."

Too much like work, they'd rather watch TV on their treadmill. For an awful lot of people getting their arse off the sofa is "too much effort".

Some tell me Biggly software is too complicated and too much hassle - and some write and ask if I have a more sophisticated pro version that doesn't just track thigh and calf, upper and fore-arms, chest etc. No, they want to track different specific muscles, the shape of different muscles, not to attempt to shape them but to match left and right...

At competition level few would consider such things complicated yet to the average bod on the street just counting calories in the 1st place is "Way too complicated for me!"

Again it's a comfort level thing.

Yes fat is good for satisfying an appetite - during the day. While eating it, it does nothing much, whereas carbs give a direct feedback. You can sit and much your way through a whole tube of Pringles no problem but near halfway of a large bar of chocolate and you feel sick and 'couldn't eat another thing'.

Likewse the body can cope with mild increases in carbs, using it as extra energy there and then or burning it off with a temperature increase and so on, not to mention the calories burnt to digest it. With fat the slightest excess is stored, with no effort whatsoever, especially if there are ANY carbs in the picture.

Yes, you can convert your body to fat burning, what I refer to as a "happy candle burner", IF you go really low or zero carb for extended periods. For some the sheer simplicity of really low carbs is good, for others it's a nightmare because they'll never resist a few carbs here and there - and invariably consume carbs and fat at the same time.

Really low carb - nice and simple
Really low carb - too complicated and impractical

Both are correct, pick one?

Me, I like carb cycling, best of both worlds, for some it's the worst of both worlds - who's right?

That's why I developed the software in the first place. As Built puts in her blog and I've been there, dozens of books, different approaches and the only person you know it works for is the author. My software's flexible, you can use ratios or ignore them, use per lb of lean mass, base calories on lean or gross weight - but ultimately it's about tracking over time and seeing what works for you. Experiment and take everything with a pinch of salt.

Are ratios complicated? If too complicated for you then sure, too complicated. For others it's exactly the guidance they're looking for.

Again the irony, I try to learn more of a solid foundation on this basic method and get jumped on...

I just pointed out ratios matter, if only in response to the idea they don't matter a damn. If you have a max' number of calories and X amount must come from this, Y amount from that, it's a ratio. Whether you use it as a method of calculating or not, the ratio is there.


My final word before I shut up, if there were perfect methods that work for everyone, regardless of their committment, comfort zone, genetics, lifestyle, etc etc, why do we even have this forum in the first place? Seems to me it's a place to bounce ideas and methods off each other, see what sticks, while helping out newbies and getting mutual support while also a learning process.

Lately it seems more like an octagon...





B.

Biggly Bodybuilding Software "The sensation of hunger can often be alleviated and even mitigated entirely with the consumption of food.[citation needed]" Wiki

danzik17

Well the only input I have on this is the concern for the balance between Omega 3/6/9 fats. On a high fat diet, it's near impossible to have the correct ratio of those fats, that's why I have no problem using this diet to lean out for a few months but would not consider it at all for a lifestyle diet.

Although I wasn't lean on my old diet, the "beastly" amount of o3 fats and healthy fiber I was taking in had my cholesterol ratios at an incredibly good level and also far below the "average" for my age. On this diet, I'm leaning out but honestly have not had any blood tests done, but I'm sure that the ratio of fats I'm eating is off because quite frankly I can't afford to eat salmon over chicken at every meal

Ron Paul 2012

Journal: Boom goes the dynamite

Built

danzik, I just take fish oil. Cheap and effective. My diet is fairly high-fat and my lipid profile is now enviable. Note that this was not always the case: on my former low-fat diet, it was terrible. Mind you, this is hardly unexpected. Sadly, medical practice has not kept up with the research in this regard. But I digress.

Getting back to fat metabolism, I think to my own experience with higher carbs and all that ever happened to me on them was:

Increased hunger -> increased caloric intake (unless I’m deliberately restricting and just put up with the “chewing my arm off� feeling – yeah right!)

– and subsequent weight gain (read: fat gain).

Increased fats on the other hand just make me more comfortable – and seem to have health-giving benefits that have not been afforded to me by increasing carbs (joints feel better, no migraines, skin is better and never dry, energy and mental clarity are better, and of course appetite control is much, MUCH improved). I realize some folks experience the exact same phenomenon with higher carb diets on comparably high levels of protein; I’m just relaying my own experience.

Thing is, regardless of dietary composition, we all get improved insulin sensitivity after heavy resistance training, something I take advantage of by carb-cycling and nutrient-timing my carb intake around this window.

Lyle McDonald takes this to extremes with UD2.0 of course, and I had a conversation with him a while back about a low-carb bulk, where protein and fat are high through the day other than post-workout:

In light of my personal experience, and this conversation with one of the top nutrition experts of our time, I decided to revisit the topic of fat consumption.

Biggly, this post of yours echoed a line I feel we've all been fed for years - but like others, when pressed for backup, you really couldn't point to any real evidence.

I decided to bring this to my good friend Jeff Schaedle, since I have consulted with him before on writing projects for expert nutrition information - and I trust his combined personal experience with bodybuilding nutrition and his formal science education in dietetics.

This was his response:

Slim Schaedle

MA beat me to it, lol.

Excuse any spelling mistakes in there.

Also keep in mind that the outline of "fat usage" is pretty much the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes.

Biggly

Hi B, that's all manner of interesting but I don't see how he's saying anything different from what I've said?

No, not without getting into a Latin-fest like this, which is why I declined the challenge.

Yes but when does fat leave the fat cells?

When there's a significant calorie deficit or when you've gone low carb long and hard enough and the body has no choice and switches to "happy candle burning", like I said earlier.

You present partitioning as a backup to your point, when you know I describe partitioning in my book? So which is it, are we keeping things simple or expecting people to follow Ultimate Diet 2? It's on my other computer but if you like I can paste some Latin from it but why argue the point?

As your own quote sez:

Put simply, 95% of dietary fat, in the presence of pretty much any signficant carbs, gets stored and stays there. To use the energy from fat you have to force your body to convert it to sugar, which it won't do if you're eating sugar.

As I said, IF you go extemely low carbs this works, for most people. However most people cannot maintain such low carbs for low, hence cycling and partitioning.

I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that extremely low carb or partitioning is what some would find "complicated" or "impractical".



B.

Biggly Bodybuilding Software "The sensation of hunger can often be alleviated and even mitigated entirely with the consumption of food.[citation needed]" Wiki

Built

I just wanted to offer up that it's more complicated than you made it seem from your post - that the fat is literally just pouring into the fat cells. I'll wait for people who are far more schooled in these things to step up to the plate with more.

Slim Schaedle

It doesn't have to be a very low carbohydrate diet.

lipolytic activity is decreased in the presence of high blood glucose and insulin.

Is your blood glucose and insulin ALWAYS high on a diet over 100g carbs?

No.

While adipocytes are the major storage site for triglycerides, they are in a constant state of turnover involving lipolysis and reesterfication. Control the balance of this and win the war on bodyfat.

Technically, fat is not converted to glucose for energy.

A triglyceride can undergo hydrolysis in which the glycerol molecule is used by the liver to produce glycerol phosphate and then enter energy oxidation or gluconeogenesis.

The fatty acids from that triglyceride would undergo beta-oxidation in which the fatty acids gets converted to a saturated CoA-activated faty acid and enters the Krebs Cycle.


As personal evidence, in 2003, I got the leanest I ever have been at 185 lbs eating 500g carbs/day, with over 100g dextrose pre and post workout, wih the rest oy my carbs being processed bagels. This was free of any tricks or supplements designed to enhance fat burning, partitioning, etc. My fat intake was 50-100g/day

Without scientific explanation, that pretty much rules out that fat in the presence of carbohydrate HAS to be stored, or that if if it is stored, it can't come back out and be used in the methods above.

So basically someone has to determine the right amount of carbs for them and what they can get away with.

Or the simple massive reduction is carbs to 50-100g/day with either ephedrine (etc) to blunt appetite, or enough fat to do the same job.

Slim Schaedle

Read back to what I said about Triacyglerols.

Although 95% of dietary is IS triglycerides, that does not mean the end result of those is going to be the same form once digested, etc.

These triglycerides release free fatty acids that can be used for numerous other products briefly described earlier.

It is true that triglycerides can be reformed in the bloodstream as well.

To say that 95% of the fat you eat is ending up in your adipocytes in incorrect.


It's kind of like protein.....you may eat a particular kind of protein, but once those AA's are free from the peptide, they do not get lined up in the exact same sequence they were when they went into your mouth.

Biggly

Right, which is low fat for some people, depending on calorie intake. If you were on 4000 cals a day the 100 grams of fat is less than 25% of calories, in other words the classic low fat diet or fat restricted diet.

I don't see how that proves the benefits of a high fat diet?

Sure, you were eating plenty of carbs - in fact most of your calories were coming from carbs and if you were lean at 185ln you would be sucking up a lot of calories from that muscle mass, so 100 grams of fat would be just enough to top up and blunt your appetite, not your main calorie source.

OR, as you say, a massive reduction in carbs; both will work as you're triggering your body to use one or the other but what you can't do is combine both (the donut diet).

Hence some people swear by the low fat diet, some by the low carb diet, as long as you A. really stick to it at the time and B. change it around now and then, hence the confusion!

I don't think there's any disagreement here, asides from subjective terms such as "low". If you want to get stored energy (fat) out of storage you need to give your body a reason, as it'll always prefer readily available carbs, so you give it a reason: low carbs. Go low carb for too long you hit a brick wall, hence cycling.

Or find a happy ratio that works for you - me I prefer cycling, some people hate it.

Some peeps like the complexities, as it keeps them in control and with confidence, some like the simple approach and many disagree on what's "simple"!

If my crime was making fat storage sound overly simple, well as I recall Built when you first came here I jumped on you for making things overly simple for a newby by telling them that cardiovascular exercise doesn't burn calories...

Now we're quits!




Peace


B.

Biggly Bodybuilding Software "The sensation of hunger can often be alleviated and even mitigated entirely with the consumption of food.[citation needed]" Wiki

Slim Schaedle

The 4,000 calorie example comes from my current diet which I am 500 cals under maintenance from Monday to Thursday with 7,000 calories/day for the weekend.

I am currently 225 around 10% BF +/- with up to 300g fat/day and up to 200-300g carbs/day.

The point of me making mention of 50-100g carbs is that even if it is a low amount for some, for my bodyweight at the time it was not, and despite my large intake of carbohydrate and raised insulin, that fat did not go straight to my fat stores at stay there, doing nothing else. If that was the case, I would have gained fat, not lost it.

It's not that you were making the concept of fat storage overly simplified, it's just that to say fat goes straight to adipose tissue and gets used for nothing when the body is sated is completely false.



None of my posts were meant to be efforts to prove the benefits of high fat.

Built quoted me as a response to just one of the issues you are her were discussing.

Built

Biggly, you seem to have a very hard time staying with a topic. I can't help but think you do this on purpose, and I'd like you to stop this style of posting. It impresses no one.

You said Slim just said that it didn't - and he explained why by means of two dietary setups - one with low fat and high carbs, one with high fat and high carbs.

They both worked.

PS: Your "ratio" approach falls apart in the advent of nutrient timing.

Biggly

I'd like YOU to quit turning everything I post into an argument.

Sorry but 25% or less of your calories from fat, bearing in mind fat is more than twice the calories by weight compared to the other 2 food groups, is not "high fat", compared to the average diet that's low fat.

You say that now you're taking a lot more fat - so why talk about what you did when you got lean?

Bottom line without going into personal experience which can vary wildy, which source of energy does the body use when sugar is available, sugars or fats?


B.

Biggly Bodybuilding Software "The sensation of hunger can often be alleviated and even mitigated entirely with the consumption of food.[citation needed]" Wiki

Witchblade

I'm going to take a middle road side on this subject. Not fat, not carbs, but calories.

Numerous overfeeding and weight loss studies have shown that both nutrient timing and macro nutrient ratios are largely irrelevant. The change in weight is identical. This is hard to accept for some people who falsely conclude from this that it doesn't matter what they eat or when, but the data is clear on this.

Note that this concerns weight, not muscle or fat. Keeping your muscle on when dieting is a different subject.

My Linkdump [LSFW]
IM Official FAQ [WORK IN PROGRESS]

Built

See, that's the problem with a ratio approach.
If my maintenance is 2000 calories a day and I eat 55g of fat per day, that's 25% of calories from fat - a "low fat" diet, right?

What happens when I double my calories? Now I'm eating 110g of fat and 4000 calories a day. Good thing it's a low-fat diet. Otherwise I'd get fat!
[/quote]

Slim Schaedle

You are missing the point. At the time 100g was high for me, but that is a side note in the middle of the sentence surrounded by comas. The point is that with a relatively high amount of carbs, and an increased amount of fat (for me personally) did not result in fat gain.....which is the entire point of what we are discussing.


This will be the third time I say it. You said fat in the presence of carbohydrate higher than would be considered very low for most, directly results is adipose tissue gain and nothing else.

Clearly through personal experience, which no doubt varies wildly from individuals, this is wrong.

The brief amount of science I presented acts to back this up.

Is glucose used? Is fat used?

Both.

Read back through what Built quoted me on and what I wrote about triglycerides constantly being hydrolyzed, turnover, etc.

I'm going to quote a member of another forum who puts it very simple in terms of the multiple processes that occur simultaneously with respect to what we are discussing.