LOW CARB ISN'T ALWAYS THE ANSWER
Let's say two people need to drop fat and improve their body composition. One guy is an out of shape 40-something stockbroker and the other is an in-shape movie star getting ready for his latest action movie.What should they do, diet-wise?
Most people, and many coaches, would tell them both to cut down their carb intake. But it's ridiculous to give these two individuals the same nutrition plan, just like you wouldn't give them the same training plan.
For the longest time, the go-to answer for fat loss dieting has been "eat less carbs," and at its most basic level, eating less carbs is good advice and most people would benefit from eating fewer carbohydrates.
But what we're discovering is that the level of carbohydrates that you can consume while still losing weight is directly related to your insulin sensitivity.
Drastic carbohydrate restriction is unnecessary, maybe even counterproductive, for people with good insulin sensitivity because it doesn't improve fat loss. So giving our stockbroker and movie star similar diets wouldn't make sense.
Besides, if you could eat as many carbs as possible and still reach your body comp goals, wouldn't you?
Insulin Sensitivity: Research and The Real World
Exercise: The Missing Link
Making Higher Carbs Work For You
Don't start any body comp diet phase with your carbohydrates any lower than 40% of your total calories, then adjust from there based on weekly, biweekly, or even monthly progress.While the A to Z Study did include the Ornish diet, which has upwards of 65% daily calories from carbs, 50% of calories from carbs is generally the maximum you want to work with because it's important to remember that everything in your diet is connected.
As you eat more carbs, you'll need to eat less of something else, remembering that total calories are capped at a specific level since you're in a fat loss phase.
You want to keep your protein intake around 30% of your total calories and never lower than 1.6g/kg bodyweight.
The rest of your calories will come from fat, which in this case is the remaining 20% of calories. So at the high end of your carb intake, your diet could look like this:
- 50% carbohydrates
- 30% protein
- 20% fat
- 2500 calories
- 312g carbohydrates
- 187g protein
- 55g fat
But if you're looking to lose as much fat as possible while eating as many carbohydrates as possible and you have good insulin sensitivity, this is how you should start.
3 Keys to Success
One issue you might be concerned about with this higher carbohydrate/lower fat approach is satiety, or feeling full after eating. With only 20% of your calories from fat, will you feel full enough on lower-than-usual calories?No one likes to feel starving just after they finish a meal. But satiety shouldn't be a problem with these three tricks.
1. VEGETABLES
Eat ample vegetables as part of your 50% carbohydrate intake. Focus especially on high-fiber greens (like broccoli and Brussels sprouts) and dense, high volume veggies that weigh a lot but don't contain a lot of calories (like bell peppers, cucumber, and spinach).You body senses how much a food "weighs" in your stomach more than it recognizes the calorie content of the food. Eating more vegetables is always linked to eating less calories and greater feelings of fullness.
2. INSULIN
While it's often talked about as the devil when it comes to fat loss, most people don't realize that insulin is also a satiety hormone. The increase in carbs will lead to a hormonal cascade that leads to increase satiety.Just be careful because this can have a downside if you focus too much on fast-acting carbs (sugars), which can swing insulin levels through cause sharp peaks and valleys and leave you hungrier than before you ate. When dieting for fat loss, but stick with predominantly complex carbs.
3. PROTEIN
Protein is linked to increased fullness via multiple mechanisms in your body, from signals in your digestive tract to modifications in your brain. Aiming for 30% of calories from protein will give you the lean body mass protection that you need as well as the satiety benefits.Plenty of whole food animal-based protein sources are also good sources of fat. While dietary fat will be relatively-low, what fat you do take in will be automatically tied to your protein intake, making protein foods a double-whammy hunger fighter.
With the right approach and smart food choices, satiety shouldn't be an issue. If you still find that it's an issue, just drop your carbohydrate intake by 5-10% and adjust your fat intake to compensate.
Back to our 200-pound dieter, the new intake would be:
- 40% carbohydrates
- 30% protein
- 30% fat
- 2500 calories
- 250g carbohydrates
- 187g protein
- 83g fat
Be a Science Experiment
Don't blow this idea off because it doesn't "feel" right to eat a 50% carb diet or because carbs make you "feel" fat. Optimizing body composition is much less about how you feel and more about how your body changes.
It drives me crazy when people say they "feel leaner" a few weeks into a new diet. You either are leaner or you aren't. It doesn't matter how you "feel."
Treat your body like a science experiment. Put the plan into action, and then track and measure how your body responds.
If you commit to making adjustments based on how your body has actually responded, not how you "feel" about your body's response, your newly visible abs will thank you.
