The Pros & Cons of High-Fat and High-Carb Diets for Energy & Muscle Growth
( Don't be Fooled by the Latest and Greatest Diet Plan - fitFlex Articles - Learn, Share and Discover! ) ..
Much debate has appeared in the bodybuilding magazines recently about what's the best dietary fuel for bodybuilders. Some people
advocate the high-fat diet, in which most of the day's calories are derived from fat while carbohydrate consumption is kept to a
minimum. The rationale for this approach is to avoid carbohydrates in order to keep insulin levels as low as possible, thus
promoting use of stored bodyfat as energy. This is a topic near and dear to my heart, so let's take a close look at the facts.
What the high-carb diet and the high-fat diet have in common is that they both emphasize consuming adequate protein to maintain
positive nitrogen balance. This is the first consideration of any bodybuilding diet. Many studies have documented the fact that
bodybuilders and endurance athletes need a lot of protein to make up for the loss of amino acids which are oxidized as fuel during
exercise, and to repair muscle tissue which is damaged during exercise.
Most bodybuilders do well on one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day, while others may need as much as one and a half
grams. This works out to between 25 and 35 percent of daily calories for most people - say, about 30 percent on average. The
primary function of protein in the diet is to supply amino acids, which are used to support protein synthesis in the body for
growth and repair.
The other 70 percent of your daily calorie intake is to provide energy, and this is where the two diets part ways. One strategy is
to supply most of this energy in the form of complex carbs, while the other approach is to supply the energy as fat. The truth is
that either approach can be made to work, and the question is which one works best?
To use stored bodyfat as energy, the body must function in a net energy deficit - i.e. energy consumed (dietary calories) must be
less than the total amount of energy (calories) the body expends. Only when your body bums more calories than you consume will it
draw on stored fat for energy. It is a fine line to walk, however, because if the energy deficit is too great, you will also draw
on stored protein from skeletal muscle and internal organs for energy. This is why it's important to keep protein intake high -
while losing bodyfat - to minimize these losses. If you are familiar with my program, you know that I do not advocate cuffing calories
to lose weight, since this slows your metabolic rate and sets into play an adaptive response that causes your body to hoard fat at
the expense of protein. A much better way to achieve an energy deficit is to increase your energy expenditure by doing more aerobic
exercise. This aerobic activity works to increase your metabolic rate while you are losing fat, which is what you want.
To lose bodyfat while maintaining muscle mass, you need to consume a diet adequate in protein and deficient in calories - that is,
you need to burn more calories than you consume. After meeting the protein requirement, the rest of the calories can come from
carbohydrates, fat or some combination. I believe that it is best to supply the bulk of dietary energy in the form of complex
carbohydrates and to keep conventional dietary fat to a minimum - for three reasons.
Reason one: my personal experience with real-life bodybuilders, general health considerations, and the scientific literature. The
simple truth is that the vast majority of bodybuilders stick to the high-carb approach because they have found it works heifer for
them. All of the professionals I've trained just seem to do heifer on the high-carb/ low-fat diet. Believe me, what matters at this
level is results. If the high-fat diet gave better results, that's what I would use, but the fact is that in my experience with elite
athletes the high-carb diet works better. That's not some fancy technical explanation. It's just the bottom line, plain and simple.
Reason two: good health. High-fat diets have been linked to heart disease, cancer; obesity and other life-threatening illnesses.
Reason three: Carbohydrates are the preferred energy source for athletes, according to mounds of research. In contrast, I don't know
of any scientific studies which have energy source for athletes.
As you know, weightlifting is an anaerobic activity. That means the energy is produced without using oxygen. Fat cannot be used as a
fuel for lifting weights because fat requires oxygen to be broken down. Carbohydrates are essentially the only fuel your body can use
to lift weights because it's the only fuel the muscles can break down without using oxygen. So right off the bat there's a pretty good
reason why bodybuilders should eat a high-carbohydrate diet.
How can people on the high-fat diet still manage to lift weights? They are breaking down protein, and the amino acids are converted
to glucose in the liver in a process called gluconeogenesis. Tome it makes more sense to let dietary protein be used as protein instead
of being converted to glucose (a simple carbohydrate) so that it can be used as fuel. If your body requires carbs to lift weights,
then feed it carbs.
Keep in mind too that fat cannot be convened into carbohydrate. You cannot use fat to replenish glycogen stores. Neither can fat be
converted to protein. Dietary fat can do two things in your body: It can be burned for energy, or it can be stored as bodyfat. If you
want to try the high-fat diet, just keep in mind that you have to burn off all those fat grams or else store them in adipose tissue.
They can't end up anywhere else.
Also, too many calories from any source can make you fat. The silver lining to this black cloud is that converting a carbohydrate
molecule into a fat molecule takes some energy. In fact, about 25 percent of the energy in a carbohydrate molecule is spent in the
process of digestion, assimilation, transport, and conversion to fat. Only about 3 percent of the energy in dietary fat is used to
get it from your mouth to your waist. Calories from dietary fat are thus stored as bodyfat much more efficiently than are calories
from carbs. Again, carbs sound like a better deal to me.
What got this debate started was the idea that by lowering carbs you could lower insulin. Since insulin promotes fat storage and
blocks fat breakdown, this seems like a good idea. What if I told you how to keep insulin levels low hut still consume a high-carb
diet? Sounds like the best of both worlds. The first thing to do is to choose only complex carbohydrate sources and to avoid simple
sugars.
Each meal should contain at least one serving of fibrous vegetables, which are digested and released into the blood slowly. Also, by
combining your carbs with protein and MCT oil, you can further slow the release of carbs. By proper meal combining you can eat a diet
high in complex carbohydrates and low in fat and still keep insulin at a steady, low level. The bottom line is that high-fat diets
have some huge disadvantages. My advice is that you avoid them at all costs. Stick to high protein, high-carb and low-fat nutrition.
|
