Protein vs Carbs vs Fat

[NJL52]

When I first started my diet I threw together a bunch of food and drinks and came to a decent calorie/protein/carb/fat amount and said what the hell and started it.

But after being on it for a couple weeks, I want to make it better.

I'm currently at 2400 calories 330/120/60 macro. I'm taking Thermorexin, Glucorell and Sesapure. The excessive amount of chicken that I have set up on this diet is driving me crazy. So I have been considering raising my carbs and dropping my protein for a while.

But I don't know much about the benefits of high carb or high protein diets.

So basically:
1. What are peoples opinions and results on each type of diet. Which do you choose and why?
2. And does anybody else have any readable information about the differences?
3. Also could use some information about the particulars on carbs. IE sugars vs fiber, complex vs simple.

Thanks.

 

[odoyal rulez]

Im on the exact same progarm myself..be interested in seeing other replies.

 

[Sassy69]

When I first started my diet I threw together a bunch of food and drinks and came to a decent calorie/protein/carb/fat amount and said what the hell and started it.

But after being on it for a couple weeks, I want to make it better.

I'm currently at 2400 calories 330/120/60 macro. I'm taking Thermorexin, Glucorell and Sesapure. The excessive amount of chicken that I have set up on this diet is driving me crazy. So I have been considering raising my carbs and dropping my protein for a while.

But I don't know much about the benefits of high carb or high protein diets.

So basically:
1. What are peoples opinions and results on each type of diet. Which do you choose and why?
2. And does anybody else have any readable information about the differences?
3. Also could use some information about the particulars on carbs. IE sugars vs fiber, complex vs simple.

Thanks.

So your macro ratios are:

64% protein / 12% fats / 23% carbs? (Please confirm...)

I've got a couple suggestions & rules of thumb to help guide you, but wanted to know what your goal is? Hypertrophy? Fat loss? Its a bit hard to do both w/ success so pick one and the other will come along or be a second phase.

I'll assume you aren't looking for a major cutting phase so I'd say make sure your total grams of protein are 1.5 - 2x your weight. And your total cals are 12 - 15 x your bodyweight. If you aren't sure of the ratios you want, you can start w/ 40% protein / 30% carb / 30 % fat - that is an excellent baseline to start from (ask Shadow..!)

This will cut back on the protein and also increase both carbs & fats to support more energy for quality & intense lifting. You can adjust the protein up to 50% and carbs & fats to 25% as well or twiddle w/ them based on how you are responding - if you need more carbs for good quality energy, give them to yourself. Make sure you get some fats tho. Don't cheat yourself out of that part of the diet either.

I personally stick around 50/25/25 or I will cycle carbs with a couple low days & a refeed if I need to cut. That's the approach I use for competitin cutting - that plus more cardio gets me down to 7-8% (and I'm a girl )

The types of carbs -- I try to keep some veggie / fibrous carbs in most of my meals. I tend to keep carbs & fats seperate - meaning my meals are either protein + carb or protein + fat, where they can all have fibrous carbs (veggies) but I keep the complex carbs & any fats seperate. An example of my meal plan is:

Meal 1: eggs / protein mix / oatmeal

Meal 2: ANPB + protein mix or chicken / salad + flax or olive oil-based dressing

Meal 3: chicken + salad + rice or yams

Meal 4: same as meal 2

Meal 5: same as 3 -- usually a pre-workout meal so I put carbs here so I can use them towards training

Meal 6: chicken + salad --- this is usually a post workout meal so I don't do fats

I generally stay away from sugar carbs. These are simple carbs - fast burning - great for during or post-workout. Fibrous carbs keep you cleaned out, provide fiber, I consider them "free calories" -- if you aren't cutting then you should eat a variety of veggies - colorful is better as that variety provides a wide selection of enzymes that your body uses to help shuttle out the by-products & waste of daily metabolic functions (e.g. free radicals). But these also are higher in simple sugars (e.g. carrots) and add a little extra sugar to your diet. When I'm cutting I stick to green leafy veggies like broccoli, spinach, etc. Lower "GI index" carbs - lower sugar content - but they also limit the variety of your diet and exclude things your body normally uses to help in its daily functions. (That's why if you are on a really strict diet variety-wise, say for a competition, I suggest doing a 'detox diet' when you are done w/ the competition to clean out all the accumulatd stuff from the restricted diet and give yourself a clean start for your bulking or whatever next cycle you have.) If you needed to put some calories somewhere, you could stick them in a post workout or during -workout protein drink like gatorade. Otherwise I stick w/ fibrous & starchy carbs. Sugar carbs just spike cortisol and then I crash.

"Results" of a high fat or high protein or high carb diet -- its a balance of what you are trying to achieve.

High Fat Diet
similar to atkins or a ketogenic (CKD) diet -- you will drop water weight quickly on such a diet because you've essentially eliminated your carbs and since carbs hold water (thus you get that puffy but fuller look after a high carb day), you will dump piles of water weight. You will also start to look flat (since no carbs), start to feel lethargic (because your body seeks carbs as its first source of energy, and your brain selects carbs as its preferred energy source as well -- ever forget to eat for awhile and start to get fuzzy in the brain --- that's lack of carbs.) Your body learns to switch over to ketones (byproduct of processing protein) as an energy source, but its a sucky way to live. Its not a 'maintenance diet' and you won't be able to build any muscle mass on it and you'll probably want to sleep a lot.

High Protein Diet
If the bulk of your calories come from protein, and your fats & carbs are low, you will encounter the same issue as w/ a high fat diet in not having any carbs to run on. There's also a limit to how much protein you can process in a single sitting (there's some arguement about this but I think generally it is around 50 g for a guy and 30-35 g for a girl - metabolized every 2-3 hrs -- note that matches the usual eating schedule of every 2-3 hrs) so anything above that may just dumped out as waste or stored as excess. If your fats are way low, that can also screw up your body - there's a reason those three macronutrietnts exist ... if you exclude any from your body, there will be some consequence in your general performance and your body's ability to function as it should.

High Carb diet
Carbs are great, esp if you are bulking - that's what fuels a kick ass, mass building workout! But if you consume more than you can use, it goes to fat. If you consume shitty sources of carbs (e.g. sugar, processed sugar), then your body won't be able to burn them efficiently and you will feel lethargic, bogged down, higher cortisol levels and start getting squishy as it also slows down your metabolism and continues to get stored as fat. Sugar carbs generally suck, stick to unprocessed carbs (natural stuff, not packaged) with lots of fibrous carbs and complex carbs where they can be used to fuel your daily activities.

 

[NJL52]

So your macro ratios are:

64% protein / 12% fats / 23% carbs? (Please confirm...)

Confirmed.

I've got a couple suggestions & rules of thumb to help guide you, but wanted to know what your goal is? Hypertrophy? Fat loss? Its a bit hard to do both w/ success so pick one and the other will come along or be a second phase.

I'll assume you aren't looking for a major cutting phase

lol actually yea. I'm 2 weeks into a 10 week cut. Just for information's sake, I'm 6'1 222.

so I'd say make sure your total grams of protein are 1.5 - 2x your weight. And your total cals are 12 - 15 x your bodyweight. If you aren't sure of the ratios you want, you can start w/ 40% protein / 30% carb / 30 % fat - that is an excellent baseline to start from (ask Shadow..!)

Any of this still hold true?

This will cut back on the protein and also increase both carbs & fats to support more energy for quality & intense lifting. You can adjust the protein up to 50% and carbs & fats to 25% as well or twiddle w/ them based on how you are responding - if you need more carbs for good quality energy, give them to yourself. Make sure you get some fats tho. Don't cheat yourself out of that part of the diet either.

Or this?

I personally stick around 50/25/25 or I will cycle carbs with a couple low days & a refeed if I need to cut. That's the approach I use for competitin cutting - that plus more cardio gets me down to 7-8% (and I'm a girl )

Interesting. Just out of curiosities sake, what is the purpose of the low days and the refeed?

"Results" of a high fat or high protein or high carb diet -- its a balance of what you are trying to achieve.

High Fat Diet
similar to atkins or a ketogenic (CKD) diet -- you will drop water weight quickly on such a diet because you've essentially eliminated your carbs and since carbs hold water (thus you get that puffy but fuller look after a high carb day), you will dump piles of water weight. You will also start to look flat (since no carbs), start to feel lethargic (because your body seeks carbs as its first source of energy, and your brain selects carbs as its preferred energy source as well -- ever forget to eat for awhile and start to get fuzzy in the brain --- that's lack of carbs.) Your body learns to switch over to ketones (byproduct of processing protein) as an energy source, but its a sucky way to live. Its not a 'maintenance diet' and you won't be able to build any muscle mass on it and you'll probably want to sleep a lot.

High Protein Diet
If the bulk of your calories come from protein, and your fats & carbs are low, you will encounter the same issue as w/ a high fat diet in not having any carbs to run on. There's also a limit to how much protein you can process in a single sitting (there's some arguement about this but I think generally it is around 50 g for a guy and 30-35 g for a girl - metabolized every 2-3 hrs -- note that matches the usual eating schedule of every 2-3 hrs) so anything above that may just dumped out as waste or stored as excess. If your fats are way low, that can also screw up your body - there's a reason those three macronutrietnts exist ... if you exclude any from your body, there will be some consequence in your general performance and your body's ability to function as it should.

High Carb diet
Carbs are great, esp if you are bulking - that's what fuels a kick ass, mass building workout! But if you consume more than you can use, it goes to fat. If you consume shitty sources of carbs (e.g. sugar, processed sugar), then your body won't be able to burn them efficiently and you will feel lethargic, bogged down, higher cortisol levels and start getting squishy as it also slows down your metabolism and continues to get stored as fat. Sugar carbs generally suck, stick to unprocessed carbs (natural stuff, not packaged) with lots of fibrous carbs and complex carbs where they can be used to fuel your daily activities.

Good info!

Thanks for all the info, shame I can't give more karma for a post like this!

 

[Sassy69]

Carb cycling takes advantage of how your body responds to changes in carb supply. If you cut complex carbs out of your diet, your body doesn't actually 'notice' that it doesnt' have its 'regular' amount of carb for a day or two so it will continue to burn at the same rate as if it were getting the 'regular' amount. So those two days or so, you can keep your carbs low but continue to burn efficiently. Then just before your metabolism decides to slow itself down a little as it finally realizes the incoming carbs aren't actually as much as it was expecting, you do the carb up.

Make sense? There are lots of ways to cycle carbs. I personally keep my total calories the same every day, but change the carb amounts and replace the carbs I remove w/ the same number of calories in fats.

 

[NJL52]

Carb cycling takes advantage of how your body responds to changes in carb supply. If you cut complex carbs out of your diet, your body doesn't actually 'notice' that it doesnt' have its 'regular' amount of carb for a day or two so it will continue to burn at the same rate as if it were getting the 'regular' amount. So those two days or so, you can keep your carbs low but continue to burn efficiently. Then just before your metabolism decides to slow itself down a little as it finally realizes the incoming carbs aren't actually as much as it was expecting, you do the carb up.

Make sense? There are lots of ways to cycle carbs. I personally keep my total calories the same every day, but change the carb amounts and replace the carbs I remove w/ the same number of calories in fats.

Yup, thanks for the elaboration.

But that opens some more questions if ya don't mind. Just going to ask whatever comes to my head.

How does your body continue to burn at the same rate if you arn't supplying it? Fat?

Do carbs and fats supply different amounts of energy?

If your body turns to carbs first for energy, how does fat get burned?

Again, thanks for your time!

 

[Sassy69]

Yup, thanks for the elaboration.

But that opens some more questions if ya don't mind. Just going to ask whatever comes to my head.

How does your body continue to burn at the same rate if you arn't supplying it? Fat?

Do carbs and fats supply different amounts of energy?

If your body turns to carbs first for energy, how does fat get burned?

Again, thanks for your time!

Since its almost 1am the only thing I'm going to address is the burn rate - it takes your body a day or two to respond to changes - it takes, I dunno, several hours, 8 hrs maybe, to digest the meal, front to back, and then to start figuring out what to do w/ all the resources it provided. Here's another example - this is the basis for doign a carb up pre-competition - you carb deplete for 4 or so days and start cutting your water intake w/ the purpose of trying to dump as much subcutaneous water as you can to get that nutty ripped look on stage. Then usually starting on Wed night or Thurs prior to a Saturday show, you start loading complex carbs like yams so that they both suck up any remaining subQ water as well as fill out the muscles that were looking pretty flat during the carb deplete -- the reason -- carbs take on the order of 36 hrs to fill you out (its just much more apparent on a depleted body so I use that example of a competition prep) -- so that is telling you it takes about that long for your body to do something w/ the nutrients you've provided.

Your body works on 'averages' - it adjusts itself to run on what it perceives as the "normal' state - for people who think the only way to lose weight is to starve yourself, if you are in that state of constantly providing subsufficient calories, it will adjust metabolic burn rate down to preserve the energy sources it has available (stored bodyfat). If you provide exactly enough for your body to burn in a 2-3 hr session (it takes 2-3 hrs to metabolize first sugar / carbs, proteins then fats - so that's why we use the idea of a small meal every 2-3 hrs).

So the point I'm making is that you have a 1-2 day window when you can actually cut the amount of carbs but still burn as if the larger amount of carbs were available. So you will start to burn some of the stored energy as well. But then you have to re-establish the higher level of carbs for a day before your body identifies that the smaller amount is being provided and its time to adjust down metabolism in response to the smaller amount.

 

[NJL52]

Since its almost 1am the only thing I'm going to address is the burn rate - it takes your body a day or two to respond to changes - it takes, I dunno, several hours, 8 hrs maybe, to digest the meal, front to back, and then to start figuring out what to do w/ all the resources it provided. Here's another example - this is the basis for doign a carb up pre-competition - you carb deplete for 4 or so days and start cutting your water intake w/ the purpose of trying to dump as much subcutaneous water as you can to get that nutty ripped look on stage. Then usually starting on Wed night or Thurs prior to a Saturday show, you start loading complex carbs like yams so that they both suck up any remaining subQ water as well as fill out the muscles that were looking pretty flat during the carb deplete -- the reason -- carbs take on the order of 36 hrs to fill you out (its just much more apparent on a depleted body so I use that example of a competition prep) -- so that is telling you it takes about that long for your body to do something w/ the nutrients you've provided.

Your body works on 'averages' - it adjusts itself to run on what it perceives as the "normal' state - for people who think the only way to lose weight is to starve yourself, if you are in that state of constantly providing subsufficient calories, it will adjust metabolic burn rate down to preserve the energy sources it has available (stored bodyfat). If you provide exactly enough for your body to burn in a 2-3 hr session (it takes 2-3 hrs to metabolize first sugar / carbs, proteins then fats - so that's why we use the idea of a small meal every 2-3 hrs).

So the point I'm making is that you have a 1-2 day window when you can actually cut the amount of carbs but still burn as if the larger amount of carbs were available. So you will start to burn some of the stored energy as well. But then you have to re-establish the higher level of carbs for a day before your body identifies that the smaller amount is being provided and its time to adjust down metabolism in response to the smaller amount.

Great explanation, thanks alot!

So, would you suggest carb cycling to a first time cutter? A simple yes or no will do the trick, you don't have to write me another book ^^

Again, thanks for the explanations.

 

[Sassy69]

Great explanation, thanks alot!

So, would you suggest carb cycling to a first time cutter? A simple yes or no will do the trick, you don't have to write me another book ^^

Again, thanks for the explanations.

I'd suggest finding the ratios that get you what you want first. Keep it simple and see how you respond to different carbs, diff ratios, etc. Carb cycling is for later.