Anyone here still does low carb or zero carb?

I carb cycle so I do low-carb (around 50-70 g) about 2-3 days a week.

Trying to pull off that mythical simultaneous muscle gain-fat loss combo. I think it's very slowly working out for me.

It's not bad. Just load up on green beans, broccoli, cauliflower and squash. These are great when mixed and tossed with olive oil and spices.
 
I did targeted keto for a while but couldn't sustain more than 2 sessions of mt a week on it. I'm sure people can but 4 or 5 a week for me? Forget it

My main advice to anyone would be to watch electrolyte and glycogen levels very carefully

How would someone go about Watching glycogen levels??
 
I can't. If I do little or no carbs my workouts suffer. Instead I get my carbs from multigrain bread and stuff like that. I don't eat a super strict diet, I just eat smart. In fact, a stack of multigrain pancakes gets me pretty fired up to go lift that afternoon.
 
I've just started again. I did once get from 185 to 155 using it, but I was was too damn skinny.

I've had a few false starts that where i've been low carb one day and giving into the cravings the next and felt like absolute shit (headaches, nausea). I'm past this now and can't believe i've slid back into eating pretty much anything. I feel far better cognition (lack of "brain fog") and my energy levels and constant and hunger is hungry, not feeling like i'm going to shut down or kill someone.

An interesting effect for me is that this combined with having given up coffee, mean that whenever i have sugar (especially refined) or an americano, its feels like I've taken a stimulant. I use this if I know i've got heavy training ahead and have a couple of bananas.

So its worth it for me but I know everyone doesn't get the same benefit, and that the lifestyle limitations can put a lot of people off. My aim now is to get rid of that last bit of belly fat I had even at 155, without being such a skinny bitch (I'm 6').
 
low carb makes you lose water weight. the second you go off these diets, you will put the weight back on.
 
I thought about it, but it seems most folk I've met who have done non carb end up regretting it for one reason or another. Low carb isn't so bad though.
 
^ Man, Nemesis is awesome. Hope he is doing well.
 
I did it last camp, I didn't enjoy it at all. I'm back on a regular diet, losing weight steadily and feeling great.
 
Dont have time to sift through all that, but fat loss is about caloric restriction, period. not arbitrarily cutting a certain macro. It's water weight. if you stay on the diet, you'll stay lean, when you get off it, you will gain back. Science.

Huh?

First you say you'll lose weight on a calorie restriction and you're right.

Then you say cutting calories can't be about cutting out a macro? Huh? Wouldn't removing something lead to less of a calorie load?

It's water weight? You think he lose 200+ lbs of carb induced water weight?

Low carb reduces appetite and keto forces your body to use fat stores more readily. That's its' benefit. It can make a long and terribly difficult fat loss cut quicker and slightly easier.

It's also great for cutting carb induced water storage but there's only so much of that. Sorry. And it doesn't matter what you did to lose weight if you go back on surplus diet you're going to gain it back.
 
He meant keeping calories the same but switching up the macro profiles.
 
Dont have time to sift through all that, but fat loss is about caloric restriction, period. not arbitrarily cutting a certain macro. It's water weight. if you stay on the diet, you'll stay lean, when you get off it, you will gain back. Science.

Strawman much?

P.S. - A 400lb guy didn't lose nearly 200lbs of water. Guess again.
 
I've read about this crazy sustained energy you get from being keto adapted, but I've never experienced that. A lot of people say they have though, so maybe it's just me. I'm on some kind of low carb all year but whenever I've gone strict keto, the goal is to lose weight or be less fat. I think any time you attempt to get burn fat, you will inevitably feel like shit and performance will suffer a bit in the gym. I've been told staying off carbs will give you better performance when you do get on them before competition.

I can tell you that you don't get those carb induced comas. I used to get those often, but now when I eat a my seldom big carby meal, I feel fine so that seems to suggest I have better insulin sensitivity... whatever that means.

Speaking as this guy's trainer, there's some supervisory information needed:

During a cut for an athletic event, the workload goes up. It's perfectly normal to feel like shit no matter what one is doing. However, my athletes rarely ever need to do the dumb shit weight-cutting athletes typically need to do to make their weights. Spending long times in steam rooms or saunas, wearing plastic at the Gym, etc. That's almost NEVER needed. Also, what's not being said is having worked with Mike through a couple of cutting cycles, while he's reporting to me that he feels like shit, form and performance actually get sharper closer to the bout itself, not worse. And at fight time, the opposition tires out faster than we do:



Just for shits and giggles, here's a couple more low-carb fighters, sustaining their energy:



^The one who boxes the other kid's face off.



The one who beat the piss out of the other kid^.



^The one who beats the piss out of the other kid.

I have a ton more of these. Despite some stuff I've heard about it being "scientifically impossible" to be an athlete using low-carb nutrition.

Wait wait, that was weight lifting right?

Low-carb weight lifter who was IN ketosis during this meet:



(He had a diet log called "Goon goes keto" but didn't have time to maintain it.)

Here's another one who was on a low-carb plan because he wanted to lose fat and retain as much strength as possible:



But hey, what do we guys who actually take athletes' health as our responsibility know, amirite?
 
P.S. - Female low-carb weight lifter who hit total elite in her division:

 
What counts as low carb? I have a busy training schedule and get around 120-150g of carbs a day. My diet is made up of 50% fat 25% protein and 25% carb.
 
This is where it can get tricky as there are a number of ways people have defined it. Some give it a G allowance, other a %, and some try to equate both.

Table 1
Suggested definitions for different Forms of low-carbohydrate diets.
Very low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet (VLCKD)
&#8226;Carbohydrate, 20&#8211;50 g/d or <10% of the 2000 kcal/d diet, whether or not ketosis occurs. Derived from levels of carbohydrate required to induce ketosis in most people.

&#8226;Recommended early phase (&#8220;induction&#8221;) of popular diets such as Atkins Diet or Protein Power.

Low-carbohydrate diet: <130 g/d or <26% total energy
&#8226;The ADA definition of 130 g/d as its recommended minimum.
Moderate-Carbohydrate Diet: 26%&#8211;45%

&#8226;Upper limit, approximate carbohydrate intake before the obesity epidemic (43%).
High-Carbohydrate Diet: >45%

http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/S0899-9007(14)00332-3/fulltext

You fall into the low carb, but not extremely low carb.
 
I pick and choose the meals I have carbs on the side...I usually have 1 meal a day with a side order of carbs. Outside of that 1 meal, it's all meat and veggies.
 
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