What Happened to You on Your Low-Carb Diet?

Shit, I can't find an upload button.

Are we enabled to attach files in this forum? I've never done it before.
 
If you train, you need carbs. Aside from the obvious need for energy, your brain and central nervous system are dependant on them as well. So everything from your reflexes, timing, coordination are also dependant.

My trainer is from the "old-school" and he had one of our fighters do this (atkins) for the last couple of weeks to make weight. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the most weight is dropped (almost all water), in the first 72 hours, so why he was doing during the hardest part of training made no sense to me, but I'm not going to argue. For my fight coming up, if I absolutly need to, I'll drop my carbs 2 days before weigh-ins, but just from upping my cardio, eating better, and no beer, I've lost 4 lbs in the last week. Since I usuaslly drink about 2000-3500 calories in beer a week, you can see that 4 lbs ain't that un-realistic.
 
Can anyone tell me how I upload a PDF file in here? Is that possible?

I can at otherr forums, but I guess Sherdog doesn't allow it.
 
I don't know if I'm on a low-carb diet or anything, but I try to avoid simple carbs unless I'm in the 10% (JB/PN) window or it's after an intense workout.

I'm basically trying to play the Percision Nutrition guideline by ear. I don't eat much grains at all. Last thing I can remember were the rolled oats in my homemade protein bars.

I don't have the time and patience to plan out my meals so I just buy good food and throw them together in a balanced way at every eating opportunity. I don't feel like I'm punishing myself or missing out on anything because I eat so much good food, I don't have time or space for the crap.

MEAT
- 97 lean ground beef
- fish
- chicken breasts
- ground turkey
- eggs (I don't remove the yolk, don't know if I should)
- *steak every once in a while when prices are good.. steak vs. snickers = steak..

DAIRY
- plain nonfat yogurt (love the stuff now, mix it with frozen berries and fruit)
- *I got some lowfat cottage cheese a while ago, but I don't see the point.. every good thing you can find in CotChees you can get a lot more of it in yogurt.....
- **stopped using milk and oddly I don't miss it because I'm a green tea whore now
- I use butter in my cooking of veggies, but I try to use little becuase I think I just want it for the salt content

VEG
- spinach (come back to me please WRU?!)
- broccoli
- peas
- cauliflower
- carrots
- lima beans
- *not much variety but it doesn't bother me if I'm getting a good intake. and i miss spinach.. wru my leafy green savior?

FRUIT
- blueberries FTW
- grapes, apples, oranges, and etc every once in a while.. not the biggest fan..
- tomato - they're fruits, dammit.

MISC
- green tea
- honey (for protein bars and tea and.... i'm not really sure why hoeny is better than sugar but it still gives me points on style)
- ragu/prego spagetti sauce ( use frozen veggies like broc/cauli/carrot mix instead of pasta, then grown some beef and add the sauce.. better than regular pasta IMO )
- garlic... etc etc
- ON whey when I dont have time for a real meal
- rolled oats (in cooking bars mainly)
- fish oil
- *i need to get a new mutli vita.. ran out
- **i need to grab a leafy veg powder so I can suppliment veggies too

most might not think it's a lot of variety but it's fine for me and my budget and my tastes. what do you think i'm missing as far as nutritional value?


edit-- oh yeah and how i make my meals is that i just pick a protein, pick a bunch of veggies and try to do equal portions of each and then i'll usually mix the yogurt over some frozen blueberries or whatever if i want it. it's mainly for the calcium and blue berries are supposed to be a superfood and taste awesome.
 
^^^^

I like your style. That's more or less the way I go about it too.

A note about cottage cheese though, it has tons of protien (i get the no-fat curds, mix a little yogurt and some berries). I think it's about 22 grams for a 125 ml serving.

And honey...hmm, can't remember the stats on it, but it's alot better than white sugar. That much I remember.
 
Madmick said:
This reflects the body's ability to adapt, but without a control group, there is little that can be surmised about performance potential.

What this study showed was there was no muscle loss and no endurance loss (some improved). Those were the 2 things most people in this thread were complaining that this diet caused. A control group isn't needed to show this diet doesn't cause that.


Madmick said:
Bottom line: why deplete yourself of glycogen and enervate yourself for precious training time when thousands of studies haven't yet determined any superiority among low-carb diets for weight loss and health?

There may be some groups of people that want to say it isn't safe, but when there are dozens of high profile university studies backing your product, you can't dismiss it so easily.


Madmick said:
But I think it's pretty stupid for an athlete to avoid carbs altogether.

0 carbs would be bad for some athletes. But most low-carb maintenance phases allow 90g carbs per day. This isn't much below the FDA's recommended daily carb intake. Even pro athletes in the stage II phase (50g carbs) showed no signs of decline in endurance. I think if you are in an endurance sport, it won'tmatter. For explosive energy, sprinting, etc then a 0 carb diet would probably not work very well.
 
Lubaolong said:
What this study showed was there was no muscle loss and no endurance loss (some improved). Those were the 2 things most people in this thread were complaining that this diet caused. A control group isn't needed to show this diet doesn't cause that.
Yes, except you have no control group demonstrating rival performance on a high-carb diet. Perhaps they would have improved beyond this group.

There may be some groups of people that want to say it isn't safe, but when there are dozens of high profile university studies backing your product, you can't dismiss it so easily.
Well, if someone would tell me if and how to post PDF's in this forum, I could show you that the current consensus (for research over the past 40 years) is that although there is inconclusive evidence to advise against low-carb diets' safety, there isn't a credible body of evidence to suggest they are more effective than high-carb diets for weight loss or health.

There is a dearth of research into low-carb dieting's effect on performance potential. There is a substantial body of research on glucose supplementation (of many different varieties) around the PWO window, and how it substantially improves performance and recovery. 90 carbs a day isn't sufficient to meet the optimal criterion for glucose in the PWO window.

At this point, the advantages of ketogenic diets for athletes are either debunked or speculated. The advantages of carbohydrate-enriched diets are not.
 
Madmick said:
Yes, except you have no control group demonstrating rival performance on a high-carb diet. Perhaps they would have improved beyond this group.

At this point, the advantages of ketogenic diets for athletes are either debunked or speculated. The advantages of carbohydrate-enriched diets are not.

I see what you are saying. My point, and the point of the research, was that pro athletes that switched from their diet to a low carb one didn't lose endurance. What do you think their diet was before? Don't pro cyclists (and even the average Joe group) usually eat high carb diets for competitions? I have no idea.

If you switched to a high carb low fat diet like Ornish or Pritikin, do you think you would get better results? I read another university study earlier that was interesting. It showed that in the study athletes getting 60% calories from fat out endured the athletes getting most calories from carbs. I don't know if there are more studies out there like this or if there has been any to compare endurance of low carb/high fat vs high carb/low fat diets. I'm not trying to convince pro athletes to switch to a low carb diet for performance benefits. A balanced diet might be better for competition. Who knows. But I think you are missing the point. I'm not a competitive athlete looking to boost performance. I'm just a normal guy trying to stay in good shape.

About the high carb diets, I have never tried one and only know the basics about them, so I might be totally off base with this.. but from what I know, I don't like them. High carb low fat diets like Ornish are more or less vegetarian diets. No cholesterol, no sat fat, no meat, no fish, no nuts, limited nonfat dairy, etc. It calls for low protein intake. How does that benefit an athlete?

Again, I'm not trying to convince you one way or the other or say one diet is better. There has not been enough long term studies down yet to make assumptions. I'm just sharing what I've read.
 
low carb diets are garbage, you're gonna fucken die young with a shitload of diseases if you stay on that crap. and IMO it's almost impossible to have that limited amount of carbs in your diet regardless of how much willpower you have.
 
Wild Dan Hibiki said:
low carb diets are garbage, you're gonna fucken die young with a shitload of diseases if you stay on that crap. and IMO it's almost impossible to have that limited amount of carbs in your diet regardless of how much willpower you have.

I'm on the maintenence phase, 90 carbs per day. That is only a little below the FDA recommended amount of 120/day. It's very easy to maintain this.. the cravings really go down after the first week. Light wheat bread only has 5g carbs, low carb ice cream has 3g, Dreamfields pasta tastes exactly like any other premium brand pasta and has 5g. I can eat a lot of good stuff. And sugar is one of those things you build up a tolerance to. If you stop eating a lot of it, foods with just a little sugar will taste very sweet. I usually eat 3 servings of veggies a day, 2 fruit, 2 bread, and ~10 meat. I get the recommended amount of fiber and take a multiple vitamin+minerals. I'm willing to bet I weigh less, have lower blood pressure and cholesterol than 95% of Americans.

What makes you think you will get diseases and die early? There has been no studies to suggest that. And if you look at cultures that eat low carb diets, like esikmos that eat almost 100% meat, you don't see them getting these diseases and dying early. Hunting & gathering societies have eaten low carb, high protein/fat diets for millions of years. It would seem our bodies are built for this kind of diet.
 
Hey Mick, you do know that all of the studies done about the effectiveness of Low Carb diets for Health are going to be found under diabetic research right? As opposed to Fitness or Sports?

There's some very intriguing things going on with battling diabetes through diet alteration. And some of the studies supporting that are very good.
 
King Kabuki said:
Hey Mick, you do know that all of the studies done about the effectiveness of Low Carb diets for Health are going to be found under diabetic research right? As opposed to Fitness or Sports?

There's some very intriguing things going on with battling diabetes through diet alteration. And some of the studies supporting that are very good.
Yeah, that's covered in this meta-study I want to post.

Also, I'm not the advocate I once was of 60%-75% carb diets. My argument here is against ketogenic diets since they obviate reasonable pre-workout and PWO nutrition.

I will not debate that new stuff is learned every day. Perhaps in a year or two I'll be singing a different tune.
 
Madmick said:
My argument here is against ketogenic diets since they obviate reasonable pre-workout and PWO nutrition.

What suppliments would you want to eat normally PWO that you wouldn't be allowed to eat on a low carb diet?

Oh and in regards to a discussion we were having earlier, I read today most of the big triathelete and Olympic camps up around Colorado Springs are turning to fat loading versus carbo-loading because the burn is more efficient and predictable. Once they become adapted to eating that way, their endurance is better so they say.
 
I used atkins a few years back. I went from 225 to 180 in about 4 months. I also dropped about 70 lbs off my bench press and lost alot of muscle tone. You cannot stay on this diet forever as many of you have said. I ended up shooting up to 270 less then a year after getting off of Atkins. I'm not sure if Atkins slows your metabolism down or what but I know have to bust ass just to maintain a weight of 250.
 
Once your body gets accumulated, 60-90 grams of carbs is sufficient as long as there is enough fat and protein in your diet. I know many lifters on the Ironlife forums are on low carb diets and they have no problems. Bodybuilders that cut function on 30 carbs a day and do fine too.
 
Lubaolong said:
What suppliments would you want to eat normally PWO that you wouldn't be allowed to eat on a low carb diet?

Oh and in regards to a discussion we were having earlier, I read today most of the big triathelete and Olympic camps up around Colorado Springs are turning to fat loading versus carbo-loading because the burn is more efficient and predictable. Once they become adapted to eating that way, their endurance is better so they say.
Interesting. I hadn't heard that about the Olympic Training Facility.

You're not able to drink an appropriately sized PWO shake with the right ratio of glucose to whey.
 
Lubaolong said:
Once your body gets accumulated, 60-90 grams of carbs is sufficient as long as there is enough fat and protein in your diet. I know many lifters on the Ironlife forums are on low carb diets and they have no problems. Bodybuilders that cut function on 30 carbs a day and do fine too.
Yeah, but I know guys who drink Gatorade like its water and eat ramen everyday for lunch who have six-packs and all-section patches.

I simply will not consent that >100g of carbs a day is smart dieting until I see more evidence.
 
Personally I'm trying to follow the paleodiet thinking, I'm not as hardcore as alot of others out there. I do have som milkproducts in my diet. Ofcourse you need carbs, but not as much as people today eat, as we all know.
I eat more fat (especially fat from animals, pork is my best friend) than I have ever done before, and training for me is working like a charm. I get my carbs from fruit, berries, vegetables and after training i go with huney in the drink...
 
Madmick said:
You're not able to drink an appropriately sized PWO shake with the right ratio of glucose to whey.

I drink Optimum 100% Whey Protein. It was rated supplement of the year and protein powder of the year by bodybuilding.com It has 3g carbs. Is that not good a good powder?
 
Lubaolong said:
I drink Optimum 100% Whey Protein. It was rated supplement of the year and protein powder of the year by bodybuilding.com It has 3g carbs. Is that not good a good powder?
i idea behind protein suppliments is that they suppliment your protein. IE, you're drinking your meat, not your whole well balanced meal.

so if you drink your ON shake (best whey out there) you're only getting protein and you should seek your carbs through another source, be it adding something to your shake, or eating carbs, or taking a veggie shake to suppliment your veggies/carbs.

one protein shake does not equal a well balanced meal. that's like chicken on your plate and nothing else. go round up some veggies and you're good to go.
 
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