Weight lifting, body building and carbs.

[Bren]

submitted by Naja....

If you had the warning signs of carbohydrate addiction before going on Atkins, if you found that Induction really did break previously uncontrollable food cravings, if you could never succeed in losing any weight at all on a low fat high carb diet, if you had episodes of "crashing" blood sugar, you are a very bad candidate for a refeed. Switching back to a high carb diet is likely to return those cravings to you at full strength. A refeed is a potentially dangerous thing, and also it comes with unpleasant side effects.

Bodybuilders and athletes who do a CKD (cyclic ketogenic diet) spend five days in ketosis and carb-up the other two days. They do this not specifically to lose weight, but to create an anabolic environment where they can put on quality muscle without gaining too much body fat. Many tend to report some fairly awful side effects that sound a lot like the Induction Flu, plus being bloated and sick on carb-up days also. A lot of people do not do well on a CKD and end up moving to a TKD (targeted ketogenic diet) with extra carbs ingested right around a heavy workout. A good place to start learning about CKD and TKD is www.bodyrecomposition.com.

Keep in mind that ketogenic diets that involve carb-ups also involve heavy, intense exercise sessions that deplete muscle glycogen. If you carb up and you are not depleting muscle glycogen with exercise, you will be refilling your liver and probably your fat cells as well with excess glucose. I would recommend CKD and TKD to serious hardcore bodybuilders and athletes who are doing very intense workouts to total muscle depletion. I would not recommend these principles to people whose exercise is limited to aerobics or cardio (walking, aerobic dance, elliptical, bicycling, etc). They work best in conjunction with intense anerobic exercise such as weight lifting, strength training or sprinting.

Atkins is an SKD, a standard ketogenic diet, where you remain in ketosis for an extended period of time. This allows you to make a long term metabolic adaptation to burning fat for fuel. This adaptation is not the same thing as ketosis, but it does require you to remain in ketosis for an extended period which will vary with the individual. Many people who use the CKD/TKD principles suggest you will do best on these diets with the least side effects if you remain on an SKD for an extended time, at least several weeks in straight ketosis, before attempting a carb-up or extra carbs around your workouts.

Bodybuilders report that they tend to keep this metabolic adaptation for awhile even after going off a ketogenic diet and moving to a diet that is moderate carb and low fat. Speaking from experience, this kind of diet truly sucks, but it's a good way to continue dropping weight if you've plateaued on an SKD. They raise carbs from healthy complex carb sources only (beans, grains, veggies, fruit, nonfat dairy products), drop fat percentages down to 20% or less and eat a lot of lean protein. This is a monotonous diet consisting largely of meals like a skinless chicken breast with brown rice, beans and broccoli, or water pack tuna out of the can on a piece of whole grain bread with a no-dressing salad. It helps if you like hot sauce.

If you're a dieter who is really stuck, you can learn a lot from the bodybuilding community. They've got it down to quite a science. Watch for good info from the "lab guys" and "lab gals" like Lyle McDonald and Elzi Volk who are writing quality articles with a good research backing. Take the rest with a grain of salt. A lot of the guys in bodybuilding are doing naughty things like anabolic steroids or hardcore "diet drugs" like Clenbuterol or thyroid agents which are not good for long term health. Their techniques are not going to apply to anyone else, even if they work great in conjunction with the dangerous and often illegal drugs these people are taking. Read what the BB community is saying with these caveats in mind, and you can learn a lot even if you are a dieter and not a bodybuilder.

[2big4mysize]

This is one of those very misunderstood human body concepts Atkins WOlers see floating around out there.


Atkins weight loss folk can still do weight lifting and strength training eating Atkins because the energy production will be there, more from the fats, carbon for carbon, then the carbohydrates. Just because the pathways don’t say FAT oxidation doesn’t mean the muscles and body cells can’t use the energy produced by the fat for anaerobic and aerobic exercise. You get 146 net moles of ATP for the phosphogen energy system. from the oxidation of 1 mole of an 18 carbon fat compared to only 114 from one mole the same size carbon carbohydrate. This is why Dr Atkins says the need for carb loading is a myth. Fats contain a glycerol backbone and fatty acids. The glycerol backbone goes to the liver for conversion to the form needed for the anaerobic glycogen energy and the fatty acids run in the
2-carbon chain part making more phosphate energy molecules for that phosphogen system

The anaerobic energy production is much misunderstood by many people. It isn’t the last energy used when you run “out” of oxygen. Anaerobic energy systems are used first for quick bursts of power.
It is the first energy used by our muscles and the amount stored in them is all gone in under 2 minutes, 8-10 seconds worth of phosphogen energy system molecules and 1.3-1.6 min of the anaerobic part of the glycogen system molecules at which point the muscle uses the aerobic part of the glycogen system or stops working until more phosphogensystem molecules and more glucose (remember that glycerol backbone) system molecules arrive.

Oh yeah and did I mention in fracturing the fat to get to those stages even more phosphogen system molecules are created then by the same size carbohydrate molecule.

Lets see my fat eating Atkins gives me 128 percent of the anaerobic energy my carb loading diet would. Don't know why I'd load carbs when i need anaerobic energy.

[Naja]

To focus on this topic specifically, if you are bodybuilding on Atkins, you may have considered adding some carbs to your diet in order to help optimize muscle growth and muscle glycogen replenishment. This does not mean you need to stuff your face with carbs all the time - that can help you put on a lot of fat as well as muscle, which you really don't need. You can remain on a ketogenic diet, and well within the carb allowance of the later phases of Atkins, and still take in enough carbs to fuel a good workout and muscle growth.

Remember that when you are still a beginner to resistance training, you can make excellent gains even on Induction. And if you are doing primarily aerobic exercise, a fat burning metabolism is a huge advantage - you are likely to have more endurance and be able to burn calories more efficiently than if you were burning mainly carbs. So you don't really need to start mucking around with the complicated business of adding carbs while staying in ketosis until you're at least four or five months into strength training. You may not need to do it at all if you are doing strictly aerobic exercise.

Cyclic ketogenic diets with periodic carb-up periods lasting from 12 to 48 hours have been used with success by hardcore bodybuilders, but they come with a whole host of potential problems. I would not personally recommend them to anyone who is not a really hardcore bodybuilder. In particular many women don't seem to have any luck with CKD unless they modify it heavily and use a short, ultra clean carb up period instead of the whole one or two days that men with a lot of lean body mass can get away with.

If you are a hardcore bodybuilder and want to experiment with a CKD, do the research at www.bodyrecomposition.com. Do NOT under any circumstances attempt this kind of diet without a solid education as to what works and what doesn't. Just eating junk for two days out of the week is not going to get you any good results; there is a specific program to follow. Pizza and Krispy Kremes are not on the program. It's a pretty complicated setup, so I suggest buying and studying at least one good book on the subject before you get started. A CKD cannot be done within Atkins parameters.

The TKD strategy may be a much better one for Atkins dieters who are also intermediate to advanced strength trainers. In the first five to six months of regular strength training you are likely to make excellent beginner gains. After that it's harder work, and you may need to optimize your results by manipulating your macronutrient percentages and by taking healthy supplements. That can mean taking in more carbs right around your workouts to replenish muscle glycogen. Post workout nutrition is the single most important factor, though attention may also be paid to pre workout nutrition and to consuming a carb-protein drink during a particularly intense workout. In the later phases of Atkins, you can do most of this well within your carb allowance.

A certain amount of the carbs you take in immediately after a hard, heavy, glycogen depleting weight workout are unlikely to affect your ketosis because they are being grabbed and held by your muscles rather than being allowed to spill over into the liver. So if you decide not to count the carbs you take immediately post workout against your daily allowance, you can fit a TKD into the earlier and more carb restricted phases of Atkins. Of course you must count those carbs so that you know you are taking in just the right amount to replenish muscle stores without spilling over anywhere else. But if you calculate the amount correctly, they don't count against your ketosis.

There are a number of strategies for optimizing a TKD, and again none of them involve junk food - with the exception of Smarties, a candy made of pure dextrose that is packaged in rolls weighing about 6 grams. You can also use powdered dextrose, which is sold in the beer and wine making industry. Remember that dextrose is a sugar and as such you should not be eating any of it except immediately after a heavy depletion workout where the uptake to your muscles will be rapid. You are feeding your muscles, not your fat cells, and your muscles will only take this food when they have been thoroughly depleted in a heavy, intense workout.

Start with one Smarties roll (6 grams) or the equivalent weight in dextrose immediately post workout, and gradually increase this amount with each successive workout, either until you feel slightly bloated or until you drop out of ketosis in the next 8-12 hours. When that happens, drop back down a few grams and stop there. You've found your "muscle food" limit.

That's really the foundation of a TKD, post workout high glycemic index carbs. You may also add carbs to your pre-workout meal taken from 30 to 45 minutes before exercise. 1/4 cup of raw oats is about right, mixed with 1/2 a cup of nonfat cottage cheese. Fat is not your friend right around a workout because it slows the digestion and uptake process. The pre-workout meal is optional; add it if it fits into your carb allowance and if you find that you get a better workout this way. Experiment. If it doesn't add to your workout intensity, eat a skinless chicken breast with broccoli instead and save the carbs for PWO (post workout nutrition).

Your immediate post workout meal should contain lean protein and some carbs. Again, keep the fat low because you want rapid uptake of nutrients to your muscle. A whey protein shake is good, to be followed by a can of water pack tuna or a skinless chicken breast. If more carbs here are within your allowance, you can add dextrose to the shake and some brown rice, beans or whole grain bread to the post workout meal. If you are being more carb restrictive, stick to the plain whey shake and lean protein.

Give that at least an hour or two to digest, then return to your normal ketogenic diet. That's a TKD, and if you do it right, you can remain in ketosis or at least in primarily fat burning mode with only a slight interruption in ketosis.

This is by no means a complete guide to targeted ketogenic diets, but you should have a fairly good idea by now whether these kinds of strategies may be suitable for your individual situation. If they are, you should do some further research before actually undertaking them.

[Naja]

2big,

I agree that carb loading is a myth - no benefit is gained from absolutely stuffing your face with carbs just before a workout, especially for aerobic exercisers. The average casual exerciser who is working out primarily for weight loss does not need to even think about a CKD or TKD, whether they are doing aerobic exercise or strength training. They'll do just fine on an SKD for weight loss and for getting fit and toned. In the first six months they'll be able to build some good quality muscle on a purely ketogenic diet. After that it gets tougher and you start needing to tweak the diet, because if you are not a beginner it is extremely difficult to lose body fat and build muscle at the same time. That's where the interesting biochemistry behind TKD and CKD comes in handy.

Hardcore bodybuilders at the intermediate and advanced stages who want to maximize anabolism (muscle building) and keep down their body fat will want to look at the science behind targeted and cyclic ketogenic diets. There is some, and it does work quite well if done properly. Atkins works quite well also when done properly. Atkins is a lot easier to stick to and has far fewer potential pitfalls.

The different kinds of ketogenic diets optimize different things for people in different stages of body recomposition. So whether you should be doing an SKD, a TKD or a CKD depends on what your goals are and how far along you are already in meeting them.

[2big4mysize]

The reason behind the carb loading high carb diets are in fact because when they deplete their carbs the carb burners body starts burning their muscles for the anerobic energy needs thus muscle mass is lost without it. to stop this they must reverse the glucogenesis process and to stop it there is a key enzyme conversion which is rate limiting Fructose-1,6-bisphosphate to Fructose-6-phosphate. in the human body that conversion is controlled by the amount of ATP

BUT the fat burner doesn't burn his muscles for the glcogen energy needs because

a)the glycerol in the fat molecule is used sparring the muscle as a carbon source keeping the gains the person just worked so hard to create with the workouts.
b) the fatty acids are degradated to produce all the energy the muscles need for all 3 energy pahses
c) low carbers bodies store more fatty acids in the muscle tissues for energy burns thus the gains the cyclic dieter Naja mentioned feeling they keep the advantage they got fat fueling for a while after they start their carb fueling.
d) the fat burner has more energy availible in the correct forms for strenght workouts to keep the glucogenesis process at bay.

Thus Atkins fueled athletes have the anerobic strength energy of the carb loaders and the aerobic endurance energy they lack
and the Atkins eating lifter spares their muscle tissues without needing to carb feed for refueling with all those nasty side effects mentioned in the above post.

how about you other Atkins WOEer that lift. Are your muscles being eaten by your body for fuel cause you don't carb load after a workout?

[Naja]

All ketogenic diets are generally protein sparing because (no big surprise) there is a large dietary intake of protein that promotes positive nitrogen balance.

Endurance and aerobic activities are fuelled primarily by fat. Anerobic activities are fuelled by glycogen, which is why many athletes and strength trainers on a ketogenic diet complain that they have less energy for their workouts and that they can lift less total weight. In the absence of sufficient glycogen during hard anerobic work, the body is more likely to do the neogluceogenesis thing and break down muscle proteins for energy than it is to dip into fat stores and perform the more metabolically expensive process of converting body fat. The protein sparing effects of a ketogenic diet will help mitigate this to some extent, as will a long term adaptation to ketosis and burning fat for fuel. But it still does happen, and hardcore bodybuilders prefer to avoid this.

Again this does not mean you need to "carb load" in the sense that you should be stuffing your face with all kinds of junk carbs to the point that you are bloated. Simply adjusting your carb intake around your workouts is sufficient for most people, and you can stay well within Atkins parameters while adequately replenishing muscle glycogen stores.

As an example, I might have 1/4 cup of raw oats with some cottage cheese before a workout, a whey shake with nonfat milk during a workout, and 10 to 15 grams dextrose right after. The rest of my carbs for that day are green vegetables. Even if I count the post workout dextrose in my carb allowance, this is still not a whole lot of carbs, and it really doesn't qualify as carb loading.

[2big4mysize]

this glycogen info is the myth we Atkins folk fight. Everybody learned glycolisis in jr high science class the fraturing of a carboydrate through 3 steps to get energy, water and CO2 but not very many learned how fats were metabolized to produce more energy and certainly not that fats when processed for energy enter those same steps of the carbohydrate cycle but liberate more energy molecules getting to the point where they do enter the carbohydrate's energy cycle
Check out some of the sites that explain how fat is broken down for energy and you will see it fits into all 3 forms not just aerobic as the muscle sites would lead you to believe. Remeber fat molecules are made of carbons too.

here is how we get energy in a very basic explaination
we have ATP energy molecules in a very limited amount stored in our cells and in muscle cells we also store creatine phosphates. those 2 sources are the phosphogen energy system and give us very fast energy burst without oxygen as the P molecular bond is broken for about 8 seconds period. it is gone and has to be recreated
the next level is the fracturing of the glycogen/glucose molecule system for energy and this systen will run of about 1.3-1.6 minutes without oxygen and then it too is depleted. The glycerol back bone of the fat molecule in the body ( one glycerol and 3 fatty acids make a fat) is converted by the liver to a molecule that runs in that fracture system so you don't have to have CARBS to fuel the glycogen/glucose system.
the 3rd part is the famous Krebs or citric acid cycle and the fatty acids which have been undergoing b-oxidation this is where some of that 146 moles of the ATP is produced)on there way to the mitochondria for burning
are now ready to enter the final carb burning cycle too. then just like the carbs all the intermediary molecules storing the potential energy go to the final step when ATP is generated

So with all 3 types of energy met by the fracturing od fats for fuel we can do every thing a carb burner can do lift weights and sprint using the anaerobic system, or do aerobic type activities.

Our only draw back is we must plan our refueling as it takes longer to get fats processed from mouth to blood stream then carbohydrates and those that don't plan run out of fuel and think it was the fats not being able to fuel them when infact it was they not fueling themselves with enough fats at the proper time.

Most of those doing the bodybuiklding fat cutting diets are getting ready of body building competittions where they want very little body fat and very thin skinto show off all those amazing muscles they have. And they want those muscles as big as possible and loading muscles with any compound glycogen or creatine will cause fluid retention too and make them very swollen. For that reason and that reason alone the fat cutting carb loading is the way to go. But for muscle building exerciseyou don't have to cut fat and load carbs

[Naja]

Originally Posted by 2big4mysize

this glycogen info is the myth we Atkins folk fight.

It is not a myth that glycogen is the preferred fuel for anabolic exercise. It is also true that fat can eventually be broken down for use as fuel during anabolic exercise. Unfortunately there tends to be some lean body mass breakdown during this process also, which is one of the reasons why bodybuilders who want an anabolic edge will refill muscle glycogen even on a ketogenic diet. It is quite possible to replenish muscle glycogen stores without significantly interrupting ketosis, and you can do it well within the parameters of the Atkins nutritional approach.

Most of those doing the bodybuiklding fat cutting diets are getting ready of body building competittions where they want very little body fat and very thin skinto show off all those amazing muscles they have. And they want those muscles as big as possible and loading muscles with any compound glycogen or creatine will cause fluid retention too and make them very swollen. For that reason and that reason alone the fat cutting carb loading is the way to go. But for muscle building exerciseyou don't have to cut fat and load carbs

A well hydrated, glycogen loaded muscle performs measurably better. You can lift more weight and you can do it harder and faster and longer. Consequently you get better workouts and more muscle growth. The myth part is that you have to stuff your face with carbs to replenish muscle glycogen. A fairly small, measured amount is sufficient, taking care to make sure the muscles are preferentially refilled and there is not enough to spill over into liver storage.

The process of turning dietary or body fat into anerobic fuel is difficult and metabolically expensive. It is "cheaper" for your body to eat its own muscle tissue as fuel if it is in a glycogen depleted state and needs more fuel immediately. So that is generally what it does. No bodybuilder wants that to happen, so they rely on the protein sparing effects of both dietary protein and carbohydrates. Ketosis is also protein sparing to some exent, but not enough to stave off muscle breakdown when the body is in a depletion state and grabbing for the quickest source of fuel.

Fat is slow fuel, carbs are quick fuel, protein is medium fuel. To keep the engine running optimally, all of these should be used at the correct times and in the correct amounts. That's really what it boils down to.

I've ordered a book on the biochemistry behind muscle fuelling and recovery. When it gets here, I'll have some better explanations and quotes from this material.

[2big4mysize]

You quoted my words out of context please read the whole paragragh. I think you missed the point. Yes muscle use glycogen for anerobic burn energy I'm not disputing that muscles use molecules of glycogen and the byproducts of those molecules in 2 of their energy cycles. the myth is source of that glycogen has to be :nono carbohydrate :nono . The human body stores fatty acids with glycerol. This is what we commonly refer to as fat. For every molecule of fat burned for fuel 1 molecule of glycerol is released and it is burned in the GLYCOGEN system The majority of glycogen produced in the human body comes not from muscle tissue proteins, :nono nor glucose :nono but lactic acid, :yes yep lactic acid being recycled by the liver to a molecule of gycogen. the lactic acid is the waste product that glycogen burn.
check out Dr. George BrooksUniversity of California at Berkeley Lactate Shuttle Theory, and Dr. J.D. McGarry Glucose Paradox process to better understand how much of a myth those muscle sites are spewing forth about needing new carbbohydrate genertated gycogen after a work out to save those muscles.

[loonatika]

I'm finding this thread fascinating - so thank you. I'm still in the intermediate lifting stage and by the time I have to worry about not getting muscle gains, I should be at or near my goal - so having all this info on here is really informative.