You will never meet a professional bodybuilder who does not eat large carb meals at least in the off-season. To the unaware, this may appear normal, but the strategy has a deeper meaning.
One of the reasons why carbs are on the menu is that they form glycogen – the storage form of glucose. Each gram of glycogen is bound to 3-4 hefty grams of water. Therefore, when you eat carbs, you gain water weight that makes the musculature fuller.
Conversely, when your carbs are low, you lose water, and your muscles look flat and tired. As you can guess, bodybuilders hate that and stay away from low carb diets.
When you introduce carbohydrates to your system, they are broken down into sugar, and consequently, the blood sugar levels rise. Then, the pancreas releases a very important hormone – insulin.
Insulin (slin) has a very special role in modern bodybuilding. Slin injections explain why modern bodybuilders are 30–50lbs bigger than the previous generation which relied primarily on anabolic steroids. Moreover, slin abuse contributes to the pregnant look of modern bodybuilders
Studies have shown that insulin does not stimulate muscle protein synthesis directly, but still promotes muscle growth through inhibition of protein breakdown. In other words, slin has anti-catabolic effects.
According to bodybuilding rumors, which seem to be accurate, former IFBB pro Milos Sarcev introduced insulin to bodybuilders. {more}
When bodybuilders take insulin, they eat a lot of carbs to keep their blood sugar levels high. If you do not have carbs in your system, your blood sugar can reach a critical point that can result in a system shutdown. When your blood sugar is extremely low, your brain cannot work. You transform into a mobile phone with no charge. There are many cases of bodybuilders rushing to drink 1 gallon of Coca-cola and eat 10 snickers bars after inappropriate insulin use and a consequent blood sugar drop.
To a certain point, all modern bodybuilders on Olympia stage have the lifestyle of a diabetic person – they have to time their insulin shots with meals to avoid brain damage.
Carbohydrates may be the main insulin trigger, but protein has an effect too. The combination of carbs and protein causes the largest increase of insulin. This partially explains why high carb/high protein diets are part of professional bodybuilders’ nutritional protocols.
Why high-carb diets are not good for natural bodybuilders
Since carbs have a nice taste and give you a high, people love them. However, carbs are not the most sincere friend you can have. They will stab you in the back when you are not looking.
When you consume carbs, your blood sugar automatically shoots up, and the body releases insulin. Insulin is not bad by definition, but it’s a fat storage hormone nevertheless. When there is too much of it in your system, you can be sure that it will deposit some of the energy in the bloodstream straight into your fat stores.
This is why people usually get fat when they follow a diet taken out of a mainstream bodybuilding magazine – a literature that should be treated as a comic book.
For the same reasons, the infamous GOMAD diet fails hard too. A gallon of milk contains about 200 carbs. What do you think happens when you ingest so much milk? You get a ton of excess carbs, high blood sugar, high insulin levels and a recipe for becoming the guy who squats 300lbs at 225lbs bodyweight with a 40-inch gut while rocking stage II man boobs.
This is where low to moderate carb diets come into play. When your carbs are low the blood sugar levels are stable throughout the day. There are no unnecessary spikes. This keeps the insulin levels low and promotes fat loss if you are in a caloric deficit, of course.
I realize that there are people who can get shredded on a high carb diet, but I also know that low carb diets work better for the majority.
When there aren’t enough carbs in your system, fat becomes the primary source of energy. As a result, your body becomes more efficient at burning fat.
Back in the day, before big corporations were here to tell you that M&Ms are your friend, people were low carb eaters. There were no chocolate bars, and foods like rice were unavailable in most regions. Guess, what? Obesity was unheard of. Of course, the extra physical activity was also a contributing factor, but the diet free of processed sugar was fundamental too.
Another benefit of high-fat diets is that they protect your teeth. If people give up on carb consumption, the global income of dentists would drop to record lows. The dentist Weston Price concluded that many primitive people had extremely healthy teeth thanks to their high-fat diets.
The main downside of low carb diets is the moral dilemma. We all know what is happening is slaughterhouses – animals are literally crying while sons of bitches are cutting them without anesthesia or respect. It is a disgusting atmosphere.
However, there is no denying that humans have survived for so long thanks to hunting and animal eating. Vegetarianism and veganism are modern ideas that are possible thanks to the so-called global market. I am not against vegans, but saying that this is the “natural” way is hypocritical.
Nonetheless, I agree that using animals for shoes, clothes and other non-food products is cruel. There are people who are soulless enough to skin animals alive to make cheap boots and sell them to the typical mall bitch in love with discounts.
Anyway, common sense should be enough to tell you that animal products are natural and contain more nutrients than candy bars, rice, oatmeal, potatoes or pasta. Carbs are simply energy.
hey,
much respect for your work.
i think there is some misliading facts in the last section.. leaving the health issues aside-
do you think that an isocaloric high fat diet would cause more weight/fat loss than a higer carb version?
i mean- i think we can agree that what cause weight loss is caloric deficit. so why lower insulin equals lower body fat?
thank you.
Yes, the overall amount of calories is the most important factor, but there are also secondary factors. This is one of them.
Have gone thru high carb BB diet it fucked up my health,now im healing with high fat natural food diet ,and all you sayd in the article i have found practial and true, HIT THE NAIL IN HEAD
More misinformation on this website.
Yes insulin stores fat but it has a half life of like 5 minutes. No one spends all day in a post prandial period with elevated insulin levels. Insulin inhibits lipolysis but other hormones encourage it. When you look at all hormones effecting fat storage over a 24 hour period there is no effect on fat storage absent a caloric surplus or deficit to push you in either direction. Delete your website.
This is correct. Low carb high fat diets have consistently been shown not to be superior to low fat high carb diets for weightloss. The research is pretty conclusive on the subject. As a Nutritionist this is also my experience with my clients.
Also, making a link to low levels of obesity to a time when there were no chocolate bars is bonkers. Carbs aren’t responsable for weight gain. Excess calories are. You can loose weight eating a diet consisting of nothing but carbs, providing calories are under your daily expenditure. Information regarding Nutrition on this post e largely incorrect and is nothing more than broscience.