How do I explain Low carb on Facebook. Christ. I have a friend who likes to argue things with me and he is giving the whole "carbs are good for you, athletes need them, Adkins diet failed, etc" BS.
He says the whole insulin point "isn't science."
Christ. He's probably looking at this post right now. Someone explain it.
There is a case for carbs. Athletes DO require carbs so they can maintain high levels of performance day in and day out. Without refueling the glycogen stores in their muscles, they wouldn't be able to output as much as they do.
...but there is a right way and a wrong way to take carbs for this purpose. Muscles after intense workouts are in a heightened state of nutrient absorbtion for roughly 30-45 minutes after they are done being exhausted. During this period of time eating high glycemic carbs will be readily used by the muscles to form glycogen to be used for a later workout. Muscle cells specifically make this glycogen and lack the proper enzyme to break it down for use elsewhere in the body, so a recovery drink is a great tool for refueling muscles without impacting your fat loss progress. Just drink these carbs to ensure quick delivery in the window of time your muscles can absorb it in the form of dextrose or glucose.
I'd strongly recommend anyone doing heavy weight lifting uses a recovery drink immediately after working out. You can feel good that this sugar bath won't largely impact your diet since your muscles should gobble them up (not sure about ketogenic diets to be honest...I've read that it may have SOME impact but not major, no experience myself). Take a cocktail of 3:1 carbs to protein or 4:1 carbs to protein to have the ideal recovery drink to muscle growth and refueling. Something like 30-40g of carbs to 10-15g of protein would be perfect. Lowfat chocolate milk is great for this.
Without carbs your body uses fat as the primary fuel source. Think of it like this: if you eat 100g of carbs, your body wants to use up 100g of those carbs before it starts eating into your fat stores. You'll have to burn 400 calories just to START digging into your fat stores. A ketogenic dieter doing 600 calories of exercise will lose 600 calories worth of fat. A non-dieter who eats 300g of carbs in a day would have to do 1200 calories worth of exercise to start making an impact on their stored fat. Obviously you burn calories throughout the day and the math isn't anywhere near as clean as I've laid it out here...but once you realize that your body is going to burn carbs before it starts burning fat, you start to realize why I tell people that exercise isn't a magical fat loss tool if you aren't already dieting properly...and even then it's not exactly the best way to lose fat for other reasons that I won't get into.
Evil carbs...! Hide your kids! Hide your wives!
