Low carb dieters.. WHAT do you eat?!

www.google.com


lots of facts about how carbs are needed for heavy workouts to help your body repair and refuel. Just because it works for you now doesn't mean it's great for everyone else.

Personally, if I workout heavily and don't replace carbs, I get really weak and lethargic. My hair also falls out, my skin gets bad, I get constipated, and have trouble sleeping if I reduce carbs too low. I've tested it a few times and like clock work, all those bad symptoms come back after a few days of very low carbing.

www.google.com


lots of facts about how carbs are needed for heavy workouts to help your body repair and refuel. Just because it works for you now doesn't mean it's great for everyone else.

Personally, if I workout heavily and don't replace carbs, I get really weak and lethargic. My hair also falls out, my skin gets bad, I get constipated, and have trouble sleeping if I reduce carbs too low. I've tested it a few times and like clock work, all those bad symptoms come back after a few days of very low carbing.

Yes, that's what happens to someone who isn't keto adapted....or used to burning fat rather than sugar, in other words.

It takes some time for your body to adjust, and it's not usually recommended that one exercises heavily during the adjustment period.

Peter Attia, M.D. explains it here: http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/my-pet-peeve

I should have added that I did very low carb dieting for over a year. It wasn't until I started researching my symptoms that I realized it was my lack of carbs. Once eating carbs my symptoms disappeared. I think a year is more than enough time for the body to adjust. Whatever Peter Attia, M.D. has to say is irrelevant to me b/c I did it, it didn't work for me. Good luck to those it "works" for. Good luck when you all do decide to start eating carbs again.

I don't put a lot of stock into what doctors have to say about nutrition. If they knew so much, there would be no need for diet pills or weight loss surgeries. They go to school to learn how to fix sick people, not help them lose weight.

"That's just fact".

As someone who has eaten low-carb for a year, lost 25kg (60-ish pounds), works out just fine, I'd like to know where you get your "facts" from, cos clearly my body wasn't aware.

What I eat - meat, eggs, cheese, green/ leafy veges, and limited amounts of berries. I eat less fat and more veg than my "normal diet" partner.

Out of curiosity...when you get to your goal weight, are you going to keep eating the same things you do now or change back?

Disclaimer #1: I think ridiculously low carb diets with regular exercise are generally stupid...
... Like I said.. I'm just curious.

If you don't know anything about it, how do you manage to be so opinionated?

A quick google search will give you a list of low carb foods. You could even research keto diets and find out about how intelligent people following low carb diets are managing their macros. It isn't difficult and it certainly isn't stupid.

I should have been more specific, I think it's stupid with strenuous regular exercise. Your body needs carbs for fuel with heavy exercise, that doesn't require knowledge of what a low diet carb consists of that's just fact.

I think statements that begin with "I think it's stupid" are stupid.

I exercise heavily (70-90 mins 5 days/week, mostly spent lifting), and regularly eat a very limited amount of carbohydrates. My training hasn't suffered, my progress hasn't suffered, and my body sure as he** hasn't suffered. But that's just me.

Oh and I eat between 1800-2200 calories/day.. and usually somewhere between 60 and 100g carbs. Lean protein, green veg, fats from sources like EVOO, nuts (which have carbs too), avocado, hummus, etc... It is not NECESSARY that I do so, but I do it because it works for me. I have a problem controlling carbs when I delve into them, so I avoid them for the time being. I still eat things like sweet potatoes and squash though.

ETA: The human body is an amazingly adaptive thing- while carbs provide glucose most readily/easily for use, that doesn't mean that they are strictly necessary in moderate-high amounts for function or performance. Our bodies are capable of using glycogen stores formed from excess glucose in the bloodstream as well as create new glucose from other endogenous materials (gluconeogenesis from fatty acids and glucogenic amino acids).

I feel that low carb diets have their place, but as a permanent 'life change', not so much.

For example, I used one for the first five months of my lifting and 'fitness' switch (less than 40g per day). I did this because I wanted to run a strong caloric deficit (900+) without sacrificing my protein needs. Contrary to popular belief, untrained people are actually less efficient with their protein than trained athletes. Basically, they need more to achieve the same effect.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2129150/
"It has been suggested that strength training athletes with greater experience become more efficient at protein utilization [27]. This contention was supported by Lemon et al. [27] who found that novice bodybuilders in the early stages of training were in negative nitrogen balance (-3.4 grams of N) when consuming 1.35 g·kg-1·day-1 and in positive nitrogen balance (+8.9 g) when consuming 2.62 grams of protein daily. Utilizing regression analysis and adding a safety buffer of 2 SD units, the protein needs to acquire zero nitrogen balance was calculated to be 1.6–1.7 g·kg-1·day-1."

Now that I've dropped 40+ pounds, I have switched back to what most would consider a 'sane' macro layout of 40/30/30 p/c/f.

I accomplished the low carb diet by eating nearly nothing by extremely lean meats (chicken/turkey breast, 99/1 ground turkey, tuna, etc.) and Quest bars. The latter of which does have a higher carb allotment, but almost all of it is fiber.

TL;DR- extremely low carb allows you to run a very strong deficit without sacrificing any protein intake, which has been found to be extremely important for untrained individuals getting started in training.

I'm only doing 1200 calories a day plus exercising so it usually gets me up to about 1400-1500 calories a day. After taking into account breakfast lunch and dinner of protein and veggies as well as a snack during the day, there isn't any issue with reaching those calories. I guess I don't understand why this topic was posted in the first place though.... When I first clicked on this and posted, I thought there was an actual interest in the response. Unfortunately it seems that this is just a string of posts to bash other people's way of dieting/eating. For anyone that this hasn't worked for, I hope you have found something that does. For those of you that this has worked for, congrats and I am very glad that it has! For anyone who can't accept that what doesn't work for you is 100% wrong and there is no possible way that it could work for someone else, I sincerely hope and pray that you are not this bigoted and judgmental on other aspects of your life.

I don't consider my diet low carb, since I eat from 80 to 130 grams of carbs but I eat pretty much what I want, just trying to avoid grains or only eating a piece of it for breakfast.

The last part is not an opinion.

Oh and guess what, 30 grams of carbs from sweet potato and 30 grams of carbs from poptarts is the same thing in terms of effects to body composition. Can't wait to get so much hate for this.