Necessity of carbs when bulking

Carbs are the most important macronutrient for building muscle. Serious. Lots of carbs and protein = getting swole.

Carbs are the most important macronutrient for building muscle. Serious. Lots of carbs and protein = getting swole.

Trust me bro, I love my carbs. All I'm stating is that in the grand scheme of things, protein is the most important macronutrient when it comes to building muscle. Amino acids are the building blocks. Obviously for reasons stated previously, with adequate protein intake, carbs become king for optimal results.

I completely agree with this. I was talking about having adequate protein in there, because without that theres no way in hell your building muscle. But yeah, adequate protein, carbs become extremely important for building muscle.

It kills me when see these guys posting their macros, and they have 300g+ of protein and 200g carbs!

I used to be guilty of this.....

Ugh....then I actually started doing some carbs, and man the benefits.
Definitely an eye opener

The view that carbs are evil works for fat people, but is an anchor around your ankle for everybody else.

Building muscle is so damn slow, that you really have to be running near optimal at absolutely everything to make much in the way of progress, especially once you're past your first bulking year and the gains slow down further.

Just looking back through the past week, my lowest carb intake was 380g, highest 547g, 2 days were below 400g, 2 days were above 500g. This is running a surplus of 400 cal.

When you are bulking (males), anything less than 300g is low carbing.

It kills me when see these guys posting their macros, and they have 300g+ of protein and 200g carbs!

I used to be guilty of this.....

Ugh....then I actually started doing some carbs, and man the benefits.
Definitely an eye opener

I was the same way! Viewed carbs as evil and rarely went below 300P. Luckily, like you, I saw the light. Never turning back!!

Exactly me as well....

I think I was doing like 150 gr of carbs a day for the longest.....and that was a "High" carb day for me...

Man, what a dumbass I was

For a guy at my height 5' 7", my bulking calories are only 2300. 300 g of carbs would put me over that amount by quite a bit.

Non-fructose carbs are arguably more important for muscle building than protein is.

This is not true at all.

Fructose must first be processed by the liver before it can be used by the muscles. Starches (quickly broken down into glucose during digestion) and glucose can be directly used by the muscles. Fructose by itself causes very little insulin reaction (honey is the closest thing to pure fructose that people regularly eat).

Insulin is THE key factor for turning on the mTOR pathway. Studies suggest that exercise alone can, but the effect is much weaker.

Protein is important, but not nearly to the degree it is often made out to (when bulking). The body is extremely efficient with protein when it isn't trying to eat itself. To build muscle you literally only need a few grams above and beyond maintenance. I'm not aware of a single study that shows any benefit whatsoever of an intake above 0.8g protein /lb LBM when bulking. At bulking food intakes, that should be quite easy for all but the poorest LBM estimators to hit. When cutting, that is when higher intakes are important.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to GI, but do differentiate between fructose and other carbs, because there is a difference.