Low Carb Diet:
Low Carb Diet – In the sea of dietary and nutritional practices, there are countless examples and proofs of a lot of them. Yet, according to the statistics, people struggle with obesity. They must be doing something wrong, right? Well, the answer to your question can also be in the sea of all the pros and cons, various gurus, fitness industry truths, and random studies. Without further ado, we will explain some things that will make it more straightforward for you and everyone you care about; regarding fitness and health.
And truth be told, diet alone can do wonders, but it rarely stands on its own without any intervention on the behalf of the trainee. Simply said, you still have to do some amount of work when it comes to yourself, other than eating something and avoiding something else. That is just life. But don’t lose hope, we will show you how.
Carbs:
Carbs are pretty infamous in the fitness circles. Cardio loving people swear by them, and muscle heads not so much. Ones claim that they are a great fuel, and that it would be impossible to reach any serious level without so much of them; others think differently.
Carbs is an abbreviation of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are sugars, starches and fibers found in fruits , grains, milk products and vegetables. Other than carbs, there is protein and fats. You can read more on these here. You can obtain nutrients through these three. Anything else is some derivative of them, healthy or otherwise.
Where does the problem arise once you decide to be impactful about what you eat? Well, in the mind first. People take sides, and they don’t understand that it doesn’t matter on which side you are on. What matters is providing quality info. People who are doing Crossfit will talk against bodybuilding, and vice versa. That simply doesn’t make sense. Listening to either side won’t get you anywhere. Truth is that a balanced diet always beats one that is just one-sided and impervious to any common sense on the other hand.
Diet logic:
Oftentimes, diet feels like a forceful thing. And that is so because it is. We all would like to eat ice cream all the time, and pancakes. All by well knowing what happens. So the mindset error mentioned earlier comes into play here. Diets are a way for your body to start functioning at some pace and rate, in a given time. Without the time parameter, we would say that we want to lose weight in 20 years. With constant training and physical activity, that would be ideal. 20 years is a lot, though, and people usually want things much quicker. That is the same case with this.
When you eat a lot of everything, your body stores that into subcutaneous fat, which is also called just fat. You are not in control of what is going on, and there is the problem. When you stick to a diet, your body is getting used to the nutrients it is getting, and is making better ‘’decisions’’ on its own based on the better quality of what you are eating. It is fine to mess things up, once in a while, with a cheat meal. But we are all built differently. Some people say, out of a joke, that water will make them fat. That is far from the truth, but still. They have a very easy time gaining weight. They need to adhere to a diet with a more intense focus than the rest of us.
Individual differences:
As long as we want to emphasize that we are all the same, we are clearly not. There are people who spent their entire life doing hard labour. Some of them are fat, some are not. Some drink beer, and are fat, some are not. That is what every fitness practitioner needs to know. Without this comprehension, you can’t make it really far in fitness. Some are more comfortable and progressing more with strength training, while others are better off with doing kettlebells.
Everyone can get amazing results with a barbell, that is without a doubt. But excelling at something that will really make you a beast, and what will make the best results with your diet is to accommodate tools you have with an activity that soothes you more than the other one. Don’t limit yourself strictly to weights if you are a really good runner, or a swimmer, or a cyclist. Levels of your fitness will improve significantly when you adapt who you are with what you are generally good at. Now let us look at how a diet and sport you need to do go with one another.
Best of both worlds:
Muscle heads and cardio lovers were right in some regards. You can’t eat a lot of carbs and expect to have a really prominent physique, just as you can’t eat a lot of meat and expect to have amazing cycling performances. That is due to different systems these two sports trigger. They come from the same mechanism that makes us store energy, which is called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). How ATP stores energy for a muscle guy and on the other hand, for a runner, is a completely different thing. Without going into the biochemistry, ATP comes from 3 different biochemical systems in the body:
- Phosphagen
- Glycogen- lactic acid system
- Aerobic respiration
All three of these have different connections to every diet. That is so because muscles have different reserves of nutrients.
Phosphagen system serves the muscle for the briefest periods imaginable, from 8 to 10 seconds. Think sprints. These are hard to get good at without strength, so we will focus on the other two, because of the more practical applications.
Glycogen is what your muscles use in the process of the infamous ‘’burning’’ sensation. Burning occurs once the contractions are too strong and muscle can reach oxygen fueled blood. It is not necessary for training to be at this pace, but it will come inevitably. Beware. Unlike the phosphagen system which relies on oxygen, the glycogen- lactic acid system doesn’t. Which is ideal for the most types of contractions in the bodybuilding range. Phosphagen system is more prominent in strength sports.
Aerobic respiration requires the least supply from the ATP system. Intensity of the exercise dictates it as such, and the body is under much less stress than when in full sprint, for example. Here, the body supplies muscles with oxygen.
What is important to note, is that in ATP, every system uses nutrients in a different way. They break down differently, so their ‘’final’’ form, or the form we see is often not what we wanted. Because of this, it is crucial to implement:
– Sprints (short burst, high intensity style of training)
– Bodybuilding (moderate exertion, moderate style of training)
– Bicycle (running or swimming, low intensity style of training)
Where does it all go?
Why is this so? In the phosphagen system, muscle cells contain phosphate compounds called creatine phosphate. Creatine comes from amino acids. Amino acids, you know of :meat, eggs, chicken, fish. If you don’t incorporate this system in your training, your body will have a hard time utilizing these for the best outcome, regardless of the diet.
Glycogen- lactic acid system will use complex carbohydrates, such as wheat. If you don’t train in the fashion that can include complex carbs, this will never happen.
And aerobic respiration uses remaining glycogen supplies in the muscles. It can use fatty acids to produce ATP. This system can produce the ATP at the slowest rate, but for the longest. If you don’t train like this, it will have a very hard time doing so.