Hi
A friend of mine is asking me information about BFL. He is very unfit and wants to enter the context, though, because of the books and articles I've always showed to him he nows is a low carb supporter.

The problem is that BFL is not very low carb neither it is very high carb, I would say moderate. Phillips says he has good reasons to suggest a moderate intake of carbohydrate with every meal.

When I asked both Phillips and Tom Venuto claimed that very low carb diets while working on the paper don't work on real life for active people and real hard physical exercise. Both have tried very low carb diets and ketogenic diets and both had to give up after 6 months to an year because they lost most of their muscle mass and they energy went down the toilet (as Tom says)

To date, they say, they don't know any succesfull bodybuilder or athlete who has success with a very low carbohydrate diet all the time (while many have success with cycling low and high carbs days) and according to them high power anaerobic exercise does requires some form of carbohydrate

They also say that although fat and ketones can't sustain people health on average condition of semi sedentarety they're not a good choice for someone who is very active and who want the body BFLers strive for.

The rationale behind it seems to be that the pathway of ketones and fat burning is not effective in replenish glycogen stores. Also neither fat nor ketones have the protein sparing effect of carbohydrates

I've known people who eat nothing but meat, eggs, butter and animal fats. That's almost 0 carbs. Yes they're alive, but they're also coach potatoes with subaverage or average muscle mass levels, high body mass levels and bloated stomaches.

Also, while there are researches proving that the brain can effectively use ketones there are no researches proving that muscles can "effectively" use ketones and actually it has been observed that under ketosis there's a loss of muscular energy and movements are smaller and lowest. Aerobic Lipolysis is too slow to provide an adequate amount of energy during exercize either.

Here's also an interesting quote: "Fatty acids stored in the adipose tissue ( fat cells) are released into the blood and processed by the liver and some are turned into glucose (gluconegenesis) and some remain fatty acids and both provide ATP for muscle contraction. One of the by products of this process is ketone bodies which can provide energy to brain and nervous system. The problem gluconegenesis (non glucose turned into glucose) provides fuel to the muscle less efficiently than glycogenesis (glucose).
The end result is increased muscle fatigue, decreased muscle power, which leads to poor athletic performance.

A recent study performed at the University of Connecticut showed that exercisers who switched from a balanced diet (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) to a low carb diet experience the following drop's in athletic performance. There was a 7 - 9 percent drop in muscle power and 6 percent drop in VO2 max of cardiovascular performance. Another factor to consider is the recuperation of muscle between workouts is decreased on low carb diets"

And a quote by Tom Venuto (definitely not a fan low protein/high carb diets)
When I experimented with a very low carb diet, (about 40-60 grams a day), I lost huge amounts of lean body mass and looked very "flat" and "stringy." I was also one irritable, grouchy SOB. My friends nicknamed me "fog boy" because (sez them) I stumbled around in a fog-like daze. One friend who hadn't seen me since the previous year when I was a "bulked up" and carbed up 208 lbs, saw me 48 lbs lighter after the low carb diet (yes, 160 scrawny pounds) and he said, "holy sh** Tom, what happened to you? You're HALF the man you were last year!" That was the last time I ever tried an extremely low carb diet.

I also remember a research (maybe Lemon?) that showed how you need way more protein to remain in nitrogen balance if your intake of carb is very low and if your diet is mostly fat it's very hard to obtain such amount of protein, 50% of the daily caloric intake circa.

If high carbohydrate is bad and moderate carbohydrate is good is it possible that for someone beginning a very active lifestyle and wanting to improve either muscle mass and stregth/resistance extremely low carb is not good?

The BFL diet is a huge step forward as it is high in protein and moderate in carbohydrates. The problem is the low fat. My friend and I like higher fat diets and I think that higher amount of fat is healthy.
But since both Venuto and Phillips doesn't forbidden high fat because for nutritional or ideological reasons but because according to them you won't get the same results if you substitute most of your carbs for fats I'm afraid that by adding more fat my friend diet will have not enough carbs to provide the required energy and the body will have to use mostly fat for energy which is not a good option for very active people who work out with heavy weights.

I even though that maybe he should follow the BFL plan until he get the body he wants and then when has an high muscle mass and a low body and visceral fat mass he can adjust the diet lowering the carb intake.
What do you think? How low can one go in restricting carbs on the BFL program without compromising the chance to get the incredible results that those who follow BFL to a T are getting?

D.

Here is the big thread on BFL and low carb.

Many people in the past did more of a moderate carb or an on-going weight loss style method of eating with BFL.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=29683

I basically did Atkins with yogurt, berries and protein powder the time I did BFL. It worked very well for me at that time.

Beth

I'm looking for people out there who are doing the BFL challenge - are you doing the challenge? I just started 4/10.

I can't imagine doing BFL lc style....heck, I take in more than 40g carbs just in my post-workout shake.

Quite honestly, if you are doing BFL as directed, moderate carbs are not going to hurt at all....the whole reason BFL works is b/c you do some serious, serious exercise 6 days a week.

I've upped my carbs doing the BFL program, but still doing it LC. Porter Freeman also lowered his carb intake as well, but NEVER after a workout, he lowered them on meals 2 & 4. So it can be done, but not extreme lowering of the carbs. I found when I first started I needed more and I have slowly added them in, veggies, and protein. LC Yogurt, and fruit sparingly for me. It seems to be working, I'm feeling wonderful this week that I upped the carbs. I even had to add more weights today!
I workout on an empty stomach like the book says, however, I have about 10 G of protein immediately after workout - following the advice here http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/...Life.html#tweak
So far, it seems I found the perfect amount of carbs/protein/water but will see at the end of the week if I need to tweak it more. Very happy with my results so far!

I wouldn't count the carbs in vegetables because vegetables are what is known as a negative calorie food. In other words they provide less calories than what the body requires to digest them.
It's harder for the body to digest low caloric and fiber rich foods and so it takes more energy than digesting fruits or eggs. More energy than the calories in the vegetables can provide.
If you were starving you would die quickly by eating water and vegetables than just water.
So the carbohydrates in vegetables really don't count because they are all used to digest the vegetable themselves and after they have been used more is required, that's why vegetables are perfect weight loss food and the more you eat the more you lose.

I also believe that although it is a good idea to do cardio on a empty stomach, lifting weight in an empty stomach is too catabolic and muscle protein may be used for energy especially when the carb intake is low. I would have a sort of light pre-workout meal beofre lifting weights not before cardio.

D.

would you have carbs in the preworkout meal? the Book says to workout on empty stomach but I've heard to have meal before workout too, so I don't know what is right.

I would probably opt for a balance of carb and protein in the preworkout meal and very very very few fat.
I want to make sure my body doesn't turn to my muscles to get the energy required for lifting the weights. One would think that's a not a problem since the body has so much fat to burn to get energy, but lyposis is not an effective energy pathway during weight lifting because it's too slow, ketones are even worse. The truth is that weight lifting is not a fat burning activity especially during exercise while may somewhat contribute to fat burning after exercise at rest. During weight lifting the body will always prefer protein to fats in absence of carbohydrates and when the body chooses to use mainly amino acids as its energy source it doesn't matter if we've eaten 400 grams of protein it will catabolize muscles.
I think that weight lifting should be done on the morning/afternoon when the body is an anabolic phase and not on evening/night.
Being morning/afternoong more carbs can be consumed and they would not affect blood sugar and fat burning as they would if consumed at night.
If more carbs are consumed for breakfast that would be even better as the body is more glucose tolerant after a night fast.

High-carb pre workout meal consumed 1 or 2 hours before weight training is known to increase the synthesis of muscle while high-GI foods consumed with protein 30-45 mins after workout are known to replenish faster muscle glycocen and to increase protein absorption.
I would even say that pre and post workout meals make carbs essential to thrive.

Pre and post workout meals are also metabolically the best time to eat carbs without consequences including no sugar spikes or hypoglycemia. I remember a study for example when they showed how the difference between the people who can tolerate more carb (diabetics and non) and those who can't tolerate much carb (diabetics and non) was in their activity level. Very active person could consume carbs as a fuel for their activity and the body didn't got adverse effects to it their body was very glucose tolerant. On the other hand sedentary people who eat more carbs are fueling with carbs a body who is glucose intolerant as long as the need for carb-fuel doesn't create a tolerance. It's exactly like a theather who can't admit any more viewers as long as the theater is full.

That being said I believe that the best solution is fruit and oat.
Pre-workout meal and post-workout meal are the perfect meals were to consume high-sugar fruit without any kind of adverse effect even if you have sugar metabolism problems.
For example a smoothie with milk, half a banana, oats and protein power
would be a good pre-workout meal for the following reasons:
The fruit sugar will fuel the workout in the first part while low-GI starches are still digesting while the oats carbs who are absorbed slower would fuel the last part of the workout when the banana sugars has already been used

Another reason to limit fats in your pre-workout meal is that they are digested more slowly than carbs and you may end up lifting weight with a stone in your stomach wich will decrease your potential or cause indigestion or worse.
Fat in the pre-workout meal should be left to a minimum a couple of grams or less. That applies to post-workout meal too where fat would delay the absoption of carbohydrates or protein to when the body is not anymore in that phase when the glucogeunetic enzymes are tripled and ready to replenish glycogen stores and when protein absoption is a its highest.

Of course, that's only for weight lifting days. You don't need a pre-workout meal for cardio and doing cardio on an empty stomach may indeed increase fat burning.

my humble 2 cents

D.

And I'll bet that both of them were undereating, whether they realize it or not. It's very hard to get in enough calories on a low carb plan if you're muscular and active; I used to have to eat massive amounts of peanut butter to do it (nearly a jar a day, iirc, in addition to real food), and I was still at a caloric deficit. I'm on a fairly low carb plan now, averaging about 50 net g carbs/day, and I do between one and two hours of moderate exercise a day, and never get tired. I'm now adding in more strenuous cardio, and so far have had no problems. I've been doing this for a year, so maybe it takes a long time for your body to adapt. It is doable, though. BTW, many moons ago I used to train with a guy who got his IFB pro card, and he followed a low carb plan, eating almost nothing but steak, shrimp, vegetables, and protein shakes. But he ate a lot of them, in addition to the other, ummm, "aids" he was taking.

Yes, that could be a factor even though Venuto is so caloric skilled that I can't imagine him following a diet without counting all the calories. However there's a link between calories consumed and macronutrients, for example if carbs are present protein are better absorbed and fatty acids are more completely burned. So for example if a steak is 20g of protein and 120 calories it could result in 12g of protein and 80 calories for our body if eaten alone, that's why is harder to count caloric decifits and intake in modo diets. After all the calories we know food to provide come from food completely burned on a calorimeter bomb, and the body doesn't work like that.

Besides I'm quite sure that their carb intake was even lower than 50g day.
Also, almost all diets can sustain average leaness and muscular mass, but when we reach the point we want to "perfect" our results we're compelled to follow certain diets. For example if we want to maximize workout results we pre-carbs are somewhat necessary, if we want to really show a defined body and lower our fat mass intake to single digit a cycle of very low carb eating is somewhat necessary. At some point all kind of metabolic tricks like replenishing glycogen store as fast as you can by avoiding fat and eating lot of GI carbs after workout or eating more carbs in the morning or carb loading in the weekend become necessary to go beyond the result we could obtain more easily following any of plan.
I believe that both Phillips and Venuto had already overcome that phase when they tried the low carb diet and they were doing hours of very strenuous exercises and probably all that mass beyond their body easy-gaining they got through metabolic tricks disappeared when they stoppped using those tricks because the low carb diet they followed didn't allowed it.

There's no reason as to why it should take more than few months to adjust to a new source of energy but maybe it's us that takes more to adapt to different sensations or that unconsciously tweak the plan until it suits us best

D.

I am reading the book now. I am confused on the reward day, you eat off plan for the entire day but it still figures into your calories (journal) food and will count towards the deficit. So when you are doing the math wouldn't you tend to stay away from doing so? Isn't that the day you have a rest day of exercises too? What is the benefit then, to shake up the body and speed up the metabolism?

The ideal would be to be healthy from birth to the rest of your life. Your body loves homeostasis and it's easier to break this balance than it is to fix it because your body want to keep the next balance even if it is terrible.
When you change your diet, lifestyle and body composition your body do its best to prevent you from ruining its terrible balance by lowering your BMR, creating a glucose intolerance, decreasing the amount of glut-4 on the cell surface and of glycogenic enzimes, increasing the post-prandial lipemia and eventually creating cravings and depression.
Your body wants to sabotage you and of course hates you for what you're doing to it
The free day is one of the most important aspect of the plan and I believe it makes the difference between success and failure in losing fat and gaining muscle. The free day purpose is to deceive your body, because as soon as it understands your changing your lifestyle you come back to your old lifestyle, the body is not worried anymore and turn off all those sabotage mechanism and to reactivate them when you go back to the BFL plan it will take at least 5 days.
So a succesful free day is a day of your old lifestyle.
Junk foods, cheeseburger, hot dog, pizza, coke ...
But, while you can consume more calories make sure you still have some kind of discipline in your portion size as you don't to stuff yourself till you feel sick and since you will have consumed more small meals thorough the week your stomach will have shrinked in size.

D.

I have been Lcing for over a year now. I hardly ever have indulged during this time. I do believe my body is used to how I eat that I probably do need to shake it up a bit. I might start with one meal one week and see how that goes.

Hey sunshine2 how is your challenge doing?
How are you timing your carbs?

I started mine a week ago and I found out that immediately after a workout I even tolerate pure sucrose which I usually don't tolerate as it leads to the formation of even acetone in my body and send me into hypoglycemia in a matter of minutes

Probably that's the time to concentrate your carb, eating some very high GI carb too as it wouldn't be detrimental to your body

I would say to get good results that at least three meals must be high in carbs

Pre-workout meal eaten 2 hours before workout: rice, grains, bread
Post workout 1 : immediately after workout: dextrose, sucrose, fruits
Post workout 2 : 1 hour after workout: rice, grains, bread

Both three meals should be high in protein and contain almost 0 grams fats: that's important both for maximum workout potential and growth results

I would say that based on my experience (I'm glucose intolerant and hypoglycemic) even breakfast can contain more carbs because the body is exceptionally glucose tolerant and insulin sensitive in the morning after 8 hours of fast

So I would say three meals with carbs and three meals without overt carbs expecially the sixth meal when the body is in less tolerant, sensitive, more tired and in anabolic phase

But I don't count carbs in veggies, I try to eat veggies with every meal (except pre and post workout meals as they would delay digestion) and at least two pounds daily (for health reasons) and all kinds of vegetables and greens don't affect my BGs

Since I do my workout in the morning the plan is for me a carb morning and a no carb high fat evening, and I can already see results

Let mew know how you are doing
Davide

Davide - I had amazing results - I think.....I am now on my 5th week, so I'm happy with my first 4 weeks.

Here is my tracker - http://www.bodyforlife-tracker.com/...le.cfm?id=17523.

I'm still doing low carb, but not too low. I've added in brown rice, some fruit. I think I need to add more carbs in my post workout meal, I usually do a ready made BFL LC shake. Then an hour later, I'll have my egg white omlett loaded with spinach and 1/2 an orange. I'm still working on tweaking my menu some.

The scale has barely moved, but the inches are falling off and for the first time, I'm starting to see some definition in my arms - i still have the flab, but they are starting to shape up.

I'm anxious to get to the 8 weeks, that is when most people see the biggest results, and the scales finally start to move.

Keep in touch with your progress - the BFL tracker is a great tool too.