Hi TrainerDan-- hope you read this!

I've got a question about building muscle and I'm confused about what I've read. I've read in some sources that muscle is really only built by strength training, that just eating protein alone will not put the muscle on you. You need to eat protein to grow muscle, but it will not grow without the strength training. If this is true, it would suggest that just eating low-carb and lots of protein while sitting on your butt will not magically "exchange" fat for muscle. Can you comment on this?

Thanks,
Missydog

The body is an amazing mechanism. If it doesn't need to be stronger, it won't use the protein in your diet to rebuild muscle tissue.

However, if you place a workload on your muscles (resistance training), you are now forcing your body to adapt to a new stimulus. If it regularly has to lift weight, then it will compensate by making your muscle fibers grow in the area being worked (note: it is a VERY gradual process ...)

If you are not lifting weight, and there is no workload to adapt to, then your body/muscles will stay the way they are.

Once you have it, you have to maintain it too. It's all a case of use it or lose it.

Good info TD. Everyone should steer clear of any diet or supp that brags of muscle growth without work.

Hello!
I am on a low carb diet, but am trying to build MUSCLE. I am hearing a lot on the web that you can NOT build muscle on low carb diets.

Is this true? after all, I have some fat to lose too, but want to pack on size!

Can you bodybuild on a low carb diet?

the idea behind dropping carbs is to tikt the body more toward fat loss.

however, it is POSSIBLE to grow muscle while low carbbing. But, if adding muscle mass is your only goal, you may want to use another plan that alloows for more muscle gain.

I am actually trying to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time currently. I am not fat at all, I am just tired of the traditional bukling since I always end up looking like a dough-boy. But I do realize that this is almost essentially opposite processess to ypu are trying to acheive. I believe I am getting some positive results, of course since this is difficult to simultaneosly acheive, you have to modify the CDK plan for your exactly body type, and also it took me a while to learn correctly. Such factors as altering percentages of fats:carbs as the week progresses, and the carb up it-self is also very fincky. But in the past month I think I have figured out what is working for me, and have gone up in weight in several excersizes while low carbing .... while maintaining near same weight, of course this is a tough determinant since your weight will be all over the place on this diet. But it seems to be working I of course will keep everyone posted on ym results ... ^_^

But, if adding muscle mass is your only goal, you may want to use another plan that alloows for more muscle gain.

lastly I am trying to gain lean muscle (as lean as posssible), but low carb diet (even with high loads) is not working the way it should, right now I am looking for better alternative for gaining lean body mass, please could you recommend some tips,
I am thinking about Zone diet, but since I don't tolerate grains well, most of my carbs should come from fruits, is it OK?

Why don't you try ABCDE?

Then you bulk for 2 weeks and then cut for 1-2 weeks so that bf% doesn't go out of control. The bulk is now limited to 125% of maintenance and the cut then only needs to be 90% of maintenance.

It is much better to start cutting when the BF% creeps up, rather than having to take way more drastic measures when it is almost too late..

http://www.musclemedia.com/training/abcde/v58_abc1.asp

has a lot of data on it.. but remember it's 125% now, not 140% which gave too much fat increase..

Fietser

;-)