# High protein, low carb diets a poor fit for the natural bodybuilder (Part 1)



## AChappell

My latest article guys and questions feel free to post, otherwise enjoy.
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*High protein, low carb diets a poor fit for the natural bodybuilder Part 1*
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By MSc BSc (honours) Andrew Chappell

With the contest season fast approaching many bodybuilders will be discussing contest prep with their peers, training partners, friends searching message boards, websites and phoning guru's for the latest insights into contest preparation. For many the long road to physical perfection and the first bodybuilding shows in spring might have already started. Or perhaps you've stumbled upon this article after a overindulgent Christmas and thought it was about time to get back in shape New Years resolutions and all. Which leads us to the question, what should I eat to lose fat, or get contest ready?

Should I go with high protein and low fat? Or take a high carbohydrate (carb) and low fat approach? Should I simply cut my calories and focus on eating more fruit and vegetables? What about the G.I index, should I do cardio before breakfast or will the latest fat burning supplement be worth the money? For a novice it can be a minefield, full of confusion and pitfalls. For the seasoned dieter it can be even more confusing, with often contradictory advice from different sources, pseudo science and complex dieting strategies. Familiar cliché's "There are many roads from Lands End to John 'O Groats" and "everybody reacts differently" are often used as excuses short comings or lack of knowledge about diet and nutrition.

The ketogenic, or high protein low carb diet combined with long bouts of low intensity cardio is a often touted favourite of the chemically enhanced bodybuilder. The use of androgenic anabolic steroids (AAS) as well as various other peptides, growth factors and hormones, places the body in an unnatural physiological state. This allows for the retention of a superior amount of muscle mass that could not be achieved through nutritional strategies and training alone. As a result of AAS and the catabolic effect induced by such a diet, this author would argue that the end point of such an approach will inevitably yield a shredded but flat looking physique provided the duration is long enough and the contest successfully sticks to the plan. A similar approach is a poor fit for the natural bodybuilder who's main aim should be to focus on preserving as much muscle mass as possible by providing ample amounts of carb to compensate for the lack of superphysiological anabolics used while prepping for a show. I would therefore argue that not only is such an approach superior for the natural bodybuilder but also the assisted.

Should the bodybuilder avoid any slip ups during the carb loading phase, I would always argue had the bodybuilder focused on eating more carb during his offseason and contest preparation how much bigger, fuller and better could he have been? The recent teaming up of George Farah and Kai Greene showcases an excellent case and point with a 7th place at the Olympia in 2010 to a 3rd place in 2011 switching from a high protein to a high carb diet. Closer to home Lawrence King made a similar switch and walked away with this years coveted BNBF British title, similarly following my advice British heavyweight champion Gordie Adam and Scottish Jnr champion Gordon Hunter made similar adjustments to take their respective classes, while this year's Pro Grand Prix Champion Dave Kaye followed a similar diet. Following those examples it should become apparent that the high protein low carb should be a no go area for the natural bodybuilder looking to hold onto that precious muscle, go carbs indeed. The reasons and the mechanisms why such a diet is more effective will become apparent later.

So what approach would I suggest when trying to tackle the difficult question of high to manipulate your macronutrients? Well it all comes down to it and if you want to lose weight or drop fat the simple facts are this:

Energy expenditure> greater than energy intake

I.e the amount of energy you expend by exercising, working and living from day to day must be greater than the amount of energy consume in the form of calories. So It actually doesn't even matter which way you split the macro nutrients this still holds true. I'm not suggesting you then follow the " if it fits" mantra but it's worth noting that what ever way you slice it the amount of weight loss will inevitably be the same. Sacks and colleagues in 2009 published a paper in the New England Medical Journal involving over 800 subjects (they actually excluded a further 800 individuals) with macros split between 20 - 40% fat, 15- 25% protein, and 35 - 65% carb and found that after two years there was no significant difference between any of the weight loss strategies. This was a well-designed, highly diverse, well-funded study published in a high impact journal.

Now before you start thinking that your dieting strategy is as good as any and there is actually "more than one way to skin a cat" it's important to realise that this study only looked at weight loss. It does not distinguish between fat mass (FM) and fat free mass (FFM) i.e muscle mass and this is where high protein, low carb diets and Ketogenic diets fall down. The study also only focused on a reduction in calories rather than several complex strategies of further calorie reductions or cycles. A study by Johnston et al. 2008 however showed the disadvantage however of a ketogenic or low carb high protein approach perfectly when they took obese subjects and exercised them for 3 months. Subjects were placed on either a Ketogenic diet or a diet comprised of 30% protein, 35% CHO and 35% fat, matched energy intakes. Initial weight loss was greater in the Ketogenic group 6.88kg compared to 4.41 kg however unsurprisingly almost 1 kg of that weight was contributed to water mass, while the keto group had lost almost more than a kilo more of FFM compare to minimal losses in the other group. It should be noted though that during this study satiety was measured and the Ketogenic diet suppressed appetite to a greater extent, probably owing somewhat to their popularity. This is but one example but trust me there are plenty of examples out there and I've seen many examples of this first hand.

This mimics almost exactly what we see when bodybuilders who go on Ketogenic and high protein low carb diets compared to a higher carb, moderate fat and protein diet. Large initial spikes in weight loss brought on by the bodies use of the stored carb and inevitable loss of water, followed by steadier weight loss which is a combination of fat and muscle mass. In an attempt to retain muscle mass and maintain fat loss such diets are often compensate by including binge eating of massive cheatmeals sessions or days between 1- 3 times a week. Now training, and supplements can only help retain so much muscle on such a diet, natural bodybuilders don't have the luxury of using AAS that can help to preserve muscle to such an extent. This is one of the reasons why such an approach is flawed in bodybuilding. So why is a high protein diet such a poor fit for the bodybuilder wanting to hold onto as much muscle as possible when prepping for a show?

Physiologically and metabolically it just doesn't make sense. Now you could argue the point of diet induced thermogenesis that protein is poorly broken down and converted to energy thus meaning it actually helps burn fat, but I think this serves only to highlight the limitations of such a diet.

The facts are simply your body doesn't need all that protein and it can't use all that protein. Yanny recently posted an excellent link with an article outlining protein intakes that was similar to a thesis I submitted on the same subject. I then posted the same question to Lewis "why all the protein". Believe it or not there may actually be a need for even less protein in the strength trained athlete or bodybuilder because of an improved ability to retain nitrogen compared to a sedentary individual (Phillips 1999). The ball park figures however state that requires are within the region of 1.2 - 1.7g kg bodyweight per day (Tarnopolsky et al. 1988), would be enough to maintain and build tissue (even on AAS). Now that doesn't even come close to the 1g per 1lb of bodyweight often cited by many as a minimal intake, of course but when dieting intake should be higher to maintain muscle mass surely? Actually this is also untrue when we go back to the previous cited paper by Johnston 2008 where intake was higher subjects ended up losing more muscle mass. A great study by Paddon-Jones et al. (2003) show this brilliantly with a bed rest study conducted over 28days they found that simply supplementing with amino acids on a normal diet maintained greater FFM than compared to those on a placebo. This highlight the powerful muscle sparing nature of protein but shows that a extremely high protein intake isn't needed to maintain muscle mass and that timing and choice of aminos should be a far more important factor than the absolute amounts.

So why don't high protein diets work? It's simple your body can't store all that protein and if it can't store it or use it then it will simply excrete that protein as nitrogen in your urine (figure 1).

*Figure 1* the free amino acid pool

View attachment 2857


*Figure 1.* the nature of metabolism dictates that a certain amount of tissues will always be broken down and synthesised from a small pool of amino acids. This pool is in constant flux with new aminos coming in and being excreted out and thus very little is stored.

What you have to understand is that the body is a carb machine, it loves carb and will always use carb as its main energy source. Even in the presence of some nice yummy glutamine to help spare muscle for morning cardio it's still going to use the carb stored in the muscle if it can and the immune cells and your gut cells can use the glutamine though. A quick look at something like the TCA cycle and the importance of carb is obvious, your body effectively converts aminos and fats to products it can utilise in this central carb cycle to use as energy (see appendix 1). When your body is in a carb deprived state and you go on a high protein low carb diet all your effectively doing is consistently toping up a leaky car engine with low grade fuel. It won't run as well and you have to keep filling it up every day with more and more fuel which is expensive and inefficient. A Ketogenic diet in that respect however isn't quite as bad since fat can provide ample fuel however ketosis is an unhealthy state as ketone bodies are highly acidic not to mention a great way to kill the good bacteria living in your gut. So if you want your breath to stink of acetone, lose a lot of muscle, melt your kidney's and set yourself up for some food intolerances then that's probably the way I would go, that's without considering the bias towards fast twitch muscle fibres in bodybuilders.

A bodybuilders myoctyes (muscle cells) have a massive bias to being predominately fast twitch fibres compared to the slow twitch fibre of say a marathon runner or maybe cross country skier. Fast twitch fibres can generate more force but slow twitch fibres are better at utilising oxygen and fats because of a higher mitochondrial density. While fast twitch fibres need to carry out quick processes this requires immediate energy in the form of glucose, ATP, and creatinephosphate. Someone on a low carb diet could never hope to train as hard as someone consuming a high carb diet, physiologically it doen't make sense. The conversion of proteins and fats to products that can be readily utilised as a energy source is simply not as quick as glycolysis or glucose. While if you consider a low carb dieter may consume the vast majority of carb prior to training and after to compensate for this sadly the figures just don't add up. Muscle glycogen stores between 200 - 400g the liver between 40 - 90g A high carb meal around 40- 80g wouldn't even make a dent in those numbers and would never guarantee the muscle of choice would be topped up.

Equally I believe that even cardio should be metabolic specific since bodybuilders are predominately fast twitched, so that means using high intensity interval training rather than long duration cardio to prevent a switch in muscle fibre type to the smaller slow twitch fibre. The same could also be said of training, rather than reducing a weight and focusing on higher reps, training should be kept heavier and within the bodybuilding rep ranges 12- 8 80% 1RM to maintain stimulation of the fast twitch fibre.

Based on the evidence presented the importance of maintaining a high carb content while dieting should be apparent while the importance of maintaining a high carb content in the offseason has been explained in a previous article.

I'll focus on an example of a dieting strategy for the next part on pre contest dieting.

*Appendix 1 Krebs Cycle*

View attachment 2856


I didn't include this in the main text for fear of confusing to many people. Your body converts glucose to pyruvate and then to acetyl-CoA that then is converted into various other products to produce energy. Amino acids have to be converted into products that can be used in this cycle, to yield energy, however this is very inefficient compared to glucose.


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## yannyboy

Brilliant article Andy

Just read the whole article, really found it interesting, I could read articles like this all day

I tried a keto diet a while back and agree with what you say, weight loss occured quite rapidly at the start but tailed of gradually and energy to train intense became almost impossible

Dave Palumbo can't rate the keto diet high enough, what do you think?

As you mentioned, I did question the amount of protein we are advised to eat. I've brought mine down to around 250g a day and I'm around 230lbs and feel I've not lost any size even though I am dieting

So am I right in you saying HIT cardio is more beneficial to bodybuilders than slow steady? I have always done the slower cardio myself reading that this is a more fat burning/muscle sparing way of doing things. Dorian Yates seemed to agree and seemed to like slow steady state unfuelled morning cardio. Maybe I will give the HIT cardio a go?

As I said, it was a very thought provoking article and hope you can post some more articles soon

Cheers Andy, you're a credit to the forum


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## doggy

good read, and quite controvertial. a bit over my head im afraid.

so, you believe in calorie restriction as opposed to low carb? how do you break down your protein, fat and carb ratio andy?


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## MichelleD

Great article, thank you.

I was going to ask the same question as doggy. Should the focus be on calories consumed? Is there still an amount of protein that needs to be consumed to help retain muscle mass, even if it isn't the high amount most people use?


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## justheretosnoop

Very interesting read Andy, as always. Were you already working on this topic or did my 'refeed' thread fuel the fire?


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## SX Dave

Great article, will read it properly once I'm home but very interesting on my quick skim read.

Good work mate.


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## AChappell

Thanks for the feedback guy's hopefully you find the next part just as interesting.



yannyboy said:


> Brilliant article Andy
> 
> Just read the whole article, really found it interesting, I could read articles like this all day
> 
> *I tried a keto diet a while back and agree with what you say, weight loss occured quite rapidly at the start but tailed of gradually and energy to train intense became almost impossible*
> 
> *Dave Palumbo can't rate the keto diet high enough, what do you think?*
> 
> *As you mentioned, I did question the amount of protein we are advised to eat. I've brought mine down to around 250g a day and I'm around 230lbs and feel I've not lost any size even though I am dieting*
> 
> So am I right in you saying HIT cardio is more beneficial to bodybuilders than slow steady? *I have always done the slower cardio myself reading that this is a more fat burning/muscle sparing way of doing things. Dorian Yates seemed to agree and seemed to like slow steady state unfuelled morning cardio. Maybe I will give the HIT cardio a go?*
> 
> As I said, it was a very thought provoking article and hope you can post some more articles soon
> 
> Cheers Andy, you're a credit to the forum


I know Dave Polumbo is fanatical about that sort of diet, and uses it himself when he got ready for shows but like the title of my article says I think it's a poor fit for the natural bodybuilder. Dave was renowned for his anabolic use and his knowledge on substances I've also head through certain circles that he still advices the use of large amounts of anabolics through for his competitors. I know you mentioned on a different post entitled "Article" that besides gear use diet and training would be similar between natural bodybuilders and assisted however this isn't quite true. Now I was going to include information on gene transcription for lypolysis and difference's in apploprotein metabolism between assisted and non assisted but I have to draw a line, since a certain level of understanding is required but in general terms physiology is altered which is why I wouldn't recomend it and why I think it can be more successful for the assisted bodybuilder. For the natural bodybuilder though again there are carbohydrate response element binding factors that are activated in response to carbs that regulate lipolysis that are missed or downregulated on a keto diet, so I don;t think would be as effective.

Don't get me wrong though Yanny these other diets work but I don't think there as effective for preserving muscle mass which is the primary concern for the natural bodybuilder.

As for the protein you'd probably even still get away with less, but even I still like to consume around 150g+ not including what would be in vegetables and cereals. It's peace of mind after all with a slightly higher intake.

As for HIT training the research simply wasn't there when Dorain was competing its really only in the past 8 years that the advantages have become apparent and even still the mechanisms are yet to be understood. I think if Dorian competed today he would probably use it after all he was ahead of his time in a lot of things he was doign and always took a scientific approach. Again there are a changes in metabolic enzymes that occur with HIT training that increase B-Oxidation and fat burning that I could of talked about that are greater in HIT than low intensity but I need to limit the amount of information.

Anyway hope that answers your questions Yanny. I'll try to keep posting interesting articles.


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## AChappell

Doggy, Michelle

This is a two part article so I'll detail that in the second part where I include a template diet. I'd shoot for something like this though 60-65% Carbs, 20-25% Protein and 20% Fats. The idea is to take the emphasis more off protein's but realise that your macro nutrients need to be skewed in terms of carbs rather than protein to retain size. 20 -25% of your diet should be ample, but I'll cover this in the second part.

Dorsey

I had this article in the pipeline already, I'd been considering writing something like this for a while, since at least September for a few reasons. 1) I need to get people to visit my section of the forum, 2) It's important for my own reputation 3) There's a lack of qualified people out there who give advice 4) There is little advice out there that's directed solely at the natural bodybuilder for natural bodybuilders 5) I honestly believe there is no better approach when it comes to trying to lose weight.

So your thread on refeed wasn't quite the inspiration, (I'd maybe have talked about that aspect more had it been), but it may have prompted me to write it sooner than I had.


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## doggy

looking forward to part 2. 60% of 2500 cal is about 1500 cal from carbs, or 375grams, thats a lot for me. i dont think im getting that just now.

20% of 2500 is 500 cal or 55grams of fat, dont think im getting that either. i must be getting at least 200g of protein or 800 cal.

time for a rethink.


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## yannyboy

Andy, do you think that macro ratio could stand true for non naturals as well or should I aim for higher protein ratios


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## doggy

yanny, whats a macro ratio mean? does it mean more detail? could you give me an example please?


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## yannyboy

Protein, carbs and fats are macros


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## doggy

THat was easy. CHeers


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## AChappell

Well the evidence suggests that the macro's should be similar especially if you follow the arguments I've made. It's all relative though even if you consider a 1.7kg per kg of BW for protein or 25% at 70kg or 100kg if you design a diet based on your BMR. So I'd still say it applies. Since it's all relative the same should still apply even for super high intakes of anabolics.

the reason why such high protein intakes are always touted as being so successful is down to it's effect as a signalling molecule. and the absolute calories you end up consuming in the end.


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## AChappell

I'm halfway through writing the second part of this article so hopefully I'll have the second part up by the end of the week.


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## ElleMac

Bump!

Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk 2


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## Angelica85

For best results, you should be putting your highest carbohydrate diets on the days you perform your hardest workout sessions.


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## gingernut

Angelica said:


> For best results, you should be putting your highest carbohydrate diets on the days you perform your hardest workout sessions.


I find this has no effect on my training whatsoever.


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## AChappell

I agree Rose, I think if your muscles are saturated with glycogen, from day to day it really makes little difference. Carb loading strategies are a different story.


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## EXTREME

I agree too, your brain controls how had you train, not carb intake.

Plus in bodybuilding and strength sports the most important fuel is creatine.


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## daddy123

I agree the brain is what controls how hard you train.


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## AChappell

Sorry guys but it's simply not true, the most important fuel during bodybuilding movements is lactate, ATP and Creatine. Since your body uses ATP and Creatine in the first 10-20s and the average set takes around 45s, unless your doing singles or doubles the lion share of your energy will come from glycolysis. There's plenty of studies which show increased performance with high carbohydrate diets vs low, high fat, or high protein diets and placebo's (wihch you could class as "the brain"). Plenty of carbohydrates in combination with creatine makes for a highly effective combination.


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## Toby Hines

Fascinating article and very relevant to everyone and especially for myself who has followed the high protein/low carb mistake for three seasons, but this off season I am now swapping to the higher carb situation and am wanting to correct a lot of mistakes.

I have been guilty of too restricted calories, low carbs, high protein, excessive cardio and been in a negative vicious circle and am changing my whole approach and so someone directed me here to read this article

Great information and written in a way someone with a basic knowledge would understand.


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