Re: Can i get ripped doing this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Truth
Yes Carbs are the fuel for your workout and if you were training for an athletic event I'd be all for carb intake, however if you're working out to get visible abs you should cut a bit of your carbs and add proteins
I'm sure that is true... in some cases. It doesn't, for example account for the fact that my BF% is around 8% all year round and that a sizeable proportion of my diet is made up from carbs (at a guess we'll say it is 20% Fats 30% Proteins and 50% carbs).
Really if he wants to get 'ripped' he should start with a hypertrophy phase (concentrating on building muscle) and then concentrate on maintaining his muscle mass whilst burning off some fat.
Carbs shouldn't be a problem, during either stage... during the hypertrophy phase he's going to need to use them to a) fuel intensive resistance training and b) use them to create a positive energy balance (using fats to do this whilst cutting out carbs is going to make him store more body fat during his 'bulk' - giving him more to burn off).
A lot of people trip up cutting out carbs in the next phase... they seem to forget that they are not just trying to cut fat down using purely their diet... they are allowed to exercise too!?!?! Blood Sugar levels drop and insulin levels go crazy, your endocrine system is placed under stress trying to to all of these fatty acids into glycogen/glucose and eventually leptin levels rise, these make your body go into starvation mode... increasing appetite and fat retention.
So initially people will lose weight, but not because they are doing anything special - just excluding or limiting a nutrient intake and therefore lowering their calorie intake in the process... that's all it is calorie intake drops. But because the body has became overly catabolic it make it very very likely that you'll quickly put it back on because you've fucked about with your sugar balance when you shouldn't have.
The best way to burn fat is through exercise whilst eating a normal healthy diet, some intensive (and carb fueled) interval training will burn a lot more calories than dragging your self on some overlong plod ( fueled by a small amount of fat)which is more or less the best you'll manage on a carb restricted diet). and then there's reversibility... if you don't stimulate your muscles then the body will catabolise them for energy, without the carb intake needed to fuel intense muscular training you can forget achieving the amount of stimulus you're going to need to maintain muscle mass and function.
Refined sugars and flours etc have been giving carbs a bad name recently, spread by self taught dieticians writting crap in the media etc. A diet fueled by unrefined complex and simple carbs from fruit isn't going to hurt anybody, it seems crazy to restrict such a firbe and micronutrient rich food group.
I'm a big believer in stressing the body to stimulate changes, it should primarily come from exercise supported by a healthy lifestyle
train hard and eat a lot of good food to build muscle and then train hard (in a different way) and eat a little less of the same good food to burn fat. You try and make it complicated and it's going to get complicated... ;)
(apologise for the rant - to directly answer the original poster, you'll probably get more help with this sort of thing over at Bodybuilding.com - The Future Of Bodybuilding! Huge Bodybuilding Site.)
