[b said:
Quote[/b] (Mad Amos @ June 24 2003,9:53)]1.) How do these factors impact a maintenance diet? What would be the best nutritional protocol at this time?
Basically no impact on maintenance (which is a rather exact term). Of course you need adequate protien to maintain muscle, and adequate EFAs (which isnt much really - for removing deficiency anyway) but after that, very little. It has been shown that you can eat pure sugar on a maintenance diet, and it makes no difference.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]2.) How would we manipulate these same mechanisms when bulking?
Preferably, when bulking you would want to start from as lean as possible, and not allow yourself to get overfat. Eat as many calories as you can get away with, without eating too much (a fine line I know)
Where your extra calories come from, and their split doesnt appear to make much of a difference. Well unless you are talking about eating around training, which is a completely different picture.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]3.) We all know to keep our carbs low-GI, our protein @ around 1g/lb, and fat (derived mostly from EFA sources) at less than or equal to 30% of total calories consumed for the day. What, then, is the IDEAL amount of carbs to ingest?
about yaay much <spreads arms really wide>
Well it depends. Clinically, there is no requirement for carbs (maybe some for fibre, but thats a differnt thing). Certain areas of hte body require a certain level of glucose even when fat adapted (areas of the kidney, RBCs brain etc) which gives around 50-100g perday. And most people notice a decline in mental performance when eating less than 100g per day. Then with training on top of that, a total body routine may be using about 50-100g carbs on top of that. So if you do not want to deplete the body of carbs (at least not when bulking) you would be looking at around 100-200g carbs depending on various things (body size etc). Some on this site still have problems with depletion eating 300g carbs, but thats usually with 2x daily training. When bulking, I dont mind a value of 2-4g/kg bodyweight as a starting point, then try and monitor water balance somewhat (daily measures of BF will help estimate this, especially when eating 'maintenance'

THe value of 3-4g lies in amongst the available research on the subject area. (most other recs of 6g/kg are extrapolated from the 3-4g thru a wild estimation)
[b said:
Quote[/b] ].) Finally, you alluded to insulin, its effect on lipolysis, AND its "lifetime" within the bloodstream following a meal. Assuming one is at a caloric deficit, is there a way to further control this effect (through meal timing, GI value/carb-load, and subsequent insulin control) so we can maximize our "ordinary" lipolytic mechanism, or do we just let it all come out in the wash at the end of the day? What about during maintenance or bulking?
Insulin is a great hormone. On a cellular level it can turn lipolysis off nicely, and increase fat uptake to a degree. But levels in the blood after 'starvation' are enough to do this (altho not in the whole body). A balance of the hormones leads lipolysis. A bit of give and take really. A high carb meal (high or low GI) will release insulin and to a certain extent, shut down whole body lipolysis. But after this peak has died away, the body will return to its resting fat oxidative state.
what carbs will do is alter fat balance, so if you increase the amount of carbs, you will decrease teh amount of fat burnt and therefore have more stored.
So basically (Without taking training into account)
Say somebody had maintenance at 3000kcal
if they eat 1000kcal protein, 1000kcal cabrs and 1000kcal fat thats an isocaloric diet, at balance (ie fat balance will be 0)
If you reduce their carbs, you get
1000kcal protein, 500kcal carbs and 1000kcal fat. You are in negative energy expenditure. But the calories will be made up from somewhere (without adaptation of course) so the fat balance will be -500kcal
If you decrease carbs but increase fat you get
1000kcal protein, 500kcal carbs 1500kcal fat (most people would think this by itself would cause fat loss) you also get 0 fat balance, because while there are less carbs to reduce fat oxidation, there is also more fat from the diet available to burn so the net balance is 0
If you go keto but really up the fat
1000kcal protein, 0kcal carbs, 2500kcal fat
you have a +500kcal fat balance, becuase while no carbs are there to stop fat oxidation (protein will to an extent as well) there is a vast quantity of fat from the diet, so it has to go somewhere, basically stored.
Going for a similar thing (in the old concept) a high carb low fat bulking diet
1000kcal protein, 2000kcal carbs, 500kcal fat
would still equate to a +500kcal fat balance, because you are supplying large amounts of carbs, which will help you store all the fat in the diet rather than oxidise them (which is how high carb diets will make you fat, you dont turn carbs into fat very well, but you store fats from your diet extremely well)
What was the question again.:blush
Oh yeah, insulin.
THe best way to minimise insulin is going fully extreme keto. But, from the research this doesnt really show any advantage over non-keto diets (except for satiety)
So basically all that the final diet comes down to is one that allows you to reduce calories, without feeling deprived/hungry. Basically adequate protein, adequate high fibre carbs (they are usually low GI) and adequate fat (to which lyle mcd has stated somewhere around 7-14g per meal is adequate).
If you are low energy (~1500kcals) have 3 meals per day rather than trying to get to 6, because small meals dont blunt hunger as much as large ones.
Did I awnser anything? my brain isnt working too well