Dear drivethroughguy,
Good point. Again, calorie flow (if it can be compared to cash flow...) must be viewed in context. If we decided to dwelve into detail, we must bear in mind how a calorie deficit can or should be created.
Starving the whole day then having 800 calories surely, isn't the best way to go. I am viewing this in the context of getting gastric pain, ulcers, blood sugar swings apart from its nitrogen retentive effect. Then again, you might wish to do a search on the Caveman diet (or something like that...) where it is recommended that only one or two large protein meals per day, and judge its merit for yourself.
I feel that taking protein in varying bolus amounts might perhaps, have some merit as there is a parallel logic for that found in protein-pulse feeding studies. But, from memory, such protein-pulse feeding studies were performed on old, sedentary folk which begs the question: any protein taken in any way for this category of people will probably provide some therapeutic effect anyhow....
Coming from a food-combining perspective, I've read before that no meal should be carbs alone, and even if the meal is mixed, it should not exceed 400 calories if not insulin levels will skyrocket. This sounds odd really, because we do know protein foods are insulinogenic (do a search on the Insulin Index for more info on this), and also, the assimilation of 400 calories must surely be dependent on meal type (solid vs liquid) and many other things.
Out of all this, what we must be concerned with is that, if one's muscle and liver glycogen levels are full, and assuming all other glucose-based energetic needs are being met, taking carbs over and above the needs that have been met at that point will lead to mass gain. Such mass can be muscle and/or fat, usually both.
Now, if one were to ingest 100gm glucose and take a nap, such glucose could end up as fat only if the person was in caloric excess anyhow. We are assuming that a person in caloric excess has full liver and glycogen stores and by this token, has no need for any incoming glucose. And we are also assuming that a person in calorie deficit has depleted liver and muscle glycogen.
Such assumptions can be wrong though, because if I ate 200 calories below maintenance, say, 1800 calories, on a non-training, mentally relaxed day, but it all came from carbs, am I glycogen depleted? Of course not. But would I be protein-starved? Very likely, yes. We must also bear in mind that apart from levels of glycogen, the enzymes and GLUT transporters can face saturation. All else being equal, this begs the question of how much and how soon the carbs are ingested. If I were in calorie deficit, and drank 200gm of glucose in solution, my glycogen synthesizing enzymes will be overwhelmed. My GLUT transporters for my liver could be overwhelmed (from memory their km is 12-20 mmol or something along those lines....) which results in a glucose spillover into my blood, again, possibly overwhelming the GLUT transporters on my muscle (with a km of 4 mmol perhaps). And thus, even if liver and muscle glycogen is depleted, such overwhelming of the GLUT transporters and glycogen-synthesizing enzymes can and usually means that the excess glucose on a per unit time basis gets stored as fat.
And thus, even if the most important thing is calorie flow, other important things would be meal size and timing. Meal combining has merit too, because studies have shown synergistic anabolic effects when protein and carbs are taken together. So you are right to say that it is more than just calorie flow that matters.
A final note on Berardi's food combining thingy - post-meal insulin from a carb meal might still be around when ingesting your protein-fat meal. Furthermore, it is definitely wrong to say that protein is not insulinogenic. So I'd take Berardi's info, and perhaps, anyone else's, with a pinch of salt, if diet permits
Godspeed, and happy HSTing
