how much carbs when taking ECA?

[Ashil]

To accelerate my fat loss, i'm going to start taking an ECA stack.
My question is, how low do carbs have to be in order for it to be effective? And how low is too low?
I've heard and noticed through personnal experience ("nd hst cycle now) that you should keep carbs high during the 15's because glycigen levels deplete quickly.
What is glycogen? and how does it work?

So basically i'm a bit stuck because i want to lower my carbs for the ECA, but not too much, especially in the first two weeks of HST.

Any suggestions?

thanks

 

[imported_edziu]

Glycogen is the form of sugar which is stored in your muscles. There's also a significant store of it in your liver.

It powers your muscles for intense activity.

As soon as you use some of your muscle glycogen, the muscle immediately starts sucking carbs out of your blood to replace it. After an intense workout, like lifting, the muslces will be sucking nutrients out of your bloodstream at an elevated rate for several hours.

If you're consuming very low carbs, like on a PSMF or Atkins-type diet, you will have very little carb available to replenish muscle glycogen. It will still get consumed over time by normal activity (faster if you work out.) As it gets consumed but not replenished, your muscles will actually get smaller as they deflate a little. The glycogen is stored with a fair amount of water. As it goes away, the water goes away. This is why people who go on hard-core diets lose a lot of "water weight" when they begin. When they stop dieting, they gain that weight back quickly, as the muscle can finally replenish they glycogen, and inflate a bit. This is not the same as losing and gaining actual muscle tissue.

For example, I'm on a PSMF right now (extremely low calorie, very high protein to spare muscle protein). It's the morning of my fifth day. My weights each morning were: 229 (before), 226, 223, 222, 220. I did not lose nine pounds of fat and muscle in four days. But my glycogen is depleted and I lost several pounds of water. From my experience, I know that I probably lost three or four pounds of fat, and negligible muscle. I would not use a PSMF if I were already very lean, but it's effective at my current state.

Also, you don't need to keep your carbs low to use ECA effectively. All you have to do is consume fewer calories and exercise and you will lose fat. ECA enhances the effect, and it doesn't matter much what kind of diet, as long as you watch the calories.