Partitioning of calories among fat, carbs, etc.?

[VIPER]

How would the body respond to different diets containing the same amount of calories but using different ratios of carbs, fat, and protein. Say two diets both equal 2500 calories but one has 50g fat, 180g protein, and 332.5g carbs VS. a diet using 100g fat, 180g protein, and 220g carbs. Or other any other varitions that can be used.

 

[imported_dkm1987]

A lot would have to do with ones metabolic response to food types and the thermogenic values of the foods themselves.

I know when I am cutting on a carb restricted diet protein can still be converted to energy and hence excess could still be stored as fat. So I have to watch my protein intake as well.

I currently use a 20-40-40 split in fat to carb to protein and even though I am bulking I still have lost BF%, 1 whole percent in 4 weeks. I have gained size but no weight (weird). Maybe the offset of BF weight to Lean Mass weight??

When I cut I go with a 35-25-30 split and I have no problem dropping BF% but with mild weight loss. If I go to below 100 Grams Carbs per day I drop weight excessively.

I am anal about tracking everything I eat and have a spreadsheet to record it and measure Macronutrient %, it helps me identify what I am acheiving versus what I wanted to acheive. I even track how much water I consume daily.

Can you say "obsessive, compulsive".

 

[bugpowder]

your question covers a lot of territory. sometimes a calorie is a calorie, but macronutrient composition does have its effects. what is the focus of your inquiry - hypertrophy, general health, imperfect adherence to diet...?

-bug

 

[VIPER]

Quote[/b] (bugpowder @ May 11 2004,5:23)]your question covers a lot of territory. sometimes a calorie is a calorie, but macronutrient composition does have its effects. what is the focus of your inquiry - hypertrophy, general health, imperfect adherence to diet...?
-bug

Haha! Thanks dmk.

Bugpowder: Right now I'm just focusing on lowering my bodyfat. I don't have a problem loosing weight, I just thought of this question and wanted to know if someone had reasoning behind it. I'm just thinking if the whole idea behind the calories in vs. calories out concept is true, then weight loss or weight gain should be similar between the two diets explained as long as the daily calories are the same. I'm just thinking if there would be smaller differences. For example, if someone were to go on the diet that contained more fat and less carbs would the person have less energy running on lower carbs than a person that was put on the higher carb diet containing the same calories, and would they hold on to more mass and vice versa, etc.

 

[bugpowder]

Quote[/b] (dkm1987 @ May 11 2004,5:21)]When I cut I go with a 35-25-30 split and I have no problem dropping BF% but with mild weight loss. If I go to below 100 Grams Carbs per day I drop weight excessively.

Perhaps that's due to the 10% drop in consumption.

 

[Mindwraith]

Fat, or more likely saturated fat and perhaps trans fat are the only factors in macronutrients that would have any real effect given your calories are constant in each situation. I have serious doubts that if you got all those calories from regular fats or omega 3 fats that you would lose any more fat than if you got all your calories from the other two macronutrients or any combination of the three. There's likely a very small difference but nothing we would notice just from naked eye observation. Although that also depends on your body fat % and your goals. If you're already at 13% or less, these factors may begin to show more and more significance.

I've experimented for the past 2 years now, the only constant is that eating less (lower calories) = fat loss. The effect on muscle growth is minimal when it comes to bulking, whether you eat carbs before or after working out or however you choose to strategize. Weight training increases muscle growth given sufficiant calories. I can't even say for sure if cycling calories really has any major effect on the speed of fat loss or muscle loss vs fat loss ratios. It really comes down to genetics vs effort. The better your genetics, the less effort it takes to achieve certain goals and the worse your genetics the more effort it takes. Even then there are limits, some of those limits are again genetics, others could be age related.
It all boils down to the simplest of factors, eat less #### more and ya lose fat. Eat too little for too long and you lose too much muscle vs fat. That would be the ONLY thing that seems consistant in my personal experience. I can't get myself below 13%, my genetics just wont let me w/o going to the extreems of Ultimate Diet 2.0.

 

[Mindwraith]

After reading my own post I came to another question, or perhaps a revelation, or maybe its just a brain fart.
If you diet down to the point of where you're losing a lot of fat, but muscle as well, that may not actually be a problem. Why? Because think about it. When you lose muscle, thanks to "muscle memory" you can regain that lost muscle much more quickly than it took you the first time around. If thats true then you'll be taking in excess calories for a shorter period of time, thus gaining less fat vs muscle right?

Well that of course is completely wrong if there exists such a thing as "fat memory".

So to put it into numbers, your HST cycle is 6 weeks.
You eat calories in excess of mantainence for that entire 6 weeks and gain 5 lbs of muscle and 2 lbs of fat. Well then you diet hard for 6 more weeks and lose that 5 lbs of muscle and 2 lbs of fat. The next time you eat in excess again, you regain that 5 lbs of muscle in only 4 weeks, but it took you 6 weeks to gain 2 lbs of fat, so this time around you only gained 1.33 lbs of fat. Those being just numbers off the top of my head to use as an example.

 

[imported_dkm1987]

Quote[/b] (Mindwraith @ May 12 2004,2:15)]Well that of course is completely wrong if there exists such a thing as "fat memory".

Which there is in a manner of speaking, fat cells only shrink when fat is lost they do not actually vanish, unless liposuction is used, so it would only take an overabundance of calories again to expand the stored fat in the cells. I think you really hit it though, on two parts genetics and muscle memory. Controlling the calories in both the growth and reduction phase you could possibly outgrow the fat accumualtion with lean mass? But genetically, without chemical enhancements, we are all predisposed to a maximum or minimum in both fat free mass and fat respectively.

I just know that some people, including myself, have differing reactions, tolerance, and metabolic processes to differing foods. Besides the obvious, gas, higher fiber lower GI carbs have little to no effort on me metabolically. So if I were to eat say 2500 cal of low GI carbs vs 2500 protein I am sure my body would respond differently. So I do agree it is greatly a matter of calories, but the type and role the macronutrients have can't be overlooked.

 

[Manic]

Hi Viper,

You might have already read them but... I find the articles in the thinkmuscle nutrition section, quite helpful. (some off them pretty basic, but still quite helpful)

http://www.thinkmuscle.com/sections/nutrition.htm

Have you decided to follow the ultimate diet 2.0?

 

[Techo]

I have wondered about this topic for sometime as well. Lyle and Bryan talk quite a bit about it in the FAQ. I don't have time to read all of it tonight and discuss it but here's one thing they say:

Quote[/b] ]Actually, most guys take in too much protein. It isn't that too much protein will hurt them - assuming they are healthy to begin with - but too much protein can actually inhibit gains. I know, it sounds totally contradictory to what you read everywhere, but it is true. Let me explain.

The ability of the body to grow is effected by the ratio of protein to carbs. It is an inverted U shaped curve - or bell curve - where the top or highest point of the curve is a ratio of 12-15% protein to carbs (diet consisting of ~15% protein). At one peak you have all carbs, at the other you have all protein. It has to do with thermogenesis and hormones.

So, if a skinny guy wants to gain weight, he needs to plan a diet where he gets 15% of his calories from protein.
Now this may seem contradictory to the general rule of 1 gram per pound bodyweight. I'm not saying that a guy can't gain weight with more than 15% calories from protein, I'm only saying that weight gain is greatest at 15%. He will be ok with an intake of 0.75 grams/pound FFM to gain muscle. In fact, everybody should use FFM instead of bodyweight to plan protein intake, but sometimes it's just too hard to figure it out, so most people use bodyweight.

For a guy who isn't all that skinny, or even a little fat, he should increase his protien intake to 20-25%. This will increase thermogenesis and prevent some fat gain as calories increase above maintenance.

Input?

 

[VIPER]

You all bring up good points! I have read some of the articles written in the FAQ and by Lyle, but thanks for the suggestion.

Manic: Yeah, I have decided to use the Ultimate Diet 2.0, but I'm still waiting for it to arrive in the mail . Once I get it I'll read it as efficiently and quickly as humanly possible so I can get started pronto.

I was also thinking about the fat intake during a calorie restricition. Having fat in a diet can effect natural testosterone levels, right (or would it not be noticeable enough?). So, it would seem to be beneficial to include fat at reasonable levels within your diet so your body can maintain as much muscle as possible. Just taking a wild guess! There are some training and nutrition books that have fat grams at 10-20g when trying to get lean. This seems kinda rediculous to me. Even if this were to be proven effective, I would have a hard to time eating such a small amount of fat anyway and I just flat out wouldn't want to.

 

[Manic]

From available studies, it seems that an extremely low-fat diet will very likely lower testosterone levels. But a high fat diet will not always promote high testosterone levels. So, I guess that keeping your fat intake (especially saturated an monounsaturated fat) to a moderate amount (probably around 30%) should keep your testosterone level at an acceptable level. Trans fat might lower testosterone levels, but (as Aaron and Cliner9er would probably say ) there's still probably not enough evidence about it to worry. Also, according to some studies, polyunsaturated fat does not promote the same testosterone increase.


Reed, M.J., et al., Dietary lipids: an additional regulator of plasma levels of sex hormone binding globulin. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 1987. 64(5): p. 1083-5

Dorgan, J.F., et al., Effects of dietary fat and fiber on plasma and urine androgens and estrogens in men: a controlled feeding study. Am J Clin Nutr, 1996. 64(6): p. 850-5.

Volek, J.S., W.J. Kraemer, J.A. Bush, T. Incledon, and M. Boetes. Testosterone and cortisol in relationship to dietary nutrients and resistance exercise. J. Appl. Physiol. 82(1):49-54. 1997.

Hamalainen, E.K., et al., Decrease of serum total and free testosterone during a low-fat high-fibre diet. J Steroid Biochem, 1983. 18(3): p. 369-70.

Hamalainen E, Adlercreutz H, Puska P, et al.: Diet and serum sex hormones in healthy men. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry 20(1): 459-464, 1984.

Hanis, T. et al., "Effects of Dietary Trans Fatty Acids on Reproductive Performance of Wistar Rats", British Journal of Nutrition 61:519-529, 1989

 

[Aaron_F]

If you actually look at all the reports on fat and testosterone, they provide no concensus.
Also, the vast majority of the low fat diets they provided were extremely high fibre, low protein diets.
Carbs and protein have a more consistent effect with test than fat does.

 

[imported_dkm1987]

If you haven't already you might want to read this article @ Think Muscle, although quite boring it is very interesting in Protein/Carb ratios and their effects on Test.

http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/incledon/diet-01.htm

 

[Aaron_F]

Its a nice article as well, there is an articel from NutritioN Research reviews (not on pubmed, but its a couple of years old) that is excellent as well. However spends very little time on fat due to the lack of consistent effects.

 

[VIPER]

Thanks, I'll get to reading both of those.

 

[Aaron_F]

Quote[/b] (VIPER @ May 12 2004,10:52)]Say two diets both equal 2500 calories but one has 50g fat, 180g protein, and 332.5g carbs VS. a diet using 100g fat, 180g protein, and 220g carbs.

In terms of the origonal question, depending on how the person responds, there is bound to be little difference between the two, as long as protein remains equal.

 

[VIPER]

Thanks Aaron. I also heard that the brain only uses carbohydrates for energy, is there any truth to that at all?

 

[Aaron_F]

Quote[/b] (VIPER @ May 16 2004,8:48)]Thanks Aaron. I also heard that the brain only uses carbohydrates for energy, is there any truth to that at all?

Not 100% true

for the most part the brain requires glucose, along with certain areas of the kidneys. In time of low carb or starvation, the brain adapts to using ketones. However there are still a small number of cells within the body that require glucose, like some areas of the brain, RBC's, parts of the kidney etc

 

[VIPER]

Quote[/b] (Aaron_F @ May 15 2004,10:48)]

Quote[/b] (VIPER @ May 16 2004,8:48)]Thanks Aaron. I also heard that the brain only uses carbohydrates for energy, is there any truth to that at all?

Not 100% true
for the most part the brain requires glucose, along with certain areas of the kidneys. In time of low carb or starvation, the brain adapts to using ketones. However there are still a small number of cells within the body that require glucose, like some areas of the brain, RBC's, parts of the kidney etc

Your anwers are always informative, thanks! How did you become as knowledgable as you are about nutrition, etc? Is your job centered somewhat around these areas?