You NEED Carbs In Your Diet

Carbs are divisive, so I’m going to be brave and try to break it down so you can come away in 3-4 minutes time pretty confident in what’s true, what isn’t, what matters, and what doesn’t when it comes to eating carbs. To make sure we’re on the same page, this is written on the basis that people reduce or cut carbs from their diet in the belief that consuming carbs either makes them gain fat or prevents them from losing fat, and that cutting them out helps them lose fat or speeds up their fat loss. Whether they realise it or not, this thinking stems from the insulin hypothesis, which in it’s simplest form is:

• You eat carbs

• Your body responds by secreting insulin

• The insulin prevents you from burning fat for energy (oh no)

• The insulin instead drives it into your fat cells for storage (oh no)

• Your body thinks it’s starving, so slows your metabolism and increases your hunger (oh no no no no no).

There is a bit more to it than that, but that’s all you need to know for now. As such the insulin hypothesis has given rise to a ton of low carb diet trends (Atkins, Keto, LCHF, etc.), putting the blame for bodyfat gain and/or poor health firmly at the carbohydrate’s door. But I reckon that’s unfair and wrong, (clearly from the title of the email). Let me explain why 1) Science doesn’t agree… Let’s start with the biggie, the science behind this. Carbs are a huge food group. They are highly palatable (tasty), and often hard to eliminate from your diet without big changes (because tasty). So to even consider eliminating carbs from your diet had better come with good reason… And scientifically, there isn’t. In fact, there is ZERO evidence saying you will gain weight (bodyfat) if you are in a calorie deficit (i.e. burn more calories than you consume). The insulin hypothesis alone simply cannot cause weight or fat gain. You MUST also be in a calorie surplus (consuming more calories than you expend). Lemmie say it louder for the people in the back… A high(er) carbohydrate diet is absolutely not the sole reason for anyone’s weight/fat gain. The proof? A meta-analysis by Sartorius et al. in 2018 found that from 22 studies looking into whether a high carbohydrate diet leads to an increased risk of obesity found: “It cannot be concluded that a high carbohydrate diet or an increased percentage of total energy intake in the form of carbohydrates increases the odds of obesity”. And Hall at al. 2015 found that you do not need to reduce carbohydrate intake to illicit fat loss, only a calorie deficit, and that when protein is equal low carbohydrate intake has no benefit over any other carbohydrate intake. Which is why for fat loss clients I aim to achieve a roughly 10% calorie deficit, with protein at 1.5-2g of protein per kg of bodyweight, leaving the rest to personal preference and the path of least resistance to aid consistency over time. 2) Carbs can affect your bodyweight without affecting your bodyfat… Your bodyweight and bodyfat are not the same thing. Increases and decreases in bodyfat are not the sole reason for change in scale weight. It could be any one of or a combination of things like:

• Changes in water

• Changes in stored glycogen

• Inflammation

• Having pooped or not pooped

• The menstrual cycle

• A bodypart fell off

• Changes in bodyfat

• Changes in muscle mass

And the fact of the matter is, that changes in body composition are a slowly occurring mechanism, and pretty much all of the others occur quicker. So, if you’ve lost significant weight very quickly… its more likely to be something like water, glycogen, your hormonal cycle or dropping the kids off at the pool. With that in mind, let's return back to carbohydrates specifically, and their effect on glycogen and water. Our bodies can store around 400-800g of glycogen (broken down carbohydrate) in the muscles and liver depending on how big you are. For every gram of glycogen we store, we retain between 2.5-4g of water in our bodies. That could be 1-3kg of weight total just from glycogen and water. Now let’s reverse that equation. For every gram of glycogen we burn from our stores, we could also lose 2.5-4g of water, and lose 1-3kg in weight. You could achieve this by exercising hard for a few days and consuming zero carbs. But remember that weight is glycogen and water, not bodyfat. Meaning that the next time you consume carbs, you’ll be extremely likely to regain some or all the weight in glycogen and water and freak yourself out. To me that’s a whole lot of measuring, reacting to, and stressing over something that you’re not actually interested in (I’m guessing “looking dry bro” or “girl you depleted” isn’t the aim). PLUS you’ll likely feel a lot worse when you’re lighter because you’re dehydrated, and have no energy because you have literally depleted your energy stores within your muscles. Which leads us beautifully to my final point: 3) Carbs are near essential for optimal performance. Those glycogen stores in your muscles, and glycogen in your bloodstream from way back in point one, are REALLY important for performance. This is especially true if your jam is what’s currently in vogue; intermittent resistance training and anything higher intensity/shorter duration. Without going deep into energy systems, the basic premise is that we get energy for movement by breaking ATP into ADP, and to get more energy we need to reform ATP to break again. When available, the first thing used to reform the ATP is glucose (sugar/a form of carbohydrate), which itself is broken down to release energy which is used to reform the ATP, which can then be used to fuel the cell. Can you see where I’m going with this? Proteins and fats can be used if glucose is not available, but glucose is the first option, especially in resistance training as it is quicker and easier to utilise in the energy systems that are most often used in repeated shorter bursts of effort. So… If you want to perform at your best and get all the benefits of high performance on your strength, fitness and physique, you’re going to want to have the preferred energy source readily available. Which is why all athletes who operate at high intensities will consume higher carbohydrate diets. To wrap this up, cutting carbs can help you lose weight, but only if it results in a calorie deficit. The calorie deficit is the sole effective mechanism on weight loss. Focus on that, because the benefits of keeping carbs in your diet HUGELY outweigh the negatives, especially for the gym going population. It’s counterproductive to cut them out because keeping them in will mean:

• You have more energy

• You perform better

• You get stronger and fitter faster

• Your physique will benefit from your strength and fitness gains

• You’ll look “fuller”

• You’ll enjoy the process more because you don’t feel like you have to restrict a great food group.

Enjoy your carbs! Ian.