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I, and many top fitness competitors, have found that following a carbohydrate-controlled diet can help eliminate a lot of body fat! If you are interested in learning how controlling your carbohydrate intake can help you achieve your weight and bodyfat goals, read on. In this article, I outline the specific details of how I help many of my clients achieve their best condition through carb control.
Carbohydrate controlled diets are certainly not anything new. For many, many years a controlled carbohydrate diet has been recommended for individuals with diabetes. Many physicians and dietitians noticed patients who controlled their carbohydrate intake with their diet generally had more favorable blood glucose readings as well as a better HbA1C (an indicator of long term blood sugar levels) in addition to weight loss (1). However, complete elimination of carbohydrates is often not recommended because it leads to ketosis which often creates great fatigue, lack of concentration and may eventually burn up stored protein (or muscle). The key is finding the right balance for your body so that you can achieve relatively consistent blood sugar levels and as well as your weight loss goals.
Carbohydrate is stored in your muscle and your liver as glycogen which can be used later when you are active and exercising. This carbohydrate gets into your muscles and liver because insulin helps push it in there. Insulin is a hormone that’s secreted from your pancreas and it’s job is to help maintain glucose (blood sugar) balance in your blood. Sometimes when you eat a high carbohydrate meal, too much insulin is produced and that insulin can often push more than what your body may need into storage. If your glycogen levels are near full, then your body’s next step is to find another place to store that energy and it’s in your fat cells.
Broadly speaking, women may have several hundred grams of stored glycogen and men may have four to five hundred grams. However, a lot of that depends on the individual’s activity level and muscle development. The more active you are and the more muscle you have, the more potential you have to store carbohydrate before it becomes fat. Having a good understanding of this principle helps in determining the right balance of carbohydrate for your body. Also keep in mind, if you are overeating protein and fat while you are trying to control your carbs, you still may not achieve your weight goals. Having more total calories than your body needs, regardless of the macronutrient (i.e. protein, carbs, and fat), your body will likely store that extra energy as fat.
I have found, it’s best to keep protein and fat consistent (often with protein around 30%-40% of your diet and fat around 20%-25%). If you want to find out how many grams of carbohydrate are right for you, it starts with determining your total caloric need to help you lose weight, and usually just 1lb per week. If you do not know how to do that, I would recommend simply going onto www.myfitnesspal.com and follow the prompts for setting up your goals. Once you have a certain calorie target (we will use 1400 calories as an example for a woman), I would generally set protein to 30%, fat to 20% and then carbs to 50%.
I have found for many people, if they have not been tracking their diet, simply setting this up and tracking can lead to a decent amount of weight loss over a good amount of time (usually 3-6 months of steady tracking and often losing 15-30lbs or possibly more). Once my client reaches a plateau after steady tracking for multiple months, that’s when we take a closer look at carbohydrates. Depending on my client’s diligence to tracking, we may take carbohydrates down while maintaining protein and fat levels. If they were consuming 185g of carbs, we may take it down to 160 or 150g. This alone may be enough to produce another 10-20lbs (depending on what they need to lose). We would likely follow that through until we hit another weight plateau (which is marked by no weight lost after several weeks ensuring the client is on point with hitting and tracking their numbers). Once that weight plateau is reached, we may take carbs down again but this time possibly add in carb cycling. Carbcycling is when you have a high carbohydrate day followed by several lower carbohydrate days. Carb cycling can be effective because it helps provide fat burning opportunities with lower carbohydrate days and still lets you replenish glycogen stores that get used up with a lot of activity and prevents ketosis and extra muscle wasting. Many bodybuilding and other fitness competitors use carb cycling to get into top condition. I learned a lot about effective carb control and carb cycling from my work with Dr. Klemczewski a couple of years ago. What he taught me helped me get into one of the leanest conditions ever!
My first experience with a carb-controlled diet: 11 years ago I decided to get back into shape by entering the Body-For-Life program, which is a 12-week transformation program. About half way through the program, I felt like I was hitting a wall with my progress and I just wasn’t sure about how the rest of the program would end for me. That’s when I happened to enter a GNC store and chatted with the guy behind the counter. This guy had some experience with bodybuilding competitions and I chatted with him about my transformation competition. He asked me about my diet and I told him what I was eating. He quickly told me I was eating too many carbs and I should eat more protein instead. He said if I kept my carbs closer to 150g and my protein closer to 250g, I might see better results. It was a simple suggestion and I wasn’t even sure I would do it. I really didn’t know anything about the guy telling me this information. But, for some reason, I decided to listen to him, and I’m reallyglad I did! Interestingly enough, my weight came down only a little bit but my bodyfat dropped like a brick! By the end of the 12 weeks, my body fat went from 16% down to only 6% and my weight only dropped 5lbs! It was such a dramatic change, I won! After that, I made sure to really thank that GNC guy!
So does carb-controlled dieting work? Absolutely! However, here is the catch: it requires diligence to stay on top of it. If you want to be successful with it, you should track it like a competitor. Also, you should definitely set a weight and bodyfat target to shoot for with this style of dieting. Once you achieve that target, you should work to maintain and increase the amount of calories you are eating, otherwise you will likely harm your metabolism in the long run. Finally, If you want to see great results from following this diet, I would recommend having a trained eye help you with the process. At Integrated Fitness we can help you achieve your best body! If you are interested in learning more, please email: jonathanearnold@gmail.com.
“Joyful is the person who finds wisdom,the one who gains understanding. For wisdom is more profitable than silver,and her wages are better than gold.” Proverbs 3:13-15 (NLT)
1) M.C. Gannon et al. Diabetes Journal September 2004
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