LOL Bru - Surgery was waaaay before I was able to do Slow Burn - but I did hit the ground all right - with crutches. My hip pre-op was so bad the surgeon had me on 2 of 'em for the first six weeks. Fun flying home from Europe, I can tell ya. Of course I did have the satisfaction of setting off every alarm at every airport I went through. These days I just stand in front of the alarm gate, hold up my hand and say "call for a wand and a female attendant, please!"

But seriously - it has been an amazing turn-around. Four years ago I was in chronic pain, day and night. Could barely walk. Could only stand for a few minutes. Couldn't bend. Dressing took an hour. Grocery shopping was a nightmare. Funny, the small things we take for granted. This afternoon I did a major house-cleaning, made some low carb Meyer Lemon ice-cream and a Meyer Lemon cheesecake (Trader Joes had a sale on Meyer lemons yesterday!) - and was aware of my body moving easily, and so grateful I could work so hard. Never would have felt that way before.

Have a great week . . .

Lisa

It amazes me how far they have come with hip and knee replacement and resurfacings. I have a friend that is going to try the new injections, for his knee's. I know at least 8 people with new knees and hip's that all wish they hadn't waited, and where all glad they did it. With the bone infection they had me in a wheel chair for over a year, I was really glad to get out. I can handle the pain every day, lets me know I'm still alive. As long as I'm not on uneven ground I can get around really well. Yep I set off alarms now too with the 6" plate and 8 screws that are in my right leg. Had to run to the court house to drop off some paper work when I found out I set those off, I had wondered. Just glad your doing so well. Keep it up, I'm sure Slow Burn has real helped get your strength back, plus add some. What a great turn around, keep up the great work...Bru

Are there any professional body builders that stick to a strict no-carb diet? From my research thus far, glycogen is needed only when doing high intensity exercises and only a small amount will be used in the gym when lifting heavy weights. Glycogen is then constantly replenished in the muscles by gluconeogenesis from dietary protein and thus you never need carbs at all to sustain high-intensity exercises. For longer endurance exercising, the body's use of glycogen is much different in a keto-adapted body. The body runs primary on fat and will actually run longer than it would normally. I have several studies on this.


Is this essentially correct?

Can anyone lead me to a body builder that maintains a no-carb up diet?

I haven't seen any studies done long term on the impact of muscle building on 0-carb for bodybuilders.

I currently have done a near 0 carb diet and have maintained the same weight and waist for the past 2 months. My max bench press has increased by 40 pounds during this time to 280. I also have tons of energy at the gym and every lift increases every time I go. I don't know if I have lost that much fat, but I certainly havent gained any. I want to lose the last of my belly fat and am wondering if I have to have these carb-ups to do so.

Carbohydrates drive insulin drives fat accumulation. It's contradictory to advise to eat carbs to lose fat. Carbs is what causes fat to accumulate in the first place. How can it now become what causes fat to be released? Protein also causes insulin to rise but only temporarily. If you want to lower insulin to the lowest you can, eat less protein and more fat while cutting all carbs.

Buzz Kill you might want to check out these sites for info Mark McManus is a LC bodybuilder, but he likes carb cycling.

http://www.musclehack.com/

Here is a link to the no carb site you might ask under the exercise forum, those guys are really into zero carb.

http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.o...031a0954b6316f7

Hope you find the info your looking for...Bru

Thanks for the link, but its not exactly what I am looking for. I've been having some battles across other forums on whether or not carbs are needed for exercise. I am nearly totally convinced I don't need them and have done extensive research that has lead me to believe this. The only thing that is missing is a mainstream bodybuilder that never has carb-ups.

Ingesting carbs leads to insulin, which leads to the inhibition of growth hormones and promotes fat accumulation. I just don't get it. It also makes some sense that it is so simple. Why try and decide when you need to place your carb-up meal?

The reasons people really do it I believe, have to do with the fact that they have been conditioned to eat carbs their whole life and find it hard to completely give them up. Also, everyone else does it and it works very well, so why give it up.

I guess I answered my own questions and will continue on this diet until I see something different.

Buzzkill did you do a search on active no carb website. Lots of info about bodybuilding on no carb. From all the research I've done there are basically no essential carbs. You can get everything you need from protein and fat. Your essential amino's are easily supplied by those. From the experiences I've read it can take your body as long as 6 months to fully adapt to no carb. Some say they see a huge change in 2 weeks. Drop by and let us know how your doing...Bru

Bru: I checked out the active no carb website and though its mostly inactive (ironic?) I did find some decent discussion, though nothing completely groundbreaking.

I found a study showing that keto adaptation improved the cardio ability of sedentary cyclists after 6 weeks and no training on a pure keto diet, even after wearing a backpack to add on the weight that they lost during the diet period. 6 other trained cyclists showed an non-significant increase on the same keto-diet
.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2

I then found this in the article




This is really discouraging, but this is just a conjecture, no actual science was even done here to prove anything.

I have found another article (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pi...8&blobtype=pdf).
In this study they had their subjects do relatively intense leg extension lifts at 60% max. One leg had twice the starting glycogen as the other. Each person performed this leg exercise until exhaustion twice for each leg. The first time for each leg had a non-significant difference in the time til exhaustion. The second time through, the higher glycogen leg went significantly longer, but its conclusions were that..



It also said that 80-90% of the total anaerobic energy came from creatine phosphate stored in the muscles. This is good news for me and perhaps shuts the door on the controversy on whether its that important for me to have vast supply of glycogen. I am fairly certain on a 0-carb diet that I do infact still have a good amount of glycogen and that it is just not used for any kind of endurance once keto-adapted, only fat is.

But, my main goal is to be VERY explosive and be able to compete at a high level at the major sports. 'Explosion' correlates very highly with success at any major sport.

I have read elsewhere that glycogen is indeed used as the second source of energy during intense activity. Its like a sliding scale - the more intense the activity the more glycogen will be used and the higher chance its the limiting factor. Creatine phosphate though, seems to still be the number one factor everywhere I look, though it is very close when you say need to do a couple extremely heavy power cleans.

Now, as for me. Last time at the gym I had my first 'reversal of strength'. Two weeks ago I benched 10x225...just barely getting the last rep up. Yesterday I only managed 9.5. I was very disappointed. I've held tightly to my diet and exercise routine and had seen improvements EVERY single time I had gone for the last 2 months. I think I am being a little harsh on myself because I did 3x245 next, one more rep than I did two weeks ago. I also had increased my incline by 3 reps just 4 days ago and one week ago I increased my dumb bell bench by 3-5 pounds or so. I just really don't want this diet and scheme to fail. Also, I think endurance lifts (which I consider a set of 10 to be) have more variability than max lifts and this could be a reason as well.

Also, I am not sure I have lost that much fat, which is somewhat of a disappointment. I think I look a little more defined (not positive though) and weigh just right around the same amount. My body fat machine says I am the same. I have eaten a ton during this period not paying attention to calories. Perhaps I need to lighten the load to get my fat mobilized. Perhaps I am just putting too much dietary fat to use.

Would our bodies evolved and adapted such mechanisms that although meat is the preferred source of nutrition that carbs would be needed to do high-intense activities? Did early man feast on fruit in the morning in order to have extra energy to kill during the daily hunt?

I think its too early to tell and one 'bad' day is not nearly enough evidence to assume that a small amount of fruit is necessary for optimal growth. I have also yet to actually start a cardio program, though I think I am going to be doing high intensity sprint intervals soon, to check on my sprinting capability. I also haven't played much actual sports which is the main reason I have wanted to get into this program. I think these two things added in time will determine if I do need to incorporate carbs into the diet.

So again, can meat be so good for you, yet hinder one aspect of every day life, intense athletic movements?

One good book about LowCarb and Fitness is 'Ketogenic Diet' from Lyle McDonald. He recommends us to follow a TKD (Targered Ketogenic Diet), that means eat carbohydrates before and after exercising.

There is a GREAT keto (very low carb diet) forum over at Bodybuilding.com- go to the Nutrition section and look under KETO- there are LOTS of new postings daily and lots of bodybuilders who do TKD , CKD and SKD. Lots and lots of great Info.

Carbs are NOT needed to build muscle and LOTS of people are body builders who do not eat carbs!

I lift regularly and feel SO MUCH better on a very low carb diet. I find carbs make me gain weight and feel like crap! I look and feel MUCH thinner now that I lift 4 times a week and do maybe two 20 min HIIT a week than I was when I was running 50 miles a week and eating carbs- and all that cardio caused me to gain weight in my belly.

I have ALWAYS had a "belly", I thought it was genetically impossible for me to have a 6 -pack, well, now that I am LC'ing I can finally see my Ab muscles! Its amazing! I will NEVER go back to eating carbs, ever. Also I think bodybuilding goes hand-n-hand with low carbing, and if you do both you can totally TRANSFORM your body, I know that I did. I went from 156 pounds and about 25% Body fat to 128 pounds and 13% body fat over the summer.-- I went back to more carbs because I started training for my 8th marathon, and guess what? I gained weight in my Belly and back and my Body fat went up to 18%.

I am now happily back to LC and weight lifting where I will stay forever!- The only reason I have run 8 marathons over the past 3 years is to maintain my weight and feel "un-bloated". Now that I am LC'ing I finally am FREE from doing all that running!! I no longer feel bloated and I have tons of energy.

here is the forum link, if it works:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/forumdisplay.php?f=61

I do not know if I can call myself a body builder any more but I certainly worked hard at it for a very long time. (30 years I would say) and over the time of chasing muscle mass I accumulated body fat. I hated to sacrifice strength so was stubborn in giving up the body weight. Seems to me that every time I do low carb I do drop a bit of strength and it bothers me in my caveman skull. "Grog no can lift woman?" "Grog eat Froddo, then lift"

Seriously, thats been my BIGGEST hangup with my battle to lose weight. I will watch THE WORLDS STRONGEST MAN competition and all of those guys have some serious bellies (unless they are roidin) to go with their incredible strength.

Anyway at my age its time to get all swweeeetly buffed now isnt it ha ha.

Awesome post! Could you post some pics?