Carbohydrates are stored in 2 places in your body. Any guesses where?
No not your ass…well technically speaking that may not be true. They’re stored in the form of Glycogen in your muscles and your Liver. We’ll just concentrate on the muscles here because, well, let’s face it, who wants a sexy Liver??
A recent study conducted on glycogen metabolism for athletes showed if glycogen stores in muscle are depleted for too long like in low carb or extremely low calorie diets, you just can’t keep up the intensity of exercise required to improve performance, gain or tone muscle and even create that feel-good factor that most people crave.
You just simply have to restore muscle glycogen levels to continue to make long term progress in your style of training whether it be lifting heavier, running longer and anything in between.
Here’s a sample diet plan for an athlete that may give you a shock…don’t worry you don’t have to eat like this but let’s just have a look at how a 70kg Ultra Endurance event athlete would eat for performance:
Breakfast
Usual Intake:
Fast-food egg and cheese biscuit (32 g)
Coffee (0 g)32
Total carbohydrates: 32g
Additional foods to boost carbohydrates:
2 hash brown potato patties (30 g)
16 oz of orange juice (44 g)
Café latte (18 g)
New total carbohydrates: 124g
Morning snack
Usual Intake:
½ cup of peanuts (12 g)
8 oz of apple juice (28 g)
Total carbohydrates: 40g
Additional foods to boost carbohydrates:
8 oz of Greek strawberry yogurt (27 g)
½ cup of granola (38 g)
16 oz of cranberry apple juice (68 g)
New total carbohydrates: 145g
Lunch
Usual Intake:
Grilled chicken salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Water
Total carbohydrates: 10g
Additional foods to boost carbohydrates:
Salad additions: ¼ cup of croutons (13 g)
½ cup of garbanzo beans (29 g)
½ cup of bell peppers (4 g)
1 ciabatta roll (28 g)
8 oz of berry fruit smoothie (28 g)
New total carbohydrates: 112g
During workouts
Usual Intake:
Water (0)
8 oz of sports drink (15 g)
Total carbohydrates: 15g
Addition to boost carbohydrates:
16-oz carbohydrate energy drink (30 g)
New total carbohydrates: 45 g
Post workout
Usual Intake:
16 oz of sports drink (30 g)
8-oz whey protein mixed with water (8 g)
Total carbohydrates: 38g
Addition to boost carbohydrates:
12 oz of endurance formula sports drink (22 g)
16-oz whey protein mixed with 8 oz of milk and 8 oz of vanilla yogurt with 2 tablespoons of honey (78 g)
New total carbohydrates: 100g
Dinner
Usual Intake:
6 oz of beef flank steak (0 g)
½ cup of brown rice (25 g)
1 cup of green beans (10 g)
1 cup of broccoli (11 g)
1 cup of mixed fruit salad (30 g)
Water
Total carbohydrates: 76g
Additional foods to boost carbohydrates:
6-oz flank steak sandwich on large Kaiser roll (52 g)
Large baked potato with ½ cup of plain yogurt (76 g)
1 cup of green peas (25 g)
1 cup of broccoli (11)
Add ½ cup of fruit-flavoured yogurt to mixed fruit salad (44 g)
New total carbohydrates: 198g
Bedtime snack
Usual Intake:
3 cups popcorn (20 g)
Diet cola (0 g)
Total carbohydrates: 20g
Additional foods to boost carbohydrates:
1 cup of raisin bran cereal (45 g)
1 cup of milk (12 g)
1 medium banana (27 g)
New total carbohydrates: 84g
Usual totals (daily): 231 g or 3.3 g/kg BW
Total with additional foods to boost carbohydrates (daily): 808 g or 11.5 g/kg BW
The below table gives an idea of a selection of high quality carbohydrate foods:
Data are from the US Department of Agriculture.144 Abbreviations: CHO, carbohydrate; PRO, protein.
This study showed that men and women restore muscle glycogen at the same rate as long as enough carbohydrates and energy are consumed, so that’s reassurance for everyone no matter if you’re a man or woman you can replenish and recover at the same rate.
Fasting or low carbohydrate diets may not have a detrimental effect on muscle glycogen levels at rest because muscle glycogen isn’t an immediate fuel preference at rest. That means that at rest you could still feel normal but as soon as you engage in very intense exercise, your muscles may not have adequate energy and stores to fuel or recover from intense training. And that’s a problem because, well, who wants to train at the same level all the time? And what psychological implications would this have on individuals – to see yourself never progressing no matter how hard you try?
The table below gives you an idea of what your carbohydrate intake should look like in order to replenish muscle stores so you can recover adequately and keep enjoying progression:
So now you’ve trained, what do you do next? Well, understand that muscles that have seen a sudden drop in glycogen levels – like we try and create during our 30 minute very intense sessions – are going to be just as ready to absorb and suck up nutrients after exercise.
Insulin released from the Pancreas is also heightened, but so is the Insulin sensitivity in muscles…this the the time to replenish and eat good quality carbs!
Carb overload – check this out it’s gonna scare you!
A maximum of 10g per kg of bodyweight, plus enough total calories to restore energy balance are needed to replenish and recover fully over a 24 hour period following very intense exercise or competition.
If you have done a light training session then obviously you can get away with less…the key is to use this as a guideline and match it to your intensity level to help you consume the right amount of carbohydrates. But damn…that sounds like alot! I mean I weigh 87kg so that would mean 870g carbohydrates…scroll up to the carbohydrate food chart above and do the calculations for your bodyweight. How many potatoes is that? How much bread is that? OMG the shock and the horror!
Ok so now that we are all in shock about this 10g per kg of bodyweight business, let’s see what else studies show…
When athletes were given moderate carbohydrate diets as opposed to high carbohydrate diets, what do you think happened to their muscle glycogen levels?
Yes you’re right…they dropped by 36%…how did you know that?! Well done, you Ok so what do you think happened to their performance?
Yes you’re right again! It did NOT suffer…they were able to maintain performance and training capacity. So how much carbs were they on? 5g per kg bodyweight...so for me at my 88kg (yes it’s gone up by 1kg now because I just took in a pint of water and a banana in the last few minutes!), that’s 440g or 1760 calories which is still ridiculously high but at least it’s not double that! Anyway this is for athletes looking to keep up to the demands of performance based training on a daily basis.
Are YOU an athlete?
Ok the answer may be no, but I’d encourage you to change your thought process and think that actually you ARE. In fact, you may be more in need of performance than an athlete.
You have a career. You have a family. You have friends; all of whom are complex humans and rely on you for professional, social and emotional support at times. You have to cook your own food.
You have to balance things that you don’t even know can affect your day-to-day life like REM sleep, hydration, the language you use and even the things you choose to look at….your life demands are such that you need to perform every day…and at a high level.
So what if you don’t get in a ring and fight, or on a court and play 5 hour matches, or shake your ass for a living (ok so for some that might not be true but you get my point).
Ok I can hear the low carb fraternity right now, saying, “Ok so what happens on low carb diets then, can you still improve performance?”
The short answer is no. After testing athletes on 2g per kg bodyweight, they found that their performance suffered by nearly a 2% drop, whereas the moderate and high carb group all improved by around 6%.
So no carbs or low carbs under 2g per kg bodyweight means you should not expect to, or train to, improve performance. If you are someone who lifts weights and uses that to test progression, on the days when you have had low carbs you should modify your training so you are not pushing to break personal bests.
On the contrary, if you have seen a period of great progression then be mindful that you must start addressing your carbohydrate intake to ensure you continue to progress. If you are someone who is aiming to reduce weight for medical reasons or do not care about progression and performance in the long run and just wish to see the scale weight drop, then it may not apply to you.
So what about your weight? Have you ever heard of the expression “gain weight to lose it?” Nah neither have I because I just made it up as I was typing. Why did I make it up?
People concentrate on seeing the scale weight drop so much that they end up losing water, glycogen and even muscle and this is NOT a long term approach. Eventually when you bottom-out, your progress will slow and even stop and that can happen in as little as a few weeks. Instead, aim to hydrate fully and keep a steady level of muscle glycogen stores to fuel your training, recovery, progression and lifestyle.
Remember your brain uses 20% of your total calorie expenditure and it’s preferred source is…newsflash….glucose (carbs). You’ll find your scale weight may initially go up a bit due to the added water you’re not used to having because you’re always trying to deplete it (or you’ve been taught by society to do this).
Here’s a story about Lou Ferrigno’s experience with low carbs vs balanced carbs – enjoy!
Here’s Franzisca Spritzler, a Dietician and author on her quick take on how everyone is so different:
Ok so here’s a diagram to illustrate what is happening to your carb levels, recovery and training intensity over time:
The diagram shows athletes training twice a day so just keep that in mind. It shows after 3 days, the body cannot repair and replenish enough to sustain intensity as shown by entering the contractile dysfunction zone. Only after lighter training sessions and adequate replenishment can you see levels go back up again and subsequent improvements in performance, which bring with them the progression we desire. How many of us engage in physically strenuous activity and training sessions, unaware of our muscle glycogen levels? How many times have we not been able to get out of 2nd gear during our workout, no matter how hard we try? Or on the contrary, how many times have you hit that purple patch zone where you’re on fire and what seemed so hard last week seems easier this week? These are all physical manifestations of muscle glycogen stores and levels.
Right let’s watch another video before we close this up. What’s that I hear, you want to watch a video of one of my YouTube workouts? Ok then here’s one, remember to like and subscribe
So everyone’s different as Franzisca Spritzler said. This post isn’t to suggest everyone should consume higher carbohydrates as a blanket approach. It’s more to help you realise a possible solution to a problem you may have faced or are facing in feeling like you cannot progress to the next stage of your fitness journey. It’s to offer a research backed potential outlook that may help some people, particularly those who have been afraid to engage in carbohydrates in the diet due to the fear of weight gain, to explore and do your own research to see if this could be worth trying. There are many proven theoretical components in fitness which rely on an element of trial and error to see how they fit in real life for people like you. Remember to consult a professional before you make any changes to address things like food intolerance and medical conditions.
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