Cutting, catabolism, and glycogen replenishment page

[silvance]

I've had great success in the past on a primal diet, but at the time it was entirely to lose weight. When I started lifting I went back to a standard bodybuilding IIFYM diet (40/40/30 I believe.) I'm trying to cut now and I want to go back to primal, because I felt far better on that diet, but there are a few things I'm worried about. I've heard a lot about glycogen replenishment and how it's harder to replenish your muscles without a lot of carbs, but I know next to nothing about the actual process or the science behind that. I've just seen people saying that if you don't get enough carbs to replenish your muscle glycogen post-workout, your body will go into catabolism. Is there any truth to that?

[Neckhammer]

Short answer is no.... Well actually there is just enough truth in it to confuse people. Part of catabolism is losing fat. Is that what you want? If so following primal with a lower carb load is ideal for retaining lean mass and dropping the goo.

Catabolism is not specific to carb intake is what I should say in short.

The only thing carbing up does is enables a quicker turnaround to exercise at a high intensity again. So if your doing 2 a day sessions or something then you will need it.

[silvance]

So I can just keep with 50-100 carbs per day and continue lifting heavy on a 400-500 calorie deficit? That will allow me to retain muscle mass while losing fat?

[TheFastCat]

Just do lean gains - it's designed for eaxctly what you want to accomplish

Intermittent fasting diet for fat loss, muscle gain and health

short version:

- BCAAs prior to a fasted work out session
- carbs after
- 16 hours a day fasted

[Neckhammer]

So I can just keep with 50-100 carbs per day and continue lifting heavy on a 400-500 calorie deficit? That will allow me to retain muscle mass while losing fat?

Yeah... you might consider reducing your training volume to accommodate the fact you are not getting as many calories though. I don't have a clue how often or what sort of training you are doing, but the "rule" if there is one is to keep your protein up and do some resistance training to retain lean mass while losing fat.