I have come to accept that whenever I talk about bad carbs being good, I’m soon in for a fight. Last year, I posted a diet of Troy Alves on an online forum and was bashed when people read the amount of carbs he was actually consuming. The chorus of internet gurus shouted to the hilltops that it was absolutely impossible for someone to become so lean while eating such ungodly carbs. It was ridiculous how quickly people responded with their uninformed disapproval. “Idiots”, was my thought. However, in lieu of setting off a war of the gurus, I didn’t respond.There are as many ideologies when it comes to bodybuilding nutrition as there are in politics. You have the liberals, moderates, and conservatives. And depending upon the issue, liberals become more conservative and vice versa. On certain issues, it’s difficult to distinguish a conservative Democrat from a liberal Republican and everyone’s arguments descend into confusion. It’s the same when it comes to everyone’s opinions on carbohydrates. There’s the all-carbs-are-bad-when-you’re-dieting-so-don’t-ever-let-them-touch-your-lips-under-any-circumstance-approach , the no-carb high-fat approach or the low carb medium fat diet juxtaposed with the higher carb approach at the other end of the spectrum.
So where do I on stand on carbs? The fact is carbs can make you fat and can make you big. And contrary to what the draconian low carb purveyors claims that they are not anabolic, I disagree. They are totally anabolic. They may not be anabolic in the text book sense like proteins where amino acids are used for new structure. However, they are part of the process of getting big. They provide you with energy and create important support and drive for insulin which funnels nutrients into muscles; amino acids included to literally drive growth. To say they are not important is like saying, “Ok we are going to build a building. We have all the material we need-the cement, the steel the nuts and bolts. The only thing missing is the person to pound the nails, drill the holes, and cut the steel.” If you really want to grow, you need protein and carbs just as an actual building requires more than material. It requires human energy generated by the carbs to bring the quality materials (proteins) all together.
So it’s no secret that I like carbs. Having said that, people always ask me about “bad” carbs. They are usually referring to things like cold cereals, muffins, cake, cookies: the junky stuff. From a cutting perspective, I think they are okay with one caveat. You have to know when to eat them. The simple rule I follow is this; If the bodybuilder has been improving, that means dropping body fat and getting visibly leaner, I have absolutely no issue with him eating cake instead of oatmeal, or Lucky Charms instead of yams. This is acceptable because as you get leaner a few things occur. The first result is that storage reserves for carbohydrates called muscle glycogen fall. This in turn negates, to some degree, the idea that you have to stick to slow burning carbs (oatmeal, yams) because the lower the glycogen reserves (not none), the less insulin (from eating any carb) impacts fat storage. The other result is metabolic momentum. If your body has been consistently dropping body fat, substituting “bad carbs” for the yams or red potatoes will not slow fat loss unless you eat more or stay on “bad carbs” for more than a couple days.
The moral of the story is that a bad carb with good timing is all good.
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