January 2010

In reading through your log I noticed you seem to believe in a "calories in/calories out" philosophy as opposed to a "control insulin" philosophy. With that being said, if for example we have one guy who eats nothing but sugary substances for his carbohydrates and another who eats nothing but oats for his carbohydrates, do you think there would be any differences in body composition? Let’s also assume they have identical bodies, metabolisms, calories and macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat, and protein), etc. just for the sake of argument.

-Daniel

Daniel,

This is an excellent question. First off, let me address the "sugary" carbohydrate portion of your question. As you probably know, carbohydrates are rated on the GI scale (the glycemic index).  This is a scale that ranks carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels. The idea is that lower GI carbohydrates have less of an effect on blood sugar. Supposedly this provides more stable energy, and causes less of an insulin spike resulting in less fat storage.  The problem here is that the GI scale is irrelevant when considering how 99% of people eat meals. No one eats carbohydrates by themselves, and dietary fat or carbohydrate added to the mix totally throws the scale out the window. The scale was developed by looking at blood sugar response to different carbohydrate sources in isolation, but carbs are rarely eaten in isolation (almost never by bodybuilders). Secondly, if you are in a caloric deficit, you will not gain body fat even if your insulin is elevated. Not even the mysterious hormone insulin that the fitness industry is over-obsessed with can overcome physics. In fact, your body can store fat when insulin levels are low, and your body can also burn fat in the presence of insulin.

The problem most bodybuilders truly have is not in their diet setups with regard to whether they “eat clean” or “count macros”. It's that they can't think critically and they want to reduce everything to black and white.  For example, in your question you compared eating all sugar, to eating all oats. This question itself is flawed.  Nobody eats all oats or all sugar. In fact both would be bad (of course), blood sugar would be all jacked up on the sugar diet, and you wouldn’t be able to have a bowel movement or absorb half of what you were eating on the all oats diet due to the excessive fiber content.

That is the consummate problem with the way most bodybuilders think.  It’s always the “either or”, “black or white” mentality: Mike Mentzer's HIT or Arnolds 7 hour workouts. No carbohydrates or high carbohydrates, no fat or high fat, walking at 2 mph on an incline, or HIIT 4-6 days/week.

To be honest, laziness and ignorance are what leads to this type of thinking. People don't know the true underlying mechanisms behind things and they are too lazy or too dogmatic to find them out. In the example of the nutrition debate, people really don't know why certain foods are “clean”; they just know that somebody told them they were. The reason why "clean eating" has worked for people is because while cutting, it indirectly leads them to a caloric deficit with a good macronutrient breakdown and it leads them to a slight surplus with a good macronutrient breakdown while bulking.

Let’s take the example of cutting:

If you “eat clean”, you end up indirectly: a) reducing calories to the point where you drop body fat and b) improving your macronutrient ratios and thus stabilizing energy levels and improving your hormonal profile. The problem stems from people associating the end result with something that is only related by side-effect instead of associating the end result with the root cause.

For example:

"Eating clean" leads to >> improved macros and a caloric deficit leads to >> improved body composition

But people don’t think critically, so they only see the surface relationship and think this:

"Eating clean" leads to >> improved body composition

So it’s not like one approach is wrong, it’s just that we have to look at the bigger picture.

Now that being said, it is possible to just count macronutrients and be sub optimal. If you don't get enough fiber, are deficient in micronutrients, don't get a balance of unsaturated fats and saturated fats, pay no attention to nutrient timing or workout nutrition, or only eat poor or incomplete protein sources, yes you can be worse off “counting macros” than being a "clean eater".

But really, who out there eats ALL their carbohydrates from skittles, eats ALL their fat from butter, eats ALL  their protein from soy or wheat isolates, and all the while refuses to take fish oil, vitamin or fiber supplements? Not any bodybuilders I know of. In fact, it’s pretty hard to count macros (if they are set up properly) and not have a healthy balanced diet.

So the answer to this debate is: it depends. And that’s because this debate, like most debates, starts on faulty premises and black and white thinking.

So, what is my official advice? Count your macronutrients, eat what you would like, but make smart choices.

Here are some guidelines to making smart choices:

·         Take a fish oil supplement.

·         Take a multivitamin and mineral supplement.

·         Try to get around 10%-15% of your calories in grams of fiber/day (3000kcals=30g-45g fiber).

·         Eat 4-6 meals a/day.

·         Take roughly 50-60% of your carbohydrate intake split between pre and post workout.

·         Evenly spread out the rest of your carbohydrates, fat, and protein.

·         Get a serving of fruit and a serving of greens every day if you can.

If you are able to do all of that while counting your macronutrients, you ARE “eating clean”, even if you’re just “hitting macros”. Your body will thank you and the whole system will work better.

Lastly, before I finish I want to talk about the unique situation of contest preparation diets. During a contest preparation diet, I recommend good food variety, just like the offseason. This will help you transition back to your offseason diet once the season is over. With very little food variety you start losing some of the gut fauna and flora and enzymes needed to break down the quantity and variety of foods that are in a normal diet. So ideally variety in a diet is a good thing.

However, in a contest preparation diet you’re going to invariably get to the point where two things happen:

1)      Your calories get really low. In this case you are forced into limiting food options, i.e., if you only have 20-40g of allotted fat in a day you’re going to have to be a rice cake, chicken breast and broccoli guy.  Sad but true.

2)      You’re going to get ravenously, physiologically hungry: in this case, it can pay to be more mechanical and bland with your diet because eating for pleasure can lead to binging.

In the case of number two, early in prep if a craving comes up, I recommend hitting your macros and eating the food you are craving. For example, you’re a month into prep and you really want some ice cream. Well, go pick up some nonfat frozen yogurt or slow churned ice cream and work it into your macros, satisfy the craving and be done with it.

However, if you’re five months into prep and approaching stage condition, you're going to want ice cream every minute of every day. A small serving of frozen yogurt is only going to fan the flames. At this point I recommend eating mechanically with bland food and less variety because you WON'T be able to satisfy your cravings. They simply won't go away, and attempting to satisfy them will just leave you hungrier. In this case the best thing you can do is make your food for function and not for pleasure so you don’t focus on the ravenous hunger.

This hunger stems from being extremely lean. Once your body is down to nearly just essential body fat you are dealing with true physiological hunger. This is the body sending hormonal signals in an attempt to make you eat because it thinks you are starving. Sadly, to get shredded it requires you to get to this state, and this is the only time I recommend eating bland foods without variety. The rest of the year, be smart in your diet setup, but enjoy your food!

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