Yes, your right. Eating carbs is not necessary because your body can covert excess fat/protein into energy, though carbs are better sources of energy they are not a must.

You need oxygen to use fat as energy - and I said before - HIIT and cardio are primarily anaerobic ( i.e without oxygen ) activities.

That leaves carbs and protein to fuel the bulk of anaerobic workouts. But why should he resort to having his body convert protein ( 4 calories per gram ) as a primary source of energy when all he has to do is have carbs ( also 4 calories per gram ) to do the exact same thing ?

I can definitely see what your saying wrangell... but I mean, he lost 22 pounds in 2 months and retained all of his lean mass. I'm willing to try anything if I could get half those results. I could tell this guy was not lying to me either. Right when I came in he asked me if he could help me with anything, and I told him that I was just waiting for the girls to get out of their store and was just looking but had no money. He was just talking to me because there was nobody in the store, we were around the same age, and he just liked to talk about this kind of thing.

I'm sorry for twisting his words around a bit..

I think while he was cutting he was having those 60 carbs post workout every single day. I am not sure of that though.

But he said he was very strict with his diet and exercise program. I know he did cardio every day for sure.

I'd like to learn more about these keto diets and carb cycling.. how often do you have carb loading days, etc... any good links for reading?

Too bad you didn't ask this guy WHY it is BAD to have a good chunk of carbs in your diet while cutting - which seem to be the message he trying to get across to you.

If this guy is cutting back, let's assume he's taking in about 13 or so calories per pound of bodyweight each day. At 170 lbs. - that's about about 2,200 calories a day.

He takes on 300 grams of protein or 1,200 calories. Let's assume he takes in 0.5 grams of fat per pound of bodyweight each day or 85 grams/ 770 calories ( 35% of total calories ). That leaves him 230 calories to come from carbs - or about 60 grams.

I'm just wondering what he thinks is going to happen if he cuts his fat back to 25% from 35% and cuts his protein from back to 200 grams from 300 grams - and swapped those fat and protein calories with carb calories to stay at the same 2,200 calories a day.

What's the difference ?

He could continue to use protien as his primary source of energy during his HIIT session, carbs would be more efficient but not a necessity.

Then what is the ' benefit ' of opting to fuel exercise with protein when your body is designed to preferentially use carbs ( glucose/ glycogen ) to fuel exercise and your body is also designed to spare protein for it's intended purpose - primarily tissue growth and repair.

Since carbs aren't fattening, and carb based energy is the preferentially fuel for hard exercise - what's the rationale to cut carbs to almost " 0 " in favor of protein ( and to a lesser extent ) fat ?

not necessary phate? then your body will be in ketosis which if high enough can be very dangerous, harder to break down fat, excess protein -> huge load on the kidneys, water loss, increase risk for cancer maybe (?), bad breather etc. stick to the glucose...

no way hose, the brain doesnt work on ketos because ketos dont support neuron firing. Where did you read that.

If he said thats what he did then who are we to say he didnt. I bet he stuck to his plan and completed all his scheduled workouts. Although it doesnt say he did any weight training, I am wondering how he managed to keep ALL his lean mass.

Possible? Yes, minus the keep all the lean mass part. Prob not the best way if you're not 5 days out from a BB comp or looking to lose quick water weight.

IMO, carb cycling is a better option; or a 'low'er carb diet.

And a Q to nicolasd, ketone = R1-C=0-R2? Is that the ketone you're speaking of?

Well, he said he was getting 300 grams of protein and 150 grams of fat. He said he had toast in the morning and 60 grams of carbs post workout. Other than that he didn't have carbs for the rest of the day.

On cheat meals he would just go crazy with carbs, he said he would eat all kinds of carbs including things like bagels.

He definitely did weight training too along with his cardio.

I hear what your saying wrangell, I think I will stick to using carbs to fuel my workouts.. still though I think I may need to reduce my carbs.

This is a great article I found today about carb cycling:

TESTOSTERONE NATION - The Carb Cycling Codex


Today my protein was 151 grams and 37%
carbs 258 at 46%
and 33 grams of fat at 18%

total calories 1746

I weigh 150..

What do you think I should adjust?

Just about any source on keto diets. Just looked it up on wikipedia
Ketone bodies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and apparently the brain can get a lot of its energy from ketones but not all, if wiki is right here.

So you're right that it still needs some carbs, I didn't know that. Anyway, most diets have you getting at least 30g of carbs a day, and even though I have no idea of the amounts needed, I'm guessing that is enough.

After having about 40-50g of carbs a day for 1 week, I honestly think that I worked with perhaps more focus than normally.

You're not using proteins for fuel, you're using fats. The rationale is you go into ketosis where your body actively breaks down your body fat to ketones to have it readily available as a source of energy. If you get too many carbs (over what can be stored as muscle glucogen), you're knocked out of ketosis, as I understand it.

I went into ketosis in 3 days, then lost almost 2lb of presumably fat in the next 4 days, it's much faster than regular cuts.

Im sure his results were exaggerated, but if it worked, then it worked.

Wiki is not a credible source.

Yes, Wiki is a credible source.

Not true, it can be edited by anyone in the entire world. So if they put in something that the editors of wikipedia don't know about it just slips by, meaning that a whole lot of information on wikipedia can be false.