Superior Muscle Growth & Carbs (continued)

Many know that to build muscle, a person must be in caloric excess. But more importantly, most want their muscle gains to be lean.

"Results of this study demonstrate that diet composition can

have important effects on energy expenditure and body energy

storage when subjects are in positive energy balance."[1]

This can be done eating a nutritious diet that is composed of certain levels of macronutrients. I have found what seems to be the best way to gain muscle while either maintaining bodyfat or even losing bodyfat.

There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about carbohydrates. One is that carbohydrates raise insulin and in doing that lipolysis ceases. This is not necessarily the case as I have mentioned in a previous post. Insulin is a very anabolic hormone that is necessary to build muscle.

Carbohydrates are the preferred fuel of the body and the most easily oxidized.

"Thus with carbohydrate overfeeding,

more of the excess energy was oxidized and less stored in the
body than was seen during fat overfeeding."[1]

The next myth that I am challenging is that consuming excess calories in the form of carbohydrates leads to fat gain. Most fat that is stored in the is dietary fat. Dietary fat has a deposit rate of 90%-95% where as carbohydrates have a deposit rate of 75%-85%.

"However, our results demonstrate
that excess carbohydrate affects energy and nutrient balances
differently than does excess fat. We found that for equivalent
amounts of excess energy, fat leads to more body fat accumulation
than does carbohydrate."[1]

One advantage of carbohydrates is that they are deposited in the form of glycogen in the muscle. This is especially the case for starches are they are digested slower in the intestines and therefore do not over load the liver and cause excess de novo lipogenesis (DNL). DNL is the process of converting carbohydrates into fat.

"Although the issue of whether carbohydrate overfeeding

led to de novo lipogenesis in tissues such as the liver cannot
be definitively determined in this study, the calorimetry data
indicate that net lipogenesis from carbohydrate did not occur."[1]

"Other investigators using isotopic techniques have

reported that de novo lipogenesis in human subjects is not a
major way to accumulate body fat stores (28). It may, however,
be slightly higher in hypeninsulinemic obese subjects than in
lean subjects and may depend on the type of carbohydrate in
the diet (29)."[1]

"Though several overfeeding studies showed the presence of de novo lipogenesis during carbohydrate overfeeding [20,37-39], the storage of carbohydrate as fat through de novo lipogenesis is considered a quantitavely negligible process under normal conditions in humans."[2]

So, if overfeeding carbohydrates does not lead to fat gains, what does? The body is constantly seeking homeostasis. When eating a surplus of bodily needs the body should activate adaptive thermogenesis, leading to increased metabolism and decreased hunger. This would be controlled by hormones. What would disrupt the hormones that cause up regulation? I believe that the root of obesity is the excess consumption of fructose and polyunsaturated fatty acids. PUFAs have been shown to suppress the metabolism and fructose leads to insulin and leptin resistance, causing a whole mess of everything.

"If adaptive thermogenesis is present and contributes to the etiology of obesity then it is likely that obesity-prone persons have a reduced capacity for adaptive thermogenesis compared to obesity-resistant persons."[2]

[1] Fat and Carbohydrate Overfeeding in Humans: Different
Effects on Energy Storage Tracy J Horton, Holly Drougas, Amy Brachey, George W Reed, John C Peters, and James 0 Hill Am J Clin Nutr Horton et al. 62 (1): 19

[2] Energy Expenditure During Overfeeding Annemiek MCP Joosen and Klaas R Westerterp Nutr Metab (Lond). 2006; 3: 25. Published online 2006 July 12. doi: 10.1186/1743-7075-3-25