For the last 12 weeks I have followed low carb diet while performing 90% of 1 RM in squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press each week. Low carb diet I am referring to here is carbohydrate amount of less than 150 grams per day.
First 4-6 weeks, I felt great. I was able to lift without any issues and muscle and nervous system recovered properly where my sleep quality was not interfered.
Between 6-8 weeks, I start feeling fatigued. Strength was fine. At 90% effort, I'm only performing 3 repetitions per set so I was able to pull through but felt tired more and sleep was getting affected.
Starting from week 10, felt agitated and my brain and body was clearly not recovering. Started to fine tune nutrition and selected healthier and nutritious foods but nothing seemed to help. Stress was not only affecting my sleep but also my digestive system was sluggish.
Week 11 & 12, I've witnessed inflammation around joints. Since my main lifts are squats and deadlifts, area of damage were knees, ankles, lower back.
Immediately after the 12 weeks were done, I re-introduced carbohydrates of about 200 grams per day back into my diet especially post workout nutrition. I started to add fast acting glucose (have tried banana and pure sugar) with my protein shake immediately after my workout.
Surprisingly, my nerve irritation and agitated feeling was gone immediately. You can actually feel the nervous system switching from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervouse system. Swelling and inflammation around joints are still there but definitely recovering faster. Sleep quality and digestive health has gotten better.
Here is what I learned.
1. Carbohydrates are critical in recovery
When lifting heavy or working out in higher intensity, muscle and nervous system go under severe stress. When under stress, the body requires carbohydrates for immediate recovery or may not recover quick enough for the next workout. This is how the body get stronger.
Muscle may recover without presence of carbohydrate by next workout by splitting in to different body parts per workout day, however, nervous system does take more time to recover without the presence of carbohydrate. Therefore, low carb diet are not for those who are exercising at high intensity level where load is more than 85% of 1RM.
Best timing to have carbohydrate is immediately after the workout, along with protein. Main objective is to bring the cortisol, stress hormone, down to promote faster recovery.
2. Those who do not deserve carbohydrate should not be training at higher intensity
Those who do not deserve carbohydrate should minimize training at higher intensity because of recovery reason.
If anybody is needing to lose excess amount of body fat (men >12%, women >20% body fat), they will need to limit carbohydrate intake. However, when the carbohydrate consumption is limited, it is possible to train the muscles hard, but cannot be stressing the nervous system too much for the recovery will take longer time and may not be appropriate for exercising on regular basis.
This is not ideal for fat loss because, when under stress the body will secrete cortisol which will also lead to secretion of insulin. As mentioned in other articles that with presence of insulin, body will store glucose (from carbohydrate) rather than use it.
Workout intensity for people who are on fat loss program may need to be below 80% of 1 RM, where the body and nervous system can recover properly without carbohydrate.
3. Quality of carbohydrates does impact the rate of recovery
When consuming carbohydrate for recovery, it cannot be any random source of carbohydrate.
For example, slow releasing carbohydrate such as vegetable based carbohydrate may not be fast enough to help bring the cortisol level down after the high intensity workout. Sources like rice, couscous, potatoes, may help lower cortisol level as the insulin binding to glucose faster.
Presence of protein and other micro-nutrients are also important especially minerals such as zinc and magnesium, which is flushed out through sweat. In other words, junk food such as fast food, candy, ice cream, cake and soda may not be sufficient for recovery carbohydrate.
4. When fast recovery is not necessary low carb diet works fine
These finding does not mean that low carb diet does not have benefit. To keep body fat under control, it is beneficial to keep low carb diet during non workout day. As much as I've mentioned about carbohydrate being superior in recovery, over consumption of carb and excess secretion of insulin is not beneficial to the health.
As mentioned earlier, if you have excess body fat to lose, you should be on low carb diet. This also means the exercise workload should be 70% or below of your maximum effort.
If you do not have excess fat to lose, you should still keep the carbohydrate amount around 150 grams per day, but don't be afraid of consuming carbohydrates for recovery purpose. This will allow you to workout hard, build muscles and strength so you can burn off fat more easily, be healthier and look better.
There is nothing wrong with consuming carbohydrates and there is a benefit in going low carbs. It all depends on purpose behind what goal you are wanting to accomplish.
Kota Shimada
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