Differences Between The Anabolic Diet & The Atkins Diet
Sep 20th, 2007 by Mehdi
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Posted by Jak in reply to How To Get Started On The Anabolic Diet
“I’ve been doing the induction phase of the Atkins Diet to lose fat for 3 weeks. It’s similar to the Monday-Friday part of the Anabolic Diet. But Atkins doesn’t include weekend carb loading.
How does the carb loading affects the body? I do not exercise strenuously. I go for long walks and do light strength training. Would I lose fat faster on Atkins?”
Anabolic Diet Carb Loading. The weekend carb loading does several things:
- It drives nutrients to your muscles. This builds muscles.
- It fills carbs stores, needed for energy during high intensity activities.
Anyone who’s been on the Anabolic Diet will confirm: it’s best to do your hardest workout the days after the carb loading. Your carb stores get depleted as the days go by. High volume workouts at the end of the week are hard.
The Atkins Diet doesn’t include carb loading. Carb stores get depleted & stay so. You’ll feel it when you get into a high intensity activity.
By the way. If you wonder why you lose so much weight on Atkins during the first days: it’s water. Carbs hold water. Cut carbs & the water comes off. You get the same effect on the Anabolic Diet, where you’ll flatten out on weekdays & smooth out during weekends.
Ketosis. The goal on the Atkins Diet is to get you in a state called Ketosis. To get you in ketosis you need to eat less than 20g carbs daily.
On the Anabolic Diet: 30g of carbs a day, with carb loading, you’re not in ketosis. Dr. Di Pasquale, author of the Anabolic Diet, said in an Interview on Testosterone Nation:
“Staying in a ketogenic state means you haven’t adapted to the diet. If ketones are being excreted in the urine (which is how you determine ketosis by using “keto-sticks”) then you’re not utilizing ketones for energy efficiently. Someone using fat for fuel shouldn’t have ketones in their urine.[..] Ketosis is very catabolic.”
Ok let’s see. Normally carbs are used for energy. But you don’t eat carbs on Atkins. The goal is forcing your body to use fat for energy. But apparently you’re not doing this: ketones end up in your urine. So where do you get your energy?
Catabolism. Ketosis is a catabolic state. Your body burns muscles to get you energy on the Atkins Diet. I. No muscles equals no strength. Which organ is a muscle? Your heart. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that one.
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unlike the AD, atkins allows you to add carbs to your diet progressively, until you reach a personal balance. keep in mind this is only after the 2 weeks or more induction phase.
Really dude? You think that 10 g of carbs that differentiates the Atkins from this anabolic non-sense makes all the difference in the world?
Thats like 4 baby carrots a day. Like 1/3 of an apple. If you really think that makes all the difference…well, you’re fooling yourself.
Not to mention how terrible saturated fat is for you. I can’t believe you advocate this stuff.
MC,
It’s not just 10g of carbs. It’s also carb loading which usually means 2-3 days where you eat all the carbs you want.
There is also alot of misinformation about saturated fat. Here is a good article at Mens Health written by Adam Campbell and Jeff Volek. Dr. Voleck is a leading researcher on low carb diets also.
Bob. Carbs are added very slowly. 2g a week. So it takes close to 2 months before you even get out of ketosis, if 30g carbs does this job, which I honestly doubt.
MC. Read the book. Research saturated fat. Eric has provided you with a good article to start with. Thanks Eric.
I’m no expert on this topic Mehdi so bear with me. I’m no Atkins/ketogenic fa eithern, but I feel your analysis is flawed so I want to give the diet a fair crack of the whip.
As far as I am aware, ketosis is the the process of utilising fat stores for energy, not muscle tissue. When your metabolism is in a ketogenic state it converts converts body fat stores into fatty acids and ketones. These provide energy, not catabolism.
That also means protein is not oxised through gluconeogenesis because energy comes from ketones: If the body is using ketones it’s sparing muscle.
I can’t follow the idea in the quote that if you pee ketones you are not using ketones. When you are producing ketones you can’t use them all so you excrete the excess. Plus the body aslo uses FAs for energy. To say that the peeing ketones means you are catabolic is a leap I can’t make.
As long as you are getting sufficient protein while ketogenic your body will prefer ketones to glucose from protein breakdown.
I do agree that low carb and calorie restriction is not the way to go to build muscle though. Carbs are a far more effective way to get bigger and stronger than ketones.
Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Yeah, I was a little confused on that also. I thought ketogenic diets were protein sparing. To hear Dr. Pasquale say that they are catabolic is kind of confusing. There may be more info in the book because Dr. Pasquale doesn’t really elaborate on this point in the interview. What exactly makes ketosis catabolic?
David. Ketosis is indeed using fat for energy. That’s how I understood things. Now DiPasquale says in the interview ketosis is not using fat for energy optimally because you’re excreting ketones through urine. That makes sense to me. But as you say: maybe you’re not peeing excess.
If we look at people on Atkins, they’re often skinny. So I don’t think Atkins is good to build muscle. You’ll most likely lose muscle, the fat that there is a total abscene of carbs for weeks is not good.
Could be marketing you know what DiPasquale said in the interview.
You are right about muscle and strength building on a low carb diet. At best it’s very hard. At worst it’s impossible.
I know some bodybuilders and models use low carb diets to cut fat quickly to get that very lean look but of course you need the big muscle underneath first!
As for sport performance, low carb also is not optimal. So I think we are coming from the same place.
Indeed I agree David.
I don’t look at the Anabolic Diet as a “low carb” diet. If you calculate how much carbs you eat a week (with the heavy carbups during the weekend), you’re not far away from what you’d eat on a normal diet.
DiPasquale even recommends mid week carbups for athletes. So he’s aware of this.
Point of the article: atkins is bad for muscles. Anabolic Diet is good for muscles. Both diets are different.