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Considering most recipes of GLAD diet are quite high in carbs and low in fat, am I right to assume that GLAD is a low fat diet?

I'm thinking of doing a bulk diet following GLAD guidelines and some MANS principles here. My macros would look something like 100 grams net carbs, 2.75g of protein per LBM and the rest of my calories from fat for maximum testosterone levels. So, something like a 15% carbs, 25% protein and 60% fats split. Also, I would keep GL's per meal under 15 and eat 5-6 times a day and keep saturated fat under 40g. Caloric requirements are only SCR or slightly less. I assume that with this diet, I will become semi-fat adapted allowing to use body fat as fuel. Also, I will eat more carbs on weekends but nothing like full blown carb-up

Please comment on my diet plan.

BTW, why do we need carbs (more than minimal amount) to build muscle if even protein by itself does increase insulin levels to shuttle amino acids to our muscles?

Thanks,

nealjyu wrote:Considering most recipes of GLAD diet are quite high in carbs and low in fat, am I right to assume that GLAD is a low fat diet?

Mostly. Lower fat than MANS, but not low fat in the traditional sense.

nealjyu wrote:I'm thinking of doing a bulk diet following GLAD guidelines and some MANS principles here. My macros would look something like 100 grams net carbs, 2.75g of protein per LBM and the rest of my calories from fat for maximum testosterone levels. So, something like a 15% carbs, 25% protein and 60% fats split. Also, I would keep GL's per meal under 15 and eat 5-6 times a day and keep saturated fat under 40g. Caloric requirements are only SCR or slightly less. I assume that with this diet, I will become semi-fat adapted allowing to use body fat as fuel. Also, I will eat more carbs on weekends but nothing like full blown carb-up

Please comment on my diet plan.

Sure! But I forewarn you (since I have been gone for a while, and my reputation may have faded), I'm not nice.

Why in the name of all things anabolic would you take a GI-controlled diet and a ketogenic diet and mix them together? The endocrinological processes that drive MANS and GLAD are totally different. It's like if you had a car that could run on electricity or on natural gas, and you thought, "I'll be super green and use BOTH!" when really all you'd do is go through more fuel - and defeat the whole entire purpose.

MANS works thanks to carb cycling. All week long, you force your body to burn off glycogen reserves and to use fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. In the absence of insulin (since the carbs are kept so low), this works beautifully. After about two weeks, the body converts to running on ketones instead of glucose, and it will burn fat for its caloric needs - preferably dietary but it will go after body fat if it doesn't get enough. Then, on your carb up, you intentionally induce a HUGE insulin spike for three reasons. 1. You need to replenish the glycogen you've been burning off all week, 2. Insulin is required to shuttle nutrients back into the muscles, and 3. (the BIG one), no insulin = no IGF-1, and no IGF-1 = NO GROWTH. Simple as it is.

Now, for some of us, MANS is the fantastic miracle diet of our dreams, and we can do crazy things like add not quite a pound a week in muscle (yay successful training cycle for me). For others, MANS is a colossal pain in the ass and isn't quite as effective - and for them, there's GLAD.

GLAD keeps insulin levels low and steady. You use the Glycemic Index to calculate just how much of an impact you are having on insulin levels, and then you ensure that at very regular intervals you add just enough of a glycemic load to keep enough insulin percolating along to ensure IGF-1 production, ensure aminos and glycogen get shuttled into the muscle tissues, but not so much as to trigger significant fat storage. Mind you, I say SIGNIFICANT fat storage for a reason. GLAD, if done exactly precisely right, will not cause any large amount of fat accumulation because you are not eating much in the way of sat fats, you are not eating extremely calorie-dense meals, and your body just isn't taking enough in in one sitting for the insulin to do what it does and trigger your body to store every calorie that can't be used that split second. Changing that will break the entire process. Eating MANS-level fat intake on a GLAD-style diet is setting yourself up for more fat gains than you want, defeating the whole entire purpose of doing GLAD or MANS either one. They work beautifully individually - but they are polar opposites, and ought not be combined.

Also - please eradicate the percentages mindset from your brain once and for all. On MANS, it's about 30g/day of carbs, 2.75g/kg lean mass/day of protein, and the rest of your caloric needs from fat. On GLAD, it's 90 GLs per day, 2.75g/kg lean mass/day of protein, and still the rest from fat. Depending on how many grams of carbs it takes to equate to that 90 GLs, you could be eating a large chunk of your diet in carbs, or a very small chunk, and it doesn't matter even one teensy tiny bit. Percentage driven diets like that are a product of archaic, outdated, bodybuilding orthodoxy that will lead you down the road of being built with a belly, or simply not getting your desired results at all. Find that file in your brain that thinks of a diet as percentages instead of macros, and Shift-Delete the fucker.

nealjyu wrote:BTW, why do we need carbs (more than minimal amount) to build muscle if even protein by itself does increase insulin levels to shuttle amino acids to our muscles?

Muscle glycogen. Your body absolutely must have it to power your muscles so you can actually work out to the levels proscribed by THT (or any other effective weight-training regimen, for that matter). Your body cannot convert fat or ketones to glycogen, only carbs or protein. So you either give it the carbs (either at a steady rate like GLAD or a spike like MANS), or it breaks down protein - i.e. your muscles - to get what it needs.