Low carb diets for weight loss | low carb diet for building muscle
In this video Eric Roberts examines whether low‑carbohydrate diets are superior for losing body fat or building muscle. He first clarifies the difference between weight loss and fat loss, explaining that the rapid early drop on a low‑carb regimen is mostly water weight released from depleted muscle glycogen (about 3‑5 g of water per gram of carbohydrate). Because this water loss is temporary, a short‑term low‑carb phase can cause the scale to swing dramatically without actually burning much fat. Roberts then argues that when calories are matched, low‑carb and moderate‑to‑high‑carb diets result in the same amount of fat loss; the initial water‑weight advantage evens out over time. He stresses sustainability, noting that many people cannot maintain extreme carb restriction long‑term, leading to yo‑yo weight changes. The second half focuses on performance: carbs are the primary fuel for high‑intensity strength training and replenish muscle glycogen. A very low‑carb diet reduces glycogen stores, limiting lift volume, intensity, and recovery, which hampers muscle growth. Roberts recommends carbohydrate‑rich foods such as white rice, potatoes, oats, and cereals for glycogen replenishment, while still emphasizing whole‑food sources and adequate protein. He highlights that increasing protein intake improves satiety and reduces cravings more effectively than simply cutting carbs. Finally, he proposes a “90/10” rule—90 % of calories from single‑ingredient, nutrient‑dense whole foods and 10 % from processed or mixed foods—to manage calorie intake and avoid the palatable combination of carbs, fat, and salt that drives overeating. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to consider their personal lifestyle and dietary preferences when deciding whether a low‑carb approach is appropriate.
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Oh, my precious. I love you so much. Oh, don't think I forgot about you. I love you too. Oh, and how could I forget about you guys as well? Don't worry, we're gonna show these people you don't have to be afraid any longer. YouTube, what's going on? Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to this video. In this video, you and I are gonna be talking about Are low-carb diets better? Better for what? Well, better for fat loss first and foremost, or better for muscle building, getting stronger, performing the best you possibly can in your workouts? We're going to talk all about those little beautiful creatures that I showed you earlier in the video. So let's go ahead and dive right in. We're going to be talking about are low-carb diets better for fat loss? And I mean, when I say better, I mean Are they more effective? Do they help you lose more body fat, burn more body fat? How is it gonna help you and what's the difference? So first and foremost, when it comes to losing fat, notice how I said fat loss and lose weight. They're 2 different things, right? Because you might be shocked by this, but yes, when you do a low-carb diet, you might very well lose more weight. Initially, when you first start a very low carbohydrate diet, if you've ever done it personally or if you've ever seen anybody who like you know maybe they for whatever reason went and did keto and they lost a ton of weight in the first like one two three weeks or maybe you've done it yourself where you know you cut out sugar or you cut out carbohydrates or you only eat fucking lean meats and veggies for every single meal every single day every single time and maybe you did lose weight very quickly in the beginning but here's the thing you're not. inherently losing a lot of fat from that. You are losing a lot of weight, and let me explain to you why. For every 1 gram of carbohydrate that you eat, you are going to store anywhere between 3 to 5 grams of water weight. So if you're taking somebody who— let's say you're roughly eating 180 to 200 grams of carbs per day, and then you drastically Slash your carbs to 30, 40 grams per day, what you are going to do initially is you are going to see a massive drop on the scale because what you're doing is you're depleting something called your muscle glycogen, which we can talk about actually a little bit later in this video, so stick around. But you're depleting your muscle glycogen, which is going to be depleting your water weight. Storage, which is why you might actually see you lose weight quicker in the beginning of the process. And this is really important you understand this because number one, it's just in the beginning and like you're just going to lose some water weight and somebody might think like, oh, okay, well I'll just go really low carb in the beginning and I'll go back to normal later. Well sure, but you're just going to gain the weight back later because if you go very low carb, 30, 40 grams of carbs per day, And then you start eating more carbohydrates again, you're going to fill up those glycogen storages one more time because like I said, for every 1 gram of carb you eat, you store 3 to 5 grams of water weight. And so if you're going to go like, oh, I'm just going to go low carb for 2 weeks, well what happens is people will lose a lot of weight and then they'll gain a lot of weight back. This can send you into a spiral because you think you're doing something wrong. You think you're fucking something up. You think you're gaining all of your body fat back or You know, you thought you lost a ton of body fat, which you really didn't. You just lost a lot of water weight in the beginning, but you thought you lost a lot of fat and you gained a lot of fat back. Neither one of those two things happened in a 2 or 3 week time span because you just don't— you can't lose body fat. You do not burn body fat off of your body, that much body fat at least, in a 2 to 3 week time span. So just know when, if that's happening or if you see other people have that happening to them, They're not losing fat at a faster rate. They're losing weight, water weight in particular, at a faster rate. And a couple of things here. Number one, people hear the term water weight and like you think it's a bad thing. Water weight is not a bad thing. Like you, you're only thinking like, oh my God, inflammation or bloating or this, that, and the other. You need water weight for— you want to be able to, like for example, and again, we'll talk about this, but you want to be able to have water weight inside of your muscles. Your muscles are primarily water, which is why water weight inside of your muscles is actually a really good thing. You want water weight for your tendons, ligaments, joints, connective tissue, all of these things as well. So water weight is not inherently a bad thing. Just please understand that and notice that I get questions all the time. Eric, how do I get rid of my water weight? You don't want to get rid— your body is mostly water. You don't want to get rid of your water weight. And then number 2 to that, I kind of mentioned this earlier, but this is why, again, if you're somebody who like you're trying to eat such low carb, what'll happen a lot is people will, you know, during the week, right, you're like eating only— this happens all the time— you're eating only veggies and salads and lean meats and this, that, and the other, and like you're eating 30 grams of carbs per day. Then what inevitably happens during the weekend, you go out, you have some pizza, you have some burgers, you have some french fries, and your weight like During the week, your weight might go down 2, 3, 4, 5 pounds even. What happens during the weekend? You gain back 5, 6, 7, 8 pounds, and you do this cycle over and over and over again because your carbs are so low. So you're going to, yeah, store less water weight and the scale will go down. But then once you eat carbohydrates again, also because your carbs are so low, when you eat more carbs, your body, you're going to the scale spike up that much more, all because of your body is going to inherently store more water weight. And so just be mindful of this as well. This also gets people to quit because they think they're fucking something up and it's just this big cycle of up and down and up and down. This is why. So from a fat loss perspective, even though you might see the scale go down quicker, it's not better for fat loss. No, because calories versus carbs. If your calories are equated for— so if you take somebody who's doing a low-carb diet and they're eating 2,000 calories, and you're taking somebody who's eating a moderate to high-carb diet and they're eating 2,000 calories, and again, 2,000 calories for them is the same calorie deficit. So for example, if both people, their maintenance calories are, call it, 2,500 calories and they are eating 2,000 calories, Both of those people are in a 500-calorie deficit. The low-carb diet versus the moderate to high-carb diet, if the calories are equated for, they're going to lose the same amount of body fat. Again, the person who's doing a low-carb diet might lose more weight initially, but over time it all evens out because the person who's doing the moderate to high-carb diet, while they might not see as drastic of a scale change in the beginning, they are going to continue to lose body fat at the same rate because if calories are equated for, you are going to lose the same amount of body fat for each individual. So again, from a like actual fat loss perspective, no, a low carb diet would not be better from a fat loss perspective if the calories are equated for. Now the last part we'll touch on here is sustainability. And so You know, there might be some people already, you might've already commented and you probably might not be watching anymore if this is you, but like there might be some people, oh my God, Eric, I love low carb and I like doing low carb and X, Y, and Z. Cool. That's fine. What I always tell people, what you eat doesn't make me shit. So I do not care if you like a low carb diet. That's awesome. Like that's fine. And again, if that's, if that's what allows you to be sustainable and be consistent, then like who knows, a low carb diet might actually be better for you. If you can actually sustain that certain kind of lifestyle, certain kind of eating. And I say actually because what most people will do is they'll do this thing where, and tell me if you've ever heard this or this is you, they'll do this thing where like, yeah, I'm telling you, I do so much better with low carb. I feel so much better and this, that, and the other. And I'm like, cool, then why are you still 70 pounds overweight? Why have you not reached your goal yet? Oh, well, the weekends really, man, they get to me. It's like, okay, well then you're not able to be consistent. If you're not at your goal, you're not able to be consistent with it then, because you would have been at your goal by now. And the second part to that is, I always find it funny, people are like, man, I feel so much better when I eat a low-carb diet. I'm like, cool, what are you eating? They're like, oh, I'm eating a ton of salad. I'm eating a ton of vegetables. I'm eating a ton of fruits and things of that nature. And I'm like, okay, you're feeling better because you're eating lean meats, you're eating protein, you're eating salads, you're eating vegetables. You can still eat all of those things. While still having some fucking Rice Krispies or while still having a potato here and there or while still having some oatmeal. They're not mutually exclusive. Like, you can eat all of the things that make you feel really good and you can also eat some carbohydrates as well, which carbohydrates actually do make you feel really good. We can touch on that here in a second. But the whole sustainability thing, I would really challenge you because if you don't see yourself living a lifestyle where you are going to do low carb for the majority of, if not the rest of your life, then no, it's not going to be sustainable. Because even if you can like white knuckle your way through for a year or 2 years or whatever it is, you're not going to be able to keep that up for the duration of your life. And so what you need to understand is the same— when we talk about fat loss, the same habits, the same lifestyle that you are using to lose the weight, is the same habits and the same lifestyle that you need to use to maintain the weight loss. Notice I said habits and lifestyle, not calories, because of course you're going to go into a calorie deficit to lose weight. Of course, when you get to your like goal body weight or whatever that, you know, whatever that is, when you get there, you can eat at your maintenance calories, which would be a slight uptick in your calories. But if you're doing low carb to lose weight and then you think you're going to go back to doing like regular high carb To like maintain the weight, it's not going to work because the same habits and lifestyle that you use to lose the weight is the same habits and lifestyle you need to use to maintain the weight. And this is why, you know, so many people will end up yo-yo dieting in their entire life, especially around these carbohydrates, is because it's not sustainable for you. Are you really going to go on the weekends and have 30 grams of carbs? Are you really going to, you know, have your kid's birthday and only have 25 grams of carbs? Like, it's not realistic for most people. So Just making sure you take this into consideration. If you're somebody who you're like, nope, no matter what, I'm going to stick to 30 grams of carbs or 40 grams of carbs per day. Cool. That's up to you, man. Like again, I, it's, it's not, it's not my life. It's not my diet. So it's your diet. So you have to decide for yourself if it's actually going to be sustainable because that's how you're going to maintain the weight loss, or should I say fat loss. Now the second part of this equation is going to be talking about the muscle building and workout performance perspective. So I wrote there carbs are blank. Carbs are your body's main source of fuel for your high-intensity workouts. So strength training, muscle building, for example, is a high-intensity workout. I know that was like more than one blank, but don't give me shit for it in the comment section below. Um, carbs are the main source of fuel and energy. So if you're not And carbs are also something called what we talked about over here, muscle glycogen. What is muscle glycogen? Again, just think as— just think of muscle glycogen as energy for your muscles. Like the simplest thing, just think of it as that. Because you're strength training, your body wants and needs more muscle glycogen. If you are doing a very low carbohydrate diet, what did we say over here? You are not going to have nearly as much muscle glycogen. So when you go into your workouts, what's going to happen? Your energy for your muscles is way down. So you're going to get into your workouts and you're not going to be able to lift as much weight. You're not going to be able to lift as many reps. You're not going to be able to push yourself as hard or as close to failure, which you're going to be exhausted more. You won't like, you know, if you've ever seen somebody trying to do keto and work out, that's why a lot of people who do keto don't lift weights and don't work out because Because they just don't have— they don't have the energy for it. Their muscles don't have the energy for it because they have no muscle glycogen. So if you're doing that and you're lifting less weight and you're not going as close to failure and you can't finish your workouts and you're exhausted and you can't push, do you think you're going to have good performance? Do you think you're going to get stronger and lift more weight and do more reps? Do you think you're going to build muscle? No, you're not going to do any of those things because your performance, your workout performance is down because of the fact that you're not having this muscle glycogen inside of your body. And so again, if you're looking to optimize your workouts, you absolutely want to be sure you are including carbohydrates into your diet. And a fun fact here as well, the like best carbohydrates for muscle glycogen are actually going to be like all of the bad things you've probably heard, like The rice, like for example, I eat anywhere between 3 to 6 times per day of white rice per day because it's great for muscle glycogen. You're gonna store a lot of muscle glycogen when you eat things like white rice, for example. Or, you know, God forbid you eat white bread, you're also gonna store some muscle glycogen. When you eat things like I showed you earlier, the Rice Krispies cereal, muscle glycogen, oatmeal, Muscle glycogen, potatoes, muscle glycogen. These more like starchy carbohydrate type things are actually the ones that are going to help you store muscle glycogen. Not to say you can't have, you know, fruit and things of that nature. Of course you can have fruit. You should have fruit. It has tons of vitamins, minerals, fiber, all of the good things that you want to have. But this is even more of the reason why I don't want you to be scared of these foods. These foods are actually going to, especially if you're somebody who cares about your, you know, building muscle, getting stronger, having better workouts, pushing yourself, you know, being able to go into the gym and have a good time and throw some weight around. If you care about that, then you should be having carbohydrates. A low carb diet is in no way, shape, or form going to help benefit you if you're somebody who takes your workouts very seriously. Now again, if you're somebody who like you don't care about your workouts or you don't care about, um, you know, having strength gains or building muscle or things of that nature, then And maybe all you do is walk or whatever the case may be, then maybe you don't care as much. And this is why it's an it depends scenario. So if you're that person, maybe not. But if you're somebody who does actually give a shit, carbohydrates are absolutely— it's such a massive difference. And again, if you're somebody who you've done both, if you've done low carb and you go back to higher carb when you do a workout, it's just like— It's, it's an absolute world of a difference. And so no, if you want to optimize your workouts, especially your strength training workouts, high intensity workouts, you want to be able to make sure you have the main source of fuel. Remember, it's the main source of fuel. So it's just like a car. If you're trying to like, if you have a Ferrari and you're trying to like make it go fast and you're trying to fuel it up, you're like, if you have no gas and you have like just the regular unleaded, like you need fucking full tank and premium to make sure you can optimize the performance of that vehicle. I don't necessarily love the saying of like, you know, your body is a car and food is fuel, although to a degree it is true. So in this scenario, it is going to work out. And the one last thing I'll say on low-carb diets versus, you know, medium-high-carb diets, whatever the case may be, is it easy to overdo carbohydrates? Sure, it could definitely be easier to overdo carbohydrates. I will say 2 things to this though. Because we talked earlier about like how your calories need to be in check. Some people might argue, well, Eric, when I eat carbs, my calories go crazy. Okay, stick with me. If you're eating carbs and not eating adequate protein, yes, it is going to be very easy for you to just keep eating, keep eating, keep eating carbohydrates. Because if you're not eating enough protein, then you are— and again, if you're having such high carbs, you're probably not having very high protein. So the answer isn't necessarily to like eat less carbs. The answer would be to eat more protein because what's going to happen is when you increase your protein, you're going to be much more full, much more satisfied. You're going to have way less cravings. You're not going to feel that everlasting need. It's almost like when like you just can't get full, right? If you're somebody who's not eating a lot of protein, you just can't get full. That's what happens. But when you start eating more protein, that It's not about eating less carbs, it's about eating more protein. So that would be my first little, you know, 2 cents to you. And then number 2, it's also not necessarily just the carb. For example, let's take a regular potato, and I mean a regular potato with nothing on it— no butter, no sour cream, no cinnamon, or whatever else people put on it. If you just have the regular potato, just like a regular baked potato, Are you like craving just like, and just eating tons and tons of that regular baked potato? It's all— if you have that with like nothing on it, it's almost like hard to eat to a degree, right? It's like, it's so, it's so almost bland. It's so almost dry. It's so almost just like, it's a, um, it's a very— it fills you up a lot. It's almost like a very hard food to eat a lot of high volume from, but when you throw in some butter and you throw in some salt And you throw in some sour cream or whatever the case may be. Now you have this combination of not only carbohydrate, but you have dietary fat and you have salt. Those 3 things, carb and/or sugar, salt, and fat, those things are like an orgasm in your mouth. And by the way, food companies know this. And so they will make the foods high in those 3 things because they know that combination is very powerful. Palatable and it causes you to eat a lot of their foods and keep buying their foods, right? So I don't need you to demonize the carbohydrates. It's not the potato, it's the combination of these foods that usually make it very, very easy to continue to overeat on. And so again, that goes for, you know, quote unquote processed foods. It goes for like just different combinations, like, you know, an Oreo or a cookie or something like that where it's like, it's very easy to keep Eating those, it's not necessarily because of the carb, it's because of the combination of those 3 things. And so I would just say be mindful of how much of those 3 things you're consuming. This is why I tell people you should be following like the 90/10 rule. 90% of your diet should be coming from nutrient-dense, one-ingredient whole foods like eggs. That's a one ingredient oatmeal, one ingredient, uh, banana, one ingredient chicken breasts, one ingredient pepper, one ingredient. One ingredient nutrient-dense whole foods. Whole foods. Whole foods. If it grew from the ground, if it flew in the sky, if it roamed the earth, or if it, uh, swam in the ocean. Almost forgot that one. But those 4 things, that's a nutrient-dense whole food. Everything else kind of like is processed in a lab. And like I said, these food companies know that this combination of food is very addicting and very palatable, so they make it very easy for you to overeat on. So Again, you don't need to demonize a carbohydrate for that. Just be aware of like, okay, cool, I know these foods, the combination of these foods and these ingredients is going to be very easy to overeat on. Just be mindful of how much of that you're consuming. And guys, that is it for the video. I hope you enjoyed. If you did, please subscribe to the channel if you're not already subscribed. I'm going to kick you in the private parts maybe. So subscribe to the channel. If you liked the video, feel free to give it a thumbs up and let me know below if you enjoyed this video and/or if you learned something from it. I hope you did, hope it helped, and we'll chat soon.
