To premise, let me give an example of my understanding of diet:
>Grog eat meat (protein)
>Grog lift big rock
>Grog eat more meat (protein)
>Grog lift bigger rock
Yeah I don’t really get anything else. I see “low carb high protein” diets around sometimes, but I don’t entirely understand what that’s meant to mean. If there’s any other dietary explanations people can provide (I assume there’s more than carbs and protein) then I’d welcome those too.
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It has to do with calories and calorie sources.
We all need calories, and we can get them from protein, fats, or carbs.
If you want to build muscle, you need protein. Most people building muscle also want to be lean. To stay lean, you must eat just the right amount of calories, no more.
To optimize muscle building and getting lean, the goal is to take in as much protein as possible and only just the right amount of calories. So, we want the protein per calorie to be as high as possible.
Carbs do not do that. They provide calories, but they do not help with providing the protein for muscle growth. Low carb diets are a way to maximize protein intake while controlling calorie intake to get a higher ratio of protein intake to calorie intake. The diet is just a way to build muscle and stay lean.
But keep in mind, it’s easier for the body to use carbs for energy than fat or protein, so they still have their place. It’s not really advisable to only eat protein since you’re body still needs nutrients from high fat foods and high carb foods. It’s just that you need to stick to healthy fats and carbs, like avocados, olive oil, fruits, veggies, and unprocessed grains.
A carb Is short for Carbohydrate, which is basically a form of sugar that your body can pull nutrients out of and needs in order to burn energy. Most things have either simple or complex carbs, with simple ones being less “filling” and shorter lasting (like sweets) or complex, which are slower burning and more useful for your body over longer periods for sustained energy (like brown rice).
You need protein, carbohydrates, and fats in varying amounts for your body to work properly.
A carbohydrate, or “carb” for short, is a type of molecule that we eat for energy. There are lots of types of carbs: simple carbs are called sugars, slightly more complex carbs are called starches, and complex carbs are called fiber. The simpler the carb, the easier it is to digest, and the more calories you’ll get from them.
Sugars have a lot of variety. Sucrose is your white, granulated sugar, fructose is common in fruits and grains, lactose is found in milk, glucose is found in everything; basically, if it ends in -ose, it’s a sugar.
Starches are found in processed grains and many vegetables; breads, potatoes, and pasta are common sources.
Fiber is found in many vegetables and whole grains.
Carbs, proteins, and lipids are the three [“macromolecules”](https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/macromolecules) we eat for energy. Proteins are abundant in meats, legumes (beans), and dairy products. “Lipids” is a fancy word for fats and oils. They provide more calories per gram than the other two.
Carbs are logs or coal used to keep the engine running, protein is the metal used to repair the machine, fats are the fluids that are used in the machine. Grog is machine.
Carbs are carbon and water, body fat is made of carbon and water. Eating more carbs than you burn will result in stored fat.
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