What happens when you eat carbs everyday? [closed]

Question

I once heard that to gain weight, one has to eat a lot of carbohydrates. What I mean by a lot is, by eating carbs in the morning, afternoon and evening plus as an additional midnight snack. So, I wondered, for someone who is trying to gain weight and build muscles, would it affect the body taking carbs like garri, in particular, every morning, afternoon and evening, with, of course, protein ( but not as much as carbs).

Note - Garri has 80g of carbs and 330 calories. Source - https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/generic-garri-dry-213421331

Answer 1

There is a much simpler reason why bulking up on carbs is good in general, also for bodybuilding. Your body needs energy, and hole grain carbs are a healthy source of energy, as its loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber. The alternative would be to eat fat for energy but this has two drawbacks.

The first drawback is that fat is pretty much an empty calorie source, it contains no vitamins, no minerals, and no fibers. While we do need small amounts of fats to absorb fat soluble vitamins and to get our essential Omega-3 and Omega-6 faty acids, we don't need it for energy.

The second drawback is that burning carbs requires less oxygen than burning fat, because carbs contain more oxygen atoms than fat molecules. This is particularity important when doing cardio exercise. A body builder might not be too much concerned with that, but most body builders do build in quite some cardio training in their routine to maintain a good weight and fitness.

As far as general health is concerned, there is quite strong evidence that limiting fat intake to 15% of total calories is good for health. As mentioned here, in Uganda in the 1950s the rate of coronary heart disease in the African population was almost zero, while in the Asian population it was similar to what it is in the Western World. The explanation according to the article, for this difference is the fat in the diet.

A recent finding is that the Tsimané people have extremely low levels of heart disease, much lower than lowest observed results in modern societies like the Japanese people in Okinawa or people sticking to the Mediterranean diet. The Tsimané people's diet contains roughly the same amount of fat as that of the Africans in Uganda in the 1950, its roughly 15% of the calorie intake.

Answer 2

In the bodybuilding scene, the logic that you need to consume carbohydrates to build muscles is this:

Protein calories will be used as an energy source when the body is lacking fat or carbohydrate calories for fuel. When the body receives sufficient quantities of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, protein will carry out its specific functions.

Note, that the article never says you need to consume "a lot" of carbohydrates or have them with every meal; they don't even need to be carbohydrates - fats will do the same: provide calories for energy, so the proteins won't get burned and could be incorporated into the muscles.

Garri, which is made from cassava, contains a lot of soluble fiber, which can cause a lot of gas if consumed in great amounts. There are other high-carb foods with much less soluble fiber, for example, bread, pasta, potatoes and rice.

Having >60% carbs in your diet is a risk factor for increased blood triglycerides, which might be further associated with increased risk of diabetes or heart disease, though (PubMed, 2000).

According to the following study, carbohydrate intake as such does not help to increase muscle mass: Is carbohydrate needed to further stimulate muscle protein synthesis/hypertrophy following resistance exercise? (PubMed, 2013)

In conclusion, whilst it cannot be excluded that carbohydrate addition may provide benefits for recovering athletes, on the basis of available data, no further beneficial actions of carbohydrates, irrespective of GI, are evident concerning muscle hypertrophy when a protein supplement that maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis is ingested.

Another study (PubMed, 2004):

We conclude that ingestion of carbohydrates improved net leg protein balance after resistance exercise. However, the effect was minor and delayed compared with the previously reported effect of ingestion of amino acids.