nutritionDo you include fruits and vegetables as carbs when cutting?
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On a cutting phase, do you / should you include fruits and vegetables as part as your carbohydrate intake? If so, is there a limit / amount as to how much carbs you should take in on a cutting phase?
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By mitch – over 1 year ago
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Generally, the only carbs that don't really matter in your overall carb count are the non-starchy vegetables. These are composed of mostly indigestible fibre and therefore only contribute very small amounts of carbohydrates to the diet.
So most of the green vegetables (lettuce, celery, broccoli, kale, spinach, cabbage, etc), most bright-coloured vegetables (peppers, etc) and also cauliflower and a few others.
Most fruits are high in fibre also but they also contain sugar - just Google the nutrient profile of a fruit and only count the calories from "sugar".
Vegetables like potatoes, corn, sweet potato, parsnips, etc are high in starch and depending upon which one and how they are cooked, they often have a higher glycemic index than fruit.
Remember though, cut the processed junk, grains, and sugars first and you shouldn't cut out all fruit and starchy vegetables...just remove some from the diet gradually if necessary due to hitting a weight loss plateau. Fruit and vegetables are the most nutrient-dense parts of our diets and have the most profound health benefits, including balancing the acid levels that are boosted by high-protein diets.
Nutritionist and Supplement Specialist
When you dieted down to 5% body fat, was your diet carb free?
The first time I dieted down, I was on about 200 grams of carbs per day but I was much younger then, had more time to train properly and had a much faster metabolism and that made up for my lack of knowledge.
Most-recently when I got lean for some photos, I was on between 75 and 120 grams per day - the higher amount on training days, especially after leg training, etc. there's no point to trying to go super low carbs - below 30 or so.
Lots of guys talk about keto diets (which usually require your carbs to be below 50 grams daily) but you don't have to be in ketosis to enhance fat burning and it has some down sides too...like low energy in the gym and digestive problems (constipation, etc). You could theoretically go "carb free" but you would pretty much have to only eat meat and fish with no sauce, garnish, etc and again, there would be no advantage to trying to do this - although I know a few guys who've done it.
Nutritionist and Supplement Specialist