[almaIV]

Giving up grains or sugars isn't necessary, though, especially since "giving up sugar" would entail giving up fruit, and grains, while high in carbs, are some of the most nutritious foods you can eat. In fact, most nutritional recommendations I've read recommend a ratio of 60/20/20 for carbs/fats/protein.

Instead of thinking about whether something is "high carb" or not, it's better to think about the digestibility of the carb. Kidney beans, for example, are high-carb and high satiating. Sugar is all-carb and not satiating at all. You can find the satiation relative to carbs by examining the food's glycemic index.

[vidarh]

A caveat: 60/20/20 might work for reasonably sedentary people.... Most people doing exercises, especially resistance exercise, will want much more protein.

40/20/40 or relatively close to that is a common split. Many will up the fat too (at the expense of carbs). At 60/20/20, there's absolutely no way I'd manage keeping up my lifting program.

[bosie]

I assume the split is in percentage of calorie intake? genuine question: how do you eat 40% protein?

say you need 2700 calories on a workout day => 1080 protein calories => 250g of protein per day. that's more than 1kg of lean meat/fish a day?

[vidarh]

Yes, it's in percent of calorie intake.

I do end up with a lot of chicken and prawn, and a lot of jerky, as well as milk, and various protein supplements (shakes with up to 90% protein by dry weight, mixed with water - generally tastes foul; people writing sales copy for protein products are the most blatant liars in the world).

It's not unusual for me to eat a lunch consisting of 400g of lean chicken breast (ca. 100g of protein), ca. 600g of chicken drumsticks (ca. 70g of protein), a small-ish sausage and egg sandwich (~25g protein), a yoghurt drink and a flapjack. The rest I'll make up with a small meal in the evening.

My intake on exercise days is actually ~2800kcal so you hit pretty much where I am. But note that 2800kcal on exercise days is above my maintenance level at 103kg, at relatively advanced (but not competitive) levels on most my lifts.

Most people will need less than that, and you can get by on substantially less - you will just see less progress. It is fairly self-limiting. A lot of people you see struggling with the same weights in the gym over and over are simply eating too little.

The evidence for very high protein diets goes in all kinds of directions, though the evidence for increasing protein to support muscle growth is fairly good as far as I know. There's evidence for various degrees of beneficial (from a muscle building perspective) effects of up to 3g-4g of protein per kg of lean body weight depending on who you ask.

Though the main reason to aim for that kind of level simply "in case" it makes a difference, and because it allows for slip-ups without affecting the gym routine much, and unless you have kidney problems there are few to no negative effects.

Note that even a lot of gym goers would qualify as relatively sedentary...

[bosie]

Thank you for the explanation. And kudos for eating almost 1kg of chicken breast per sitting ;)

[oostevo]

The canonical formula for bodybuilders and strength athletes is 1g per pound of lean bodyweight.

[cue jokes about mixing systems of measurement]

[Shorel]

I have given up (most) fruits and grains. Never felt better.

Your nutritional recommendations gave me cravings and hypoglycemia in the past.