Ever the cynic

I have been following a low carb diet for a month now and have been amazed by its effects on my BS, my weight loss and the sheer energy I have when training.

Now while I should be over the moon Im a strong believer in there is no such thing as a free lunch. Can someone tell me what the down sides are to low carbing, especially in the case of someone trying to build muscle as well as lose fat.

Where is my new found energy coming from if not carbs and why is it that while I am losing weight my body fat monitor is still showing the same percentage of body fat @ 24.1% and muscle mass of 71%, if anything the fat measure has grown slightly since I started low carbing.

While I appreciate BS and weight control is more important to me that muscle growth it does concern me that all I am doing by low carbing is losing my muscle mass I worked so hard to gain.

I have in the same month changed my training routine from 2 cardio sessions to 3 and reduced my weight training from 3 to 2. I seem to be maintaining my strength but not increasing, which could be down to the 1 less weight session or could it be down to my low carb diet.

I think you get the gist of what Im saying will I just end up with less weight but the same fat levels.

I am sorry if my posting appeared to be negative towards low carbing, which really wasn't my intention. It has so far made a massive change to my life, so why would I be negative. My posting was really to find out what others have found as a result of taking the same route, especially those that spend time in the gym.

I will take a look at the site you mention and see what I can find out.

On the other point the reason for measuring my fat and muscle levels is because its easy to put weigh on while your'e training hard and eating harder the important thing is what that weigh actually is. I have lost close to a stone in weigh since starting low carbing and my monitor seems to show that nothing has changed the muscle / fat percentage , thats what puzzled me.

During my change of diet I have maintained my protein intake so was hoping that my muscle mass wouldn't be affected by my diet. My fear was that in losing weigh I would end up just skin and bones as the body started digesting muscle for energy rather than fat and Carbs.
I know that to increase muscle and strength you need protein and my question was do you also need carbs.

Since making my posting it seems by increasing my the amount of weigh training during my weight training days I am seeing the return to strength increases so maybe it was my transition to more cardio and less weigh training that was the real problems not the reducing in carbs, will keep experimenting.

Thank Fergus for your reassuring comments have done some reading as suggested and it does seem that low carbing can be done without muscle loss so long as the protein intake isn't reduced as well. Which fortunately seems to support my findings that my intial strength loss was more down to my change of training routine.

11% thats what I dream of thats 6 pack territory so can see you are doing brilliantly. I have read your posting on low carbing for newbies which started me on this route. So I would just like to say thanks for sorting out a problem that I have been struggling with for so very long.

Had almost given up on weigh loss, was taking hammerings at every clinic and yet I was breaking my back in the gym and following advise to eat plenty of complex carbs. I even spent money I haven't got on seeing a sports nutritionist who again reinforced the complex carb, plenty of porridge route.

My weigh still kept increasing, then out of sheer frustration I typed in something about diabetes, weight loss and training and up came this website. The rest is history finally I feel in control again. The continual diabetic clinic kickings were getting me so down that I was very close to saying if this is the cure I will take my chances with the illness and stop taking the meds.

Now I am losing weigh, feel brilliant, have lost all the side effects of high BS and even my training is coming on faster than for a very long time.

What can I say if this is doing it all wrong, then so be it.

If its water loss then its certainly making my jeans fit better, this weekend got into a pair I hadn't gotten into in many a long year.