When to Eat Carbs for Improved Muscle Mass and Reduced Body Fats?

Timing Your Carbs Can Make a Huge Difference in Muscle Gains!

Carb timing for muscle gain strikes a chord with many fitness stars, as the #fitnessgains hashtag goes popular!

Since the popularity of social media stars influences many of their followers to practice the same trend that their models do, here is what you should know about carb timing.

Carb timing is a form of loading or nutrient timing that lets you pick a specific time where you load your plate with the macronutrient.

Now this time could be anything for a layman, night, morning, or even evening.

But carb timing is not that easy and requires a complete process where you select the type and even amount of carbs.

Not everyone gets benefitted from the trend, and hence it is also important to be aware of what your body needs!

Talking more about these ongoing trends and sharing some key points on Carb timing for muscle gain is what the following blog is all about.

Carb Timing for Bodybuilding: Does It Boost Muscle Gains?

Carbohydrates are the energy blocks for not just your workouts but also for your daily lives.

While most fitness experts are not in favor of bulking up too many carbs on your plate, they also don’t deny its importance.

From sugars to starches and fibers, many different types of carbs influence your workout differently.

While their main purpose remains to supply energy, the recent buzz is all about whether timing the carbs right can have some more benefits!

For example, a boost for your workout, more muscle gains, and what’s not.

While social stars are too sure about it, our minds still wander for some scientific pieces of evidence.

Carb Timing: Science and Studies

The research and study materials on carb timing for fat loss or muscle gains haven’t been much consistent yet give significant facts.

Study I

A study was conducted for 6 months over 78 obese adults.

The model followed a strict routine of a calorie-restricted diet where the participants were allowed to have carbs only at dinner.

According to the results, a group that took carbs only at dinner had more positive results in weight loss as compared to the other group.

This throws light on night timing for carbs.

Study II

This study was conducted over 58 obese men and found that:

A low-calorie diet comprising of a good load of carbs at lunch or dinner has the same effect on weight loss.

Study III

Another study showed that taking carbs early in the morning helps in more optimized fat burning throughout the day.

Summarizing these studies we get a clear answer on carb timing;

• Carb timing does work for fat loss and hence supports workouts

But for timing the carb intake perfectly, one must be aware of what exactly it is, and the factors that govern its benefits.

What is Carb Timing?

Carb timing comes under the rule book of nutrient timing for health benefits or fitness benefits.

Nutrient timing is adjusting the intake of a specific nutrient routinely for a positive effect on the body’s response to both acute and chronic exercises.

For example, protein timing for muscle growth has a positive effect on the strength, power, recovery, and energy of the muscles.

In the case of carb timing, the major focus lies on adjusting the right amount of carbs in a fixed routine intake to optimize:

• Energy levels
• Athletic performance
• Reduce fatigue
• Fat loss
• Muscle gains

But the major highlight remains the athletic performance boost.

Benefits of Carb Timing

Knowing when and how much carbs to eat for muscle gain possesses some great pieces of stuff for you. Apart from the two of its major benefits.

#1. For Better Athletic Performance

According to various studies, timing carbs before or after workout helps athletes have a better performance with faster recovery.

This is mainly because a long workout session depletes your energy levels; timing carbs around this time can help you with sustained energy for the same.

The pre and post-workout timing affects the performance as:

• Taking carbs three to four hours before the session can make you go on and on with the session.
• Timing the carbs 30 minutes to 4 hours post a workout restores glycogen stores for faster recovery

However, according to us the best time to eat carbs before or after workout is having a thirty minutes gap.

You can even add up a protein for intense workout sessions.

#2. Carb Timing  for Muscle Growth

A few studies have looked upon carb timing for bodybuilding as:

Having a protein and carbs-rich snack within a few hours of workout have a positive effect on protein synthesis in the body.

Other than that, carbs also have the property of sparing the proteins for energy.

This means that when your body has enough carbs it prefers not to break down protein for fuelling physical activities.

Carbs also delay the breakdown of protein which helps in further muscle synthesis.

Timing and Proportioning Carbs for Beneficial Carb Timing

Though carb timing works in favor of your workouts, it’s not always beneficial.

The first step of carb timing is deciding if your body needs extra attention on carbohydrates.

Who Need Carb Timing?

Certain factors decide whether your body needs carb timing or not:

• Type of Workout – Low-intensity workouts don’t need any excess carbs as the body uses fats to fuel moderate physical activities. You can easily differentiate between the type of exercise you are into by trying to speak a whole sentence during a workout. If you can complete the sentence without any discomfort, you are into low intense exercises.
• Duration of Workouts – Additional carbs are required for long-duration exercises as the body constantly needs energy for the workouts.
• Frequency of Workouts – If your training requires multiple sessions like multiple days in a week or many times a day, then the need for carb timing increases.
• Energy – Different calorie statuses decide whether you need carb intake or not. For example, if you are in a calorie surplus state you won’t need any extra carbs, but if you are in a calorie deficient state, carb timing can be amazing for your workout.

Once you are sure that your body does need carb timing for muscle gain, the next step is picking out the right carbs.

Working out continuously and not taking rest periods in between your workout session can have a negative impact.

So, for how long you should rest to increase your muscular endurance?

READ MORE>>>

Types of Carbs and Their Impact on Workout

There are two types of carbohydrates that affect workouts differently:

Simple Carbohydrates

Simple carbs as their name suggests are easy to digest and break down rapidly in the body to supply you with quick energy.

It could be of two types, natural or synthetic.

The preferred form of simple carbs are the natural ones that could be extracted from:

• Fresh fruits
• Milk
• Milk products

On the other hand, synthetic simple carbohydrates provide quick energy but are followed by fatigue and hence not recommended:

• Packaged foods
• Canned drinks like soda
• Candies
• Packed fruit juices

Though most health experts don’t recommend adding simple carbs to your diet according to the sports enthusiast, simple carbs work the best for vigorous workouts.

Studies show that simple carbs have benefits like:

• Improving endurance
• Reducing fatigue
• Less muscle soreness
• Weight loss

Hence you can ideally add 300 to 400 calories for bulking through your simple carbs within 60 minutes of working out.

Complex Carbohydrates

The fibers and starch come under the complex carbs that have an important role in boosting your performance.

Though they take more time than simple carbs in the breakdown but provide stable sugar levels.

Some good sources of complex carbs are:

• Veggies
• Whole grains
• Legumes
• Beans
• Nuts and seeds
• Fresh fruits that are not peeled

Also, complex carbs help in increasing the protein stores for more ample muscle growth and also helps preserve muscle mass for a leaner cut.

According to the results, people who take a diet rich in complex carbs have:

• Better speed
• More muscle proteins
• Enhanced functioning of muscles

Hence, according to our expert team, it is better to go for the complex carbs diet, but the choice still depends on you based on your workout routine.

The next step of carb timing for muscle gain is fixing the number of carbs that one should take during macro timing bodybuilding.

What’s the Right Amount of Carbs for Muscle Gains?

An average male body tends to store 350 to 500 grams of glycogen.

This range depends on the type of workout or physical activity and the number of muscles you have.

The harder you train the lesser glycogen you store.

Hence, people who train intensely can have decreased athletic performance because of fewer energy sources.

However, the amount of carbs you need depends on the type, number, and intensity of workouts.

For example:

• People in strength training should have 4 to 6 grams of carbs per kg of their weight.
• While people inclined to endurance training should go for 8 grams per kg of their weight.
• If your training lasts more than an hour add up to 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour.

The last step and the most important step of carb timing are picking up the right time for carbohydrates ingestion.

Best Time of day to Eat Carbs

Since most foods contain some amount of carbs it is important to have the right balance for perfect carb timing.

Usually, healthy people can have carbs with every meal, but the best time for carb timing is early in the day, mainly breakfast.

Eating carbs in your breakfast has many benefits like:

#1. Weight loss

Since you are more active during the day, taking carbs early in the morning will keep you away from gorging on more food.

It also helps in weight loss.

#2. Longer Exercise

If you are planning to indulge in intense and long sessions of workouts, nothing beats carbs for your pre-workout snack.

It keeps you energized throughout the workout and also provides more endurance.

While early morning carb timing is considered good, nights are considered the worst time to eat carbs.

Though some studies call out carbs for dinner weight loss a good thing, according to facts:

• Consuming carbohydrates during the night leaves you with less time to digest them and convert them into energy. Hence the carbs are converted into fat and stored for the time when you will be needing energy.
• Eating carbs during the night can also spike up your sugar levels as it gets stored as glycogen.
• Can hinder your sleep cycle.

So if your question remains, can you eat carbs at night and still lose weight then a clear answer would be no, eating carbs at night can rather be a burden for your body.

Conclusion

While carb timing has climbed the charts of trending today, one important tip that we wanna give you is combining it with proteins.

That might sound not so carb-specific tip, but adding up proteins does improve the results of the whole process that goes in when timing your carbs.

This combination not just gives you energy but also helps in more muscle gains.

Some good workout snacks that combine both the macros can be:

• Peanut butter sandwich
• Greek yogurt and berries
• Oatmeal
• Apple with peanut butter
• Nuts

If you wanna go for the combo post your workout, you can try out low-fat chocolate milk, low-fat yogurt, and a smoothie that has fruits.

With this we come to the end of the blog on Carb timing for muscle gain, your queries and questions are welcome in the comment box.

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