Minimum Carbs

Can anyone give me an idea what the minimum SAFE level of carbs might be when using IGF? By safe I mean not so low that one would go into keto. This is if you were trying to maximize fat loss with the IFG. 40 mcg ED, BF% 17, weight 226 (up from 217). Any ideas? I've seen in some posts people taking in around 200, in one case as low as 94. That, to me, seems extremely low.

where do you want your carbs to fall? do you want to do a carb depleted diet? I don't think you need to worry about IGF causing any reactions IMO

I'm not necessarily talking about a carb depleted diet, but just maximizing the fat loss capabilities of the IGF. I was under the impression that too few carbs could cause hypogycemia and, if too low, ketoacidosis when using IGF. Is that incorrect?

hold on, I thought going keto was a good thing? I guess losing 15-20lbs in a month in ketosis is a bad thing? And even more if you cardio

I'm with you buschris, ketosis should be the GOAL when attempting to loose BF. At that point your body is using fatty acids for energy...

I understand that ketosis is a good thing when trying to lose body fat. It's what diets like Atkins are based on. Ketoacidosis is a severe condition in which the pH of the blood is thrown off. So my question is how low can the carbs go in order to prevent ketoacidosis, but still induce ketosis to lose fat?

I can't answer your question from a scientific standpoint but I can tell you that if you're going to be on IGF-1 that there's no reason to carb deplete to the point where you would need to worry about ketoacidosis, I'm a firm believer in "everything in moderation" and carb depleting that much is just unhealthy. How much weight are you trying to lose and what's your time frame? There's lots of other methods that we can recommend to help get you to your goal without the severe carb depletion bro.

I know there are other ways to drop fat, and I don't really have a time frame. I was just hoping to use the IGF to drop a few pounds while still building muscle, basically just trim up. And if there's no real risk to dropping carbs down, then why do some people advise that carb intake should be around 400-500?

Webharv69 said:

I know there are other ways to drop fat, and I don't really have a time frame. I was just hoping to use the IGF to drop a few pounds while still building muscle, basically just trim up. And if there's no real risk to dropping carbs down, then why do some people advise that carb intake should be around 400-500?

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I never heard that before to be honest, where did you read that?

Hey guys, new to this board. I found this site while looking for info on IGF. I just started 2 weeks ago, I'm 5 weeks out today from my show. I was running a keto diet, but since adding in IGF i have started taking in 60-80 grams of carbs a day. My bodyweight has quit dropping, I'm at 5-6% at 199-200 in the mornings. My weight was dropping at about 1-2 pounds a week before the IGF. Now it has started to increase at 1 pound a week. I'm still getting leaner, and more vascular. The IGF combined with the GH is keeping my muscles full, and my strength is holding steady even though I am carb depleted, and doing 2, 1 hour sessions of cardo. As far as protein intake goes, I am staying between 460-500 a day.

Last year I did exactly as my dietician told me (349 gram protein target) and dropped muscle the whole time. I figured since the guy does diets for several IFBB pros that he could'nt be wrong. Oh well, I'm handling things on my own this year, and I am a full 15-18 pounds heavier at the same BF%.


Here are some pics days before I started my diet at 8 weeks out. I posted them in the photo journal forum.

http://board1.mantisforums.com/upload/showthread.php?p=360679#post360679