By way of background, it should suffice to say that I'm 6'5" and have gone from ~215 lbs. (ca. June 2009) to today's weight of 185 lbs., mostly through carbohydrate reduction.
In an effort to lose the last 8-10 lbs., which are happily clinging on to my abdomen and back, I began resistance training in earnest about 3 months ago: specifically Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength protocol, which amounts to a bunch of 3x5 compound movements 3-4 times a week.
So far, my training has been in a fasted state, with the exception of 10g of BCAAs, per Martin Berkhan's recommendation. I "fast" in the sense that I do not eat breakfast. On an average day, I'll eat two meals (for example, 1:00p and 7:00p).
On the advice of Travis Culp and others, I began taking 45+ minute walks each morning.
Here's where I could still use help. My stubborn fat seems content to stay where it is for the time being, so I've been looking into shaking things up.
Reading Lyle McDonald's Ketogenic Diet left me with the impression that the purpose of carbohydrate in the diet is primarily for athletic performance. Thing is, as I mentioned above, I'm a complete beginner to weight training and consequently am still riding the wave of the beginner's gains. I'm 25 years old, and a day's recovery seems to be more than enough for my body. Nothing McDonald says (at least in KD, anyway) indicates that carbohydrates are useful for fat or weight loss. What's left unsaid, then, is that weight loss should progress more rapidly on a ketogenic diet without the sporadic carbohydrate intake advocated by the Targeted and Cyclical Ketogenic Diets.
On the other hand, yesterday Paul Jaminet's Twitter feed pointed me to a month-old post of his that I must have missed. It discussed glucose deficiency due to lack of readily available glucose and intimated that relying on protein and ketones to make up the difference would be too risky. I guess one possibility is hypothyroidism or euthyroid sick syndrome, but my lack of other symptoms makes me doubtful. And I've seen enough anecdotes between PH and the comments sections of several blogs to satisfy me that adding in a bit of starch has the potential to kick-start fat loss. I'm not averse to trying.
And another possibility is that I am not taking in enough calories to prevent my metabolism from slowing down. This explanation feels crude, though, and it would indirectly call into the question the merit of the Martin Berkhan's approach. (According to McDonald's calculation, a male of my weight requires 2,960 kcal for maintenance. Assuming a 20% target deficit [2,368 kcal], that's almost 1,200 kcal for each of two meals. That's a lot.) But it's an explanation that I guess I could stomach. There are worse things than being told to eat more.
What I'm looking for isn't so much an "answer" (I haven't really asked a question, yet) so much as commentary or suggestions. But in the name of good Stack Exchange sportmanship, here are a couple:
Do you advocate starch?
In your view, what is the purpose of starch? E.g., performance (a la McDonald), weight loss, dietary diversity, or general well-being?
Thanks in advance for playing along!
