carbs and fat

Dr Joe,

I thought the point was to burn "stored energy" or the excess body fat to maximize muscularity?

Is this the reason for low fat intake?

Also, thought carb intake was spread throughout the day for energy and during "non competition" season taken in post workout for that insulin spike that is supposed to keep muscles form depleting?

After reading through the articles and posts about fat I think I understand the best way to supplement fat in the off season and that is…

In the off season  you only need fat for energy and it is best to have it during the meals before your work out and don’t over do it…If you have it after your workout your body will be burning that supplemented fat instead of your own body fat?

When your body has a lot of fat to draw from, it's unlikely you'll see a drop in testosterone (very far), etc, so offseason or in the beginning of dieting you can keep fat lower and not have to worry about anything detrimental from lower fat intake.  When dieting, you're body is using fat for energy and turning fat into glucose for energy - the more fat I take in the less my body has to take from stored sources.  Only when body fat is really low do you need to add more fat in or when your carbs are so high that it's counterproductive to add more carbs instead of bringing fat up.  I have a couple of clients over 4,000 calories a day and 100 grams of fat is barely 20% of calories from fat.  To keep fat low and move carbs to 800 would be less than optimal for many reasons. 

Hey Joe,

when bodyfat is then being as energy and also hormone production, is it glucagon that mobilizes it for both purposes, and what exactly is fat/cholostorol function in hormone production? is it literally what some hormones are made of or...

I feel like I have a grasp of the carbs thing... but understanding how much fat to intake has alwasy been a mystery to me... I've always kept fat calories around 20% of daily intake. dieting or not.  So in order to keep  testosterone levels elevated during the cut phase (assuming bodyfat is below metabolic set point) an increase in fat(in grams) is nessessary?  Or is it just the percent of fat increase nessessary?

 Example:

Off Season Diet is 3000 kcals... 20% fat =  67g

Cut Season Diet is 2000 kcals... 20% fat = 44g

The question being.  During the cut should fat be increased  above 67g, or should the percent be increased so that the 2000 kcal diet will have fat grams be around 67g?

And does anyone know around how much below metabolic setpoint does testosterone take a hit? 

Example:

Offseason bodyfat percentage averages around 8%... would testosterone start dropping at 7-6-5-4-3%?

T levels are going to start dropping off when you drop below that set point...so its going to vary. I notice that anywhere below 5.5-6% is when it starts getting rough for me. My offseason fat levels are in the 10-11% range in a long offseason like I am currently doing. I'll hang in the 8-9% during a short offseason though. As such, when my current body fat gets roughly cut in half, it gets ugly. LOL.

That said, dietary fat is largely dictated by carb intake. Its always going to be fairly low for a competitor dieting because it can easily be stored and we are clearly looking to maintain a caloric deficit. So we make carbs the priority for obvious muscle-sparing reasons. That said, even the strictest ecto has an upper limit where adding carbs in place of fat is just not useful anymore. So thats when you add some fat back in.

But no matter what you do, T levels are going to tank...and Joe could answer this better than myself, but I don't really think fat intake is going to help you during that time in any significant capacity.