Yea DJ is not around right now but I'll give you my 2 million Zim cents worth. I think we all know why we need protein so I won't go into that. Carbs are for providing energy to our organs, muscles and pretty much all living tissue after being metabolised into glucose. The more energy you need, the more carbs you need. Yes, glucose is converted to ATP for energy or stored as glycogen among other things but glucose is the primary energy unit.
Sure, fat is also an energy source when carbs are not available, where they will be broken down into fatty acids and glycerol which is converted into glucose. But this is not as efficient as the much more simple process of metabolising carbs into glucose. The energy you need for getting done what you have to do during the day, and for prepping your muscles for your workouts should come primarily from carbs, unless of course you are on keto but that is an entirely different topic. On low activity days more healthy fats can be consumed instead of carbs because we don't need the big insulin spikes that we want to refeed our muscles post workout.
We store the most body fat when we have high blood glucose levels, high blood insulin levels, and high levels of fat in the bloodstream at the same time. So that is what we want to avoid. If we consume a high protein meal with good fats and no carbs then blood glucose rises slowly as fat is broken down for energy, plus we don't get a big insulin spike. Perfect.
So fats are an energy source but for people like us who are eating every few hours and trying to store as little body fat as possible we should see fats for their essential metabolic functions and only as a backup energy source when we are without nutrition for a long time like when we go to sleep and to provide energy when the carbs we have consumed are used up so that we don't start using up all our stored liver/muscle glycogen. Fats are easy calories to get in to hit our macro targets when we are bulking but we have to watch the type of fats, and our carb intake at those times.
Ok, so Fat's metabolic functions. All living cells need fat which is used to build the cell linings and all hormones like testosterone, estrogen, progesterone that are formed from cholesterol are derived from fats. Good fats are needed for our good HDL cholesterol to keep our heart healthy and for removing the excess cholesterol from our body. Then there is healthy skin/hair etc which we need fats for amongst other things like a health nervous system. So that's enough reason why we can not eat a diet too low in fats. Not enough good fats means lower testosterone levels and higher risk for heart disease. Enough reason.
Fats and carbs don't bind inside the cell when eaten together. Your body will use the carbs for energy, as they are broken down first, and the resulting insulin spike from elevated blood glucose will push the fats that you consumed that are now in the bloodstream into adipose tissue which is your FLAB. Eating your carbs and fats together makes you store more fat. I think that simplifies it?
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