Tag: protein

  • How to Eat to Maximize Muscle Mass and Gain Strength-Part 3 and 4

    How to Eat to Maximize Muscle Mass and Gain Strength-Part 3 and 4

    Part 3

    We digest protein into amino acids which are transported through our bloodstream to repair our damaged muscles. Amino acids circulating in our bloodstream need to be let into the cells they are trying to repair to do their job – our bodies must secrete insulin in order for this to happen. For example, if we were to drink some branched chain amino acids (BCAA’s) we immediately absorb these into our bloodstream, but without producing an insulin secretion, we cannot use these BCAA’s to repair our muscles. Our previous recommendation for BCAA consumption prior to fasted training works because resistance training elicits an insulin response.

    Once amino acids are circulating in our bloodstream, it takes about 3-4 hours for this amino acid concentration to reach baseline again. Once we reach baseline, we will not be repairing our muscles anywhere close to what we were right after eating. For this reason, it is best practice to eat at least 25g protein every 3-4 hours (25g has been found to be the minimum threshold to “maximally” stimulate MPS). Protein sources that come from animals are our best bet, as we know our bodies produce more testosterone (testosterone is the MOST useful hormone with regards to strength improvements and body fat loss) by eating animal fats. It can be difficult to always have access to animal sources of protein, so we recommend eating something easy to prepare like a protein bar, Greek yogurt, or drinking a protein shake when we are unable to get a full meal at this 3-4 hour mark.

    If you are someone who truly wants to maximize their nutrition and recovery strategies, at this point you may be wondering “if we want to always keep MPS elevated above baseline by eating a minimum of 25g protein every 3-4 hours, aren’t we wasting a large portion of the day by not keeping these levels elevated when we sleep?” The answer is: yes, we are wasting time. In order to combat this, we can use casein protein right before bed. Whey protein is very similar to animal sources of protein where MPS remains elevated for ~3-4 hours but casein actually doubles this to 6-8 hours before MPS returns to baseline – almost a full night of sleep! This slower circulation also comes with a slower absorption rate so while 25g of whey “maximally” stimulates MPS, you need twice as much casein (50g) to accomplish the same goal. Drinking a protein shake with 50g of casein right before bed will allow us to keep MPS elevated for most if not all of the time we spend sleeping – this way we can actually be consistently recovering for every minute of every day. Although for different reasons, this process of slower nutrient digestion and absorption also occurs when we eat large meals.

    As previously mentioned, 25g of whey protein maximally stimulates MPS. This elevation in bloodstream amino acids lasts for 3-4 hours – the same applies for 25g of protein (3 Oz.) from chicken breast. This changes when we eat anything other than just protein in a meal. Most of the time we eat we are not exclusively eating protein. When our stomach needs to concentrate its efforts to digest carbs and fat in addition to protein, this process takes slightly longer and the increase in MPS is smaller in magnitude (this means we do not “maximally” stimulate MPS). So what this means for us, is that on average, when eating well-balanced meals consisting of protein, carbs, and fat, we should aim to eat between 45-70g of protein as this will allow us to still maximally stimulate MPS regardless of our bodies rate of absorption. When eating meals with mixed nutrient absorption, the previously mentioned MPS elevation of 3-4 hours, now changes to 4-5 hours. This is something we need to consider for instances like fueling strategies where if we eat too much too soon before an activity, our performance can decrease due to nausea and stomach cramps.

    To this point we have discussed how much protein to eat but only briefly mentioned which protein sources and how often we should be trying to eat. Piecing together the information presented above, we should be trying to eat at least 25g of protein per meal to maximally stimulate MPS (45 – 70g protein for larger meals). We want to try to eat every 3-4 hours with any size meal. Even though MPS does not reach baseline at 3 hours with larger meals, we still want to keep MPS elevated as much as we can throughout the day. If you are someone who has a hard time eating every 3-4 hours, a good strategy is to alternate what you eat with each protein “feeding”. We can have a full meal, then around the 3-4 hour mark, if we are not hungry, we can have a protein snack like a protein bar, shake, or Greek yogurt (as long as it has at least 25g of protein). This way, we can keep MPS elevated throughout the day and don’t let our hunger stop us from meeting our goals! The amount of protein we eat in a day might be the most important part of eating for strength gain or muscle growth, but the type of protein we eat is also incredibly important.

     

    Part 4

    Our body digests protein sources into amino acids that are circulated through the bloodstream. Of the 20 amino acids, 9 are essential, meaning that our bodies cannot make these on its own. Because of this, we need to ensure we consume protein sources with complete amino acid profiles (consisting of essential amino acids). For the most part, it is relatively easy to get plenty of complete protein sources because all animal sources of protein have complete amino acid profiles. Specifically, leucine and isoleucine are the two most important amino acids we need to make sure we are eating – without these, our body will not understand how to utilize these amino acids to repair our muscle cells. Most of us will not have a hard time eating plenty of complete proteins but for those who practice a vegetarian or vegan diet, it can be tricky.

    When investigating plant sources of protein, it can be easy to think that we are getting some protein in because we are literally eating protein. The difficult part comes when we realize that the protein source we just ate does not contain leucine or isoleucine. Below is a list of some of the protein sources that are either complete or incomplete to help guide your decision-making process:

    Incomplete:

    • Nuts
    • Seeds
    • Whole Grains
    • Legumes (lentils, peas)
    • Beans
    • Rice
    • Vegetables

    Complete:

    • Meat
    • Poultry
    • Fish
    • Eggs
    • Dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese)
    • Whey

    Complete Vegan/Vegetarian Options:

    • Soy
    • Buckwheat
    • Quinoa
    • Chia seed
    • Spirulina
    • Tempeh
    • Amaranth

    This is not an exhaustive list, but a good place to start. Just because protein sources are incomplete, that does not mean we cannot complete them ourselves. For example, let’s say for lunch you eat rice and chicken. If you were to eat the rice alone, our body would be unable to utilize those amino acids to repair our muscle cells, however, if we were to eat the same amount of rice in addition to chicken, the leucine and isoleucine from the chicken will then allow us to utilize the amino acids from the rice to repair our muscles and make us stronger. For those who do not eat meat, we can still utilize the same strategy of completing our amino acid profiles ourselves, but this will require considerable knowledge of amino acid profiles regarding a wide range of vegan and vegetarian food options. An easy way to complete our amino acid profiles is to make sure that we are eating at least 1 complete protein source with each meal (reference list above). To this point, we have discussed general timing strategies, but what nutritional strategies can we take before and after our training sessions to maximize our recovery?

    In the past article titled: “Pre- and Post-Workout Nutrition Strategies for Strength Training” we discussed why it is a good idea to train in the “fed state” and how we have increased nutrient absorption following exercise. For these reasons, we recommend that you have a meal before training to begin recovery at the onset of training (25g protein and ~33g carbs -1 hour before training, for full meals, give at least 2-2.5 hours). We experience increased nutrient absorption, much like how MPS remains elevated, for 3-4 hours depending on the intensity of our training. This timing works out perfectly because if we have a protein shake immediately following training, MPS level will begin to dissipate around 3 hours so we can get two “protein feedings” in this “anabolic window” following exercise.

    If we implement all the nutritional strategies discussed in this article, we will ensure that we are maximizing your recovery with what we eat! If you or anyone you know wants to improve their training, diet, or body composition, give us a call (312-666-7147) or send us an email (info@performancetrainingsystems.com) and one of our many qualified professionals will be happy to help in any way we can!

  • How to Eat to Maximize Muscle Mass and Gain Strength – Part 1 and 2

    How to Eat to Maximize Muscle Mass and Gain Strength – Part 1 and 2

    Part 1

    Are you someone who wants more progress out of the gym than what you are currently getting? There are 168 hours in a week, it’s easy to spend 2-3 of them exercising but the difficult part is supporting our goals throughout the full week with what we eat throughout every day. Nutrition is the most significant recovery strategy we can manipulate to get up to 100% more progress out of our training. In this article we will discuss nutritional strategies to maximize muscle growth (strength) and further our discussion of information from the previous articles titled “How to Prevent the Age-Related Loss of Muscle Mass (Sarcopenia)”, “How to Begin a Fat Loss Diet”, and “How to Lose Body Fat While Keeping Muscle” so if you haven’t already, make sure you give those a read first.

    The two most important aspects of any nutrition plan for muscle growth are the amount of protein and the calorie content we eat. Put simply, if we eat more calories than we burn, we will gain weight (calorie surplus), and if we eat less calories than we burn, we will lose weight (calorie deficit). If our goal is to maximize the strength improvements we experience from our training sessions, it is best to eat in a calorie surplus. If we eat in a deficit, our body’s will have less available resources (protein and amino acids) to support our training goals as the food we eat also needs to support our daily function. That being said, it is without a doubt, possible to make significant steps toward our goals without a calorie surplus, but eating in a surplus will amplify these results even further! It is important to note that eating too high in a calorie surplus (more than 200 calories above maintenance per day) will result in even more strength improvements BUT this comes at the cost of more body gain and can contradict many of our goals. If you want to learn how to find how many calories to eat to support your personal training goals, read our article titled: “How to Begin a Fat Loss Diet”. Our calorie intake is very important in regard to our training goals, but our protein intake is just as if not more important!

    So why is protein more important than everything else we eat in terms of supporting our strength improvements? When we eat chicken, for example, we digest the meat into amino acids in our stomach which then are absorbed by our intestine wall, and moved into our bloodstream where they circulate and are transported to repair damaged cells (muscle cells in this case but this applies to any cell in our body in need of repair). There is somewhat of a “dose response” relationship with protein meaning, the more we eat, the more improvements we will make in the gym. This, however, is affected by the law of diminishing returns where once we eat more than 1g protein per lb. of body mass in a day, we start receiving “less of a benefit”.

    Thinking in terms of protein per meal, if we eat 1g per lb body mass and have 3 meals with 1 “protein snack” during the day (4 protein “feedings”), a 180lb person would be eating 45g of protein per meal if evenly distributed (180g protein per day). Now, if this same person were eating 1.2g per lb body mass (216g), this would then come out to ~55g of protein per meal. Scientific evidence has shown us that an increase of protein intake per meal from 25g – 55g yields 0.01% more muscle protein synthesis (use of amino acids in circulation). We can clearly see how the law of diminishing returns takes place; however, many people have looked at this data and concluded that because our returns are diminished, we shouldn’t even try. A better way of looking at this, is that a 0.01% increase, is still in fact, an increase.

     

    Part 2

    For more information regarding carbohydrate and fat intake, reference the articles titled: “How to Lose Body Fat While Keeping Muscle”. For a short recap of the article, we need to ensure we are eating 0.4 grams of fat per lb. of body mass we have – this will ensure our body is given what it needs (essential fatty acids) in order to optimally regulate our hormone functioning throughout the day. Hormones dictate our body’s response to different stressors (For example: testosterone tells our body to build more muscle, and cortisol tells our body to break things down – non-optimal hormone function could result in too much cortisol and yield less improvements experienced from our training sessions). To find our carbohydrate intake, first we will use the information from the “How to Start a Fat Loss Diet” article to find our basal metabolic rate (BMR). Then we will decide how much protein and fat we will eat using the information presented in the “How to Start a Fat Loss Diet” article. Once we have our total daily calorie intake (up to 200 more than our BMR), our protein (at least 1g per lb. of body mass), and fat (0.4g per lb body mass) intake, we will then fill the rest of the calories in with carbohydrates.

    For example, a 180lb male age 27, would have a BMR of 2,176 calories per day. In order to improve his muscle building capability without gaining excessive body fat, he will add 200 calories to this, bringing his total to 2,376 calories to eat per day. To start, we’ll say his protein intake is 1g per lb body mass at 180g per day. His fat intake will be 72 grams per day (0.4 x 180). Since protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram and fat has 9, adding his protein and fat intake together would put him at 1,368 calories. He will next fill in the rest of his calories (2,376-1,368=1,008) with carbohydrates which will come out to 252g carbs per day (1,008/4=252). This nutritional strategy is very effective for building strength as we mentioned above: the fat intake will allow for optimal hormone function, the protein intake is scientifically proven to provide our body with more protein than we can physically break down throughout our daily activities, and the carbohydrate intake will support resynthesis of our glycogen stores which we will discuss below.

    Our bodies use carbohydrates primarily as energy stored in our muscles called glycogen and to fuel our central nervous system. This information is important to us because if you are someone who does not participate in more than 1 exercise session per day, we do not need a significant amount of carbohydrates (150-300+g carbs) as our bodies have no trouble fully replenishing our glycogen stores over a 24 hour period even with low carbohydrate intake (60-150g carbs) as we can utilize a slower process (Lipolysis) of turning our fat stores into carbs for glycogen resynthesis (glycogenesis).

    So, using all of this information together: when not participating in multiple exercise sessions or competition events in a day, we can actually benefit from replacing some of our available calories from carbohydrate intake by eating more protein (up to 1.2g per lb. body mass). From the example used above, if this individual adopted a 1.2g per lb. body mass strategy rather than the 1g strategy, he would still eat 2,376 calories each day but will now eat 216g of protein instead of 180g and 216g carbohydrates (864 calories) each day. The fact that his protein and carb intake are the same is purely coincidence and will not happen in most cases. Now that we have a good understanding of the amounts of food, we should eat to support our goals, how often should we be eating to maximize our recovery?

  • How to Lose Body Fat While Keeping Muscle Part 2

    How to Lose Body Fat While Keeping Muscle Part 2

    Part 2

    In part 1 of this article, we discussed what we need to do to lose body fat in a safe and effective way. Now we will dive into how you can utilize this information to begin implementing a diet that will help you reach your individual fat loss goals.

    Eating the right amount and type of fat throughout the day is essential for losing body fat and reaching optimal health. Fats play a huge role in disease prevention and our ability to lose body fat without causing any hormone dysregulation. In order to meet our daily fat intake without being unhealthy we should try to stay away from hydrogenated, safflower, canola, peanut, and cottonseed oils as overconsumption of these fats can be harmful to the body. Instead, we should be eating healthy fat sources like wild caught fish (Alaskan Salmon, sardines, mackerel), grass fed bison, beef, lamb, and eggs. We should start by consuming 0.4 grams of fat for every pound of body weight we have (180lb person should eat 72g of fat in a day).

    Once we know our fat and protein intake, we can then fill the rest of our calories in with carbohydrates. Using the information from the previous article titled: “How to Begin a Fat Loss Diet”, we can find our BMR. We will continue the example used in that article here (27-year-old, 180lb sedentary male – BMR = 2,176 calories per day). Since we know that carbohydrates and protein each have 4 calories per gram and fat has 9, if this person eats 72g of fat (648 calories) and 180g of protein (720 calories), they will then need to eat 808 calories worth of carbohydrates (648+720 = 1,368 then 2,176-1,368 = 808) to meet their maintenance BMR for the day. Since carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, this person would then eat 202g carbohydrates; again, this is to eat at maintenance, not in a “calorie deficit”.

    If we were to train hard and frequently, we will actually lose body fat and build muscle eating right at our BMR – a 0 calorie deficit will cause our bodies to to replace our glycogen stores with energy pulled from our fat stores, and our muscles would be able to use the food we eat to repair themselves. Taking this a step further, eating in a 250-calorie deficit will have the same physiological adaptation as 0 but will require more body fat energy to be used and we will thus, lose body fat at a faster rate. Less food, however, means our body begins to share the energy we eat between replenishing glycogen stores and repairing the force producing components of our muscles. This means we will not be able to gain strength as fast with fewer calories. The full extent to the “calorie deficit” would be 500 calories below BMR. A 500-calorie deficit is considered the “full extent” because it is past this point where most of the food, we eat needs to be used to replenish our glycogen stores, so we are left with less to repair our muscles. No matter how big of a calorie deficit we have, protein intake should stay the same, only manipulating carbohydrates and fat to change how big our deficit is.

    As we previously mentioned, if our example individual were eating at their BMR with a 0-calorie deficit, they should eat at least 180g of protein, 48g of fat, and 202g of carbohydrates. At a 250-calorie deficit, they would eat the same protein and fat, but lower the carbs by 62g to 140g at a total of 1,926 daily calories. At a 500-calorie deficit, I would still keep fat and protein the same but lower the carbs by 125g to 77g at a total of 1,676 daily calories. You can also manipulate fat intake as well (staying in our 0-500 calorie deficit) by using the multiplier from before, but we should go no lower than 0.3g/lb. body mass (54g fat for 180lb male). Eating below this should be avoided as hormone regulation can be negatively influenced beyond this point – this is especially true for females.

    Remember, while more aggressive diet strategies do yield faster results, you may be able to lose more weight throughout a year with less aggressive strategies. One of the main reasons for this is our hunger hormones (leptin and ghrelin) are primarily driven by the food we eat so, the more aggressive of a calorie deficit we have, the more aggressive our hunger cravings will be and thus, the harder it will be to eat something healthy rather than something fast and easy just to keep the cravings at bay.

    For more information on how to reach your individual fitness goals give us a call or email and one of our many qualified professionals can help you get started with a training or nutrition plan perfectly developed for your individual goals.

    References:

    • Wilkinson, 2016
    • Helms, 2022
    • Antonio, 2018
    • MacNaughton, 2016
  • How To Lose Body Fat While Keeping Muscle Part 1

    How To Lose Body Fat While Keeping Muscle Part 1

    Have you ever tried to lose body fat with initial success but just struggle to keep the weight off long term? In this 2 part article we will discuss the physiological differences in losing body fat quickly, and slowly and what that means in regards to our individual goals. First of all, if you have not yet read the article on our website titled “How to Begin a Fat Loss Diet Plan” you should quickly read that before continuing to this one.

    When we think of what it means to “lose weight” most of us have the desired goal of losing body fat while keeping, if not increasing, our muscle mass. With this in mind, if we were to eat too few calories (more than 500 calories under maintenance intake), our bodies will begin to take energy from not only our fat stores, but our force producing components of our muscles as well.

    Because our bodies are constantly adapting to the stress of everyday life, being too low on calorie intake for an extended period of time (longer than 1 week) will cause our bodies to lower our energy consumption throughout the day in an effort to save energy; this can lead to metabolic syndrome – a condition which increases our risk for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Metabolic syndrome also exhibits insulin resistance and can cause our bodies to make every effort possible to conserve energy and preserve fat stores – leading to very “stubborn” areas of body fat (low back, low abs, and love handles) that can be increasingly difficult to get rid of as time goes on. This may sound contradictory but the most important aspect of losing weight is to make sure you are eating enough!

    The strategy we should take to make sure we are eating enough and avoiding these negative health complications while preserving muscle mass and losing body fat is to take our calorie deficit nice and slow – no more than 500 calories below our BMR. Once we know our BMR, we can use the protein recommendations from the “How to Prevent the Age Related Loss of Muscle Mass (Sarcopenia)” and “Differences in Losing Body Weight With and Without Exercise” articles to find how much protein we should be eating to support our resistance training (at least 2.2grams protein per kg of body weight – 180lb or 81.6kg person would eat at least 180g protein per day). There has been recently published scientific data exhibiting a dose response relationship with protein (the more protein we eat, the more strength gains we get), however the full extent to the benefit of having more carbohydrates vs. protein under calorie restrictions requires further investigation. We will discuss this more in depth in future articles which will investigate nutrient intake for muscle growth – stay tuned for that but for now we should aim for at least 2.2g/kg body mass to lose body fat and keep muscle.

    Part 2 of this article will discuss how to implement the information discussed above into your own diet plan created to meet your unique and individual goals.

    References:
    – Wilkinson, 2016
    – Helms, 2022
    – Antonio, 2018
    – MacNaughton, 2016

  • Pre and Post-Workout Nutrition Strategies for Strength Training

    If you are someone who frequently engages in strength training, the amount of protein you eat each day plays a major role in how much progress we can make in a specified amount of time. In this article we will discuss how much protein we should eat to make sure we are gaining strength as fast as possible. To take that a step further, we will also discuss how managing when we eat our protein surrounding our training time can help us improve even more!

    For those of us who engage in regular strength training, we should aim to eat a minimum of 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass (about 150g for a 150lb person). This amount has been scientifically proven to provide our bodies with more protein than we can break down during weight training. The most important factor regarding protein intake is the total amount we eat each day. Once we ensure we are eating enough to repair our muscles, we can then improve these results by eating more protein before and after our training sessions.

    If we were to consume, for example, 1 scoop of whey protein (~25 grams of protein) 1 hour before we begin training, we will actually begin recovering from our workout after the first rep of the first set, and so on – we don’t have to wait to recover until afterwards if we can get out in front of it. After each rep of our training sessions, our bodies quickly adapt by increasing the amount of amino acids (digested protein) our muscle cells can intake and use to repair. This increased nutrient absorption will continue to increase as we cause more cellular disruption to our muscle cells throughout the duration of our training sessions. Having protein in our systems before training will help improve our recovery but we can also get more out of our training sessions by including carbohydrates into our pre workout “meal”.

    Consuming carbohydrates with protein before training puts us into what we call the “fed state”. It has been scientifically proven that training in the “fed state” will increase our time to fatigue, increase our power output and force production in our muscles, and improve recovery following exercise – yes this is all from eating before training! One important consideration to make with a pre-workout meal is that larger meals take longer to digest – we should do our best to give our bodies enough time to digest and begin circulating these nutrients throughout our bloodstream to get into this “fed state” (training too soon will result in stomach cramps). Some examples would be 1 scoop of whey protein or 230g scrambled liquid egg whites (8 egg whites from actual eggs) with ~33g of carbohydrates (this would be equivalent to 0.5 cups of oats or a gomacro bar) ~1 hour before training – and remember, with larger meals we should give ourselves more time for digestion.

    If you are someone who trains first thing in the morning and do not have 1 hour before training we may not be able to train in the “fed state” but supplementing this pre workout meal with some branched chain amino acids (BCAA’s) can provide a similar – but not the same – benefit as a pre workout meal. BCAA’s are just proteins already in the digested state so all your body has to do is quickly absorb them (in about 15-25 minutes). This way we can still begin the recovery process during our training – we just won’t have the increased force production and time to fatigue that we do when eating carbohydrates with our pre workout meal. Something important to note about BCAA’s is that they are ONLY effective when consumed on an empty stomach, without amino acids circulating in our bloodstream. If we were to take BCAA’s with a meal, we would just pee them out as our body will prefer to use digested protein sources.

    In order to maximize our strength gains, we need to ensure we are taking full advantage of our increased nutrient absorption during this “anabolic window” following training. Nutrient absorption remains elevated for ~3 hours following a hard training session so getting a well balanced meal in this time consisting of high quality fat sources, carbohydrates, and protein is of utmost importance. The meal should consist of at least 40-45g of protein (5-6 Oz. chicken breast or 8-9 Oz. Cod) with 50-60g carbohydrates (200-220g of dry brown rice or 7-8 Oz. dry Jasmine Rice). The oils we use when preparing our food will provide us with adequate fat consumption – if it is coming from a good source (cold pressed extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil, for example) this will help our bodies with hormone regulation as optimal insulin and testosterone secretion will help our bodies recover and mobilize fat stores to be used as energy.

    If you are an individual who is very active throughout the day or someone who trains multiple times in one day, the carbohydrate recommendation post-workout will increase to 60-90g as we can utilize the anabolic window to quickly resynthesize our glycogen stores (energy stores within a muscle) and be energized and ready to go before the next time we are active later in the day. For the rest of us, the previous recommendation (50-60g carbs) will be sufficient as our bodies have no trouble resynthesizing these glycogen stores over a 24-hour time span with evenly distributed food intake throughout the day.

    The last thing we will touch on is one more way to utilize the “anabolic window”. Since this window is open for almost 3 hours, and we know that 1 scoop of whey protein begins absorption after 1 hour, then we can come to the conclusion that if we drink a whey protein shake immediately following our training session, we will then be able to get 2 “meals” (if you can call a shake a meal) in before our increased nutrient absorption fully dissipates.

    The bottom line is that we need to ensure we are getting adequate protein (2.2g/kg body mass) throughout the day in order for any of this “meal timing” to actually provide us with any additional benefit. If you are someone who is looking to improve their strength, body composition, or get on a nutrition plan to help you reach your individual goals, then give PTS a call as we have many qualified professionals who are eager to get to work with you!

    References:

    – Helms, 2015
    – Mcnaughten, 2016
    – Moore, 2009
    – Tang, 2009
    – Trommelan, 2019
    – Wilkonson, 2018