Protein, Carbs and Insulin

I always find it confusing when I read things like:

"Protein slows insulin levels, which you want to keep in balance to avoid weight gain."

I find it confusing for two reasons.

1) I'm really not sure how you can 'slow' a level

2) I'm really not sure how they define 'balance'.

Honestly I really dislike vague terms..especially when applied to science.

What I do know is that from the research conducted on sports supplements we know for sure that a protein/carb meal can have just as big an effect on insulin as a carb only meal. And, that as long as you are eating your insulin levels are going to go up and down...

Watch the Video for more details:

BP

How much protein do you need to build muscle?

The idea that you need massive amounts of protein in your diet in order to build muscle is one that will probably never go away. While I agree that many of us need to eat a little more protein than we typically do, I don't think we need super-mega amounts in order to pack on muscle.

In a really interesting study published back in 1996, 43 men who were experienced weight lifters took part in a study that involved exercise and weekly injections of testosterone enanthate for 10 weeks.

Yep, these boys were on steroids for the benefit of science!

They were divided into 4 groups.

• The first group performed no exercise and didn't get any steroids.
• The second group performed exercise but didn't get steroids,
• The third group didn't exercise but received the weekly injections and
• The fourth group exercised and received the injections.

As you can imagine after 10 weeks of lifting weights 3 times per week, the group that was receiving the steroid injections gained over 13 pounds of muscle.

The group who were just working out didn't do too bad either, packing on almost 4.5 pounds of muscle in only ten weeks.

The guys who sat around doing nothing for 10 weeks but received the steroid injections still had an increase in lean mass (almost 6 pounds), while the group who received no steroids and didn't workout did not see any change in their lean mass.

So what does a study on steroids have to do with nutrition? well, all four groups were on the same diet. They were all consuming about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight and about 16 Calories per pound of body weight.

What this shows is that for a group taking steroids while exercising, 120 grams of protein per day was enough to supply the amount of protein needed to allow for a 13.5 pound gain in lean mass!

It was also the same amount of protein the the exercise only group ate to gain 4.5 pounds, and the other groups ate to see their gains, (or lack thereof).

What this shows is that for the groups who saw less gains in lean mass then the steroid group, the amount of protein that they ate was not what determined how much muscle they gained. The workouts and the steroids did that.

In the end, protein is important, but as this study shows, 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight is enough daily protein to allow for a 13.5 pound increase in lean mass in 10 weeks. It's also enough to allow for a 4.5 pound increase in people not taking steroids, which is still very impressive muscle growth for a ten week period!

BP

For those of us who are not 'pharmaceutically enhanced' this study helps support the idea that your workout is the most important part of your muscle building journey.

Get a great workout, put in a great effort, see great results, it might just be that simple.

PS - If you are looking for my recommendation on a great quality workout, then Turbulence Training is where it is at. You can check out Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training programs by clicking HERE.

(Bhasin S, et al. The New England Journal of Medicine. 335(1), 1-7)

Interested in learning more about fasting for weight loss? Then click HERE

How Much Protein Do We Really Need To Eat?

Protein could be one of the most popular and controversial topics in all of nutrition. It's become the golden child of muscle building and fat loss. Wanna build big muscles? Eat your protein. Wanna lose fat and look like a fitness model? Eat your protein. After all, everyone knows you need to eat a minimum of 30 grams of protein every two to three hours.

Back in my earlier years, I drank my protein shakes and ate my protein bars. I would constantly keep my protein intake up around 250 grams per day. Why? Because I thought it scientifically PROVEN that more protein equaled more muscle.


But now I'm not so sure.


Let's take a look at one of the research studies that the super-high protein advocates always use to 'prove' that eating protein after a workout makes you build muscle.

If you were in this study, this is how your day would have gone...


You would show up at a research lab around 10 PM, and you would go to sleep (no eating). The researchers would wake you up around 6 AM and start poking and probing you (again no eating). After a bunch of weighing and measurements, you would start working out around 9 AM...you still haven't eaten yet.


This would be one of the toughest workouts you have ever done. Most likely you would do 10 sets of 8 reps on the leg press machine, followed by 8 sets of 8 reps on the leg extension machine. All of your reps would be done at 80% of your one rep max. Like I said, one brutal workout. It's about 10am now, still haven't eaten.

After your workout you would be given a drink that contains 3 to 6 grams of essential amino acids (the same amount of amino acids found in a glass of milk).

After that, the researchers would take measurements for the next 4 hours and measure your rate of 'protein synthesis'.


This is pretty much the standard protocol for these types of studies.


And guess what they found? An increase in protein synthesis over those four hours.
So what does this prove? It proves that if you haven't eaten since 10 PM the night before, do a brutal workout at 9 AM the next morning, and drink a glass of milk, you will increase your protein synthesis for four hours!

So much for needing 30 grams of protein, and so much for needing protein every couple hours.
You know what else? The only reason I say protein synthesis increases for 4 hours is because after 4 hours the researchers stopped measuring. Who knows how long you would have stayed in a muscle building state. Some researchers have estimated that a single workout can put you into 'muscle building mode' for as long as 48 hours after your workout!

Even more interesting is that researchers have found similar results when they made people drink the amino acids before their workout, and even when they made them wait and drink the amino acids a couple hours after their workout!

Here's another example, for you to consider.


In a research trial conducted on people who were over 50 years old and had chronic renal insufficiency (real bad kidneys) researchers explored the idea that resistance training could counteract the low protein diets that these people had to be on because of their medical condition.


On average these subject were eating under 0.3 grams of protein per pound of body weight. To put that into perspective, a 180 pound man would be eating about 50 grams of protein per day! For 12 weeks!


So what the researchers were thinking was 'since these people were on such low protein diets, for extended periods of time, muscle loss is definitely a risk. However, maybe if we made them weight train, we could prevent this from happening'.


Sounds like a good idea to me.


At the end of the study, the subject working out 3 times per week maintained there body weight, while the group that was not lifting weights lost about 7 pounds.


The group lifting weights also saw increases in muscle strength and muscle size. While the group not weight training lost some muscle and a little bit of strength.


This study is a great example of people actually gaining muscle size on a low protein diet as a result of resistance training.


Now, I realize the study was done on people who were over 50, and had a medical condition, but regardless, they gained muscle size.

This research shows that you can build a significant amount of muscle with relatively low protein intakes (the amount you get from your food in the average north american diet) as long as you are lifting weights.

Protein has a role in every one's nutrition plan, and it is an essential nutrient that is important for building and repairing muscles. From my understanding of the research I think it makes sense to try and consume a small amount of protein somewhere around the time you workout. I just don't think we need to be paying good money for tubs and tubs of the stuff, if the amount we get in our diets will serve our purposes just fine.

Scientists have not yet been able to determine if large amounts of protein have any extra effect on muscle gain. The massive amounts of protein that bodybuilders eat might work, but no scientists have been able to prove it so far.

Bottom line: if your goal is muscle building you most likely do not necessarily need to eat any extra protein. You can if you like, however I cannot find a good scientific reason to so far.

BP

One last note - Very little research is done on people who are on anabolic steroids. I cannot discount the idea that, in these individuals, extreme amounts of protein may help the muscle building process due to the fact that this process is enhanced by the use of steroids.

Fast Food Blunder

I was on the road yesterday in a bit of a rush to get to a meeting, but I felt like getting a quick snack.

When I eat fast food, it's usually a sub of some sort (usually subway) but yesterday I decided to try something different.

I stopped at my local health food store and asked the clerk to show me the "absolute best protein bar". I bought his recommended bar for just a little under 5 dollars and left.

After my first bite I through the bar in the garbage. ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! It tasted artificial, chemical, with a burning aftertaste I can only describe as the taste I would assume would come from drinking Diesel fuel.

What a waste of time and money...and for what?

Here is the breakdown for the bar:

370 Kcals
13 g Fat
30 g Protein
35 g Carbohydrates
3 g Fiber
12 g Sugar

Now, here is the breakdown for a typical Subway 6 Inch Club Sub

290 Kcals
5 g Fat
25 g Protein
45 g Carbohydrates
4 g Fiber
7 g Sugar

In my eyes there is virtually no difference between these two foods. Next time, I pack my own food, or I get a sub.

BP

PS - The sub was about a dollar less expensive then the protein bar

Is it time to give up on Low-fat foods?

We are surrounded by low-fat foods.

Nearly 10 billion dollars a year are spent advertising low-fat foods - Trying to convince us that we should buy them because they are "good for our health".

It was in the early 1980's when our government suggested that we cut back on our fat intake. Since then food companies have been in "product-development overdrive" churning out low-fat foods.

From low-fat cookies and brownies, to low-fat cheese and yoghurt, you can find a low-fat version of every one of your favorite foods in your local grocery store.

However, before we accept the "low-fat equals good healt message", there are a couple of important things we should think about when it comes to the effectiveness of low-fat foods:

1) If you take the fat out of food, you have to replace it with something. Binders, emulsifiers, bulking agents, and yes sugars like high fructose corn syrup are all used to replace fat. What's more, the foods that traditionally have higher fat, like cheese and yogurt, are the ones that need the most additives once the fat is removed.

2) The low-fat food trend is only 25 years old. And in the last 25 years, as low-fat foods dominated our grocery stores, obesity, diabetes and cancer have all been on the rise. The idea that simply switching to low-fat foods will help us maintain a healthy weight has failed miserably.

3) A recent study examining the lifestyle habits of 18,555 women found that women who ate at least one serving of high fat dairy every day appeared to reduce their risk of ovulatory infertility. While this is only one study, it does have a very large subject group and does lead to the idea that fats may not be as bad for you as once thought. Indeed, even saturated fats may actually have some health benefits.

4) The scientific evidence behind the idea that low-fat eating is healthy is actually pretty weak. It was in the 1950's that a small group of people began to popularize the idea that low-fat eating was healthy eating. Since then hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on research trying to prove the idea was correct. The results of this research have been so surprisingly weak that it is starting to make many scientists skeptical of the supposed damaging health effects of fat.

5) The "fat is bad" message is very oversimplified. Take butter for instance. Yes it is a source of saturated fat, but it is also almost 25% monounsaturated fats, of which almost 80% is oleic acid, the same type of fat found in olive oil. There are many foods out there that have been wrongly accused of being simply saturated fat.

Bottom line - We need to stop trying blame obesity on the fat in our foods.

As a simple guideline- Eat less, but enjoy the foods you eat. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and lots of herbs and spices. And maybe most importantly, spend less time stressing over the types of food you are eating. These are probably the best thing you could do for your health.

BP

The Doctrine of Signatures

It is an unpleasant fact that science will always become outdated.

I am sure that a hundred years from now, schoolchildren will laugh at the principles we currently believe to be absolute scientific truths, just like how we now laugh at what was once "truth" centuries ago.

Take for instance the doctrine of signatures, which states that resemblance is a good indicator of effectiveness. If a particular plant resembles a human ear in its shape, then according to the doctrine of signatures this plant would have some sort of useful relevancy to the ear, perhaps being able to cure an earache.

While this now seems very arbitrary and somewhat unreliable, the doctrine of signatures still could be found in mainstream medical texts well into the 19th century and today is still the main principle of homeopathic medicine.

In fact, the doctrine of signatures can still be found in some nutrition myths that are still popular today. I know it's hard to believe that we would still use the doctrine of signatures with all of the research and scientific advancement that has happened in the world of nutrition, but take for instance fat, protein and cholesterol.

Many people still believe that eating fat will make you fat, that you need to eat large amounts of protein to build large amounts of muscle and that eating dietary cholesterol will make your blood cholesterol levels go through the roof.

Even though many of these "facts" are now largely disputed within the research community, people still believe them.

Why? You ask.

I think the reason is that these days science outdates itself so quickly that we no longer know what to believe. However, don’t blame the scientists for this.

You see, the job of science and scientists is to add to the existing body of research - To do their small part in answering the big question. However, most mainstream journalism and media need quick answers and they needed them yesterday! And this is where the major mistakes happen.

While scientists look at their work as something that helps answer a small piece of the puzzle, media looks at it as “THE ANSWER”.

This “jumping to scientific conclusions” can have dire consequences, as illustrated by one of my favorite articles, written by Gary Taubes and published in The New York Times back in 2002.

I think this is a very important piece of work that everyone should read, so please check it out by Clicking Here and let me know what you think of Gary's take on the last twenty years of nutrition research and policy.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training

Why Goat's Milk?

A couple of days ago in one of the grrlathlete newsletters I recommended that people give goat's milk an honest try (If you don't receive the grrlathlete newsletters, I've put a sign-up box on the top right column of my blog).

Since then, I've had more than a few people ask me to elaborate on why.

Well, firstly, because most of us have been drinking cow's milk since the age of two. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against cow's milk per Se, except that for many of us, we have been drinking it for more than a couple decades! So switching it up for a change may not be a bad idea.

Aside from the novelty, here are a couple more reasons that goat's milk deserves a fair test...

Goat's milk is the milk of choice in most of the world.

Because the protein in goat's milk has a different make-up than the protein in cow's milk, many people with cow milk allergies can tolerate drinking goat's milk .

Compared to cow's milk, goat's milk has similar amounts of protein, fat, iron, vitamin C and vitamin D. Goat milk has more natural vitamin A, more vitamin B , and less lactose.

Unlike cow's milk there is no need to homogenize goat's milk. While the fat globules in cow's milk tend to separate to the surface, the globules in goat's milk are much smaller and will remain suspended in solution.

So give goat's milk a try. I'm not claiming that it's some miracle food, but rather a tasty drink that many people are missing out on.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training