Sunday, September 27, 2015
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Clarifying the Protein Confusion Video by Jerry Brainum
Jerry Brainum explains some of the more confusing and misunderstood issues related to how much protein is required to promote muscular growth.For more information about nutrition, exercise science, ergogenic aids, hormonal therapy, supplements, fat-loss, anti-aging, and other topics, subscribe today to the Applied Metabolics Newsletter, www.appliedmetabolics.com. Also, please share this and all other videos that I post with as many people as you can.
©,2015 Jerry Brainum. Any reprinting in any type of media, including electronic and foreign is expressly prohibited
Have you been ripped off by supplement makers whose products don’t work as advertised? Want to know the truth about them? Check out Jerry Brainum's book Natural Anabolics, available at JerryBrainum.com.
The Applied Ergogenics blog is a collection of articles written and published by Jerry Brainum over the past 20 years. These articles have appeared in Muscle and Fitness, Ironman, and other magazines. Many of the posts on the blog are original articles, having appeared here for the first time. For Jerry’s most recent articles, which are far more in depth than anything that appears on this blog site, please subscribe to his Applied Metabolics Newsletter, at www.appliedmetabolics.com. This newsletter, which is more correctly referred to as a monthly e-book, since its average length is 35 to 40 pages, contains the latest findings about nutrition, exercise science, fat-loss, anti-aging, ergogenic aids, food supplements, and other topics. For 33 cents a day you get the benefit of Jerry’s 53 years of writing and intense study of all matters pertaining to fitness,health, bodybuilding, and disease prevention.
See Jerry's book at http://www.jerrybrainum.com
Want more evidence-based information on exercise science, nutrition and food supplements, ergogenic aids, and anti-aging research? Check out Applied Metabolics Newsletter at www.appliedmetabolics.com
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Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Boosting Muscle Recovery With Nutrition by Jerry Brainum
When you train intensely with weights, you’re incurring injury to
your muscles. It sounds bad, but the body compensates by adding an extra
layer of protection to muscles to minimize or prevent further
injury—muscular hypertrophy, or growth.Through a complex interplay involving increased muscle protein
synthesis and a short-term immune response, individual muscle fibers
thicken, which we recognize as growth. Even so, there is a specific process that occurs in muscle following training, and timing is an important part of it.
For example, while protein synthesis is increased up to 48 hours after intense training, the major impetus for that occurs within two hours after a workout due to heightened enzymatic and hormonal activity. Hence, the “anabolic window,” in which it’s suggested that you take in essential amino acids as soon as possible after training to fuel protein synthesis.
Before the protein-production process can go into full gear, however, the immune system must intercede. It does that via cells such as macrophages, which clear out debris left over in muscle by the imposed injury of exercise. In addition, the macrophages and other immune cells secrete cytokines, which are signaling factors that, among other functions, stimulate the activity of muscle-stem cells called satellite cells that are directly involved in the repair-and-growth process.
The immune infiltration of muscle after training produces an inflammatory effect that triggers a muscular response. A problem occurs if trainees take anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen, too soon after training because it blocks the usual postworkout inflammation along with the growth response. In short, a temporary level of muscle inflammation following training is vital for muscle growth to occur. The key word here is temporary, since, if extended, the inflammation phase of muscle repair can, paradoxically, impede full recovery. The ideal scenario is a short period of muscle inflammation after training followed by an accelerated recovery and repair process.
Some interesting recent research shows that you can optimize the muscle-recovery process through nutrition. One way is to take in essential amino acids as soon as possible after training. Another is to eat certain foods and supplements.
One study compared two sources of protein, peanuts and cod, for their ability to promote more efficient muscle repair after injury.1 Although the subjects were rats, the effects are applicable to humans.The researchers noted that previous studies have found that the amino acid arginine seems to help heal injuries and accelerate muscle repair. The likely mechanism relates to the fact that arginine is the immediate precursor of nitric oxide synthesis in the body, and NO is an established stimulant of healing and tissue repair.
The rats were placed in groups, with one group eating the milk protein casein and peanut protein. Other rats got protein derived from cod fish. After 21 days the rats’ legs were injected with either a substance that causes muscle injury or a salt solution. The peanut protein was slightly more efficient at maintaining muscle mass than the casein, but it did not trigger any additional gains.
In contrast, the cod protein proved superior to casein in promoting muscle mass gains and healing injured muscle quickly. More important, the cod protein proved most efficient in curtailing excessive inflammation in the muscle by modifying the immune cells’ activity. That helped significantly boost muscle recovery in the rats better than the combined peanut and casein proteins.
The peanut protein didn’t trigger muscle growth because of its relative lack of essential amino acids, especially when compared to cod. Excess inflammation delays muscle healing because the immune cells release large amounts of free radicals. While that is normally efficient for killing invading bacteria, when excessively released in damaged muscle, free radicals increase the damage by attacking muscle cell membranes, leading to the death of the muscle cell. Cod intercedes by speeding the clearing out of immune cells, which lowers inflammation and allows full muscle recovery to proceed.
The cod also proved superior to casein by 11 percent in promoting muscle fiber size. That was thought to be due to the reduction of inflammatory cytokines discussed above. While recent studies show that fish oil can both reduce excess muscle breakdown and help promote muscle protein synthesis, fish oil didn’t play a role in this study, as the oil had all been removed from the cod used.
So what does explain the beneficial effects of cod that it shows?he authors suggest two possible mechanisms. The first involves an upgrade in the activity of insulinlike growth factor 1 in the rats’ muscle triggered by their eating cod. IGF-1 in muscle is a major factor in muscle repair and growth after injury and exercise. Other studies have shown that when rats are fed casein or soy but also allowed to eat high-fat diets, the IGF-1 repair system is impaired. The lack of fat in the cod may have served to maximize the IGF-1 activity.
The other mechanism suggested by the researchers was that cod is rich in the amino acids arginine, glycine and taurine, all of which are potent natural anti-inflammatory compounds. Arginine, by enhancing nitric oxide release, would speed healing of wounds and reduce inflammatory cell accumulation. Glycine also provides anti-inflammatory activity in muscle by reducing the inflammatory cytokines released by immune cells. Taurine helps by acting as an antioxidant in muscle, which reduces free radical–induced damage to muscle cells and prevents their premature destruction. Cod’s high content of essential amino acids also encourages more muscle protein synthesis along with less muscle breakdown.
Another study, also involving rats, tested the effects of grape-seed extract on muscle recovery.2 The rats’ gastrocnemius muscles were purposely injured, with only some of the rats getting grape-seed extract two weeks prior to being injured.The results showed that rats given the grape-seed extract had less immune cell infiltration in the injured muscle plus a shorter release time of inflammatory cytokines. Muscle fiber regeneration began earlier in the grape-seed-extract rats and was completed more rapidly. The injured muscles healed more rapidly because the grape-seen extract, by decreasing the excess inflammation, boosted the activity of muscle satellite repair cells.
Finally, those who want to recover more rapidly from intense training should take the advice of their mothers: Eat more greens. The wisdom of those words was shown in a recent study in which 10 healthy men, average age 23, ate 85 grams of watercress, a leafy green vegetable, for eight weeks prior to engaging in intense treadmill exercise.3 As a control, the men also didn’t eat the watercress during a different eight-week period.
The results showed that the subjects who exercised intensely but didn’t eat the watercress had more DNA cell damage than those who got the watercress. Some of the men didn’t eat watercress for eight weeks but ate it only two hours prior to the exercise—and they showed the same level of protection against DNA damage. So the protective effect of eating watercress, which is likely the result of natural antioxidants found in it, isn’t accumulative but works immediately.
References
1 Dort, J., et al. (2012). Beneficial effects of cod protein on skeletal muscle repair following injury. Appl Physiol Nutr. 37:489-98.
2 Myburgh, K.H., et al. (2012). Accelerated skeletal muscle recovery after in vivo polyphenol administration. Nutr Biochem. 23(9):1072–1079.
3 Fogarty, M.C., et al. (2013). Acute and chronic watercress supplementation attenuates exercise-induced peripheral mononuclear cell DNA damage and lipid peroxidation. Br J Nut. 9(2):293-301.
©,2015 Jerry Brainum. Any reprinting in any type of media, including electronic and foreign is expressly prohibited
Have you been ripped off by supplement makers whose products don’t work as advertised? Want to know the truth about them? Check out Jerry Brainum's book Natural Anabolics, available at JerryBrainum.com.
The Applied Ergogenics blog is a collection of articles written and published by Jerry Brainum over the past 20 years. These articles have appeared in Muscle and Fitness, Ironman, and other magazines. Many of the posts on the blog are original articles, having appeared here for the first time. For Jerry’s most recent articles, which are far more in depth than anything that appears on this blog site, please subscribe to his Applied Metabolics Newsletter, at www.appliedmetabolics.com. This newsletter, which is more correctly referred to as a monthly e-book, since its average length is 35 to 40 pages, contains the latest findings about nutrition, exercise science, fat-loss, anti-aging, ergogenic aids, food supplements, and other topics. For 33 cents a day you get the benefit of Jerry’s 53 years of writing and intense study of all matters pertaining to fitness,health, bodybuilding, and disease prevention.
See Jerry's book at http://www.jerrybrainum.com
Want more evidence-based information on exercise science, nutrition and food supplements, ergogenic aids, and anti-aging research? Check out Applied Metabolics Newsletter at www.appliedmetabolics.com
Please share this article on facebook
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Charles R. Poliquin facebook Post / Jerry Brainum's Comment
From Charles Poliquin: "For the price of two coffees a month, learn
cutting edge info on ergogenics, nutrition, supplementation and loads
more of goodies. Jerry Brainum is excellent at keeping you updated on
the latest scientific discoveries. He is particularly good at sifting
through all the contradictions, and giving sound advice. I highly
recommend this.At $10.00 a month, it is a steal."For those who you not familiar with Charles Poliquin, he has coached dozens of elite champion athletes for years, and also many Olympic champions. He is perhaps the foremost strength coach on the planet, and unlike a lot of other self-styled "experts" on training, I can attest that Charles is a true expert and authority on training and athletic preparation.He is, without a doubt, the true "Master Blaster." Coming from him , this endorsement of my Applied Metabolics newsletter is a great honor for me.
Applied
Metabolics is a newsletter written to provide practical research on
nutrition, exercise science, ergogenic aids, longevity research, women's
health, and general preventive medicine.
Testosterone & Growth Hormone by Jerry Brainum
Strength, Muscle and Extended Living Through Chemistry? Part 2Part 1 was all about growth hormone, what it does and the pros and cons of hormone-replacement therapy. This installment covers testosterone.
Does Testosterone Prolong Life?
A recent longitudinal study, however, found that having low testosterone increased the risk of death in men over age 50. For 18 years, beginning in the 1970s, researchers tracked the causes of death in 800 men aged 50 to 91 living in Rancho Bernardo, California. In the early 1980s a third of the men had low testosterone. Over the term of the study that group had a 33 percent greater death rate than the men who had higher testosterone levels. The difference in death rate wasn’t explained by negative habits, such as smoking, drinking, lack of exercise or even such diseases as diabetes and heart disease.
The men with low T had more cytokines, which are markers of body inflammation. They also had larger waistlines, a marker of the visceral abdominal fat that is linked to insulin insensitivity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Indeed, the amount of visceral fat is proportional to testosterone levels and inflammation—more fat equals less testosterone and more inflammation. Men with low T are three times as likely to have the metabolic syndrome, characterized by insufficient high-density lipoprotein (the good cholesterol), high blood fat, hypertension and elevated blood glucose.
When men age, T tends to decline and bodyfat to increase. That leads to an increase of estrogen levels because of the presence in peripheral fat stores of aromatase, the enzyme that converts androgens such as testosterone into estrogen. An imbalance between T and estrogen can lead to insulin insensitivity, which boosts abdominal fat and its attendant health problems.
Testosterone-deficient men experience a reduced quality of life and such symptoms as heart disease, high blood pressure, lower bone density, fatigue, depression, insomnia, erectile dysfunction and diabetes. Recent studies directly link low T levels to insulin insensitivity and diabetes in men. Some studies link lack of testosterone with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Bodybuilders are particularly affected by testosterone levels. One study found that having low testosterone resulted in a decrease in strength and muscle endurance of 90 to 100 percent.21
Testosterone maintains the function of beta-adrenergic receptors in fat cells, without which fat oxidation is severely blunted. That explains the frequent emergence of potbellies in men over 40—along with bad eating and not getting enough exercise. Conversely, testosterone reverses that process, enabling a man to reduce both dangerous, deep-lying visceral fat and superficial, subcutaneous fat. Dropping subcutaneous fat may even return abdominal muscle definition when combined with judicious exercise and a good diet. Testosterone inhibits a fat cell enzyme called lipoprotein lipase, which advances the cellular uptake and production of fat. It also keeps fat-cell precursors from morphing into full-grown fat cells.22
T-Therapy Concerns
Some scientists suggest that the increased bodyfat produced by men low in testosterone leads to their producing more estrogen, which may promote prostate cancer. That makes sense when you realize that, unlike testosterone, estrogen is a known carcinogen.
The goal of testosterone-replacement therapy is not to produce the results that anabolic-steroid-using athletes are after. Rather, therapy aims at boosting depressed T levels to a mid-normal range, thus preventing the side effects linked to T therapy, such as gynecomastia and water retention. In fact, injecting testosterone to treat low T has gone out of fashion. It causes a temporary surge that’s frequently above the normal range—great for bodybuilding but priming the pump for side effects. Supplemental forms of T such as creams and gels, which get users only to the normal range, are preferred.
Considering that having low T leads to the production of cytokines and considering the significant beneficial effects of T on body composition, you have to conclude that testosterone likely does prolong life when provided in the right dosage. Conversely, T-deficient men face a shorter life span because of the risks of of cardiovascular disease, too much bodyfat and possibly accelerated degenerative brain disease.24
A recent study showed that testosterone may even help activate GH release.25 Thirty-four men aged 65 to 88 who had low-normal T and IGF-1 counts were injected with 100 milligrams of T every two weeks for 26 weeks. That brought about a 33 percent increase in total T levels. Estrogen rose by 31 percent, while sex-hormone-binding globulin, which transports T in the blood, dropped by 17 percent, thus raising free, or active, T levels. The supplementation increased release of GH by 60 percent at night and a whopping 79 percent during the day, while IGF-1 rose by 22 percent.
You might grimace at the 31-percent elevation of estrogen, but keep in mind that conversion of testosterone into estrogen is what pushes the GH release.26 Having abundant testosterone also blunts the ability of IGF-1 to shut down GH release.
Future Developments
Aromatase is particularly active in obese men. Their high-level estrogen signals the hypothalmus to stop secreting gonadatropin-releasing hormone and shut down testosterone synthesis in the Leydig cells. The effect is so potent that obese men don’t respond to replacement therapy.27 On the other hand, studies show that obese men have normalized testosterone levels when they take aromatase-inhibiting drugs.28
Aromatase inhibitors were developed mainly to treat estrogen-sensitive breast cancer in older women. The drugs have gone through several generations, and current versions are remarkably potent estrogen blockers. Since testosterone and other anabolic drugs can convert into estrogen and result in gynecomastia and water retention, bodybuilders who use steroids usually also add an aromatase inhibitor, such as Arimidex, to their anabolic stack.
About 8 percent of a man’s testosterone normally converts into estrogen, so some researchers have suggested that aromatase inhibitors may boost testosterone. A major advantage of that approach is that it forestalls the potential side effects of T therapy. One study investigated whether Arimidex could do the trick. For 12 weeks 37 testosterone-deficient older men received one of three treatments:
- One milligram of Arimidex daily
- One milligram of Arimidex twice a week
- A daily placebo tablet
Nevertheless, doctors still resist prescribing the relatively benign aromatase inhibitors to men with low testosterone. Their position is that there’s not enough research to justify using aromatase inhibitors as a form of T therapy and that the drugs should be used only to treat older women with breast cancer. Another fear is adverse cardiovascular symptoms, since estrogen helps maintain benefical HDL cholesterol in men. Fortunately, over-the-counter aromatase inhibitors are available that seem to work well as testosterone boosters, according to several recent studies.
A further refinement in T therapy will likely ensue with the release of selective androgen receptor modulators. SARMs, as they’re called, are experimental drugs that are taken orally. They target specific androgen receptors in various tissues, including muscle, and are designed to avoid interacting with androgen receptors in the prostate gland, thus bypassing the major health threats linked to T therapy.
As Ronald Klatz, M.D., president of the Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, notes,“Replacing the hormones that decline with age, such as estrogen, testosterone, DHEA, melatonin and GH, is as important as replacing normal levels of insulin to a diabetic.”
References
21 Kohn, F. (2006). Testosterone and body functions. Aging Male. 9:183-88.
22 Dieudonne, M.N., et al. (2000). Opposite effects of androgens and estrogens on adipogenesis in rat preadipocytes: Evidence for sex and site-related specificities and possible involvement of IGF-1 receptor and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma-2. Endocrinol. 141:649-56.
23 Wiren, S., et al. (2007). Androgens and prostate cancer risk: A prospective study. Prostate. 67:1230-37.
24 Shores, M.M., et al. (2006). Low serum testosterone and mortality in male veterans. Arch Intern Med. 166:1660-1665.
25 Muntiyappa, R., et al. (2007). Long-term testosterone supplementation augments overnight growth hormone secretion in healthy older men. Am J Physiol Endocrinl Metab. In press.
26 Meinhardt, M., et al. (2006). Modulation of growth hormone action by sex steroids. Clin Endocrinol. 65:413-22.
27 Cohen, P. (1999). The hypogonadal-obesity cycle: Role of aromatase in modulating the testosterone-estradiol shunt—a major factor in the genesis of morbid obesity.Med Hypotheses. 52:49-51.
28 Boer, H., et al. (2005). Letrozole normalizes serum testosterone in severely obese men with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. Diabetes Obes Metabol. 7:211-215.
©,2015 Jerry Brainum. Any reprinting in any type of media, including electronic and foreign is expressly prohibited
Have you been ripped off by supplement makers whose products don’t work as advertised? Want to know the truth about them? Check out Jerry Brainum's book Natural Anabolics, available at JerryBrainum.com.
The Applied Ergogenics blog is a collection of articles written and published by Jerry Brainum over the past 20 years. These articles have appeared in Muscle and Fitness, Ironman, and other magazines. Many of the posts on the blog are original articles, having appeared here for the first time. For Jerry’s most recent articles, which are far more in depth than anything that appears on this blog site, please subscribe to his Applied Metabolics Newsletter, at www.appliedmetabolics.com. This newsletter, which is more correctly referred to as a monthly e-book, since its average length is 35 to 40 pages, contains the latest findings about nutrition, exercise science, fat-loss, anti-aging, ergogenic aids, food supplements, and other topics. For 33 cents a day you get the benefit of Jerry’s 53 years of writing and intense study of all matters pertaining to fitness,health, bodybuilding, and disease prevention.
See Jerry's book at http://www.jerrybrainum.com
Want more evidence-based information on exercise science, nutrition and food supplements, ergogenic aids, and anti-aging research? Check out Applied Metabolics Newsletter at www.appliedmetabolics.com
Please share this article on facebook
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Can You Train Hard Without Carbs? by Jerry Brainum
Although low-carbohydrate dieting is one of the most popular
approaches today, it’s nothing new to bodybuilders, who have used it
since the early ’60s. Vince Gironda, perhaps the premier trainer of that
era and owner of the fabled Vince’s Gym in Studio City, California, was
an advocate of low-carb dieting. He used it himself when he competed in bodybuilding contests in the early 1950s.
In fact, eating that way produced such prominent vascularity and muscle striations on Vince that bodybuilding judges were confused as to how to place him. There just wasn’t anyone around then who looked like that. The bodybuilding world wasn’t ready for it.
The basis of the low-carb diet is simple: insulin control. Although insulin has numerous functions, it is primarily a storage hormone, and one of the things it helps to store is fat. The nutrient that is most potent at eliciting an insulin release is carbohydrate, particularly simple, or so-called high-glycemic-index, carb foods. They are foods that lack fiber or contain large amounts of easily digested starch that enter the blood rapidly, which triggers the release of insulin. If you eat excess calories, the insulin helps convert them into bodyfat.
Conversely, when insulin release is controlled, as occurs during a low-carb diet, the metabolic door is opened to increased use of fat as fuel—which leads to less bodyfat.
The idea of low-carb dieting dates back to the 1860s, when a corpulent man named Banting, on the advice of his doctor, cut most of the carbs from his diet and lost a lot of bodyfat. He wrote a small book about his experiences, which became a best seller. Since then numerous incarnations of the low-carb diet have appeared under various catchy names; however, they all have one thing in common: They reduce carbs to reduce insulin release.
A major controversy of low-carb dieting is the effect on physical performance. Most people are surprised to learn that carbohydrates are not essential in human nutrition. The body actually requires glucose or alternative fuel sources, such as ketones from fat metabolism, lactate and even glycerol, which makes up 10 percent of triglyceride structure. All of those can either substitute for glucose or be converted into glucose in the liver.
Among the possible substrates for the conversion to glucose are amino acids derived from protein foods—or, in a worst-case scenario, from muscle tissue. That’s one reason that higher protein is often suggested for low-carb diets. Any excess protein that you take in can be converted in the liver into glucose. In fact, about 57 percent of excess protein eaten winds up being converted into glucose, most of which is oxidized, or burned, in the liver.
Low-carb diets are well-known for producing ketosis, which involves an increased production of ketone bodies. Ketones result from the incomplete metabolism of fat. That can occur under pathological conditions, as an effect of uncontrolled diabetes, but when it happens during a low-carb diet, it is considered not only safe but also desirable. The ketones supply an alternative energy source to glucose that can be used readily by both the brain and the muscles.
In muscle, ketones exert an anticatabolic activity, helping to prevent muscle loss. Certain parts of the central nervous system, as well as red blood cells, still demand glucose, but that’s easily supplied through the conversion of excess food amino acids into glucose. Some amino acids, such a glutamine and alanine, are particularly efficient at that. Leucine, a branched-chain amino acid noted for being the primary stimulator of muscle protein synthesis, can also help to maintain blood glucose levels during a diet.
Much of the confusion about the necessity of carbs for exercise comes from research done on endurance athletes. Endurance events are far more apt to deplete muscle and liver glycogen, which we know leads to a drop in performance. Athletes refer to it as “hitting the wall,” since that’s the way it feels. Early studies that compared carbohydrate-rich diets and low-carb diets usually found that getting more carbs led to less fatigue and better performance. Indeed, recognition of that eventually led to the concept of carb loading as a way to improve performance through enhanced glycogen production in muscles.
Carb loading involved dropping to a low-carb intake first, followed by a high-carb intake, in the period leading up to an athletic event. Later versions replaced the low-carb phase with moderate carbs combined with increased activity to deplete muscle glycogen stores, which favors supercompensation once you shift to the high-carb phase.
The truth, however, is that many endurance events take a lot of time and so favor carb depletion. What about lifting weights? That involves anaerobic metabolism, which does favor the use of glucose and glycogen as energy. Indeed, studies that have measured glycogen use during weight training show muscle glycogen depletion of 24 to 40 percent, depending on how long and how intense the workout is. One study found that doing only three sets of biceps curls led to a 40 percent depletion in glycogen in the biceps. It would appear that carbs are required for optimal training intensity, since bodybuilding workouts are fueled primarily by muscle glycogen and secondarily by circulating glucose in the blood.
Even Dr. Robert Atkins, considered the guru of low-carb diets, advised that those engaged in intense exercise require some carbs. The problem is that nearly all studies that have found a drop in exercise performance on low-carb diets were short term, lasting from three days to two weeks. It takes some time for the body to make a metabolic switch from using mainly carbs to other fuel sources, such as ketones. During the initial few days on a severely restricted carb intake, most people will experience premature fatigue during high-intensity training. Typically, you feel fine during the first set but fade considerably during the second and succeeding sets. That relates to a depletion in muscle glycogen brought on by eliminating carbs.
After three to four weeks on even a ketogenic diet (30 grams or less a day of carbs), the body adjusts to using alternative fuel sources, mainly ketones. When that happens, training becomes significantly easier, although never as efficient as when the muscles are fully loaded with glycogen. An important point here is that if you eat carbs intermittently during the initial changeover, the body doesn’t efficiently adjust to the alternative fuels. A common practice among bodybuilders is to have a carb day once or twice a week when they’re on a low-carb or ketogenic diet, the rationale being to help replace depleted glycogen and enable them to train harder. While that works, it also prevents the full adjustment to using ketones and other alternative energy sources. The net effect is that fat loss slows a bit—but not enough to offset the benefits of the diet on body composition.
A lot of the stress of low-carb dieting could be relieved by taking into account the fact that it takes about a month for the body to adjust to using fuel sources other than carbs. Much of the initial fatigue and weakness that occurs results from a diuretic effect induced by the diet. Since each gram of glycogen is stored with 2.7 grams of water, when glycogen begins to break down in response to the lack of carbs, the water is excreted. Along with it go electrolytes, minerals that are vital to muscle function, mainly sodium, potassium and magnesium. It’s the loss of those minerals that produces the feelings of fatigue at the start of low-carb diets. The easy remedy is to make sure you take in three to four grams of sodium a day, along with at least 1,000 milligrams of potassium and 600 milligrams of magnesium, which is required to retain the potassium in muscle.
Another way to avoid problems during low-carb diets is to make sure you get enough protein. You need to increase protein intake during low-calorie and low-carb diets to prevent losing muscle. Getting more protein also provides a satiety effect, reducing appetite and making the diet a bit easier. In practical terms, we’re talking about a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.
Getting too much protein, however, will prevent ketosis, since the excess will be converted into glucose. The extra protein will not slow the diet progress, however, since most of it will be oxidized in the liver.
A recent study of elite artistic gymnasts compared the effects of eating a diet containing less than 20 grams of carb a day with a typical high-fat, high-carb Western diet for 30 days.1 Of interest to bodybuilders, it focused on any negative effects of the low-carb plan on strength and power performance. The gymnasts underwent various tests of strength and power both before and after the test period.
At the end of 30 days the results showed no performance differences between the ketogenic diet and the high-carb, high-fat Western diet. The gymnasts did, however, supplement both sodium and potassium, as well as taking several other vitamin and mineral supplements and herbs. They also ate a high-protein diet: 2.8 grams per kilogram—2.2 pounds—of bodyweight.
Should you consider staying on low carbs year-round? While it’s definitely the way to go in terms of losing excess bodyfat, the diet is not ideal for building muscle. If you stay on it and avoid carb days, you won’t get the benefits of insulin, which include an anticatabolic action in muscle as well as an anabolic effect in the presence of high blood amino acids. In addition, you need some carb for muscle glycogen repletion. Without it, your muscles won’t fully recover between training sessions. While ketones and other sources of energy, such as lactate and glycerol, can help to replete depleted muscle glycogen stores, that may not be enough for many people.
Carbs also promote the activity of intramuscular IGF-1, an anabolic hormone required for complete muscle recovery and growth. Last, but not least, for long-term high-intensity training, nothing beats carbs as an energy source and for preventing premature muscle fatigue. The optimal intake of carbs for nondieting bodybuilding purposes is four to seven grams per kilogram of bodyweight daily, depending on body size and how much training you do.
—Jerry Brainum
1 Paoli, A., et al. (2012). Ketogenic diet does not affect strength performance in elite artistic gymnasts. J Int Soc Sports Nut. 9:34
©,2015 Jerry Brainum. Any reprinting in any type of media, including electronic and foreign is expressly prohibited
Have you been ripped off by supplement makers whose products don’t work as advertised? Want to know the truth about them? Check out Jerry Brainum's book Natural Anabolics, available at JerryBrainum.com.
The Applied Ergogenics blog is a collection of articles written and published by Jerry Brainum over the past 20 years. These articles have appeared in Muscle and Fitness, Ironman, and other magazines. Many of the posts on the blog are original articles, having appeared here for the first time. For Jerry’s most recent articles, which are far more in depth than anything that appears on this blog site, please subscribe to his Applied Metabolics Newsletter, at www.appliedmetabolics.com. This newsletter, which is more correctly referred to as a monthly e-book, since its average length is 35 to 40 pages, contains the latest findings about nutrition, exercise science, fat-loss, anti-aging, ergogenic aids, food supplements, and other topics. For 33 cents a day you get the benefit of Jerry’s 53 years of writing and intense study of all matters pertaining to fitness,health, bodybuilding, and disease prevention.
See Jerry's book at http://www.jerrybrainum.com
Want more evidence-based information on exercise science, nutrition and food supplements, ergogenic aids, and anti-aging research? Check out Applied Metabolics Newsletter at www.appliedmetabolics.com
Please share this blog on facebook
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