Leon
Tue, January 25th, 2005, 09:50 PM
ANABOLIC NUTRITION
Anabolic Nutrition
A crash course in the 15 best ways to eat to grow
By Chris Aceto
You're ready to get big, to tackle the iron four, five, even six days a week, but don't have the nutrition know-how to adequately fuel your muscle machine. To the rescue comes this crash course in mass-mustering nutrition, providing the tools and techniques you need to move your body into an anabolic state - that magical place where the body lays down new muscle tissue, increasing your bodyweight, size and strength.
It's the state pro bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman and Nasser El Sonbaty seem to live in, but for those to whom gains don't come easy, accessing and applying every nutrition tip possible can help even the odds. Use the advice on the following pages to help move into a state of anabolism. Your next 10 pounds are just 15 steps away!
1. Protein Is the Foundation
You can't build a building without adequate raw materials, and it's pretty much the same in building muscle. Amino acids, the small components of protein, are commonly referred to as "building blocks" because they're used to build and repair muscle tissue. Protein is also special because it contains nitrogen; researchers often use nitrogen balance studies to determine whether the body is in that magical "anabolic state." Simply put, if the body is holding more nitrogen than it's excreting, you're on track to adding muscle mass.
Lower-fat sources of protein include poultry (skinless white meat), fish, lean steak, protein powders and low-fat dairy products such as cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt and milk.
To get your fill, aim for 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, evenly spread over 5-6 meals each day. This can maximise absorption while minimising bloating. The 190-pounder, for example, would need 190 grams a day - 38 grams in each of five meals or 32 grams in each of six meals.
2. Carbs Complement
Two words: glycogen and insulin. Glycogen is the body's storage tank of carbohydrates located in your muscles and liver. When you eat plenty of carbs, these energy tanks fill up and encourage the body to hold onto protein and build new muscle. When you skimp on carbs, the tanks empty quickly, causing protein to be burned for fuel and thus not available for the muscle-building process.
Carbohydrates also increase the natural release of a hormone called insulin, touted as one of the body's most potent anabolic or tissue-building hormones. Insulin is quite versatile, driving amino acids and glucose into muscles to facilitate repair and recovery. For building your physique, you'll need to make carbohydrates the main ingredient in your nutrition plan.
3. Calories Are Anabolic
"A big mistake bodybuilders make is to eat enough protein but not enough calories," warns Bonnie Modugno, MS, RD, owner of NutritionWorks in Santa Monica, California. Calories are directly related to how your body uses the protein you eat. That is, when calories remain consistently high (slightly surpassing your daily energy requirements), protein is used to build muscle. If calories remain consistently low, your body burns dietary protein - the protein you eat - as well as muscle tissue made of protein!
One way to keep your calorie level adequate is to follow a higher-carbohydrate diet. Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates lends his formula: "Start with 350-500 grams of carbohydrates a day depending on your size and activity level, then use the bathroom scale. If your weight isn't moving up each week, you don't have enough calories to grow, so you can increase your carbohydrates another 100 grams each day to increase your calories."
4. Be Fat-Friendly
Where does dietary fat fit into the mass-building equation? Aside from contributing calories, the answer has to do with hormones. Udo Erasmus, PhD, author of Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill (Alive Books, 1999) notes, "Men who are deficient in essential fatty acids can suffer lowered testosterone levels." Testosterone is the male hormone that helps men build stronger and bigger muscles. IFBB pro Milos Sarcev clarifies: "Yes, dieting bodybuilders can control calories by limiting their fat intake, but for those trying to get big, fat is important. It provides extra calories, which spare glycogen stores. Some fat may actually aid glycogen formation." You also need some dietary fat to utilise the fat-soluble vitamins.
Some research suggests that omega-3 fatty acids, found in salmon and flaxseed, for example, improve glucose tolerance. That is, the fat can enhance the body's ability to remove glucose, the basic unit of carbohydrates, and store it as muscle glycogen. For big gains, consume salmon, mackerel or sardines 2-3 times a week, and maintain a moderate-fat diet by including red meat and egg yolks, mixing one whole egg for every 3-4 egg whites, and sprinkling a small handful of nuts or seeds into a salad or mixed into your rice.
5. Variety Is Vital
Though many bodybuilders fill up on carbohydrates and protein and eat the right kinds of dietary fat, many follow the same approach every day, using and re-using one or two menu plans. The danger here is failing to consume a variety of foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Fruits and veggies contain an assortment of phytochemicals that strengthen the immune system, ward off pathogens and, overall, keep the body fine-tuned and healthy.
Include at least three servings a day of fruit and another three servings of vegetables. Mix blueberries, a banana, strawberries or sliced melon into your yogurt, oatmeal or protein shake. Add one-half to three-fourths cup of broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms or chopped onions and peppers to your rice or pasta. Have at least one large garden salad each day, preferably topped with a salad dressing made with extra-virgin olive oil or a cold-processed vegetable oil.
6. Dense Makes Sense
To follow a higher-calorie diet plentiful in carbs, focus on carbohydrate foods that are dense in carbs. Dense mass-building carbohydrates include mashed potatoes, pasta, rice, raisins, honey, whole-grain pancakes, bagels, Fig Rolls, cream of wheat cereal and ripe bananas. These types of foods let you meet your daily carbohydrate quota without getting so full (as with high-fibre vegetables) that you fail to eat enough.
7. Pre-workout: Go Slow
Slow-burning or low-glycemic carbs, those that your body lazily breaks down into glucose, are best in the pretraining meal. Oatmeal, beans mixed with rice, yogurt, buckwheat noodles, cherries and pears are examples. This type of carbohydrate breaks down slowly, keeping concentrations of sugar in the blood more stable. The benefit: Stable blood sugar levels help you train harder for a longer period, avoiding sudden crashes in energy. Slow-burning carbs are also used instead of muscle glycogen, which helps keep glycogen stores filled. Saturated glycogen stores are an important component to recovery and growth.
8. Post-Workout Is Paramount
Hardcore training is a paradox of sorts: While training stimulates new muscle growth, working too long and hard can cause an increase in cortisol, glucagon and catecholamines, three hormones that may trigger the burning of glycogen, amino acids and muscle tissue. That's where fast-digesting carbohydrates, sometimes called high-glycemic carbs, fit in. High-glycemic carbohydrates consumed immediately after your workout help reverse the muscle-unfriendly effects
of the three hormones by causing a quick surge in insulin. Insulin kick-starts recovery by suppressing the hormones that may oppose growth and recovery.
Good sources of fast-acting carbs include the carb-dense group - including raisins, bagels, honey and mashed potatoes. Try 2000 Night of Champions winner Jay Cutler's formula of 0.65 gram of carbs per pound of bodyweight in the post-training meal. That means a 190-pounder would chow down 124 grams after training, combined with one of his five or six protein servings mentioned in Tip No. 1. Jay likes mixing rice with honey and raisins. To top it off, he suggests a whey protein powder, which rapidly dissolves into amino acids to provide the body with a quick burst of building blocks to enhance recuperation.
9. Multiple Meals Are a Must!
Bodybuilders were the first athletes to incorporate the five, six and even seven meals a day as a nutrition strategy because they found it produced better results. Says IFBB pro Mike Matarazzo: "Breaking your food into multiple meals helps avoid crashes in energy. You feel better and you don't get bloated from eating so much at just a few meals."
Eating throughout the day provides a nearly nonstop influx of amino acids from protein and of glucose from carbohydrates. Amino acids help repair muscle tissue and glucose keeps insulin levels elevated, which prevents muscle breakdown while enhancing the formation of glycogen (which is the stored form of glucose). On the flip side, consuming the same amount of food in three or four bigger meals can cause an increase in bodyfat and promote seesawing blood sugar levels - which can leave you tired and weak.
10. Use a C&E Cocktail
While a variety of fresh food choices, including plenty of fruits and veggies, ought to supply a healthy amount of Vitamin C, some research shows a larger amount might help. In one study, weightlifters taking 1,000 mg a day demonstrated lower levels of cortisol.(1) Cortisol is generally thought of as a muscle-wasting hormone that can increase significantly with hardcore training.
Another study showed that bodybuilders using 1,200 IU of Vitamin E daily experienced a decrease in creatine kinase activity, a marker of muscle-fibre injury.(2) This leads many to surmise that a higher amount of E might combat muscle cell damage and free radical production, and thereby enhance recovery and boost the immune system.
11. Put Creatine & Glutamine to Work
Creatine is far and away the best supplement ever - it can increase power,(3) delay fatigue(4) and increase protein synthesis.(5) In short, it works. The perennial runner-up as "best supplement" seems to be glutamine. This amino acid supports the immune system, the complex web of defence inextricably linked to recovery. Glutamine also supports the formation of muscle glycogen(6) and controls muscle-wasting cortisol.(7) One study showed that those deprived of glutamine will fail to grow regardless of calorie and carbohydrate intake!(8)
The best time to use these two super supplements is immediately after training with a high-carbohydrate meal. A high-carb intake spikes insulin levels, which facilitates the storage and use of creatine and glutamine, trapping water within muscle cells to aid growth, recovery and repair. Try 3-6 grams of creatine and 5-10 grams of glutamine.
12. Use the Scale
Your bathroom scale is directly tied to your carbohydrate intake. How? If the scale is moving up one-half to 1 pound a week, you're eating sufficient carbs. If the numbers aren't budging, you aren't eating enough to support your training and growth. Depending on your activity and individual metabolism, set your sights on 2-3 grams of carbohydrate per pound of bodyweight daily. The 190-pounder would need 380-570 grams daily. If that doesn't cause an weekly uptick on the scale, move your carbs up by one-half gram. That is, if you were eating 2 grams per pound of bodyweight, go to 2.5.
13. Use Callipers to Check the Scale
Stock-pickers concern themselves with all kinds of ratios in evaluating a company's progress, and you, too, can use more than one method of feedback to tweak and customise your mass-building plan. Skinfold Callipers indicate your muscle-to-fat ratio, or how much of you is muscle and how much is fat. In gaining 10 pounds of bodyweight, expect some of that weight to be bodyfat; shoot for a 2:1 ratio, two parts muscle to one part fat. If you want to add 12 pounds, you can expect to gain 8 pounds of muscle and 4 pounds of fat.
Skinfold measurements done by someone skilled in using Callipers will indicate whether you're headed in the right direction. For example, if you gained 2 pounds over a 2-3-week period and realise 11/2 pounds are muscle with one-half pound fat, you're making great progress. If you gained 1 pound of muscle and 1 pound of fat, you know your overall carbohydrate and caloric intake is too high, pushing up fat levels on par with true muscle gains.
14. Drink
Failing to drink adequate liquid can affect your gains in mass. How so? Water comprises up to 75% of the body, and maintaining a hydrated body aids growth. When the body becomes dehydrated, water leaves muscle cells and can initiate a trigger that sends the body into a muscle-wasting state.
In fact, one way that creatine and glutamine work is by hyper-swelling the muscles with fluid. They pull water into muscles, which may provide an anabolic stimulus for growth.
15. Be a Real Carnivore
Talk about coming full circle: Bodybuilders in the '60s and '70s lived on red meat, while the cholesterol awakening of the '80s and early '90s left bodybuilders scrambling for ultra-low-fat protein foods including egg whites, tuna and chicken breast. Red meat is back and with good reason. Lean cuts yield nearly as little dietary fat and cholesterol as chicken breast. When it comes to energy-producing B vitamins, including B12, plus creatine, iron and zinc, red meat has no parallel. Important catalysts for growth, B12, iron and zinc support cell growth and the development of red blood cells. Zinc is required to manufacture testosterone, the male hormone that impacts muscle strength and size.
So if you want to get big, eat big, but eat smart to build lean, hard muscle.
Anabolic Nutrition
A crash course in the 15 best ways to eat to grow
By Chris Aceto
You're ready to get big, to tackle the iron four, five, even six days a week, but don't have the nutrition know-how to adequately fuel your muscle machine. To the rescue comes this crash course in mass-mustering nutrition, providing the tools and techniques you need to move your body into an anabolic state - that magical place where the body lays down new muscle tissue, increasing your bodyweight, size and strength.
It's the state pro bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman and Nasser El Sonbaty seem to live in, but for those to whom gains don't come easy, accessing and applying every nutrition tip possible can help even the odds. Use the advice on the following pages to help move into a state of anabolism. Your next 10 pounds are just 15 steps away!
1. Protein Is the Foundation
You can't build a building without adequate raw materials, and it's pretty much the same in building muscle. Amino acids, the small components of protein, are commonly referred to as "building blocks" because they're used to build and repair muscle tissue. Protein is also special because it contains nitrogen; researchers often use nitrogen balance studies to determine whether the body is in that magical "anabolic state." Simply put, if the body is holding more nitrogen than it's excreting, you're on track to adding muscle mass.
Lower-fat sources of protein include poultry (skinless white meat), fish, lean steak, protein powders and low-fat dairy products such as cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt and milk.
To get your fill, aim for 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, evenly spread over 5-6 meals each day. This can maximise absorption while minimising bloating. The 190-pounder, for example, would need 190 grams a day - 38 grams in each of five meals or 32 grams in each of six meals.
2. Carbs Complement
Two words: glycogen and insulin. Glycogen is the body's storage tank of carbohydrates located in your muscles and liver. When you eat plenty of carbs, these energy tanks fill up and encourage the body to hold onto protein and build new muscle. When you skimp on carbs, the tanks empty quickly, causing protein to be burned for fuel and thus not available for the muscle-building process.
Carbohydrates also increase the natural release of a hormone called insulin, touted as one of the body's most potent anabolic or tissue-building hormones. Insulin is quite versatile, driving amino acids and glucose into muscles to facilitate repair and recovery. For building your physique, you'll need to make carbohydrates the main ingredient in your nutrition plan.
3. Calories Are Anabolic
"A big mistake bodybuilders make is to eat enough protein but not enough calories," warns Bonnie Modugno, MS, RD, owner of NutritionWorks in Santa Monica, California. Calories are directly related to how your body uses the protein you eat. That is, when calories remain consistently high (slightly surpassing your daily energy requirements), protein is used to build muscle. If calories remain consistently low, your body burns dietary protein - the protein you eat - as well as muscle tissue made of protein!
One way to keep your calorie level adequate is to follow a higher-carbohydrate diet. Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates lends his formula: "Start with 350-500 grams of carbohydrates a day depending on your size and activity level, then use the bathroom scale. If your weight isn't moving up each week, you don't have enough calories to grow, so you can increase your carbohydrates another 100 grams each day to increase your calories."
4. Be Fat-Friendly
Where does dietary fat fit into the mass-building equation? Aside from contributing calories, the answer has to do with hormones. Udo Erasmus, PhD, author of Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill (Alive Books, 1999) notes, "Men who are deficient in essential fatty acids can suffer lowered testosterone levels." Testosterone is the male hormone that helps men build stronger and bigger muscles. IFBB pro Milos Sarcev clarifies: "Yes, dieting bodybuilders can control calories by limiting their fat intake, but for those trying to get big, fat is important. It provides extra calories, which spare glycogen stores. Some fat may actually aid glycogen formation." You also need some dietary fat to utilise the fat-soluble vitamins.
Some research suggests that omega-3 fatty acids, found in salmon and flaxseed, for example, improve glucose tolerance. That is, the fat can enhance the body's ability to remove glucose, the basic unit of carbohydrates, and store it as muscle glycogen. For big gains, consume salmon, mackerel or sardines 2-3 times a week, and maintain a moderate-fat diet by including red meat and egg yolks, mixing one whole egg for every 3-4 egg whites, and sprinkling a small handful of nuts or seeds into a salad or mixed into your rice.
5. Variety Is Vital
Though many bodybuilders fill up on carbohydrates and protein and eat the right kinds of dietary fat, many follow the same approach every day, using and re-using one or two menu plans. The danger here is failing to consume a variety of foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Fruits and veggies contain an assortment of phytochemicals that strengthen the immune system, ward off pathogens and, overall, keep the body fine-tuned and healthy.
Include at least three servings a day of fruit and another three servings of vegetables. Mix blueberries, a banana, strawberries or sliced melon into your yogurt, oatmeal or protein shake. Add one-half to three-fourths cup of broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms or chopped onions and peppers to your rice or pasta. Have at least one large garden salad each day, preferably topped with a salad dressing made with extra-virgin olive oil or a cold-processed vegetable oil.
6. Dense Makes Sense
To follow a higher-calorie diet plentiful in carbs, focus on carbohydrate foods that are dense in carbs. Dense mass-building carbohydrates include mashed potatoes, pasta, rice, raisins, honey, whole-grain pancakes, bagels, Fig Rolls, cream of wheat cereal and ripe bananas. These types of foods let you meet your daily carbohydrate quota without getting so full (as with high-fibre vegetables) that you fail to eat enough.
7. Pre-workout: Go Slow
Slow-burning or low-glycemic carbs, those that your body lazily breaks down into glucose, are best in the pretraining meal. Oatmeal, beans mixed with rice, yogurt, buckwheat noodles, cherries and pears are examples. This type of carbohydrate breaks down slowly, keeping concentrations of sugar in the blood more stable. The benefit: Stable blood sugar levels help you train harder for a longer period, avoiding sudden crashes in energy. Slow-burning carbs are also used instead of muscle glycogen, which helps keep glycogen stores filled. Saturated glycogen stores are an important component to recovery and growth.
8. Post-Workout Is Paramount
Hardcore training is a paradox of sorts: While training stimulates new muscle growth, working too long and hard can cause an increase in cortisol, glucagon and catecholamines, three hormones that may trigger the burning of glycogen, amino acids and muscle tissue. That's where fast-digesting carbohydrates, sometimes called high-glycemic carbs, fit in. High-glycemic carbohydrates consumed immediately after your workout help reverse the muscle-unfriendly effects
of the three hormones by causing a quick surge in insulin. Insulin kick-starts recovery by suppressing the hormones that may oppose growth and recovery.
Good sources of fast-acting carbs include the carb-dense group - including raisins, bagels, honey and mashed potatoes. Try 2000 Night of Champions winner Jay Cutler's formula of 0.65 gram of carbs per pound of bodyweight in the post-training meal. That means a 190-pounder would chow down 124 grams after training, combined with one of his five or six protein servings mentioned in Tip No. 1. Jay likes mixing rice with honey and raisins. To top it off, he suggests a whey protein powder, which rapidly dissolves into amino acids to provide the body with a quick burst of building blocks to enhance recuperation.
9. Multiple Meals Are a Must!
Bodybuilders were the first athletes to incorporate the five, six and even seven meals a day as a nutrition strategy because they found it produced better results. Says IFBB pro Mike Matarazzo: "Breaking your food into multiple meals helps avoid crashes in energy. You feel better and you don't get bloated from eating so much at just a few meals."
Eating throughout the day provides a nearly nonstop influx of amino acids from protein and of glucose from carbohydrates. Amino acids help repair muscle tissue and glucose keeps insulin levels elevated, which prevents muscle breakdown while enhancing the formation of glycogen (which is the stored form of glucose). On the flip side, consuming the same amount of food in three or four bigger meals can cause an increase in bodyfat and promote seesawing blood sugar levels - which can leave you tired and weak.
10. Use a C&E Cocktail
While a variety of fresh food choices, including plenty of fruits and veggies, ought to supply a healthy amount of Vitamin C, some research shows a larger amount might help. In one study, weightlifters taking 1,000 mg a day demonstrated lower levels of cortisol.(1) Cortisol is generally thought of as a muscle-wasting hormone that can increase significantly with hardcore training.
Another study showed that bodybuilders using 1,200 IU of Vitamin E daily experienced a decrease in creatine kinase activity, a marker of muscle-fibre injury.(2) This leads many to surmise that a higher amount of E might combat muscle cell damage and free radical production, and thereby enhance recovery and boost the immune system.
11. Put Creatine & Glutamine to Work
Creatine is far and away the best supplement ever - it can increase power,(3) delay fatigue(4) and increase protein synthesis.(5) In short, it works. The perennial runner-up as "best supplement" seems to be glutamine. This amino acid supports the immune system, the complex web of defence inextricably linked to recovery. Glutamine also supports the formation of muscle glycogen(6) and controls muscle-wasting cortisol.(7) One study showed that those deprived of glutamine will fail to grow regardless of calorie and carbohydrate intake!(8)
The best time to use these two super supplements is immediately after training with a high-carbohydrate meal. A high-carb intake spikes insulin levels, which facilitates the storage and use of creatine and glutamine, trapping water within muscle cells to aid growth, recovery and repair. Try 3-6 grams of creatine and 5-10 grams of glutamine.
12. Use the Scale
Your bathroom scale is directly tied to your carbohydrate intake. How? If the scale is moving up one-half to 1 pound a week, you're eating sufficient carbs. If the numbers aren't budging, you aren't eating enough to support your training and growth. Depending on your activity and individual metabolism, set your sights on 2-3 grams of carbohydrate per pound of bodyweight daily. The 190-pounder would need 380-570 grams daily. If that doesn't cause an weekly uptick on the scale, move your carbs up by one-half gram. That is, if you were eating 2 grams per pound of bodyweight, go to 2.5.
13. Use Callipers to Check the Scale
Stock-pickers concern themselves with all kinds of ratios in evaluating a company's progress, and you, too, can use more than one method of feedback to tweak and customise your mass-building plan. Skinfold Callipers indicate your muscle-to-fat ratio, or how much of you is muscle and how much is fat. In gaining 10 pounds of bodyweight, expect some of that weight to be bodyfat; shoot for a 2:1 ratio, two parts muscle to one part fat. If you want to add 12 pounds, you can expect to gain 8 pounds of muscle and 4 pounds of fat.
Skinfold measurements done by someone skilled in using Callipers will indicate whether you're headed in the right direction. For example, if you gained 2 pounds over a 2-3-week period and realise 11/2 pounds are muscle with one-half pound fat, you're making great progress. If you gained 1 pound of muscle and 1 pound of fat, you know your overall carbohydrate and caloric intake is too high, pushing up fat levels on par with true muscle gains.
14. Drink
Failing to drink adequate liquid can affect your gains in mass. How so? Water comprises up to 75% of the body, and maintaining a hydrated body aids growth. When the body becomes dehydrated, water leaves muscle cells and can initiate a trigger that sends the body into a muscle-wasting state.
In fact, one way that creatine and glutamine work is by hyper-swelling the muscles with fluid. They pull water into muscles, which may provide an anabolic stimulus for growth.
15. Be a Real Carnivore
Talk about coming full circle: Bodybuilders in the '60s and '70s lived on red meat, while the cholesterol awakening of the '80s and early '90s left bodybuilders scrambling for ultra-low-fat protein foods including egg whites, tuna and chicken breast. Red meat is back and with good reason. Lean cuts yield nearly as little dietary fat and cholesterol as chicken breast. When it comes to energy-producing B vitamins, including B12, plus creatine, iron and zinc, red meat has no parallel. Important catalysts for growth, B12, iron and zinc support cell growth and the development of red blood cells. Zinc is required to manufacture testosterone, the male hormone that impacts muscle strength and size.
So if you want to get big, eat big, but eat smart to build lean, hard muscle.