For optimal muscle gains, do this…

[Fadi]

In any case - this thread is a good one and your 5 points are a good step towards optimising things. I would say #6 for me would be quality sleep - of which I'm off to get my 7 hours right now

Thanks to you brother, I've added tip #6 .

 

[Fadi]

Great info here thanks

You're most welcome mate, and your input is also welcomed, as I also like to learn from you and your experiences.

 

[Mickdog]

You're a gentleman and a scholar Fadi. I base a lot of my current training and nutrition guidelines around what you and others have written on this forum. By basing my diet on this new information I'll be eating ....

5:30am - weight training on an empty stomach???? Should I lose sleep and wake up and eat oats now?

6:30am - 1/4 cup oats and milk, green smoothie (spinach, 1/2 apple, 1/2 banana 1/4 cup oats, 1 cup milk, 3 tbs natural yogurt) 3 eggs

10:30am - 140 grams chicken, 1/2 tomato, 2 lettuce leaves, grain and seed small Woolworths roll, Mayo and margarine 1 tbs.

2:30pm - can 185 gram tuna, 1/2 tomato, 2 lettuce leaves, grain and seed small Woolworths roll, Mayo and margarine 1 tbs

6:30pm steak, chicken or fish ( whatever I can make for the family for dinner but ensuring I get my grams of protein) potato or pasta or rice 1 cup. Other green vegetables 1 cup.

9:00 - 10:30pm bedtime. Maybe a glass of milk, and a tbs of peanut butter and yogurt.

 

[Acme]

You're most welcome mate, and your input is also welcomed, as I also like to learn from you and your experiences.

Im here to learn don't know to much that is why I'm here I've learnt so mush just today lol

 

[Fadi]

You're a gentleman and a scholar Fadi. I base a lot of my current training and nutrition guidelines around what you and others have written on this forum. By basing my diet on this new information I'll be eating ....

5:30am - weight training on an empty stomach???? Should I lose sleep and wake up and eat oats now?

6:30am - 1/4 cup oats and milk, green smoothie (spinach, 1/2 apple, 1/2 banana 1/4 cup oats, 1 cup milk, 3 tbs natural yogurt) 3 eggs

10:30am - 140 grams chicken, 1/2 tomato, 2 lettuce leaves, grain and seed small Woolworths roll, Mayo and margarine 1 tbs.

2:30pm - can 185 gram tuna, 1/2 tomato, 2 lettuce leaves, grain and seed small Woolworths roll, Mayo and margarine 1 tbs

6:30pm steak, chicken or fish ( whatever I can make for the family for dinner but ensuring I get my grams of protein) potato or pasta or rice 1 cup. Other green vegetables 1 cup.

9:00 - 10:30pm bedtime. Maybe a glass of milk, and a tbs of peanut butter and yogurt.

Thank you Mick, the pleasure is all mine sir, glad I was able to help in some way. The main thing here is you're making progress and getting your effort's worth where it counts most; your health (first and foremost) then your muscles and over all physical wellbeing. Take care now...

 

[Fadi]

Im here to learn don't know to much that is why I'm here I've learnt so mush just today lol

We're all here to learn and to share what we've learned with like minded good people like your self sir. Welcome to the Ausbb team.

 

[Mickdog]

http://spotmebro.com/layne-norton-phd-on-protein-how-much-and-how-often/

What about lamb?

 

[Fadi]

What about lamb?

140g of Australian fresh, leg, sirloin chops, boneless, separable lean only, cooked, broiled = 3000mg of Leucine, with a very high score of 141 for protein quality/amino acid profile.

At 100g, its Leucine content stands at 2148mg. I hope that helps.

Late edit: 100g of the above = 28g protein, making Leucine stand at 7.7% of total protein, sort of between chicken and beef if you like. Thanks.

 

[Repacked]

Thank you Fadi.

 

[Fadi]

Thank you Fadi.

Ah, you're most welcome brother my pleasure
Just added one more piece of info to complete the picture above. Thank you.

 

[Bazza20]

I would guess that aside from BBers on very low calories coming into a comp no one eating a BBer type diet is limited in protein enough that adding leucine is going to make a difference to gains.

Adding a rate limiting amino acid is only going to be of benefit if that amino acid is actually low enough that it is limiting protein synthesis. With the diets most Heath conscious people eat it's not likely.

 

[Fadi]

I would guess that aside from BBers on very low calories coming into a comp no one eating a BBer type diet is limited in protein enough that adding leucine is going to make a difference to gains.

Adding a rate limiting amino acid is only going to be of benefit if that amino acid is actually low enough that it is limiting protein synthesis. With the diets most Heath conscious people eat it's not likely.

I accept all that you've said except perhaps your last sentence. I stand to be corrected here, however I find bodybuilders are unique in the amount of protein they consume, so unique that to include "Health conscious people" may not qualify (some of these people) to be in the same category as a high protein consuming bodybuilder.

To take this a step further (and as I have alluded to in the OP), the spacing of those protein meal as bodybuilders have been doing for years may not be the best in the long run, as there needs to be a reason for MPS to occur, and if not enough spacing is allowed between meals, then one may be cutting himself short of optimal gains.

 

[Bazza20]

I accept all that you've said except perhaps your last sentence. I stand to be corrected here, however I find bodybuilders are unique in the amount of protein they consume, so unique that to include "Health conscious people" may not qualify (some of these people) to be in the same category as a high protein consuming bodybuilder.

To take this a step further (and as I have alluded to in the OP), the spacing of those protein meal as bodybuilders have been doing for years may not be the best in the long run, as there needs to be a reason for MPS to occur, and if not enough spacing is allowed between meals, then one may be cutting himself short of optimal gains.

I have no doubt that there are some people out there may not be eating enough protein but almost everyone into growing muscle and getting leaner jumps onto a high protein diet as the first thing they do. I doubt it's an issue for many at all.

I do remember the research years ago showing that constantly elevated blood amino acid levels down regulated protein synthesis. I never subscribed to the high frequency meal thing anyway, so didn't bother worrying about it. In saying that the research I saw was IV amino acids. Is there newer research out showing the same down regulation with actually eating the meals? Plenty of BBs have done high frequency meals over the years and grown heaps of muscle.

We are working on balancing the rate limiting amino acids for our cows diet. It's different amino acids to humans but the same theory.
So I've been doing way too much reading on it of late.
It really only works on higher production cows on a lower protein diet. I've worked it out before but high production cows are eating something like equivalent to a human eating around 15,000+ calories a day . If you balance the amino acids you can be more efficient with protein and feed a lower protein diet. Lower protein means more room to feed more energy in the diet, capacity to eat more is a limiting factor with cows production. Generally not the same issue with humans. We are generally not anywhere near our physical limits of what we can do or eat, I know there are some exceptions obviously but these people are not getting their advise of the BB forums.

 

[Goosey]

We all react differently to exercise, some need volume, some require three days between activity, some respond really well to minimal exercise, while most fall into something in the middle it stands to reason the dietary needs would also differ from one person to another.
anything outside of this like supplements are going to make a very, very minor difference.

 

[Fadi]

I do remember the research years ago showing that constantly elevated blood amino acid levels down regulated protein synthesis. I never subscribed to the high frequency meal thing anyway, so didn't bother worrying about it. In saying that the research I saw was IV amino acids. Is there newer research out showing the same down regulation with actually eating the meals?

I hear you Barry, and I believe there has been more studies done with real meals as opposed to plain amino acids. Below you'll find a copy paste of Dr. Layne Norton himself (with a link at the end if you wish to read the whole thing for yourself mate).


Now there is the issue of meal frequency and time between meals. Assuming we maximize protein synthesis by achieving the required leucine/protein threshold, how long does the effect last? Several studies have shown that the duration of protein synthesis in response to an oral leucine dose or an essential amino acid infusion is approximately two hours long[SUP]4,5[/SUP]. However, these are purified amino acid solutions and are likely to be digested rapidly and in the case of an infusion, no digestion is required at all. So it is possible that a whole food meal will have a different impact on the duration of protein synthesis than pure amino acids. Our lab has recently shown that the duration of protein synthesis in response to a complete meal containing protein, carbohydrates, and fats is approximately 3 hours long[SUP]6[/SUP].

Therefore, it appears that a complete meal slightly prolongs the duration of protein synthesis. What is interesting about our findings is that while protein synthesis had returned to baseline after 3 hours, plasma amino acid levels were still elevated above baseline and plasma leucine was elevated almost 3x above baseline! Accordingly, the phosphoryation of the initiation factors 4E-BP1 & p70S6K followed plasma leucine levels and maintained elevated levels of phosphorylation at 3 hours (phosphorylation of these initiation factors is required to start the process of protein synthesis).

Thus it appears that the signal to maintain elevated protein synthesis is still being ‘transmitted’ but for some reason protein synthesis is becomes refractory after a certain period of time. This is also supported by data from Bohe et al which showed that the duration of protein synthesis in response to an infusion of essential amino acids was only 2 hours long even though the essential amino acids were infused for six hours[SUP]5[/SUP]!

It is unlikely that eating another meal 2-3 hours after the first meal would be sufficient to induce another rise in protein synthesis since amino acid/leucine levels are already elevated anyway. It may therefore be more useful to consume larger amounts of protein at a meal and wait longer between protein doses than the typical 2-3 hours that is typically recommended in the bodybuilding community.

Now I know you’ve probably spit your protein shake out all over your magazine, ruining it and now you are cursing me for

1) ruining your magazine and

2) telling you the bodybuilding meal eating protocol you’ve been following for so long may not be optimal for making gains. Well I apologize for ruining your magazine but I won’t apologize for busting on musclehead dogma; that is just what I do.

There is some precedent for what I am recommending however. Arnal et al[SUP]7[/SUP] compared elderly women consuming either 4 small meals per day with their total protein intake evenly spaced out verses those that consumed the same amount of protein but with 80% of their total protein coming in one meal. The researchers found that the women consuming the large single dose of protein actually had greater nitrogen balance, protein turnover, and protein synthesis rates than the group consuming their protein across four evenly spaced meals.

Now the total protein intake for both groups was only 60g so the group consuming protein evenly only consumed 15g at each meal. Still it is interesting that the group eating almost all of their total protein in one meal had better results. Perhaps the group consuming the small meals never reached the threshold required to initiate a significant response of protein synthesis at any meal whereas the bolus dose group ate enough protein in at least one meal to initiate have one significant increase in protein synthesis above baseline during the day.

Now I am not in any way shape or form implying that we are better off just consuming one large protein meal per day. What I am implying is that it is better to consume larger protein doses spaced further apart and maximize protein synthesis, rather than consume smaller doses of protein throughout the day, since research has shown that protein synthesis will become refractory to constantly elevated levels of amino acids. It may be that a period where amino acids return to baseline or near baseline is required in order to initiate another bout of protein synthesis. I therefore suggest that one consume 4-6 larger protein doses per day instead of 6-8 meals and wait 4-5 hours between meals rather than 2-3 hours.

http://spotmebro.com/layne-norton-phd-on-protein-how-much-and-how-often/

 

[Mickdog]

140g of Australian fresh, leg, sirloin chops, boneless, separable lean only, cooked, broiled = 3000mg of Leucine, with a very high score of 141 for protein quality/amino acid profile.

At 100g, its Leucine content stands at 2148mg. I hope that helps.

Late edit: 100g of the above = 28g protein, making Leucine stand at 7.7% of total protein, sort of between chicken and beef if you like. Thanks.

Very helpful as usual Fadi. Thank you. Just ate some delicious lamb shanks. So yummy.