Protein And The Endurance Athlete. Are you eating enough protein? ![]() At the right times? Protein is the only macronutrient left with generally positive associations. Fat has been considered “bad” for decades. Whose idea was it to call it fat, anyway? That’s bad marketing. The truth is, there’s nothing inherently wrong with fat. ![]() ![]() Why the Exerciser Elite is superior compared to similar models on the market. The Exerciser Elite® is a genuine Clark-built machine and not a copy of any other. Get the latest international news and world events from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and more. See world news photos and videos at ABCNews.com. It’s just that most of eat too much of it, or too much of certain kinds of it. Carbohydrate was generally regarded as a good nutrient until Robert Atkins came along and ruined it. ![]() The low- carb craze may be long gone, but Atkins casts a long shadow. The current popularity of the Paleo Diet among endurance athletes is very much an Atkins aftershock. The reputation of carbohydrate may never be fully rehabilitated. This leaves protein, as I’ve suggested, as the lone unsullied macronutrient. Which is ironic, because humans require much less protein than they do carbs and fat, and protein consumption becomes “too much” at lower levels than carbohydrate and fat intake. There are, of course, protein zealots out there who believe that more is better, with no point of diminishing returns. The notion that massive amounts of protein intake are required to maximize muscle size and strength is an article of faith among the weightlifting crowd. Science clearly shows otherwise. The muscle- bound actually require less protein than the average person because their bodies are so adept at retaining the gigantic protein reserves already inside their bodies. According to the World Health Organization, humans need to get only 1. There is reason to believe that runners may need more, however, because running breaks down muscle proteins and damages muscle fibers, and protein is needed for the muscles to recover from the daily onslaught of training. But a study of the diet of elite Kenyan runners found that they got only 1. Given their running performance, it would be difficult to argue that this wasn’t enough. Such numbers are deceptive, though. It is more helpful to think of protein needs in terms of amounts of protein relative to body weight instead of protein as a percentage of daily calories. That’s because running increases total energy—carbohydrate, fat, and protein—needs. So you may get 1. So, how much protein do you need as an amount relative to your body weight? You can eat substantially more protein without any harm, and with some potential benefits. Studies have shown that athletes trying to shed excess body fat do so more successfully on high- protein diets where 3. When calorie restriction is combined with increased protein intake and weightlifting, all weight loss is fat loss, whereas when calories are reduced alone, less fat is lost along with more lean body mass. There is also some evidence that very high protein intakes help endurance athletes absorb heavy training loads. For example, a study at the University of Birmingham, England, found that cycling time trial performance was reduced less after a period of intensified training when cyclists increased their protein intake to 1. In short, there seems to be no magic sweet spot of protein intake that every triathlete has to hit on the nose every day. More important that the amount of protein consumed is the timing of protein intake. Numerous studies have demonstrated that exercise- induced muscle damage is reduced when protein is consumed immediately before and during workouts and that muscle repair proceeds most rapidly when protein is consumed immediately after workouts. You still don’t need a lot of protein, though. About 1. 5 grams of protein per hour during exercise will suffice, while a total of 2. RELATED: 4 Protein- Rich Snacks.
MSN Health and Fitness has fitness, nutrition and medical information for men and women that will help you get active, eat right and improve your overall wellbeing. ![]() Intermittent fasting diet for fat loss, muscle gain and health. It's been a good while since I last wrote about intermittent fasting. I guess largely because there's only so much to say about the topic and because I feel like I've said most of it. Unless you're going to make inferences based on animal studies, there's only so much you can extrapolate from the human experience and write about. Another part of it is that I've lost interest. Once your understanding of nutrition is complete, more or less, you reach a point of radically diminishing returns - at this point, expanding your knowledge further in this realm, won't make an iota of difference for your level of fitness. It's much more fruitful to improve your training regimen and understanding thereof. That's my experience. A rich body of research on the topic has been published since then. The ongoing interest in IF is not surprising, given its mystique that’s wrapped in ancient spiritual origins, all the way to its modern applications to clinical and aesthetic goals. The aim of this article is to bring the reader up- to- date on the scientific findings, with a particular focus on comparing IF regimes with conventional/linear dieting. After all, the question is not whether IF works – it obviously does, as does any mode of caloric restriction. The question is whether it works better than conventional dieting for improving body composition, and if so, to which contexts can we apply it. Article continues.. Importantly, they compared the effects of intermittent energy restriction (IER) to continuous energy restriction (CER) on bodyweight, body composition, and other clinical parameters. Their review included 4. IER with a CER condition. They found that overall, the two diet types resulted in “apparently equivalent outcomes” in terms of bodyweight reduction and body composition change. In addition, neither IER or CER was superior to the other at improving glucose control/insulin sensitivity. No different effects on thyroid, cortisol, and sex hormones were seen between IER and CER, though the authors concede that there’s insufficient research comparing neuroendocrine effects of the two diet types to draw definitive conclusions in this area. Interestingly, IER was superior at suppressing hunger. The authors speculated that this might be attributable to ketone production in the fasting phases. However, this effect was somewhat immaterial since it failed to translate into superior improvements in body composition or greater weight loss. MB: Well, that's not quite true. These studies didn't have a suitable control group, as the participants served as their own controls. Thus, you can't say that it didn't translate into . That's the problem with these systematic reviews Like it says in the paper. Only 1. 2 of the 4. IER with CER: the lack of direct comparison makes it difficult to determine whether IER is superior to CER, or for whom. Limitations of the review included the standard ones – relatively small sample sizes, relatively short trial durations, and heterogeneous study designs making comparisons outside of the same study difficult. An acknowledged limitation worth highlighting was that 1. Varady et al, University of Illinois at Chicago). Ideally, a more diversified and less concentrated set of labs is less likely to repeat the same errors or preserve the same biases. Speaking of the potential for bias, Varady has published a lay- directed book titled, The Every- Other- Day Diet (1. I’m not claiming that Varady is destined to make sure her ADF study results will always square up with her book, but it’s one of the potential caveats nevertheless. I would add to these limitations that there’s a severe lack of IER (and IER vs CER) studies that include a structured training component. MB: I agree wholeheartedly. I'm glad Alan brought this up. The opportunities for fuckery in the scientific literature are endless. Usually, industry is the culprit - you know, studies praising the benefits of snacks or breakfast (sponsored by Kellogg's or General Mills) or studies on the tremendous muscle- building effects of protein powders (sponsored by supplement companies) and the like. These studies can't fully be trusted and needs to be scrutinised more than the rest. They're suspect, because their funding comes from a source that would benefit from a positive result, and the results should always be taken with a grain of salt. And very often, almost always in fact, these studies arrive at a positive result. They seemed more like marketing than science. That's more than 9. Here's how to stop them. If you want to read more about this topic as it pertains to nutritional science, check out Marion Nestle and her writings. She's quite brilliant. Why Calories Count by Marion Nestle. I found this book in a large box of bullshit that I ordered from Amazon two years ago. It was the only thing worth scavenging and I intend to read it after I'm done with a few horror novels. I figure that I'd be properly warmed up by then. A book about food politics and marketing shenanigans can get quite dark and depressing no doubt. But food companies are as unlikely to fund research on intermittent fasting, as Coca Cola is unlikely to fund research on ketogenic diets. What Alan brings up is the potential for bias on the researcher's part, Krista Varady to be specific. Aside from researching intermittent fasting, she is also involved in selling books, namely books based off of the research she is doing. What gives? Well. While I haven't read The Every- Other- Day Diet, but I have mixed feelings about Krista Varady. She does try a bit too hard for my liking. I covered her work* before in . Note that I'm wrongfully referring to Varady as . In short, she published a pretty shitty review of the subject, but then again, there weren't that many data points around in 2. Five years later, it's gotten a little better, but there's still not enough good data around to draw any definitive conclusions - and like Alan says, a lot of that data comes from the same lab (Varady's). It's worth mentioning that Varady appeared in a laughable infomercial documentary called . In it, Michael Mosley - the show host and soon- to- be- author, interviews researchers working in the field of intermittent fasting and Varady is one of them. After rewatching the segment she appeared in, I found her to be matter of fact and professional even though she dutifully suffered through all the TV show gimmicks thrown at her - they gorged on hamburgers and fries to show that you could stuff your face and still lose weight on ADF, for example. By the way, this . Seems like there was some kind of falling out between Varady and Mosley after that. Don't waste your money. If you want a book on intermittent fasting, pick up Eat Stop Eat. Now, speaking of Varady, there's nothing wrong with pushing your agenda, but don't shove it down peoples throats by publishing bad research and doing shady shit like failing to disclose your conflicts of interest, because that makes you suspect in my eyes. That said, there's nothing fishy about her recent work, as far as I can tell. It's entirely possible that Varady and her colleagues got together one night and decided amongst themselves to doctor the results, but I find that very unlikely. It's kind of spooky, but a client just sent me this two minutes ago. I'm mentioned on the same page as Mosley and Varady, and I'm reading it just as I finish up this paragraph. I believe he was reading a book by his doctor, Robin Willcourt. I'll have to ask about the title, so I'll add it here later for those interested. Update: Name of the book is Chasing Antelopes: Why All This Caused All That. When fuckery strikes in science, it's usually a lot more subtle and sinister. I would know, because years ago, I approached Alan with this subject. See, I had uncovered some sophisticated tampering with the results of a study that received a lot of spin on social media and the mainstream news. I was slightly distressed over the fact that he had missed it - the studies appeared in the AARR, not only once, but twice - and presented my findings. I needed a second opinion, because maybe I was making a hen out of a feather. Nope. Alan agreed, it was some shady shit. In fact, it was a case study in deceit. Career- ending, if you ask me. But to this day, no one has debunked the findings, and the researcher is still active; polluting the journals with more bullshit for every new study that gets published. Who knows, maybe one day I'll put an end to it. The key point of all this, is that science can't be trusted for shit, unless you do your due diligence and read the fine print. But in this particular case, concerning Krista Varady, I'm not worried. Article continues below.. This limitation also plagues the body of research comparing various within- day meal frequencies. Readers familiar with my work know that Brad Schoenfeld, James Krieger, and I did a meta- analysis on the effect of meal frequency on body composition, and found that higher meal frequencies were associated with greater losses of fat mass and greater retention of lean mass (2. However, sensitivity analysis revealed that the removal of a single study (2. It’s worth noting that the studies in our analysis (and in this entire body of literature) lacked sufficient protein. An exception was Arciero et al (2. Furthermore, 6 meals per day increased lean mass despite hypocaloric conditions. MB: Sure thing. Something like that only happens in a study sponsored by EAS, Alan. Article continues below.. However, the question of muscle gain via IF remains unanswered since the investigative focus of IF research has been on weight/fat loss and accompanying clinical effects. No IF studies in the current literature have focused on the goal of gains in muscle size and/or strength. As such, No IF studies to- date (at least none that have passed peer review) have included a structured, progressive resistance training program.
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