Healthy living.

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T EAT PROTEIN TO GAIN MORE MUSCLE.

This very important topic obviously affects anyone who is trying to build muscle, whether you are a man or a woman. But it also affects older people 50 years and over who want to preserve muscle sizes as they age or maybe gain muscle which is ironically, a major cause of aging and death - muscles loss.
In fact, this is why they give AIDS patients lots of steroids and testosterone to help them bulk up muscle, so when or if they get sick due to an infection or illness and quickly lose a ton of muscle, there's a "safety net" because without that extra "steroid muscle" growth and weight, they would  lose too much muscle and then they'd die.
The reason for the increase in protein consumption is because when you increase protein intake, there's an increase in  protein synthesis leading to higher "nitrogen retention"  which will ultimately lead to more muscle and less body fat.
So that's what I did. I just ate more and more protein.  At one point at a body weight of 200 pounds, I was eating 600 grams of protein! That's 3 times my body weight and a lot of that was just the protein supplements, powders and shakes, since I just couldn't chew that much real food. It was actually very disgusting type of diet and I felt bloated and slow. I could tell that my body was under extreme stress due to the constant fatigue I had. I also had a lot more joint pain and my sleep was just horrible and yet, the end result was no muscle after 3 months of "torture". However, blood tests showed that my liver and kidneys were both under a lot of  stress and I had other hormonal problems.
So, my first point here is that you do not need that much protein. Just keep in mind something very important. The time you're growing the most in your life is when you're a baby, right? And mother's milk is only 5% protein. It's made mainly of carbs, specifically sugars and fats. In fact, I'd say  the most protein you'd ever really need is about 1 gram per pound of body weight. So, in my case, let's say I'm weighing about 200 pounds, I would need 200 grams.
However, some people will argue that you need more protein, but trust me, you don't! Listen, if you're working out really hard, 2 to 3 hours daily, taking lots of steroids and are in your twenties when you can actually absorb more protein correctly, then you can do about 1.5 grams at the maximum and thus, if 200 pounds you can eat about 300 grams of protein. However, 99 % of us are not in this small minority.
There's lots of problems with eating  so much protein. One of them is, the more protein you eat, the faster your body oxidizes it and this breaks it down faster.
So, the "experts" will say "more protein increases protein synthesis", and yes it does but for about 48 to 72 hours, before your body adapts and then increases protein oxidation, which means it breaks it down faster and thus protein synthesis decreases! 
Hence, the opposite happens! You start to lose muscle. Your body is too smart, it will adapt every single time. So then people, what do they do next? They increase protein even more and then your body breaks it down even faster! So, what's the solution?
You need to protein cycle by actually having one day a week with no protein. You can call it "protein fasting",and trust me ,you're not going to lose muscle. In fact, you will gain muscle if you do it correctly. So, how do you protein cycle and not eat any protein for 24 hours and actually increase muscle and burn more fat and most importantly, improve you hormones?

Well, let me tell you how I and some professional athletes do it. Basically, on Sundays I eat no protein. You can pick one day out of the week, I just pick Sundays. On Monday, my body is now supersensitive to protein since it has gone without it  for 24 hours. So on Monday and Tuesday, I eat 150 grams of protein. That's 0.75 of 200 pounds of my body weight. If you do the math, it's basically your weight (200 pounds for me) multiplied by 0.75 to get 150 grams.
Then on Wednesday and Thursday, I increases it by 25% to 200 grams. That is 200 pounds times 1 equals 200 grams of protein, or "one gram per pound". Finally, Friday and Saturday I again increase it by 25% since my body has adapted again, and this time I take 250 grams. That is 200 pounds × 1.25 = 250 grams.
Every time my body adapted in about 48 hours, I again increased it to continue the additional protein synthesis. Then as my body adapts again, on Sunday I trick it and eat no protein.
You're not going to lose muscle, so don't freak out. Just try and do it. At the end your body will  average around 1 gram per pound of body weight.
Now, what are the benefits:
1. First of all, your body continually increases protein synthesis every 48 hours which leads to more muscle.
2. This prevents your body from adapting and increasing protein oxidation which can lead to miscle loss.  
3. Most importantly, all this works because it helps optimize your hormones by lowering cortisol and other stress hormones and by increasing muscle building hormones such as testosterone, IGF growth hormones, insulin and thyroid. This "protein fasting" also has many benefits such as reduction in inflammation ,which again means more muscle, less joint pain and faster fat loss. This also improves digestion and improves cellular repair for your pancreas, liver and kidneys. It also increases mitochondrial functional and  increases energy levels.
So, now that you have the formula, you need to implement it.
As far as the results are concerned, it will take a few months for you to see the results, because muscle building takes time.
Some health benefits that you will feel much sooner are; improved digestion, reduction in inflammation, and more energy.

Share with me what you know about protein in our comments section. Thank you.

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