What and when should you eat to build muscle

Ready to kickstart the New Year and finally achieve the much-awaited, lean, mean body machine that you’ve been chasing after all of 2015? Ever wondered why you scored no luck? Truth is, you probably have your facts on nutrition and workout correlation all wrong. As compiled from Men’s Health magazine, use this comprehensive nutrition guide to get the best results from your workouts in 2016.

How much

A 2007 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that muscle size increases 0.2% per day during the first 20 days of a strength-training programme. That growth is over and above the high rate of muscle-protein breakdown that’s occurring concurrently. This explains why the guy who’s just starting out, or getting back to the gym after a while, requires more protein than the weight-room junkie whose been training for years without a disruption. If you just began working out or strength training, you’re most at risk of not getting as much protein as your body necessitates to build new muscle. How much is that? A good target is 0.73 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. For instance, a guy who weighs 180 pounds, a day’s worth for him would be about 130 grams.

How often

Protein synthesis is the process by which proteins are converted into lean muscle. Men’s Health nutrition advisor Mike Roussell, explains, “Protein synthesis is like a lamp. It’s either on or off. With 20 to 25 grams of high-quality protein, it’s on. More protein won’t improve the response, just as applying more force to a light switch can’t make the room brighter.” Most of us tend to undermine our daily protein intake — we’ll have a low-protein, high-carb breakfast (think paratha chai), a moderate-protein lunch (of maybe alu gosht and roti), and a high-protein dinner, featuring a large piece of meat (mutton chops anyone?). But a 2014 study in the Journal of Nutrition proves that you turn more of the protein from your meals into muscle tissue when you distribute protein evenly at each meal. A recent study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that guys who got at least 20 grams of protein six times a day lost body fat and increased lean mass, with or without training.



Pre and post-workout nutrition

For regular, longstanding lifters, protein synthesis will peak much earlier than for a gym newbie — about four hours post-workout — and return to baseline levels faster. So the protein you eat instantly before and after your workout becomes more important. A 2012 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition proves that those who used protein supplements, such as whey protein, gained two extra pounds of muscle over 12 weeks, compared to those who didn’t. For skilled lifters, they concluded that pre and/or post-workout protein supplements are required to achieve maximum results. The “window of opportunity” when your muscles are most receptive to protein, appears to be about four to six hours, according to a study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Preferably, you want a protein-rich meal, two to three hours before training and another within an hour or two after you finish.

Discover your finest protein sources

Various types of foods contain different combinations of amino acids — the building blocks of protein. Leucine is by far the most important of the 20 amino acids responsible for creating muscle. It takes an estimated two grams of leucine to get the maximum anabolic effect from a meal — a serving size is roughly the size of your palm and just about any normal-size serving of beef or chicken will contain that amount. Three eggs, two glasses of milk, a piece of your favourite tandoori fish, or a cup of yogurt will give you about 1.5 grams. Beans and mum’s good old daal are also one of the best sources of leucine as well, providing 1.4 grams of the amino acid so there’s no reason to shy away from them. A quarter-cup serving of nuts, too, will provide about 0.5 grams.



Balancing carbs and fat

If you were reading a nutrition article a decade from now, it would tell you to eat carbs but avoid fats in your pre and post-workout meals. This was all based on the assumption that your body needs you to keep things as simple as possible. Here’s what we know in 2016: those of us with desk jobs who sit for extended hours before and or after training, don’t need pre-workout carbs for energy — we have more than enough in reserve. Unless you’re doing more than one gruelling workout a day, you have plenty of time to rebuild your energy supply. Your regularly planned meals should suffice just fine. That said, there does seem to be a benefit to combining protein with carbs in a post-workout meal. It should result in slightly higher protein synthesis, according to the journal Dietary Protein and Resistance Exercise. As for fat, emerging research suggests that you don’t need to worry about it much. When you’re eating and training with the goal of looking better than you do now, total calories matter more than the specific composition of those calories, or the specific way you eat them.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2016.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.