Getting lean whilst increasing strength

[Joshua Naterman]

I have a question about exercise and diet. Warning: This may be an astoundingly stupid question.

If nutrition is pretty much the number one factor in whether you get lean, does that mean it's as simple as how much you eat, what you eat, and when you eat it?

If so, than regardless of whether you exercise more or less, if you're eating as much or as little as the exercise demands, you can't really speed up the recomposition rate can you? I mean, if the amount of food that you eat is constant with the amount of exercise you do (so you don't fall into too much deficit or excess).

If that's true, I guess that makes sense; however, surely exercise has physiological benefits that would increase the rate of recomp outside of kcal in/kcal out. What are these?

Anyone feel free to pitch in.

That's how it works, but there are a number of factors here.

When you eat what you need, your metabolism runs at full speed. Already, that is an advantage.

Exercise makes your tissues more sensitive to insulin, which ends up dramatically lowering serum insulin levels as well as how much insulin is required to push all the food into your cells when you eat. The lower your serum insulin levels are and the smaller the required insulin response to food, the less fat mass you accumulate with the same caloric load. In other words, lower insulin levels = less fat storage.

Food + exercise = more lean mass, which = higher metabolism, which = more potential for fat loss and less potential for fat gain.

Finally, exercise is awesome because no matter what you do, a significant amount of body fat is utilized. That is part of why having less fat and more carbs works so well. You don't want your body running primarily off of dietary fat if you are trying to specifically burn body fat, right? If you aren't consuming EXCESS carbs, you aren't going to be generating as much body fat as you burn off.

Example: You burn 400 calories while running. Lets say 50% of that is from fat. You eat 400 calories to stay in energy balance. The meal is 70g carbs and 20g protein and 5g fat. You are replacing 50g of carbs, with 20g left over. Assuming that 40% of those excess carbs go to fat, that's 8g of carbs. 32k calories. 3.5g of fat or so got added. You burned 200 kcal of fat. 22.2g of fat. Net loss of 18.7g of fat that you would not have lost otherwise. That's an extra .04 lbs, so 24 of those sessions are required to burn an extra 1 lb of fat or so. Now, the truth is that nearly 0% of that meal is going to go to fat so you are really going to lose almost all 22.2g of that fat burned during exercise.

Between that and what you can do by staying in energy balance while spending more time in small deficit than small surplus, it is reasonable to expect 1 lb of fat loss per 7-10 days with a 12-15% body fat. That's what, 3-4 lbs? with just that small amount of exercise it becomes 4-5 lbs, a 25-33% increase in fat loss from a small amount of exercise at a sustainable pace that allows for lean mass to be preserved and slowly increased at the same time. Remember, if you are eating for the same weight and dropping body fat, you are eating enough energy for more lean mass to exist and so you will recompose accordingly.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

That makes sense! Super fast answer too. Wow

Is that 50/50 ratio of carbs:fat used during exercise just an assumption for what you were saying or is that a real number?

Which leads me to another question (since you seem to have time to answer them):

1. I'm trying to figure out how to blend my regular eating into and out of my workout eating. Can you offer any advice for that? I'm concentrating on getting about 450 kcal per 3 hours with about 185g PRO a day (roughly 10-12g per waking hour). If it helps, I have dextrose and whey to use too.

2. NutriTiming is very helpful in many ways, but in some ways I'm having trouble figuring a consistent way of planning my meals! I wish it had a weekly activity template I could just modify slightly every week. I don't want to lose the important fundamentals while focusing on the details, but I think not understanding the details is what is holding me back from doing the basics properly.

If I select 30 minutes of actual activity level 6 for my WOD for an hours slot and it says that It will use 225 kcal (random number, not actually quoted from site) what are the ratios I should be trying to replace after the workout? If you could do a comprehensive evaluation of working with NutriTiming for us I would greatly appreciate it.

By the way, I was thinking of getting a casein/whey blend for my 3 hour meals. That or I was going to get some casein and just get a bit of whey with it at every 3 hour meal so that I have protein for the first hour before the casein kicks in. What do you think?

[Joshua Naterman]

That makes sense! Super fast answer too. Wow

Is that 50/50 ratio of carbs:fat used during exercise just an assumption for what you were saying or is that a real number?

Which leads me to another question (since you seem to have time to answer them):

1. I'm trying to figure out how to blend my regular eating into and out of my workout eating. Can you offer any advice for that? I'm concentrating on getting about 450 kcal per 3 hours with about 185g PRO a day (roughly 10-12g per waking hour). If it helps, I have dextrose and whey to use too.

2. NutriTiming is very helpful in many ways, but in some ways I'm having trouble figuring a consistent way of planning my meals! I wish it had a weekly activity template I could just modify slightly every week.

If I select 30 minutes of actual activity level 6 for my WOD for an hours slot and it says that It will use 225 kcal (random number, not actually quoted from site) what are the ratios I should be trying to replace after the workout? If you could do a comprehensive evaluation of working with NutriTiming for us I would greatly appreciate it.

By the way, I was thinking of getting a casein/whey blend for my 3 hour meals. That or I was going to get some casein and just get a bit of whey with it at every 3 hour meal so that I have protein for the first hour before the casein kicks in. What do you think?

That's a real number for 50-ish% of VO2Max work. A moderate jog for an in-shape person. Basically, if you can still carry on a conversation easily, you are in this range.

As you work harder, a higher percentage comes from carbs but the total fat burned peaks at 70-80% VO2Max, which is where most people train (at the hardest). At this point there's something like 20-30% of calories coming from fat but because of the large expenditure the net is greater. You can use RER tables for common activities to guess this, but there is a product coming out soon that will let you measure this on the fly affordably.

[Larry Roseman]

One last pointed quesiton or two on the caloric balance issue and then I'll go fly a kite.

When a mixed meal is ingested it takes approximaely 3-4 hours to leave the stomach.

The first 30 minutes it sits there; then the stomach empties at a linear rate.

(see

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pa ... ansit.html)

When a 1000 calorie mixed meal is eaten, and it takes say 4 (3.5 actual) hours to leave the stomach, nutrients can not be absorbed faster than about 300 calories per hour. (Note I'm referring to normal meals and not eating a pound of halloween candy).

The intestine can't absorb faster than what's presented, however it will slow absorption further.

I'm ignoring the intestine for now ... pretend we don't have one.

Assuming balance at start, 300 / hour absorption and a150/hour burn, here's what I see for the cumulative surplus/deficit:

Start : 0

End hour .5 : -75 absorbed 0 spent 75 total

End hour 1: +0 (absorbed 150 total) spent 150 total

End hour 1.5: +75 (absorbed 300 total) spent 225 total

End hour 2: +150 (absorbed 450 total) spent 300 total

End hour 2.5: +225 (aborbed 600 total) spent 375 total

End hour 3 : +300 (absorbed 750 total) spent 450 total

End hour 3.5 +375 (absorbed 900 total) spent 525 total

End hour 4: +400 (absorbed 1000 total) spent 600 total

End hour 4.5 +325 (no change) spent 675

End hour 5 +250 (no change) spent 750

End hour 6 +100 (no change) spent 900

End hour 7 -50 (no change) spent 1050

So following a 1K cal meal using a 4 hour absorption rate, there is no area over 400 calories.

It looks to me like the program (from the leangains chart) accrues the 1000 calories in the first hour, and does not spread them over the time of digestion. Ignoring the time of digestion increases the excessive surplus to 7 hours! It should

not be ignored. Even if you say it's 2 or 3 hours it's going to make a huge difference.

A secondary point: there's something funny going on with the notion of accumulation also. Because say after hour 2 you are up 150. That excess now is supposed to go to lean creation. After this the calories have been spent - excess calories are not sitting around. The next hour should be starting over at zero again. The physiological meaningfulness of a cummulative surplus or deficit is questionable to me. You have to take the calories off the table at some point and start counting at zero, whether it's weekly, daily, hourly or by the minute. The area above or below the curve has no applicability for cummulative totals in any event: it is summing already accumulated numbers and magnifiying the implied effect.

[Joshua Naterman]

There is a (in my opinion) serious improvement possible in terms of adjusting calorie absorption time based on overall glycemic index, but that becomes a monumentally difficult task to calculate because it changes with cooking time. I do think that using the glycemic index to approximate the true absorption curve of a meal would be much, much more telling and much, much more accurate. I am not sure how to implement something like that with any degree of consistency because of the variables involved, but I am pretty sure a reasonable approximation could be made. The biggest problem is that glycemic index isn't a part of the national food database and until that gets updated there would be no centralized free source for such information. One could collect all of this data and interpolate the two sources, but my god that would be a lot of coding. I have considered going into competition with nutritiming using this notion, because I do like extreme accuracy. I would rather see them come out with a product that does this themselves, simply because I like Dr. Benardot.

A secondary point: there's something funny going on with the notion of accumulation also. Because say after hour 2 you are up 150. That excess now is supposed to go to lean creation. After this the calories have been spent - excess calories are not sitting around. The next hour should be starting over at zero again. The physiological meaningfulness of a cummulative surplus or deficit is questionable to me. You have to take the calories off the table at some point and start counting at zero, whether it's weekly, daily, hourly or by the minute. The area above or below the curve has no applicability for cummulative totals in any event: it is summing already accumulated numbers and magnifiying the implied effect.

This delves into an area where zero research exists, in the sense that this has not been applied to the timing. If a 1000 calorie meal empties in 4 hours, the intestines are absorbing about 250kcal per hour as an average. That's almost double even my resting metabolism, and that is going to cause an enormous insulin spike to facilitate storage, and more than what should go to fat will go to fat. It is also known that insulin sensitivity temporarily decreases after a large spike of insulin, but if you are putting twice the energy that your body needs into the blood for 15 hours, which would cover the 8 hour eating window plus the 7 hour proposed absorption time for the super large meal, you are probably not going to do good things for your insulin sensitivity. This of course all assumes 100% absorption which we know doesn't happen, but that's kind of taken into account when we do normal calculations. With larger meals, a somewhat smaller percentage is usually absorbed, so it is fair to say that this probably mitigates a small part of the issue. This gets so complex and hypothetical that I don't think it's worth writing about, because we are seriously going into hypotheticals as far as what would be happening in the body. This would really have to be settled with a side by side comparison of blood markers.

There is also the issue of how much you poop and how often. Normal transit time is 12-14 hours from mouth large intestine (and usually toilet), and even if the jejunum, where most of the energy substrates are actually absorbed, accounted for half of non-duodenal transit time that's a maximum of a 6 hour absorption window. In reality it is shorter than that as the jejunum is only 2.5m long and not a full half of normal intestinal length. I have no idea how Leangains would affect this, I mean it would depend heavily on what kinds of food you ate. If you ate well, you'd be on a 10-12 hour transit time and if you ate a bunch of processed crap it would be slower, on the 14+ side.

It would be hard to say what is actually happening without blood tests over the course of a 4 month period or so, and the only fair comparison would be a cohort with similar starting insulin levels and sensitivity measures split into a CEB group and a Leangains group. The second best thing would be to compare insulin sensitivity and circulating insulin levels between people who have been strictly on leangains for at least 4 months with people who have been strictly on CEB for at least 4 months. We wouldn't be able to draw direct correlations, but an IRB might not approve the former design. Self-selected people can be studied for anything, so that would work.

Those are good points and good questions, and I don't think anyone can give you a quantitative answer. There are probably inferences that could be made as well as logical deductions, but the absorption system is very complex and a question like this goes beyond most peoples' knowledge including mine. It would take me more time and energy than I will have for the next 6-7 years to acquire such knowledge, that's a whole profession of it's own! Having said that, when you're in a fasted state your intestines are going to absorb as much as they can.

You do have a point in that the shape of the graph is not directly representative, but what it DOES show is the relatively similar time period of excess absorption. If anything, it underestimates this in the leangains scenario. As you say, also, what you eat directly affects those numbers and their true distribution.

The physiological meaning and impact of altered hormone sensitivity and hormone levels is meaningful, and that is what those periods are representative of.

That is, however, exactly why smaller meals eaten more frequently offer a much more advantageous endocrine environment for desirable body recomposition, both in terms of what can be accomplished and the potential long term impact of the method employed. You absorb a higher percentage of the food you eat, and that lets you do more with what you consume while still avoiding hormonal responses that we know for sure are counter-productive.

[Philip Chubb]

I'm finding what Joshua is saying to be really interesting. Especially since Poliquin just wrote about how bigger meals every 2 hours are good for growing as opposed to smaller meals every hour. For the same reason as raising the anabolic hormones. But for trying to lose fat, keeping the insulin down would be preferable. I think I will start giving the little bit of food every our or so a try!

[Quick Start Test Smith]

As you work harder, a higher percentage comes from carbs but the total fat burned peaks at 70-80% VO2Max, which is where most people train (at the hardest). At this point there's something like 20-30% of calories coming from fat but because of the large expenditure the net is greater. You can use RER tables for common activities to guess this, but there is a product coming out soon that will let you measure this on the fly affordably.

Looking forward to learning about that product. I found some charts from a few different sources. The values are all very close to each other so I think they are fairly accurate.

[Larry Roseman]

There is a (in my opinion) serious improvement possible in terms of adjusting calorie absorption time based on overall glycemic index, but that becomes a monumentally difficult task to calculate because it changes with cooking time. I do think that using the glycemic index to approximate the true absorption curve of a meal would be much, much more telling and much, much more accurate. I am not sure how to implement something like that with any degree of consistency because of the variables involved, but I am pretty sure a reasonable approximation could be made. The biggest problem is that glycemic index isn't a part of the national food database and until that gets updated there would be no centralized free source for such information. One could collect all of this data and interpolate the two sources, but my god that would be a lot of coding. I have considered going into competition with nutritiming using this notion, because I do like extreme accuracy. I would rather see them come out with a product that does this themselves, simply because I like Dr. Benardot.

Fair enough. Perhaps the absorption time could be scaled to the meal size? Because a 800+cal meal is

going to be digested and absorbed generally over a longer period of time than a 400cal meal, even assuming the

same ingredients.

A secondary point: there's something funny going on with the notion of accumulation also. Because say after hour 2 you are up 150. That excess now is supposed to go to lean creation. After this the calories have been spent - excess calories are not sitting around. The next hour should be starting over at zero again. The physiological meaningfulness of a cummulative surplus or deficit is questionable to me. You have to take the calories off the table at some point and start counting at zero, whether it's weekly, daily, hourly or by the minute. The area above or below the curve has no applicability for cummulative totals in any event: it is summing already accumulated numbers and magnifiying the implied effect.

This delves into an area where zero research exists, in the sense that this has not been applied to the timing. If a 1000 calorie meal empties in 4 hours, the intestines are absorbing about 250kcal per hour as an average. That's almost double even my resting metabolism, and that is going to cause an enormous insulin spike to facilitate storage, and more than what should go to fat will go to fat. It is also known that insulin sensitivity temporarily decreases after a large spike of insulin, but if you are putting twice the energy that your body needs into the blood for 15 hours, which would cover the 8 hour eating window plus the 7 hour proposed absorption time for the super large meal, you are probably not going to do good things for your insulin sensitivity. This of course all assumes 100% absorption which we know doesn't happen, but that's kind of taken into account when we do normal calculations. With larger meals, a somewhat smaller percentage is usually absorbed, so it is fair to say that this probably mitigates a small part of the issue. This gets so complex and hypothetical that I don't think it's worth writing about, because we are seriously going into hypotheticals as far as what would be happening in the body. This would really have to be settled with a side by side comparison of blood markers.

There are a lot of assumptions made all around ... but small intestine absorption will slow that supposed 250cals/hour down further. It still might be over your resting metabolism, true, but not over that cumulative 400 surplus. So it shouldn't impact fat storage - very much in Dr. Bernardot's estimation. The reality in a leangains format is that the large meal will be after a workout when there's a large glycogen deficit to refill and higher metabolism, EPOC and muscle to build.

There is also the issue of how much you poop and how often. Normal transit time is 12-14 hours from mouth large intestine (and usually toilet), and even if the jejunum, where most of the energy substrates are actually absorbed, accounted for half of non-duodenal transit time that's a maximum of a 6 hour absorption window. In reality it is shorter than that as the jejunum is only 2.5m long and not a full half of normal intestinal length. I have no idea how Leangains would affect this, I mean it would depend heavily on what kinds of food you ate. If you ate well, you'd be on a 10-12 hour transit time and if you ate a bunch of processed crap it would be slower, on the 14+ side.

I can go along with 6 through the small intestine though. 14 hours to toilet is rather ambitious. 24+ is more likely.

But you're eating lots of veggies, it is probably reasonable!

It would be hard to say what is actually happening without blood tests over the course of a 4 month period or so, and the only fair comparison would be a cohort with similar starting insulin levels and sensitivity measures split into a CEB group and a Leangains group. The second best thing would be to compare insulin sensitivity and circulating insulin levels between people who have been strictly on leangains for at least 4 months with people who have been strictly on CEB for at least 4 months. We wouldn't be able to draw direct correlations, but an IRB might not approve the former design. Self-selected people can be studied for anything, so that would work.

It's easy to get glucose level nowadays. Generally maps closely to insulin. Just saying.

Those are good points and good questions, and I don't think anyone can give you a quantitative answer. There are probably inferences that could be made as well as logical deductions, but the absorption system is very complex and a question like this goes beyond most peoples' knowledge including mine. It would take me more time and energy than I will have for the next 6-7 years to acquire such knowledge, that's a whole profession of it's own! Having said that, when you're in a fasted state your intestines are going to absorb as much as they can.

Appreciate your humility. Human physiology is humbling if nothing else.

You do have a point in that the shape of the graph is not directly representative, but what it DOES show is the relatively similar time period of excess absorption. If anything, it underestimates this in the leangains scenario. As you say, also, what you eat directly affects those numbers and their true distribution.

Thanks. Not exactly sure what you mean by a similar period of excess absorption. Even with leangains the scenario I had earlier over 4 hour absorption a 1000 cal meal showed zero time spent above the 400 marker. Changing the absorption window to 1 hour would produce around 5 hours above the 400 marker (hourly 1000,850,700,650,500,350...), starting from zero. Neither are going to be exact; too many variables as you say. Also In principle to me the surplus above your caloric burn should be removed hourly as it is either deposited as fat, stored as glycogen or used to build muscle. What that exact # is - got me!

The physiological meaning and impact of altered hormone sensitivity and hormone levels is meaningful, and that is what those periods are representative of.

That is, however, exactly why smaller meals eaten more frequently offer a much more advantageous endocrine environment for desirable body recomposition, both in terms of what can be accomplished and the potential long term impact of the method employed. You absorb a higher percentage of the food you eat, and that lets you do more with what you consume while still avoiding hormonal responses that we know for sure are counter-productive.

Fair enough. Traditionally it's been the bodybuilder's approach before leangains came along. CEB makes a science out of it.

I'm not arguing against it because that would be silly, but just I suppose I'd like to see the numbers a bit more realistic.

Not your product of course!

[Nigel Leeming]

Regarding the 50% of fat used while jogging, here is a graph showing that me jogging uses around 30-40% fat at my normal running speed of 6mph and heart rate in the range 140-150bpm, which is 85% of my max heart rate, and 75% of my VO2 max. These numbers are all estimates. The graph may be an interpolation too far, but is the best I can do.

[Joshua Naterman]

I'm finding what Joshua is saying to be really interesting. Especially since Poliquin just wrote about how bigger meals every 2 hours are good for growing as opposed to smaller meals every hour. For the same reason as raising the anabolic hormones. But for trying to lose fat, keeping the insulin down would be preferable. I think I will start giving the little bit of food every our or so a try!

Keep in mind that eating every 2 hours is very frequent, and more than sufficient to avoid having to rely on stored sugar for much of any resting metabolism. The main thing for every hour would be small doses of protein. Any decent source of carbs is going to take at least 2 hours to fully empty from the stomach and be absorbed, so there's no real need to be slamming carbs every hour. Even with the protein, the hourly thing is most important if you are relying heavily on whey or soy protein. If you're eating foods or using casein, you're going to be better off with 20-30g every 2-3 hours. You get a very similar net effect with much less hassle.

The other variable that I haven't mentioned very much is how active you are. When you're running around all day and are training 1-2 times per day, eating on a near-hourly basis is ideal simply because you are always expending considerable energy. It would drive me crazy to have 30-40g of whole food carbs each hour of the day, that just isn't a satisfying meal. I'm sure I'd adapt to it after 2 weeks but that really eats into work productivity in a way that isn't good, if you'll pardon the pun.

When you're a professional athlete or a teenager who is hell-bent on making the pros (same thing really) then it's a great idea to train 1-2x per day with the right volume and eat all the time.

We all have to remember that what works well for a professional or world-class level athlete is not going to be appropriate for most college athletes (massive difference in training time, quality of training, and available eating time due to course work as well as part time jobs when not on a scholarship and food availability when one depends on the mess hall) and what works for those people isn't always appropriate for those of us who are just trying to stay healthy. Sometimes it is, I mean it isn't THAT hard to perform at the level of an above average college athlete but it requires 2-3 training hours per day 4-5 days per week.

For just about everyone except a marathon runner or a competitor with similar training requirements (in terms of how much energy you burn each day), eating every 2 hours is plenty often enough to meet your caloric requirements and to keep yourself in a constant anabolic state without building up unnecessary fat if your food choices are decent. Not perfect, just decent.

In terms of growth, this is far and away the most reasonable way to go. It may, for the vast majority, even be far better than trying to consume everything every hour. I am finding that it is much easier. I haven't been sipping on my protein, and I'm going to give it a few months of a 2 hour eating pattern now that I am actually doing some strength work and see what happens, and then go back to sipping for 2-3 months and see if there is a noticeable difference.

[Joshua Naterman]

Regarding the 50% of fat used while jogging, here is a graph showing that me jogging uses around 30-40% fat at my normal running speed of 6mph and heart rate in the range 140-150bpm, which is 85% of my max heart rate, and 75% of my VO2 max. These numbers are all estimates. The graph may be an interpolation too far, but is the best I can do.

Right, that 30% area is what you should expect to see at 75%. As you get higher it steadily increases and at 90+% becomes nearly all carbohydrate. Around 80% the fatty acid contribution actually decreases. It stays fairly steady up to there, which is why training at 70-80% is generally what produces the best body composition results when using aerobic training to complement weight loss, assuming of course that the food is there to support the activity.

[Joshua Naterman]

That makes sense! Super fast answer too. Wow

Is that 50/50 ratio of carbs:fat used during exercise just an assumption for what you were saying or is that a real number?

Which leads me to another question (since you seem to have time to answer them):

1. I'm trying to figure out how to blend my regular eating into and out of my workout eating. Can you offer any advice for that? I'm concentrating on getting about 450 kcal per 3 hours with about 185g PRO a day (roughly 10-12g per waking hour). If it helps, I have dextrose and whey to use too.

2. NutriTiming is very helpful in many ways, but in some ways I'm having trouble figuring a consistent way of planning my meals! I wish it had a weekly activity template I could just modify slightly every week. I don't want to lose the important fundamentals while focusing on the details, but I think not understanding the details is what is holding me back from doing the basics properly.

If I select 30 minutes of actual activity level 6 for my WOD for an hours slot and it says that It will use 225 kcal (random number, not actually quoted from site) what are the ratios I should be trying to replace after the workout? If you could do a comprehensive evaluation of working with NutriTiming for us I would greatly appreciate it.

By the way, I was thinking of getting a casein/whey blend for my 3 hour meals. That or I was going to get some casein and just get a bit of whey with it at every 3 hour meal so that I have protein for the first hour before the casein kicks in. What do you think?

WOD work, when done as prescribed, should be around 80% carbs. That calculator may also under-estimate your caloric burn. a MET table may give you something more accurate. On Nutritiming your workouts should be vigorous or above if you are doing WODs, with the exception of ring strength. Dynamic days would really be the max rating on effort... they are brutal.

I will write a "how to use Nutritiming" thread. Good idea!

[Rikke Olsen]

I will write a "how to use Nutritiming" thread. Good idea!

Giant LIKE!

I'm pretty unsure of how to rate my energy expenditure.

[Robert Rowland]

I will write a "how to use Nutritiming" thread. Good idea!

I look forward to this.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

This is a brilliant idea Joshua

Thank you.

Fred

[Quick Start Test Smith]

WOD work, when done as prescribed, should be around 80% carbs. That calculator may also under-estimate your caloric burn. a MET table may give you something more accurate. On Nutritiming your workouts should be vigorous or above if you are doing WODs, with the exception of ring strength. Dynamic days would really be the max rating on effort... they are brutal.

I will write a "how to use Nutritiming" thread. Good idea!

I do the WODs so that is insanely useful to know.

Great! That would be fantastic!

[Chris Cantrell]

I have Been using NT for a few days now and have a couple questions.

Does the system calculate calories required for recovery? It seems that when I input one hour at 6.0 my calories for that hour are increased, but immediately return to the default 1.5 the following hours.

Wouldn't the calorie level stay elevated for a while after exercise, and wouldn't a large amount of calories be used up in the process of recovery?

[Joshua Naterman]

I have Been using NT for a few days now and have a couple questions.

Does the system calculate calories required for recovery? It seems that when I input one hour at 6.0 my calories for that hour are increased, but immediately return to the default 1.5 the following hours.

Wouldn't the calorie level stay elevated for a while after exercise, and wouldn't a large amount of calories be used up in the process of recovery?

The 1.5 is a BMR adjustment based on recovery and adaptation requirements of the activity level you choose, so there is a fair degree of built-in recovery calories. It's not like you need those calories immediately, it just means that over the next few meals you want to integrate them in and preferably have several small feedings afterwards, very similar to what I recommend in the pre,during, and post workout nutrition thread. The best training effects are seen when the calories expended during exercise are consumed in those first 2-3 hours immediately afterwards.

I will ask about this too, I am going to try to schedule 30-60 minutes with Dr. Benardot sometime this month and see what he thinks about our discussion here so far. There are a lot of good questions.

As for EPOC calories, they aren't enormous. I am pretty sure that most if not all will be covered by the BMR multiplier (though clearly not in an overly time-specific manner). When you're talking about what ends up being a very minor variation of around 10 calories per hour, it's a non-issue from a practical standpoint. I know we all like to get super nitty-gritty when we talk theory, but in practice the truth is that there is probably not any significant (if any) advantage to that last little level of detail regarding the difference between how nutritiming distributes the EPOC calories versus how it would look if you put those calories into the 4-5 hours post workout. It just isn't a big enough number to make a negative impact, I mean even assuming that there is a 250 kcal debt, if you're maintaining energy balance over a 24 hour period then at any given time you're only 10 calories lower than you seem to be on the graph, and that's not enough to cause any real difference.

[Chris Cantrell]

Got it, thanks Josh.

I was under the uneducated impression that EPOC was way higher than reality, that was the entire base of my questions.

Thanks again.

[itisme]

is it possible that 30gr whey ~30min before my workout have positive effects on my strenght?

i never took whey or anything else, but last week i decided to change my nutrition to that one chad waterbury recommend in his 10-10 book but stay with the killroy routine and running on the "off" day during the week.

maybe i should mention that i not take greens+, acai 100, creatine, fishoil and bcaa, which he also recommend to take.

well maybe its a "placebo effect" but i think i can work out harder, but hope the diet is soon adopted to my body/mind.

because man its damn hard if everything (except the handfull of nuts and berrys) tastes like.....nothing, and i really have carbs cravings (not sugar or soda drinks but fruits, rice, potatoes, bread)

will stay to this diet 3 weeks and look if i drop some bodyfat, if i do than maybe increase the carbs a lil bit and if not i change to another diet.....whichever

its really bad that good body physics cant go hand in hand with bread, beer, stews, bbq, not much sleep, ect.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) its really bad that good body physics cant go hand in hand with bread, beer, stews, bbq, not much sleep, ect.

HA! QFT

I had a 10 years window when "good body physics" went hand in hand with everything you mention, and then some... then the window closed nearly 25 years ago!

Fred

[itisme]

lucky you, that never worked for me.

but i learned that i rather do a lot of extra work than cut my normal nutrition....but that maybe dont lead to a lean body

[Joshua Naterman]

is it possible that 30gr whey ~30min before my workout have positive effects on my strenght?

i never took whey or anything else, but last week i decided to change my nutrition to that one chad waterbury recommend in his 10-10 book but stay with the killroy routine and running on the "off" day during the week.

maybe i should mention that i not take greens+, acai 100, creatine, fishoil and bcaa, which he also recommend to take.

well maybe its a "placebo effect" but i think i can work out harder, but hope the diet is soon adopted to my body/mind.

because man its damn hard if everything (except the handfull of nuts and berrys) tastes like.....nothing, and i really have carbs cravings (not sugar or soda drinks but fruits, rice, potatoes, bread)

will stay to this diet 3 weeks and look if i drop some bodyfat, if i do than maybe increase the carbs a lil bit and if not i change to another diet.....whichever

its really bad that good body physics cant go hand in hand with bread, beer, stews, bbq, not much sleep, ect.

30g is no better than 20g according to most of the research, as both lead to blood saturation. I'd do more like 15m before, but pick the time that makes you feel the best. In my experience, yes it does make a noticeable difference. There is no conclusive research in this area, but many of us here have noticed a positive impact on performance over time.

If you are noticing a difference in your workouts from just one dose, it is a pure energy issue. You want your body to use carbs for energy, not protein, so getting some kind of food before and during the workout (preferably liquid since it's easier to digest and doesn't mess with most peoples' stomach) that includes plenty of carbs (at least 1:1 ratio with protein, but probably 2:1 carbs:protein for GB-style workouts, and maybe closer to 3:1 for a dynamic WOD) will probably give the exact same result and probably slightly better as well.

EDIT: To make sure this works, don't mix more than 60g total carbs + protein per 1L of water. Best 3:1 mix is 45gc + 15g protein. Best 2:1 is going to be 40:20.

[Rikke Olsen]

So... would the pre-drink alone be ~20g whey+40-60g carbs alone, with a peri-workout drink of same amount+ratio, or should I just start sipping my peri-drink 15min pre workout? (Less for me, I assume? 5ft6, ~135lbs, female)

I seem to often feel drowsy/not in gear during most of my workout :?

[John Cook]

Hey Bissen- I can relate to your questions! This is one of those topics that I handled best when I experimented a bit with the ratios and amounts of carb/protein before/during my workouts. I can't give you advice here as I believe you'll need to experiment yourself a bit; but I can give you an idea of what has worked for my workout partner (girlfriend) as I take full responsibility for our supplement and dietary needs. She's 5'1", 108lbs, lean for a woman (~12% BF last time checked in Feb- I'm trying to get her to do a DEXA analysis with me before summer hits!), visible abs, and fairly strong (she can hang with me no problem 5X5 wide grip solid rep pull-ups with a 10lb dumbell between her legs). I've found that she responds well to 16oz water, 20g dextrose, 12g whey isolate, 5g amino acid powder, and about 1/8tsp sea salt as her intra-workout drink. We train with a purpose- pretty intense- and she's good about letting me know how she is responding to the workload. Some days she doesn't finish the entire drink (drinks h2o in between) in the 1- 1 1/2 hours we are there, and sometimes she kills it and I add another scoop of the mix.

The three factors that will make or break our workouts (as far as feeling tired or energetic) is the amount of sleep the previous evening, the food we consume in the 1 1/2 hours before our workouts (we wake up at 230am and are at the gym by 4am), and how hydrated we are upon hitting the gym. I make sure we eat twice in the first hour after waking up- one small whole food meal and then a small blended shake about 35 min before the gym. Having good food in your system as a base coupled with good hydration and sometimes 100mg of caffeine takes care of our motivation! Really boils down to test and retest for me.... see what combo seems to give you an edge! Hope this helps!