Getting lean whilst increasing strength

[Philip Chubb]

In these days, there is a study proving everything. I look toward things that worked in experience and that have worked for a lot of people. Not just a small group. The smaller protein feedings look to be better for overall health but if you just enjoy having a lot at one time and it feels better, enjoy.

[RatioFitness]

In these days, there is a study proving everything. I look toward things that worked in experience and that have worked for a lot of people. Not just a small group. The smaller protein feedings look to be better for overall health but if you just enjoy having a lot at one time and it feels better, enjoy.

You can find a study for many different conclusions, but that's not the same thing as proving. You have to consider the quality of the study and it's place in the broader context of the literature on that topic.

How do you know that smaller protein feedings are healthier? Do you mean for you because it makes you feel better or it's better for people in general?

[Philip Chubb]

In these days, there is a study proving everything. I look toward things that worked in experience and that have worked for a lot of people. Not just a small group. The smaller protein feedings look to be better for overall health but if you just enjoy having a lot at one time and it feels better, enjoy.

You can find a study for many different conclusions, but that's not the same thing as proving. You have to consider the quality of the study and it's place in the broader context of the literature on that topic.

How do you know that smaller protein feedings are healthier? Do you mean for you because it makes you feel better or it's better for people in general?

Exactly what I mean but in different words. But I'll rephrase to be clear. You can find a study supporting anything. After a while, you just have to experiment and see what works for you. Sadly, my crystal ball is also broken so we can't figure out how it will effect us individually long term.

I support smaller protein feedings for smaller insulin rises. In terms of health, spiking insulin isn't the best thing around.

[Joshua Naterman]

Also, keep in mind that many of the client testimonials on his site are from training/eating LG style after many weeks. Most are 12 or more, some are up to a year, some more. Yes, the results are good in the end, but could the results be better and achieved quicker? Could they be achieved easier? The end result is important, but it's not the only important thing. 8)

Guys, guys. Come on. Back track for a moment. The idea behind leangains is that you eat EVERYTHING in 8 hours. Somebody please explain to me how that is not an 8-10 hour extended peak followed by a 4-5 hour post-feeding absorption curve? Please, tell me.

Leangains works because net anabolism is slightly higher than net catabolism.

Has anyone actually READ what Martin writes? I have.

You know what he says?

1) Your gains will be slow, as will your fat losses. They will be steady, but they will be slow.

*That is fairly consistent with the ratio of anabolism to catabolism. Lean mass increases slowly, as will calories, and very frequent small meals limit unacceptable insulin surges. The body is depleted, leaving it more open to absorbing nutrients and less prone to taking the excess and throwing it in fat, as the lean tissues are starved. The labile protein stores are constantly depleted and replenished, another reason for the slower gains. Part of the protein synthesis is going to non-muscular protein.

2) Leangains is not appropriate for most athletes. It is for a bodybuilder or person whose main goal is simply to look good. Performance athletes typically have to train too many times through the day, with too much intensity for too long, and with schedules that don't lend themselves to the leangains method.

*There are a lot of people here that this applies to.

These limitations are specifically because of what I have been explaining here regarding continuous energy balance. Results can happen faster for sure, but if all you care about is getting there and leangains fits your lifestyle, why not try it if it appeals to you?

For people training in the morning and the evening, leangains won't be appropriate and will significantly impact results in a negative way. That's not a knock on leangains, it produces the basic environment that causes lean mass acquisition and fat mass reduction. It just doesn't do so with maximum efficiency (though it sometimes fits peoples' schedules better than continuous energy balance) so it can't give maximum results. For a reasonable number of people, that's irrelevent because it gets them where they want to go. Not with maximum speed, but Martin never claims it's the fastest. Just that it's a surefire thing if your lifestyle fits the bill.

The same is true of continuous energy balance: It's a surefire thing. Guaranteed. If your schedule doesn't work with it, leangains will probably work with your schedule.

[itisme]

martin dont say you should consume whey every hour in the 8h eating frame, or is this your own style of leangains josh?

and do you think there is any difference in eating 3 meals in the 8h frame to eating every hour a small meal (like you do, if i got it right) in the 8h frame?

[Larry Roseman]

2) Leangains is not appropriate for most athletes. It is for a bodybuilder or person whose main goal is simply to look good. Performance athletes typically have to train too many times through the day, with too much intensity for too long, and with schedules that don't lend themselves to the leangains method.

*There are a lot of people here that this applies to.

That is a really good point!

The same is true of continuous energy balance: It's a surefire thing. Guaranteed. If your schedule doesn't work with it, leangains will probably work with your schedule.

Though as you say, leangains is not meant for athletes in training. The aspect of it that perhaps can apply to athletes training 3-4 days a week, is running a modest surplus just prior and following the workout, and maintaining a modest deficit the following day. It should be able to be done close to the +/-400 recommendation. That works out to a 15-20% daily surplus/deficit split usually.

Because we don't exactly know when recovery ends and rest begins though it's risky to take a deficit very low on non-workout days . That said, loss of lean mass with fat isn't always counter-productive to strength and performance. Some always occurs, though keeping the deficit small minimizes it.

[Joshua Naterman]

martin dont say you should consume whey every hour in the 8h eating frame, or is this your own style of leangains josh?

and do you think there is any difference in eating 3 meals in the 8h frame to eating every hour a small meal (like you do, if i got it right) in the 8h frame?

Where did I ever say that Martin suggested you sip on whey?

[itisme]

never, but i remember you say in another thread that you do a IF thing, train in the afternoon and after training you eat a lot in the next 4 hours and that remembers me of leangains....if im wrong sorry my fault.

so i asked that if martin not said this, is this YOUR style of leangains?!

[RatioFitness]

I support smaller protein feedings for smaller insulin rises. In terms of health, spiking insulin isn't the best thing around.

Perhaps, but I wouldn't mind seeing the research you are basing that on. Does bigger spikes mean more total insulin AUC for the day? If not, what's worse for health: bigger spikes or greater insulin AUC?

[RatioFitness]

martin dont say you should consume whey every hour in the 8h eating frame, or is this your own style of leangains josh?

and do you think there is any difference in eating 3 meals in the 8h frame to eating every hour a small meal (like you do, if i got it right) in the 8h frame?

Where did I ever say that Martin suggested you sip on whey?

I had the same thought as itsisme because you said, "and very frequent small meals limit unacceptable insulin surges." It sounds like you are saying very frequent meals is part of the leangains protocol, but leangains is only 3 meals per day.

[Philip Chubb]

I support smaller protein feedings for smaller insulin rises. In terms of health, spiking insulin isn't the best thing around.

Perhaps, but I wouldn't mind seeing the research you are basing that on. Does bigger spikes mean more total insulin AUC for the day? If not, what's worse for health: bigger spikes or greater insulin AUC?

Bigger spikes is what is worse. If you want to see the research, simply look it up. There is a lot out there. Poliquin talked about how he thought IF leads to becoming diabetic recently. Ido has also written about not being a fan I believe.

[RatioFitness]

Note the * for his own statement regarding the previous one. His reflection if you will. Not everything has to be backed by research in order for it to be understood. Are there studies done on the health effects of drinking gasoline? Very highly doubt it. But because it wasn't researched, does that mean that it could be healthy for you? I will have to try a sip later... Based of his very fine tuned knowledge of the matter and who he learns from, I am betting he knows better, and after the suggestion of +/- 400 cals, I have seen even further refinement in my body than before, even with more regular meals. This is what worked for him in his own experimentation and this intrigues people to try it themselves to see if they will achieve similar results.

Straw man. An example as silly as that implies that I'm saying the only way to know anything whatsoever is to do a study on it. Of course not. But there really are some things that can only be known through scientific research.

[Philip Chubb]

Or of course, we could try not to be victims of paralysis by analysis and give it a shot and see what happens. If you like it and it works, it will probably be better for you anyway than the next new fad diet coming out. Studies are great but the most important one is on yourself.

[Philip Chubb]

Exactly. But you know people want the answer before they begin the test.

If only my crystal ball wasn't broken...

[Joshua Naterman]

You guys are right, my comment on the frequent small feedings is not consistent with what Martin prefers his clients to do. I suppose, in this sense, that yes I would suggest a different approach to leangains, in particular the first meal. My version would have that first meal split into 2-3 progressively larger meals, because the insulin response for the first meal after a fast like that is enormous and not ideal even when the body needs to recharge. There should be considerably better results when you use a smaller meal to help reset the insulin response to a more reasonable level for the second half of the meal. 25%. 25%, 50% portions of that first meal given every 30-45 minutes for the first two and with the larger portion coming at 45-90 minutes after the second portion should help immensely. For a 2 part protocol I'd do 35% as the first meal and 65% as the second, spaced an hour apart. Of course this would be slightly more of a "gain while staying lean" than "get lean while keeping your gains" protocol but should have the effect of minimizing the excess fat gain. I would also, without question, break the second meal for the same reason. I couldn't break the third meal because then it would be continuous energy balance and not leangains anymore.

It is probable that my method would be a much better mass gaining strategy than a fat loss strategy at the same number of calories per day.

If you are eating three meals in 8 hours, as per the leangains guide, it would look something like this:

12-1 PM or around lunch/noon: Meal one. Approximately 20-25% of daily total calorie intake.

4-5 PM: Pre-workout meal. Roughly equal to the first meal.

8-9 PM: Post-workout meal (largest meal).

That is directly out of the leangains guide, listed as the normal protocol for people with normal working hours. That is going to make it the most common protocol followed, I think... At least for the people with the biggest body composition problems.

I hope you guys appreciate this, because I am putting some real time into this post. This picture is my energy balance for leangains, with color commentary. All images are screen captures from my personal nutritiming account with added content by me.

The numbers:

A) 15.75 hours spent within recommended energy balance guidelines

B) 8.25 hours spent outside recommended energy balance guidelines

C) 7 hours of excess surplus, this is when excess fat tissue is accrued. Notice the total calories of surplus are 650 or so (including the 30 calorie surplus in the middle of the day). Assuming all this goes to fat, it is an extra .17 lb of fat or 2.8 oz.

D) 1.25 hrs spent in excess deficit. Get ready for some math. 1.25 hours * 133 calories per hour = 166.25 calories burned during deficit. Assuming only 30% of calories are from carbs, that is 49.875 calories from carbs. 12g of carbs. Unfortunately, there has been no food for 16 hours. This guarantees that virtually no glucose is coming from bodily stores. Instead, it is all being converted from protein. No big deal, right? That's just 12g of bodily protein used up. But wait... we're not done. This doesn't give the full story. It takes 100g of protein to produce about 58g of glucose via gluconeogenesis, because not all amino acids can be converted to glucose. So, this gives the ratio of 1.72:1 for protein to glucose. That means it actually takes 21.4g of protein to generate the glucose needed for metabolism. Muscle, you need to know, is only 20% protein. That means that you are actually losing 107g of muscular protein. That's nearly 1/4 of a pound of protein. That should concern you, because that means you'd be losing 1.75 lbs of muscle per week and only gaining a theoretical maximum of 1 lb per week. Hmm... sounds bad.

Now, because of the time for food absorption when eating decent whole foods, it's reasonable to assume that there are really only about 7-8 hours spent under starved conditions. That means that those nightmare numbers of protein loss aren't quite accurate. Labile protein stores are known to be able to provide all the protein necessary for gluconeogenesis for 10-12 hours before the body switches over to muscle protein (also technically a labile store of protein, but not a primary one during short term fasting). Unfortunately this means that the majority of your protein synthesis goes to labile protein regeneration and less goes to muscle gain. Hence the relatively slow accumulation of muscular tissue on leangains...

It should no longer be a mystery how or why leangains works, OR what the limitations are. It should also be a little more clear why there are recommendations for higher protein intake with this kind of protocol, as higher protein intake during a surplus is clearly positively correlated with more muscle and less excess fat being accumulated during the excess surplus.

Understand, those numbers are for one single 1 hour workout each day, no other activity. The deficits would be much more severe with serious, multihour training like athletes routinely perform. You would, at the very best, break even on protein loss vs accumulation, and would almost certainly slowly lose lean mass. That's why leangains doesn't work very well for athletes. It isn't intended to, because it can't fulfill the nutritional requirements of an athlete.

Overall, only 1.25 out of 24 hours would be spent in an undesirable level of deficit, with a total of 14.5 hours spent in some level of surplus and only 9.5 hours spent in some level of deficit. This can, should, and typically does lead to favorable body recomposition when proper foods are selected. If you tried this with all fast carbs you'd feel like crap. The deficit math is more complicated and I'll have to do that later this evening.

UPDATE:

So, the deficit math. I used a ruler and protractor to measure all the triangles to the nearest .5mm, then calculated the areas with 1/2 base times height formula.

Area in excess surplus = 6.03 cm squared.

Area in deficit = 8.375 cm squared.

Ratio of fat lost to fat gained: 8.375/6.03= 1.389 which means you lose 1.38g of fat for every g you put on with leangains. More or less. In other words, there is a net fat loss of 138% of the fat put on as a result of the excess surplus.

Now, this does not factor in hormonal differences but should give a good basic picture of what is happening when you are on leangains and why.

The NEXT post will show what happens with continuous energy balance. It may not go up today, this was a bit of work.

[Robert Rowland]

Josh, I know I speak for a lot of the long-time lurkers on this site when I say: brilliant stuff, man. Really appreciate all the hard work that goes into your posts. Your passion for this stuff is inspiring.

[Joshua Naterman]

Josh, I know I speak for a lot of the long-time lurkers on this site when I say: brilliant stuff, man. Really appreciate all the hard work that goes into your posts. Your passion for this stuff is inspiring.

The passion is definitely there

I just put the deficit math in, so go back and check that out.

[itisme]

what rob said!

really appreciate this josh

[Joshua Naterman]

Guys, thank you so much! The kind words mean a lot to me. More is in the works

[Nic Branson]

Joshua "Nutrition" Naterman.....or Mr. Joshua....(yes Lethal Weapon reference intended)

[Joshua Naterman]

Hahaha, yes... well played Nic!

[Larry Roseman]

A picture is worth 1000 words Zach, but Josh you said above something like "assuming all of the 650+ caloric surplus goes to fat". Just to be fair .. that is a big assumption, and not likely in leangains when glycogen will be need to be replenished

after the fasting between meals, or after workouts when the big meal typically occurs. Proteins in the surplus will be absorbed, used for hormone/enzyme generation, stored in labile reserves and acreted as muscle protein, and a portion used for glucose/glycogen generation. And even when fat is stored, it can be drawn upon later to meet energy requirements. It's not put on for life Glycogen stored during surpluses will be used to meet glucose needs over amino acids for 16 hours of fasting. In total these factors reduce the need to draw on body protein for glucose. I feel it's overly simplistic (and I know you're not) to suggest that all surpluses go to fat and all deficit is made up from protein stores. Do you agree, disagree?

I agree with energy balance for althletes to meet energy requirements through nutrition mainly. No disrespect, but to me the professor'stheory seems a bit of a stretch, my lack of credentials, a single population study and photos of ripped Zach aside I agree that time will tell...

[Joshua Naterman]

As promised, here's the continuous energy balance. Again, all pictures are from my nutritiming account and all added information is my own.

The exact same calories, 3279, are burned on both planned days. Same calories, 3281, are taken in.

No matter what your personal caloric intake is, the shapes of the leangains days will be the exact same. They are based on percentages and percentages are relative. No matter what the whole is, they draw the same graphs. Every 3 meal leangains energy balance graph, if done according to Martin's specifications, will look identical to the previous post.

Every continuous energy balance will not look quite the same, but will always be in that "safe zone." No meals are over 600 kcalories, and several 200 kcal snacks are included. You can see where they are, they are the smaller rises. That's the power of nutritiming... you can see exactly what you are doing to yourself, good or bad.

Calculations will be added once I get some sleep and do some studying for Monday. Expect them by tomorrow evening.

What should be immediately obvious is the absence of an unacceptable surplus OR deficit. That means zero extra fat accumulation and zero lean tissue loss. All time spent below the "0" line represents body fat being lost. All time above the 0 line represents lean tissue being built. The net fat loss is going to be better, if the plan is followed as illustrated. Yes, this absolutely takes more planning than leangains. If your schedule allows it, this is totally worth it! You can plan your day out in about 10 minutes with nutritiming.

Notice that there is minimal depletion of labile protein stores... assuming the same 4-5 hour absorption window, and understanding that the last meal is at midnight (bedtime) there is only a 3-4 hour period of reliance on labile stores, and that can be reduced to 1-2 hours (according to the research indicating that casein takes 6-7 hours to be fully absorbed) by using casein protein in that last meal. A far cry from the 11-12 hours that is literally built into leangains. When it comes to building lean mass, there is no comparison... leangains loses. That's not an insult, it's a fact. Leangains has never claimed to be the fastest way to gain muscle.

Take a good look and digest, if you'll forgive the pun!

[Joshua Naterman]

A picture is worth 1000 words Zach, but Josh you said above something like "assuming all of the 650+ caloric surplus goes to fat". Just to be fair .. that is a big assumption, and not likely in leangains when glycogen will be need to be replenished

between meals, or after workouts when the big meal typically occurs. Proteins in the surplus will be absorbed, used for hormone/enzyme generation, stored in labile reserves and acreted as muscle protein, and a portion used for glucose generation. And even when fat is stored, it can be drawn upon later to meet energy requirements. It's not put on for life

In total these factors reduce the need to draw on body protein for glucose later on, I feel. Do you agree, disagree?

Those factors don't reduce the need to draw upon body protein for glucose. Gluconeogenesis starts when liver stores hit 50-60% of maximal, and that happens about 2-3 hours after you last ate and the carbs have stopped absorbing. With proper food choices this is usually 6-7 hours or so after the meal, but for most people it's more like 4 because of the much faster absorption of refined carbs. Believe it or not, if you have a large insulin spike that leads to excessively rapid nutrient storage that can happen sooner.

The research that leangains is built upon specifically notes that liver glycogen utilization is significantly reduced by 3 hours after eating. Interesting. It also notes that there is a somewhat greater reliance on body fat for energy, but the body fat has to be burned in a carbohydrate flame, so to speak. Those carbs have to come from somewhere, and when it isn't the liver glycogen it's gluconeogenesis. It is technically true that the glycerol backbone of triglycerides can be burned, but you need to burn 100g of fat to get 10g of glycerol. That's 900 calories for 40 calories of sugar substitute. That's about 1.3g per hour, and that's not even close to enough to feed the brain.

So yes, assuming 100% of the excess goes to storage is seemingly a large assumption, but stop and think: I just ate 50% of my calories in one sitting. That's 1600 calories. I burn 133 an hour when awake. I'm pretty sure that even assuming a 6 hour absorption window with a perfectly flat absorption curve you can see how that would be 3x beyond what my body can use, yes? Now consider the enormous insulin response that this kind of eating generates. Insulin accelerates nutrient absorption, and in this case makes nutrient overload even worse. There is a large spike of available calories, and what happens is that these excess calories (those that can not be processed in the moment) get stored as fat. There is nowhere else to put them, glycogen can only be regenerated so quickly. There's only about 1500g of glycogen in the average man, so say 2000g in me. Research shows it takes 72 hours to replenish glycogen from a depleted state (which is when the process is most rapid), so if we do some math that means I can store a MAXIMUM of 27.7g of glycogen per hour. That is 111.1 excess carbohydrate calories. So even in that very exciting ideal scenario, assuming a 6 hour absortion window, that's 666.6 excess calories. Many of those are not carbohydrate. The protein can't be efficiently converted to glycogen, that has been measured at a maximum rate of about 200g per day or 10g of glycogen per 17.2g of protein per hour (using the known 1.72:1 protein to glucose ratio).

How do you want it? Even if there were 80g of excess protein, that's only 46.5g of glycogen. 200 calories. I'll burn that while I sleep and then some. My body's going to have so much excess carbohydrate that the known rate of ~40% of excess carbs turning to fat is a reliable starting point, and 100% of the dietary fat will either be absorbed and stored without being used for energy or will simply spare the exact same amount of body fat, leading to the same net accumulation either way due to there being zero loss if we assume that only dietary fat is being burned during that time. During the same time, regardless of source a maximum of 166.2g of muscle glycogen can be replenished in that time. That's barely what I used in the workout, and in a best case scenario. Where do the excess calories go? Into fat. We both know best case scenarios aren't how things work, so we can assume that if the best case scenario shows that under unrealistically good conditions 664 calories are stored as glycogen and 798 are burned as energy. That leaves 142 calories to be stored as fat, which wouldn't be that bad.

Unfortunately, that's not how insulin does its job. There is going to be a very large initial surge in the blood, which is going to lead to nearly everything being stored as fat in the first hour or two, representing 3-400 calories all by itself at minimum. Realistically, a bit more. By the 3rd hour absorption rate should have slowed enough to where blood sugar is a bit more stable and the insulin response dies down a bit, but you're still going to have more to deal with per hour than the body can handle.

Everything that is stored as fat can't be used as carbs OR converted to glycogen, which reduces those ideal numbers quite a bit. So it is absolutely fair, based on known hormonal responses, to state that nearly all of that excess is going to go into body fat.

The time under the curves clearly shows that there is still a net loss of body fat, on the order of 39% more than the surplus or so. Assuming the surplus is 600 kcalories, that's a 234 kcal loss. That works out to about 2 lbs of pure body fat gone every 30 days. Common results with leangains aren't ridiculously far beyond that, especially when you factor in the water weight that people initially shed. 10 lbs lost in 12-14 weeks is the norm, and assuming just a 2 lb loss of water weight due to getting what is usually excessive fast carbs and excess sodium out of the diet that's 8 lbs in 84-98 days. That's 313 calories of fat lost per day at 92 days on average. 33% more than calculated, but not bad for a ballpark figure. It is also assuming a fairly small amount of water weight lost, and completely strict adherence to Martin's personal coaching guidelines. Those are the results his personal clients tend to see, and to be perfectly honest those are great results when you consider that there is basically zero lean mass loss and non-morbidly obese clients. Could be better, but people consistently do well and on that I gladly give credit.

I am looking into the rumors of IF being accused of being a risk factor for diabetes. I wouldn't be terribly surprised, as research shows significantly higher insulin resistance when people eat 3x per day instead of 6-8x per day. In that sense, it would be a risk factor. As Martin advocates a body part split for workouts, it is also possible that this limits the benefits of exercise-induced insulin re-sensitization as the benefits typically only last for a few days so not all of the body is being re-sensitized all the time. You sort of do this merry-go-round thing.

You'll also notice that HDL counts seem to go down, according to the numbers I have seen posted by his clients on his site, which is not exactly ideal. This is related to his fairly well-known adversity towards cardio, as cardio is the only consistently proven way to increase HDL counts. Makes sense, if you think about the function of HDL: It pulls fats out of the blood. If you're doing long, steady-state aerobic training you need more of these particles to get the fat to your slow twitch fibers.

To be perfectly fair, their other numbers like LDL and triglycerides take a divebomb by comparison, so their HDL to triglyceride and LDL ratios improve immensely. That is simply something I want to point out.

Health requires more than just aesthetic perfection.

[Joshua Naterman]

http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/6/2128.full

A specific intermittent fasting study. It shows that after the fast, fat tissue utilization is inhibited and glucose uptake is increased approximately 15% post-fasting, and that body fat % did not change. The fasts were non-consecutive and this not representative of anything in leangains.

It is good to see some evidence supporting what I am pointing out, which is that after the long fast there is a very large insulin response that coincides with temporarily increased insulin sensitivity. As such, there is an even higher caloric load when eating the initial refeeding meal and a large portion of the meal is likely to end up as body fat.

It is also interesting to see the posts of people who seem to be getting pre-diabetic symptoms when taking a non-leangains approach to IF, usually the culprit seems to be one meal per day. That is the absolute most surefire way to screw your body up. If you're going to do IF, do leangains. Don't eat once during the day, that's ridiculous and incredibly harmful.