When to eat protein to build muscle
Building and maintaining muscle is a good way to improve insulin resistance and decrease average blood glucose levels. In order to make weight training sessions as effective as possible, I look into how much and when to eat protein in order to build and maintain muscle most effectively.
This week I've been trying to figure out how much protein to eat and when is best to eat it around my weight training regime in order to get the best results. I have no interest at all in becoming the next world champion body builder, but the faster I can build more muscle, the sooner I can get my type 2 diabetes into remission so I want to make sure I'm being as efficient as possible.
Muscle wastage starts to increase from around 4% per decade from the age of 30 to around 5-8% in your 40s. This increases to up to about 10% from the age of 50 and can increase to upwards of 15% in older age. As I'm currently 42 years old, I need to make sure that I at least maintain current muscle mass in order to manage type 2 diabetes. Losing muscle mass gives you less storage space for glycogen which is the body's short-term energy storage system for excess glucose. This is the primary reason why losing muscle increases insulin resistance.
Other ways to improve insulin resistance
- Boosting Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
- Reducing carbohydrate consumption and losing weight
- Avoid regular consumption of fructose, alcohol, and things that can activate the polyol pathway such as becoming dehydrated
- Improving cortisol regulation throughout the day
Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS)
Weight training initially causes tiny tears in muscle fibres which then triggers Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS). This is the process of building new muscle proteins to repair and strengthen them. Repetition of this breakdown and rebuilding is what causes an increase in muscle tissue.
Resistance training activates MPS by releasing mTOR, an enzyme that stimulates protein synthesis and cell growth.
It is generally considered to be more important to make sure that you're meeting your daily protein needs (around 1.2-1.6g of protein per kilogram of body weight) rather than being too worried about timings. It can be helpful to have some protein before weight training to make sure that you have protein immediately available for MPS but studies show that protein consumption shortly after weight training can boost muscle growth. Interestingly, eating before weight training appears to be more beneficial to aid fat-loss so it really depends on your priorities. For me, I'm losing weight anyway, largely from my dietary changes and plenty of walking, so I'm more focused on the metabolic benefits of building muscle.
The anabolic window
MPS is most responsive in the hours after resistance training. This period of time is called the 'anabolic window' and it covers a range of several hours but the most effective time seems to be within 45 minutes to two hours after resistance training.
How much and what kind of protein?
A minimum of 20g of protein following weight training seems to be a decent baseline. Adding more may not necessarily be of any benefit to muscle building but can help to boost your overall daily intake.
Leucine-rich foods tend to be best for building muscle
- red meat such as beef
- chicken and turkey
- most fish contains 1.4g per 100g or more, but tuna packs the most with 1.7-2.4g per 100g depending on species.
- eggs
- Italian hard cheeses such as Parmesan, Pecorino or Parmigiano
- soybeans are one of the best plant-based sources
- pumpkin and hemp seeds have about half the leucine content of soybeans
- lentils, chick peas, black beans, and broad beans contain about about one-third to one-quarter the leucine content of soybeans, and half that of animal-based sources
My current strategy
I've been trying to find a method that has a timing benefit, but is also practical, so I've been having a small (10g of protein) breakfast before the gym and then following that up with a more substantial early lunch/brunch (30-40g of protein). Breakfast has generally been yoghurt, nuts and berries although I've been dropping down the yoghurt as I've been having large morning glucose spikes this week. Next week I'm going to try experimenting more with simple scrambled eggs or an omelette before or after my gym session to keep the morning glucose levels down.
My early lunches have been either what I'd normally have for breakfast - sausage, eggs and green veg, or tuna/chicken/avocado salad with cheese. That usually gets me up to 30-40g of protein. It takes quite a lot of time to prepare something like this so I need to look at options to get the protein in more quickly after my gym session and I'm loathe to start drinking protein shakes as I firmly believe that food should be consumed in its natural state to aid absorption of nutrients and avoid large blood glucose spikes (you'd struggle to eat three oranges but drinking half a pint of orange juice is very easy, and very bad for your glucose levels).
For me my daily protein should be between 106g and 142g and I have a general daily target of 120g (which I often don't manage to reach).
I'm still starting to try to figure this out so I'm interested in other people's experiences and ideas so let me know what you think on Facebook.
