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BEST PROTEIN FOR BUILDING MUSCLES
🕑 Added 2023-03-07 09:13:47 +0000 UTCHi friends, we’ve already defined the AMOUNT of protein required for muscle growth in the previous sports issue. As I promised, now let’s talk about the QUALITY of this protein. I think it’s no secret to you that not every protein is equally useful for growing muscles. Something is better, and something worse. There are proteins that are better not to use. Different sources of protein have not only different effectiveness in terms of muscle growth, but also a different .... price. Therefore, it is very important to find the balance of quality and price of the food you use every day. So, we’ll dig right into the matter today.
When we talk about the quality of the food that we eat, first of all, we should consider PROTEINS, not CARBOHYDRATES or FATS, for one simple reason: PROTEINS ARE THE MOST EXPENSIVE NUTRIENT IN YOUR DIET. Just think of the cost of a box of pasta or buckwheat versus the cost of meat, fish, eggs and other animal proteins. The price factor is very important, you know the economic situation in our territories. Not every family can afford to cook meat soup. Much less everything else. By the way, this is one of the reasons why Western bodybuilders are successful versus domestic ones. Western bodybuilders simply have more economic opportunities to eat the right food in sufficient quantities.
We’ve already figured out in the last issue that the NECESSARY AMOUNT OF PROTEIN is rather relative and depends on many factors, such as the presence of carbs in the diet, serving size of the protein, the physiological need for protein, etc. PROTEIN QUALITY is one of the most important of all these factors. By PROTEIN QUALITY I mean the BIOLOGICAL VALUE of PROTEIN.
The math is simple: THE HIGHER THE BIOLOGICAL VALUE (QUALITY) OF PROTEIN, THE LESS PROTEIN IS REQUIRED for growing your muscles. Simply because it is better absorbed and works more effectively. Imagine guerrilla forces where you can engage volunteers off the street, or professional military. In which case would such guerrilla forces be more effective? Right. When it was made up of more effective people. Moreover, the more professionals in such forces, the smaller can they be in size. The same goes for proteins. There are better ones (higher biological value), and there are less qualitative ones (lower biological value).
BIOLOGICAL VALUE OF PROTEIN
What is this? This is an indicator of NITROGEN RETAINED relative to its total amount received with this protein. In other words, this is an indicator of protein preserved relative to its intake. Therefore, nitrogen balance is the main indicator of muscle growth (since our muscles are made up of protein).
If NITROGEN BALANCE IS POSITIVE, THE MUSCLES GROW, if it’s negative, the muscles lose weight. You can see that it’s very simple.
And the kicker is that DIFFERENT sources of protein have DIFFERENT NITROGEN RETENTION ABILITIES. Which means they aren’t equally useful for building your muscles. This ability is most often called the BIOLOGICAL VALUE OF PROTEINS. The higher it is, the better suited the protein will be for muscle growth. The lower it is, the worse ....
WHAT DOES THE BIOLOGICAL VALUE OF PROTEIN DEPEND ON?
The answer is obvious and out in the open: on its composition! What is protein composed of? I think almost everyone knows that protein is composed of amino acids. The human body uses 20 AMINO ACIDS to build all basic proteins (including muscles). There are many more of them, but our body uses only this part. So, it’s not a matter of just having these amino acids....To build new proteins in our body, these amino acids should be in a CERTAIN PROPORTION.
When the amount of some amino acids is less than required, the protein cannot be built. Imagine you have a bicycle factory. Frame production line...Wheel production line, handlebar production line, mechanics line, etc... And now the wheel production line stopped for lack of rubber. All other lines have overstocks, but the fact that you can put two handlebars or three frames on any bike is not helping... there’s no way to assemble a bicycle without wheels. The same goes for certain amino acids. If they’re not in the system, the production of new proteins will slow down.
In other words, THE BIOLOGICAL VALUE OF PROTEIN DEPENDS ON AMINO ACID PROFILE!
There’s a classic experiment to illustrate this rule. Two groups of rats were fed the same amount of protein, BUT from different sources:
- CASEIN (has all basic amino acids)
- GELATIN (almost no valine and methionine)
What do you think this resulted in? So: In the first case, the protein was absorbed (there was a positive nitrogen balance), and in the second case, it was excreted in the urine (there was a negative nitrogen balance).
I remember that I studied food contents on almost any product that caught my eye when I was a fanatical young man. I was so glad when I accidentally looked at the table of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in gelatin. It does contain almost 90% protein with fat and carbohydrates less than 1%. A seemingly unique source of dietary protein for a song. Only I did not know about the biological value then, so I just wasted my time swallowing kilograms of tasteless jelly in the hope of growing muscles. All this gelatin went down the toilet with minimal value. Don’t make my mistakes, friends.
How so?, many will exclaim. “After all, the human body can independently synthesize the necessary amino acids.” I recently read this mistaken belief once again as a comment on one of my videos on YouTube.... The human body is really able to synthesize ..... BUT UNFORTUNATELY ONLY HALF OF 20 NECESSARY AMINO ACIDS. We can’t synthesize the other half and should derive them from food.
Those amino acids that we can synthesize are called NON-ESSENTIAL, and those 8 that we can’t synthesize and should derive from food are called ESSENTIAL. And if your body lacks the essential amino acid required to synthesize a particular protein, this will stop the synthesis of this protein. This condition is very easy to diagnose: nitrogen balance will be negative (more protein is excreted from the body than is created), muscles lose weight, the body becomes weak, etc. In other words, the proteins in our body need “ALL OR NONE” amino acids: there must be either all the necessary amino acids or it will be impossible to build new proteins.
WHERE IS THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS?
I suppose you already know that. ANIMAL PROTEINS have the best amino acid profile in terms of both the amount and proportion of essential amino acids. What kind of proteins are those? It’s all that used to jump, swim and fly. That is, the protein that we get from living organisms (fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, etc.).
That’s why if you are a vegetarian, with all due respect, but it will be much harder for you to gain strength and build up muscle than for an omnivore. After all, it is very difficult for a vegetarian to get all the necessary set of essential amino acids, and even in the right proportion. To do this, a vegetarian most often needs a bulky diet at the top of digestive function (for example, to get this set only from white bread, you need to eat about 70 pieces a day).
Vegetarians often “solve this problem” with various sources of vegetable proteins throughout the day: they eat bread, corn, rice, beans, etc. BUT to be honest, there’s no way for it to work well because it’s very difficult to find the right combination with each plant product having an amino acid deficiency: bread contains little leucine, rice has little threonine, corn has little tryptophan and leucine, beans contain antienzymic substances (you need to cook them very well), etc. Nutrition is becoming a complex science: for example, you need to know that it makes sense to combine rice with soybeans to increase the biological value of the dish.
Overall, lots of problems: you need to select widely different plant products, which can sometimes be more expensive than meat. The funny thing is that if you add a little meat to any of the vegetarian dishes, it will instantly turn into not just a full-value, but also more useful dish than a regular meat dish because of fiber and a variety of amino acids.
LEUCINE AMINO ACID
You’ve probably heard such an acronym as BCAA. It stands for “Branched-chain amino acids” (BCAAs). These are THREE ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS with a specific structure of an aliphatic side chain. I don’t know what it is myself, but I know for sure since school that these three amino acids are LEUCINE, ISOLEUCINE, VALINE, and the fact that these amino acids are crucial for protein synthesis. Moreover, namely muscle protein as these three amino acids make up the greatest concentration of all essential amino acids of muscle tissue. Therefore, when there is a possibility of muscle catabolism due to a lack of calories (for example, when you’re cutting on a low-carb diet), it is recommended to take BCAAs to prevent the breakdown of muscle protein.
Many athletes know this. Especially those who’re cutting for the competition. But few people know that LEUCINE pulls off the lead, which in a dose of 4 grams can independently replace the action of its partners. And very few athletes are aware that such a rare sports supplement as Hydroxymethyl Butyrate or HMB is what leucine turns into in our body after consumption (this is a metabolic form of leucine).
There are a number of studies on muscle protein synthesis rate, depending on the excess of certain amino acids. So, these studies show that muscle protein synthesis is maximally stimulated by 4 grams of LEUCINE. Such stimulation may be repeated every 3-4 hours.
Guess what foods are highest and lowest in leucine? That’s right. Animal sources of protein are highest, while plant sources of protein are lowest in leucine. And it is largely due to this amino acid that animal sources of protein have a significantly higher biological value. And now I’ll tell you a couple of unique secrets that only a few in our country know.
In order to gain 4 grams of leucine, you should usually eat at least 30-50 grams of protein from protein rich foods. Simply because leucine concentration in the protein is not that high (and it is sometimes zero in plant sources, where the protein is little suitable for growth). In fact, athletes sometimes intuitively drink almost 300 grams of protein daily not to get so much protein, but to get the necessary amount of leucine, which will improve the biological value of protein absorbed and gone into the muscles.
Leucine is the “weakest link” that makes the chain strong (whether the protein is absorbed and whether it is complete). If leucine is sufficient relative to other amino acids, the “factory will operate” using all the material. If leucine is not sufficient, the “factory will partially operate” using only the material for which there is enough leucine. If there’s no leucine at all, the “factory will not operate” because of the “all or none” principle: this amino acid is necessary for production.
It happens that a fanatical bodybuilder eats 50 grams of protein at a time. That’s a lot (10-20 grams of protein per serving is well absorbed). Nevertheless, the person sees the benefit from such nutrition. Guess why? Just because he digests such a large amount of raw materials to get the necessary 3-4 grams of leucine required for the good absorption of a smaller part of the raw material.
Roughly speaking, only 20 grams of protein of these 50 grams have been absorbed. But this happened because a person received 4 grams of leucine from this large amount of protein. Those 30 grams of “extra” protein, which he then dropped down the dumper, went towards getting the right amount of leucine in them for the quality absorption of the main 20 grams of protein. Now imagine how much protein from plant sources you should eat to get enough leucine? 60 grams of protein? 10 grams? Tons. It’s very inconvenient to be a vegetarian bodybuilder.
Well, here are the promised secrets, little known in our country’s bodybuilding.
1. If you take free BCAA or Leucine supplements with food, it will significantly improve the biological value of the protein you eat by improving the amino acid profile. That is, under such conditions, protein serving sizes may be reduced, and their effectiveness may be increased.
2. If you eat foods high in leucine, it will significantly improve the biological value of protein from this food. For example, supplement each meal with one or two boiled eggs (the best protein in biological value among natural proteins), or a glass of milk (if you have good milk tolerance).
This is exactly what I recommend doing in my updated MEN’S PATTERN 2.0. Using these two simple recommendations, you can significantly increase the return on food: reduce its size and increase digestibility.
Well, if you’re a vegetarian, you definitely need a source of BCAAs and Leucine. If you have imposed partial restrictions on yourself (not to eat only meat and chicken), then be sure to eat eggs, fish and dairy products. If you don’t eat any animal food, it makes sense to add sports nutrition products to your diet (get BCAAs and LEUCIN from pills and powders).
In any case, it is important to remember that a COMPLEX PROTEIN SOURCE is MUCH BETTER THAN A SEPARATED SOURCE, since it provides a more balanced diet in terms of amino acid profile, that is better absorbed and grows muscles faster. For example, it is better to add milk, no water to the porridge. While any side dish will be much more useful with eggs or a piece of meat.
There is a very simple explanation I use to show the difference between animal and plant protein to people. THE CLOSER THE AMINO ACID PROFILE OF FOOD PROTEIN TO THAT OF A HUMAN BODY PROTEIN, THE BETTER IT IS ABSORBED BY OUR BODY. The higher its biological value and usefulness. Are you closer to plants or animals? Does your meat look more like baobab wood or calf fillet? A man is not a plant (although I sometimes doubt this :-) Of course, animal sources of protein are much closer to us than plant-based sources.
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