Thanks again for everybody’s contribution.
Chillen, you took the time and effort, I will read the articles. As well as the stickyies.
If you have any questions, post them up, as you read the material.
In short (and a very brief synopsis), here is LMCD's opinion, on various goals, and variables that exist per person:
This is only "part" of the article:
Protein Requirements for Strength and Power Athletes
Reaching a Consensus (
Remember this definition).
Possibly one of the longest standing debates in sports nutrition (not that people don’t argue about stuff constantly) is over protein requirements for athletes. Traditionally, there have been two primary and opposing views to this topic.
And yet, I’m going to tell you how to rationalize all of the above stuff that I imagine most of you skimmed in the first place. Two researchers, named Tipton and Wolfe wrote a cool paper about this argument. In it they first detailed all of the stuff I just bored you with. At the end they gave their recommendations where they basically argued that
* We don’t know how much protein is required to optimize all of the potential pathways important to athletes.
* We know that a protein intake of 1.4 g/lb (3.0 g/kg) isn’t harmful and may have benefits that are too small to be measured in research
* As long as eating lots of protein doesn’t keep an athlete from eating too few of the other nutrients (carbs/fats), there’s no reason to not eat a lot. And there may be benefits.
Essentially, a high protein intake won’t hurt an athlete (basically everything you may have read about the dangers of high protein intakes is nonsense), it may provide small benefits of importance to elite athletes and, at the end of the day athletes and coaches don’t give a **** about pedantic scientific debates over amino acid metabolism that gives researchers and nerds like me a giant hardon. Admittedly, they didn’t put it in exactly those terms but that’s the gist of it.
So here’s my recommendation, strength/power athletes should aim for 1.5 g/lb protein per day (again, this is about 3.3 g/kg for the metrically inclined). So for a 200 lb strength/power athlete, that’s 300 grams of protein per day. For a 300 lber, that’s 450 grams per day. If you’re Jeff Lewis, I imagine your protein requirements are basically ‘All of it’ or perhaps ‘A cow’. Per day.
The following articles are more based upon the average -joe weight lifter:
Brief overview of what is in this link:
Meal Frequency and Mass Gains
And since I covered the topic in exceeding detail in The Protein Book, I’m simply going to excerpt that section of that chapter. I’d note that I cover a tremendous number of other topics related to meal frequency in that chapter including many practical issues along with the impact of meal frequency on muscle mass maintenance during fat loss.
The Baseline Diet 2009: Part 2
And with that recap out of the way, I’ll move into the second part of the article today and talk about protein, carbohydrate and fat requirements in terms of the baseline diet. For each I’m going to talk about a variety of issues including total intake recommendations along with looking at issues of quality, timing, etc. in the context of The Baseline Diet.
The Baseline Diet 2009: Part 1
Next is a series of questions: How many meals are you eating per day? How many calories? How many grams of protein? Carbs? Fat? When’s the last time you ate fruit or vegetables? How much water are you consuming on a daily basis. If you’re an average lifter (and want to stay such), your answer is probably ‘Umm, I don’t know.’
An Objective Comparison of Chocolate Milk and Surge Recovery
My position was that using sucrose isn’t any more of a nutritional compromise than using dextrose. His answer was that “everyone knows” dextrose is superior to sucrose for postworkout glycogen resynthesis, and that sucrose is inherently unhealthier than dextrose. I countered his position by presenting scientific research refuting his claims. He then got all bent out of shape and started hurling adhominems at me, obviously frustrated that he was losing a public battle.
General Philosophies of Muscle Mass Gain
In this article (which will actually form an introduction to a series of articles I’ll be doing over the next several weeks and months), I want to talk about some basic concepts related to mass gaining nutrition, primarily looking at some of the different philosophies of mass-gaining that are out there. As usually, I’ll look at each in my normal way, looking at the various pros and cons of each approach.
Muscle Gain Mistakes
Although it may seem strange to talk about how to gain weight as we approach the holidays (where people typically gain weight without trying very hard), the simple fact is that, for athletes and bodybuilders, the winter (when it’s cold outside and you’re covered up) has always been one of the primary times that trainees focus on muscle gain.
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Good articles for you to read, and for anyone new to training, and concerned with nutritional properties.
Peace to you. And much success.
Chillen
