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PROTEINS AND THE INSULIN INDEX
Insulin is probably the single most important hormone that will make a particular
dramatic change to your physique and your health and life span. So what is insulin
and how is it affected by the proteins that you consume in your diet? Well,
Insulin is a hormone released into the blood by an internal organ called the
pancreas. Insulin functions in many ways as an anabolic, or a storage hormone;
in fact it's been called the most anabolic hormone. When insulin is released
into the bloodstream, it acts to shuttle glucose [carbohydrates], amino acids,
and blood fats into the cells of the body. It is actually proteins and carbohydrates
that both affect your insulin production. Fat does not stimulate the production
of insulin at all as it is digested and absorbed by the human body by a different
mechanism. Now, the insulin index actually measures insulin response to a food.
So rather than just making the assumption that insulin response is indeed correlated
with carbohydrate absorption (such as predicted by the GI scale), researchers
decided to go ahead and measure it. And their results were eye opening!
Insulin is very much misunderstood. It is of course a storage hormone. It shuttles
nutrients (proteins as amino acids and carbohydrates as glycogen) into places
like skeletal muscle tissue. Insulin can be as much an ally as an enemy, when
it comes to building muscle and burning bodyfat.
Used together, the GI and II indices can help you plan meals according to your
needs (i.e. high or low insulin release). Why would you want high or low insulin
release and what affect does protein have on insulin release. For instance,
if you're trying to get lean you'll want to keep insulin at bay most of the
day except immediately after training when you want to spike it through the
roof to shuttle glycogen and protein back into your starved muscles. Maintaining
steady and stable, low insulin levels allows the process of fat burning to take
place. As soon as insulin levels rise, fat burning grinds to a halt.
What you need to know is that not only do carbohydrate stimulate insulin, so
do proteins. And certain proteins can spike insulin through the roof. Whey hydrolysates
and specific amino acid combinations are being used in many post workout drink
formula's, as when they are mixed with a high insulin carbohydrate blend, they
cause a synergistic high insulin response - perfect for shuttling nutrients
back into muscle cells for repair and growth.
In terms of fat loss - In this scenario you'd eat a combination of low GI and
II foods throughout the day. If, on the other hand, you're trying to bulk up
and gain quality muscle, you'll no doubt want to spike insulin several times
throughout the day along with a generous helping of protein. Shuttling amino
acids into muscle cells. Protein being used as the source of amino acids and
nitrogen for muscle growth and the assistance in releasing more insulin.
One of the goals of eating to grow should be to maximize the muscle gain to
fat gain ratio. Basically, if you want to pack on the most muscle with the least
amount of fat gain. To do this you need to understand which meal combinations
to pursue and which to avoid. The foundations of the recommendations in this
area are based on the avoidance of a nasty scenario. The worst case scenario
for someone trying to pack on muscle while minimizing fat gain is to have high
blood levels of carbs, fat, and insulin at the same time. This is deleterious,
not only to ones appearance, but to ones health. If you eat carbs, fat and protein
all together in a traditional westernised meal, you will of course shuttle some
nutrients and amino acids to muscles but generally just cause a rapid release
of insulin leading to great fat storage.
Before you make a rash decision and try to eliminate insulin, you must know
that insulin is very anabolic. Insulin can be utilised as apposed to abused,
and can become one of your most powerful hormones in the endeavour to create
a superior athletic physique. Insulin itself is responsible for carb and amino
acid delivery to the muscles for recovery and growth. This is why your body
is primed to release insulin whenever you digest protein. Bottom line - you
need insulin, but you need to control it. And when you eat to promote insulin
surges, you've got to be sure that you have the ideal profile of macronutrients
in your blood to ensure that this insulin surge leads to muscle gain and not
fat gain. This is where meal combinations come into play.
It's well known in the research world that eating carbs and protein together
also creates a synergistic insulin release, as discussed above. In the scenario
of post workout nutrition and the attempt to harness the anabolic properties
of this hormone, that insulin release is just what you want. By having a few
meals per day that cause high blood levels of insulin, carbs, and amino acids
(as long you don't have chronic high blood levels of insulin all day long),
the body tends to become very anabolic, taking up all those carbs and amino
acids into the muscle cells for protein and glycogen synthesis. And since there's
no excess fat for the fat cells, fat gain is minimized.
Many people will argue that elevation of insulin levels this high is going
to prevent the breakdown of fats (lipolysis) even if it does minimise fat storage.
This is indeed true. But what people must also understand is that most meals
(unless they are of very certain types of protein only) are going to raise insulin
levels so that lipolysis is prevented anyway. So protein and carbs raise your
insulin past this level, and you should be consuming protein every few hours.
A vital lesson.
Taking a step back, the purpose of protein plus fat meals is to provide energy
and amino acids without causing large, lipolysis-preventing insulin spikes.
In addition, after fatty meals that contain no carbs, the body oxidizes less
carbs (more carbs are stored and retained in the muscle as glycogen) and burns
more fat for energy. So basically you'll be burning fat for energy and storing
carbs in the muscle after such meals.
So in terms of respecting your insulin levels to build muscle and burn fat
you should be combining protein and carbs with no fat, especially after training
and maybe occassionally throughout the early portion of the day, and eating
solely protein and fats at all other times to maintain steady and slow streams
of amino acids to be shuttled by moderate insulin release to your muscle cells.
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