4 simple question that I dont know answers to

[m@xpower]

1. What should i take in order for my muscle to get bigger?
-i know is protein, but what would u recommend (ex: like recommeding tynenol for headace instead of advil)


2. When should i take it (ex, before working out, after working out, ect...)


3. Do i need to combine it with anything else, and if so, which order do i take it in?

4. I am trying to get hard abs so can i cut down on what i eat and still have my muscle grow if i take protein?

[jgriffith]

do a search man, knowledge is power. Go back to elementary skills and become a "self directed learner".

[TsiTalon]

yeah i would say a search is in order but heres the short and simple answer. First off you says that you want to get get big but then you want cut abs ? hate you burst your buddle but its one or the other, one takes to you bulk up and put on mass/some fat the other requires you to cut down. What should you take for bigger muscles ? ummm nothing. Protein will help recover and all that but its not going to give you bigger muscles. Work at the gym and get sleep etc (search here). Seems as if you are trying to rely on drugs to help make you bigger which will equal failure. Its takes work, if it didnt then everyone would be big.

[Lady C]

Originally Posted by m@xpower

1. What should i take in order for my muscle to get bigger? Eat a diet with lots of unprocessed grains, fruits, veggies and lean protein

2. When should i take it (ex, before working out, after working out, ect...)
Post-workout is best but anytime for a meal if desired

3. Do i need to combine it with anything else, and if so, which order do i take it in?That depends on what your goals are and what time of day

4. I am trying to get hard abs so can i cut down on what i eat and still have my muscle grow if i take protein?

Cutting back on calories may be destructive to this goal. Having your abs show is all in the diet - you have to reduce OVERALL bodyfat.

You need to lay out a plan that has a good diet and an intense workout routine. Work to get results and eat to feed the body for those results.

[CliffStamp]

Protein is most easily digested in meats, so eat a balance of various animals. The new trend is to eat fast digesting protein right after working out to prevent catabolism, however the natural anabolic drive peaks hours later in the body which would indicate eating about 1 hour or so later and use the slow digesting proteins in meat to sustain this drive.

As for growing on a diet, it is very difficult if not impossible for the vast majority of people to grow bigger muscles while losing fat, this is why most people have bulking and cutting diets. So in general odds are likely you will be more successful in blowing off the fat on a decent diet and then trying to get more muscle.

-Cliff

[Maxgain]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

Protein is most easily digested in meats,

Do you have a study that shows this. I am not disagreeing at all but a friend of mine had to see a dietician and was told to go vegetarian because humans cannot digest the ptotein from meat properly and to go on nuts etc.

[CliffStamp]

The biological value for vegetable proteins is in general about half as much as natural meats, this is very widely known. That is the first time I have ever heard anyone claim the opposite. Just do a search on biological value. Compare the numbers for nuts, grains, etc., compared to an egg.

-Cliff

[Octagon]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

The new trend is to eat fast digesting protein right after working out to prevent catabolism, however the natural anabolic drive peaks hours later in the body which would indicate eating about 1 hour or so later and use the slow digesting proteins in meat to sustain this drive.

Actually, I think conventional wisdom is a little of both.

The fast digesting protein (whey, for instance) right after resistence workouts is recommended to take advantage of an hour or so long 'window' during which the body is supposed to be more prone to protein synthesis. But don't a lot of folks also recommend a 'regular' meal (often focusing on complex carbs?) about an hour or so after the workout/shake too?

[Maxgain]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

The biological value for vegetable proteins is in general about half as much as natural meats, this is very widely known. That is the first time I have ever heard anyone claim the opposite. Just do a search on biological value. Compare the numbers for nuts, grains, etc., compared to an egg.

-Cliff

Thats what i did and i got egg is 100 containing all 8 EAAs and meat and that is about 80 as expected. Then i seen that nuts were about 80 also which very much surprised me. I presumed it was a misprint as nuts are not a 'complete protein' until i heard this from the people supposedly teaching us about nutrition.
Is the bv value a % of protein synthesis from the amount of protein take or the amount absorbed ie if only 50% gets absorbed and 80% of this is then used for protein synthesis?

[CliffStamp]

BV is a common but really poor way to judge proteins. It is a simple percentage of the amount of protein retained compared to the amount absorbed from food (using nitrogen to determine protein).

The problem with this is that it doesn't take the digestability of the protein into account. Obviously if you poorly digest the protein it doesn't matter if you utilize all of what you absorb, because you may absorb very little.

There are a few better scales, the simplest if the NPU. This is simply the BV corrected for digestability. The NPU of whole egg is 94 (egg whites are only 83), Whey is 92, Roasted Turkey is 70, Brown Rice is 70, Soy is 61, Corn is 52, Legumes are 50-60, and Whole Grains are 50-60.

You can also look at the PER, which is weight gain compared to protein intake. Looking at isocalorie diets of 10% protein, Whole Egg has a PER of 3.8, whey is 3.2, Milk is 3.1, Beef is 2.9, Peas are 1.6, Peanut Butter is 1.5, White Bread is 1.1.

You can also consider the PDCAAS, which looks at the digestability and AA profile, it is a measure of the "completeness" of the protein taking digestability into account. Whole Eggs are 1.00, Beef is 0.92, Oats are 0.57, Rice are 0.47, Wheat Flour is 0.42.

It is easy to see from the above, that eggs, dairy and meats are far superior to vegan sources. Note strongly how whole products far significantly better than refined ones - this is due to the removal of cofactors from protein digestion. Just another reason not to eat just egg whites, white flour, etc. .

-Cliff

[vegan]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

Protein is most easily digested in meats, so eat a balance of various animals... It is easy to see from the above, that eggs, dairy and meats are far superior to vegan sources.
-Cliff

Hi Cliff

As a vegan source of protein, soy is as good as or better than meat in these comparisons:

Protein Quality Comparisons

http://www.soyfoods.com/manufacture/applications.html

Protein Quality Comparisons

The Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) is a relatively new method of protein quality evaluation that takes into account the digestibility of a food protein and the amino acid content. The PDCAAS method utilizes the amino acid requirements of humans. It has replaced the Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) that considered only the amino acid requirements of rats and measured the growth of rates that were fed test proteins. The PER underestimated the value of vegetable proteins. Today, the Food and Drug Administration uses PDCAAS for food labeling in the U.S. and it is considered the desired method for protein quality evaluation.

Food Proteins in Use PDCAAS

Isolated soy protein 0.92
Soy protein concentrate 0.99
Egg white 1.00
Casein 1.00
Beef 0.92
Kidney beans (canned) 0.68

SOURCE: Protein Quality Evaluation, Report of the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization / World Health Organization Expert Consultation, 1989

[CliffStamp]

Soy is strong in some respects, but far behind meats in several, the NPU of Soy is ~60, while eggs are 94, the PER of Soy is even further behind 2.0-2.2 compared to 3.8 for egg. There are also other reasons why I would not eat unfermented soy as noted before.

-Cliff

[vegan]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

Soy is strong in some respects, but far behind meats in several, the NPU of Soy is ~60, while eggs are 94, the PER of Soy is even further behind 2.0-2.2 compared to 3.8 for egg. There are also other reasons why I would not eat unfermented soy as noted before.
-Cliff

Soy is way behind eggs in one important way:

Soy - Cholesterol: 0
1 Egg - Cholesterol: 213 mg

With the #1 and #3 leading causes of death in the USA being heart desease and strokes, it is hard to justify meat, egg and dairy as the primary sources for obtaining protein. Sharply reducing cholesterol and saturated fat intake and regular exercise will do more for our health than a load of protein that is far in excess of the RDA's.

As for the PER, NPU, BV, and PDCAAS debate, I think the November 2000 cover story of Food Product Design about nutritional and beneficial ingredients provides a good explanation:

"Providing structure and nutrition

When it comes to ingredients that contribute to the basic structure and texture of a food application, protein ingredients rank high in importance. The food scientist can find a range of protein-based ingredients with their origins from either plants or animals. Plant sources of protein ingredients often include wheat, soy, rice and oats. The main animal sources used for functional food ingredients are milk and eggs. Much of the recent news on the nutritional benefits of proteins has focused on the ingredients derived from milk, soy and egg.

The ingredients derived from these sources have similar functionalities in food applications, such as gel formation, emulsification, whippability, water-binding and solubility. Each ingredient performs these at varying levels. Egg white tends to afford the best whipping, while soy proteins bind water well, whey proteins are highly soluble and caseins make good emulsifiers.

Nutritionally, they all provide good sources of protein, so depending on finished product requirements, they can increase a product’s protein quotient. They all measure up a little differently depending on the type of protein-quality scoring method used: biological value (BV), protein efficiency ratio (PER), net protein utilization (NPU), protein digestibility or protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS). The PDCAAS tends to be used most frequently in the food industry. While the other methods are based on the growth of rats, the PDCAAS compares the amino-acid composition of a dietary protein with a reference amino-acid pattern, assumed to reflect humans’ nutritional requirements. If 100% of the amino-acid requirements are met in the diet, the PDCAAS score is 1.00. Egg white, casein and soy protein isolate score a 1.00; whey proteins actually exceed this score."

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/arc...00/1100cs.html

[CliffStamp]

Originally Posted by vegan

Soy is way behind eggs in one important way:

Soy - Cholesterol: 0
1 Egg - Cholesterol: 213 mg

High levels of undamaged cholesterol from diet is a problem for 1/1000 people, the others regulate it without concern, the vast majority of cholesterol (80-90%) is produced by the body.

Saturated fat intake has never been shown to have any serious positive correlation with heart disease. If anything it prevents it. Saturated fat intake has decreased massively over the last 100 years yet the rates of heart disease keep rising.

If you go back 100 years ago before low fat products you will find little if any evidence of coronary blockages, people ate lots of saturated fats, cooking with lard and eating lots of butter and cream.

Heart disease is strongly linked to refined carbohydrates which cause huge insulin spikes creating thickening of the artery walls and an imbalance in cholesterol levels as well as many other serious problems.

The studies done showing a positive correlation on fats and cholesterol to heart disease (Ancel Keys) heavily selected the data to include the ones showing a positive correlation and ignored the ones that showed a negative one (Italians, French, Inuit, etc. .).

If you think that saturated fats and cholesterol are bad for you, then you might want to rethink fruits because fructose is transforemd by the liver directly into saturated fats (in the form of triglycerides) and cholesterol. Yet no one makes the arguements that fruits cause heart disease.

Fruits don't cause heart disease of course as neither does saturated fat and cholesterol which is good because they are both naturally made by your body in responce to eating foods even which do not contain either of them as they are both essential for life.

Raw cholesterol levels are of no consequence, what does matter are the HDL/LDL levels (specifically too much LDL), the amount of oxidized cholesterol, the lp(a) levels, free radical activity, low levels of essential fatty acids and the derivaties, etc. .

Though I would agree of course that exercise is in general positive, and that a lot of people eat far more protein than necessary.

-Cliff

[Lady C]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

Saturated fat intake has never been shown to have any serious positive correlation with heart disease. If anything it prevents it.

I don't know where you are getting this information but saturated fat DOES contribute to hardening of the aerteries and heart disease. There is plenty of information supporting this.