How to Build Muscle

Alright guys, I’ll admit it.  I’m vain.  I would like to be bigger.  Maybe not Arnold big, but I would like to add a few more pounds to my 5’ 10” frame.  However, many people struggle with the herculean task of adding muscle mass, and for many there doesn’t seem to be any solution.  Any one who has looked into the topic knows that there are a few basics you need to follow: Lift heavy weights often, and EAT!  These two things will get people on the right track, and they should be able to add a considerable amount of muscle, especially if they are new to weight training. 

Yet, these two suggestions are somewhat vague, especially the eating part.  Some people will tell you just to eat everything in sight, and gain as much weight as possible then after the weight is put on you can look at cutting down on the fat you have gained.  Who really wants to get fat like that though? 

Another question people have about the eating part is how much protein should they eat?  While getting in enough energy to grow through healthy fats and whole food carbohydrate sources such as potatoes is certainly needed, protein remains kind of an anomaly in the diet for many.  If we follow what the body builders have been preaching for half a century or more we would think that the way to put on weight is to consume massive amounts of protein 8 times a day or more!  Another question mark is when to consume this protein, especially around a workout.  Well the science in this particular area has come a long a way in the past decade or so, and since a friend asked me many of these questions and more a week ago, I thought I should dig into the research to see if my own thoughts on the subject were valid, or if I needed to revise some of them.

The Central Problem of Gaining Muscle: Net Protein Balance

Ummm, that was a hoax, right?

Well people are talking, so I'll talk back.  Have your heard about these Raspberry ketones that Dr. Oz is making famous?  Someone in my 400 level nutrition class asked about these today, and I had already looked into them this week after first hearing about them on Monday or Tuesday.

They are supposedly a "magical" fat burner, and Dr. Oz is apparently pretty high on them.  Also, stores can't keep these bad boys in stock!  But is there really any science to back this holy grail of fat burning up?

No.

Brain evolution: Was it all cooking?

I have seen this new article about how metabolism affected brain evolution emerge in several places this week (1).  I think it is, for the most part, a great article, and would recommend it to any one with interest in this area.  Anything with math usually gets my attention, and this article uses math to support its hypothesis in an easy to understand way.  However, I am not sure that I can fully support the conclusions the authors, and many others, have come to about how their data relates to cooking.

If we take a closer look at the article we can see that the main point being made is that there is simply not enough time in a day to take in enough energy to support both a large body and a large brain.  They make the point that the human brain accounts for only 2% of body weight, but consumes 20% of our energy.  Another interesting fact they have is that for every billion neurons we have we need to consume about 6kcal to fuel them.  Using this data they hypothesize that if we were to eat the same diet as our great ape relatives, we would have to spend over 9 hours every day eating to get enough energy to support our brains and body.  Do any of you spend  9 hours eating?  I didn't think so.

This eating constraint is the real result of the paper, and not the ways we overcame it.  It is in the discussion they discuss reasons why we, as early humans, were able to overcome the constraint and develop our large brains.  To quote the authors:

"such a metabolic limitation was overcome in the human lineage by the advent of cooking food, which greatly increases the caloric yield of the diet, as a result of the greater ease of chewing, digestion, and absorption of foods"

However, I think a lot of other adaptations were taking place in early humans that allowed us to develop our brains. I have written before about how important fat is a brain fuel, and when we switched from the herbivorous diet of our great ape relatives into one that included more animal products we also started consuming more fat.  Let's review our basic nutrition facts quick: Carbohydrate=4 kcal/g Fat=9 kcal/g.  For every one hour we spend eating fat we gain over twice the amount of energy.

I think our reliance on fat as a primary source of energy was probably more important than our adoption of cooking.  This doesn't mean we can throw out cooking, I do believe that cooking played an important role in making us distinctly human.  I just don't think that it was the sole, or even largest, factor in our transformation like these authors seem too.  Again, I think I think this is a great article, I just wanted to provide some food for thought for those of you who have read this article or have seen it popping up around the web!

Cholesterol Esters: The Real "Bad" Cholesterol?

Ah cholesterol, the much vilified nutrient!  If we listen to most of the traditional nutrition and health information out there we are forced to think that cholesterol is extremely bad for us and should be avoided at all costs.  However, as many of you may know already, cholesterol is essential for human life.  It is a major component of all of our cellular membranes and is the precursor to many hormones we need (1).

Also frequently mentioned are the different types of cholesterol, the so-called “bad” cholesterol, LDL, and the “good” cholesterol HDL.  However, calling these two transport molecules cholesterol is really a misnomer, as they are complexes containing many different types of proteins, fatty acids, and only a portion of it is actual cholesterol.  These two molecules have different functions in our body, and can come in a variety of sizes.  However, labeling them “good” and “bad” cholesterol is incorrect and misleading.

So is there actually a “bad” form of cholesterol?  I have already said that cholesterol is essential for life, but there is a type of cholesterol that does appear to be bad for us.  This type of cholesterol is cholesterol esters, which is just a cholesterol molecule attached (esterified) to a fatty acid. Not all cholesterol esters are equal though, ones that are attached to polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) appear to be the most dangerous.