1) Body Wellness: Muscle Protein Synthesis and The Benefits of Eating 4 Times a Day

Have been learning a lot about physical health and wellness, although I learned it inefficiently and in fragments which had to be pieced together. As a mason it is important to take care of my body to maximize performance and increase longevity given the extremity of some of the conditions of Restoration and Repair Masonry.

I can't definitively say what is the foremost in importance, but it is between maintaining mobility and receiving proper nutrition. Let's start with nutrition. I discovered recently that having 4 meals that trigger Muscle Protein Synthesis a day as opposed to the typical 3 meals that are eaten in a day is a great thing for when you miss a meal. How often do you miss a meal and it's awful and it makes you feel bad and ruins hours of your life? Well, the first thing with having 4 Anabolic trigger meals is that if I sleep in and miss breakfast it doesn't kill my weight and instead of having to feel terrible or mess up my schedule, I can just skip breakfast and count the time as a fast; of which I can break with exercise, increasing Human Growth Hormone in my body by up to 800%.

You'll have to forgive me, because, as I said, I learned this all in fragments, just the worst way to have to learn this stuff, don't even know where to start. Let's start with Protein > Amino Acids> Leucine> "Anabolic Trigger"> Muscle Protein Synthesis. In a follow up post, we will talk about Fat's, Carbs, ATP, ADP and the elctrolytes needed for your muscles to function.

Protein, we all know protein, commonly found in meat and some nuts and plants. Protein is made up of Amino Acids which are the fundamental building block of the protein. The human body cannot create these, they must be consumed. Of the Amino Acids, one is Leucine which consists of 7-12% of a gram of protein. It has been found that a body responds to a large dose of protein by saturating an "Anabolic Trigger" with 2.5 - 4 grams of Leucine, commonly referred to as "crossing the leucine threshold". Once you have crossed the Leucine threshold your body will start Muscle Protein Synthesis, which is the process of fixing, repairing and rebuilding muscle. This is said to peak around 90 minutes after ingestion.

The important data for this portion of conversation is the "Refractory period", which is how it was positioned to me. Once the leucine threshold has been crossed by ingesting 2.5 - 4 grams of Leucine, which is roughly 25 - 40 grams of protein, your body must come back to a baseline level before the "Anabolic Trigger" can be activated again. Study's show that it can be 2.5 to 3 hours or more for this to happen and the problem is that if you eat protein before allowing your "Anabolic trigger" to reset, you will not trigger Muscle Protein Synthesis with new ingestion. This means that you can eat 180g of protein in a day and only trigger Muscle Protein Synthesis via crossing the Leucine threshold once. The simplest conclusion is to space out your eatiing into meals that are separated by 4 hours or more. This ensures that the protein being consumed is achieving maximum benefit for your body. This also opens up the door for high carb and healthy fat snacks.

I myself started with a schedule of 7am - 11am/12pm - 3pm/4pm - and one last meal at 8pm. This gives plenty of time in between meals. The important thing, this guarantees that Muscle Protein Synthesis is activated and if I sleep through breakfast, I can count it as a fast and increase my Human Growth Hormone production by waiting for my next meal. The best part about it is that I am still getting 3 meal sized portions of protein a day. So, missing breakfast isn't blowing my gains, my weight or even ruining my day.

Let's talk briefly about the fasting and the increased Human Growth Hormone production. There are 11 hours between 8pm and 7am. Now, I found that it is best to be up an hour before 7am, so I roll out of bed and hit a 15 minute exercise, wake up, lick some salt, grab a bottle of water and do some HIIT or other High Intensity exercise. To increase Human Growth Hormone with fasting and exercise, you end the fast by exercising and then ingest an anabolic trigger amount of protein 45 minutes later. The longer you fast, the higher the Human Growth Hormone boost will be. Although the intesity of the workout matters, the exercise can only get so intense. By fasting that 11 hours every night Human Growth Hormone is increased by up to 500%, while fasting 12 - 16 hours, like when I miss or skip breakfast can lead to 800% levels of Human Growth hormone.

My first year having this business for myself I started off the year at 190lbs coming back from vacation at Key West. By the end of that year I was 155lbs and it was not healthy. Somewhere between fatigue, exercise from the work and the intesity of the labor I just didn't even want to eat as much and it just started slipping away from me. Last year I really wanted to hit 175, because I was at my best at 175lbs, but I only made 170.... let me say this, I was not happy with last year at all and have made a lot of changes; starting with my dieting habits. So now here we are, having made a change to eating 4 "Anabolic Trigger meals" (meals that have over 30g of protein in them) a day to maximize Muscle Protein Synthesis for recovery, growth and health.

So, my inspiration for this blog and this blog post was the benefit of the day for eating 4 meals instead of 3 being that if I miss breakfast or lunch, it isn't too harsh of an adjustment to wait until my next scheduled meal time. The most important benefit, hence the existence of the situation to begin with is the activation of Muscle Protein Synthesis 4 times a day. This is up from 3 that is most commonly had without even knowing it and well up from the potential that an individual might only trigger Muscle Protein Synthesis 1 time per day by not allowing for the Lecine Trigger to reset. Eating 4 times a day also helps keep your body supplied with nutrients and energy for physical activity and recovery. Now, if you have an office job, it might be harder to cross the leucine threshold and you might want to make sure that you are getting the exercise to support the increased caloric intake of 4 Anabolic Trigger meals a day. A great part about being a Restoration and Repair Mason is that I am like an athletic performer, I really get the highest qualiity exercise available and I can get it for 12 hours or more some days. As opposed to someone who could use less calories for fuel eating 4 Anabolic Trigger meals a day helps in hitting goals in the amount of protein, carbs and fats that I should consume.

When I was a Journeyman my first year I was having 21g of protein for breakfast, a 20g of protein snack at 9am and then maybe cross the leucine threshold for lunch at 12pm. Then we come into the second problem, although there was enough time in between protein intake to allow the Anabolic Trigger to reset, I would then at 3:30 only consume 20g of protein. At the end of the day I would eat a whole pound of beef for dinner, but I would only trigger Muscle Protein Synthesis twice. Given the physical nature of what I do for a living, maximizing Muscle Protein Synthesis is a no brainer and I would encourage it for anyone who performs physically on a daily basis.

Further important considerations, making sure you have your electrolytes balanced and that you have quality stores of ATP. As I mentiaoned, I will talk about this in another blog post. As for now, data says that the perfect meal is 60% carbs, 25% fats and 15% protein, you have quick carbs, slow carbs, healthy fats, unhealthy fats, whey protiens and caisin proteins, but I suppose we can explore that later too.... trying to wrap this up, as I said, I learned this in the worst way, so... trying to put it all together and wrap it up here. Well, ummmmmm, If you decided to move from 3 meals a day to 4 I would foremost recommend adjusting the carbs and fats in accordance from the typical 60%, 25% and 15% as the protein needed to cross the Leucine threshold is at minimum 25 grams, but safely around 30 - 35 grams. Keeping carbs at 60% and fats at 25% would require quite the physical demand and you might still gain weight.

I pose that even if you weren't in it for Muscle Protein Synthesis, simply dispersing your carbs and meals out over 4 hours as opposed to eating larger 3 times a day might even out sharp up's and downs associated with eating 3 meals a day. Giving better energy distribution throught the day. I myself am higher in protein, low in fat and at about 50% carbs, maybe 50% carbs 40% protein 10% fat. I also started blending vegetables and fruits and consuming these beverages in between anabolic meals as carb only snacks to help with energy and hydration. Important, make sure to add a pinch of salt. I could just go on and on and on, let's end this here.

Stay Healthy.

God Bless, peace and love,

Craig Lamach