What I’m learning…

• Insulin manages the body’s blood / sugar level.
• It acts as a transport for nutrients – pushes them directly into the muscles or fat cells.
• The negative of Insulin is that it can transport nutrients to muscles if they muscles are willing to accept them.
• On the flipside, it automatically shuts down fat burning – meaning any surplus carbs that induced the insulin spike – if not utilized by muscles – will go into fat storage.
• This means timing is vital.
• Muscles are most receptive after you’ve been destroying them after a hard weights workout. Best to create an insulin spike right after the workout.
• That insulin spike should be supported by protein so that it’s shoveled directly into the muscles.
• A liquid drink immediately following the workout would spike and get protein to the muscles faster… then a whole food meal about 30 mins later. Potentially with another whole food meal about 60-90 minutes after that.
• The peak period of muscle willingness is 3 hours post workout – this should be leveraged.
• The body can’t differentiate between a small candy bar, or a large meal – so the insulin spike remains the same, no matter how large or small the original ignition was.
• Stick with pasta, rice, potatoes, oatmeal, and other classic bodybuilding sources of carbs, and you’ll probably hit the mark pretty well.

One recommendation I’ve read about:

• Have a high carb & protein shake immediately after the workout.
• For me – at 165lbs – I should have about 35-40g of carbs immediately post workout.
• Whey protein should account for about 40-50g.
• Liquid is best immediately after the workout, as it’ll prime the muscles. About 30 or so mins later, another boost of whole foods with the same concentration (40g carbs, 50g protein). Whole foods are recommended for the remaining meals.

Sidenote: in reading Precision Nutrition, they recommend men to have about 60g of protein on each sitting. Adding another 10g may be tough, but not impossible.

One option that’s been recommended, is that you have about 40-50% of your daily intake in the 3 hours immediately after training. So the shake, and then meal. We can probably also include the pre- and during-workout shakes here too. But that’s me wondering – rather than noting from specifics.

Summary:

• You want a significant insulin spike immediately after training.
• The benefits of training last 3 hours after training – this is the window to pack as much protein and muscle building nutrients into the system as possible.
• After the workout, immediately have a shake high is simple carbs (30-40g), protein (50-60g) and creatine.
• 30 mins after the workout, have whole foods that match the same criteria as above (minus creatine).
• 90-120 mins after, have an additional whole foods meal that also matches the same criteria (minus creatine).

I’ve got excerpts from the references after the break…

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/max_insulin_response.htm

Therefore, it does not let its blood sugar levels drop too low or become to high. The glucose is transported to muscle tissue and fat cells, lowering blood sugar levels. This is where insulin becomes very important tobodybuilders. Insulin is very anabolic because it increases the body’s ability to uptake amino acids.² It is believed that the best times to create an insulin spike is when you wake up and after a workout.

This is because your insulin sensitivity is highest at these times.² To create an insulin spike, a food with a high GI rating is needed. An example of this would be honey. Eating honey, along with your protein shake, will cause an insulin spike and bring glucose to your muscles and increase your amino acid uptake.

Insulin has also been shown to stop protein breakdown after a workout.⁶ So insulin replenishes glycogen storage, increases amino acid uptake, and stops protein breakdown.

http://www.teenbodybuilding.com/derek20.htm

However, it is important to understand that the mere presence of insulin does not only promote muscle cell anabolism, it promotes cell anabolism in general. Therefore, if your muscles are not ready to take in the nutrients because they are saturated with glycogen or the physiological environment is not right, adipose cells will always welcome the addition of stored energy.

If your blood insulin level is high insulin will push the protein into the muscle cells. Insulin has the ability to drive protein and carbohydrates into muscle tissue, but the consumption of protein alone will not stimulate insulin secretion.

Whey protein will provide the bloodstream with a quick surge of amino acids, which is needed immediately following training. Research shows that in a state of low blood insulin, whey protein will be used as energy.

The best type of carbohydrate at this time should come in the form of a liquid. When trying to get blood insulin levels elevated using a juice containing a high sucrose to fructose ratio is preferable. Grape, orange, or tangerine juices are a few examples of liquid carbohydrates that fit this description⁵.

Your SECOND Post-Workout Meal

Consumption of the second post training meal should be conducted about 30 minutes following the initial liquid mixture of carbohydrates and protein. The second meal should be low in fat, to speed gastric emptying, and contain easily absorbed carbohydrates along with a lean source of protein.

The second meal is similar to the first meal in macronutrient composition; however, the food choices are slightly different. At this time the best carbohydrate choiceswould be a baked potato, steamed white rice, cooked grits, or pasta.

The second meal should be in the form of solid food. The second meal could be a grilled chicken/fish with rice or a serving ofmeat sauce, made with a lean source of meat, over pasta. Consuming this meal assures that the amino acids from the whey, which was consumed in the first meal will be used for muscle anabolism and not the restoration of blood glucose⁵.

This meal should not be too large in content. Research shows that cellular anabolic mechanisms remain accelerated for up to three hours following intense resistance training³.

There are still 21 hours remaining in the day and the style of eating that should be followed is drastically different than what occurred in the latter phase of the ANTF.

The bulk of the remaining portion of the diet will be built on fibrous vegetables and sources of lean protein. Fibrous vegetables supply the body withvitamins and minerals.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/pierce34.htm

What the body does.

By now one would think that the body would recognize its mistake pretty quickly and correct itself, but this is the part where you sort of get it in the shorts – it won’t! At least not for a while! So, to sum it up, you get a sudden blast of sugar in your system, and Insulin is released to protect you from it. The Insulin grabs all the sugar and shoves it into the muscles (who doesn’t like it), shuts off the Fatburn-switch, and turns on the Fat Storage-switch.

But since what the body thought was a major load of food really turned out to be only meek little candy bar, there IS no surplus to handle after that initial blast of sugar ended, so you end up with an empty stomach and even lower blood sugar levels. Normally the body would compensate for this by tapping some stored fat, BUT? The ever-helpful Mr.Insulin made sure to turn that switch off, so what does the body have left? Protein. More specifically – MUSCLE protein. If you shudder as you start seeing what I’m getting at, please keep doing it. You should.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/matt55.htm