In recent years, low-carbon diet has become more and more popular, and many low-carbon diet fitness enthusiasts have appeared abroad, such as ketogenic fitness men, such as the following:
Related reading → What is the healthiest and most effective way to gain muscle and reduce fat?
I believe many people are counting on ketone to lose weight at first. Now, many people begin to recognize its weight loss effect.
But many people will worry about its muscle-building effect, and even think that low-carbon may lose muscle.
In today's article, I am not here to advise muscle builders not to eat carbohydrates, but to give you a new perspective. Let's discuss this problem:
Can't you gain muscle without eating carbonated water? Or, how can you gain muscle without eating carbohydrates?
I have written several articles about low-carbon muscle building before, and I have also shared with you some foreign bloggers who make ketone and build muscle. Today, I will take you to learn more.
Can you gain muscle by not eating carbohydrates?
According to the traditional muscle building theory, muscle building needs carbohydrates and insulin, which is beneficial to muscle synthesis.
In fact, insulin is really beneficial to muscle synthesis, but it is not the most important.
For muscle building, protein intake is more important than insulin, because amino acids are necessary for muscle building, such as leucine and BCAA.
Most people will choose to take protein (animal protein is better) after training, because it is beneficial to muscle synthesis. If you add a few grams of leucine, the effect will be better.
So, is it necessary to supplement carbohydrates after training? This is the first question we will discuss.
Increasing carbohydrates, blood sugar and insulin can promote muscle synthesis, which is a theory that we have always believed. But what happens if you don't eat carbohydrates after training?
→ carbohydrate supplement and no carbohydrate supplement after training.
I will share two studies with you.
In the first study, the researchers compared two groups of trainers and conducted the same training. ①
The first group: only supplemented with protein (25 whey protein).
Group 2: protein (25g whey protein) and carbohydrate (50g) were supplemented.
Their muscle synthesis and muscle decomposition were compared.
It is found that increasing carbohydrates and stimulating insulin can not increase muscle synthesis or decomposition.
Conclusion: Our data show that when CHO is co-ingested with a certain dose of protein which can stimulate the incidence of MPS to the maximum, there is no cumulative or synergistic effect of insulin on the incidence of MPS or MPB.
The second study. ②
The researchers randomly divided 10 healthy men into three groups and compared their muscle growth.
The conclusion is similar. In the case of adequate intake of protein, carbohydrate supplementation can not promote muscle synthesis.
When taking enough protein, the co-intake of carbohydrates during recovery will not further stimulate the synthesis of muscle protein after exercise.
These two research results give us three messages, which I will summarize for you:
1, enough protein, enough muscle synthesis (insulin stimulation).
2. You can synthesize enough muscles without supplementing carbohydrates.
3. Supplementing carbohydrates when protein is sufficient does not increase muscle synthesis.