Wanted to hear everybody’s thoughts on the recent interview with Brian Batcheldor.
It restricts calories when metabolism is highest, increases them when metabolism slows down–what does this mean for fat loss and muscle gain?
It saves most carbs for a time of the day when insulin sensitivity decreases.
How useful are all those amino acids for anabolism after your body has burned the proteins for energy?
If you were trying to gain weight, with a cap on protein, you’d have to add carb and fat calories, and you’d be eating them in a couple meals with only about 25 grams of protein. Sounds like a recipe for fat deposition.
I’m trying to understand his approach. Can anyone help educate me?
To me this plan kind of sounds like the warrior diet. As I recall this diet only worked for some people and wasn’t overly successful. I am slao wondering if this diet leaves room for adequete pre and post work out nutrition. The amount of protein you need to satisfy John Berardi’s pre and post workout drink concepts seems like it would be hard to mesh with that one huge bolus of protein in the middle of the day.
Does sound a little Warrior like, but Serrano and Berardi also prescribe the bulk of the carbs after the workout. As with the Warrior diet, I wonder about how to fit in the extra calories for hypertrophy.
I bet his atheletes start out rather lean.
I’d like to see Brian post a couple of case studies from his trainees, showing amount LBM, change in body fat and muscle and daily caloric intake (and where in general those carbs come from).
I’m a little confused with the value of this approach too, guys…I guess one thing I look to “Testosterone” for is to keep us on “the leading edge” of Nutrition and Resistance Training. So…maybe I’ll reserve judgement when there is a little more “real world” experience by people.
Here’s what Lyle McDonald had to say: “I’ve read the studies and while it worked for old
women, it didn’t work for younger women. I think it’s a mistake to apply protein pulse feeding to weight trainers, especially because
protein synthesis is taking place from the end of training until at least the 36 hour mark. Far better to take in your protein in semi-divided doses through that period. The protein pulse feeding looked good on paper but I think it’ll fail in the real world.”
Have you ever seen wat Lyle looks like in person? Massive,no, dimunitive, yes. However his grasp of the scientific data is good as protein pulse feeding hasn’t really been studied in lifters, but in old women. Though one should consider that the info provided in the article is applicable to our lives by us pushes our older Moms and Grandmoms to protein pulse feed rather than their current diets.
But the article pointed out more studies with younger women. And Batcheldor does want people to eat protein every three hours, just smaller quantities toward the end of the day.
What intrigues me about this approach is that it concentrates amino acids in the bloodstream in the two times they’re actually anabolic, upon waking and after the workout. Maybe the smaller protein meals are all the body needs to inhibit catabolism.
I used the same data in the “protein conspiracy” article to support my idea of consuming half of your daily protein intake at one time (post workout) and then spread the rest out evenly. It worked then, it works now, but it’s suited better for certain goals than others…as is just about any “diet” program.
Cy, what would you say the main strength of pulse protein feedings is? Where would you use it in a years bulking/cutting cycle? It seems to contradict most things I have learned about nutrition, but I would be willing to give it an honest go.
But I guess what verybody wants to know is what this goal is that it’s best suited for. Fat loss (Batcheldor mentions that a couple of times in the article), muscle gain, or just keeping your muscle mass and performance while coming off steroids?
You could use it for dieting or “bulking” but I think it’s better suited for dieting. A few years ago I would have said that it’s the best for both, until John Berardi had shown me his data on post workout nutrition. Since then, I think that when your goal is to gain as much muscle as possible, then his idea is the best approach to your macronutrient intake after the workout. When you’re dieting and I mean severely dieting, I like my approach more.
ok. what if you are training 3 times a day on some days and 2 times a day on others.
like running in the morning,lifting in the afternoon, and muaythai at night.would you just do post workout nutrition after each workout with protein feedings in between?
I’d suggest only using it after your weight training. The only thing you may want to do after the other activities is ingest some carbs to replenish glycogen stores. Using Surge afer “swimming” or playing tennis is a joke if you ask me. What I’m saying is that you don’t need something as specific as surge after performing dynamic exercises…it’s better suited for weight training.
For some reason the link didn’t post so here is an abstract. The study shows that the spread pattern was actually superior to the pulse for young wome.:
J Nutr 2000 Jul;130(7):1700-4
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Protein feeding pattern does not affect protein retention in young women.
Arnal MA, Mosoni L, Boirie Y, Houlier ML, Morin L, Verdier E, Ritz P,
Antoine JM, Prugnaud J,Beaufrere B, Mirand PP.
Unite d’Etude du Metabolisme Azote, Institut National de la Recherche
Agronomique et Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine,
Clermont-Ferrand-Theix, France.
This study was undertaken to determine whether a pulse protein feeding
pattern was more efficient than a spread pattern to improve protein
anabolism in young women as was already shown in elderly women. After a
15-d adaptive period [1.2 g protein/(kg fat-free mass. d)], 16 young
women (age 26 +/- 1 y) were given a 14-d diet
providing 1.7 g protein/(kg fat-free mass. d), using either a pulse
pattern (protein consumed mainly in one meal, n = 8), or a spread
pattern (spreading daily protein intake over four meals, n = 8).
Nitrogen balance was .determined at the end of both the 15-d adaptive
and the 14-d experimental periods. Whole-body protein turnover was
determined at the end of the 14-d experimental period using
[(15)N]glycine as an oral tracer. Nitrogen balance was 17 +/- 5 mg N/(kg
fat-free mass. d) during the adaptive period. It was higher during the
experimental period, but not significantly different in the women fed
the spread or the pulse patterns [59 +/- 12and 36 +/- 8 mg N/(kg
fat-free mass. d) respectively]. No significant effects of the protein
feeding pattern were detected on either whole-body protein turnover [5.5
+/- 0.2 vs. 6.1 +/- 0.3 g protein/(kg fat-free mass. d) for spread and
pulse pattern, respectively] or whole-body protein synthesis and protein
breakdown. Thus, in young women, these protein feeding patterns did not
have significantly different effects on protein retention.