Originally Posted by
Marsoc
I been trying to learn more about the sugar and carbs I eat all day..refresh what I've leaned since I'm getting back into this again. So from what I've learned and to maximize the benefits of both GH and insulin. To begin, you should understand that during sleep, you'll eventually metabolize all of the food you've eaten and your blood glucose levels will drop. Over the next few hours, you'll re-align your endocrine system based upon what you did during the day. By the time you're getting ready to wake up, growth hormone will have been secreted in its largest pulse, and ghrelin (the hunger control hormone) will be high; your stomach will be telling you to wake up and eat something. Ghrelin stimulates production of cortisol to raise your blood pressure, make you more sensitive to epinephrine, free up energy throughout the body, and turn on gluconeogenesis to get some sugar to your brain. Cortisol levels will gradually decrease as you break down glycogen in your liver and muscles and before you know it, you'll go through the whole cycle again; ghrelin levels will peak and you'll get a small burst of growth hormone.
By skipping (really just delaying) breakfast and allowing your blood sugar (as well as your hormone balance) regulate on its own, you've set up a chain reaction. Although you've already maximized recovery and mobilized a bunch of fat by riding out the cortisol spike (cortisol is, after all, an anti-inflammatory), you're now in control of your metabolism and you can go in one of two directions: towards fat loss and muscle gain, or growth of both fat and muscle tissue. This is the perfect time to have your first meal and make your decision (I think I know which one you'll pick.) By keeping the carbs (and thus insulin) low, eating a healthy dose of fat and a modest amount of protein, you will turn on protein synthesis, mobilize fat, promote ketogenesis and maximize growth hormone secretion throughout the morning and afternoon. You'll actually be using your body fat as energy to maintain or grow muscle. Whatever glucose your brain needs to do whatever it's got to do, it will have available thanks to endogenous production in the liver. You'll actually be using your body fat as energy to maintain or grow muscle. You could, alternatively, disregard the benefits of a low carb breakfast and have a big bowl of oatmeal with some bananas. It's up to you!
When the evening rolls around and it's getting dark, blood leptin levels will be at their lowest, and you should be ready to relax. While it may be time for you to rest, it's time to grab hold of your metabolism and get that sucker moving again, and the best way to do it is to start eating carbohydrates to generate a surge of insulin. It's important that you're eating enough glucose along with your protein and fat; fructose will not do, as it skips the stages of glycolysis that actually elicit an insulin response in the pancreas. Sweet potatoes, bananas, and rice are your best friend. By sticking with these classics, you'll turn on a downstream effect that will result in your fat cells signaling that they're full; leptin secretion will peak, your pituitary gland will release serotonin (which will convert into melatonin, the "sleep" hormone) and you'll pass out happy and satiated. Since you kept your food choices low carb throughout the day, you'll be insulin sensitive and ready to soak up the glucose. By eating high glycemic and delivered the insulin spike in one fell swoop, your blood sugar levels will fall quickly during sleep. Before too long, the growth hormone bursts will begin, but they'll be augmented by the insulin spike and subsequent drop of blood sugar levels below baseline.
What about Exercise? The Best of Both Worlds
If exercise increases GH but eating carbs spikes insulin levels, how can we justify eating a ton of carbohydrates after training? Don't we want to take advantage of the growth hormone pulse? Of course we do, but since growth hormone levels spike and then quickly diminish, by the time you get home and you're ready to have your post work-out meal, they will have returned to baseline. You have to remember that post-workout, your muscles don't necessarily depend upon insulin to translocate nutrients; glucose transporters will have moved to the surface of the cell and you'll get the sugar/water in without elevating insulin levels. If performance and growth are at the top of your list of desirable training outcomes, you should try to have a protein/carb shake immediately after (or even during) your workout. This shouldn't be anything crazy: 25-50g of carbs from maltodextrin/dextrose, 5g of creatine and 10g of protein will work better than chugging a gallon Gatorade while you squat, so don't go off the deep end.
When examining the complex relationships between hormones and how they affect our physiology, it may seem like you can't win. Jacking up either GH or insulin may result in a quick surge of growth, but as soon as they peak, they're back to normal...Or lower. As frustrating as that may seem, dipping below baseline will usually result in a super-compensatory reaction; a large insulin spike in the evening will equate to larger GH spikes throughout the day, after training, and during sleep. In contrast, you'll see greater insulin sensitivity and utilization of glucose in the evening if you let you GH handle the anabolism in the morning and throughout the night. What seems like counterproductive behavior at first may be the ticket to where you want to go. It is possible to get the best of both worlds if you deploy intelligent strategies to your daily nutrition, sleep and exercise.
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