Nitrogen and Dieting and Macro...understanding that less is not always better.

[Chicagotarsier]

Unable to do serious weight training while on holiday my free downtime was spent reading and becoming an amateur expert on Nitrogen Balance and Dieting.

First: What brought me to researching this?

Many changes have occured for the past 3 + months on TRT....the one that is obvious to the eye is Nitrogen content of the muscle. My reading has brought me to realize that all the hard work pre TRT that made no progress on my lean mass fell short because low testosterone actually funnels Nitrogen AWAY from the muscles (ie it uses protein for actual energy production). This is bad...perpetual catabolic state eating what little muscle I (you) have. So while enjoying my new found muscle development something odd happened this week....I lost my muscle pump. For the first time since my TRT began my muscles were not pumped and I was feeling very run down. My search for WTF began.

Second: My Hypothesis started with over training as my initial theory. So much being said about working too many days without enough rest kept running through my mind. I reviewed my record and it did not seem to me as "too much". 1.5- 2 hours a day on free weights with a 2 hour nap and then 3 hours + in the pool M-F with 10 hours of sleep nightly and weekends off (completely). After passing it by a few trainers they all said the chances of seeing negative effects from over training with my TDEE calculations were small to none. They have people older than me that do 3 hours on weights and 5+ hours cardio at their jobs and have no issues. But one trainer dropped me a clue for my next theory.

My Protein intake is pretty frigging high running a 60-20-20 macro. In all honesty I am NOT concerned with LBM gains at this time (I do want them but I am not going to cry if they are slow at this point.....the ultimate goal is fat reduction on my person) however the reaction my muscles showed me made me feel like something was heading in the wrong direction entirely. Thursday I ate my macro with no training and all rest...no change. Friday ate my macro with an over in protien by 1000 calories...no change. At this point I stopped taking my metformin to test my appetite and see what I wanted (mother nature usually hints us if we listen). I ate 300 G of ribeye and at no point did my body celebrate. I then ate a big salad with bacon on it and still...no celebration (I assumed the carbs in the onions and greens covered the carb side of things and the bacon the fat side). Walking home with my gf to the room my emotion was one of dead end....then the miracle of pizza hit me. One sniff of pizza and my body went ape crazy. Ordered a large and took it back to the room. On the second piece entering my mouth my body temp shot up (starting sweating) and almost visually the pump to my muscles returned.

Conclusion: I was negative nitrogen and catabolic. Period. Changing my macro for this upcoming week to 50 20 30 Protein, fat, carb and see how that floats my boat. So to summarize Nitrogen Balance here is my best effort at plagiarism....

There Are Three Basic States Of Nitrogen Balance

Positive: This is the optimal state for muscle growth - where the nitrogen intake is greater than nitrogen output. Essentially, it shows the body has sufficiently recovered from its last workout. The greater the nitrogen balance, the faster is workout recovery. This is the body's anabolic state.

Negative: This is the worst state a bodybuilder can find themselves in - where nitrogen loss is greater than nitrogen intake. Not only is nitrogen drawn away from muscle, where it is needed for growth, it is also taken from the vital organs where serious damage can occur. Of course, negative nitrogen balance also destroys muscle and is consequently considered a catabolic state.

Equilibrium: This state should be what a bodybuilder might achieve at the very minimum - where nitrogen intake and loss are equal. The trainer in this state is not regressing, nor are they really gaining any appreciable muscle.

Here is the initial study on carbs that led me to a 60-20-20 macro:

Macronutrient content of a hypoenergy diet ... [Int J Sports Med. 1988] - PubMed - NCBI

Weight lifters (WL) attempt to achieve a low body fat while maintaining fat free mass (FFM) and muscle function. Body composition and isometric muscular endurance were tested in 19 experienced male WL at the end of a weight maintenance and exercise routine standardization week. The subjects were assigned to either a control (C), moderate-protein (0.8 g.kg-1.d-1), high-carbohydrate hypoenergy diet (MP/HC), or high-protein (1.6 g.kg-1.d-1), moderate-carbohydrate hypoenergy diet (HP/MC). Both hypoenergy diets provided 75.3 kJ (18 kcal).kg-1.d-1. Apparent nitrogen balance (NBAL) was assessed using nitrogen in the diet, urine, and sweat. Body fat and FFM loss via hydrostatic weighing were not different between the hypoenergy groups. However, lean body mass (LBM) change as assessed by NBAL showed that the MP/HC group had an average negative NBAL of -3.19 g.d-1 while the HP/MC group had a positive NBAL of 4.13 g.d-1. Macronutrient mix did not affect biceps endurance, but quadriceps endurance declined for the HP/MC group during the experimental week. In conclusion, a hypoenergy diet providing twice the RDA for protein was more effective in retaining body protein in WL than a diet with higher carbohydrate but the RDA for protein. However, the lower carbohydrate of this diet contributed to reduced muscular endurance in these athletes.

If I would have truly understood the article it says in black and white that you are entering a catabolic state (or walking the line) when you are at medium carbs. 20% is low carbs...ketosis..blah blah blah.

So I hope anyone addressing weight loss can gain insight from my first hand experience.

[Docd187123]

There are a few problems I have with that study. Not to say it's useless, but it has limitations for sure.

First, using nitrogen balance as the sole metric for measuring LBM is not always accurate and has flaws.

It's possible to have negative nitrogen balance with the proteins being broken down coming from the liver while muscle protein is being spared. Adaptation to a low protein diet can occur so that nitrogen balance is maintained while lbm is being depleted.

As a general rule, protein demands are higher for lean, trained athletes in an energy deficit. You also have to consider the limitations of the research. Just because a certain amount of protein can prevent negative nitrogen balance does not mean this is an accurate reflection of muscle preservation (let alone an indicator of optimal intake for gain). N-bal is notorious for overestimating muscle protein status. There's even research showing positive N-balance concurrent with LBM loss. Lol, there's research showing a prevention of negative N-balance during endstage starvation as a survival defense response.

Nitrogen balance is an attempt to measure changes in the body's nitrogen content (proteins contain some proportion of nitrogen). So they measure nitrogen going into the body, which is food. Then they attempt to measure nitrogen going out. This includes fecal losses, urinary losses, losses in sweat, skin loss, breath loss and I even saw one study that collected women's tampons to measure nitrogen in the blood (I highlighted that quote). In most cases, some estimations are made for a lot of these because they are a hassle to measure directly (serious studies will sew people into suits to collect sweat and skin so it can be measured). Unfortunately, these estimates are probably wrong when you put exercise into the mix.

The difference is presumed to indicate how much the body's nitrogen status is changing. So, in premise, if you're in positive nitrogen balance, you're storing protein; negative nitrogen balance, losing it.

The problem is that, as a method, it's basically not very accurate. This is one of the primary criticisms of the work of Lemon and Tarnopolsky (i.e. by Phillips and Millward): if you take the nitrogen balance estimations at face value, the lifters in those studies should have gained kilos and kilos of muscle mass. But they didn't. Conclusion: nitrogen balance vastly overestimates things and isn't a good measure. As well, there's no way to know where the nitrogen is going anyhow.

Protein synthesis is an attempt to be a bit more accurate/specific. Usually a radioactive tracer is used like leucine (presents problems due to metabolism w/in the muscle) or phenylalanine (much less difficult) and you measure uptake. This can be done at the whole body level or for a specific tissue. The problem with measurements of whole body protein synthesis is that, once again, you don't know what tissue the protein is being synthesized in. Could be muscle (we hope), frequently it's changes in liver proteins and such. It's more accurate to measure direct muscular uptake but more expensive and invasive.

Secondly, the study uses a MP/HC diet where protein needs are the bare minimum RDA requirements for sedentary individuals, not hard training athletes/lifters/fitness enthusiasts. It then compares that diet to a HP/MC diet that is approximately double the protein intake while still being around the minimum needs for hard training individuals.

It compares protein intakes of .36g/lb vs .72g/lb. or 17% of total kcals vs 35% total kcals. it's quite obvious LBM changes in a hypocaloric environment favored the latter group. You can't automatically extrapolate these results into saying you need high protein intake while cutting to preserve muscle mass. The study also mentions nothing about catabolism and carb intake. You cannot infer that from the data given.

One final note, this is a short term study. Short term results don't always pan out in the long term. Be careful how you interpret the results of the study. Good luck with your training and progress

[RaginCajun]

good question with regards to nitrogen. i believe that i have some problem with retaining nitrogen retention in my joints and muscles. when i would be on cycle, and add in deca, i felt like my joints did not crack and creek as much. i would love to know if there is something maybe i am deficient in that is causing all of this. i suffer from cracking joints and really tight muscles on a daily basis.

[RaginCajun]

bump for nitrogen!