On the surface nutrition is fairly straight forward, it revolves around a balance, a caloric balance to be specific. If you're in a caloric surplus you gain weight and if you're in a caloric deficit you will lose weight. Sounds pretty simple doesn't it? Although nutrition can be reduced to this lowest denominator, below this simple surface structure we are faced with a more abstract vision of nutrition, hormonal influence.
Everything you eat causes same sort of inevitable chain reaction in your body. The most critical hormone that- is directly influenced by your consumption is insulin. As you may know, insulin is released when you consume carbohydrates. These carbohydrates trigger the release of insulin, which stores them as glucose in your muscles when they are getting empty.
The problem comes when you consume an abundant amount of carbohydrates. When this happens, your body is unable to continue to store the clubs as glycogen because there storage in your muscles has been filled. This forces the excess glucose to be converted into fat so that it can be used at a later time.
"Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment." Oprah Winfrey
So, what is the best way to manage your insulin levels? To answer this question we must turn to the glycemic index. The glycemic index rates the impact that foods have on insulin release. On the top of this scale we can find sugar. which is rated a perfect 100 on the index, which means it digests very fast.
The problem with high glycemic carbohydrates, like sugar, is that when there is no room for them to be stored in your muscles, your body opts to store them as fat. So the question becomes. how do we avoid this from happening?
Insulin release is not all bad and there are in fact two times when opting for high glycemic carbs can actually be beneficial. These two times are directly when you wake up in the morning and right after your workout.
The reason for this is that at these two moments in time your glycogen stores are low and are primed to be re-filled. Also, spiking your insulin at these two times blocks the catabolic (muscle eating) effects of a hormone called cortisol.
The final thing that I would like to present you with is one way that we can enhance the effect of insulin. This is done through supplementing with chromium picolinate. Chromium picolinate does this by making the insulin receptors more sensitive to that it takes less insulin gets the Job done.
Go slow or go home. Focus on consuming slower digesting carbohydrate source throughout the day. Doing an gives your body mote time to utilize the carbohydrates that you consume.
There are several simple swaps that you can use to slow the release of insulin to your benefit (such as swapping white bread for whole wheat, white potatoes fur yams and simply skipping the pop).
In conclusion, the management of your blood sugar levels can he difficult. When blood sugar levels go too high, insulin feeds the muscle cells and deposits the excess into fat cells.
Contrarily, when insulin levels get too low, the muscle cells are being wider fed which forces your body to break them down for energy. Finding a balance between these extremities can be difficult but the secret resides in this article, choose the right carbs at the right time.
This is the only way to induce a slow the in blood sugar that provides good nutrition to the muscles and a slow drop drop that allows your body to draw from your fat cells.
Fit Tip 1: Go slow or go home. Focus on consuming slower digesting carbohydrate throughout the day. Doing so gives your body more time to utilize the carbohydrates that you consume. There are several simple swaps that you can use to slow the release of insulin to your benefit (such as swapping white bread for whole wheat, white potatoes for yams and simply skipping the pop).
Fit Tip 2: Go fast at the right time. As mentioned, in the morning and after training are the best times to spike your insulin. The most efficient way to do this is via liquid nutrition. This is because liquids can be digested at a quicker rate and speed is what you want in times like these. I suggest stocking your post workout nutrition with 50 grams of high glycemic carbohydrates (sugar) to stop catabolism in its tracks and enhance protein synthesis.
Fit Tip 3: Supplement. Take 400 mcg of chromium picolinate 2-3 times daily with meals. Because this supplement has been found to increase the effects of insulin, the advantage is obvious: If it would normally take X amount of insulin to get the job done, that would result in a certain increase in fat storage. If we cut X by a percent and still get the job done, we automatically cut the increase in fat storage as well!
by: Rob Bouchard College Professor
source:Natural_Muscle_Feb2012
