The Art of War: The Battle Against Homeostasis (Part 1)
by Dave Douglas
So ya wanna be a freak—or even just have a nice degree of muscle and a dialed
in six-pack. Well your body and tens of thousands of years of evolution have
second thoughts in regard to this pursuit. See the body prefers to stay in its
comfort zone and that means it is constantly trying to maintain homeostasis—a
set-point that is the area where it is at its most natural balance. For most of
us that is not 240 shredded unfortunately as evolutionarily food was not always
prevalent but rather scarce and excess LBM was a waste of energy. Moreover, to
have too little body-fat would mean certain disaster in times of famine. Now
some may be fortunate enough to have a homeostatic set-point of a more favorable
nature but most will curse their ancestors (albeit not having a 7-11 on every
corner was not their fault) and even for the ‘gifted’ huge, rippling muscles
will still require a particularly rough battle with our homeostatic mechanisms.
"What to do, what to do?" you say…..
Well luckily although it will not be an easy war to wage we are privy to many
weapons and strategies in our quest to defeat the mighty monsters of homeostasis
and the mechanism that are in place to thwart our efforts to our goals. Of
course though this war is unending and a constant battle as the body will never
stop its minions bent on homeostatic onslaught and we must be disciplined and
merciless in our attempts to fight them off.
Perhaps our primary battleground for our attrition against homeostasis is in
the arena of nitrogen balance/retention. The necessity for engendering a
continual state of positive nitrogen balance is a principle means to attack our
foe and progress to a larger yet leaner physique. Now while it would be optimal
to have a 24/7 IV drip of amino acids pulsed into our veins this is not
practical (for most anyway). So the main course in enacting a positive state of
nitrogen balance will first and foremost be a constant and consistent influx of
high quality protein. As a rule a reasonably large high protein intake is to be
consumed every three hours and the largest protein intake is best allotted for
post-workout where the environment for accrual of LBM is most receptive.
Night Feeding
One
oft overlooked period for providing our bodies with protein, particularly if
gaining mass is the primary objective, is in the middle of the night. Night
feeding is an essential way to counter the negative nitrogen balance that will
occur if one is to succumb to thinking just because they are sleeping that
awaking for providing the body precious protein becomes unnecessary---wrong! Get
your comfy little arse up once and if possible, better twice and have an easily
consumable protein accessible for quick consumption and back off to gathering
the crucial ZZZzzzzzzs. A prepared whey shake or low-fat cottage cheese are some
easy and handy options. So not only are you negating a potential catabolic
nitrogen deficient state, moreover you open windows to increase total protein
load which for any serious trainee should be minimally 1.5g/lb LBM which for
some is not always easy to get over the course of the normal 16 hour waking day
(and even harder for those of you who sleep 10+ hours!). Remember, not only is
the body continuously breaking down tissue, this is further accelerated by the
training process and needs to be super-compensated for to build. Furthermore a
high protein load will provide a thermogenic shift toward staving off increased
body-fat.
OK, so now that we are facilitating a positive nitrogen pool the next step is
to better utilize this environment which means increasing the body’s capacity
for protein synthesis/utilization (which has a circular effect on promoting
positive nitrogen balance as well)
Next Month...
So in the next article we will see what strategies and weapons we have for
this key launching ground for our attack on homeostasis and a bigger, leaner
physique.
Dave Douglas is considered by many in the know to be one of the top go to
guys for information in relation to physique and performance enhancement from
the 'basics' to the extreme cutting edge. His expertise runs the gamut from the
sciences of training and nutrition to supplementation from both a nutraceutical
and pharmaceutical perspective. Relying on a bent toward both research and real
world experience, he is known on many boards for his passion to constantly
search out the truth within the layers of art and science in this arena.
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