Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health E-Zine

Muscles and Protein

   Many body builders and weight lifters are overly

concerned about what they eat and what food supplements they

take.  If you want to grow larger and stronger muscles, it helps to

understand how food can help your training program.  Just

exercising does not grow large muscles.  If volume of exercise

made you strong, marathon runners would have the largest

muscles.  The only stimulus to make muscles larger and stronger

is to stretch them while they contract against resistance.  When

you lift a heavy weight, your muscles start to stretch before they

start to contract.  This tears the muscle and causes soreness on

the next day.  If you rest and let the muscle heal, it will be

stronger than before you stretched it.  You improve by taking

hard workouts so your muscles can grow and heal while you

recover on your easy days.

   Anything that helps you recover faster from a hard

workout will allow you to do more work to make you stronger. 

Scientists have known for years that you recover faster by eating

immediately after you finish your hard workout. Now we know

that eating extra protein helps you recover even faster.  Muscles

are made primarily from protein building blocks called amino

acids.  Muscles heal from a hard workout when amino acids and

other nutrients travel from your bloodstream into the muscles. 

Eating any food, particularly foods with plenty of protein,

immediately after you finish your workout helps your muscles

heal faster so you can do more work. The sooner you eat protein

after you finish your hard workout, the quicker you will recover. 

   However, you don't need to take expensive supplements;

ordinary foods provide high-quality protein and taste better. 

Remember, your body cannot store extra protein.  If you don't

need all of the protein you have eaten, it is broken down into

ammonia and organic acids, which are used for energy.  Any

excess is stored as fat.

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NOTE:  The report I wanted to send you this week,

"Nose-less Bicycle Seats Keep You Comfortable and Potent"

contains so many words that would set off the spam filters that

I'm giving you a link to it instead.

http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/bicycle_seat.html

Also a Q&A on whether a popular men's medication causes heart

attacks, which I can't include here for the same reason.

http://www.drmirkin.com/men/v_and_heart_attacks.html

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Dear Dr. Mirkin: What can I do to prevent wrinkles as I get older?

   Unfortunately, there may not be much you can do; a

study from Denmark shows that skin wrinkling and aging are

influenced heavily by genetic factors  (Age and Aging, January

2006).  However, this doesn’t mean that you can smoke or spend

many hours in the sun, two behaviors that are known to increase

wrinkling.  The authors studied twins to show that skin aging is

associated equally between genetic and environmental factors.

They also found that looking older with severely wrinkled skin is

associated with dying earlier. You increase your chances of

having aged, wrinkled skin by smoking, exposing your skin

frequently to sunlight or being very thin.

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Reports from DrMIrkin.com

Why is your recovery pulse rate important?

http://www.drmirkin.com/heart/8076.html

What foods are known to trigger migraine headaches?

http://www.drmirkin.com/archive/7218.html

How is low thyroid diagnosed?

http://www.drmirkin.com/morehealth/G171.htm

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Dear Dr. Mirkin: Is it true that eating nuts will lower my risk for

diabetes?

   Yes; risk for type 2 diabetes in women who eat nuts at

least five times per week is 30 percent lower than those who

rarely or never eat nuts. Nuts contain lots of fat, but most fats in

nuts are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which are

good for insulin sensitivity and serum cholesterol.  Before the bad

LDL cholesterol can damage arteries, it must first be converted to

oxidized LDL.  Monounsaturated fats form LDL cholesterol that

resists oxidation and therefore protects arteries.  Nuts are also

rich in antioxidant vitamins, minerals, plant protein and dietary

fiber. 

   However, nuts are concentrated sources of calories, so

rather than adding nuts to your current diet, substitute them for

less healthful foods such as bread or red meats.  It’s easier to

control your portion size if you sprinkle nuts into a salad or your

cereal rather than eating them by the handful as snacks. 

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Recipe of the Week

Quick Shrimp Curry

http://www.drmirkin.com/recipes/shrimpcurry.html

You'll find 100 recipes, and lots of helpful diet tips, in

The Good Food Book - FREE at

http://www.drmirkin.com/goodfood/index.html

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