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Patrick José Pereira
Patrick José Pereira

I am an Electronics Engineer that works with robotic systems, OSS and OSH.

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Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2024-03-11

[ health ]

After research and personal experience, it's time to write down some important points about health and physical condition.

Why I'm writing this ?

This was a somewhat lengthy resource that I've been working on for weeks, and it's based on my personal experience with physical exercise and improving my physical condition. It might be useful to you, and by saying you, I'm also considering my own future variations.

Disclaimer: I'm not a health professional or anyone that should be followed or hear about health or physical activities, this is just my own research and conclusions based on everything that I have supposed learned.

Loosing weight, in a good way

Well, the most important thing to know is: Diet.

Exercises will help you maintain muscles, better cardiac and respiratory condition. But they are not the main point when losing weight, diet is. This is mostly pointed out by Muzy, Barakat, Balestrin, and many others, where a caloric deficit is required.

Jessie Inchauspé advocates for the usage of modern glucose tactics to decrease the amount of energy used or stored by your cells when glucose is available in the system through insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas that helps regulate blood sugar (glucose) levels. When you eat, especially carbohydrates, your blood sugar rises, triggering the release of insulin. Insulin helps your cells absorb this glucose for energy or store it for later use (fat). You can help your body use the energy available in the cells by drinking water and staying hydrated. That's one of the reasons people use creatine.

Jessie provides 10 rules to help people have better glucose control:

  1. Eat in Order: Consume your food in a specific order to flatten glucose curves: start with vegetables, then protein and fats, and finish with starches (carbohydrates) and sugars.
    • You can also take advantage of this mechanism by doing combinations. If you are eating pasta, try to add minced meat. If you are eating protein, try to add a salad.
  2. Vinegar Power: Add a tablespoon or two of vinegar (like apple cider vinegar) to meals or have it as a drink before eating to help reduce glucose spikes (20min).
  3. Post-Meal Walks: Exercise, take a walk after meals to help your body use the glucose from the food you've eaten.
  4. Protein with Everything: Include a source of protein in each meal and snack to slow down the absorption of carbohydrates. The best thing to eat in the morning are salt foods with high protein.
  5. Beware of "Healthy" Foods: Be mindful that even seemingly healthy foods like fruit juices, smoothies, and certain fruits can cause significant glucose spikes. Eat the entire fruit, do not blende it. Your body DOES NOT CARE, if the sugar comes from a fruit or a coke. At least the fruit comes with fibers that help decreasing the glucose absorption.
  6. Snack Smart: If you snack, pair carbohydrates with protein and fats (e.g., apple slices with nut butter) to mitigate sugar spikes.
  7. Whole Fruit Focus: Opt for whole fruits over fruit juices, as the fiber in whole fruits helps moderate glucose response.
  8. Sleep Matters: Prioritize good sleep hygiene, as sleep deprivation can disrupt glucose metabolism. This is also super important for muscle growth.
  9. Stress Management: Find healthy ways to manage stress, as chronic stress can negatively impact blood sugar levels.
  10. Fiber is Your Friend: Include plenty of fiber-rich foods in your diet to support gut health and slow down the absorption of sugar.

While doing diet, it's also important to do exercises to avoid loosing muscles.

Did you know that diabetes type 3 is a way to describe alzheimer ? And that glucose is directly related to aging ? Yeah, do some research about that (check the references as well).

Loosing fat

While doing exercises, it's important to keep in mind the "fat burn zone," which is between 50 to 70% of your maximum heart rate. Some sources on the internet suggest using "220 - your age" to estimate your maximum rate. So, for me, (220 - 32) * (0.5 to 0.7) = [94 to 131]; that's the rate at which I should keep my heartbeat to encourage my body to burn fat. Going over this zone, humorously called the cardio zone, might lead your body to start burning muscles over fat since it's quicker and easier. When running and exercising, it sometimes takes around 20min+ for your body to start burning fat; you should feel more energetic, and the exercise feels easier. At that point, you should control yourself to keep your heartbeat within the zone.

Muzy notes that cardio exercises yield the best results after a long time, around 9 months to a year, as your body undergoes an adaptation phase. It certainly helps with weight loss, but that includes muscle mass. I would recommend avoiding this, but there is no consensus on this information.

An important point, if you are just starting, it might be worthwhile to gain some weight through muscle mass by focusing on hypertrophy training to increase muscle, thereby boosting your metabolism and energy consumption. After that, you can start dieting and cardio exercises.

Gaining muscle

03, Food please

Well, the most important thing to know is: Diet.

... And heavy weight exercises!

What is the role of diet ? Protein intake. The rule of thumb is to consume "(1.6 to 2.2) * your weight in kg".

Most studies have looked at dosages up to 1.5 g/kg; only a few have looked at dosages as high as 2.2–3.3 g/kg. However, in healthy people, even those higher dosages don’t seem to have negative effects. (From Examine)

It appears that "cannot be excluded that carbohydrate addition may provide benefits for recovering athletes, on the basis of available data, no further beneficial actions of carbohydrates, irrespective of GI, are evident concerning muscle hypertrophy when a protein supplement that maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis is ingested. (Vandré/David)" about carbohydrate intake with protein to hypertrophy.

But.. "In summary, ingestion of carbohydrate + protein (or amino acids) in close temporal proximity to or throughout both endurance and resistance exercise may operate as an effective strategy to favorably affect performance of a subsequent exercise bout as well as adaptations from regular bouts of training. Towards this end, enhancements in endurance performance, as well as improved recovery of reduced muscle glycogen have also been consistently reported when carbohydrate + protein combinations have been consumed surrounding exercise bouts, particularly if lower quantities of carbohydrate are consumed. However, when optimal carbohydrate is delivered the impact of adding protein (irrespective of when it is provided) appears to offer little to no additional benefit on endurance or resistance exercise performance as well as the recovery of reduced muscle glycogen. (Chad/Shawn/Brad/...)". The paper also points to an intake of 3:1 / 4:1 (carbohydrate to protein) in daily bases. The final conclusion is that carbohydrate intake does not have a clear directly role for muscle protein synthesis, but it indirectly helps. There are no conclusion on the area.

So.. protein intake, protein is necessary.

Now.. we know the amount of protein intake, now.. what is the frequency ?

The last cited paper says that protein intake should be every 3 hours, divided equally during the day. But others sources points to 4 hours (4 times during the day). This approach is to optimize your protein intake during the day to take better advantage of your body muscle synthesis, that operates constantly over the day. Since you'll not store protein to build muscle, providing a constant source of protein will be more effective with body.

Alcohol

If you like to drink, keep in mind that alcohol consumption leads to muscle weakness and atrophy in part by suppressing protein synthesis (Indirectly). It increases the resistance to peripheral insulin, reducing muscle growth, disrupting the energy absorption by cells, resulting in this available energy into fat. The carbs in a beer, are available in liquid form, making it really quick for the body to absorb, as consequence, you'll probably not going to use this total available energy, resulting on the storage of it as well (and there is also the glucose spike as well).

Growing

First, lets define some stuff:

Now, lets explore the following scenario: You are someone that wants to do a hypertrophy training.

  1. Sets the weight in a way that you can perform 4 sets of 12 reps where in the final rep of the final set you hit failure.
  2. Perform 12 reps until you hit failure, decrease the weight in 20%, repeat until failure and do it again 3 times, this represents a set, you can do 3 sets like that.
  3. Perform 12 reps until you hit failure on your first set, rest, increase the weight in 10% and repeat until failure, rest, and repeat until you hit 4 reps.
  4. (The one that I do) Perform 12 reps of weight X in the first set, do X * 1.2 on the second set, add X * 1.2² on the third set. Take note and do that until you can perform 12 reps of X * 1.2 on your second set, if you can do it, this new value will be your new X.

While changing between protocols, be sure to set the volume the same as the previous one. By changing weight, sets and reps but making it still inside the defined ranges.

Math, recording, keeping control over your training is important! Create notes about your weights, sets and reps.

"Edited by me, created with ChatGPT"

A final note, resting is equally important, take your time, try to avoid repeating exercises in less than 48 hours. Sleep well.

While doing your training, try to schedule it as:

DayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySundayMonday...
Schedule 1ABABAB...
Schedule 2ABCABC...

You can also split your daily protocol (legs, chest, arms) to be divided by two during the day, doing half of A during lunch break and the other parts during dinner.

References