If you want to get the most from your workout—and who doesn’t?—you should never again think of diet and exercise separately. Instead, you should adopt the mindset that they actually depend on each other. After all, lifting weights signals your body to build muscle, but you still need to eat the right nutrients—the Muscle-Building Time Zone foods—to provide your muscles with the raw materials for growth. And likewise, simply eating the Muscle-Building Time Zone foods won’t add inches to your chest, arms, and shoulders, if you aren’t regularly pumping iron.
But there’s one more key factor involved, besides just eating the right foods and doing the right kind of exercise: timing. With the exception of bodybuilders, few people ever think about what they eat in the time before or after their workout. That’s unfortunate because it’s the period when nutrition strategies can have the most dramatic effect on muscle growth. To fully understand why workout nutrition has such a huge impact, you’ll need the accompanying quick lesson in “The Science of Muscle Growth” (page 79). Once you grasp the basics of building muscle, you have the power to accelerate muscle growth with food. How? Two ways:
1. Eat protein. This boosts the level of amino acids in your blood. These amino acids—which are the building blocks of protein—travel through your body to wherever they’re needed. Once they arrive at, say, your muscles, individual amino acids group together, or synthesize, to form the new proteins needed to build muscle. Research shows that as blood levels of amino acids rise, so does your rate of protein synthesis. The best part: This has no effect on your body’s ability to use fat for energy. Protein in your diet—consumed in coordination with your workout—can give you high-powered muscle growth while your body continues to burn blubber.
2. Eat carbohydrates. This increases your insulin levels, which signals your body to stop using stored protein for energy. The upshot: It decreases protein breakdown. Of course, if your glycogen levels are full, the insulin surge will signal your body to stop burning—and start storing—fat. But if your glycogen levels aren’t full? You’ll still be burning fat, although it won’t be at the same maximal rate that occurs when you eat protein only.
Now, if it isn’t obvious, the best way to stimulate maximum muscle growth is to consume both protein and carbohydrates during the period immediately before or after your workout. However, if you’re more concerned with maximum fat loss, then just eating protein is the best approach. We’ve provided strategies for each.
The Muscle-Building Time Zone starts 1 hour before your workout and lasts until 30 minutes after your training session. Your primary task during this time is to consume the vital amount of nutrients needed to take full advantage of this muscle-building window of opportunity. We’ll show you how, but first note that there are two different categories of foods in the Muscle-Building Time Zone that you can select from: One that provides only high-quality protein (Protein Only) and one that supplies both protein and carbohydrates (Protein + Carbohydrates). Simply opt for the category that matches the TNT Plan that you’ve chosen to follow. A reminder:
(If you haven’t yet determined which plan is right for you, flip back to page 25 and do so now.)
Follow the guidelines for the specific Muscle-Building Time Zone category—Protein Only or Protein + Carbohydrates—that corresponds to your TNT Plan. In either category, do your best to adhere to the “ideal” protocol when possible. This strategy is the optimal nutrition tactic to employ in the Muscle-Building Time Zone. Of course, depending on when you work out, your schedule, and your budget, you may find this isn’t always practical. So your primary objective is to, at the very least, abide by the “practical alternatives” guidelines. Don’t worry; this alternative provides you with most of the benefits that accompany smart workout nutrition.
The more protein your body stores—through protein synthesis—the larger your muscles grow. In fact, just as glycogen is stored carbohydrate, and belly fat is, well, stored fat, muscle is actually stored protein. (Protein is stored other places as well, like joints and ligaments.)
However, your body is constantly draining your protein reserves for other uses, such as energy, or to make hormones. This is known as protein breakdown, and it’s happening all throughout the day. So to build muscle, you need to store new proteins faster than your body breaks down old proteins. You can do this by either increasing protein synthesis or decreasing protein breakdown, or, of course, by doing both.
Interestingly, research shows that, in guys who lift weights after an overnight fast, resistance training increases protein breakdown (bad) even more than it boosts protein synthesis (good). That means lifting weights doesn’t result in more muscle if you don’t eat. And though most of us don’t skip meals for 10 to 12 hours before and after exercise, it’s important to understand that protein breakdown is elevated for up to 48 hours after a hard workout. This is where the Muscle-Building Time Zone comes in.
Available at: www.prosource.net
Per serving: 22 grams protein, 1 gram carbohydrate, zero gram fat
Available at: www.t-nation.com
Per serving: 20 grams protein, 4 grams carbohydrate, 1½ grams fat
Available at: www.atlargenutrition.com
Per serving: 24 grams protein, 2 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram fat
Good: Consume at least 20 grams of high-quality protein, in the form of solid food, 45 to 60 minutes before your workout. Then eat a regular meal (Fat-Burning Time Zone) within 1 hour after your training session. The best choices for pre-workout protein:
Acceptable: Consume at least 20 grams of high-quality protein—either from a whey-casein protein blend, 100 percent whey protein, or solid food—anywhere from 1 hour before to 1 hour after your workout. Then eat a regular meal (Fat-Burning Time Zone) within 2 hours after your training session.
Available at: www.t-nation.com
Per serving (prepared with water): 25 grams protein, 46 grams carbohydrate, 2½ grams fat
Available at: www.atlargenutrition.com
Per serving (prepared with water): 52 grams protein, 25 grams carbohydrate, 1.7 grams fat
Available at: www.metrx.com
Per serving (prepared with water): 59 grams protein, 80 grams carbohydrate, 6 grams fat
Good: Consume at least 20 grams of high-quality protein and 40 grams of carbohydrates, in the form of solid food or milk, 1 hour before your workout. Then eat a Fat-Burning Time Zone meal within an hour after your training session ends.
To accomplish the first task, you’ll need to do a bit of mixing and matching. For instance, a turkey sandwich will do nicely here. Each slice of bread has 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrates—for a total of about 40 grams—and 4 slices of turkey has in the neighborhood of 20 grams of protein. Because vegetables contain very few carbs, include as many of them as desired, along with fat-free condiments such as mustard and horseradish. For simplicity, we’ve created a short list of protein and carbohydrate foods that you can easily combine to satisfy these guidelines (see opposite page). But in a pinch, just opt for a 16-ounce carton of low-fat chocolate milk. It provides about 16 grams of protein and 50 grams of carbohydrates—which is close enough on both counts. Or even better, check out the health food section of your grocery store for low-fat, fruit-flavored kefir (see page 60 for a description), which provides 28 grams of protein and 50 grams of carbs in every 16 ounces.
How steak makes it to your biceps:
| FOOD | PROTEIN | CARBS |
| Milk | 8 g | 12 g |
| Chocolate milk | 8 g | 25 g |
| Plain yogurt | 8 g | 12 g |
| Fruit yogurt | 8 g | 25 g |
| Kefir | 14 g | 12 g |
| Flavored kefir | 14 g | 25 g |
| Cottage cheese | 31 g | 8 g |
Acceptable: Consume at least 20 grams of high-quality protein and 40 grams of carbohydrates—from a protein shake, solid food, or milk—anywhere from 1 hour before to 1 hour after your workout. Then eat a Fat-Burning Time Zone meal within 2 hours after your training session.
We like it—and recommend it. Why? Because an unprecedented number of studies have shown that creatine supplementation is not only safe, but it also enhances both muscle size and strength gains when taken in conjunction with a resistance-training program.
How it works: Creatine helps speed your body’s production of phosphocreatine, a high-energy compound in your muscles. The upshot is that this gives your body more of the fuel that’s needed to lift heavy weights. For example, in one study, researchers found that guys who were given creatine were able to perform 12 repetitions with a weight that they could only complete 10 repetitions with before they started taking the supplement. In fact, they completed a total of 8 repetitions more over 5 sets. That means they were able to do more work and challenge their muscles harder, a benefit that translates into better gains. Case in point: In a recent paper, we reviewed dozens of studies and determined that creatine supplementation plus weight training, on average, results in about 5 pounds of additional muscle over a 12-week period. It’s important to point out, though, that individual results will vary. People who have low muscle creatine levels tend to have the largest increases in muscle creatine after supplementation, and this translates into better gains in performance.
What to take: For best results, look for products that state “100% pure creatine monohydrate” on the label. (We like ProSource Creatine, available at www.prosource.net.)
Directions: Take 5 grams of creatine, mixed in water or a protein shake, four times a day for 7 days. This is called “loading,” and although some experts don’t think it’s necessary, we’ve seen it to be an effective way to quickly saturate your muscles with creatine. After day 7, take 5 grams of creatine in the Muscle-Building Time Zone (before your workout is optimal), as well as anytime you want on the days you don’t exercise.