Art De Vany: Thermodynamics and Muscle

Thermodynamics and Muscle

June 14, 2005 02:10 PM

In an earlier post on Mass I made the point that one can build muscle without being in positive caloric balance. I didn't claim that is the best way to gain muscle, but I think it is the best way to change your body composition to make a leaner and more muscular body. If you want to grow beyond that point, then a slight caloric excess is all that is required.

The problem is that most people have no idea what their energy expenditures are or what their intake is. Nor do I. So, in accordance with the rule athletes and body builders tend to follow "If a little is good, then a lot is even better", people eat too much trying to put on muscle. Most body builders I have seen over many years are too fat. Even pros may get smooth in the off season. And most of the young men I see these days in my gym who are body building are way too smooth.

Here is the most direct evidence you can find, better than some lab study. What do most people who eat more than they expend look like? We call them fat. Excess energy goes into fat after the muscle glycogen is restored (a trivial amount). Eating more protein doesn't mean that protein is what you get when the body is through with it. A lot of it will go into fat.

The hard thing is to gain muscle mass and maintain or improve your body composition as you do so. That is why it is important not to overeat on a long term basis.

Protein pools in the body are excreted as they turn over. The protein pool varies and its size is affected by protein intake, by cell turnover and loss, and by nutrient partitioning into body protein or fat. It has a lot of places to go and you certainly need plenty of it. It does not violate thermodynamic equilbrium to gain muscle as you lose fat. Working out and fasting promote GH which is protein sparing and directs resources to repair and maintenence. You have plenty of fat to fuel this process, even those of use who are lean have enough.

But, what about thermodynamic equilibrium?

We are always in it. You can't violate the laws of thermodynamics, whether you eat too much or too little. If you take in excess energy, you store the excess. The energy is still there and none is lost or destroyed. As you gain mass your energy expenditure rises. You continue to gain mass until you reach a fixed point body mass where intake and expenditure are equal again. No laws of thermodynamics are violated. But, you sure look bad at your new equilibrium state because a lot of the gain will be fat.

It takes a while to get there though. And much depends on how much excess energy goes into fat or muscle. You don't need a whole lot more muscle to burn the excess intake, but you need quite a lot of fat to carry around before your expenditures equal your intake. So, if you work out you will tend to partition the nutrients into more muscle than fat.

You do have to worry that continuous caloric excess brings other adaptations; you lose insulin sensitivity, which tends to shift nitrogen retention toward fat rather than muscle, you hit your liver with a lot of nitrogen or ammonia and it starts to adapt in ways not yet understood but can't be good. A lot of other things happen too. Long exposure to caloric excess is bound to affect many metabolic and thermoregulatory functions. It has to mess up your appetite. And to overeat systematically you can't eat enough bulk or roughage, you must eat calorically dense foods which we know to be unhealthful. Had enough? There is more I don't have time to think about.

Our human species never lived in a state of chronic excess caloric intake. Do you want to go against the adaptations that evolved in the long course of human life?

Suppose you continue to stay in excess caloric balance. Your body mass must continue to grow. You must then eat even more. But if you are always in excess as your mass increases, then you have to become fat and eventually obese.

Obesity is implied by the laws of thermodynamics; constant excess intake over a long period of time has only one equilibrium --- gross obesity. You can see it all around you.

I do agree that if you are going to gain muscle, you need protein in excess of what is required for maintenance and to cover losses. One way to do this is to burn fat, with favorable effects on your body composition. This takes GH from a hard work out or from fasting.

Another way to do this is to eat less carbohydrate (which some claim to be "protein-sparing" when it is not). Carbs release insulin and generate a mild shock to the body when glucose rises. The sugar is toxic and the body works hard to sequester and burn it. So, it doesn't burn fat. As your body becomes a carb burning machine, it burns less fat. When the sugar is gone from your blood stream, there is only one way to produce it: gluconeogenesis, the making of sugar from muscle protein. High carbs are muscle wasting, not protein sparing after you take first and second order effects into account.

The best way to do it is to alternate excess protein consumption with light fasting. Of course, you must work out as well. Intermittent excess protein intake is perfectly consistent with our evolutionary past and that is enough to put on plenty of muscle. Too much protein is toxic. Intermittency is protective because it lets you diversify your toxins (everything is economics).

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online at September 11, 2006 6:25 PM

Guys
For me I lost fat on the warrior diet but muscle too.So I have mixed feelings about it.But it did
help me understand the power of short term fasting.
Much but not all of what the author says is similar to Dr. DeVany.
Barry

Posted by: barry bocchieri at June 20, 2005 8:38 AM

On this one meal a day, see my earlier post Living LIFO.

The search function if pretty good on the site. And the archives are pretty extensive by now. So, you may find other topics there too.

Posted by: Arthur De Vany at June 15, 2005 3:13 PM

Barry and Gary,

How about telling us whether or not the Warrior Diet worked for you? Did you try and not like it? As Art has often stated on this blog, it's all about models and not beliefs. Did that model work for you?

Regards,
Mike

Posted by: Mike at June 15, 2005 2:50 PM

Art
I too have read and followed for a while the warrior diet and would appreciate your comments
if any.
sincerely
Barry

Posted by: barry bocchieri at June 15, 2005 12:21 PM

With reference to warnerkallus's comments:
I am at odds as to whether to have many meals or
one meal a day. If you have ever read anything
about the "Warrior Diet"...it advocates eating
one meal a day. Art- more comments in this area
would be helpful.

Posted by: Gary at June 15, 2005 11:09 AM

Keith,

The Amish article is rather inaccurate, and their produce isn't especially organic. Perhaps you could say it incidentally tends to be more organic.

They don't shun technology if it's essential to their business- and they are all businessmen. They just can't employ technology in a way that threatens the community. TV's in the home, phones in the house, personal cars, and computer games are way out. Phones, computers, and lights in the barn or store, gasoline-powered horse-drawn implements, fertilizers and pesticides, five-wheel in-line skates for the kids to get around with? No problem.

Posted by: Terry at June 15, 2005 11:04 AM

I eat but one meal a day. I should think that ths emulates a fasting situation adequately to stimulate HGH and a fat burning state. I read a lot on your blog about the benefits of fasting, periodic caloric restriction. I map my own experience over your recommendations and observations, and generally I think I have achieved the same, or a similar result, but a daily fast instead of a weekly fast. Can you see any obvious problems with it?

Posted by: warnerkallus at June 15, 2005 10:52 AM

Kevin thanks your time.

Posted by: simon FELLOWS at June 15, 2005 9:52 AM

Simon,

I perform two separate workouts between 2 to 4 times per week, depending on energy levels. At the end of each workout, which lasts no more than 15 minutes, I feel awash in endorphins and fully gassed, not at all aggressive. Try upping the tempo of your routine. I rest no more than 10 seconds between sets.

Posted by: Kevin Mullins at June 15, 2005 7:55 AM

I don't think that being a bit overweight (by modern popular measures) means terribly much. Obesity, of course, is another thing. Now there's some nice commonsense evidence of a slightly evolutionary fitness kind from a study of the Amish. They are hard working farmers and while you might think this falls into the category of 'neolithic drudgery', watch them gracefully pitching corn up by hand to build their haystacks and generally mixing their strength, aerobic and power activities. These guys are overweight by modern gym-junkie measures, but are 'as fit as a Mallee bull' as we say in Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s1392353.htm

Basically they are a living endorsement for the Weston Price-type diet and activity profile (though the WP Foundation have forgotten the activity side of the coin). The Amish diet has remained largely unchanged for 200 years and the food they produce and eat is - I assume - close to organic.

Posted by: Keith Thomas at June 15, 2005 7:48 AM

I have been reading your site for a few weeks and I have a question. You do not seem to be a fan of distance running but I wanted to get your take on trail running. I run typically 3 miles or less, occasionally up to 5 miles, mostly for fun and challenge. The trails are hilly, undulating single track. There are few stretches where you could maintain a constant speed. Sharp turns around trees slow you down as do steep hill sections but there are very fast downhills with roots and limbs to avoid (exciting!). Sometimes my 14 year old son will do sections, say 1/2 mile roughly and then stop for push-ups or squats or pull-ups on a tree branch. I do some Crossfit but I enjoy these runs with my wife and it is probably her only weightbearing exercise. Are these valuable or a hindrance?

Posted by: Brian at June 15, 2005 7:41 AM

I am pretty sure that some research has indicated that testosterone begins to be released during heavier resistance training sessions. There's Bulgarian research quoted (but I've never actually seen it) that says testosterone is released until ~ the 45 minute mark, and then falls off sharply. If I recall correctly, heavy, low repetition sets cause the test release.

This is one reason behind the Bulgarian Olympic Weightlifting team's short, multiple workouts daily.

Posted by: S. Shafley at June 15, 2005 7:12 AM

Gents do you or have you ever felt rather aggressive after a workout ?
If i do anything other than a very brief one, and i've never trained to failure, i feel rather uuuurrrggghhh.
Assume , phaps wrongly testosterone is somehwere in the equation, but truth be told i don't know..aside from knowing its not a partic joyous way to feel !
Can any of you folks enlighten me, pleasum ?

Posted by: simon FELLOWS at June 14, 2005 11:11 PM

Thermodynamics and Muscle

June 14, 2005 02:10 PM

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