Originally Posted by pacesetter
Another protien loader, as if cycling is a strenth sport. the sorness you feel after a hard ride is depleted glycogen. im a cat 1, race season i consume 90 grms of protien a day. off season 70 grms. but carbs 600 grms. to much protien = to many calories= fat, kidney problems etc.
Uh no... the soreness is due to bound Z-bands and the excessive breakdown of muscle fibers, which causes the release of muscle cell content. The cell content attracts inflammatory cells, which release chemicals that irritate nerve fibers, causing pain. These same chemicals also attract repair cells that contribute to healing and development of the muscle (fibroblasts).
The body will then rebuild these damaged muscle-fibre using free amino-acids from the bloodstream. The 70-90gm protein a day is about right for maximum tissue-rebuilding. However, only an amount sufficient to rebuild muscle-cells (and a little bit more) will be absorbed. Eating 10-lbs of steaks will not automatically result in 10-lb of muscle gain on your body. It's like putting water into a sponge, you can't force 10-gallons into a kitchen sponge no matter how hard you try.
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It's not just what you eat, it's what happens to it once it gets into your bloodstream. You need to be able to follow each and every single piece of glucose or protein through the body and see how it interacts with the various systems.
First, as an energy source for generating, protein is the most inefficient. The rates of conversion to ATP for carb, protein, fats is 0.842, 0.520 and 0.883. Protein as an energy source is most inefficient due to the conversion overhead:
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/131/4/1309 . And muscle-protein within the muscle-fibres is the most readily metabolised source in the absense of glycogen. Free-floating amino-acids in the bloodstream is not as easily used due to the transport time. So if you bonk and run out of carbs to burn, the body will disasssemble muscle to use for energy faster than using ingested protein.
Second, as a method for replenishing muscle-glycogen stores during recovery, above a baseline carb-level, a carb+protein mixture does not result in glycogen synthesis as fast as a high-carb mixture:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/72/1/106
A 1.2g/kg/hr carb-intake rebuilds muscle-glycogen faster than a 0.8g/kg/hr carb+0.4/kg/hr protein mix, which is faster than a low 0.8g/kg/hr carb-intake. Again, if your blood-glucose levels are insufficient to keep up with glycogen-rebuilding rate, muscular protein will be converted instead. The fastest recovery rate is with a high-carb mixture.
Originally Posted by skandal20
Last time I checked (1 min. ago) carbs and protein both contain the same amount of calories gram for gram. (4 calories in each gram as opposed to 9 calories per gram of fat) So you may want to reconsider your "protein makes you fat" assumption and change your diet accordingly.
It depends upon how you get your protein. Getting it from meats will force you to take fat along with it; which is higher calorie-density than both protein & carbs. While extra protein above amount needed to rebuild muscle doesn't hurt above the 60-90g/day maximum intake for rebuilding muscles. However, if you're low on carbs to replenish muscle-glycogen stores, you will actually end up hurting muscle-rebuilding because your muscles will be taken apart to restore glycogen levels. That's why athletes on fast weight-loss and low-carb diets ends up losing weight while maintaining the same body-fat %, because they're losing as much muscle as fat... Not good for fast fitness-improvement rates or maximum-performance. You will end up as a thin 150lb twig with a double-chin, high body-fat%, high resting-heartrate, low VO2-max, low LT, low max-HR recovery rates, low recovery between workouts and generally slower fitness improvement rates.
In summary, excess carbs hurt performance a lot less than excess protein with insufficient carbs.