Harnessing Your Inner Hormone Power: Food, meal timing & food combining to maximize muscle growth

Do the foods we eat, our meal timing and food combining affect muscle growth?

Yes! And the two main hormones to consider are insulin and testosterone.

Let's start with insulin. A hormone we've all heard of, but what does it do? 

When is insulin produced?

When we eat, our food travels through the intestines. From the intestine, glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream (we call this blood sugar) and signals the pancreas to produce insulin in response to the increase in blood sugar.

The role of insulin:

Insulin is necessary to keep our blood sugar at a healthy range, not too high and not too low. We need insulin to escort glucose to target tissues of the body (liver, muscle, fat) and out of the bloodstream.

In a healthy body, we don't have to pay much attention to our insulin levels. Our bodies have natural regulation systems to keep everything stable.

BUT... We can manipulate our foods, meal timing and food combining to maximize our muscle growth. We'll get into this...

In an unhealthy body, insulin can wreak havoc on our fitness and fat loss progress. From years of abusing the body's regulation system by eating too much junk (sugar, fried foods, unbalanced meals) or living an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle (weight gain, drinking alcohol, stress, etc.), our cells' insulin sensitivity can decrease from constant and high insulin production. When this happens, we develop insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance: once fat cells maximize their growth (as a result of excess food), fat cells become resistant to the effect of insulin to prevent excessive amounts of energy (from food) from getting into the fat cell. When this happens, your pancreas produces large amounts of insulin in hopes to shuttle that glucose out of the blood. However, it's unsuccessful and you're left with high blood sugar, insulin resistance and eventually diabetes or another disease.

Can insulin resistance be reversed? Yes, with loss of fat and shrinkage of fat cells.

Quick tips to reverse insulin resistance:

1. Eat 3 small meals daily with 2 snacks in between.
2. Make sure you combine protein, healthy omega 3 fats and veggies in every meal.
3. Never snack on carbs alone.
4. If you choose to eat carbs, choose high fiber and low glycemic carbs. My recommendation to make this easy and efficient is to use veggies as your only carb source. Quinoa or sweet potato every now and then is ok.
5. Don't over eat. Eat until you're just full enough, or even better, about 80% full. If you're missing the feeling of fullness, load up on high fiber veggies. A buffalo cauliflower in the air fryer is a great example of something healthy, delicious and filling.
6. Exercise, don't drink or smoke, and do your best to stay stress-free.

Now let's get back to manipulating insulin to maximize our muscle growth.

So we know that insulin works like our food's chaperone. It's produced when we eat in response to our blood sugar. So it would make sense that in and around our workout when our muscles are hungry for fuel, we want to wake our insulin up with a BANG so it can shuttle fuel to the muscle.

And what's muscle's favorite recipe for growth? Protein + glucose.

This is how we maximize...

Tips for proper meal timing and food combining for muscle growth:

1. About 30 minutes (give or take) prior to our workout, we want to eat a small meal or snack that includes a lean protein + fast carb. By fast carb I specifically mean one that breaks down into glucose and absorbs quickly into the bloodstream. This is something that's high on the glycemic index but not fruit. White rice or white potato is a great example. This quick absorption signals to insulin and says, "Hey! Take me to that working muscle PRONTO!"

Having a lean protein, opposed to a fatty protein, and intentionally excluding fats from your pre-workout meal allows the absorption to stay quick. Protein, fats and fiber slow the absorption of food, causing a more gradual insulin release.

Note: this is generally what we want to keep our bodies healthy and to promote fat loss, but in and around our workouts, we want that fuel for growth.

2. We can take it a step further and include intra-workout fuel. Sipping on some collagen protein or BCAAs + a glucose powder like Karbolyn or dextrose while we work out supplies the muscle with constant fuel. This reduces the chance of using the fuel that's stored in the body, allowing more fuel for growth.

3. Finally, refuel with a post-workout meal within 90 minutes of finishing your workout. You guessed it, our post-workout meal also consists of a lean protein + fast carb. For example, you could do about 25-40g of protein from chicken breast and anywhere from 25-300g of carbs from rice or potato (depending on your size & more).

4. Because muscle grows when you're in a caloric surplus, meaning you consume more calories than you burn, you'll want to make sure you're eating enough food the rest of the day, with a balance of protein, carbs and healthy fats.

Now let's talk about testosterone. Sounds like a dude hormone, maybe? Well, men sure do have more of it, but women have and need testosterone too, especially if muscle growth is your focus.

What you eat has a major impact on testosterone as well as other hormone levels, and constant dieting or overeating may disrupt your testosterone levels.

How is testosterone production affected by diet in women?

1. Eating enough protein can help maintain healthy levels and aid in fat loss, which is also associated with your testosterone.
2. Carb intake also plays a role, with research showing carbs can help optimize testosterone levels during resistance training.
3. Sufficient healthy fats are also beneficial for testosterone and health. Just keep these away from your workout window, remember!
4. A diet based mainly on whole foods is best, with a healthy balance of fat, protein and carbs. This can optimize both hormone levels and long-term health.

Foods to Promote Testosterone Production:

1. Foods high in Vitamin D like fish (salmon, sardines, tuna), eggs, red meat, spinach & mushrooms (some), or fortified foods with vitamin D like breakfast cereals
2. Foods high in zinc like shellfish (oysters), beans & legumes (chickpeas, lentils) 
3. Avoid endocrine disruptors like plastics, chemicals, alcohol, drugs and hormonal birth control

Other Recommendations:

1. Exercise, but especially resistance training. 
2. Minimize stress and cortisol levels. Unnatural elevations in cortisol (from stress, medication or other) can quickly reduce testosterone. These hormones act like a seesaw - as one goes up, the other comes down. Stress and high cortisol can also increase food intake, weight gain and the storage of body fat. In turn, these changes may negatively impact your testosterone levels. 
3. Get lots of sleep.

Happy Muscle Building!