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If you have been following us for a while, then you know our recommendations for fats post-training. However, recently some research was brought to our attention that might just change how we prescribe our pre & post training recommendations. Listen to today’s episode to find out if there is enough evidence to support us changing our pre/post training nutrition guidelines.
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Kristin:
There’s been some interesting talks just in the research community and in the sports nutrition community over the last week. And Mary and I have been talking about it a lot. We’ve been talking to other people about it, just like really from like a nerding out perspective of just looking at different research articles and thinking about whether we need to change some recommendations for nutrition, for strength athletes, based on some of these articles that people are kind of talking about. They’re older articles, which we’ll get into, but we were having so much fun discussing it and talking about its implications in strength athletes that we decided we wanted to do a topic on this for you guys. So here we are.
Mary:
Here we are. Well, what we’re talking about is something that we have discussed with you guys many times, it’s all about what do you eat post-training and post-workout in order to optimize your recovery, which includes, you know, muscle protein synthesis, it includes replenishing your glycogen stores in your muscles. What do you eat? And our recommendation for you has always been high-glycemic index carbs with a serving of protein, with low to no fat. And so when we say low to no fat, we’re generally talking about less than five grams of fat if you can.
Of course, you know, there’s going to be days where it’s not going to be perfect, and that is what it is. We’re looking for more consistency than perfection, but that has been our recommendation. Now we didn’t just come up with these recommendations out of thin air based on what we would like to eat as much as we do enjoy eating cereal post-training. We came up with these recommendations based on the International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position stand, which is basically a big summation of research that says, Hey, these are the recommendations we have for athletes and these are the recommendations for strength athletes. And so it’s a huge body of research that we looked at, we looked into and based on their conclusion, and based on our own conclusions, that’s why we give you guys the recommendations that we’ve been giving you.
Now, the reason that we’re recording this is because there was some research that was brought to our attention that we hadn’t read before that suggested that maybe that post-training fat intake that we’ve been giving you all needs to be updated. Maybe our methods need to be updated because that’s the most important thing about being a evidence-based person in the nutrition world, in any world, right? We change our recommendations based on the research that comes out. If we don’t change our recommendation based on research, we’re not evidence-based. And so Kristin and I really needed to take a step back and look into this because if this research were in fact, if this research said in fact what it was saying, we would need to change how we recommend things to you guys.
Kristin:
100%. Yeah. So I know people want to eat fats post-training. I know whenever I make that recommendation, they’re like, “Really?! No fats?!” I’m like, I mean, listen, if you have to run off to a family dinner or something after training and you’re going to eat fats, it’s fine. You’re not going to die. Everything’s going to be okay.
But what we’re talking about is what you make a habit of doing most of the time. And so we’re going to get into some of this research that discusses fats post-training and at first glance, it kind of makes it sound like you could totally have fats post-training and it’s not going to change anything.
Mary:
An unlimited amount of fats that won’t change anything.
Kristin:
Right. And so what we decided to do was really look at it through a strength athlete lens, not a physique improvement lens, which is, I understand a lot of you that lift are interested in improving your physique, which is something that Mary and I help people do. But we also like the overarching theme of performance and recovery nutrition for strength athletes.
Mary:
Yes. Usually it’s that we are, we are primarily focused on being an athlete and the aesthetics comes second. And if the athlete part of your plan starts to suffer, we change because if the athlete portion of what you’re trying to do suffers because of what you’re trying to do aesthetically, we usually change the plan to make sure that we’re not limiting your athletic potential. So aesthetics is not something we primarily focus on.
Kristin:
Correct. Correct. And if that is the primary focus, then we make different recommendations and your training probably is going to be different.
Mary:
Absolutely. Yes.
Kristin:
You’re not going to be focusing on aesthetics at the same time that you are peaking for a meet.
Mary:
You better not be.
Kristin:
Please don’t do that to yourself, please.
Mary:
You don’t need that kind of stress. If the last year taught us anything…just limit stress when all, when all possible.
Kristin:
Alright. So let’s get into some of this research. One of the articles that came to our attention was one that says, “the influence of deferring macronutrient intakes on muscle glycogen resynthesis after resistance exercise.” This is an article that was published in 1998 in the Journal of Applied Physiology. So what they decided to do was they were operating under the premise of a couple of things that you need to understand.
First, they were already operating under the premise from previous bodies of research that protein plus carbohydrates in combination with each other could result in greater plasma insulin response and thus we’re more effective in promoting glycogen resynthesis than carbohydrates alone post-training. So, number one, that’s the premise that they’re already operating under and that they’re assuming that you already know when you read this article.
And then they also state from previous research that a more rapid rate of muscle glycogen recovery may be a benefit to an individual performing multiple workouts per day. Furthermore, an enhanced post-exercise insulin response would be a benefit to an athlete performing resistance exercise, since it may attenuate muscle protein degradation and or increase muscle protein synthesis.
Okay. So they’re operating under that assumption and then what they decide to do is say, “Well, where do fats play a role? Does it matter if you consume fats or not? So they took three different groups and they did a carbohydrate only group. They did a carbohydrate protein and fat group, and then they did a placebo group. And they had them do exercise, exhaustive exercise, which was three sets of 10, 80% of their one rep max on bench press, sit-ups, leg extension, lat pull-downs, bicep curls, leg press, tricep press, military press. And then they did an additional series of leg. extensions.
They found that during those exercises, they showed a glycogen depletion rate of about 36%. So, we’re not talking about running a marathon here, but definitely a significant depletion of glycogen. Okay. So what I’ve found interesting. Let’s go back to the three groups. They had carbohydrate only, and then they had carbohydrate protein and fat post-training. They did not do carbohydrate and protein because…
Mary:
Or they didn’t do protein and fat without carbs.
Kristin:
Correct. And, and so that’s just what they chose to do because they said there’s already other bodies of research that show this. Let’s just show if we just add fat into it. What does that tell us?
So, what’s interesting is that the non-placebo group, so the carbohydrate group and the carbohydrate fat and protein group resulted in similar rates of muscle glycogen resynthesis after resistance training. They measured their plasma glucose 20 minutes, 40, 80, 100, 120, 140, and 160 minutes post-exercise. So they measured it frequently post-exercise. And that is what they determined: they’re pretty much the same in the groups that actually ate calories and food. Sounds really good, right? There’s a slight problem.
Mary:
Well, wait, let’s first talk about the placebo group. So the placebo group showed no improvement of glycogen resynthesis so guys.
Kristin:
In four hours.
Mary:
Even at four hours, guys, remember, this is why we talk about, you have to eat your post-training. This is non-negotiable whether it’s a perfect high GI protein meal, or if it’s like a family dinner, it doesn’t matter. You have to eat something post-training.
Kristin:
Correct. Yes. Very, very important. Again, if you go to the gym in the morning and then you rush off to work and you forgot to bring a meal. Okay, fine. Once in a while. Fine. Just don’t want to make it a habit. But don’t panic. I don’t want anyone to ever stress out about food ever.
Mary:
No reason to panic.
Kristin:
Okay. So the research shows that in the fat group that there’s no change, it’s really misleading if you don’t pay attention. This is why we tell you guys don’t ever just read abstracts. Look at the methods, read the whole article, do the math. The math on this, they consumed their post-training meal was 11% of total calories, 11% fats. That’s the equivalent of less than four grams of fat for an 80 kilo lifter. That’s negligible. That’s nothing. When I tell people “no fat,” I really mean about under five grams.
Mary:
So the abstract says there is no difference when fat is added to the meal, which a lot of people…and this is why it’s so important to, as we’re saying a thousand a million times, read the research. Because a lot of people will take that to mean, “Oh, I can have as much fat as I want post-training.” And that is not the case. That is not what the research says. If you want to do it, sure, there’s going to be consequences, but you do what you want to do.
Kristin:
Right.
Mary:
But that’s not what the research says. The research is actually pretty minimal for someone like me, it’s like three grams of fat.
Kristin:
Right. So I broke that down into 0.05 grams per kilogram of body weight, is what they consumed. So if you’re a 53 kilo lifter, that’s not very much
Mary:
Sure. Take your body weight in kilos, multiply that by 0.05. And that’s going to give you the amount that would be equivalent to what this research study was on.
Kristin:
Right. Right. So, this article though, this research paper, they did cite in older previous study in the same journal where they said that there’ve been reports in the literature of even greater amounts of total fat consumption, about 31% of total energy intake over a 24-hour period, having no effect on the total amount of muscle glycogen resynthesis after exercise compared with carbohydrate alone.
So we were like, Oh, cool. Okay. So maybe we can have fats. So, then Mary and I broke that article down. And that article is really interesting. So that one’s from 1995.
Mary:
So it’s even older.
Kristin:
It’s even older. You guys, old research isn’t bad. Sometimes old research lays the groundwork, right? So, it’s great to look back at some of these things because the way that we need to practice evidence-based anything is by looking at the trends over time and see how they change? How do they not change? So it’s great to look back at the research and see what did it say? So, you can’t just discount an article because it’s old because maybe it laid the groundwork for a lot of other really important things. But we’re going to get into that.
So this article was not resistance training. This article was done on triathletes, trained triathletes, where they did an exhaustive cycling exercise for two hours on the bike. And they looked at the coingestion of fat with protein post-training versus just carbohydrates. This one was really interesting. You want to get into breaking down some of the interesting points to this, Mary?
Mary:
Sure. So they looked at three different diets basically. So they looked at what we call the control diets, that’s going to be all carbohydrates. They just had a carbohydrate-rich diet, low to no fat, low to no protein.
Then they had the fat and protein diet, which was taking that carbohydrate diet and adding fat and protein on top. So, you’re going to have a mix of carbs, fats, and protein.
And then the third diet that they looked at was just a calorie control for the fat and protein diet. Because if you think about it, adding fat and protein on top of the carbohydrate diet is going to be a lot of extra calories. And so the conclusion could be well, it’s the extra calories that just did the thing. So they wanted to control that. So the third one is just the energy match diet, which means they took the regular carbohydrate diet and just added liquid sugar on top to make sure that it accounted for the extra calories from the protein and fat.
What was really interesting throughout this entire article is that they noted…So before we even get to the results, they noted that the results that they got were different from what the body of research had been saying previously. This is an anomaly, we’re not sure what’s going on. These are the results that we got.
So what they did is they took at hours zero and 21 hours post-training, or 24 hours, post-training sorry. Zero in 24 hours post-training they measured the muscle glycogen…
Kristin:
Through muscle biopsy.
Mary:
Through muscle biopsy. So, they were able to look at how much muscle glycogen was in the muscle, zero hours and 24 hours post-exercise.
Kristin:
Correct. And let’s just talk real quick about when they ate. So, they ate immediately after training, four hours, eight hours, and 21 hours. And then they did biopsies at zero and 24 hours, which I thought was interesting. I know I would have liked to see a biopsy in the middle, but we’ll get it, we’ll get into that.
Mary:
Right. Well, and this, so…some people may claim that the rate is not affected by the uptake of muscle glycogen into muscles, but it’s really hard to make that conclusion when we don’t have multiple time points. So they just looked at zero and 24 hours. And what they found was that there was no statistical difference in the change of increased muscle glycogen stores. So they were depleted at hour zero because they exercised. And then they went from zero to 24 and they added in extra muscle glycogen to their muscle glycogen stores. And they looked at how much that difference was between hour zero an hour 24. And the research says that, okay, there is no statistical difference between the change.
Kristin:
Correct. Right. So what they showed was at the 24 hour mark, both diets were the same in terms of muscle glycogen resynthesis. So their conclusion essentially was “fats post-training would be fine.”
But they talk about a few other things though in that number one, as Mary alluded to earlier, they say multiple times that this is an anomaly that this is not what previous bodies of research show. And then they try to kind of explain it, like, “This research article showed this. And we think maybe it was because of that.” So what I find most interesting about this study is number, this is on triathletes, right? Which is, it’s really difficult for us to say, for us to take that information and then apply it to strength athletes. Right. It’s really difficult to do that.
So, that in and of itself is like, okay, maybe, but also that’s at 24 hours. What if you train before 24 hours is up? I know a lot of my nutrition clients, their Friday to Saturday training is maybe a 12 hour difference. And maybe even just throughout the week. Or maybe you have two training sessions in a day. And so they even state in this article that if you have training again that day, maybe this isn’t a good strategy for you.
And they also talk about just overall diet in terms of someone who has to maintain their weight, right? So if you are conscious of your bodyweight, a couple things happen that they talk about when you consume fats, particularly post-training. So, fats and protein both have high satiability rates, meaning that you tend to feel full longer after you consume either of those foods. And then in combination, it’s going to be a little bit higher so that we run into the problem that if you consume fats post-training, you may be so satiated depending on how much you consume that you have a difficult time getting in adequate carbohydrates to reach the limit you need to reach to replenish your glycogen synthesis or your glycogen stores within 24 hours. So there’s that problem.
Mary:
Well, cause make no mistake, you cannot increase muscle glycogen stores from fat. The researcher isn’t saying like, Oh, you can swap these two. No, they say many times in the article that, you know, this can be true. You can have protein and fat post-training, it seems, it appears, as long as adequate carbohydrate intake is met.
Kristin:
Total daily. So you’re in a caloric deficit, this is going to be a problem for you because you’re already probably not consuming adequate daily carbohydrates.
Mary:
Right.
Kristin:
Even if you’re working with me and even if I have you on a high carbohydrate diet, you’re just not getting enough calories because you are trying to lose weight. So this is a really tricky area.
So, they talk about how the total daily carbohydrate intake seems to be of most importance. And they talk about how a protein can increase muscle glycogen a little bit like Mary was saying, fats can’t, protein can a little bit, we know that primarily it’s going to come from carbohydrates. Based on these bodies of research, we then said, “Okay, so do we need to modify our recommendations or not?” And I’m going with not, no. I’m not. I don’t need to modify my recommendations because one, I work with a lot of really high-level athletes or athletes that are trying to get to a very high level. They take their training very, very seriously and getting them recovered quickly again is very, very important.
If I’m working with someone who’s cutting a weight class, then we really have to be mindful of them getting enough food. And I don’t think that based on this body of research, I need to change my recommendations at all. What do you think?
Mary:
I agree. And when you say body of research, these are two articles, right? So then we did the next step and we looked at, okay, well, can we find further research on these two topics since 1995 and 1998? Because as Kristin said, just because they were early doesn’t mean they were wrong. There’s a lot of early research that laid the foundation for a lot of things that was 100% right. It just didn’t maybe go into as much depth as it should have.
Kristin:
Well, yeah. And so it’s saying, okay, that one it’s outlier, but that some amazing findings in science have been outliers and people thought that they were crazy. So like…
Mary:
I can think of one where for a long time, we didn’t think that the brain had an immune system and just a few years ago, they discovered that the brain had an immune system.
Kristin:
That is fascinating.
Mary:
It’s fascinating, but it’s only, it’s very new research. So we have to think of research as like an inverse pyramid. Usually that first article is very broad because they’re just testing a very basic theory. If we take the immune system in the brain, for example, does the brain have one? Can we identify it? And then from there, when the answer is yes, can other people repeat that research? What do those cells do? How does that work? You know, then we go in the inverse pyramid where we get more and more specific. And we look at the finite details.
So these two pieces of research really gave the foundation for the inverse period, inverse pyramid base. It’s very broad. It’s very, very generalized questioning, but we really needed to dig a little bit deeper. You heard us critique a few things. Why didn’t they look at, you know, just protein and fat? What did that do? Why didn’t we look at more time intervals on the second research article instead of just zero and 24, wouldn’t it be important to look at four, eight and 12 hours as well? Especially if you’re an athlete who trains, let’s say in the night, and then the next day we’ll train in the morning? You don’t have 24 hours to fully replenish your muscle glycogen stores. So like Kristen said, we need to get you those fast. We need to get them quick, because otherwise you’re going to be going into your next training session a little bit under recovered. And the more you perpetuate this under recovery, the more likely you are to injure yourself or overtrain, all that good stuff.
So remember, these are just very general research articles, but when we went and looked for further investigations of these things, we couldn’t find any. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re not out there. That just means maybe they’re hidden, but we really looked, we really tried to find if fat does impact the rate of muscle glycogen resynthesis and we couldn’t find it.
So, that either tells us that it just hasn’t been studied yet, or these truly were very outlier type articles that, yeah they were interesting at the time, but we have so much other evidence. You have to remember that we have, these are two articles and there’s so much more evidence on the other side saying that it’s important to limit fat is really important to have just protein and carbs post-training to really initiate your recovery. There’s so much evidence there. It would really be silly of us to change our entire approach to how we coach athletes based on these two studies.
Kristin:
Based on two studies that have not…there’s no research in line with those in the last 20-some years. And I really thought that second one, as I was reading it, I thought it was going to be like a series because it was really interesting. I thought it was really interesting. Then I thought, “Oh, well, men, then maybe they went on to study this and maybe they went on to study that” and I didn’t find anything. But it really seemed like it was going somewhere and then it didn’t go anywhere. It just kind of, that was it. That was the end.
And so, right. I’m not willing to change my philosophies. My evidence-based practices on nutrition based on some articles that were kind of outliers from 20-some years ago, that I’m not saying that they’re bad research or anything like that. They’re really fascinating. I really nerded out reading these. I thought they were really cool. But they don’t say what it seems like they’re going to say when you look at it through the lens of a strength athlete.
If you look at it through the lens of someone who’s just trying to improve their physique in the gym, I think that it would probably be okay to have some fats after you’re done training. If that’s something that was important to you and you really wanted to do.
Mary:
Right. And it depends on which article you’re looking at too. Cause some of them said, yes, you can have fats, but four grams for an 80 kilo lifter. Right. And the other one is the dye consisted of 31% of your total daily calories came from fat. And so that was broken up into four meals.
Kristin:
Right. Right.
Mary:
So, whatever that equates to. So, just keep that in mind, like there’s different, there’s, there’s different ways to look at things. So just because it says “fat” doesn’t mean an unlimited amount of fat. It still proves the other bodies of research where you should keep it limited fat intake.
Kristin:
Right. Let’s just talk really briefly about why that is. Fats slow the digestion of everything you consume with them. That’s the primary reason for this. So, if we’re talking about, one of the reasons why whey protein is the gold standard post-training is because of how quickly it’s digested. That fast digestion leads to higher rates of muscle protein synthesis. So, the digestibility rate of your post-training meal is important. And so that is why the general consensus is to avoid fat so that you can get in the things that replenish your glycogen stores and that stimulate muscle protein synthesis faster and get that recovery process going.
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