Aretia's Tribe

Fitness Labs Protein
creatine versus protein supplement?

Hi, I want to gain some muscle, and also some definition by weightlifting hard, heavy, and atleast 4-5 days a weak. What supplement will be better, CREATINE(fitness labs german creatine), or a protein powder? Any advantagfes or disadvantages to any of these?

the protein will be better,, it will provide your muscles with the building blocks that they need to grow.. creatine helps a little with strength and energy and causes you to retain water. you can get a protein powder with creatine added though.. like metrx size up

How Much Protein Do You Need to Eat?

I’m beginning to hate protein. I know it sounds funny, but it’s true. Protein could be one of the most popular and controversial topics in all of nutrition.

Protein has become the golden child of muscle building and fat loss. Wanna build big muscles? Eat your protein. Wanna lose fat and look like a fitness model? Eat your protein. After all, every one knows you need to eat a minimum of 30 grams of protein every two to three hours.

Back in my earlier years, I drank my protein shakes and ate my protein bars. I would constantly keep my protein intake up around 250 grams per day. Why? Because I thought it scientifically PROVEN that more protein equaled more muscle.

But now I’m not so sure.

Let’s take a look at one of the research studies that the ’super-high protein advocates’ always use to ‘prove’ that eating protein after a workout makes you build muscle.

If you were in this study, this is how your day would have gone…

You would show up at a research lab around 10 PM, and you would go to sleep (no eating). The researchers would wake you up around 6 AM and start poking and probing you (again no eating). After a bunch of weighing and measurements, you would start working out around 9 AM.

This would be one of the toughest workouts you have ever done.

Most likely you would do 10 sets of 8 reps on the leg press machine, followed by 8 sets of 8 reps on the leg extension machine. All of your reps would be done at 80% of your one rep max. Like I said, one brutal workout.

After your workout you would be given a drink that contains 3 to 6 grams of essential amino acids (the equivalent of a glass of milk).

After that, the researchers would take measurements for the next 4 hours and measure your rate of ‘protein synthesis’.

This is pretty much the standard protocol for these types of studies.

You know what they would find? An increase in protein synthesis over those four hours.

What does this prove? that if you haven’t eaten since 10 PM the night before, do a brutal workout at 9 AM then drink a glass of milk, you will increase your protein synthesis for four hours!

So much for needing 30 grams of protein, and so much for needing protein every couple hours.

You know what else?..the only reason I say protein synthesis increases for 4 hours is because after 4 hours the researchers stopped measuring! who knows how long you would have stayed in a muscle building state. Some researchers have estimated that a single workout can put you into ‘muscle building mode’ for as long as 48 hours after your workout!

Even more interesting is that researchers have found similar results when they made people drink the amino acids before their workout, and even when they made them wait and drink the amino acids a couple hours after their workout!

Protein has a role in everyone’s nutrition plan. And, it is a very important nutrient that does play a role in building and repairing muscles. From my understanding of the research I think it makes sense to try and consume a small amount of protein somewhere around the time you workout. I just don’t think we need to be paying good money for tubs and tubs of the stuff, if the amount we get in our diets will serve our purposes just fine.

About the Author

Brad Pilon is a strength training and nutrition professional and author of Eat Stop Eat. You can learn about his new book “Eat Stop Eat” that is quickly changing the way people think about dieting, by visiting http://www.eatstopeat.com Brad Pilon is an expert contributor at eFit-Today
http://www.efit-today.com/public/department59.cfm

This is the first in a weekly series to help the average non-medical person understand the laboratory tests their physician orders, what kind of sample is required, what does the test measure and what conditions can be diagnosed based on the results.

The Complete Blood Count or CBC is one of the most common, useful and important laboratory tests available in medical diagnoses. It is routinely ordered in annual physicals and Emergency room visits.

The CBC is an automated group of parameters of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets used in detecting leukemias, anemias, blood loss and infections among other diseases and disorders. It is general examination of blood.

The test sample for a CBC is either a blood sample taken from the arm or fingerstick for adults and children, and heelstick for newborns.

The different parameters available in the typical CBC include:

• White Blood Cell count (WBC)
This is an actual count of the amount of white blood cells per volume of blood. This is useful for the detection of possible infection, neutropenia and other disorders.

• Red Blood Cell count (RBC)
This is an actual count of the amount of red blood cells per volume of blood. Low amounts of rbc’s could be an indicator of an anemia.

• Hemoglobin
This is a protein that is contained inside the rbc. It measures the oxygen carrying capacity in the blood.

• Hematocrit
This represents the volume of rbc’s suspended in plasma in the person’s circulating blood. Both the hemoglobin and hematocrit are low in cases of blood loss.

• Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV)
This is a measurement of rbc size. Depending on whether the MCV is high or low could indicate certain conditions such as anemias or thalassemias.

• Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH)
This is a measure of the amount of hemoglobin in the individual rbc.

• Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC)
This is the amount of hemoglobin in circulating rbc’s regardless of the size of the rbc.

• Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW)
This is a calculation of the variation in the size of the rbc’s.

• Platelets
This is the amount of platelets in a given amount of blood. Platelets are important in blood clotting.

Your doctor will use the CBC as a screening test to see your general health status like in an annual physical. It may also be ordered to rule out infections, fatigue or other patient complaints. It is an important first test in the discovery of serious diseases like anemias and many other blood disorders.

What is a “normal” or reference range? It is a set of values of some measurement that a physician or other health professional can use to interpret a set of results for a particular patient. You will see the reference ranges on the lab report next to your lab result. Your lab result will be either low, normal or high based on this range.

I have over 20 years experience in clinical and public health microbiology and infectious diseases. I want to enlighten and inform about infectious diseases that could affect you, rare and common, and what you can do to protect you and your family from these dreaded afflictions. See more of my work at http://www.examiner.com/x-7707-Tampa-Disease-Prevention-Examiner