Worried about losing muscle while dieting? Here's how to prevent it!

            While implementing a caloric deficit into your workout regimen, the body is in a sort of starvation state. Thus, it is consistently looking for ways to obtain and utilize nutrients from within the body. This means that the body is susceptible to entering a catabolic (muscle wasting) state. One way to ensure the preservation of your hard earned muscle is by consuming something that most of us are familiar with, protein shakes. There are several protein powders and formulas that are available that are lean and low enough calorie count to include into a diet. By keeping the protein high in your diet (1-1.5g/lb of body weight), your metabolism will actually increase and burn more fat while protecting your muscle tissue from atrophy (wasting away). Another simple and potentially more effective way to reduce and prevent the risk of muscle wasting while dieting and exercising is through ingesting branched-chain amino acids. Branched-chain amino acids (or BCAAs) consist of the amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine. These three amino acids make up around 14-18% of our total amino acid content within our muscles. These aminos also appear to directly influence the protein metabolism by inhibiting protein degradation and stimulating more protein synthesis. BCAAs may also support immune system function, influence muscle energy metabolism, reduce overall fatigue, and help diminish post-exercise muscle soreness. BCAA supplements are very widely used in almost every sport to aid in muscle growth and speed up recovery after intense training and exercise. Heavy exercise and diet causes an increased breakdown of brain chain amino acids in the body which causes a higher demand for this supplementation within our systems. Branched-chain amino acids also increase muscle protein retention and plasma growth hormone levels to increase muscle protein synthesis.

            BCAAs are viable inhibitors of catabolic activity in muscle protein. Caloric deficits may cause the body to begin to attack the protein and muscle tissue in our bodies. When coupled with exercise, which increases protein synthesis and breakdown rates, the protein in our systems can begin to breakdown at an increased rate. Considering a calorie deficit can reduce the amount of nutrients that we consume from food to reduce the breakdown of protein, BCAA supplementation should be utilized. Studies have proven that BCAA supplements that are taken between meals and before or after intense exercise will result in a sparing of tissue and significant reduction in protein breakdown. This protein breakdown reduction could last for up to five days post exercise which allows the effects of BCAA supplementation to be more than just acutely beneficial.

            In short, if you are looking for an easy way to reduce the risk of muscle wasting while utilizing a calorie deficient diet then branched-chain amino acid supplementation is highly recommended. The body breaks down and absorbs BCAAs very easily and there are not any side-effects to ingesting BCAA supplements (aside from possible gastrointestinal discomfort if ingesting too high of a concentration). The usual dosage of a BCAA supplement is 5-20g per day and is usually ingested between meals, during workouts, or after workouts to protect the muscle tissue from breakdown via the calorie deficit and exercise.

- Pete M.