Natural Bodybuilding, Fitness, and Peak Performance

‘Tryptophan in Turkey’: Does it improve sleep quality?

A few days ago, I was up late assembling a computer desk that turned out to require more labor than I’d anticipated. As I cranked away with screwdrivers and mini-wrenches for the better part of four hours, I did what I often do as a bodybuilder; chow down on my last meal of the day consisting only of protein.

The only protein available was about a half pound of turkey meat in the refrigerator. So I pulled chunks of it out of a bag and chewed away while putting the desk together.

The next morning? Well, I felt I’d gotten more regenerative deep sleep than I’d had in a while; seven hours worth. It was a lot of that REM type sleep; the kind that releases growth hormone – that burns fat and builds muscle; the kind bodybuilders want.

 

     

    'Tryptophan in turkey':does it have an effect when eaten alone?

 

Yes, I know, it’s all over the Internet: “The tryptophan in turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas doesn’t make you sleepy – it’s the big meal, lots of carbohydrates, and excessive quantities of liquor.”

It’s really too bad that Holiday meals are the only context in which this topic is discussed.

Given the number of times I’ve had my last meal of the day be identical to the above-mentioned “desk assembly” one – with the same subsequent sleep effect – I think something un-coincidental is going on. I’ve eaten a half pound of beef at the same time of day with nary the resulting deep sleep. Same goes for egg whites, or tuna, or any other protein source. A lot of turkey on an otherwise empty stomach seems to deepen my slumber.

‘Tryptophan in turkey’: the “experts” say there’s no more of it in this holiday bird than there exists in cheddar cheese. However, I’m unlikely to fill my stomach with cheddar cheese in order to test my hypothesis; kind of counters the purpose of deep sleep for better fat loss.

The amino acid ‘tryptophan’ is thought to create drowsiness by providing more of the building blocks for serotonin; the brain chemical that’s a key for inducing sleep. Serotonin requires the B-vitamin niacin for its production by the body. Tryptophan helps the body produce niacin.

Yet another claim by experts: “The tryptophan in turkey has to compete with other amino acids for absorption – thus nullifying its effect on sleep induction.”

But what of that competition when the turkey is eaten by itself? Does the amount of Tryptophan in turkey relative to other amino acids in that meat make its potency relevant when eaten in large amounts in the absence of carbohydrates?

My anecdotal evidence through personal experimentation says ‘yes’. I’d love to hear what other bodybuilding and fitness enthusiasts have experienced with turkey as a lone nocturnal meal. If nothing else, it’ll provide you with quality protein for night-time muscle building. Ideally, it might spur greater fat-burning growth hormone release – a mechanism at least partly dependent on more of the deepest waves of REM sleep.

'New Year's Fitness Resolutions': Two things needed for keeping them

The first quarter of each passing year produces a common scenario in gyms the world over. Right after January 1st, there's an influx of new members; eager beavers out to conquer their 'New Year's fitness resolutions'. By the end of the first quarter, many have vanished from the premises. Midway through the New Year, the membership often resembles that which it was at the end of the previous year. It gains a small percentage of new faces who were usually familiar ones at a gym they'd attended previously.

Why do so many good intentioned people give up on their 'New Year's fitness resolutions'?

I believe there are two main reasons:

1.  Lack of a clear and compelling body improvement goal.
2.  Lack of an effective strategy for reaching a goal when one is set. 

'Fitness goals' require clarity and conciseness and an accompanying strategy for sustained motivation

Set a Clear, Concise, and Compelling Goal

I doubt if anyone wanting to build a beautiful house in the country would attempt doing so without a blueprint. Likewise, most people would not embark on a major vacation without having a clear idea of where they're heading. So why are fitness and physique improvement so often mired in ambiguity within the context of intended outcomes?

Many individuals take their New Year's fitness resolutions too lightly. It's easy to do when the negative consequences of backsliding on such goals aren't immediately realized. If you tried to build a house without a blueprint, the financial loss, wasted time, and humiliation would be felt quickly and definitely. Similarly, going on a far-off vacation without a planned destination could produce nearly the same pronounced and lingering pain. Fitness and body improvement obviously don't create the same levels of painful embarrassment for intended outcomes only partially realized. This makes New Year's fitness resolutions easy to take lightly while challenging for which to set clear goals.

But clear, concise, and compelling goals they require. To stay motivated, you need to feel excited about where you're going. Do you want to gain ten pounds of muscle? Do you want to lose twenty to fifty pounds of body fat? How exactly do you want your reflection to appear when you see it in the mirror after accomplishing your goal.

Use an Effective Strategy… that includes a Feedback Mechanism

I think one of the major reasons people don't set clear goals in the context of fitness is that they're often not sure if they're aware of an effective strategy for reaching the goal. After all, if you set a goal and you fall short on designing and implementing a strategy for reaching that goal, it can feel more like failure than if ambiguity reigned all along. This is how gym-goers end up being "dabblers" in fitness. They end up going through the motions and hoping some action, however haphazard, is better than no action at all. I mention this to you with the twenty-twenty hindsight of my own long-gone experience.

But you need a definite and effective strategy for reaching any goal. You also need it for staying motivated beyond the first two or three months of a body improvement quest. This strategy needs to include a built-in feedback mechanism so that you can make adjustments to your tactics (which are basically the building blocks of your strategy).

If you're tired of 'New Year's fitness resolutions' that never materialize, I urge you to make 2009 a different year. Create a clear, compelling, and exciting goal for yourself and then adopt or design a strategy for making it a reality. Maintain your flexibility in moving toward that goal by ensuring that the strategy provides you simple and useable feedback.

The bonus: When you have the two above-mentioned tools in hand and begin making a habit of adjusting to feedback until you've achieved what you'd set out to, the habits of a high achiever can become etched into your subconscious - and your very physiology.

'The Thermal Effect of Food': What about the "adherence effect" of convenience?

Those who would blast the 'meal ready to eat' (MRE) industry will often site a phenomenon called 'the thermal effect of food' in order to make their case against the use of liquefied meal intake. Their argument goes something like this:

"The body creates heat and burns calories when digesting a solid meal. Therefore, you should take advantage of this 'thermal effect of food' by avoiding the use of liquefied meals - such as smoothies."

Although the first sentence of the two above might be true, I have an objection by way of a question that arises from the evaluation of these statements as a whole:

Is 'the thermal effect of food' within solid meals a real benefit? Probably. But like any 'benefit', it should be weighed against potential costs within the bigger picture.

"In the larger picture of creating and maintaining a leaner body - how much should "the thermal effect of food" be balanced with the "adherence effect" of convenience?"

What do I mean? Quite simply this: If you're a busy person (who isn't?) and you don't always have time to prepare a solid meal that's not calorie-packed and nutrient deficient, what are the odds that you might eat fattening foods for the sake of their being 'solid' - and thus allegedly in possession of a "thermal effect"? You'd be tempted to wolf down something more likely to expand your waistline than your pectoral girth. And if you did wolf that down in the name of "convenience", you'd have been better off taking in a nutritious smoothie - "thermal-effect-deficient" as it might be.

'The thermal effect of food' refers to the energy and calories required to digest, process, and utilize the food calories we eat. Protein uses a lot of energy in being processed by the body. Dietary fat uses very little energy in being processed. Carbohydrates vary widely - depending on whether they're sugary (like soda), starchy (like mashed potatoes), or fibrous (like broccoli). As you could guess, the sugary and starchy carbs burn few calories in digestion/processing. The fibrous types burn more.

So what happens if we use high protein and low glycemic, healthy carbohydrate ingredients to make a convenient smoothie? Well, the consensus is that we're missing out on some of the 'thermal effect of foods'. The meal's not solid, thus, it's bypassing some of the energy expenditure of full digestion.

But how many more calories could the solid meal burn over the liquid meal? Maybe one hundred? Possibly not even that.

And if a busy lifestyle leaves you devoid of the time it takes to daily prepare five or six nutritious and solid meals, how tempted might you be to eat more than those hundred calories by way of junk food in the name of "burning calories with solid food?" Your adherence to better eating would be sacrificed for miniscule amounts of "thermal calorie burning."

These are the questions to consider before writing off the replacement of a couple daily meals with smoothies; before forgoing the "adherence effect of convenience" for "the thermal effect of food."

"Cheat Reps": Are they an effective bodybuilding technique?

"After you've exhausted your muscle's ability to perform exercise repetitions with good form, loosen your restrictions on that form and perform a few sloppy reps."

This is what those who advocate "cheat reps" are essentially saying. The technique is allegedly utilized, whether subconsciously or by design, as a bodybuilding workout intensifier.

But is it really effective as such? Will doing 'cheat reps' build more muscle? And how does the use of 'cheat reps' compare with other workout intensifying techniques?

There's a guy at my gym that uses too much weight on every exercise. Every one of his workouts is like a cheat reps extravaganza. Sloppy form is his modus operandi. His ego seems dependent on the amount of weight he attaches to the bar or machine used for each bodybuilding movement.

Unsurprisingly, the person I'm referring to doesn't have a great physique and his appearance seems absent of steady improvement. His workouts epitomize the somewhat tragically wasted time and effort of the blanketed neglect of proper exercise form.

'Cheat reps': Any fleeting benefit you can gain from them is outweighed by the benefits of 'good exercise form'.

But what of the occasional and planned neglect of such form?

The idea of using cheat reps is simple. If you can do standing barbell curls in strict form with a particular weight for five reps - why not crank out three additional reps by using a little upper body momentum? It could be likened to "makeshift forced reps" when you don't have a spotter present to force those reps.

The problem I have with 'cheat reps' is twofold:

1. Intensifying techniques like forced and cheat reps generally tend to create unpredictable variables in inter-workout recuperation time requirements. See my take on forced reps
2. Cheat reps can do the aforementioned while insidiously creating bad habits that get reinforced by the ego.

The number one point is a conclusion I've reached through 24 years of experience in natural bodybuilding. Unless a trainee has the recuperative genetics of superman, intensifying techniques nearly always lead to sticking points and outright progress plateaus.

Number two is a phenomenon that's usually tied to the curious obsession that males have with "heavy weights". We're constantly bombarded with the slogan "train heavy" - which is absent of the modifying fact that 'heavy' is a relative term. A more useful piece of advice might be: "Turn heavy weights into lighter weights".

That reveals the uselessness of 'cheat reps' as a progress enhancer. If 'heavy' is relative and progress is the effectiveness of turning heavy weight into light weight - then three reps of barbell curls with a weight that you could only use by cheating are relative (in contractile intensity) to three reps that would create that intensity at a lighter weight.

Conclusion: The best results I've observed - in both clients and myself - have been with the use of strict and proper form on all exercises. Those of you who've read my book are familiar with the real keys to natural bodybuilding progress.