However, another reason why exercise is sometimes regarded as a real-life fountain of youth is that, when done intensely, it boosts your body's natural production of human growth hormone (HGH), a synergistic, foundational biochemical that addresses the serious muscle loss and atrophy that typically occurs with aging.
Why Carb-Loading is Not Recommended if You Exercise for Longevity
The idea behind carb-loading is to saturate yourself with carbs so your muscles will have plenty of glycogen to go on while you exercise. This works fine for fit athletes that have an intense workout regimen. They also have the muscle mass that could accommodate large glucose surges as muscles can rapidly utilize glucose. Additionally most athletes have optimized insulin and leptin signaling and are exercising which also allows them to better use the carbs.
However, I believe it is very inappropriate for the vast majority of non-athletes that exercise casually, or just to get healthy as their muscle mass is not as well developed and their insulin and leptin signaling is typically impaired. Another point to consider in this study is that, while whey is great for stimulating muscle protein synthesis, I disagree with the use of whey protein isolate, as whey protein concentrates are clearly superior.
First, it’s important to remember that what you eat can either add to or detract from your exercise benefits, and if you're devoting the time to exercise for health and longevity, you'd be well advised to harness your meals to support your goals, not detract from them.
Primarily, contrary to popular advice, to maximize the benefits of exercise you will want to avoid fructose and other sugars unless you are engaged in intensive and prolonged cardio exercises that will allow you to burn these sugars, especially fructose, and not store them as fat.
Once you hit the age of 30, you enter what is "somatopause," at which point your levels of HGH begin to drop off quite dramatically. This decline of HGH is part of what drives your aging process, so maintaining your HGH levels gets increasingly important with age.
What You Eat in the Two to Three Hours After You Exercise is Extremely Important
After an intense workout, there's an exercise recovery phase of two to three hours during which you have to be somewhat careful about what foods you choose to eat. Specifically, in order to promote HGH release, you do need to restrict sugar intake post-exercise (although carbs can benefit those more interested in fast recovery, such as professional athletes).
So it's important to avoid carbs, especially sugar or fructose-containing foods, in the two hours after your workout, and this includes sports drinks, to be sure you're getting the full HGH benefits. Consuming whey protein, however, appears to be nearly ideal, as it is a protein that assimilates very quickly, and will get to your muscles within 10-15 minutes of swallowing it, supplying your muscles with the right food at the right time to stop the catabolic process in your muscle and shift the process toward repair and growth.
Just as combining whey protein with high-intensity exercise appears to work together synergistically to boost HGH production, so too does exercising while in a fasted state.
Research has found that fasting raised HGH by 1,300 percent in women and 2,000 percent in men! And the combination of fasting and exercising maximizes the impact of cellular factors and catalysts (cyclic AMP and AMP Kinases), which force the breakdown of fat and glycogen for energy.
It’s important to realize that this fitness-enhancing strategy is more about the timing of meals, as opposed to those fad plans where you essentially “starve” yourself for several days in a row.
Than, on intermittent fasting, the longest time you will ever abstain from food is 36 hours, although 14-18 hours is more common. You can also opt to delay eating. A day off eating per week can be a good strategy, or for example, skipping breakfast may be just the step to get you off a plateau in your fitness routine. Personally, I've revised my own eating schedule to eliminate breakfast and restrict the time I eat food to only do 3 meals a day, like a good brunch, a small meal at afternoon and a early dinner, works fine to me but I advise you really know what is better 4 U.
Intermittent Fasting for General Health and Longevity
There is plenty of research showing that fasting has a beneficial impact on longevity in animals. There are a number of mechanisms contributing to this effect. In Oriental Civilizations, it is very normal that as a Longevity Method, 4 example the Yogis.
Normalizing insulin sensitivity is a major one as insulin sensitivity is critical for the activation of the mTOR pathway, which along with IGF-1 plays an important part in repairing and regenerating your tissues including your muscles and thereby counteracting the aging process. The fact that it improves a number of potent disease markers also contributes to fasting's overall beneficial effects on general health.
Even if you take the exercise component out, modern science has confirmed there are many good reasons for fasting, including:
1.
Normalizing your insulin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health as insulin resistance (which is what you get when after prolonged periods of over-secreted and elevated insulin) is a primary contributing factor to nearly all chronic disease, from diabetes to heart disease and even cancer
Normalizing your insulin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health as insulin resistance (which is what you get when after prolonged periods of over-secreted and elevated insulin) is a primary contributing factor to nearly all chronic disease, from diabetes to heart disease and even cancer
2. Normalizing
ghrelin levels, also known as "the hunger hormone"Promoting human
growth hormone (HGH) production, which plays an important part in health,
fitness and slowing the aging process
3. Lowering
triglyceride levels
4. Reducing
inflammation and lessening free radical damage
5. Tying
it All Together
Whether
you seek to optimize your athletic performance or health and longevity,
incorporating 1-3 sessions of high-intensity exercises per week will help you
achieve your aims by significantly boosting HGH production.
Adding
intermittent fasting can kick it up another notch. The same cannot be said for
your diet, however.
Whereas carb-loading can be useful for professional athletes, those seeking health and longevity will not benefit from this strategy. On the contrary, severely limiting sugars and grains is part and parcel of any diet designed to optimize overall health and prevent chronic disease. Furthermore, it is important to note that consuming fructose within two hours prior to or after high-intensity exercise will nullify HGH production... Therefore, carb-loading while doing Peak Exercises will amount to wasted effort