A lot of you probably already know that losing just fat is hard, and gaining just muscle is even harder.
There was a point in my life when I was overweight. At that weight, I was still able to play basketball and run many miles without any issues. I knew I was strong and athletic, but I was still fat nonetheless. So one day I decided to lose fat by going on a cut. It shouldn’t be too hard right? All I have to do is do cardio, eat less, and I should be there in no time. Boy, was I WRONG. I ended up being flabby skinny and ended up losing a bunch of my hard earned muscles.
I then decided that I wanted to gain muscle, so I started amping up the lifting and started eating more. Guess what happened. I was fat and athletic again. At which point I thought, “WTF? There must be something I didn’t know.”
Of course there were many things I didn’t know at the time about fitness but one important one was:
Nutrition Partitioning
Favorable nutrition partitioning is the idea that you want the nutrients you eat to go fuel your muscles instead of being stored in your adipose tissues as fat cells. So it sounds like the key to nutrition partition is to control where the nutrients go, right? Yup! That’s correct!
So how do I control where the nutrients go? By controlling your Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL) activities in certain areas of your body.
Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL)
Lipoprotein lipase is an enzyme responsible for hydrolyzing triglycerides in lipoproteins into two free fatty acids and one monoacylglycerol molecule. [1]
There is a lot of biochemistry involved here, but I’m going to keep it short by going over just the part that matters to us fitness enthusiasts.
LPL is widely distributed in the adipose tissues (this is the stuff you want to shrink), heart, skeletal tissues (this is the stuff you want to retain or grow), and lactic mammary glands.
Wherever there is high LPL activity, that’s where triglycerides will get broken down into fatty acids and:
- If the fatty acids are floating around in the adipose tissues, there is a chance that they will get stored. (DO NOT WANT)
- If the fatty acids are floating around in the skeletal muscle tissues, there is a greater chance that the fatty acids will get used up for energy. [2]
How to Control LPL to Get Me Ripped?
So you’ll want your LPL activity to be high in your skeletal muscle tissues and low in your adipose tissues to make body recomposition easier. Here’s how you can manipulate your LPL activity levels in these areas.
- Stress has been associated with increase LPL activities in the skeletal muscle tissues and decrease in LPL activities in white adipose tissues. [3]
- Fasting has been associated with decrease in LPL activity in white adipose tissues. With LPL activity normalizing in 4 hours after breaking the fast. [5] This suggests that nutrition in the first meal after the fast is favorably partitioned.
- Growth and sex hormones decrease LPL activities in white adipose tissues. [6]
- Growth hormones themselves also increase LPL activities in skeletal muscle tissues [7]
- Resistance training increases LPL activities in skeletal muscle tissues [8]
Say What?
- Practice Intermittent Fasting.
- Lift heavy weights. (takes are of resistance training, increases of the growth hormones, and increase in sex hormones)
- Maximize sleep to try to maximize growth hormones.
- Realize that stress is not always a bad thing as long as you have enough time to recover.
- Try supplementing with Creatine and L-Arginine to try to increase growth hormones.
8 Comments
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What do you mean by intermittent fasting? Just eat every four hours to keep your metabolism going or what? I’m just curious because I already do that, eat very healthy, and exercise daily with no change. I am stressed out, but usually practice yoga for that. I definitely do not sleep more than 6.5 hrs either. But, I feel like I should see more changes than I have. I am fit, but I feel like I’m just maintaining. Any advice? Maybe I’m eating too few calories?
By intermittent fasting, I mean something like LeanGains, Cheat Mode, or Eat Stop Eat. ESE is a book available for purchase but I don’t like it as much as LG and CM.
Unfortunately, information on how to get started with LG and CM is kind of all over the place right now on the internet. Don’t worry though, I’ll be putting out a get started guide real soon.
Also, how long have you been on your diet?
Being healthy is a life style not a type of diet…
@Jamie LeanGains is my lifestyle not my diet.
@Jamie
On a more serious note. What I mean by diet is, how long have you been on that certain macronutrient/calorie and exercise regimen? I change my macronutrient & calorie requirements every few weeks or so depending on how well I do with that setup. The idea is, if it’s not working, you gotta change something. If it’s working then keep at it. Simple as that.
@Jamie and also I made this face when I read your follow-up comment.
Gotcha… I eat healthy period. I don’t have a regimen. Maybe I have to change my caloric intake, but idk in what way. Guess that’s what I need help on. Maybe i have a set weight my body likes. I’m not over weight by any means, buy I do eat a lot of fruit which may not be good. I think my body processes sugar in a way that doesn’t allow for me to lose weight.
*but