Hi guys today I wanted to talk about Amino Acids and Branch Chain Amino Acids and how they help you in building muscle and maintain your muscle mass when you’re in a diet.
Alright let’s get started:
Why Branch Chain Amino Acids can me life save?
So what exactly are Amino Acids?
What are Branch Chain Amino Acids?
So amino acids are what make up proteins, essentially 35% of our entire muscle structure is made up of amino acids.
When we consume protein our body is breaking it down into amino acids; so that our body can individually cleave off one amino acid at a time to build what it needs to build.
Whether that's proper hormones, muscles or an organ tissue whatever the case may be amino acids are the building block of everything.
Now Branched Chain Amino Acids aka BCAA’s are blend of three amino acids isoleucine, leucine and valine.
What is the reason that they are so important and why we buy supplements that are branched chain amino acids and why supplement companies always talk about the amino acids and the bcaa’s.
It is simply because they are the most critical when it comes to preserving muscle mass but they're also the most critical when it comes to curbing your appetite.
There are a lot of things about BCAAs that people don't really know about this and I'm going to touch on them in this article.
So what are the benefits of BCAA?
Helps you to stick to your diet:
It helps you curb your appetite, BCAAs aren't just giving you the amino acids that you need to build healthy muscle tissue; they're also having some functions within the body in terms of giving you energy.
Lot of times the reason that we're failing when we're going on a diet is simply because we're getting cravings, well there's been a lot of studies that show that when you supplement with BCAA’s it can help curb those cravings by giving you the energy that you need.
Sometimes it can help overcome that hypoglycemia or the low blood sugar that you would ordinarily get on a low-carb diet or just after a workout.
Help you to burn fat:
A 2011 study found that test subjects that took a high dose BCAA supplement had not only performed better, but they had better fat oxidation.
Better fat oxidation is just a fancy way of saying better fat utilisation or fat burning.
Now it’s hypothesising that the main reason behind this is simply because of the reduction in post exercise hypoglycemia.
What that means?
It’s just you're not getting that low blood sugar that you would ordinarily get after a workout that causes you to overeat so that's just another reason why BCAAs are amazing when you're trying to lose a little bit of body fat and maintain your focus on a diet.
Now I mentioned the branched chain amino acids are leucine, isoleucine and valine.
We're finding that most of the evidence points towards leucine being the most critical now leucine has another interesting effect when it comes to appetite suppression.
Leucine is shown to suppress hunger signals from the hypothalamus a key portion of the brain to other portions of the body.
So when you consume leucine or you can seem branched chain amino acids and you're getting adequate amounts of leucine it is telling your hypothalamus to basically tell your stomach and tell your organs that they don't need as many calories.
They don't need as much fuel so again the branched chain amino acids right then and there are not just helping you spare muscle but they're literally telling your brain that help you burn some more fat.
Increased Energy:
Why I recommend sipping on them?
It is simply because they boost your energy, I want to explain why they boost your energy? and why you should be sipping on them all day? and why especially you should be sipping on them when you're at the gym?
If you're a busy person you're at the office all day and you're going to the gym at the end of the day sometimes.
Working out can help boost your serotonin levels; which is all fine. Serotonin is an amazing neurotransmitter that we need to feel good.
But let me explain something.
How serotonin works and how it actually may be a detriment to your workout especially at the end of the day?
Serotonin production requires the use of an amino acid called tryptophan, and it is not a branched chain amino acid.
Now production of serotonin encourages the production of melatonin especially at the end of the day what that means is that you may have a sense of well-being, but you're going to be fatigued.
And you're not going to have that animosity and drive that you want in the gym so what happens when you consume branched chain amino acids is they start competing against the tryptophan.
The two different sets of amino acids BCAA and tryptophan and if you're consuming enough of them they're going to dominate and they're going to fight off and compete against the tryptophan which means that your brain isn't going to be producing as much serotonin which means your brain is going to be more in workout mode.
This lets you to get things done, so that's what you want now that happens throughout the day too if you want a little bit of extra drive a little bit of energy you don't want to get relaxed and sleepy.
Sipping on the BCAAs is definitely going to have that effect.
It helps in maintaining your muscle mass and even build muscle to a extent:
How it does that?
The leucine is the main component of the branched chain amino acids that has a huge effect, it actually stimulates muscle cells to be more receptive to protein synthesis; in short this means you can get away with eating less calories and still be building muscle.
This can be really good when you're in a calorie deficit and you're still trying to focus on burning that fat but at the same time not losing the muscle mass.
And get away with less protein because that leucine is going to help the body synthesize it more where it's important in the muscle cell.
Muscle Building:
BCAAs help you build muscle, they don't have to go through any kind of digestion they just get readily absorbed into the bloodstream.
When you're eating something you're eating protein your body has to separate those peptide bonds into amino, peptide bonds that are all bonded together has to go through the traditional digestion process before those amino acids are readily available.
But when you take a BCAA supplement you're bypassing the digestion process and it's going right into the bloodstream; and right where it is needed, so that it can preserve that muscle mass.
Branch Chain Amino Acids are one of the most critical components of the diet and as someone that is going to the gym staying focused dieting a lot but also trying to maintain a career and trying to maintain a family.
I hope that this clears up a few things about branched chain amino acids and how they actually works.
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