«
»

The importance of fiber in building muscle

There’s more to bodybuilding nutrition than carbohydrates and protein. While these are the typical nutrients upon which many nutritionists focus, others factors play an important role in building mass and shedding body fat.
One – which we always seem to disregard – is dietary fiber. Dietary fiber is classified as “a non-digestible food substance.” In other words, your body cannot digest and absorb fiber. It yields no calories, no carbohydrates, protein or dietary fat. Still, it is extremely important to your nutrition and not something to be relegated to “secondary status”. As we’ll see, fiber indirectly builds muscle and contributes to a loss in body fat.

The best way to visualize what exactly fiber is: imagine a juicer. The portion of the fruits and vegetables that do not become part of the juice – sometimes referred to as the pulp – is fiber. Fiber is common only to foods that contain carbohydrates. Besides fruits and vegetables, you’ll find fiber concentrated in beans, oatmeal, whole grain bread, and to a lesser degree in potatoes and yams.

In terms of building muscle size, clearly you have to focus on eating the right amount of protein and enough calories, but the amount of fiber you consume can help keep the muscles in an anabolic state. Here’s how.

Fiber Improves Nutrient Absorption.
While fiber is not absorbed by the body – it simply passes right through – it acts as a “scrubber.” Certain fibers – those called insoluble which are common to vegetables – literally scrape the sides of the intestines. This scraping action acts as a cleaning mechanism allowing for better absorption of some vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Absorption – capturing the nutrients you eat – plays an important role in muscle growth.

Fiber Regulates Blood Sugar Levels
We often hear people complain about low blood sugar levels. In some people, a high carbohydrate intake can elevate blood levels of the hormone called insulin into the stratosphere.

Elevated insulin takes carbohydrates and stores them as muscle glycogen or body fat. Insulin is often called a “clearage” hormone as it removes carbohydrates from the blood stream. The big downside; insulin is so effective in dragging carbohydrates out of the blood, it often leaves too little. In effect, carbohydrates can cause a drop in the amount of carbohydrates in the blood. This, in turn, can cause a rise in another hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone which can help create a catabolic state – the antithesis to growth and repair.

The solution: fiber.

 

Soluble fibers – those common to oats, oat bran, fruit and beans delay the release of carbohydrates from the stomach. This delaying action modifies the subsequent rise in insulin levels. In simple terms, soluble fiber modifies insulin, allowing you to sidestep the potential drastic fall in the amount of carbohydrate in the blood. Carbohydrates levels (in the blood) remain steady which mitigates rises in the catabolic stress hormone cortisol.
Fiber Can Modify Hormone Levels
I’m not about to recklessly claim a high fiber diet can magically alter your physique. It can’t. However, I am a strong believer in balanced nutrition for gaining mass. Balanced in the sense that everything counts. Protein quality is important, carbohydrate timing influences growth, mineral content in the diet plays a role, meal frequency, and the list can go on and on.

With fiber, – when combined with everything else – hormones can slightly change tipping the testosterone balance a little favorably resulting in more mass. Higher fiber diets tend to lower the total amount of estrogen in the body. When estrogen levels are even a tad lower, testosterone levels rise. The body uses this advantage to add muscle – as long as you’ve met the other requirements for growth listed above. Interestingly, if you get carried away and try to boat-load the fiber, it can backfire and lower testosterone levels! For bodybuilding; you’ll at least need 10-15 grams of fiber a day.

If you’re trying to cut up, fiber plays a huge role as outlined in the three tips below

Fiber Displaces Calories
We know high carbs are a must for growing but you have to cut back when cutting up. That means smaller servings of rice, potatoes and other complex carbs. One way to satisfy the appetite while keeping carbs and calories lower is to substitute high fiber veggies for complex carbs. Instead of eating a bulking 2 cups of rice which yields 88 grams of carbs, you can eat one cup and substitute 1 cup of broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, or wax beans. These veggies yield less than 15 grams of carbs per cup saving you a lot of carbs and calories, which leads to fat loss.

Fiber is Thermic
Remember the silly quiz as a kid, “What weighs more, a ton of elephants or a ton of feathers?” The respondee would usually err and say “Elephants!”

Well, here’s a mind bender: What’s more fattening 100 calories from veggies or 100 from rice? Not even close. The rice! There’s a couple of reasons. First, remember, fiber is “non digestible. So while a label may claim there are 100 calories in 2 cups of veggies, the fact is, the body has a very difficult – if not impossible – time extracting the calories from the veggies because the calories are trapped within the fiber. And fiber just “passes on through” the body.

The second reason is fiber is thermic. When you eat food, the body expends energy in breaking down food in order to extract the nutrients and calories from the foods. It takes more metabolic energy to try to get the calories out of 100 calories of veggies than it does with 100 calories of rice. For these reasons, high fiber foods are excellent for dieting.

Fiber Clings To Dietary Fat
When you eat dietary fat, some of it can be used as fuel and some is stored as body fat. Fiber-based foods can actually drag some of the fatty acids out of the body leaving fewer to be stored as body fat.

Q & A

How Much Do I Need?
Bodybuilders and athletes need at least 10 and up to 17 grams a day. For building, shoot for 10 and for weight loss, go as high as 17. While this is a lot lower than what is recommended by the American Heart Association, keep in mind their guidelines are for heart health, not for someone trying to build mass or rip up. Bodybuilding training and carrying a low level of body fat are overwhelming positive factors that already influence good heart health.

What’s The Difference Between Soluble and Insoluble Fiber?
Soluble fibers found on oats, beans, peas, corn, fruit and psyllium- the fiber in Metamucil, are soluble or “mixable” with water. Insoluble fibers are all others; veggies and wheat products.

Can Fiber Be Detrimental?
Yes. Eating too much – more than 25 grams a day – could in theory lower testosterone levels. As well, a high intake could also interfere with the absorption of some minerals including zinc and calcium, as well as essential fatty acids

 

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 27th, 2004 at 12:00 am and is filed under Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.