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In a past issue of GQ, 38-year-old actor Henry Cavill of Superman fame opened up about the time his trainer Dave noticed a difference in his progress photos after he’d decided to skip meals to lose a couple of kilograms without altering his training.
The result was that Cavill looked less muscular, less like a real-life Kryptonian, the last thing he would’ve wanted since he was a favourite to be the next Bond.
How did it happen?
‘Let’s say you eat a slice of bread. Your body breaks down starch to create energy or fuel. First, it digests food into nutrients (smaller chunks), such as sugars, amino acids and fatty acids, known as catabolism. Then anabolism takes over, whereby your body takes these smaller components and builds them into larger structures such as glycogen stored in the liver or muscle, or fat in the adipose tissue (body fat). Then, your body uses these as fuel substrates during exercise,’ explains registered dietician at the Sport Performance Hub, Nicki de Villiers.
Cavill’s problem was that he wasn’t eating the same amount of energy as he was expending while exercising – this can also be caused by training too hard but not increasing your food intake to match the energy expenditure.
Catabolism happens no matter what you feed your body. ‘Most studies of the catabolic state focus on the effects of fasting and have found that if you don’t eat for 24 hours, you’ve still got enough glycogen to fuel your muscles. Any longer, then you’ll start using other fuel substrates to maintain blood sugar, such as amino acids from protein breakdown or glycerol from fat breakdown.
‘But anabolism needs nutrients from food to function. So, when your body runs out of food to break down, it stays in a catabolic state, as can be seen during low energy availability,’ she says.
How else would Cavill have known he was in a catabolic state? He may have felt fatigued, experienced joint and muscle pain or had difficulty sleeping. Since he also needed energy for his body’s physiological processes and not just training, not having enough of it would’ve compromised his immune and hormonal systems. That doesn’t necessarily mean he would’ve got sick, but he wouldn’t have had as much resistance to illness. (Think of Cavill’s body as Superman having to fight evil with not enough superhuman powers.)
Then there’s cortisol, not just a fight-or-flight hormone secreted in response to stress such as that caused by exercise, but also the messenger that tells your body to perform catabolism.
‘It’s perfectly normal for cortisol levels to increase during exercise to keep your bodily functions in balance, but usually, they return to base levels two to three hours afterwards,’ she explains. ‘If you’re in a catabolic state for a long time, your cortisol levels remain high.’
Excess cortisol can contribute to weight gain, high blood pressure, muscle weakness and mood swings.
How to avoid it?
‘Simply eat enough carbohydrates before and during training to provide you with fuel,’ she says. ‘When you exercise, there’s muscle damage, which is what you want to ensure a stronger muscle after repair. If you eat protein afterwards, your digestive system breaks it down into amino acids (catabolism), and then your body combines these in various ways to help build and repair your muscles (anabolism) – remember, your muscles are mostly protein. It’s also a good idea to add carbs to your post-workout snack to replenish glycogen.’
How much carbohydrate and protein you eat depends on your weight, height, gender, age, and the type and duration of exercise. ‘If you train for an hour a day,
a general rule of thumb is that you need 5g of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight, up to 8g if you’re training for longer [or saving the world from evil], and drop that if you’re doing three sessions a week,’ says De Villiers. ‘Protein intake should be between 1.2g and 1.6g per kilogram of body weight, but that depends on what you want to do with it. Go higher to build muscle and lower to maintain it.’
Where to get it?
Carbs before training can come from starch, fruit, milk, yoghurt or sugar, and protein afterwards from milk, yoghurt, milk, fish, chicken, eggs or plant sources such as peanut butter or legumes. Avoid fatty foods such as fried bacon and eggs before training, as they stay in the stomach for too long. De Villiers recommends flavoured milk as a recovery snack, as it contains carbs and whey protein. It has a high concentration of leucine, which signals muscle protein repair.
‘Vitamin C is important as it plays a role in the formation of cortisol,’ she adds. ‘So, increase your intake, especially when you’re under stress.’
‘Sleep is another often overlooked but crucial component as it gives your body ample time to curb cortisol secretion, which prevents levels from becoming elevated when you’re awake, and growth hormones are released during sleep to kickstart anabolism. A study on shift workers who worked through the night and slept during the day revealed a disturbance in hormones that lead to weight gain compared with nighttime snoozers. The recommendation is seven to eight hours shut-eye per night.’
Negligence of adequate training, nutrition and recovery could result in significant muscle loss and an overall decrease in your health. Do you want to throw all that hard work down the drain?
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