Nutrient timing is one of those things u can have in your bag of tricks that isn’t exactly necessary, but it is helpful in a couple of ways. For me, it is an aspect of self discipline. I find that no effort goes unrewarded, so why not put in some easy effort to give you a 5% gain? Next, is the actual timing of nutrient intake. In the morning upon waking, the body is in a depleted state (remember the lions share of calories is used just to stay alive!), so what does it need? Carbohydrates and protein, and fast. Fats slow nutrient uptake, so don’t use fat at this meal. Meal two is a meal more or less a bridge to meal three. Here, we include a little carbohydrate, a little fat and 1/6 of your daily protein. We need this to function effectively for the next few hours. Meal three we just do our allotted fats and protein and serving of veggies. Meal four for me is preworkout meal. In this meal, I eat around 75% of my daily carbs, the protein source and no fat. The idea here is give the body some fast carbs (white rice) to fuel the training session. What I have noticed, is a greater pump, and killer endurance for high volume training, with drop sets, rest pauses, etc. I can truck through a workout with feeling starved at the end (especially big muscle group focused sessions). Then meal 5 whey protein, pure glucose, and quick oats. Last meal is protein, fats and veggies (I like some greek yogurt for the casein content in this meal too).
The entire plan is to eat for function. First meal is to refeed a depleted body, meals 2 & 3 are for making through the day efficiently, and with no more than is needed to do so. Meal 4 is fuel up for training, meal 5 to replenish, meal 5 to make it through the night while giving the body enough for protein synthesis while sleeping and fats for hormonal health. This is still a theory based mostly on anecdote. But, the literature suggests that protein in the last meal does in fact promote and support muscle growth at rest.
If anything, it is likely to give say a 5% advantage, not much. However, if one takes 3-4 steps with each giving him or her 5% advantage that’s 15-20% in total. Now that will make a difference. Like it is said, the devil is in the details. Shit, gear only gives as much advantage as diet and training (and genetics, that’s a whole other can of worms and a looonnnggg discussion over most of our heads) is utilized by one using gear. So take advantage of the small things, and the sum of those is greater than its parts. Nutrient timing is just one of those steps.
