How to prevent a catabolic state (Muscle Breakdown)?

I am in the slow process amping up my cycling with the goal of increasing fitness and dropping body fat.  My most recent InBody Scan had me at 16% bodyfat and my goal is 10% by June which gives me about 3 months.  That is no small task.

One of the obstacles of dropping bodyfat while increasing daily activity and training is avoiding a catabolic state.  A catabolic state simply means that your body is breaking down muscle tissue.  Definitely not what you want when your looking to gain strength and speed.

I am not necessarily interested in weight loss, rather I am looking for body composition change...lose fat, retain/add lean muscle.

One of my daily strategies is morning fasted cardio.  And no, I'm not sitting on a bike for 1-2 hours at a steady state which is mind numbing boring.  My morning cardio consists of varied intervals, changing up the intensity, time, rest and position on the bike.

20 minutes prior to getting on the bike I take 6 Essential Amino Acids that provide my body with a highly absorbable protein soutce (99%).  This is to ensure I do not breakdown muscle tissue while training in a fasted state.

This also the only Amino Acid that I carry in my office for our patients and athletes.

Here is an excerpt from the Body Health website:

You have heard about protein and amino acids, but do you know what they are and how they work?

Simplified, protein is what the body’s structure is made of. Bones, muscles, hair, organs, immune cells and many hormones are all proteins.

For a muscle to get stronger, it must add protein to its existing mass. When muscles work hard, they build up lactic acid. Muscle cells have enzymes to breakdown lactic acid and these enzymes are also proteins.

Proteins are chains made up of amino acids. These are linked together (like beads on a string) to form proteins, which differ based on which aminos are used and in what order. For instance, a hair protein has a different string of aminos than a muscle protein.

There are 22 known amino acids, but our bodies only need 8 of them to construct all of its proteins. These are called “essential amino acids” because we cannot live without them; they must be part of our dietary intake.

After a hard workout, muscle cells need to rebuild their proteins. If the aminos they need are unavailable to the cell at that time, those proteins will not be built. And the whole sequence of repair will be incomplete or delayed. As a result, new muscle growth won’t happen or happens belatedly, so the training effect one expects does not happen, and even worse, you breakdown and get inured.

The same thing happens with many proteins that our immune system is made of. After a hard workout or competition, if there isn’t enough protein intake to complete the repair process and keep your immune system proteins at the optimum level, you can get sick. Bottom line: we need the proteins that will give us the correct proportions of the eight essential amino acids, in a form that the body can use easily, without excess nitrogen waste.

Athletes become deficient in amino acids for many reasons, including thinking they’re getting enough from their meals or supplements, when in-fact they many not be.

We evaluate sources of protein from our diets based on how well they supply us with the eight essential aminos, and how well the body can use them to build up the body structure. The term “Amino Acid Utilization” (AAU) measures what percentage of a protein is being utilized by the body. If the protein is in the wrong proportion of aminos, or in the wrong form, it gets turned into waste, or burned as calories. And since proteins have nitrogen at their core, you can measure how much nitrogen was actually used, as opposed to how much became waste. Proteins that are used well will have a high AAU rate.

Eggs are the best food, having 48% utilization. Meat/Poultry is 32% and of note is whey protein, which has only 18%, so 82% becomes excess calories or waste that the body must use its resources in order to eliminate.

PerefectAmnino has the exact amino acid formula, with an AAU of 99%, supplying the cells with all of the essential amino acids, in the precise proportions so they can make the protein immediately. It reaches your blood stream in 23 minutes, making it immediately available to every cell. This translates into faster and more complete recovery, improved lactic acid clearance, bigger and better strength gains, improved immune system, stronger tendons, bones and ligaments.

In medical studies, athletes who were taking this formulation, after one month of use, had impressive muscle strength changes and their lactic acid clearance improved by 16%.

PerfectAmino is not gene therapy and is not an illegal anabolic steroid or growth hormone. But given the genes that you have, you can maximize your health and performance, provided you give your body the exact nutrition it needs, when it needs it.

Because the body is 60% water and 19% protein, if you drink a lot of water and supplement your protein intake with PerfectAmino (especially before and after workouts) you can reach some of your maximal fitness goals faster. Labeled as “protein therapy”, PerfectAmino is best described as an anabolic un-steroid, allowing your body, through nutrition, to build itself up without any harmful drug effects.