Sustain Muscle Growth During Weight Loss With BCAAs

As you endeavor on any weight loss journey, like the 5+1 plan, it's important to help your body maintain keep or maintain your muscles. During a reduced-calorie diet, your body will begin to consume stored fat, but it can also begin to consume muscle as well and while that will move the scale, it can have some negative impact. In this articles, we'll discuss how you can Sustain Muscle Growth During Weight Loss With BCAAs.

What Are BCAAs?

Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are a combination of three essential amino acids: leucine, isoleucine, and valine, often taken to boost muscle growth and improve exercise performance. The term “branched-chain” refers to the structure or “chains” of amino acids.

How Do BCAAs Work?

Amino acids are proteins that are usually digested and metabolized in the liver, however, the three branched-chain aminos are absorbed into your bloodstream from your gut and are quickly available for repair and rebuilding muscle tissue. Training to get big and strong requires breaking muscle down with hard training and feeding it with nutrients afterward. BCAAs are ideal for this.

BCAAs And Muscle Sparing

BCAAs are great for building muscle, but they can also maintain or “spare” muscle during strict restrictive dieting when adequate nutrients may not be available. This can be especially useful when dieting or “cutting” for a competition. If your body does not receive adequate nutrients following intense training, it can “catabolize” or break down muscle tissue to burn as fuel. BCAA supplementation can prevent or “spare” your muscles from becoming food!

BCAAs spare muscle break down (catabolism) by stimulating the release of insulin. Insulin is an anabolic hormone that supports cellular energy production in the body and it also plays an important role in preventing the breakdown of muscle following periods of physical stress like weight training, running, and similar activities. The insulin release caused by BCAAs preserves muscle mass.

BCAAs And Weight Loss

Recent studies have shown that BCAAs have a positive effect on weight loss and fat loss. They help maximize fat loss, especially when you are already on a diet that is focused on losing fat. In most cases, this means a diet with a reduced carb intake. Since BCAAs are known to preserve muscle, you can and should use BCAAs as a supplement during your fat loss program. Whenever you follow a diet with restricted caloric intake, it becomes a delicate balance between burning fat while still retaining and even building muscle. Your body is forced to find some source of energy to burn, BCAAs help support burning body fat over muscle tissue.

BCAA Supplementation

BCAAs promote weight loss and reduce fatigue after exercise. BCAAs are also a useful supplement in terms of preventing catabolism of muscle and muscle tissues. As a result, they are particularly useful for maintaining muscle mass while on a strict calorie-deficit diet. You should strongly consider BCAA supplementation when dieting to reduce body fat in order to maintain muscle mass that you have worked so hard to add.

5+1 Plan BCAA Options

Because the 5+1 plan focuses on removing sugar and lowering carbs in your diet it's important you find a BCAA option that is on plan. Because the 5+1 plan follows a mild keto format, you can choose most BCAA's that are keto-approved. Below are a few BCAA options to help keep you on track!