Human Growth Hormone

[April]

My roommate and I are both working to get in shape. I want to get stronger and trim down, but he wants to build bulk and to look cut. He read that if a person is looking to really increase muscle mass, she shouldn't eat within the 3 hours that follow the workout in order to stimulate production of the human growth hormone. I hadn't heard of this before, and I'm not sure it's a good idea for myself. If I don't eat when I'm legitimately hungry, I start to freak out. But I'm tempted to give it a try if it would safely speed up or enhance the results of my workouts. What do you think? I'm curious about this even if I decide it's not right for me.

[das_nut]

I prefer to think that, for the most part, your body knows best. Eat when you are hungry.

[Scythe]

Three hours isn't exactly a dangerous amount of time to stop eating. Might as well do what you feel like.

[April]

I just want to clarify that it's not a matter of not eating for 3 hours. Heck, practically anyone that's gone to school has gone at least that long without eating. My typical workout is about 2 hours long. My energy supply after a workout is much lower after a workout, and I assume it's the same for most people. So this would mean at least 5 hours without eating and low blood sugar. This would be more difficult to do than just going 3 hours without food. But maybe this is optimal for production of the human growth hormone. This is what I'm interested in hearing opinions about.

[zoebird]

since your workouts are so long (which isn't a problem in and of itself), you should do a protien and simple carb load right after working out--my husband does a protien drink (whey or soy protien with grape juice--make sure it's 100% juice); i prefer to do nuts and grapes or an apple--but that's me.

then, we'll usually have dinner about 2-3 hours later because that's how long the 'snack' lasts. Usually, i eat every 2-3 hours, so sometimes my post workout snack is my next meal.

[zoebird]

also, here are some links that you may find useful:

Human growth hormone response to repeated bouts of aerobic exercis (http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/83/5/1756)

Effects of Human Growth Hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I, and Diet and Exercise on Body Composition of Obese Postmenopausal Women (http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/83/5/1477)

Endogenous anabolic hormonal and growth factor responses to heavy resistance exercise in males and females. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1860749&dopt=Citation)

at least, that should give you some ideas of what you're talking about (or what he's talking about). my guess is that he doesn't have a lot of scientific information that he can show you to back it up--and if he can, i'd like to see it.