Your three big ticket nutrition items for a stronger, fitter and leaner physique...
Updated: Apr 24, 2022
PRINCIPLE 1
Start your day right - get a 30g dose of protein at meal 1
This is one of the single best dietary tips to keep your body lean, have better daily energy and keep good mental focus to mid morning.
Once you start doing this, it’s actually really hard to go back to just eating cereal.
It keeps you full, it’s satiating and it tastes great - everyone loves cooked breakfast, ask a hotel manager or breakfast chef.
It’s important here not to be using too many vegan or milky items and using high quality animal proteins.
Animal protein will give positive effects on your neurotransmitters that increase focus, drive and determination in the brain, as-well as providing zoonutrients such as creatine and carnitine (essential for strength and fat burning), they also have a positive impact on muscle protein synthesis and sex hormones.
Eggs with smoked salmon
Whey protein, fruit and nut butter smoothie
Oats with egg whites
Poached eggs and toasts
Mackerel fillets
Omelette with avocado
Add a side of low glycemic berries such as apricots, blackberries, blueberries, grapefruit, oranges, peaches, raspberries, and strawberries.
30g of protein is essential to make sure there's enough amino acids for the liver to spare some for muscle protein.
The liver will use up a LOT of dietary essential and non-essential amino acids for cell functions and detoxification, leaving very few essential amino acids to circulate into the system.
If we choose high quality protein sources, ones rich in the branch chain and essential amino acids, we need less quantity of protein.
High quality sources are very bioavailable and stimulate muscle tissues at all levels, even your eyes, especially because of its leucine content.
This is whey, milks, eggs, egg whites, chicken, beef, pork…
~ Leucine ~ even if taken alone creates a healthy response in muscle protein synthesis. Sadly however, if we take any amino acid alone, the body still needs to “build” protein, meaning the body will pull any amino acids (protein) it needs from other pools (muscles, organs, liver etc).
Different meats have different amounts of leucine but aiming at 3g of leucine per meal is ideal in 1-2 meals of the day.
Chicken breast (raw) - 230g (53g protein, 243 calories)
Lean steak cuts (cooked) - 190g (54g protein, 340 calories)
Lean pork however - you need over 1kg to get enough leucine (over 200g protein, 1230 calories)
There’s a reason bodybuilders eat chicken, eggs and beef.
PRINCIPLE 2
Develop your post workout nutrition plan
Ideal workout nutrition gets you the best results.
Some of the biggest mistakes that I see are people thinking that they need to starve around a workout but actually it is one prime area for having better bodies long-term.
What you don’t need around a workout are things like sports drinks, energy drinks or anything that has high amounts of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup.
It’s also not a time to be loading up on fibre and really spicy foods because they don’t digest very well and around to work out digestion needs to be kept very simple.
For muscle and strength development, take a high quality pure whey protein.
Studies repeatedly show that the greatest muscle growth and strength development come from the right dose of amino acids especially leucine and whey protein has a high amount of leucine.
Soy for example contains phytoestrogens that mimic oestrogen in the body, which is totally contradictory of what you want for post workout nutrition. It also has a very low bioavailability and low amounts of leucine.
For fat loss and muscle building it’s generally best to avoid high amounts of carbohydrates in the post workout window immediately, putting your carbohydrates in your post workout meal.
For endurance athletes or athletes doing a very large amount of volume and training you must replace muscle glycogen which is stored energy in the body.
This means you should be definitely getting carbohydrates in your post workout window and in the post workout meal.
After a workout you do not want any caffeine.Avoid drinking coffee, energy drinks or any other sources of caffeine such as Pepsi Max because this will inhibit recovery.
Caffeine elevate stress which you need to clear as quickly as possible.
Including foods that have some vitamin C in your post workout routine is beneficial to reduce stress quickly.
Veggies such as peppers and greens
Fruits
The best way to get carbohydrates in your post workout shake is from maltodextrin powder or to use an all in one protein product such as Reflex Growth Matrix or PHD Synergy ISO-7 with some fruit.
PRINCIPLE 3
Plan a meal out
Zero tolerance approach to your nutrition will fail you at some point and thinking that you have to go months and months without indulging in your favourite foods is a recipe for failure.
Once once per month or week, give yourself some permission to eat a meal out. You will be leaner and more muscular for it.
When you have had a go, you can figure out how often you can do this.
Typically starting at 30 days to one big meal out and then try going down to 20 days to one big meal out.
Don’t do this by the seat of your pants have a look at some menus and think about something that you wanna plan and have a really nice meal around.
Get something great at your favourite restaurant with your favourite people and it will be way better to you than just snacking on some crap in front of the TV.
Make sure that meal has a good amount of protein and a good amount of carbohydrate and finish it up with a dessert that you want and when you leave the table remember meal one the next day is right back on track.
If you wake up and you’re clearly fatter and you don’t look more muscular then you probably ate too much and the next time just try and have a little bit less or remove the dessert.
You can also make better choices about those foods: for example you might try and plan a meal from my survival guides, eating out with a calorie or protein goal.
Always eat the vegetables first then the protein this will help reduce massive blood sugar spikes that occur after eating a lot of carbohydrates.
Remember that the leaner you get you can eat more carbohydrates and having a lower body fat percentage means that you can eat more of your favourite foods and stay lean and muscular.
Find out more here:
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