How to Know Exactly How Many Carbs You Should Eat
- By Alex
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- 12 Jul, 2018
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High-carb…low-carb…no-carb… Which diet is right for you and your goals? Read on to find out.
When it comes to building muscle and losing fat, most people “in the know” agree on at least a few things:
- A high-protein diet is best.
- An energy surplus is necessary for maximizing muscle growth.
- An energy deficit is necessary for losing fat.
In fact, those fundamentals are so well established both scientifically and anecdotally that they form a litmus test of sorts for diet “gurus” and methodologies
If someone claims otherwise–that a low-protein diet is optimal or that you don’t have to worry about calories if you “eat clean,” for example–you should ignore everything they say.
That may sound harsh but, as you probably know by now, one of the biggest barriers to getting fit is just figuring out who to listen to.
Just because someone sounds smart doesn’t mean they know what he’s talking about. A degree doesn’t mean she can get results. A great body doesn’t mean he also has a reliable, universally workable system for getting there.
Determining who is and isn’t full of shit can be tricky, but know this:
One of the easiest ways to quickly assess the reliability of a self-style fitness expert is their grasp of thethe non-negotiable fundamentals of dieting.
If someone…
- rejects the laws of energy balance…
- claims certain foods make you fat by “clogging your hormones”…
- rants about how sugar is ruining your life…
- pushes other foods as the “keys to weight loss”…
- or otherwise claims how a century of metabolic research has it all wrong and he knows better…
…he should be defrocked, pilloried, and exiled. He’s a fitness Flat Earther.
I don’t care if these misguided people have good intentions, either. If they’re going to step up on the stump and gather a crowd, they now have a responsibility to be well informed. We all have a right to ignorance but not to infect others.
As the saying goes, hell is full of good intentions but heaven is full of good works.
And no, I don’t presume to know everything or consider myself a Grand Inquisitor of health and fitness advice. I do, however, get a lot more right than wrong and have hundreds of success stories to prove it. I can rest easy at night knowing I’m helping people reach their fitness goals in a reasonable amount of time while actually enjoying the process.
So, all that brings me back to the topic of this article, carbohydrate intake.
Ask Google how many carbs you should eat, weed out the idiots, and you’re left with a lot of contradictory answers.
Many well-respected health and fitness authorities argue why low-carb dieting is the way of the future. Many others rail against it as just another fad. Many still are in the middle saying “it depends…”
Well, in this article, I’m going to explain the science and logic behind my position, which is this:
If you’re healthy and physically active, and especially if you lift weights regularly, you’re probably going to do best with more carbohydrate, not less.
And yes, that applies to both building muscle and losing fat. The reality is a relatively high carbohydrate intake can help you do both, and this article will explain why.
The Great Carbohydrate Controversy
It’s easier to talk with some people about religion and politics than diet. And if you’re going to get into a diet debate, it’ll probably get hot over the subjects of carbs.
Why? What is so contentious about this little bugger?
Well, most of the criticism of the carbohydrate revolves around the hormone insulin and its effects in the body.
Every time we eat carbs our insulin levels spike, which, we’re told, tells our body to store everything we eat as fat. Thus, if we want to lose fat or prevent weight gain, eating as little carbohydrate and keeping insulin levels as low as possible is the key.
It’s easy to sell simple explanations like this to the unsuspecting masses, but the reality is far more nuanced.
Yes, insulin triggers fat storage, but no, it doesn’t make you fat.
I know that sounds like dietary doublespeak but I’ll explain.
Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas and its job is vitally important. When you eat food, the nutrients it contains make their way into your bloodstream along with insulin. Insulin tells cells to “open up” to receive the nutrients and thus causes them to be absorbed into muscle and fat tissues.
As your body absorbs more and more of the food you ate, insulin levels drop. When everything is cleared from the blood, insulin levels settle at a low, “baseline” level. (This is known as the “fasted” state.)
When you eat again, the process repeats. This is how your body stays alive.
Now, when viewed that way, insulin seems like an alright dude. We literally can’t live without it so how bad can it really be?
Well, if you’ve been paying attention, you noticed that earlier I said that insulin causes both muscle and fat tissues to “open up” to the foods you eat. It’s that latter role, related to fat storage, that has so many people in a tizzy.
You see, insulin tells the body it can stop burning its fat stores for energy and use the food you just ate instead. It also tells your fat cells to store a bit of the food energy for use when it runs out.
This physiological mechanism makes for reductionist dieting advice that goes something like this:
High daily carb intake = high insulin levels = store a bunch of fat = be fat.
And then the corollary:
Low daily carb intake = low insulin levels = burn a bunch of fat = be lean.
Simple is sexy and it’s hard to get simpler than that. Too bad it’s bullshit.
Insulin doesn’t make you fat. Overeating does.
Yes, insulin helps your body increase its fat stores, but fat storage isn’t bad per se. If your body weren’t able to replenish fat stores it would have no energy reserve to tap into when food isn’t available and you would simply die.
When people say they don’t want to gain fat, what they’re really saying is they don’t want their total fat mass to increase over time. That is, if you have 25 pounds of fat on your body now, you don’t want to have 35 pounds a year now from now.Now, a rise in total fat mass represents a rise in the amount of energy stored in your body. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can change forms but can’t be created or destroyed, so what has to happen for your body to increase is energy stores?
It must obtain more energy than it burns so it can use the surplus for fat storage. And insulin can’t spontaneously create additional energy for fat storage–it can only work with what you give it.
That’s why research has shown that so long as they’re eating less energy than they’re burning, people lose fat equally well on high-carbohydrate or low-carbohydrate diets.
That’s why professor Mark Haub was able to lose 27 pounds on a “convenience store diet” consisting mainly of Twinkies, Little Debbie cakes, Doritos, and Oreos: he simply fed his body less energy than it was burning.
The bottom line is insulin levels and the amount of carbs you eat have little to do with losing or gaining weight. Energy balance is the key.
How Many Carbs Should You Be Eating Then?
Now that you’ve learned why you have no reason to fear carbs, let’s talk about how many you should be eating.
As I mentioned earlier in this article, if you’re physically active, and especially if you lift weights regularly, you’re almost guaranteed to do better on a higher-carb diet than a low-carb one.
That said, if you’re sedentary and overweight, you’re guaranteed to do better on a low-carb diet simply because your body doesn’t need the energy they provide.
Chances are you’re in the former category and not the latter, so let’s talk more about determining carbohydrate intake for active people.
How Many Carbs to Eat for Building Muscle
One of the substances your body breaks carbs you eat down into is glycogen. This is a form of potential energy that is stored primarily in the liver and muscles.
Glycogen is a primary energy source for intense exercise, which is why keeping your liver and muscles full of it can dramatically improve workout performance.
Maintaining high levels of glycogen requires maintaining relatively high levels of carbohydrate intake.
The elevations in insulin levels helps you build more muscle too.
Insulin isn’t anabolic like other hormones such as testosterone, but it does have powerful anti-catabolic properties. This means that insulin decreases the rate at which muscle proteins are broken down, which creates a more anabolic environment conducive to muscle growth.
This isn’t just theory, either. There are several studies that found that high-carbohydrate diets are superior to low-carbohydrate ones for building both muscle and strength.
One of these studies was conducted by scientists at Ball State University. Researchers found that low muscle glycogen levels (which is inevitable with low-carbohydrate dieting) impair post-workout cell signaling related to muscle growth.
Another study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina found that when athletes followed a low-carbohydrate diet, resting cortisol levels increased and free testosterone levels decreased. This is more or less the exact opposite of what athletes want for optimizing performance and body composition.
These studies help explain the findings of other research on low-carbohydrate dieting.
For example, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Rhode Island looked at how low- and high-carbohydrate intakes affected exercise-induced muscle damage, strength recovery, and whole body protein metabolism after a strenuous workout.
The result was the subjects on the low-carbohydrate diet (which wasn’t all that low, actually—about 226 grams per day, versus 353 grams per day for the high-carbohydrate group) lost more strength, recovered slower, and showed lower levels of protein synthesis.
In this study, researchers at McMaster University compared high- and low-carbohydrate dieting with subjects performing daily leg workouts. They found that those on the low-carbohydrate diet experienced higher rates of protein breakdown and lower rates of protein synthesis, resulting in less overall muscle growth than their higher-carbohydrate counterparts.
This is why I recommend that when you’re wanting to maximize muscle growth, you set your carbohydrate intake somewhere in the range of 1 to 3 grams per pound of body weight.
Click here to learn more about carb intake and “bulking.”
How Many Carbs to Eat for Losing Fat
Low-carb dieting is has become the go-to solution for weight loss, but there’s little scientific evidence to support this.
There are about 20 studies that low-carb proponents bandy about as definitive proof of the superiority of low-carb dieting for weight loss. This, this, and this are common examples. If you simply read the abstracts of these studies, low-carb dieting definitely seems more effective, and this type of glib “research” is what most low-carbers base their beliefs on.
But there’s a big problem with many of these studies, and it has to do with protein intake. The low-carb diets in these studies invariably contained more protein than the low-fat diets. Yes, one for one…without fail.
What we’re actually looking at in these studies is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet vs. low-protein, high-fat diet, and the former wins every time. But we can’t ignore the high-protein part and say it’s more effective because of the low-carb element.
In fact, better designed and executed studies prove the opposite: when protein intake is high, low-carb dieting offers no especial weight loss benefits.
As you can tell, I’m no fan of low-carb dieting for weight loss, but I do think it can be useful for people very overweight, whose bodies don’t process carbs well.
Insulin sensitivity refers to how responsive your cells are to insulin’s signals, and insulin response–or insulin secretion–refers to how much insulin is secreted into your blood in response to food eaten.
Research has shown that weight loss efforts aren’t improved or impaired by insulin sensitivity or insulin resistance per se, but there’s evidence that people with poor insulin sensitivity and response may lose more weight on a low-carb diet.
For instance, a study conducted by researchers at the Tufts-New England Medical Center found that a low-glycemic load diet helped overweight adults with high insulin secretion lose more weight, but not overweight adults with low insulin secretion.
A study conducted by scientists at the University of Colorado demonstrated that obese women that were insulin sensitive lost significantly more weight on a high-carb, low-fat diet than a low-carb, high-fat diet (average weight loss of 13.5% vs. 6.8% of body weight, respectively); and those that were insulin resistant lost significantly more weight on a low-carb, high-fat diet than a high-carb, low-fat diet (average weight loss of 13.4% vs. 8.5% of body weight, respectively).
Two studies is hardly definitive, but it’s interesting and worth noting.
Practically speaking, this wouldn’t apply to you unless you’re obese, sedentary, and near diabetic, and don’t want to exercise to lose weight.
So, here’s how I recommend you calculate how many carbs to eat for weight loss:
1. Calculate your calorie target for weight loss.
Click here to learn how to do this.
2. Set your protein intake to 1 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight.
If you’re very overweight (25%+ body fat for men and 30%+ for women), set it to 1.2 grams per pound of lean mass. (Click here to learn how to calculate this.)
3. Set your fat intake to 0.2 grams per pound of body weight.
If you’re very overweight, set it to 0.4 grams per pound of lean mass.
4. Fill in the rest of your calories with carbohydrate.
It’s that simple. For example,
- When I want to lose fat, I start my calories around 2,400 per day (I burn about 3,000 per day on average).
- My daily protein intake is around 220 grams (I generally start my cutting periods in the 190s).
- My daily fat intake is around 40 to 50 grams.
This leaves about 1,000 calories for my carbs, which means 250 carbs per day.
The Bottom Line on How Many Carbs You Should Eat
Carbohydrate intake is just given way too much attention these days, and especially for healthy, physically active people.
Their results aren’t going to hinge on how many or the types of carbs they eat. It’s going to hinge on how they manage their energy balance over time.
Research from the University of Hawaii shows that most of the average American’s annual weight gain occurs between October and February. People simply can’t resist holiday smorgasbords; and even if you fancy yourself a “gym guy,” chances are you can’t either.
We won’t waste space telling you to avoid party treats and decadent meals, because we know you’re going to indulge anyway (we are, too). Besides, the holidays are no time to be pointing fingers. But we can give you some advice to mitigate the damage to your physique, so that you won’t be mistaken for a mall Santa when you go to return gifts in your new red sweater. All you have to do is follow this plan and enjoy yourself.
Budget for binges
It’s a given that you’re going to cheat on your eating, but trying to predict when will help you be more aware of your straying ways, and limit them. There are 39 days in the holiday season between the week of Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Assuming you eat five times per day (including meals, snacks, and workout nutrition), you will consume about 200 meals during this time. As a general rule, you need to adhere to your diet 90% of the time to see results. This means that you need to eat 180 “clean” meals over the holidays, leaving you with no more(or less) than 20 cheat meals.
Now look at your calendar. Plot out as many cheat meals as you can anticipate needing. When is your big office holiday party? When does your family visit? Let big celebrations like Thanksgiving count for at least two cheat meals, since these binges can last hours and easily double your usual caloric intake. Also, try to group your cheat meals into the one or two weeks when you expect to do most of your partying, such as the week of Christmas and New Year’s. Then you can make an effort to be extra faithful to your diet in the weeks leading up to your biggest cheats, when you don’t have as many engagements.
Another thing to remember: leftovers. They don’t count as your Thanksgiving day cheat if your still picking at them days afterward.Prepare to party
Even though the point of cheat meals is to stop being a stickler and enjoy yourself, you still want them to do as little damage as possible to your abs. One solution is to eat healthy before you go out so that you simply aren’t as hungry when you’re surrounded by junk later and therefore won’t indulge to the same degree. Never go to a holiday party on an empty stomach. Eat something before you leave that will increase satiety, prevent cravings, and slow the digestion of foods you eat later so you can avoid blood sugar crashes. A salad is perfectOpens a New Window.. A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed that eating three cups of salad reduced the subjects’ caloric intake by 12% at a subsequent meal. Need a more portable option? Grab an apple and string cheese. The fruit provides water and fiber, making it a high-volume food that will take up room in your stomach, and the string cheese gives you fat and protein, which is satisfying and slows digestion.
When you get to the buffet table, resist the breads, cookies, crackers, and cakes. They have no fiber, so they’ll do nothing to fill you up, and their simple, starchy carbs cause blood sugar spikes that zap your energy and encourage fat storage. Instead, eat shrimp, smoked fish, cheese, and raw vegetables (and opt for hummus over ranch or blue cheese dressing). Make the centerpiece of your plate whatever main meat dish is being served. Ham or roast beef are high in protein and devoid of carbs.
Where you stand at the party can be as dangerous as the food itself. You start talking with somebody near a bowl of potato chips and, before you know it, you’ve emptied the bowl. Don’t linger by the buffet–engage with people as far from the food and bar as possible.
Time your training
There’s a saying: “You can’t out-train a bad diet,” meaning that no matter how hard you work in the gym, you’ll still get fat if you eat junkOpens a New Window.. This holds true, but it doesn’t mean hard workouts can’t lessen the impact of diet cheats. Whenever possible, train before eating a big meal. Lifting weights increases your insulin sensitivity, meaning that your body has to work less hard to control blood sugar in the presence of lots of carbs and calories. More of the food you eat will be sent to your muscles to replenish glycogen and start the process of recovery, rather than sit in the fat cells around your waist.
Supplements can enhance this effect: Cinnamon extract, alpha-lipoic acid, and resveratrol all improve insulin sensitivity. Consider using probiotics as well. Restocking your gut with healthy bacteria helps you digest extra food.
Another benefit to pre-party liftingOpens a New Window. is in the way it helps you metabolize alcohol. Booze is never a muscle-friendly beverage, but it affects muscle protein synthesis (the process by which your body builds muscle in response to training) worst 24 hours after exercise. This means that you’re better off training this afternoon and drinking tonight than getting wasted tomorrow, just when you muscles are beginning to rebound from your workout.
Whether your goal is to lose weight or get fit, cardio is an essential component to your workout program. You know that cardio is where you burn the most calories at one time and, not only that, cardio workouts strengthen your heart, lungs, and the muscles you're working.
When we first started discovering cardio benefits, steady state training was the norm.
You'd head outside for a walk or run or hit the treadmill and, chances are, you would stay at about the same moderate intensity throughout the workout.
In recent years, that has changed dramatically. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is now the hot ticket. These workouts involve changing the intensity, working harder for certain intervals throughout the routine.
These shorter, more intense workout maximize your results while minimizing the amount of time you have to spend working out.
That sounds great, but is HIIT really better than steady state cardio? Which one should you focus on if you're trying to lose weight and get fit? Even more important, can you enjoy your workouts if you're working at such a high intensity?
The Basics of HIIT
HIIT involves pushing your body well out of its comfort zone for anywhere from 5 seconds to 8 minutes, depending on the workout you're doing.
The idea is to work at about 80 percent to 95 percent of your maximum heart rate if you're monitoring your target heart rate zones, or a level 9 to 10 on this perceived exertion chart, also knowns as your rate of perceived exertion (RPE).
Each work set is followed by a recovery period which can be shorter, the same duration, or longer than the work set. In this interval, you get your heart rate down to about a level 3 to 4 perceived exertion. You alternate the intervals for 20 to 60 minutes, depending on your fitness level, time constraints, and goals.
Pros and Cons
HIIT has a number of benefits, including:
- Improved performance: Some studies have shown that, while steady state training taxes the aerobic system, HIIT workouts can stimulate both the aerobic and the anaerobic systems. That means your body has more stamina and performs better in all your workouts, no matter what they are.
- It improves insulin sensitivity: Insulin sensitivity refers to how sensitive your body is to the effects of insulin. The more sensitive your body is to insulin, the less your body needs that insulin to lower blood glucose levels. In terms of exercise, that means your HIIT can help your exercising muscles use glucose for fuel more efficiently.
- It helps you burn more calories all day long One of the best benefits of HIIT is how many calories your body burns after your workout to get your system back to where it was before you exercised. This is also called post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), or your afterburn. The harder you work during your workout, the longer it takes your body to get back to normal, meaning you'll burn more calories for an hour or more after your workout.
- It helps you burn more belly fat: Even better news is that research is showing that HIIT may be more effective at reducing abdominal fat than other types of exercise.
- It improves your health: HIIT can help lower blood pressure and improve your heart health.
- Shorter workouts: Because you're working very hard, you get the benefits of training in less time than you would from slower, longer workout sessions. One study published in The Journal of Sports Science and Medicine showed that as few as three 10 minute sessions a week can make your body more efficient at delivering oxygen to your body as well as improving your metabolic health.
On the other hand, HIIT has some drawbacks, including:
- Can be extremely uncomfortable: While you can modify the workouts to fit your fitness level, the idea is to get as far out of your comfort zone as you can.
- Isn't great for beginners: If you're coming from a more sedentary lifestyle, HIIT is probably not where you want to start. You should build a strong foundation of basic cardio before trying HIIT.
- Increased risk of injury: High-intensity exercises like sprints, plyometrics or jumps come with a risk of injury if your body isn't prepared for that kind of movement.
- Can lead to burnout or overtraining: Too much HIIT is almost as bad for you as doing nothing at all. Experts recommend 1-2 HIIT workouts a week to avoid overtraining.
A Sample HIIT Workout
HIIT workouts can be set up in a variety of ways. For example, Tabata Workouts involve working very hard for 20 seconds with only 10 seconds of recovery time. You repeat that again and again for a total of 4 minutes, as in this cardio Tabata workout.
You can also do workouts with a longer work interval, such as high-intensity work for 40 seconds and recovery for 20 seconds, as in this 40-20 high-intensity interval workout.
The shorter the recovery times, the harder the workout is since you're never fully ready for the next work set.
The following workout involves a variety of high intensity, high impact cardio exercises and a 1:1 work to rest ratio.
That means your work sets and rest sets are the same duration. The idea is to keep going, even as you get fatigued towards the end of the workout, although if you feel dizzy or feel that you can't catch your breath, you should take longer breaks.
Steady State Cardio
Steady state or moderate intensity cardio is what many of us are used to. This involves exercising at a consistent speed and level of intensity for the entire workout. That would be at about level 4 to 5 on the perceived exertion scale.
The idea is to work at a level where you can talk with maybe just a little difficulty.
Pros and Cons of Steady State Training
Steady state training also has some benefits such as:
- Less stress on the cardiorespiratory system: Because you're working at a lower intensity, you can improve your endurance without putting as much stress on the heart and body as higher intensity exercise.
- Increased endurance: Longer slower exercise helps you build endurance, both in your heart and your muscles.
- Improved health: Like HIIT, cardio makes your heart more efficient, getting oxygen to the muscles more quickly. Steady state cardio also lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and anxiety and, along with a healthy diet, can help you lose weight.
- Faster recovery: Because you're putting less stress on your heart and body, you recover more quickly and can usually workout the next day without a problem.
- It improves your body's ability to use fat: When you work at a lower intensity, fat is your main fuel source. Staying at that level allows you to save those glycogen stores for higher intensity workouts. That doesn't necessarily mean you burn more fat, just that your body is better at using fat for fuel.
- It increases slow-twitch muscle fibers: Slow twitch muscle fibers are more efficient at using oxygen to generate energy, so you can go for a longer period of time. This improves your aerobic metabolism which is, essentially, how your body creates energy.
- More enjoyable: Part of the reason we stick with exercise is that, on some level, we like it. Or at least we can tolerate it. It's much more comfortable to work at a lower level of intensity than it is higher intensity. Some exercisers may even quit after too much intense exercise just because it's so uncomfortable.
Some of the disadvantages of steady state training include:
- The time factor: If you're trying to lose weight, you have to workout for longer periods of time if you want to burn enough calories.
- Risk of overuse injuries: Doing the same motions over and over can lead to repetitive stress injuries unless you do plenty of cross-training.
- Boredom: Not everyone is cut out for long, slow workouts, especially if the weather is bad and you have to get on a treadmill, stationary bike or other cardio machines. That kind of workout can feel boring and tedious if you do it all the time.
- Weight loss plateaus: Doing only steady state cardio workouts without changing things up could lead to a plateau. You need to challenge your body with new and different activities so it can constantly change and grow stronger.
Should You Do HIIT, Steady State, or Both?
With all that in mind, which one is right for you? The answer really depends on your fitness level and goals more than anything else. And keep in mind that experts don't recommend doing HIIT more than twice to three times a week.
Who Should Try HIIT?
- You're an experienced exerciser comfortable with high-intensity exercise.
- You want to focus on losing weight and burning more calories both during and after your workouts.
- You want shorter workouts because of a busy lifestyle.
- You want workouts that mix up different exercises and intensities to keep things interesting.
- You want to build endurance quickly.
Who Should Stick With Steady State?
- Beginners or anyone coming back from a long exercise break.
- Anyone who can't do high-impact exercise or doesn't like working at very high intensities.
- Someone training for an endurance race, such as a half-marathon or marathon, although you may do some high-intensity work depending on the training plan you're following.
- Anyone who's been told to avoid high-intensity exercise by a doctor.
Best of Both Worlds
In a perfect world, you would have some mixture of both steady state and HIIT. For beginners, you can actually build up your endurance and stamina for HIIT training by starting with aerobic interval training.
That involves changing up your intensity just enough to push you out of your comfort zone, but not so far out that you're miserable or breathless. This beginner interval workout is a great place to start.
As you practice, you can start to increase the intensity of your intervals from week to week.
The other key to working up to HIIT is consistency. Doing cardio on a regular basis is how you build the foundation that will allow you to work harder and get more out of your workouts.
Sample HIIT/Stead State Cardio Schedule
Day 1:
30-minute sprint interval workout
Day 2:
40-minute cardio endurance workout
Day 3:
Rest or light activity
Day 4:
25-minute Tabata cardio challenge
Day 5:
30 or more minutes of moderate cardio, like walking, jogging, cycling, etc.
Day 6:
Rest or light activity
Day 7:
30-minute aerobic cardio or rest
Make fitness a priority
“I can assure you, if you don’t make time for your health, you will make time for your illness,” Morelli says. “We make time for what’s important, and our health should always be number one. Just like guys with regular schedules, if working out isn’t one of your top priorities, it’s not going to happen.
Be realistic
That said, the key is to consistently do your best. Make sure you don’t sign on for too much. If you keep missing workout classes or training sessions because your schedule is too crazy, you could get severely discouraged. “Stay in control and use the small bits of momentum to build and reinforce new habits that move you towards your goals,” Morelli says. That can mean going for a class twice a week, meeting with a trainer once or twice, and filling the rest of the week out with solo sessions. Be realistic.
Time it right
If you’re utterly spent after work, sleep, then work out in your “morning” whatever time that might be. Just because your work hours are out-of-the-norm doesn’t mean you can’t have a consistent schedule like everyone else. And if your schedule is constantly changing from day to night shifts, use the energizing (and likewise sleep-enhancing) benefits of exercise to your advantage. It can help keep your body feeling more normal.
Or, work out at lunch—even if your break is at 3p.m.
If your job is flexible and you can use your lunch break to get in a sweat session.
Know that short workouts count too
“Everyone’s busy and oftentimes crazy schedules are the barrier between training and not,” Morelli says. But it doesn’t have to be. “We tend to think (based on what we see on social media) that if we don’t train for 60-90 minutes then there’s no use to even train; but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” he adds.
Watch what you eat!
“The most important component to health, wellness, and longevity, is your nutrition,” Morelli says. If you’re a night worker and spend your non-busy hours eating donuts and chips, you’re not going to feel up to hitting the gym once you’re off the clock—mentally or physically.
“It’s absolutely critical, even more so on those days when you just don’t have it in you, that you stay dialed in to your nutrition,” he adds. Eating right will prime your body with the right kind of fuel to perform well in the gym, but also keep you from getting set back if you need to miss a workout. You’ll find yourself in a better state of mind, too; and, besides, mix a crappy day of eating and no training session, and you’re setting yourself up to derail your efforts.
Take advantage of empty gyms
A wonky work schedule can actually work to your advantage. Most gyms will probably be empty when you’re not working, so take advantage of all the free equipment. You won’t have to wait for machines or free weights to open up, and trainers will be more available to answer any questions.
Be prepared
Also try to make it a habit to pack a gym bag before you go to work. This way you can go straight to the gym without any additional trips that can get you sidetracked.
Get in more daily fitness
“No matter where I go, I use the stairs,” Morelli says. “I also always park in the last spot (furthest away) and walk to my destination,” he adds. These seem simple, but they add up over the course of the week. And, you can burn around 20 percent more calories by altering your walking pace (rather than keeping a consistent speed), a studyOpens a New Window. from Ohio State University found.
“If you live within 5 or so miles, buy a bike and ride to work,” Morelli says. “Some of my close friends have found time to exercise on their commutes; and they all say the same thing—they feel ready to take on the world when they get to the office,” he adds. Making this a part of your everyday routine will cement it as a habit. Just be intelligent about it. Buy a helmetOpens a New Window.. Bring a backpack with a change of clothes and deodorant so you’re not that guy everyone’s dodging in the office.
You can also make sure you’re active over the weekend (even if your weekend is on a Tuesday!) Play baseball or kickball, go for a bike ride, and plan active vacations, like hiking and camping or skiing.
Be accountable but reasonable
Ok, it’s 10p.m., you’ve pulled extra hours at work, done errands, fixed a leaking faucet, and now you want nothing more than to scramble something together to eat, then crawl into bed. This is okay! Acknowledge there will absolutely be days like this, Morelli says. But make sure you get moving the next day. Back-to-back missed workouts will get the ball rolling—but not in a good way.
A lot of us live sedentary lives.
We sit in traffic.
We sit at work.
We sit at home and watch t.v.
No wonder so many of us are constantly fighting the battle of the bulge: it can be tough to stay lean!
I’m a very busy person , so I know how busy life can get and how easy it is to fall off the wagon and let your health go to the wayside.
That’s why I wanted to share these 9 simple habits for burning fat and staying lean all year round.
Keep in mind, I call these simple habits “effortless” because all they take is a little planning. If you follow these tips, you’ll see radical changes in your body over time.
1. Plan Your Meals
This is an AWESOME tip once I discovered it. Basically, you want to figure out how many calories you need to eat to lose fat. There are tons of apps for that online - just Google them.
Then you want to make a list of your favorite foods. I love greek yogurt with chocolate almonds, buffalo chicken salad, steak, you get the picture.
Then simply measure how much of your favorite foods you have to eat in order to stay within your daily calorie limit.
This is life-changing because it allows you to lose weight while still eating your favorite foods.
2. Eat 1 Gram of Protein per Pound of Bodyweight
Protein is a crucial part of burning fat. For one, when you eat 100 calories of protein, your body uses 30 calories to digest it. This is known as the thermic effect of food. In other words, you burn calories simply by eating protein.
Another reason to eat enough protein is because it helps control hunger.
Lastly, when you lose weight, you inevitably lose some muscle, so eating protein (and strength training) will help you retain your muscle mass.
My favorites high-protein foods are greek yogurt, steak, chicken, and salmon. But you can also eat eggs and drink protein shakes.
If you weight 175 pounds, you should eat 175 grams of protein a day.
3. Prioritize Strength Training
Muscle burns calories - the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn. It's as simple as that.
So if you want to burn fat and stay lean, you HAVE to do some sort of resistance training. It can be:
- Kettlebells
- Dumbbells
- Bodyweight exercises
- Barbells
It doesn't matter. The point is to progressively use more weight or do more repetitions as you get stronger.
4. Be Serious About Your Sleep
Sleep is when your body recovers and releases hormones to help you build muscle and burn fat. Hormones like growth hormone, testosterone, and insulin-like growth factor. If you don't get enough sleep, you're robbing your body of it's opportunity to rebuild and function at its best. And that will obviously affect fat loss.
Once more thing is that chronic sleep deprivation causes carb cravings. So if you're craving junk food, you should focus on getting enough sleep.
5. Eat Lots of Cruciferous Vegetables
Veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, etc. are some of the best foods you can eat if you want to burn fat.
The contain fiber and micronutrients and phytochemicals that are proven to help burn fat and get lean. Not to mention they help lower your risk of cancer by fighting free radicals and the oxidation process. They also fight bad estrogen levels in your body.
The fiber will help keep you fuller for longer and because they have virtually no calories you can eat a mound of vegetables and still stay well within your caloric limits. Be sure to eat them with some kind of protein so that you feel satiated.
If you don't like the taste, then you can roast them with a bit of olive oil and parmesan. I like adding cajun seasoning to my roasted vegetables and eating them with fish. There are tons of ways to make them, just be sure that you're eating them.
6. “Cycle” Your Carbs
Carb cycling is one of the smartest dietary strategies I've ever heard of. It can be a "go to" habit for staying lean.
Here's how it works: your body converts carbs into glucose which it stores in your liver and muscles. Any extra carbs get converted to fat.
Carb cycling is a strategy that has you eat high carb on days that you lift weights (or perform any other resistance training) because your body will burn the glucose for fuel. That way when you eat carbs, your body shuttles them to your liver and muscles rather than causing them to be converted to fat.
On days when you don't lift weights, eat less carbs so that they don't get converted to fat as easily.
This strategy allows you to eat your favorite "junk" foods by simply eating more carbs on days that you lift weights.
7. Shop and Cook in Bulk
The best way to avoid binging on junk food is to not have it in the house.
The second best way is to make sure that you have plenty of the right kinds of foods in the house. Cooking in bulk ensures that you always have food available.
If you followed my advice in step #1 (plan your meals), you'll already have your favorite foods prepared. You will have measured them and packed the correct amount in the refrigerator already. This makes it much less likely that you'll order a pizza.
8. Use Visualization to Stay Lean
If you've ever read the classic Psycho-Cybernetics, you'll understand the power of visualization.
The premise of the book is that when you visualize your desired outcome, your subconscious mind figures out how to make it happen. It looks for opportunities, skills, and resources to make it happen.
The key is to visualize in detail what you want with passion and emotion. You have to FEEL like you've already achieved it in order for your subconscious mind to take over and make it a reality. That's why professional athletes use visualization to achieve peak performance.
So you need to visualize yourself as being lean, strong, and healthy on a daily basis. Imagine how you would look. Imagine how you would feel. Imagine what others would say. Imagine how you would behave to achieve these results.
9. Eat Mindfully
Make sure that you’re always sitting down and paying attention when you eat. Focus on the flavors, the textures, and your own feelings of fullness. Appreciate your food and the company that you’re eating with. Put the fork down, breathe, and drink water between bites. This will help you feel fuller and help you get enough water. It will also teach you to listen to your body’s natural satiety cues.
So make sure that you’re paying attention to your food and being grateful while you eat. Odds are, you’ll end up eating less and feeling fuller in the process.
Milk is made of two proteins, casein and whey. Whey protein can be separated from the casein in milk or formed as a by-product of cheese making. Whey protein is considered a complete protein as it contains all 9 essential amino acids. It is low in lactose content.
There are many benefits associated with the consumption of whey protein, and researchers are constantly finding new possible therapeutic properties. Here, we explain what the benefits might be, and look at some of the side effects and potential risks.
Fast facts on whey protein:
- Many of the potential benefits are based on single studies and more evidence is required before making definitive judgment.
- Whey protein is a mixture of beta-lactoglobulin, alpha lactalbumin, bovine serum albumin, and immunoglobins.
- Possible benefits include weight loss and lowering cholesterol.
- Possible dangers include nausea and headaches , but at moderate doses, whey protein is not considered dangerous.
Benefits
Aiding weight loss: In one study of 158 people, published in Nutrition & Metabolism , those who were given whey "lost significantly more body fat and showed a greater preservation of lean muscle compared to subjects consuming the control beverage."
Anti-cancer properties: Promising results were published in the journal Anticancer Research for the use of whey protein concentrate in cancer treatment. More research is needed.
Lowering cholesterol: A study, published in The British Journal of Nutrition , gave whey supplements to 70 overweight men and women for 12 weeks and measured a number of parameters, such as lipid and insulin levels. They found that "there was a significant decrease in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol at week 12 in the whey group compared with the casein (group)."
Asthma: Whey protein could improve the immune response in children with asthma. One small study involving 11 children, published in the International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition , found that children with asthma who were supplemented with 10 gram whey protein twice daily for 1 month had an improved immune response.
Blood pressure and cardiovascular disease: Research published in the International Dairy Journal found that beverages that were supplemented with whey protein significantly reduced blood pressure in patients with hypertension; their risk of developing heart disease or stroke was also lower.
Reducing weight loss in people with HIV: A study published in the journal Clinical and Investigative Medicine found that whey protein may help reduce weight loss among HIV-positive patients.
Possible dangers
Some people who are allergic to milk may be specifically allergic to whey. In moderate doses, whey protein does not typically cause any adverse events. However, consuming very high doses can cause:
- stomach pains
- cramps
- reduced appetite
- nausea
- headache
- fatigue
Consistent high doses of whey protein may also cause acne. From a nutritional point of view, whey protein is very unusual and does not have a natural equivalent.
Some people believe that there are risks from nutritionally refined foods such as these, because, although they contain a lot of nutrients, the balance is heavily tipped towards protein.
Types
There are three primary types of whey protein; whey protein concentrate (WPC), whey protein isolate (WPI), and whey protein hydrolysate (WPH).
Let's look at each of these in turn:
- Whey protein concentrate - WPC contains low levels of fat and low levels of carbohydrates. The percentage of protein in WPC depends on how concentrated it is. Lower end concentrates tend to have 30 percent protein and higher end up to 90 percent.
- Whey protein isolate - WPIs are further processed to remove all the fat and lactose. WPI is usually at least 90 percent protein.
- Whey protein hydrolysate - WPH is considered to be the "predigested" form of whey protein as it has already undergone partial hydrolysis - a process necessary for the body to absorb protein. WPH doesn't require as much digestion as the other two forms of whey protein.
Also, WPH is commonly used in medical protein supplements and infant formulas because of it's improved digestibility and reduced allergen potential.
Muscle building and weight loss
Whey protein supplementation along with resistance exercise can help improve muscle protein synthesis and promote the growth of lean tissue mass.
A study published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism concluded that "whey protein supplementation during resistance training offers some benefit compared to resistance training alone." In addition, "males who supplemented with whey protein had a greater relative gain in lean tissue mass."
Much better gains in strength are associated with whey isolate supplementation compared with casein.
This was demonstrated in another study published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism , which concluded that in "two groups of matched, resistance-trained males whey isolate provided significantly greater gains in strength, lean body mass, and a decrease in fat mass compared with supplementation with casein during an intense 10-week resistance-training program."
If you want to buy whey isolate supplementation, then there is an excellent selection online with thousands of customer reviews.
Mechanism
Even the anticipation of exercise can spark a rush of adrenaline. Upon exercise or before, your brain sends a signal to your adrenal glands. In response, your adrenal glands excrete epinephrine into the bloodstream. The release of epinephrine is greater in an untrained person than a trained person.
Effect
Epinephrine is released as part of the sympathetic nervous system initiating the "fight or flight response.'' It increase your heart rate in order to increase the amount of blood your heart beats each minute. More blood flowing means a larger amount of oxygen available to your muscles that need it. It also works to constrict your blood vessels, increasing your blood pressure and to allow more blood to your muscles.
Mood
Regular exercise training can increase your mood. With regular exercise comes a reduction in the levels of epinephrine at rest. Less sympathetic nervous system innervation leads to a reduction in the intense feelings that come from epinephrine. In addition, depletion of epinephrine on a daily basis that can come from being over-stimulated can lead to fatigue. Less fatigue can mean a happier mood.
Metabolism
Your adrenaline rush from epinephrine also influences your metabolism. Epinephrine stimulates the metabolism of carbohydrate and fat stores inside your body. In preparation for the "fight or flight response" your body must have ample fuel to run on. For this reason, epinephrine increases the activity of the hormones responsible for breaking down glycogen and fat and making it available for your muscles.
Can Certain Foods Produce High Epinephrine Levels?
You may know it better as adrenaline, but epinephrine is a hormone produced in your brain in response to strong emotions such as fear or anger. A release of the hormone causes an increase in your heart rate, blood pressure, muscle strength and blood sugar and serves as a means to get you ready for strenuous activity, or flight or fight. While stress response usually triggers epinephrine, certain foods may affect levels.
Food and Epinephrine Levels
Coffee, tea, citrus fruits, bananas, chocolate, cocoa and vanilla can raise epinephrine levels. MedlinePlus says you should avoid these foods for several days before a catecholamine blood or urine test, which measures epinephrine levels as well as dopamine and norepinephrine, and helps diagnose certain kinds of tumors called neuroblastoma or pheochromocytoma.
Bulking is a controversial topic.
Some say it’s the only way to gain muscle effectively, and others say it’s a relic of the Dark Ages of bodybuilding.
“You gotta eat big to get big,” the former say.
“No,” the latter reply, “you just have to eat right.”
That is, traditional bulking maintains that, to achieve maximum muscle growth, you should do whatever it takes to cram down thousands of calories per day (GOMAD, for example), and accept rapid fat gain as a price to be paid.
Followers of the new philosophy, however, say that you don’t have to eat a large surplus of food and gain a large amount of body fat to build muscle effectively.
If you train right, and ensure you’re recovering adequately, they claim, you don’t need to cudgel your body with calories to grow.
Who’s right? Well, both are.
Old-school bulkers are correct in that you need to eat more food than usual to build muscle efficiently, and new-schoolers are correct in that ballooning your body fat percentage is not only unnecessary for muscle building, but detrimental.
There’s a sweet spot is in the middle, which is where clean bulking enters the picture.
It marries what bodybuilders have known anecdotally for decades with what modern scientific research into muscle hypertrophy has revealed, giving you the best of both worlds.
In other words, clean bulking allows you to gain muscle as quickly as possible, without forcing you to get fat in the process.
And in this article, we’re going to break it all down.
You’re going to learn where “dirty bulking” misses the mark, why clean bulking works better, and how to actually go about doing it.
Let’s get started.
The 3 Biggest Mistakes You Can Make While Bulking
- The first mistake is simply eating too many calories.
- The second mistake is eating too much junk food.
- The third mistake is “cheating” too often.
- Why you need to regulate your caloric intake while bulking.
- Why you should get most of your calories from nutritious foods.
- Calculate your calories.
- Calculate your macros.
- Make a meal plan.
- Cheat intelligently.
- Adjust your food intake based on how your body responds.
- Be patient.
- Creatine
- Protein Powder
- Pre-Workout Drink
When most people decide they want to take control of their physique and lose some fat, the next step seems clear: Go on a diet. But honestly, not everyone should take that step.
For those with a history of crash dieting, severe calorie restriction, or multiple failed diet attempts, jumping once more on the diet bandwagon is unlikely to yield results, and will probably do more harm than good.
Over repeated bouts of calorie restriction, your metabolism takes a beating. When you drop calories too low for too long, your body intervenes on several fronts. Most notably, it reduces the number of calories you burn throughout the day, often priming your body for surprisingly rapid weight gain.
This biological phenomenon, known as "metabolic adaptation," can really throw a wrench in your weight-loss goals. With your body continuously fighting to erase the calorie deficit necessary for fat loss, eating fewer calories than you burn can eventually become very tricky. You can only drop calories so far and increase exercise so much before that lifestyle becomes miserable, as well as impossible to maintain.
Fortunately, for anyone fighting an uphill battle against a slow metabolism, there may be a solution. It's possible to reboot metabolism and ultimately lower what's known as your "body-fat set point"—or the level of body fat your body finds easiest to maintain— through a process known as "reverse dieting."
Here's everything you need to know to get started with what may turn out to be the best diet of your life!
What Is Exactly Reverse Dieting?
Reverse dieting is pretty much what it sounds like: a diet turned upside-down. Instead of cutting calories and ramping up time spent on the treadmill, you increase metabolism by gradually adding calories back into your diet while reducing cardio.
Although it sounds very simple, there's more to reverse dieting than just "eat more, do less." If you want to maximize gains in metabolic rate without storing a ton of body fat, you must be strategic and patient. This means giving your metabolism time to adjust by making slow, deliberate changes, rather than hitting the buffet every day and cutting out cardio overnight.
To grasp the science behind the theory of reverse dieting, you need to understand what happens in your body during metabolic adaptation.
Metabolic Adaptations From Dieting
When you drastically restrict calories or lose weight, your body senses the energy gap and your departure from its body-fat set point. In a desperate attempt to erase the energy gap and put the brakes on fat loss, several body systems work together to orchestrate a reduction in metabolism[1,2]:
- Your organs consume less energy.
- Your heart beats slower as sympathetic nervous system activity declines.
- Hormones that influence metabolism and appetite, such as thyroid hormone, testosterone, leptin, and ghrelin, are adversely effected.
- You burn less energy during nonexercise activities, such as fidgeting, walking around the house, working, and doing chores.
- You use fewer calories to absorb and digest food because you're eating less.
- Your muscle becomes more efficient, requiring less fuel for a given amount of work.
These changes ultimately boil down to burning fewer calories, both at rest and while working out. This sounds bleak, but luckily, metabolic adaptation is not a one-way street.
You can slow down your metabolism, but you can also speed it up! This is what the concept of reverse dieting is built upon. Many of the physiological changes that work to slow metabolism during calorie restriction can occur in the opposite direction when overeating to make metabolism faster.[1]
But you can't just go on a pizza binge and expect metabolism to increase overnight. It takes time! This was demonstrated when researchers at Laval University in Quebec overfed 24 men by 1000 calories for 84 days.[3] At first, almost all of the extra calories turned into fat or contributed to lean mass. By the end of the study, however, as each subject's metabolism adapted, more and more calories were burned, rather than being used to create new tissue.
The moral of the story is that metabolism will speed up eventually to dispose of some of the extra calories you eat. But if you drastically increase calories before your metabolism has time to catch up, you'll pile on the pounds.
How To Reverse Diet
Through reverse dieting and heavy lifting, Katie Anne harnessed the power of metabolic adaption to turn her body into a calorie-burning machine. You may be able to do this too by following these six steps:
1. Calculate Your Current Calories And Establish Starting Macro Targets
To avoid jumping up in calories too quickly, you need to know how many calories you're currently eating to maintain your body weight. From there, you'll use this to establish baseline macros.
First, track everything you eat for a few days to determine your average caloric intake. Let's say it's 1,800 calories.
Second, set your protein target at 1 gram per pound of body weight. If you weigh, say, 150 pounds, your protein intake will be 150 grams of protein.
Third, subtract your protein calories from your current total-calorie goal to determine the remaining calories:
- 150 grams of protein x 4 calories per gram = 600 calories of protein.
- 1800 total calories - 600 calories from protein = 1200 remaining calories.
Take your remaining calories, and split them 40/60 or 60/40 between carbs and fat. These numbers can be manipulated, but either one of the above is a good starting place.
Let's say in this example that you love carbs, so you decide to set carbs at 60 percent and fat at 40 percent of the remaining calories.
- 1200 x 0.6 = 720 calories from carbs
- 1200 x 0.4 = 480 calories from fat
To determine your macros, divide the carb calories by 4 and fat calories by 9.
- 720 calories of carbs / 4 calories per gram = 180 grams of carbs
- 480 calories of fat / 9 calories per gram = 53 grams of fat
You now have your baseline macros. In this example, they are 150 grams of protein, 180 grams of carbs, and 53 grams of fat.
2. Decide How Quickly You Want To Increase Carbs And Fat
To figure this out, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
- Do I care more about reaching a higher caloric intake than I do about gaining excess fat?
- Am I trying to overcome a history of binge-eating behavior?
- Am I planning to hit the weight room hard and add muscle while I reverse?
If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," you may benefit from a more aggressive reverse. Although you'll likely gain more body fat by increasing carbs and fat quickly, you'll feel better and less deprived, you'll have more flexibility to fit in the foods you crave, and you'll be less inclined to binge. The extra calories that accompany an aggressive reverse may also give you more energy to train, allowing you to build muscle.
If you're concerned about gaining body fat, you may benefit from a more conservative reverse. For example, if you're coming off a reasonable diet where you reached your goal body weight, you may want to increase fat and carbs more slowly to better maintain your results.
3. Raise Carbs And Fat At A Rate Compatible With Your Goals
If you've decided that a slow reverse is more in line with your goals, start by increasing your carb and fat intake by just 2-5 percent per week, depending on how concerned you are with gaining weight.
If you've decided that a fast reverse is for you, you should start by increasing your carb and fat intake by 6-10 percent per week. You may even want to increase fat and carbs by 15-25 percent the first week to give yourself a jump-start.
4. Weigh Yourself Multiple Times Per Week To Control Weight Gain
Choose 2-3 days per week, and weigh yourself first thing in the morning. Assessing your average weight change over the course of the week will help you evaluate your macro manipulations and decide on your next increase (if necessary).
If you see a large jump in weight gain over a one-week period, you may want to scale back the rate at which you're increasing your intake. On the other hand, if you maintain your current weight, or even lose slightly, bump up both carbohydrates and fat.
5. Slowly Reduce The Time You Spend Doing Cardio, And Add Heavy Lifting To Your Workout Routine
Lifting heavy 3-6 days a week is a great way to build muscle, which increases metabolism not only in the short term, but also over the long run. Long sessions of steady-state cardio do little to build muscle, and they may even interfere with muscle-building pathways.[4]
6. When You Reach Your Desired Caloric Intake, Stop And Choose Your Next Action
Once you're satisfied with the amount of food you're eating, stop adding calories and go from there. If you feel good, you may want to stay at this level. If you'd like to lose weight now that your metabolism is at a better starting point, go right ahead!
But be smart about how you go about it; don't recklessly slash calories. You'll want to diet on as many calories as possible while still losing weight. Your metabolism depends upon it.
In the long run, processed foods can affect your health. Below are reasons why it is important to use fresh ingredients when cooking, and what a fresh meal can offer you.
HEALTH
When cooking with fresh ingredients, your food can retain a lot more nutrients compared to processed foods. In many cases, processed foods have been in contact with pesticides, or other artificial substances. To improve your health, always try your best to avoid processed food, and use fresh ingredients when possible.
BETTER FLAVOR
When eating you want to get the most flavor possible from your food, which is why it is important to use fresh ingredients. Preserved food loses taste as time goes on, but fresh ingredients with no preservatives provide a more true flavor. For the best result in flavor and nutrition, eat your fruits and vegetables within 48 hours of purchasing them.
SAVING MONEY
Fresh ingredients aren’t always cheaper than processed ones, but in the long run your health will be better. Eating a lot of low quality food can eventually harm your health, and you will end up paying much more in medicines and treatment. In the summer, you could even think about planting your own fruits and vegetables, which could help you save money.
Here are 4 things a fresh meal generally offers you:
- Fruits and vegetables supply you with many of the vitamins and minerals that are vital to our health.
- Hydration is important when it comes to our health. Fresh fruits and vegetables have a higher water content than other foods, which actually offers natural hydration.
- Not all oils and fats are bad, so when preparing meals yourself, you can control what kinds of oils and fat are added in.
- Enzymes help break down the food you eat into absorbable parts that our bodies can use. They help with digestion and nutrient absorption. Freezing food can lower enzyme activity.
Next time you are planning your meals or shopping in the grocery store, keep in mind the importance of using fresh ingredients for better tasting food and health or simply just order from US!
First of all, let's begin with how you should plan to enter peak week. If you still have to be concerned with losing the last couple pounds in the week before the show, you won't be able to peak properly. Learn how to perfect those last few days!
Why Most Fail...
The one thing I want to eliminate from your mind at the beginning of this article is to blame your body fat percentage on peaking. Some people start peak week at 14% body fat and think that by doing one neat, new little trick that they read about, they'll wake up Saturday morning looking like Frank Zane . You've seen them. The ones at 8% body fat who say, "Yeah, I was just holding a little water today." This article isn't for them. This is for people who know how to dial in on contest shape and now want to know exactly what to do in order to wake up Saturday morning and shout, "Eureka! (or 'Damn!' -if you're on the East Coast) - I did it!! I finally nailed my peak!!"
First of all, let's begin with how you should plan to enter peak week. If you still have to be concerned with losing "the last couple pounds" in the week before the show, you won't be able to peak properly. Peak week should be thought of as recovering slightly, being fresh, and focusing just on making sure the muscles are full and hard yet visible because of proper subcutaneous water elimination. Fat elimination should be over before this last week.
The next thing I want to erase from your thought process is the myth that you have to make extreme changes to manipulate your body into looking good on contest day. You've no doubt experimented with massive sodium loading and depletion, varying carb loading schemes, and endless water depletion schedules to try to be your biggest, hardest, and driest all at one time. You also have probably experienced the shock at looking at a flat, shriveled up, smooth physique (with it's mouth gaping open in terror) in the mirror six hours before prejudging. DO NOT PLAN ON DOING ANYTHING DRASTIC DURING PEAK WEEK!
Your body is constantly being monitored by your brain with thousands of chemoreceptors that are sending feedback on millions of chemical reactions happening in the body. It's how your brain manages to balance the chemical necessities for life. This vast neuro-hormonal-chemical network is brutally dynamic and always in flux. I'm not smart enough to predict and override these millions of reactions in my body to create an unnatural super-compensation effect exactly at prejudging and then maintain it all day.
Neither are you. What we can do is understand the cycles that our body goes through in directing water into muscles or outside of the muscle cells, the way our body stores carbohydrates, and how to gently massage these cycles so that we ride the right wave into the right day and predictably peak perfectly and naturally instead of trying to force a freaky, extreme response. That is a gamble you'll lose nine times out of ten.
How To Properly Peak...
When I peak a bodybuilder, I control protein, carbs, fat, sodium, water, and training. We start seven days from the show and I provide a chart that tells the athlete exactly what to do in what amounts each day for the entire week. I use these variables to control the normal cycles of water and glycogen flow in and out of the muscle tissue. We start out the week in a certain pattern and then each day the variables change in a subtle way to be able to predict and control peaking. Obviously, every bodybuilder is different in the amounts of each of the variables.
Some people have unbelievably fast metabolisms and some people are very carb-sensitive - two extreme differences which dictate different amounts of each nutrient variable and a slightly different schedule. But, the actual flow and cycle is still very similar. It is important to know and understand what to expect on each day so you know how to adjust. For this reason, even my "long-distance" clients have daily communication with me during peak week. I want to go through each of these variables and give you some physiological insight to why peaking is so elusive.
Carbing-up is the great myth started and continuing with 250-pound steroid using bodybuilders who consume huge amounts of food anyway and then take prescription diuretics to eliminate the steroid bloat. If this describes you, traditional carb depletion and loading may work. If you're body isn't an eighth grade science experiment out of control, let's stick with normal physiology. Even the hardest, leanest bodies cannot metabolize and shuttle glucose into muscle cells at a maximum rate without having some extracellular spill-over. Read that sentence again. You cannot deplete carbs and then supercompensate and expect all of the glucose and water to end up in the muscle.
You'll certainly fill out, but you'll also smooth out. Some a little, and some a great deal. Yes, a lot of carbs will go into the muscle, but a little or a lot will end up outside the muscle cell with a lot of water which makes you smooth. Next time you're dieting and you're fairly lean, log some comments every day in a journal. "Woke up pretty lean. Very smooth - must have been the sodium in the chips. Very vascular. Hard as a freak'n rock!" Just write down comments on how you look in the morning. Get a Bodybuilding.com workout log, they are great! I guarantee that you'll consistently be your hardest after a couple of low-carb, high-water intake days.
You may not be your biggest because the carbs aren't as high, but the lack of extraneous carbs and water under the skin makes you very tight and you appear much bigger. Who wins the show: the big soft guy or the bone-dry striated competitor? The way I carb up my clients catches the wave of glucose and water entering the muscle on the way up, but not at the expense of smoothing out on the rebound effect of over-carbing.
Saturday & Sunday
My general carb cycle for peak week is to start at the highest point on the weekend before. I start at a slightly above "normal" level on Saturday and Sunday and schedule no training. I want this weekend to be a recovery time with a refilling of glycogen. As training starts again on Monday, I slowly drop carbs each day. It's a subtle drop, not a severe depletion.
Monday Through Wednesday
The training each day, Monday through Wednesday, with the slight drop will create a sufficient carb deficit without total depletion. Depending on the client's metabolism, I keep the carbs coming down and keep the water very high all the way through Friday.
For a very high metabolism bodybuilder, I'm not going as low on the carbs during the week, and I may start re-carbing on Friday. For carb-sensitive clients it's very important to wait until Saturday to reload. By waiting until later in the week to carb up, you eliminate the chance of glycogen and water spill over. Your body can metabolize glucose very quickly and you don't have to start three days ahead of time especially if you haven't completely bottomed out with a severe carb depletion. There are also some issues with the type of carbs you use to reload. There are some that create more subcutaneous swelling due to being food allergens. It's important to know which are the most common and how they affect you.
Water is just as misunderstood as carbs. The traditional carb and water theories have people drop their water sometimes days before the show. Nothing will flatten and smooth you out faster! You have to maintain a high water intake because your muscle tissue is around 70% water. No water, no hardness - just flat, squishy muscle tissue. The reason people typically start dropping water is because they've over-carbed so much that they're already spilling glycogen and water under the skin and think, "Oh, my gosh!! I've got to get rid of this water!!" With the carb reload as I described, you won't have that problem; you'll actually get harder and harder throughout the week.
Keep the water intake up and let it follow the carbs into the muscle! If you're not over-carbed, the rest of the water will be eliminated!
Thursday
Sodium also has to be cycled. Start with a moderate amount of sodium, up to two grams at the beginning of the week and around Thursday start dropping it slightly but don't eliminate it completely. If you do, you'll force water out of the muscle cell, you'll look flat and smooth, and you'll cramp like there's no tomorrow. You need approximately four times more sodium than potassium for your muscles to contract normally. Again, don't let the myths from the pharmaceutically dominated side of our sport lure you into doing things that aren't physiologically correct.
You don't have all those drug side-effects to combat in peaking properly. If you sodium load and/or deplete in a big way you're gambling with extreme chemical rebound effects that you can't possibly time. If you're lucky enough to stumble into a good effect, it will be short lived because you're on a pendulum swing that your body will adjust to and you'll look absolutely lousy in a very short time.
I also use specific tricks regarding fat intake and schedule very specific contest day meal strategies for the individual needs and characteristics of my clients. As I get to know their metabolic rates through the dieting process, I'm already planning their peak and everyone's a little different. These general guidelines, however, I hope will dispel some common mistakes and put you on a path to learn your body type and peak perfectly every time!!
