Sunday, January 27, 2013

The veggies are probably the most important in a diet?

part of your diet.

Everything has carbs in them. Even meat has carbs in them. It's a matter of how much.

The low-carb diet is very popular right now, and part of that is because it works. But people barely go beyond the word "low carb" in their research. Most of the carbs we should all stop eating are those highly-processed, overindustrialized carbs, like breads, pasta, pastries, and even cooked oatmeal.

Vegetables have carbs in them. But they're the kind of carbs you need. In fact, the rawer the vegetable you eat, the better, because they're less industrialized, therefore your body has to do more work to digest them, so you feel fuller for longer.

I'm going to take two guesses here: you're still eating a lot, and you haven't checked the calories or the fat content of the things you're eating.

Peanut butter, for example, is VERY FATTENING. And, surprise surprise, eating LOTS OF NUTS is also VERY FATTENING.

Cut back on your portions, and switch to mostly vegetables. The egg whites and chicken are still good, as long as you don't eat too much, because you still need protein, but when I wanted to lose weight, I found the best way to do it was to eat lots of salads. Not huge salads. I just ate a diet of primarily salads, with little salad dressing. Actually, I ate five meals of very small salads.

You're going to the gym? Good. Do a routine that includes weights and cardio.

It's tough to get fat off of leafy greens?

Leafy vegetables are the way to go when you are trying to cut calories. You won't get fat eating your typical lettuce, cabbage, spinach mix. Make a homemade dressing made from olive oil, lemon juice, and pepper to taste. Your wallet will thank me! But yeah, running everyday and doing resistance training seems like a lot of activity. Your body is kicking into hunger mode because of lack of glycogen stores in your liver. If you insist on maintaining this level of athletic activity, you will have to eat some sort of carbohydrate during the day. My top choices are quinoa and lentils, but brown/wild rice and beans are easier on the budget typically. Drink a glass or two of chocolate milk immediately after your weight training (if lactose intolerant, either get the lactaid pills, or get a lactose-free protein powder and mix it with almond milk). I suggest eating oats in the morning for breakfast, and eat a second serving of complex carbohydrates for post-workout dinner.

Non-starchy vegetables

... contain about 5g carbs per cup of uncooked vegetables. Roughly 20 calories. What they mostly are is water and fiber. Starchy veggies are a different beast, and yes, you do want to keep intake limited on a cut. You'd have to eat nearly 60 cups of raw vegetables to get a day's worth of carbs (~285 g) for a typical 180# male. 1/4 cup of raw almonds is 205 calories right there. What matters for fat loss is total caloric balance. I didn't say eliminate nuts, but keep intake strictly limited. That 1/4 cup is going to be a fair portion of your daily fat intake right there.

motivation

never give up

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Think of the calories

The benefit being a greater amount of calories spurring growth. Sure it's not the best calories, but many people simply don't adjust their food intake for making gains. More calories on the days you work out, balanced out by a bit less on days you don't, will help you gain while not getting excessively fat. Sure it would be better if you at chicken breast and brown rice, but it's really not worth worrying about excessively.

Alcohol promotes estrogen in the body. So that's the part that's negatively effecting your gains, since testosterone and estrogen compete for the same receptors. Again not a huge deal since the key time this will matter is during your workout and for a few hours after. Having some drinks later, not a huge deal. Enjoy your life, don't try to be a machine who lives and breathes lifting weights (unless that's how you enjoy your life) or you won't stick with the workouts and THAT will absolutely kill your gains.

To sum up. If you want to be precise, it's not great for your gains overall, compared to lean protein and complex carbs. However, it's not the end of the world, and at least you went to the gym. You'll still be better off than if you didn't go to the gym and went out to drink. Try to have at least a few hours between the workout and the booze. If you decide to become a professional bodybuilder, powerlifter, or strongman reconsider drinking. Until then have fun.