Day 232 - Strategize Your Diet Part 3

The last couple of blogs have been about eating carbohydrates and proteins at correct times. Today's blog will be a couple of last tips for other ideas on how to strategize your diet!

Stay Hydrated - Athletes and non-athletes alike should drink more fluids, especially if you are exercising. One of the first signs of fatigue is due to dehydration. A simple rule is if you are not going to the bathroom at least every 3 hours, then you are probably not drinking enough. That means that you should also increase your fluid intake on hotter days and days of intense exercise. Stay away from sugary and caffeinated beverages though as they act as diuretics, stick to just plain ol' water! It is tough to judge exactly how much you should be drinking sometimes based on weather, exercise intensity, etc. so try this: Weigh yourself before and after an exercise session. The weight you lost will be almost entirely water through sweating and respiration. For every pound of weight lost, drink 3 cups of water (750ml) to re-hydrate your body. You should not always wait until you are thirsty because thirst indicates you are already well on your way to being completely dehydrated!

Don't Be Afraid of Salt - If you exercise intensely, you need salt in your diet as well. Your body keeps a fine balance between water and salt content, so if you are trying to maintain a low-salt diet, your body will just be expelling more and more water to counteract this. Now I am not saying that you need to go overboard and eat a bag of pretzels before a workout, but sports drinks usually do the trick of replenishing your "electrolytes" (salts). Just don't guzzle down a sports drink and then go sit and be an armchair quarterback...that gets us back to "Strategize Your Diet - Part 1" taking in useless carbs!

Get Outside - Many old-school bodybuilders were onto something when they would leave the gym and go soak up some rays. Yes, they were probably just trying to get a nice bronzed look, but research has now shown that some unprotected sun exposure, allowing your body to create Vitamin D the natural way, has many benefits to muscular (and other body parts) health and well-being. If you don't get enough sun, like many northern-climate countries, then taking a supplement will help as well!

Use these, as well as the tips discussed in the previous two posts to help maximize your diet and allow you to reap the most benefits from your exercise program possible! There is a saying in the fitness industry, "You can't out-train a bad diet" so if you are putting in the time in the gym to get fit, why squander those results by not cleaning up your diet too?

Quote of the day:

"Fear is what stops you... courages is what keeps you going."

~ Unknown


Check out my new Website: tylerrobbinsfitness.com

Day 228 - Strategize Your Diet Part 2

Last post I discussed the topic of planning your carbohydrate intake during the day based on timing of exercise as well as intensity. This post is going to discuss protein intake and its effect on the body at different times during the day.

Protein, along with carbohydrates, contain 4 calories per gram. The difference is, carbohydrates yield nearly all of those calories as energy (or stored as fat), whereas the simple act of digesting protein burns calories. Not to mention the fact that protein is needed for countless processes in the body including muscle and tissue building, hormone production, etc.

Many people feel like they only need protein in their diet on days when they are exercising. This couldn't be further from the truth. Think of your body as a construction site. Virtually all of your tissues in your body are constantly being "torn down" and replaced by newer, more efficient cells. This is part of your body's defense mechanisms against diseases like cancer. The longer a cell sticks around, the better chance it has at goofing up and making a mistake causing a mutation, but that discussion can wait for another day.

Everyone should have plenty of protein in their diets for all of your body's natural processes, as well as tissue building. Now, exercise - especially resistance training - causes micro tears and damages in your muscle tissue which needs to be repaired and replaced. This is the entire basis of resistance training. You want to damage your muscles by working them hard, so that your body will come in to repair and replace those damaged muscle cells with bigger (sometimes), faster, stronger ones. The process of muscle repair is what heightens your metabolism for hours following a workout.

So, back to protein. It is crucial that you feed your body the proper building blocks following a workout so that it can go about its business by repairing and replacing your tissues. Many different studies have been done on this topic and there are varying thoughts on the matter, but from what I have read and researched, a beverage or protein shake immediately following (within an hour) a workout with a ratio of 4:1, grams of carbs to grams of protein, seems to be the best way to feed your body.

Not only does the carbohydrates replace depleted glycogen stores in the muscles/liver to replenish your anaerobic energy levels, but it also acts as a sort of shunt or transport system delivering the correct amino acids to your muscles to aid in the rebuilding process. Chocolate milk is a great post-workout drink, and is what I use following my workouts. It has that correct ratio of carbs to proteins and is also pretty darn tasty too!

On top of using protein as a post-workout recovery drink, small amounts of protein should be ingested every few hours throughout the day. No, that does not mean that you need to be chewing on a chicken breast every few hours, but some sort of protein source is beneficial such as a protein shake, almonds, fish, quinoa, or yogurt (Greek yogurt especially!). Ingesting protein at set intervals throughout the day gives your body the tools it needs to maintain its tissues as well as stabilize its blood sugar level. Elevated protein has been shown to give healthier-looking skin and hair as well as acting as an appetite suppressor as it takes longer to digest, keeping you feeling "full" longer, which is good for fighting off those hunger pangs.

So what types of protein should you ingest? Whey protein can be found in a variety of protein shakes. It is a fast-acting protein which means it can digest, distribute itself throughout the bloodstream and be into the muscles in no time. This is a fantastic type of protein for post-workout so that you can get those amino acids to your muscles as soon as possible.

Casein protein is found in mammalian dairy products such as cheese and milk and is a slower-digesting protein which can stabilize your blood sugars for longer and provide more of a steady drip of protein for hours after ingesting. This is great for a mid-afternoon snack!

When it comes down to it, having more protein in your diet can be beneficial for everyone, men and women. Not only does it suppress your appetite, give you a youthful appearance, and stabilize blood sugar levels, protein is also vital after exercising to build more lean, healthy, efficient muscle tissue. More muscle means a higher resting metabolic rate, which means you are burning more calories even at a resting state!

Quote of the day:

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


Check out my new Website: tylerrobbinsfitness.com

Day 227 - Strategize Your Diet Part 1

Many people generally start down the road of living a healthy lifestyle by starting an exercise program. This is great and will lead to some quick results, but eventually you will begin to plateau and realize that exercise is not the holy grail of healthy living.

In comes diet. At this point, you may be consistently exercising but want to see even more results. Diet is also not the holy grail of healthy living, but when used in conjunction with exercise, diet can continue to spur on dramatic change for your mind and body.

Great, so now you realize that diet and exercise both play crucial roles in your overall fitness. But what comes next, and what do you eat, and when? This is the part of the game that many people begin to lose track of their goals because they either find things too confusing or too complicated when in fact, living a healthy lifestyle should be neither.

I will be the first to admit that I hate counting numbers. I feel as that if I become too attached to counting grams of this and grams of that, not to mention the number of calories I consume, then I will be too controlled by it...and besides, that system does not seem sustainable to me.

Instead, I learn as much about diet and exercise as I can, so that I try and eat good things at correct times rather than trying to worry about how much to eat. We all could take a page or two out of the training manuals of serious athletes. Athletes are extremely regimented beings, they eat at specific times and specific amounts. Unless you are training for the Olympics or the upcoming NHL season, you don't necessarily need to be as regimented on quantity (as long as you are keeping things reasonable) but instead, worry about what you are eating depending on what you are doing for that day. Let me give you an example.

Necessity Eating - The human body is essentially one big ball of fuel (and a motor - your muscles) wrapped in skin. The average human being stores enough body fat on them to last them days without food. We picked up this genetic trait from our ancestors who may have gone days without eating because they didn't have a McDonalds to go to, they actually had to hunt their food. The problem is, fat is a slow-burning fuel. Think of it like a diesel fuel. Your body can burn it very efficiently and uses this fuel for majority of the day, but when it comes to intense exercise, most people can't (and shouldn't) go at a high pace for more than an hour or two tops!

The reason for the limited time of intense energy expenditure is because as your pace picks up, your body begins to transition to another form of fuel; glycogen. Glycogen is the jet fuel for our muscles. This is when your body ingests carbohydrates (bread, pasta, Snickers) and packages it into glycogen and stores it in your muscles (mostly) and liver. So, you could go wandering around the mall all day and almost never touch any of your glycogen stores, but as soon as you start intense exercise, your body begins using it more rapidly. One of the main reasons for extreme fatigue towards the end of your workout is the almost-empty glycogen stores in your body. You will inherently never let your stores drop to zero, but as you get lower on the fuel gauge, you begin to slow down.

So, why is this important? You may have heard of carb-loading. Athletes like to have carbohydrate-rich diets before athletic events to load up their glycogen stores so they have plenty of energy when they need it during their event. That is great because the high-energy expenditure during a sporting event burns all of those carbohydrates off in no time! Having said all of that, non-athlete humans like to sit down and enjoy a big pasta dinner full of fatty cheese and sugary sauces as well. That is fine, if you are ready to go out and exercise when you are done eating, but most people don't do that, they finish their "carb-loading" and go watch tv, or read a book, or even going for a light walk is troublesome.

Your body wants to burn these carb calories off right away, that is why you get an insulin spike after a carb-rich meal. When you begin to realize that those carbs aren't going to be burned off any time soon, your brain says, "Alright, pack it in, lets store these carbs for another time" and boom, straight into your fat cells.

My point here is, if you know you are having a relaxing night watching a movie or some tv after a long day, fine, have a dinner that is low in carbs such as some fish and veggies. Wait, I thought veggies were carbs? Yes, veggies are carbs, but they are also mainly water and vital nutrients your body needs. Your body still burns carbs at a slow rate here and there during quick bouts of energy (climbing the stairs, picking up your child, etc.) but if you are not sustaining your energy expenditure, you are far better off eating nutrient-rich carbs like fruits and vegetables rather than breads and pastas.

Breads, pastas, and sugary treats have their place in our diet. The goal here is to plan your diet accordingly based on your energy needs for that day. You're going out for a run? Sure, grab a Snickers bar beforehand, it will give you that extra boost you need. Sitting down to watch the football game? Stick to your vegetables.

Quote of the day:
"Energy and persistence conquer all things."
~ Benjamin Franklin


Check out my new Website: tylerrobbinsfitness.com