If the question is asked - what do you need in your diet to gain
muscle and at the same time, lose fat, then the answer is almost always
the same. Protein!
The fact is that protein consumption can add
muscle bulk. Protein consumption also means you reduce your appetite,
thus no need to stack up on the calories.
In reality however,
protein is only one part of the puzzle. A diet for weight lifters and
people in general begs a comprehensive intake of more than just a lot of
protein.
According to scientific studies, the level of
testosterone in men within the western world has dropped by 20% in the
last 20 years.
Here are some nutritional basics you should
understand in order to craft a hormonal balance that is worthy of a true
alpha status male.
Carbohydrates
Carbs are very
often the focus for diets, particularly the fat-loss diets. Ever since
Doctor Atkins decided that we should not indulge in eating doughnuts any
longer, carbs have taken a huge beating. Before Mr Atkins got involved,
doughnuts were an accepted form of nutrition, but it had to be the
reduced fat type. So, if we decided to partake in the lower fat version,
we felt a lot better about ourselves.
Doughnuts aside, carbs tend
to get a bad rap - much worse than they deserve. They come to us in a
variety of forms - some are not so good, where others are much more
beneficial.
The bad carbs come in the form of highly processed
foods. In reality, they should not really be considered as foods, other
than the fact that they are edible. For some people, they are delicious,
but fact of the matter is that they've undergone some crazy scientific
process.
Obviously, if you process the good stuff out of our food, then there's a point where it's not healthy any longer.
Getting
down to basics, carbohydrates are merely a collection of sugar
molecules. Once consumed, your body attempts to break this down into a
source of fuel. Fiber, sugars, and starches are all basic forms of
carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are made up from two main types:
simple as well as complex. There is another type, and that is fibrous
carbs. Fibrous carbs come from green vegetables such as cabbage,
lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cucumber, peppers, and more
besides. Nevertheless, for this discussion, we will not focus on fibrous
carbohydrates.
Simple Carbs
What are simple carbs?
Well, simple carbs include foods such as syrup, sweetened soda, table
sugar. In an ideal world, it's best to avoid these types of carbs, other
than on the "cheat" days whereby some may indulge themselves.
This
type of carb is the "bad" carb that the fitness pros talk about on a
regular basis. Included on this list are things like beer, cookies,
puppies, snuggles, cakes, candy...
So, for most people, the very idea of fun eating is now off-limits.
So what is allowed, you may be wondering?
Complex carbohydrates such as apples, peas, oatmeal.
A Slightly-More "Complex' Point of View
For
a long while most people considered that complex carbs were far better,
but now we've changed over to believing that simple carbs are often the
ones to fit the bill.
But it's not so much about healthy hormones
and healthy metabolism that matters. It is about how quickly the body
breaks the carbs down and also about how much the carb intake will spike
your blood's glucose levels.
A more sophisticated way to qualify carbohydrate quality is by using the glycemic index (GI).
What
the GI does is that it attempts to classify foods in terms of how fast
they break down and also by how high they boost sugar levels within the
blood.
For some time, people would argue that you could maintain insulin levels at a lower rate even if you eat a lot of carbs.
Well,
for sure, this in some ways is true, the fact remains that there will
not be too much difference to the size of your waistline if you stick to
eating French fries instead of potatoes.
Both low-carb diets as
well as low-GI diets are not going to provide a magic pill in order to
lose weight. The idea though is that you eat the right amount of the
"right" foods, in order to fuel your metabolism.
What's more
however, you do need to consume carbohydrates, regardless of what some
dieting gurus will tell you. If you don't consume carbs then your body
will turn to breaking down muscle tissue in order to fuel your energy
needs.
As a general rule, the ideal is to avoid simple carbs and high-GI foods.
The
worst thing to do is to eat carbs on their own. Eating carbs with
protein will slow down the rate of digestion of the carbs, and also
lowers the glycemic or insulin response, as well as off-setting a number
of the negative connotations that comes with the consumption of too
many carbohydrates.
Fats
For a very long time, fats
have been blamed for every food-related health problem you can think of.
For almost 20 years in recent times, low-fat was regarded as being
healthy. It's how many people determine if food is safe or not - if it's
low fat, then it surely has to be good for you. Or, if there's no
saturated fat content, then that's about okay.
Oddly enough,
within North America, as the word spread around about the "fact" that
fats were bad for us, and as the consumption of fats decreased
drastically, the rates of obesity increased.
There's no single
reason to be piling the blame on here, but there are some reasons that
do stand out. Higher frequency of snacks and meals. Larger food
portions. Too much sugar consumption - regularly in the form of "low
fat" foods and drinks.
What's the bottom line though?
Fat is
a necessary part of our diet, and it's very possible that you are not
consuming enough fats. Fat in general is good! It's good for the heart,
it's good for testosterone production, and it's also good for building
muscle.
But these things aside, fat also plays a very important
role in your overall body functions. It coats the nerve tissues, thereby
making them more "productive" and efficient. Fat also serves as a
substrate for a group of hormones termed as "eicosanoids". Eicosanoids
help to regulate functions such as blood pressure, blood clotting, and
inflammation. Fat is a requirement for basic human physiology, so it's a
most thoroughly necessary constituent of our daily dietary needs!
What's
more however, not all fats are the same. So here's some info about the
different types of fats, and why they should be a part of your diet,
with the exception of one - the trans fats.
Good Fat - Monounsaturated Fat
Monounsaturated
fats are to be found in nuts like almonds, walnuts, cashews,
pistachios, and also in high-fat fruits like avocados. It's also found
in olive oil.
This type of fat helps to raise good cholesterol
while lowering the levels of bad cholesterol. They're said to also be
beneficial in helping to lessen weight gain.
Good Fat - Polyunsaturated Fat
Similar
to monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated help to fight against bad
cholesterol. They can be found in foods like sunflower oil, various
seeds, fish oil, and salmon. Polyunsaturated fats include omega-3 and
omega-6 fatty acids, which are also termed as essential fatty acids, or
EFA's.
EFA's have to be ingested because our bodies are unable to
manufacture them. The body requires these nutrients in order to remain
healthy and function optimally.
Good Fat - Saturated Fat
Saturated
fats are one of the most misunderstood substances that we consume. And
this is partly because a number of studies linked saturated fat to heart
disease.
Nevertheless, in more recent times, it's been concluded
that the findings of those early studies were in fact flawed and there
is no link between heart disease and saturated fats.
There are
several more recent studies conducted on hunter-gatherer tribes that
gained 50-70 percent of their daily diets from saturated fats, but yet
they did not suffer any health issues. Oddly enough, when the original
studies were conducted, these tribes people were totally ignored.
After
a 20-year review, the chairman of the Department of Nutrition at
Harvard - Walter Willett, publicly claimed that saturated fats have no
link to heart disease and are not responsible for the high rates of
obesity currently seen in North America and beyond.
Saturated fats
are one of the very best sources of energy that your body can get, and
that is why carbohydrates are stored naturally in the form of saturated
fats.
Research has shown that foods that are higher in saturated
fats are often the ones that are actually lower in total calories. And
what's more, saturated fats have the ability to boost testosterone
levels.
So, assuming that you are not vegetarian or vegan, you
should make sure you eat lots of red meat, dairy products, as well as
eggs in order to get enough saturated fats in your diet.
Bad Fat -Trans Fats
Trans
fats are the only bad fat available for consumption. They are in fact
one of the worst types of food that can be consumed. They are found in
foods such as potato chips, French fries, in addition to a variety of
other fried foods.
You will find trace amounts of trans fats in
meats and some other foods - they occur naturally. However, most trans
fats to be found are not naturally occurring at all. They are man-made
so to speak, and they are manufactured through a process called
hydrogenation. What happens is that a good monounsaturated fat, in the
form of liquid oil, is packed full with hydrogen atoms, and thus the
original oil is converted to a solid fat.
It possesses a high
melting point as well as a smooth texture, and may be reused over and
over in the deep-fat frying process. And this is what makes it an ideal
product for the food industry.
So, the main concept behind trans
fats is that they are over-processed foods which offer the vendor and
consumer an oil that has a long shelf-life. In reality, you should try
to avoid these oils as much as you possibly can. The health risks far
outweigh any benefits.
Nevertheless, if you must partake in
consuming junk food, then so be it. After all, most of us like the
occasional binge on our junk food. And in which case, it's best to also
make sure that overall your diet is good, and that you also achieve a
good amount of regular exercise.
Protein The Alpha-Macro
Both
fats and carbohydrates have been rated as number one and number two in
terms of the public enemy, whereas protein has enjoyed a slow and steady
rise up the charts and now sits prominently right at the very top.
Definitely
a favorite among bodybuilders, and pretty much everyone who is involved
in fitness and health in some way, protein is used within the body to
repair damaged tissue - muscle, hair, teeth, bone. It has other
functions too of course - you can think of it as mortar for which to lay
bricks upon - a foundation, in a sense. Without protein, your body will
begin to break down.
Protein is also good in aiding fat loss and
building muscle. It helps to create an anabolic hormonal environment,
and provides "materials" in order to build muscle bulk.
Protein is
made from amino acids. From the 22 standard amino acids, only nine can
be obtained through the consumption of food, and the body manufactures
the remaining 13. The ones that have to be ingested are called
"essential amino acids", and these include:
Threonin
Methionine
Valine
Leucine
Tryptophan
Lysine
Phenylalanine
Isoleucine
Histidine
A
whole or complete protein will contain some amount of each of these
essential amino acids, whereas an incomplete protein lacks one or
perhaps more essential amino acids.
Amino acids play another role -
they help with the creation of hormones within the body. These hormones
aid in the regulation of blood pressure as well as blood sugar levels,
which is, in turn, responsible for muscular growth and metabolic rate.
Thus, proteins are immensely important, particularly those to be found
in eggs, cheese, fish, red meat, and poultry.
In Conclusion
As
something of a brief conclusion, do you, if you read through this
article, sense some sort of trend going on here? Processed foods that
are sold with the words "healthy" or "natural" printed on the side of
the packaging - well, it's pretty much downright lies being told here!
Getting
back to nature is the way that we should proceed, so it's far better to
build your diet (and your health) around nature's own food - whole
foods that are unprocessed. Although, the addition of something like
whey-protein is not such a bad thing either.
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