Meal Plans (Part 2)

Continued from 'Meal Plans: Part 1"...

LEVEL I

BREAKFAST

2 eggs, preferably poached, but any style ok

114g (1/4 lb) meat, fish, or fowl

227g (8 oz) whole milk

1 slice whole grain toast with butter

(protein = approx. 52g)

LUNCH

114g (1/4 lb) meat, fish, fowl or cheese

1 or 2 slices whole grain bread

227g (8 oz) whole milk or fresh juice)

(protein = approx. 43g)

DINNER

227g (1/2 lb) meat, fish or fowl

Baked potato with butter or sour cream

Large raw salad

227g (8 oz) whole milk

(protein = approx. 48g)

Total protein from food: 143g

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LEVEL II

BREAKFAST

3 eggs, poached or any style

114g (1/4 lb) meat, fish, fowl or cheese

227g (8 oz) whole milk

1 or 2 slices whole grain toast with butter

(protein approx. = 61g)

LUNCH

227g (1/2 lb) meat, fish, fowl or cheese (or any combination)

2 slices whole grain bread with butter or mayonnaise

227g (8 oz) whole milk

1 piece fresh fruit

(protein approx. = 71g)

DINNER

227g (1/2 lb) meat, fish, fowl or cheese (or any combination)

Baked or boiled white or sweet potato

Large raw salad

(protein approx. = 59g)

Total protein from food: 191g

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LEVEL III

BREAKFAST

4 eggs, poached or any style

227g (8 oz) whole milk

1 or 2 slices whole grain bread with butter

1 piece fresh fruit

You may substitute hot oatmeal, bran cereal, or other cooked cereal for the fruit and bread, but sweeten only with fructose. Use cream if higher caloric intake is desired)

(protein = approx. 72g)

LUNCH

227g (1/2 lb) meat, fish, fowl or cheese

1 or 2 slices whole-grain bread with butter or mayonnaise

227g - 454g (8 - 16 oz) whole milk

1 piece fresh fruit (with cottage cheese if desired)

protein approx. = 74g)

DINNER

227g - 454g (1/2 - 1 lb) meat, fish, fowl (or any combination)

Baked or steamed potato, or baked and boiled beans

Lightly steamed fresh vegetable

Large raw salad

1 piece fresh fruit

227g (8 oz) whole milk

(protein = approx. 112g)

Total protein from food = 258g

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For those of you who may not be big-eaters in the morning, or are finding making the time to prepare your breakfast too consuming, MRP's (Meal Replacement Products) are a practical and acceptable substitute. They provide the much needed proportions and nutritional content needed to kick-start your day in a convenient to drink shake, such as Sci-Mx's Ultimate Breakfast Shake. For a more comprehensive listing of Explosive Nutrition's Meal Replacement Products, Click here.

Personally, one thing which I wish I had done during my wrestling career, was to use a Casein based protein shake before I went to bed. I was taking my regular whey-protein shake instead, and although not the end of the world, the slow-released amino-acid property of Casein proteins are always favourable to use pre-bedtime. In fact, I would recommend supplementing your diet with a casein-based protein shake before bed as a matter of course, regardless if you are on a light training regime or a far more intense weight-lifting regime. Why? Because when you sleep, you're basically fasting your body for 7-8 hours. You're body's optimum time for recovery and muscle-building is during this rest phase, not during your training. It therefore makes sense to provide a slow and steady trickle or amino-acids to your muscles during this crucial period.

I take Optimum Nutrition's 100% Casein. The vanilla taste is delicious, and more importantly, it is one of the most consistently highest-rated supplements on the market today. Of course, many other Casein-based proteins are perfectly acceptable, such as the Reflex brand Micellar Casein (although to be perfectly honest, I found the taste quite unpleasant compared to ON's).

Meal Plans (Part 1)

Well, it took me long enough, but in last week's blog I finally got around to the boring maths part of helping us to calculate and have a good idea of our macronutrient ratios and caloric breakdowns. However, as important and useful a tool as the important values are (total caloric demand, protein/carb/fat demand etc), I think that seeing a few examples of muscle-gain menu plans will make things less confusing.

On my part, I make no secret of the fact that I use the former Governor of California's diet plan guidelines - the man has forgotten more about proper diet and nutrition than I'm likely to learn, and I believe His qualifications make this an appreciable example to follow. Since it is not recommended to suddenly introduce such large volumes of food into your system that your body may not be able to handle, the program for your muscle-gain diet is constructed on three levels, to be followed in this order:

1. Begin eating according to Level I, and continue on this level until you stop gaining weight, then go to Level II


2. If after 3 weeks you are not gaining weight on the Level I diet, go on to Level II


3. Once eating on the Level II diet, continue on it as long as you continue to gain weight. When the weight gain ceases, go on to Level III


4. If after three weeks on Level II you don't experience any weight gain, go on to Level III
   

Stuffing a lot of calories into your system is not a good idea, as I have mentioned in previous blogs. The digestive system simply can't handle this volume of food. So to eat a lot more, you have to eat more often. This is why it is recommended to eat more than three meals a day in order to spread your caloric intake out. It would be better to eat four meals, and to supplement your food intake with high-protein drinks - drinks that contain large amounts of easily digestible amino acids.

Muscle-Gain Menu Plan

I've talked about the need for sufficient protein to support muscle growth and how slow gainers also need an overall increase in calories to support their very fast metabolisms. However, while this kind of eating plan is primarily for those who tend to be ectomorphic, I want to caution again that just because you tend to be very lean doesn't mean that eating a lot of junk food and empty calories is good for you. Train hard and eat more, fine. But try to eat clean, to eat nutritious meals. After all, you can't gain muscle if you lack energy and don't have the nutrients you need in your system.

Of course, those who are already heavy eaters may be surprised at the following muscle-gain recommendations, but ectomorphs are generally very lean, not only because of their fast metabolisms, but also because they tend to be big eaters in the first place. However, if you are an ectomorphic type yet find that the Level I diet or even the Level II is actually a lot less than you normally eat, obviously you are going to have to increase your food intake even further and go right on up to a higher level. Adjust caloric intake up or down to suit your individual needs. Just make sure that the food you eat is wholesome and nutritious.

If you eat according to the menu plans that are detailed in my upcoming blog, and supplement your meals with the recommended protein drinks, you will be getting more than enough protein and shouldn't give it another thought. For ectomorphs, who have a great deal of problems adding body weight, the key is hard training and a lot more calories, not any lack of protein. To demonstrate this, I will be including the approximate protein content of each of the suggested meals.

To be continued...

Meal Plans: Number Crunching

Many bodybuilders, young ones in particular, start out relatively under-weight. Their immediate thought process centers on what supplement stacks should be taken with a view to quick, immediate results. My Diet Fundamentals chapter should help to alter that mind-set - that eating and training to gain lean, quality muscle mass is a long-term, sustained effort. It requires consistent dedication and the ability to truly analyse, recognise and implement changes that will alter your physiology. For these younger, under-developed bodybuilders, gaining muscle will involve:

Stimulating muscular growth by heavy, intense, consistent bodybuilding training.

1. Eating a sufficient amount of protein to fill the demand for amino acids created by the training.


2. Increasing overall caloric intake to a sufficient degree to support the demands of intense exercise, but not so much as to create an unwanted gain in body fat.


3. Keeping your aerobic training to a healthy minimum, no more than 30 minutes a day, 4 or 5 days a week.

Now, let's review the crucial formulae for establishing our macronutrient values:

• RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) your base line caloric requirement:

RMR = LBM (Lean Body Mass, lbs) / 2.205 x 30.4

LBM = Total Bodyweight - Total Body Fat (bodyweight x body fat percentage)

Therefore, for a 200lb bodybuilder at 15% body fat:

RMR = (200LB - [200 x .15]) / 2.205 x 30.4 = 2344 calories

Now, we factor in an activity multiplier approximation based on your individual lifestyle. Below are some generally accepted values for the following activity levels:

Lightly Active = 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week)

Moderately Active = 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)

Very Active = 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/week)

Extremely Active = 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job), or 2x day training.

Therefore, for a very active individual, their total daily caloric requirement is estimated at:

TOTAL CALORIC DEMAND = 2344 x 1.725 = 4043

• PROTEIN DEMAND = LBM x 1.14 ranging to 1.5 most efficient range for active, healthy adults looking to increase lean muscle. Try a mid-value, i.e. 1.3

Therefore, using the above example; 170lb x 1.3 = 221g.

We now also know that 1 gram of protein = 4 calories

Therefore;

PROTEIN CALORIC DEMAND = 221 x 4 = 884 calories (22% of daily intake).

• FAT DEMAND (using 1-2-3 ratio guide-lines for Fat, Protein, Carbs). This a simple but effective way to utilise macronutrient breakdown. Basically, dividing your total caloric requirement including exercise into 6 parts, and then multiplying appropriately. Though protein demand values can vary wildly, fats seem to have a general consensus value.

Therefore;

FAT CALORIC DEMAND = 4043 / 6 = 674 calories (17% of daily intake). We now know that 1 gram of fat = 9 calories, therefore, fat intake is approximately 75g

Therefore, the remaining calories are allotted to Carbohydrates;

CARBOHYDRATE CALORIC DEMAND = Protein (884) + Fat (674) = 1558. 4043 - 1558 = 2485 (61% of daily intake). We now know that 1 gram of Carbs = 4 calories, therefore, carb intake is approximately 620g

Diet Fundamentals: Final Thoughts

My 'Diet Fundamentals' blogs have covered a lot of territory, and it's about time we start putting it all together to create our own meal plans. My thinking was to provide a sufficient amount of background information on diet and nutrition, so that those new to physical training and bodybuilding could be made aware of the importance of a meal plan, and be willing to design and follow through on a meal plan on their own. It would also serve to remind more experienced individuals, and suggest some alternatives that may not have yet been considered.

But that, amigos, is next week...or perhaps the week after. I wanted to conclude the fundamentals chapter with a few final thoughts.

Remember that no matter what your body type, you will lose body fat if your energy expenditure is consistently greater than your energy intake - if you burn off more calories than you consume. In other words:

1. your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) + calories consumed in activity = calories expended


2. food eaten during the day = calories consumed

So, when 1 is consistently larger than 2, you lose body fat. And when 2 is consistently larger than 1, you gain body fat. The more active you are - the more you walk, run, ride a bicycle, ski, swim, play sports - the more calories you burn and the more easily you are going to be able to control your fat weight. This is why most serious bodybuilders increase their overall level of activity over that involved in their gym training by doing some kind of cardiovascular or aerobic exercise.

But what you eat is also important, along with how much. The more you restrict your calories, the more certain you have to be that you are getting the most nutritional density possible - the most "bang for your buck" (or English version, "punch for your pound"). A bodybuilder who consumes 3,000 calories a day of mostly lean protein and a variety of vegetable, fruit and starch carbohydrate sources is going to be able to train more intensely and build more muscle than somebody whose 3,000 calories intake consists mostly of processed fast foods, high in fat and sugar, all adding up to too many empty calories devoid of much nutritional value. "Eating clean" is what the bodybuilding diet is all about. "You are what you eat", is the old saying. And if you eat junk your body will become - well, you get the point.

When you eat, you take food energy into your body. All of those food calories - whether from protein, carbs, or fat - will make you fat if your body doesn't use that energy for some specific purpose. What your body does with the food you eat depends a lot on what kind of demand you create by the amount and type of training you do. For example, aerobic training tends to burn a lot of calories, and therefore depletes your body of glycogen - which is the primary source of energy for physical activity. As a consequence, when you eat carbohydrate after an endurance training session, the body turns that carbohydrate into replacement glycogen as quickly as it can, and little of that carbohydrate is likely to be diverted to become stored body fat.

On the other hand, intense weight training - working your muscles against heavy resistance - creates a major demand for replacement protein. Protein eaten soon after a workout, or on the same day as an intense gym workout, will be used by the body to rebuild muscle tissue at a much higher rate than on days when you are not doing that kind of training. Again, when the body is in this high state of demand, it is unlikely than non excessive amounts of ingested protein will be stored as body fat to any great degree.

So, in general terms, when your goal is to direct protein into your muscles, you need to train with weights. When your goal is to burn off excessive energy, you need to do increased amounts of aerobic training.

Diet Fundamentals: Know Your Body (Part 2)

Continued from 'Diet Fundamentals: Know Your Body (Part 2)...

Mesomorph Training

The mesomorph will find it relatively easy to build muscle mass, but will have to be certain to include a sufficient variety of exercises in his program so that the muscles develop proportionately and well shaped rather than just thick and bulky. Therefore, for the mesomorph, the following recommendations are applicable:

1. An emphasis on quality, detail, and isolation training, along with the basic mass and power exercises. You build muscle easily, so you can begin working on shape and separation right from the beginning.


2. Mesomorphs gain so easily that they don't have to worry much about conserving energy or over-training. A standard workout of 16 to 20 sets per body part is fine, and you can train with as much or as little rest between sets as suits you.
   
3. A balanced diet with plenty of protein which maintains a calories level that keeps your physique within 10 to 15 pounds of your ideal weight all year long. No bulking up 30 or 40 pounds and then having to drop all of that useless weight for a specific sporting event or competition.

Endomorph Training

Generally, the endomorph will not have too much difficulty building muscle, but will have to be concerned with losing fat weight and then being very careful with diet so as not to gain that weight back. Therefore, for the endomorph, the following recommendations are applicable:

1. A higher proportion of high-set, high-repetition training (no lower than the 10 to 12 rep range), with very short rest periods so as to burn off as much fat as possible. Doing a few extra sets of a few extra exercises while you are trying to get lean is a good idea.


2. Additional aerobic exercise such as bicycle riding, running, jump-rope, or some other calorie-consuming activity. Training in the gym burns calories, but not as much as cardio exercise done on a continuous basis for 30-45 minutes or more at a time.


3. A low-calorie diet that contains the necessary nutritional balance. Not zero anything, but the minimum amount of protein, carbs, and fats, with vitamin and mineral supplements to be certain the body is not being deprived of any essential nutrients.

Although we have previously discussed BCA (Body Composition Analysis), one interesting point is worth mentioning. In tests conducted at IFBB and NPC contests, using a variety of methods, it was shown that the bigger the bodybuilder the higher the fat percentage when the competitor is really ripped. So a massive bodybuilder might be ripped at 12% body fat, while a lightweight amateur might look great at 7-8% body fat.

Why is this? Because what we traditionally think of as fat is not the only fat in your body. There is also intramuscular fat, which is the fat in the muscle itself. So if a really big body builder continues to diet past a certain point he is likely to just shrink rather than getting more cut-up. So while BCA is useful, don't forget to use the mirror or photographs to keep track of how you look. For those like me who have aspirations to compete in body building and fitness contests, always remember that the judges don't take BCA into consideration during a contest. They go on what they see - and you need to do the same thing.

Age and Body Fat

Many teenagers, especially the ectomorphic and ecto-mesomorphic ones, have such fast metabolisms that they can seemingly eat anything, even high-fat and sugar junk food, without getting fat. These are the ones who benefit from "weight-gainer" products. However, even these individuals will likely see some changes in their bodies as they get older. In fact, studies have shown that the adult metabolism tends to slow down by about 10 calories per day per year after the age of 30. This may not seem like much, but it does account for why many individuals of 40 and older find themselves gaining weight even though they have made no change in their exercise and diet habits.

The slowing of the metabolism with age is not an insurmountable obstacle. It just means watching your diet a little more closely, and doing an extra 10 minutes a day or so of cardiovascular training. However, one factor that contributes to a slowing metabolism with age is slow, gradual loss of muscle tissue. So if you continue to train hard and keep your muscles big and strong, this tendency to get fatter as you get older will be much less of a problem for you.