▪️Here’s an idea of what your potatoes can cost you in calories. It’s imperative to understand the energy density of the food you eat. Not all food is created equal no matter how similar it may look on your plate.
▪️Potatoes for instance, vary in calories based on their type and also by the way they are prepared.
▪️Here’s a few reasons how food appearing similar can vary:
-Cooking methods
-Types and brands
-Additives like butter, milk and oil.
▪️Be conscious of the amount of calories and the preparation method of the food that you are eating. Especially if you’re looking to shed some extra fat.
▪️Ultimately, in order to lower your body fat percentage, you need to be in a calorie deficit. When you are focusing on calorie awareness while choosing potatoes; aim for the lower caloric option such as steamed potato or the variation without any cooking additives.
▪️Where you are consuming a higher calorie and higher fat potato like chips; you should make sure that your other food choices throughout the day compensate for this by being high protein, high fiber and nutrient dense.
▪️Here are a few workouts that I recommend you use for your routine to build a big and strong back.⠀ ⠀ ▪️Below are some exercises and what muscles they predominantly target, and you’ll see that some work multiple muscle groups (in fact, most work more muscles than I’ve even mentioned in the diagram).⠀ ⠀ -Lateral Raises – Side Delts⠀ -Dumbbell Row – Lats (and biceps & upper back)⠀ -Chin-Ups – Lats (and biceps & upper back)⠀ -Deadlift – Hamstrings (and lower back, lats, upper back, glutes & more)⠀ -Barbell Row – Lats (and upper back, biceps & more)⠀ -Face-Pulls: Rear Delts (mid trapezius, rhomboids, etc)⠀ -Barbell Shrug – Trapezius (and rhomboids)⠀ ⠀ ▪️You can choose what workouts and muscle groups you want to focus on, you don’t have squeeze all of them in every week.⠀ ⠀ ▪️You could even deadlift on your leg days, then choose a vertical compound pulling exercise ( such as the a chin-up) and one horizontal compound pulling exercise (like a row) and you’ll engage most of your back.⠀
▪️I’d also recommend that you try doing face-pulls as they’re great for strengthening muscles that are usually overlooked.⠀
▪️Patience is overvalued; especially within the weight room and particularly when it involves those focused on a specific outcome:
▪️Sure it takes time to build muscles, but if you’re trying to build muscle and aren’t seeing obvious size increases from month to month, it’s a sign that your approach is off.
▪️And a workout may be a terrible thing to waste. Plus, if you’re seeing progress, there’s no reason you can’t see more.
▪️How do you rev up your results? Here are 5 ways.
1. Increase Your Training Volume
▪️Training volume—your number of reps multiplied by your number of sets—is a primary determiner of hypertrophy (aka the way to grow muscle). And to extend volume, you’ll really need to lower the weight than you would expect.
2. Focus On The Eccentric Phase
▪️When weight training, you’ve got a concentric (hard) and eccentric (easy) phase. For example , as you lower into a squat, you’re performing an eccentric movement. Once you return to standing, that’s concentric. And, according to research published within the ecu Journal of Applied Physiology, eccentric work is much better at activating muscle growth.
3. Decrease Rest Intervals
▪️When lifting for hypertrophy, rest periods of 30 to 90 seconds encourage a fast release in muscle-building hormones (including testosterone and human growth hormone) while also ensuring that you truly fatigue your muscles.
4. To Grow Your Muscle, Eat More Protein
▪️Weight training breaks down your muscles. Protein rebuilds them. The more intense your workouts, the more important it is to consume protein to solidify recovery.
5. Focus On Being In A Calorie Surplus
▪️This can be hard to get used to , especially for those who are used to counting calories within the hopes to burn fat. But to most efficiently build muscle mass quickly (that means weight gained, not lost), you have to consume more calories than you burn every day.
▪️That’s because, when your body senses that you are in a calorie deficit which means that you’re consuming fewer calories than you’re burning each day—it lowers your body’s ability to create new muscle. After all, if your body thinks food is on low supply, getting swole isn’t going to be its main priority.
▪️Consume roughly between 250 to 500 extra calories per day to make sure that any weight gained is from muscle. A 2014 Pennington Biomedical research facility concluded from a study of people that ate a high-calorie diet rich in protein stored about 45 percent of these calories as muscle, while people following a low-protein diet with an equivalent number of calories stored 95 percent of these calories as fat.
▪️In order for fat to burn, the adrenal hormones (also known as adrenaline and noradrenaline) will attach themselves to the fat cell receptors which causes them to open so that the fat can be used for energy.
▪️There are two types of receptors inside the fat cells. One is called alpha and the other is called beta.
▪️It’s the beta receptors that are more active and they are the ones that respond to the adrenal hormones.
▪️In order for your body to lose fat, the adrenal hormones need to turn on and attach themselves to the beta receptors inside the fat cells so the body can use the fat as energy.
▪️It’s known in the fitness industry that regular and consistent exercise can help mitigate the negative effects of everyday stress.
▪️Going to the gym regularly can make the brain more resilient to stress and reduce some of the risk factors between stress and cardiovascular disease, according to scientific research.
▪️However, stress can overwhelm your system and also take a toll on your workouts. If you’ve ever tried to do a light workout during a particularly stressful week at work or school and felt weak, sick, or just flat-out terrible, then it’s not that you’ve suddenly lost all your strength.
▪️Everyday stress can limit your perceived strength at the gym, and limit how well your muscles recover after a workout
▪️Eggs are a great source of high-quality protein.
▪️In comparison to all whole foods, eggs contain the highest protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS)
▪️The PDCAAS is a score that measures a protein’s quality and digestibility.
▪️Eggs also helps you stay full longer by decreasing your appetite.
▪️Even though the protein quality is excellent, you could experience less fullness because egg protein powders are usually made from egg whites rather than whole eggs.
▪️Eggs are a complete protein source, in other words they have all nine essential amino acids that your body can’t make itself.
▪️Egg protein is ranked second to whey protein as the highest source of leucine, which is the BCAA that is the biggest portion of muscle health.
▪️The only negative aspect is that egg-white protein hasn’t been studied as much as whey or casein.
▪️Egg white protein is definitely a good option for people that have dairy allergies who prefer a supplement based on animal protein.
▪️Try this workout to target your glutes, quads, adductors and calves
▪️You can do this workout at home, using a couch or a chair
▪️Make sure that you are keeping your weight in your heel, while your head, hip and back knee is aligned. Try to keep your front knee aligned with the middle of your front foot
▪️Your front foot further away will target your glutes, but bringing your foot closer will target your quads
▪️Make sure that you maintain perfect form and aim for 8-15 reps
▪️Take your workout to the next level and add weights
▪️As you all probably know, stubborn belly fat, just like any other type of fat, is lost by being in a caloric deficit through a combination of dieting and exercising.
▪️First and foremost we have to get lean enough to tackle those stubborn areas (at least ~12% for men and ~22% for women) but once we are there, they’ll disintegrate just as fast as other areas (assuming we’re eating the right amount of nutrients and training the right way).
▪️The main problem with dieting to very low levels of body fat is that as we get leaner, our hunger starts increasing and our energy expenditure decreases. So our deficit becomes smaller and smaller as our results start slowing down.
▪️It’s not necessarily the fat that is stubborn itself. If it were, your body would have to take energy to use, and if protein intake is high enough to avoid wasting protein for energy and enough resistance training is provided as a stimulus to maintain muscle mass.. the energy will come from stubborn fat cells.
▪️When we are not burning fat it’s because we are moving less and not being as diligent as we previously were, with our food intake. That’s a big reason why our results slow down.
▪️Sure, there are specific strategies that may work specifically for these areas (such as introducing combinations such as Caffeine + Yohimbine HCl, which are able to decrease Alpha-2 receptor activity and mobilize the fat out of the cell), but don’t forget the bigger picture. Being extra patient, more accurate (with both food intake and daily activity) will get the job done.
▪️Message me the word “FREEDOM” for consultation if you are wanting to transform your body.
▪️It’s common knowledge that spending hours out of our day sitting down isn’t good for u.
▪️But the question of the day is; just how much exercise is needed to counteract the negative health impact of a day at a desk?
▪️A 2020 study concluded that about 30-40 minutes per day of building up a sweat should do the trick.
▪️Up to 40 minutes of “moderate to intense physical activity” daily is about the right amount to balance out 10 hours of sitting behind a desk.
▪️Research states that any amount of exercise or even just standing up helps to some capacity.
▪️This data is from the examination of nine previous studies, which involved 44,370 people in four various countries who were wearing a fitness tracker.
▪️️The analysis discovered an increase in the risk of death among those who lived a more sedentary lifestyle and a decrease in risk of death in those who spent time engaging in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity.
▪️Implementing intense activities such as cycling, brisk walking, even gardening can lower your risk of an earlier death just as if you weren’t doing all that sitting around in the office.
musclehacking.org 