Resources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21324330/
Carbs After Workout
♠️Carbs After Workouts♠️
🔹 It’s often said that carbs are important for post-workout recovery. At times people even claim that carbs are more important than protein. Is this actually the case?
🔹 When we perform any type of strength training, we inevitably break down some muscle tissue. If we train in a fasted state, it’s very likely that by the end of the workout we will be in a negative protein balance. This is because we’re breaking down more muscle than we’re building. If I made the assumption that carbs were more important than protein and only consumed carbs after my workout, I would be in a negative protein balance. If I’m in a negative protein balance, my muscles wouldn’t grow.
🔹So how can we fix this situation? If your goal is to grow muscle, make sure that you are getting enough protein after your workouts;especially if you are training while fasted. The goal should be to spend as much time as possible in a positive protein balance and getting protein ASAP after working out is a great way to ensure this happens.
Resources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5794245/
Boosting Metabolism
♠️Key To Boosting Metabolism♠️
🔹 If you are in a fat burning phase, you definitely want to focus on speeding up your metabolism through a phenomenon called the EPOC effect, which stands for, “Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption.” The EPOC effect will produce more oxygen consumption to the body in the post-workout period. This is beneficial because when we consume more oxygen, we burn more calories.
🔹 How and why does this happen?
🔹 Exercise will increase stress to the body. This interrupts our regular homeostasis. After our workouts, our bodies start to recover from this stress. Things such as tissue repair and nutrient replenishment require more energy, this is why we see increased calorie burning after we exercise. There are studies that show that this effect can last for as long as 38-hours.
🔹 So let’s get to the question, “do all forms of exercise have the same effect”?
🔹 That’s precisely what this experiment investigated. Subjects performed workouts that burned the same amount of calories from resistance training, steady state cardio, and interval training. After that, they tracked their calorie burning throughout the post-workout period to see if there were any differences?
🔹 What were the results?
🔹 The steady state cardio group didn’t boost metabolism one bit. Remember, the primary reason for an increase in metabolism following a workout is due to things like tissue repair or nutrient replenishment. Steady state cardio typically isn’t stressful enough of a stimulus for most people so we don’t have as much muscle damage to repair or fuel stores to fill up.
🔹 On the other hand, both resistance training and interval training did increase metabolism. Both forms of exercise cause muscle damage and interval training will also deplete energy stores a little more than resistance training. Combine these two workouts and you’ll get a solid EPOC effect.
Resources:
https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/48951/Oschuenkemark2001.pdf
Stubborn Body Fat
♠️Stubborn Body Fat♠️
🔹There are three main factors that control how fast you lose fat from different parts of your body:
1. How fat cells react to catecholamines.
2. How fat cells react to insulin.
3. How much blood flow the area of fat cells receive.
🔹There are two types of catecholamine receptors in the fat cell: alpha-2 and beta-2. Each receptor responds differently when it gets a signal from a catecholamine. Beta-2 receptors will prompt the cells to release more fat. But alpha-2 receptors tell the cells to stop releasing fat.
🔹If a fat cell has more alpha-2 receptors than beta-2 receptors, it will release fat slower than other cells. When your brain senses that it has enough energy from other cells, it will signal to the fat cells to stop releasing their energy. Once this happens, the stubborn fat will not be released.
🔹These stubborn fat cells tend to gather in the same areas within your body. Let’s take the fat cells from the stomach for example; these fat cells are on average 10-20 times more responsive to catecholamines than the fat cells that are in the glutes.
🔹Fat cells can also have a different response to the effects of the hormone insulin, which is another kind of signaling molecule. In general, insulin is considered a “storage hormone,” which means it helps nutrients such as fat enter cells. When insulin levels incline, fat burning will drop to zero, and vice versa.
🔹Certain kinds of fat, such as visceral fat, are more insulin resistant than others. They continue to release fat despite insulin being present. However, stubborn fat will stop releasing triglycerides as a response to insulin.
🔹The amount of blood that circulates throughout the different parts of your body also determines how much fat you lose. The areas in your body that receive more blood flow generally lose fat easier.
Drinking Alcohol After A Workout
♠️Does alcohol consumption affect muscle hypertrophy♠️
🔹Exercise and protein intake are the main factors that create muscle protein synthesis (the main process driving muscle adaptations, such as growth).
🔹It has been documented that athletes are more inclined to consume excessive amounts of alcohol, especially as part of binge-drinking practices in team sports. Can these binges affect muscle protein synthesis?
🔹There was a case study that researched on the the effects of post-exercise alcohol consumption on protein synthesis rates in healthy young subjects who work out regularly. The subjects first performed combined resistance and endurance exercises in order to mimic team sports. During an 8 hours of recovery, subjects consumed either:
-25 grams of protein
-25 grams of protein and 12 standard alcoholic drinks
-25 grams of carbohydrate and 12 standard alcoholic drinks
🔹The alcohol intake ended up reducing the post-exercise muscle protein synthesis rates. But the post-exercise muscle protein synthesis rates were still elevated compared to the rest periods, even when alcohol was ingested.
🔹So what this means is that even when you know that you will consume large amounts of alcohol afterwards, it is not an excuse to skip your training session.
⚠️Keep in mind that the subjects received a large amount of alcohol (i.e. 12 drinks). The amount of alcohol in the study was to mimic the binge drinking practices of sports players. If the alcohol consumption was lower, there would be much less of a effect.
🔹The conclusion is that consumption of large amounts of alcohol after exercise lowers protein synthesis.
Resources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24533082/
Hydration
♠️Hydration♠️
🔹 Drinking a 1/2 liter of water per hour of training is enough to prevent dehydration/lowering of body weight during exercise.
🔹 A liter of water is about 33 fluid ounces, so half would be 16.5 fl oz, or a medium-sized water bottle. A quick sip of water is normally about an ounce, give-or-take, so it’s easy to see that consuming 16-33 fl oz during exercise shouldn’t be too hard if you’re constantly grabbing a swig between each set.
🔹 Even if you’re not thirsty, it’s a good rule of thumb to hit the water fountain or grab a quick gulp from your bottle between sets. Work smarter, not harder is what I always say.
🔹 There was a study that states that ingesting 500mL (16.9 fl oz) about 2-hours before exercise is a good place to start. A good habit to start is to simply start sipping on water at least two hours before your workout if you haven’t already been taking in water all day.
🔹 If you are getting light-headed or nauseous during your workouts, you might not only be dehydrated, but it’s possible that you are experiencing symptoms of hyponatremia as well, which means your sodium levels are running low.
🔹 Most sports drinks, like Gatorade, contain sodium so it might be a good idea to sip on a sports drink during your workout if you think you may have issues with sodium loss.
🔹 Water may be one of the most important factors for your performance today and your gains in the long term.
🔹 Good thing it’s one of the easiest deficits to overcome. Just get yourself a water bottle and keep it at your side at all times. If you don’t like plain water, add flavoring into it to make it more pleasurable. Whatever you have to do, just do it.
Resources:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.583.3481&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Intuitive Eating
♠️Intuitive Eating♠️
🔹If you want to become an expert at “Intuitive eating” you have to have a background & experience in calorie/macronutrient tracking, after having spent alot of time “in the trenches”, especially if you’re a body builder or somebody who wants to maximize their potential when it comes to maximizing muscle gains and or fat loss.
🔹Tracking calories isn’t always necessary for everyone, because we are different, have different backgrounds, mentality, habits, past dieting experiences and approaches to the method, and these are reasons why I would not instantly recommend the tracking method to 100% of the people.
🔹When it comes to intuitive eating, there should be a gradual progression into it.
🔹Yet at the same time, if we want precise results, we need to use precise methods (such as calorie and macro tracking) and do enough practice with it to the point where our estimations can get very close to the “real numbers”.
🔹That’s the only way that you can transition into intuitive eating, if maximizing your body composition is your goal.
🔹Even though tracking can be tedious, it educates the person on the caloric requirements needed for the individual’s goals, it gives informations on the specific nutrients included in foods, it helps understand the fact that no food should be necessarily excluded from the diet without context, and more, and these are all positive outcomes that can lead to making better dietary choices in the long run.
🔹From there, after having educated yourself to the point where it becomes “second nature” to track food intake & quantities, a transition to intuitive eating is seemingless and likely just as powerful in order to maintain, lose or gain weight.
Resources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23962472/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212267213018960
Polyphenols Benefits
♠️Polyphenol Benefits♠️
🔹 Polyphenols in the category of plant compounds that has many health benefits.
🔹 Consuming polyphenols will boost digestion, brain health, and protect against heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers.
🔹You can get polyphenols from red wine, dark chocolate, tea, and berries.
🔹They are similar to antioxidants, which means they will neutralize harmful free radicals that would otherwise damage your cells and increase your risk of conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
🔹Polyphenols can also reduce inflammation, which is the root cause of many chronic illnesses.
🔹 There are supplements available as well but they’re likely to be less beneficial than the food sources.
🔹Studies show that polyphenols may help lower your blood sugar levels, contributing to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
🔹That’s mainly because polyphenols prevents the breakdown of starch into simple sugars, lowering the likelihood of blood sugar spikes after meals.
🔹Polyphenol-rich foods can work like a neurotropic and boost your focus and memory.
🔹There was a study that concluded that drinking grape juice, which is naturally rich in polyphenols, helped significantly boost memory in older adults with mental impairments as fast as 12 weeks.
🔹 More research will be needed in order to identify effective and safe polyphenol supplement dosages.
🔹So for the time being, it’s better to rely on foods rather than supplementation to boost your intake of these compounds.
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728631/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3614697/
Do This If You Screwed Up Your Diet
♠️Screwed up your diet ? Here’s a muscle hack to get back on track quickly♠️
🔹Breaking diets happens to best of us the first times we dieted, and it happens very frequently to beginners but also “advanced” dieters as well. So don’t be alarmed.
🔹When it comes to burning fat, we need to create a calorie deficit of around 3500 calories which is roughly 1lb of fat loss. This means that if we have to eat -500 calories, under maintenance, per day we would need a week of dieting to lose 1lb of fat.
🔹So if we were able to do that.. we would lose all the fat right ? Well sort of, yeah, if we don’t take into account any metabolic adaptation, that’s how it would work in theory.
🔹But what really happens is that people… screw it up… And it’s totally fine.
🔹It’s just life. Whether it’s because you don’t feel like dieting or whether it’s because you were offered something you couldn’t resist saying no… screw ups happen, and “being perfect” is not what we’re looking for.
🔹What we need to get better at, is to quickly get back on track in order not to lose the progress made: this means being consistent, not perfect.
🔹Something that “clicked in my mind” back in the days, when information wasn’t so readily available and I used to screw up my diets too, was to understand that “if 3500 calories under maintenance” are needed to lose 1lb of fat, then “3500 calories OVER maintenance will result in roughly 1lb of fat”.
🔹For how obvious that may sound, you rarely over eat that much over your calories (unless there are other dieting related underlying problems, such as bingeing).
🔹The point I’m trying to make is that, even if some days “you screw up” a little and eat a couple hundred calories extra, you’re still good. it doesn’t mean you lost all your progress.
🔹Even if you went above your maintenance, you would need to eat +3500 calories *over it* to gain 1lb of fat, so a couple hundred calories, for one day, won’t even be worth calculating.
🔹But the scale says otherwise ? It doesn’t matter what the scale says: even if it went up by a couple pounds the next day, following a higher calorie day, it’s just water retention, at least most of it. Not gained fat.
🔹What’s your favorite foods to eat on your cheat days? Leave a comment… I would like to know.
Eat Like The Rock
♠️Eat Like The Rock♠️
🔹Recently The Rock has been going through a cutting phase for his new role in Black Adam.
🔹He’s been manipulating water, sodium, and cardio while pushing and pulling serious iron to have a dense, dry, detailed physique.
🔹This is science at its greatest; conquering months of dialing in on strength & conditioning while constantly fine tuning a daily strategy.
🔹There’s no surprise that taking on The Rock diet and workout plan isn’t a matter of course as much as it is a matter of conviction. Not to mention a decent budget on food with a grocery list just under $50 per day, or around $1500 per month.
🔹 For more exclusive content and free monthly fitness ebooks join the muscle hackers club: https://mailchi.mp/aa9bea26a029/musclehacking
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