Diet and Nutrition Answers

[access]

Ok guys I am going to put together a good basic guide to what your going to need in terms of quality nutrition to enable growth. We see MANY posts about this all the time so perhaps this can be used as a reference for not only newbies but anyone looking to improve their diet.

1) Firstly let's start with protein. This is referred to as the building block for muscle growth and for good reason. You simply cannot expect to see muscle growth if your not fueling your body with an adequate supply of protein. So how much you ask? There is a basic guide you can use in bodybuilding that says to aim for a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. I like to go to 1 1/2 personally. This would mean for a 200lb guy your protein intake daily should be 300 grams.

Good sources of protein can be found in skinless white meat, fish, steak (low fat varieties preferred), dairy products (again low fat) and of course protein shakes. Ideally you should be spreading out your protein intake over the course of the day in as many as 6-8 meals. This will then maximize the full absorption of your protein as taking too much in one sitting is not doing yourself any good at all. We want to keep our body as close to an anabolic state as we can throughout the day so small amounts frequently is the way to do this.

2) Carbs. When we talk about carbs we need to remember two other important words along with carbs and these are Insulin and Glycogen. When you eat a sufficient amount of carbs you utilize glycogen which is stored in muscles as an enrgy source. The beauty of this is that it leaves protein alone to do it's job for buliding muscle and not broken down to be used as an energy source. This is why carbs are critical in the right amounts and types.

Carbs also cause a natural increase in the release of insulin. Insulin is essential for muscle growth and repair. Insulin also aids in driving glycogen into muscles.

Not all carbs are equal though and you need to be aware of what ones are good and ones to stay away from. Ideally you should be getting your carbs from slow digesting sources like oatmeal, whole wheat pastas, brown rice, whole wheat bread, fruits, vegetables and whole grain cereals. Simple (processed) carbs should be avoided at all costs. All these will do is add fat. The biggest culprit here is sugar. So chocolate, candy, soda's etc are obvious no no's.

As for daily intake you should be in the vicinity of 2g per pound of bodyweight. This can be altered based on your metabolism too either up or down but don't go too far below the 2g as you can see from above carbs are good for you if done correctly and I even use a carb powder to supplement with my diet. If you naturally carry low body fat or have trouble bulking then you can go up to 3g but experiment a little and use the mirror to gauge if your getting enough or too many carbs.

3) Now we come to Fats...ah no stay away....well guess what. You need adequate fat in your diet. When your intake consists of healthy fats your actually encouraging fat loss. Your body will not readily store healthy fats and you should be keeping your fat intake around 25-30% daily. What your looking for here are Omega-3's which can be found in salmon, herring, mackeral and sardines. Other good sources are nuts, seeds, eggs and avocados.

Another essential benefit with getting enough good fats is the positive effect it has on the heart. There also critical to joint lubrication and recovery which many of us suffer from and could be due to an insufficient amount of fat in our diet.

4) Lastly water. Regularly we see posts about how much water we should consume. There is no simple anwser but a point to remember is that water is roughly 70% of our body. This is broken down (again roughly) into muscle is made up of about 75 percent water, fat is made up of about 50 percent water and bones are also about 50 percent water. Clearly if your not adequately hydrating yourself then your going to limit your gains based on the makeup above of water in our body. When your not properly hydrated you will loose significant amount of strength and you can actually cause muscle wasting as you drive fluids from your msucles. Water keeps our body temperature in check and electrolyte level balanced.

My advice here is to drink somewhere in the vicinity of about two-thirds of your body weight in ounces per day. So going back to the 200lb guy that would be 130 ounces or just over 16 glasses which is double the usual recommended amount of 8 glasses a day.

Hopefully this will be of good use to some and please add any opinions you might have.

[biggaz1979]

Nothing more can be said I don't think Access awesome bit of info buddy Thank you very much.

[paul_22]

To add to the water section access i also read a study in the research of effects of water on the metabolism .... drinking cold water proved to signifcantly speed up the metabolism thus burning more stored fat and also allowed more foods to be consumed .... just thoguth i'd toss that in i'll see if i cant get the reseach study name and info

[access]

Originally Posted by paul_22

To add to the water section access i also read a study in the research of effects of water on the metabolism .... drinking cold water proved to signifcantly speed up the metabolism thus burning more stored fat and also allowed more foods to be consumed .... just thoguth i'd toss that in i'll see if i cant get the reseach study name and info

That's interesting Paul as I certainly was not aware that the temperature of water being taken in could have such an effect. Would love to read that study if you can find.

[madruga]

i read a similar study access, and have talked to a couple different people who have said the same thing. ice cold water is the best thing to drink when dieting. as cold as you can get it. i'll try to grab the study off the net somewhere.

and oh yea....this is sticky material.

[FlirtfromHell]

I missed this thread, I was moving. Very helpful info though. Great post!!

[Bullet]

what is caffeine? good or bad. I would think it can be bad?

[BYZA69]

I was talking to a senior body builder back in England (years ago)and he said drink very cold water as cold as you can handle and this will make your heart beat faster burning off the fat because it's a shock to the system, he would drink it all the time as he never used AS it would help him with his cutting i think that's what you call it

[CHIQUITITA]

Originally Posted by paul_22

To add to the water section access i also read a study in the research of effects of water on the metabolism .... drinking cold water proved to signifcantly speed up the metabolism thus burning more stored fat and also allowed more foods to be consumed .... just thoguth i'd toss that in i'll see if i cant get the reseach study name and info

Do you have the literature supporting this research? I'd be interested in reading it. The only thing drinking cold icey water has done for me is make me freeze and shiver like no tomorrow. I dont think the effects of my shivering promote enough energy expenditure worthy of great fat burning capabilities though (At least none that I've noticed)! It'd sure be nice if it did.

[ejad]

Originally Posted by access

3) ... Your body will not readily store healthy fats and you should be keeping your fat intake around 25-30% daily...

Access, the info produced here is priceless. I know it was posted a little while back now but I am new here and was searching for just these answers.

Now my question. You mention fat intake should be around 25-30 daily but what would this be in grams per pound of bodyweight as you highlighted this on all other points except this point (again based on 200lb guy).

Anyone else that knows the answer to this please feel free to join in.

Cheers