How to EAT

How to eat

You need to eat EVERYTHING.

Carb, protein, fats — they’re all essential to your body; the key is moderation.

You need to eat at the right TIME.

Don’t starve when your body needs energy, and don’t over-eat when you have enough.

Timing your meals allow you to stay full on less food. Your diet should fit your needs.

Diets are not one-size-fits-all.

Everyone’s bodies, lifestyles, diets, and dieting goals are different.

A weight loss diet for one person might lead to weight gain for another.

Healthy dieting requires:

TIMING (of meals)

VARIETY (of foods)

BALANCE (of nutrients)

MODERATION (of portions)

Meat –  Lean steak, mostly red meat. I use to eat a lot of turkey and I still do sometimes but the farming process on turkey isn’t the best thing for our body take in, so try go for organic turkey. Lean red meat like sirloin steak is better for the body to digest. However avoid pork. Our cows and pigs are fed crap that it makes their meat less healthy for the body.

Proteins – eggs, tuna, organic turkey breast, salmon, lean beef, veal, tofu, mature soybeans, almonds, pumpkin seeds, greek yogurt, almond milk are an excellent source of pure protein

Fruits and Vegetables – Everybody needs vitamins, this is a requirement to be a healthy person in general. Eat a wide variety of them. Remember the more colorful the better. Bananas, Broccoli, Spinach, Blueberries, Apples, Oranges, Cherries, Carrots.

Liquids – Water, water, water! One gallon a day is the minimum for everybody in general. Two to three gallons is a must if you workout hard and/or live in a hot state. Again, this is a minimum, if you can drink more, do it. Stay the hell away from alcohol, it will slow you down, fatten you up, and put you in more situations where you are likely to be straying away from the healthy lifestyle!

Fats – Honestly, this has more to do with your genetic makeup than anything. If you have a body that builds up fat easily, stay away from saturated fats for at least five days out of the week. Mono and poly unsaturated fats are good.

 

Break down your calorie intake into:

55% – Carbs

25% – Fats

20% – Protein

Try to maintain that balance.

Knowing WHEN to eat, is as important as knowing WHAT to eat.

Our #1 problem is figuring out when to eat. (Most people know what to eat. Fruits are good, junk foods are bad, etc) If you’re eating healthy but still not losing weight, it’s probably your timing that’s off. If you don’t eat at the right time, it matters very little whether you eat healthy or not–because the food gets transformed into fat anyway!

The #1 diet problem is not eating when the body needs food,and then over-eating when finally eating.… so when do we eat?

Your body is constantly using energy, spiking its energy use during your workout. Your diet should follow your energy use as closely as possible.

Bad diet plan of eating 3 big meals a day.

Over-eating converts surplus nutrients to fat. Fewer meals leaves you hungry & weak in between meals starving often leads to more overeating.

One of the biggest diet mistakes is waiting too long in between meals. If you wait till your stomach is grumbling, your body is already starving (decreased energy and recovery rate).

Extreme hunger is usually countered with the next diet mistake, over-eating, which increases fat storage. One mistake usually leads to the other, putting your body in a vicious cycle of starvation (decreased metabolism) followed by periods of over-eating (fat gain).

Good diet plan of 6 meals a day

Smaller meals keep you energized and full throughout the day. Snacks keep you from starving during long workouts and in between meals. smaller meals keep your metabolism high while avoiding over-eating. Eating smaller meals more closely matches your body’s energy use. Your biggest meals are in the mornings and the one before your workout. Smaller meals keep you satisfied without putting extra calories into you.

Start eating before you get too hungry. Stop eating before you get too full.

Biggest Meal in the Morning

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s the first supply of nutrients for your day and kickstart your body’s metabolism. Once you have a full breakfast, you can make it through the rest of the day on smaller meals to avoid getting hungry. Don’t be silly and skip breakfast as part of your weight loss plan. This leaves you hungry and sends your body into starvation mode (decreasing metabolism), making it stingy for energy and storing everything you eat as fat. You need to have energy to start your day; you need to eat good breakfast.

Breakfast AFTER Your Morning Run

If you do your runs in the morning, it’s best to eat breakfast after that. First off, running on a full stomach is a terrible idea. Secondly, running on an empty stomach helps you lose weight because your body will be burning off stored fat instead of the food you ate that day. It’s not necessary to do your runs in the morning, but the common belief is that it burns off fat stored from the previous night and energizes you for the day.

Aside from breakfast, the workout meal is the second and only other big meal on your training day

1. No sugar

2. No saturated fat

3. Cut the bread out of your diet

4. Don’t combine foods (burgers, sandwiches, etc)

5. Eat things separate, for an example: a can of tuna

6. Think before you eat. Ask yourself why? Are you really hungry?

7. Take it as a challenge and be proud of yourself for taking care of your body.

8. Motivate yourself. You have a photo shoot of your body that will be posted on facebook in two weeks. What are you going to do about it?

Improve your diet…not your supplements.

Squatting pass your toes

Getting your knee pass your toes while squatting puts a much greater stress on your ACL and can result in a stretching and weakening of the ligament. This can lead to tearing which can put you out of training for weeks or months depending on the severity, and how much stress the ligament had been placed under. Keeping your knees behind your toes is the safest method, at least from what Ive been taught by the trainers and physical therapists Ive encountered in my time as an athlete and trainer. I can honestly say that in keeping my knees behind my toes, I have never experienced any type of joint soreness in my knees while some of my friends and acquaintances who do not employ the same thought I do, have great pain in the knees and have taken significant amounts of time off of lifting because of the pain.

Myth vs Fact

Myth: Stretching before exercise reduces the risk of injury.

Fact: It has been generally accepted that stretching decreases the risk of injury. In fact, it has been suggested that stretching is the most common routine recommended by sports coaches and sports medicine professionals (Witvrouw et al., 2004).

The fact that authority figures (e.g., coaches and sports medicine doctors) have long advocated pre-exercise stretching for lowering injury risk is likely the reason it has been so widely accepted as standard practice. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, researchers began to more closely scrutinize the evidence supporting this practice. For example, a review of existing literature led one group of researchers to conclude that pre-exercise static stretching does not lower the risk of local muscle injury (Shrier, 1999). Similarly, another group of scientists (Pope et al., 2000) reported no significant reductions in the incidence of lower-limb injuries in people who stretched before exercise compared to those who performed no stretching. More recently, Witvrouw and colleagues (2004) concluded that pre-exercise stretching has no beneficial effect on injury prevention for activities such as cycling, jogging and swimming. Finally, in a current review (McHugh and Cosgrave, 2010), the general consensus was that stretching in addition to aerobic warm-up does not affect the incidence of overuse injuries.

Clearly, the scientific literature of the past decade fails to support stretching before exercise as a successful strategy for injury prevention. Does this mean stretching has no impact on risk of injury? Absolutely not! In fact, it has been reported that stretching at other times, including postexercise and in the evening, can reduce injury risk.  – American Councel of Exercise By Lance C. Dalleck, Ph.D. and Jeffrey M. Janot, Ph.D.

Myth: Bread and pasta make you fat? How about no.

Fact: Anything can make you gain weight and add excess fat. Lettuce can be stored as fat. Any food or drink with calories can be stored as body fat if it causes your blood sugar levels to exceed what the body NEEDS at that TIME. Bread and pasta are actually great sources of complex carbohydrate! The key is HOW much you eat and WHEN you eat it. Got it?

Myth: Strength training will make you bulk up.

Fact: NO! Mostly women are concerned with this one. Muscles burns calories, so the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. This makes it easier to burn fat and harder to gain fat.

Myth: Eating after 6pm will make you fat.

Fact: Not really. It all depends on whether or not the body needs that amount of calories at that time. Keep in mind your body is constantly burning calories, 24 hours per day, just the amount varies. It’s just better to eat earlier for energy storage and body recovery. I eat late at night because I work the entire day training people, and I’m only 7% body fat.

Myth: Low-carb diets are the best for weight loss.
Fact: Several large-scale studies have compared popular weight loss diets head-to-head, and none of the diets emerged as the clear winner. This may be partly due to the fact that although people adhere carefully to the restrictions initially, they digress toward old eating habits over time.

Most studies report the greatest reduction in blood triglycerides for low-carb diets and the greatest reduction in blood cholesterol levels for low-fat diets. A low-fat diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains as the best for weight loss, I would consider agreeing to a low-carb diet for someone who prefers this, as long as they take responsibility of their micronutrient intake and blood cholesterol levels.

Myth: Water is just as good as a sports drink for athletes.
Fact: Water is a good hydrator for most people under most conditions, athletes are anything but typical. Highly competitive athletes may experience significant reduction of glycogen stores and dehydration during an intense, prolonged competition or workout. Sports drinks provide carbohydrate as well as the electrolytes and fluid that replenish critical energy reserves and delay fatigue. I believe if exercise is less than an hour, or of only moderate intensity, water is sufficient. High-intensity, longer performance may be improved by regular consumption of a sports drink.

Myth: I eat only 1,200 calories per day, but I can’t lose weight.
Fact: People oftenunderestimate their true calorie intake. The average baked potato is 2.5 times the defined serving size. Using the food table calories for one potato may substantially underestimate actual intake. Alternatively, maybe you only ate 1,200 calories one day, but you splurged the next with 2,500 calories. It is difficult to accurately determine how many calories you should consume each day to lose weight (it’s best to consult a dietitian), but you can get a rough estimate of your daily goal by multiplying your weight in kilograms by 35 and subtracting 500-600 calories.

Keep on flexing. We begin again, we never give up.

Into the realm of training

Work yourself to 80% of your maximal output then rest adequately. It produces the best results through my research. If I can do 40 max pull ups, I only need to do about sets of 30 to improve aesthetics and fitness components. Do not work yourself out to failure.

Do your endurance cardiovascular workouts in broken rhythm of intervals. It creates a perfect balance of fat loss and lean muscle gain.

You’re not serious about fitness if you don’t start out with and keep running outdoors in your routine. Running outside is extremely effective, especially if you’re aiming to burn belly fat. Another great workout to lean your body and burn off fat in unwanted areas is jumproping. If you don’t have a jumprope, do yourself a favor and purchase one. A routine of jumproping for 15-30 minutes 4-5 times a week will suprise you with the results you’ll get in just two weeks. When you do your cardio, keep it hard & continuous exceeding steady physiological state and producing near exhaustion, not complete exhaustion.

The best four tips for losing fat are diet, metabolic resistance training, high intensity interval training and time.

Signing up at a gym: People need to be self motivated. No piece of equipment is going to get someone lazy off the couch and to the gym. Motivation comes from within. discover and arrive at fitness. Surround yourself around experienced fitness professionals who will allow you to be creative.

Poor form: For every incorrect repetition you have completed, three correct repetitions must be done to change the pattern of body memory compartment.

If the exercise movement is performed incorrectly for twenty one days, the body will adapt and accept it.

When one is feeling good, you stand upright and breathe slow and deep. This posture creates a moment of health because it opens you up.

Posture regulates energy levels. A good physical posture can blend in with gravity. A healthy mental posture can blend well in life.

Specificity + Frequent Practice = Success

Do not train to failure. If you can perform a maximum of 10 pull ups, then you’ll want to train by performing 5-8 reps, 3-4 times per day, 4-6 days per week. There is neurological process of where strength gain becomes more efficient, it becomes easier for your muscles to repeat that movement. Hence, by doing more pull ups or more pushups, you get better at doing them. This technique does not only work with bodyweight exercises either. You can easily increase your bench press or squats by incorporating the same methodology.

You may perform 50-80% of your maximum number of reps so that your muscles avoid failure. You should do this 3-4 times per day: morning, noon, night, before bed, any time really. The more often you do it, the better you’ll get at pushups or pull ups. Always stop at least 1 rep shy of failure. You don’t want to teach your muscles to fail during this process.

Do as much work as possible while staying fresh as possible.

Abdominals: Many people are zoned into the aesthetics of abdominals and forget the function of abdominals. We get stuck with our ego as human beings to look pretty and put aside our health benefits. The purpose of the abdominal is quality stability, to serve and protect the vital compartment called the Abdominal Cavity. A strong core improves respiration, breathing, blood-flow, brain, immune-system and the other functional obligations to the health of the human body. It’s cute to have washboard abdominals, but it has to be a priority to health advancements to exercisers to maintain a strong core.

Keep in mind the stomach is not the abdominal. It is an organ located lower left under the rib cage.The right diet, nutrition and progressive exercise will help to “flatten” the belly-gut.

The abdominal crunch or sit-ups is “suppose” to work the upper abdominal. Why are people than working the upper abdominal area? To work abdominals it’ll be more efficient to work all areas of the abdominals; obliques, lower abdominals, and your back. Do not divide, but arrive at a functional-collective-effort.

Exercise isn’t complicated

“It is not “I am doing this,” but rather an inner realization that “this is happening through me”.” –.Bruce Lee.

The outer is the inner and there should be no division.

The body lives with this understanding.

Exercise should not be complicated. Exercise is learning to practice a form of art that will later become formless. In your movements, include beauty and sensitivity. This creates an emotional substance of inner health functions that are living and giving the human-body and a human-being its human-life.

The Lost Reason for Exercise

When you go into any modern day gym, it is hard to recognize what the true reason for physical training is. Everyone is talking about burning calories, building specific muscle groups, maximizing their workouts with scientific date, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, burning fat and building a functionally muscular body are great…but modern training has lost its roots.

The truth is, the history of physical training, or working out, is based on war. Ancient warriors would train so they would be prepared to protect themselves, their families and their property from attack. Their training was not so much about looking better, but performing better. I think modern day exercisers should take this cue from Ancient Warriors.

Physical Training Is Initially About Survival 

Training, and getting the physical improvements from training, was not about looking good in spandex or taking your shirt off at the beach. Ancient warrior’s motivation for training was nothing less than SURVIVAL. If you were unfit, you didn’t survive! 

Talk about a great motivator to use the best methods and get really great results! If they failed to have the physical abilities necessary to defend themselves… they would pay the ultimate price. Imagine workout out as if your life depended on it. By the way it does, just most people have lost sight of it or don’t view it with any urgency. 

The Reason Combining Bodyweight And Dumbbell Workouts Is Best 

When you think about Ancient Warriors, what image comes to mind. For me, I see a strong fit individual with some type of weight objects (weapons) in their hands. So, if you were training to be a better warrior, how would you train? Does combining bodyweight exercise and dumbbell training come to mind?

Forget about what the bodybuilding community tells you about training muscles. Exercise is really about movement. Two types of movement really… The movement of your own body AND the movement of objects. 

Bodyweight calisthenics are the best way to train your body to move in the way it most naturally moves. Every movement of the body can be trained and improved with bodyweight exercises. On the other hand, dumbbells or kettlebells are the best ways to train the body to move objects.

Just like an Ancient Warrior, combining bodyweight and dumbbell workouts are the best way to build a strong, attractive and functional body.

If you want to get real fitness, fat loss and physique building results you can use in the real world, combining bodyweight and dumbbells is a great option. Forget about strapping yourself into some machine that has no relation to any movement you’ll do in the real world. Act as if you life depended on getting results (it does), and use the best tools for the job.

If I needed to get results, I would do what the Ancient warriors instinctively knew. Combine bodyweight exercises and hand help weighted resistance to build a strong, body that performs well regardless of what life throws at me.

Drink More Water

It is tasteless, colourless, odourless and it has no calories. This simple molecule is the most vital ingredient for growth and health. What is it? Water!

Water is the most abundant nutrient in your body, making up about 60% of your body weight. It is the medium in which all chemical reactions in your body take place – including all energy reactions. Here is a short list of the functions of water relevant to you and working out:

1. Temperature Regulator
When exercising, only 25% of the chemical reaction that produces energy is actually used for moving the muscle.
75% is wasted as heat.
To get rid of that extra heat, your body perspires.
As the perspiration evaporates, your blood and body cool.
Without enough water, you could easily suffer from heat exhaustion.

2. Joint Lubrication
The lubricant between your joints is called synovial fluid. It is essential for healthy joint maintenance. When exercising, synovial fluid release is increased to allow the joint to cope with the increased stresses and strains placed on it. Insufficient water will more likely result in joint injury.

3.Water and Muscles
Ever come in to the gym and you felt tired even before you’ve started? One reason may be dehydration. Muscle is one place in your body where water can be found in the highest concentration. You will start to feel thirsty after you have lost about 2% of body weight. By this time, it really is too late and you should get hydrated as soon as possible.

So how much water is enough water?

The absolute minimum for water daily intake is 8 cups of fluids.
If you exercise, this needs to be increased to as much as 12.

1. BEFORE EXERCISE
Drink at least 2 cups of fluid 2 to 3 hours before exercise. Drink 1 cup of fluid immediately before your workout. If it is very hot, or cold, these amounts should be increased.

2. DURING EXERCISE
Drink 1 cup every 15 minutes during exercise. Don’t worry, you won’t feel ‘bloated’ for long.

3. AFTER EXERCISE
For every hour that you worked out, drink two to three cups of fluid – preferably within two hours of finishing your session. Carry on by drinking an additional one to two cups for the next four hours. You will be surprised at how much you will be able to drink. Your body will more than appreciate it.

SPORTS DRINKS,
If you are planning to exercise for longer than forty-five minutes, then sports drinks are for you. I personally prefer Powerade Zero. If not, and that includes most weight training, they are not going to perform the function they are designed for. Your body will use them only as a water resource and nothing else.

Why? You only start to lose electrolytes through sweat after forty-five minutes.
Your body won’t be able to utilise these electrolytes under this time.
Same too for the carbohydrates.
Make sure the carbohydrates do not exceed 9% to ensure optimal carbohydrate metabolism.

WHAT NOT TO DRINK!
During exercise, try to avoid the following:

Fruit juices. Because of the fructose content in the juice, the body cannot properly utilise this sugar alone while exercising.

Sports Drinks – if the carbohydrate content is over 9%. Drinks at these concentrations can cause cramps, nausea and diarrhea.

Soft Drinks. These drinks are laced with sugar – about 10 to 16 teaspoons per can. This sugar keeps the fluid in your stomach longer so less water is available to the body. They can actually make you thirstier…so what’s the point of drinking of them?

Alcohol. It is true to say that research has shown that one drink of alcohol per day will improve levels of good cholesterol (HDL) in your blood. But can you be sure you’ll stop at one and so increase your chances of heart disease? Surely a better way for prevention is by eating a healthy diet and exercising?

The Dietary Battle: Controlling your nutrition.

Eating right isn’t just about action; it’s also includes our thoughts. While dieting, we make the one major mistake. That is expending so much time into thinking about not having food. Either you follow your diet or you don’t. It’s all or nothing.

If only you had the willpower to step away from the mayonnaise, If only you could stop after four cookies. If only you had the power, the strength, the discipline, the energy, the drive, the motivation to control your waist, then you finally have the body you want. You’ve placed all the responsibility for dietary success or failure on your little 3-pound brain.

But you can’t defeat nature.
Truth is, your body is built for eating. It’s full of hormones and neurotransmitters whose jobs roughly translate into “pass the pound cake.”

Overeating is like drug addiction. Obese people have reward centers in their brain similar to the reward centers of drug addicts. Stress eating is cyclical. When you eat to reduce stress, you activate the reward centers of your brain. When the feel-good effects wear off, you reach again for the thing that made you feel relaxed: food. Heavy people respond differently to certain foods. For example, in heavy people, the parietal region of the brain — the control center for the tongue, lips, and mouth — is activated by sugar. In skinny people, it isn’t. It is a battle that our fortitude can’t always override chemical messages 

To get on the road to waist management and stay there, you have to first strip away the guilt that comes with eating, the guilt that comes with diets, and the guilt that comes with occasionally enjoying foods that aren’t at the platinum level on healthy-eating charts.

And you have to start listening to your body and responding intelligently to your cravings and your emotions. You have to train your brain to stop obsessing about eating right.

Over time, you’ll learn what your body is saying and why, and with experience you’ll learn how to eat right to manage those cravings. Because the unrecognized truth about dieting is that when you stop overthinking, you’ll stop overeating.

How do we manage our cravings? By simply asking ourselves these four questions.

Are there substitutes to make this more healthful? You could smear butter on a plain bagel, or you could spread almond butter on a piece of whole-grain bread.

Is it the correct portion size?  This strictly depends on your goals. Whether it’s losing weight or mass gaining. For weight loss, if you can’t fit the meal in your hand, pass on the meal. Your stomach is as large as your fist. Why stretch out your stomach with something you can’t fit in your fist?

Am I hungry? If you’re eating out boredom, anxiety or depression then you’re losing the battle. Food should be used on fuel to give you energy to carry out your task throughout the day.

Is this food addressing all my dietary needs?  If you have a high protein diet, you may want to address your fiber intake for lunch. Try to answer all dietary needs with each meal. The key to optimal dieting is having a balance between all vitamins and minerals you take within the day.

Welcome to Flexing Fitness!

Hi everyone, I’m excited to officially launch a project that I have been working on for years. With Flexing Fitness, my goal is to use the internet as a means of spreading free, high quality information about becoming a healthier individual. My articles will include but not be limited to proper execution of exercises, how to inspire and motivate yourself, nutritional advice and programming, and anything else you are interested in learning more about!

This is an opportunity for you to use my services no matter where you are in the world, as long as you can access the internet. I look forward to helping you on your road to flexing fitness.