Any Nutrition Experts or Personal Trainers?

[Aliana]

Larger intake of animal products for the sake of gaining protein can be quite costly, and possibly not very healthy for you either. Keep in mind that you are getting protein from the plant foods you eat too:

"The WHO (World Health Organization) says humans need about 5% of their daily calories to come from protein to be healthy. The USDA puts this figure at 6.5%. On average, fruits have about 5% of their calories from protein. Vegetables have from 20-50% of their calories from protein. Sprouted seeds, beans, and grains contain from 10-25% of their calories from protein. So if you are eating any variety of living plant foods, you are getting more than adequate protein. Numerous scientific studies have shown the daily need for protein to be about 25-35 grams per day. So if you ate 2,000 calories per day, and ate raw plant foods that had an average of 10% of their calories from protein, you would get 200 calories worth of protein, or 50 grams. This is more than adequate to support optimal well-being. Other studies have shown that heat treating a protein (such as with cooking) makes about half of it unusable to the human body. So raw plant food protein is even a better source than cooked plant foods or animal foods. There is still a huge, foolish, misguided idea that plant protein is not "complete". This is based on studies done on rats in the 1940's. This false conclusion was drawn before we discovered the bodies protein recycling mechanism and its ability to "complete" any amino acid mix from our bodies amino acid pool, no matter what the amino acid composition of a meal consumed. This false idea is still perpetuated by the meat and dairy industries, in an attempt to influence people to continue consuming their truly health destroying products."

From Living Foods

One of the best sources of plant protien are hemp seeds. No, not pot seeds. Hemp seeds. You can read more here.

Additional protein in your diet can be as simple as sprinkling a spoonful of hemp seeds on your salads.

Hugs,
Aliana

[Stryker]

Thanks to each and every one of the insightful posts

I am getting 7.5-8 hours of sleep every night. I eat 2-3 salads a day, usually with the tuna and chicken breast meals. Its hard for me to see where I can take out the sodium amounts, it comes primarily from fat-free milk, 100% whole wheat bread, etc. The only thing I can think of taking out is the slice of ham I put in the omelets, which wont be too hard I guess.

Im pretty happy with my weight lifting routine, but thanks Sob for the insights on your experiences. I change up chest days with barbells and dumbells, and always use different moves and angles so my body doesn't get too used to it, etc. I do the same on the treadmill, sometimes jogging the entire duration @ 5.5 mph, sometimes warming up and doing high intensity intervals.

As for creatine, Sob, I have been researching and asking around, and I think I will go with NO Xplode, and possibly a casein protein shake before bed.

Sirhc, thanks for the insights on food choices and the carb rule. I think Im in the clear, consuming only the omelet + milk and protein shake after that time. I have started taking a banana to class with me and eating it on my way to the gym afterwards.

Aliana, Im taking 1 centrum a day, I looked around and this seemed to be a fairly decent one as far as multivitamins go.

SODERD, if you could tell your friend my current eating habits, routines and goals, get another opinion on my calorie/carb intake, as well as more foods I could add to beef them, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Any insights as to when I should do cardio, if my goal is to gain lean mass, while dropping body fat? I know the best time is when I wake up, but unfortunately thats not a possibility for me atm; I have been doing before and after workouts, but perhaps I should pick one time instead.

And as I said atm everything is going great, im seeing results, but in the near future I expect some plateaus to surface, so its good to gather as much knowledge as possible

[Sirhc]

Originally Posted by Stryker

Any insights as to when I should do cardio, if my goal is to gain lean mass, while dropping body fat? I know the best time is when I wake up, but unfortunately thats not a possibility for me atm; I have been doing before and after workouts, but perhaps I should pick one time instead.

Not sure why, only that its due to your heart rate being high, but my trainer always had me do cardio before jumping on the weights. I actually narrowed my workouts down to a good hour to hour and a half a day with 30-45minutes cardio then a fair amount of sets on the weights. I also switched up my cardio from treadmill, to stair climbing, to swimming, and spinning. Overall swimming laps had the least impact and gave a great overall work out. If you are trying to bulk up this may not be the way to go. Most "Arnie" type guys I saw in the gym definitely looked like they lived there and I rarely saw any of them do cardio. Damn all this talk of working out has made me realize just how out of shape I am in. Guess I need to start hitting the gym too.

[mojorisin]

I worked as a physical trainer for awhile so if you have any questions I would be glad to help...in the mean time...do me a favor and stay away from things like creatine

Also, for the cardio, way too much especially if you are wanting to build muscle. The cardio will burn the calories before you have a chance to turn them to muscle. For the weight lifting....it is alot, but you should be fine as long as you keep up your current diet.

[MindBuster]

Originally Posted by Stryker

Any insights as to when I should do cardio, if my goal is to gain lean mass, while dropping body fat? I know the best time is when I wake up, but unfortunately thats not a possibility for me atm; I have been doing before and after workouts, but perhaps I should pick one time instead.

You said earlier....

I am, as of two weeks ago, lifting 6 days a week, running on the treadmill 2-3 miles before/1-2 miles after each workout except on Wednesdays and Sundays, so thats 6 days of weights, 5 days of 3-5 miles of cardio work per day, and gives me Sunday to recover.

This is what I and most in my gym did...

Start with some stretching to prepare your muscles, then do the cardio to warm up, after that spend a few minutes to catch your breath while you eat your banana, do the lifting, you dont have to do cardio after, but remember to stretch afterwards also, let your body relax while eating another banana (or shake) after it all.

Many bodybuilders dont do any cardio at all.

A small side note on your sodium intake, remember that you lose quite alot of it during sweating (sweat taste salty) so the 2900mg you get might be just okay.

[SODERD]

Originally Posted by sob

you couldnt be more wrong. when you workout the diet can have a huge impact. im guessing when you say diet you mean a "weightloss program" or something. you can have a diet that makes you build muscles with exercise

a diet means what you eat within a regulated selection of food. when you are on a diet you stick to a certain program. it could be only vegetables, a 40/30/50 diet (carb/fat/prot) or a fluffy sugarcoated sugar and chocolate diet.

eating right and working out right are both equally important if you want good results.

and yes, sleeping right is also very important.

not to mention alcohol. my ex gfs brother was somewhat a bodybuilder, and he said that drinking alcohol can bring down your overall improvement by 50~ % for two weeks straight after a night out.
so if you want to be really serious, dont drink!

yes i mean weight loss diet,

[mrproper]

A wise man said once: Eat no more than your body needs!

It's that simple. Oh, and someone mentioned earlier, something true in Indian (and many other) culture: CHEW YOUR FOOD, MISTER! It appears, that extra chewing helps digestion and makes your brain think you ate alot.

But then again, I'm no expert in nutrition. I just count the blubber tires on my belly and eat more or less depending on that count

[frisca2004]

Originally Posted by mrproper

A wise man said once: Eat no more than your body needs!

It's that simple. Oh, and someone mentioned earlier, something true in Indian (and many other) culture: CHEW YOUR FOOD, MISTER! It appears, that extra chewing helps digestion and makes your brain think you ate alot.

But then again, I'm no expert in nutrition. I just count the blubber tires on my belly and eat more or less depending on that count

ROFL

[Kahr]

First of im no expert in this field. But im an simi pro muay thai fighter and we need a lot of calories. With my diet atm im up to a bit over 3600 calories a day.

Anyways last year due to a back injury, i had to lay of MT training, so i startede weight lifting a lot insted and tried out a diet called ABCDE, wich in short mean you have to have an intake of 1500 calories more then your normal intake should be (bodyweight in kg*24=normal intake+1500), your should do that for 12 days and only stay with doing heavy lifts, no fat burning in this period!
Then your start to do the opposit, lowering your calorie intake (bodyweight in kg*16=low intake), and in this period the training should be high fat burning training. This diet will trigger a responce from the body that will result a higher testosteron and insulin level.
I tried it for about 2 months and gained 6 kg musclemass.

As for calorie sources, i use alot of fruit, vegetable oil, salad dressings and butter on my bread, so i would say that there is no harm in you stepping it up on the fruit side.

Thats m2p, and if there is a thing ppl can diagree a lot about it is this, and im no expert

Anyways im off to my last training pass for today, see you all in the gym

[Lugzan]

Stryker,


as long as your muscles grow, you will not see much changes in weight in negative way

many of my friends tried the same thing as you and ended up dropping a little weight at start (first 2-3 months max) and then gaining as the mass grows rapidly from muscles. but that's not bad is it

I suppose you already know, how many times a day you should eat? 4-5 times, right. little meals and often.

I suggest you to do more jogging than weight lifting. remember one thing - the longer the heart rate stays in 140-150 beats/min, the quicker the progress! stay close to that in whichever you do, lifting or running. while running it's easier to hold under control, while lifting it takes time to get used to.

good luck!



J.