Nutrition, It's a Lifestyle

Nutrition is vital to the success of any person that is truly interested in maintaining and achieving an ideal body and healthy lifestyle. I’ll be very honest with you; there is no quick fix! Losing weight and building muscle mass only occurs when you have a healthy lifestyle! Most fitness competitors and other people you admire (physically) spent a long period of time getting there or the better part of their life achieving their ideal body. So what do you have to do to get there?

First, evaluate your current lifestyle. What do you do on a day to day basis? What goals do you have for your body? Are you a drinker? Do you eat at restaurants? Are you addicted to food? Are you lazy and don’t exercise? Do you have a thyroid disorder? Do you want to be a fitness competitor or bodybuilder? Are you looking for way to tighten up your physique? 

All of these questions lead to one answer; Garbage in, Garbage out!What you choose to put in your mouth on a daily basis or even once a week you will pay the price for. Food is only fuel!Stop the insanity!A cheese burger with fries and a shake for dinner sounds great, but your body does not need that to function. Making those types of decisions will allow you to continue looking the way you do.

Now, let’s learn how to achieve the ideal body that you’ve always wanted!

What does a good nutritional diet consist of? 

1) You should eat smaller and frequent meals throughout the day instead of large and infrequent meals! Why? Because when you feed your body several times a day, your metabolism increases. Therefore, you burn more fat. Frequent meals are of important because after about four hours of no food your body switches to a catabolic state (a state in which you lose muscle and gain fat!). The body believes that it is starving and it starts feeding itself on lean muscle tissue and it prepares to store calories as fat. That's a weight loss NIGHTMARE!! Therefore, in order for your weight loss to work, you will need to eat between four to six meals (depending gender and goals) a day spaced out at 2-1/2 to 3 hour intervals. Remember, small portions are the key!

2)   Every meal should be balanced! Having a meal that is not balanced (for example is all carbohydrates) won't yield the desired results. Every macro-nutrient has to be present in order for the body to absorb them and use them properly. Without boring you with the effect of food on the body's biochemistry, let's just say that if you only eat carbohydrates in one meal without anything else, your energy levels will crash in about 30 minutes and your body will be storing any carbohydrates that were not used into fat. That's why you feel so sleepy after a big pasta meal! Conversely, if you only eat protein, you will lack energy and your body will not be able to turn the protein into muscle because it is difficult for the body to absorb protein in the absence of carbohydrates. 

Note that for every serving of carbohydrates, you get a serving of Protein. A handy way to make sure your getting the right amount of carbohydrates and protein; count the portion of carbohydrates as the amount of food the size of your clenched fist and a portion of protein as the amount of food the size of your open palms.

3)  The calories should be cycled! Caloric cycling will not allow your metabolism to get used to a certain caloric level; something that leads to stagnant results!

Therefore, bodybuilders or athlete in search of just muscle should follow 5 days of high calories (lean body mass x 15) with two days of lower caloric intake (lean body mass x12).  Bodybuilders in search of losing fat while building muscle at the same time should follow 5 days of lower caloric intake (lean body mass x12) with 2 days of higher calories (lean body mass x 15). (Note: If you build muscle and lose fat at the same time you will not gain muscle as fast as you would if you just concentrated in muscle mass. However, you get to get both goals accomplished at the same time).

People interested in body sculpting and weight loss should alternate between two weeks of lower calories (around 2000 for men and 1200 for women) and two weeks of higher calories (around 2500 for men and 1500 for women). These caloric intakes assume a normal activity level that only includes Body Sculpting training. Those of you involved in activities like marathon running or heavy physical labor jobs need to adjust your calories upwards accordingly mainly in the form of carbohydrates in order to support your higher levels of activity.