Many females struggle with the thought of gaining muscle, thinking that just one workout with Deadlifts, Squats, Pressing & Pulling with leave them looking like a female Schwarzenegger.

What they don’t realise is that to look like this takes years of dedication, highly focussed and precision nutrition, perfect genes, hours upon hours in the gym and to top it off, a cabinet of supplements and drugs.

It really is an achievement to look like this, regardless of opinion.

So for a female, looking to lose weight, training 3-4 hours a week, with a family and job to boot, would find it pretty tough to be up there on the podium next year.

So with a huge sigh of relief, here are some interesting facts about gaining a few kilos of muscle mass.

• Live Longer

According to research at Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts), the more lean muscle mass you carry, the greater your potential to live longer.  It is the number one biomarker for longevity of life, and a much better predictor to longer living than total cholesterol and blood pressure.

• More Muscle – More Strength

Another study at Tufts University found having more muscle equated to having more strength and was the number two biomarker in predicting longevity.  For most females, strength is empowering.

• Bone Density

We all know how we become more fragile as we age and therefore are more pre-disposed to accidents and breaks if we take a tumble.  Having more muscle mass, will increase bone density making our body more resistant to falls.  Having greater bone density and muscle mass will also help us to prevent accidents by giving us greater reactive awareness and motor control should we take a slip.

• Beating Cancer

Cancer thrives in an acidic body, so it makes sense to create a slightly more alkalising environment for your cells to live in.  Having more muscle (and bone mass), you now have more protein, potassium, calcium and magnesium which helps increase the body’s ability to buffer the acid that is created through certain foods and exercise. 

The more alkaline your body:

The greater your endurance potential

The greater your immune system is and thus the greater your chances of surviving cancer.

 

• Insulin Sensitive

The body’s ability to utilise sugar within the muscle calls all depends on just how sensitive your muscles are to

insulin.  Having more muscle, you increase the insulin receptor sits and thus increase sensitivity.  Increased Insulin Sensitivity helps reduce the likelihood of diabetes and metabolic syndrome and the easier it is to lower your body fat.

• Calorie Burning

The more muscle you have, the more mass you effectively have to carry around all day and therefore the more calories you burn – even when you are sat down resting and sleeping.  It is estimated that for every kilo of muscle you gain, your body can burn up and to and over 100 calories per day.  I don’t see anybody complaining about this one.

• Kilos Gained = Body Fat Lost

Accordingly to Charles Poliquin, with over 30yrs experience as a Strength Coach, he found that for every kilo of lean tissue gained, there was an equal loss of weight in body fat, thus dramatically changing body shape.  If a female executive, with a bodyweight of 60 kg has 20% bodyfat, she will be carrying a total of 12kgs in fat alone. With a Strength and Conditioning programme for 10 weeks, this female can potentially gain 4 kg of muscle mass and lose 4 kg of fat, with her weight being the same; her body fat will now be 13%. Burning close to an extra 3,000 calories a week, not only will she have transformed her body shape, but she look fantastic, feel more empowered too and live longer to tell the tale.

 

 

 

Your body is beautiful.  It’s a beautiful representation of how you live your life.  If you eat excessively, your body rewards you by storing the excess calories on your hips and butt, if you eat poor quality or fatty foods, your body rewards you with bad skin and hair (not to mention that halitosis!). 

So it kinda makes sense that if you don’t like the way you look, then by altering your lifestyle, you should be able to change the way your body represents you!

(For the life of me I cannot change your bone structure so I’ll try to do my best without enlisting in the help of a surgeon!).

We all know that with a balanced workout, we can lose Ibs of fat and gain some muscle tone and I will be covering that in another issue.

Today I am going to provide you with 10 Rules to Great Nutrition.  Adhering to these principles will not only change your body shape, but it will also put you one step ahead of the rest.

 

Here Are The 10 Rules to Great Nutrition:

 

1. Eat every 2-3 hours.

I believe that if you eat every 2-3 hours, you will maintain an elevated metabolism, provide your body with a steady influx of energy and by maintaining a steady blood sugar balance will also utilise energy from your fat stores. 

Now I am not talking about a meal at every turn, just small simple snacks.  Keep your breakfast as the biggest meal of the day, and by snacking, you can maintain small meals throughout the rest of the day.  You should always eat for what you are about to do.  So if you are about to go to bed, then you want to keep your last meal small and light.  If you are about to go to work, then you will need to adjust your meals accordingly. 

Keep it simple, keep it smart and try to conform to the rules below.

 

2. Eat complete, lean protein each time you eat.

You need to eat from a protein source, every time you feed yourself.  Regardless of whether you are a vegan, vegetarian or meat feaster, slow to digest, greater calories burned to digest proteins far outweigh muffins, pastries and other light sugar infested carbs sources.

 

3. Eat greens every time you eat.

In addition to a good quality, lean protein source, you need to eat some type of green every time you eat. A handful of nuts or berries, or a ¼ of an avocado will help you out but try to get some sort of green vegetable or salad into your snack as well.

 

4. You need to deserve your carbs.

Not all carbs are created equal!  Green veg and berries are great and a healthy source of nutrition.   The carbs I’m referring to here are: rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, etc.  You need to deserve these carbs.  Ideally I would prefer you ate them once a week and even more ideally I would prefer you ate them after exercise.

These are poor dietry choices for people who are overweight and looking to transform their body shape.  Once you achieved your desired body shape, you can start to eat them ... but be warned ... it may not take very long before your body shape switches back to what it is today ... Best to just stay clear and eat one a week and after training, when your body is more able to tolerate them.

 

5. Stop being Fat Phobic.

Fat does not make you fat!! 

Sugar makes you fat.  Healthy smart fat choices will not only improve your health, but they will also help you lose weight.

How long have we been a fat free/low fat nation?  Has that made any change to heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diseases or could I say that we are probably even worse now that we were 10 years ago ... Hmmm, let me think on this one... ITS NOT FAT THAT’S MAKING YOU FAT!!

The 3 types of fat, which should be eaten in equal portions, are

Saturated: Lean (ideally organic) animal products; organic butter and organic coconut oil – both perfect for cooking in.

Monounsaturated: Nuts, Olives and Olive Oil (perfect for salads – NOT for high temperature cooking).

Polyunsaturated: Fish Oil, Flaxseed, Nuts.

 

6. Liquid Nutrition

Best choices of fluid intake is water and green tea, both healthy non-calorie containing drinks.

You need to remove all fizzy drinks (inc diet), alcoholic and certainly fruit juices from your daily diet.

I understand the social need for alcohol, so this should be kept to a minimum and pick lighter drinks, such as Gin & Tonic, Vodka, Lime & Soda, Red Wine.  Alternating between alcohol and water on a night out is a great way to help the hangover in the morning.

Absolutely no lager or beer, if you are looking to drop inches around your waist, you need to change your poison.

Aim to drink a third of your body weight (kg) in water (ml).

Eg:  90kg guy should aim for 3 litres a day, a 60kg women should aim for 2 litres a day.  This does not include training days, when your water intake should be substantially more. 

 

7. Avoid Meal Replacement Drinks.

The sugar intake in most of these are abusive.  I would recommend a high quality protein shake after training (and even at times when you cannot fit in a proper snack) but try to limit these to one a day or two on training days maximum. I would prefer if most of your dietary intake came from whole unprocessed foods.

 

8. Stick to the 80/20% Rule.

Try to eat well 80% of the time and then you can justifiably have a cheat meal 20% of the time.  I like to start everyone off like this, stick to 100% good for 2 weeks and then have one whole day off!  That’s right chips and ice cream if you like from the moment your head lifts from the pillow!  HOWEVER, you will feel so lousy the day after this day, that you should hopefully understand the importance of good nutrition.  Then you can stick to a 4 days on, one day off routine.  But rather than a whole day, let’s try to stick to a cheat meal. So really its eat 100% for 5 days and then in the evening of your 5^th day, you can eat your cheat – just make sure that you eat your protein source first and as soon as your butt leaves the seat, you stop your cheat.  It’s a cheat meal, not a cheat evening.

 

9. Prepare your food for the next 4 days.

If you have not prepared your foods for the next few days – how are you expected to maintain strict eating habits?  If you do not have something prepared, stocked up in a tupperware box or in a freezer bag, it will be all too easy to steer off course and snack on something sweet or processed from the local 7-11.

NEVER shop when you are hungry!!

 

10. Balance daily food choices with healthy variety.

Let’s face it, when you’re busy during the week, you’re not going to be spending

a ton of time whipping up gourmet meals. During these times you’re going to

need a set of tasty, easy to make foods that you can eat day in and day out.

However, once every day or a few times a week, you need to eat something different,

something unique and tasty to stave off boredom and stagnation.

Bacteria and disease thrive in acidic environments!

Change your environment and you will thrive, not the bacteria inside.

It was Nobel Prize Winner Dr Otto Warburg who noted that if the body is living in an alkaline state, it can absorb up to 20 times more oxygen than if the body was in an acidic state.  If you cannot absorb oxygen, you don't need a rocket scientist to tell you that you will feel more tired and fatigued!  Does this sound like you?

If you constantly feel lethargic and tired, then it is highly likely that your cells are living in an acidic environment and are not getting enough oxygen to feed your cells.

This valuable element is not sticking to your bloods cells and no matter how hard you breathe you will still not be maxing out your absorption of O2. 

Even if you are exercising, you will still not be maxing out your absorption of O2!!  Until you sort out your nutrition and start consuming more alkalising foods and fluids into your system. 

In an acidic environment, fungus, mould, parasites, bad bacteria, and viral infections begin to thrive at the cellular level and this is the downward spiral of your health and energy.

Eliminating acidic foods and eating more plant based alkalizing foods will change the body's acidic environment to one that is more alkaline, thus lowering your pH levels and reverse this downward spiral of degeneration.

Animal proteins, diary, and grains are acidic in nature and for the course of this cleanse it would be a wise choice to simply minimise or eliminate these foods from your daily diet.  Now I am not suggesting going vegetarian or vegan or living like a bird, but what I would like to recommend for a short duration of 6 weeks is to cut your animal proteins to once a day.  You can still eat protein vegetables such as chick peas, legumes, beans and lentils as well as nuts and seeds.  Especially if you are in training as you will need to maintain your high protein intake.

Below is a list of foods and illustrating their acidic/alkaline content.  The idea is to eat 80% of your foods from the alkalizing list.

Cancer cells cannot live at pH of 8.5 and remain dormant at 7.4 with the ideal pH being between 7.35-7.45. 

One of the reasons for the rate at which we age is due to the acidic fluids that our cells bathe in.  Clean your foods and you can change your bath water so to speak and thus slow down the ageing effect on your body.

You can only be as healthy as the fluid in which your cells bathe in.

Protein Based Plants

High protein diets from animal and dairy products can cause a while series of trouble to the human body.  Excess animal protein creates the perfect environment for cancer to grow, high acidity and low oxygen levels.  Include adequate sources of plant proteins in each meal by ensuring you eat either beans, lentils, chick peas, legumes, quinoa, spirulina, tofu, tempe or a combination of them.  This will help you ensure you get enough protein in your diet to help your muscles grow and repair from your training.

Follow these nutrition guidelines and you will feel amazing after just a few days.  Your body will pick up as your oxygen levels hit a new found high and you will reap the benefits by the extraordinary levels of energy and well being.

The Guidelines

Eat salads, fresh, alkaline vegetables and healthy nuts and oils.

Avoid processed foods including bread & pasta.

Drink 0.033 litres per Kg of body weight of water a day (80Kg Guy - 2.64L / 60 kg Gal - 1.98L).  Try to enhance with lemon or mix with a greens drink.

Animal protein once a day.  No red meat though.  Only fish and white meat.

Reduce alcohol, caffeine, soda, sugary drinks to the absolute minimum.  Preferably eliminate, but I know some of you out there are addicted to that morning soy cap!!

Add extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil to your meals to increase your quality fats.

Plenty of green leafy vegetables and foods from the alkaline list.

Supplements

Sodium bicarbonate

Drinking a large glass of clean filtered water with half a squeezed lemon and half to a full teaspoon of Sodium Bicarbonate will set up your alkaline blood stream for the day.  Wait 15m before eating a healthy clean breakfast.

Almonds

This alkalizing super nut provides the best sna

ck throughout the day.

Almond Milk

The best form of milk on the market as it alkalises the body and packed full of enzymes that haven’t been stripped from pasteurisation.  It’s also lactose free, gluten free and no soy so GM free...

Herbal Teas

Green and lemon are great and also alkaline so would be a great start to the day of you could replace that acidic coffee with an alkaline tea.

Oils

Cook with Coconut Oil, Drizzle Olive Oil on your salads, and supplement with fish oil just to keep the cells flushed with a healthy combination of essential fatty acids.

Remember Fat is your friend, its sugar that is the enemy.

 

Glycemic Index

When trying to figure out what is the best type of foods to eat, it is too easy to say meat, fruit and veg; and in the wrong portions can still leave you out of balance and out of shape.

All foods provide you with energy as I am sure you are aware – however, some foods provide more energy than others and some release their energy faster than others.

This energy is measured in calories, and the energy usually comes in the form if sugar.

So you may be able to guess that muffins and cakes and chocolate will carry a lot more sugar than lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes.  This one is easy; but how can we figure which foods release sugar faster than others!!

Well back in 1980, Dr David Jenkins developed the concept of Glycemic Index, a system in which Carbohydrates are ranked from 0-100 according to how quickly 50g of the specific food raises the sugar levels in the blood.  High scores are given to foods that are rapidly digested and absorbed whilst lower scores are awarded by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption – producing a gradual rise in blood sugar and insulin levels; thus having proven health benefits. 

Low GI foods help control weight as they help control appetite and delay hunger. 

 

Thanks to science, we now have foods that have a GI of more than 100.  That’s right; we have now developed foods that raise sugar in the blood FASTER than actually consuming sugar.  Awesome!!  Lets increase obesity and diabetes just that little bit further!

It’s amazing how we cannot recycle card and paper in the same box but we can destroy the lives of millions of people by creating foods that will kill us.  Thanks guys.

So here is a list of common foods that you can eat in abundance and other foods you should leave just for your cheat days.

GI: All You Can Eat Foods

Alfalfa Sprouts Bamboo Shoots Carrots, Raw Chard, Swiss Eggplant Green Beans Kale Okra Pea Pods Radishes Scallions Squash, Summer Turnip Greens Watercress

Artichokes Broccoli Celery Collards Endive Hearts of Palms Mushrooms Onions Peppers Sauerkraut Spinach Tomatillos Turnips

Asparagus Cabbage Celery Root Cucumber Fennel Jicama Mustard Greens Parsley Radicchio Salad Greens Squash, Zucchini Tomatoes Water Chestnuts

The above foods are so low on GI, that they will not raise blood sugar high enough or fast enough to become an issue.  Even on a low carb diet for those with high Subscap & Supra Illiac readings, the above foods contain so much fibre that the stomach isn’t big enough for them to be an issue.

6 Servings A Day

¼ Avocado

Chayote

Nuts & Seeds

Foods That Will Lower Your GI by 30%

Chutney Horseradish Marinated Vegetables Pickled Legumes Sauerkraut Vinegar

Dills & Sweet Pickles Lemon Juice Pickled Beets Pickled Peppers Sourdough Bread Oil Dressings

Green Olives Lime Juice Pickled Garlic Sauerbraten Tangy Salsas

For a full and comprehensive list of Glycemic Index foods, please press here.

Final Notes:

• Plan ahead, prepare in advance and try to keep the sugar content of your foods low.
• Eat small and often and learn to distinguish the difference between a handful and a shovel!
• Stop when you are full, not when you have a licked the plate dry.
• If you can’t help but finish your plate – use a smaller plate.
• ENJOY!! You need to enjoy your foods – you’re gonna be eating them for the rest of your life so it needs to fit in with your life. 
• Eat smart, eat healthy and exercise 2-4 times a week. .. 4 being better than 2!
• You cannot out-exercise a bad diet.  Nutrition plays an 80% role.

Good Luck & Happy Feasting!

 

I am finally on the home straight and if it wasnt for a lot of help and patience from Mike at denialdesign.co.uk i think i would still be rubbing two sticks together ...

So welcome to my site 2.0, and i will be slowly uploading my articles from the previous site and adding them here.  If you missed them the first time, well you can start from the beginning.

Of course if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me and fire away.

Your in good health.

Dc

So with my new site in development and the expert guidance from Mike at Denial Design, i am slowly getting myself together to provide you with informative, up to date news, reviews, exercise clips, recipes and even the odd rant.

So bare with me as the site unfolds and eventually your patience will be rewarded.

Can't wait!

 

http://www.denialdesign.co.uk/