[Transform]

*** Edit by B-Builder 08th July 2010 ***

I have cleaned up the Fitness basics Thread and removed all the conversations and off topic posts.

I have closed this thread to stop it becoming a general conversation thread again.

If anybody has any points they would like to include in this thread or would like to update any of their previous posts, then drop either myself or any of the Fitness Forum mods a PM with the information and if it has not been already covered we will add it or you could post a thread in the main forum and we will move it to this thread.

*** End of Edit ****

This thread lists the basics that everyone needs to do to stay in shape forever.

There are lots of posts that could be easily answered with the information in this thread.


NO QUESTIONS TO BE POSTED HERE PLEASE - START A NEW THREAD.

My top 7

1. Eat whole non-processed foods - no junk food, white bread, dried pasta, cereals (except poridge and meusli), bagels, cakes, choc (only 70% coca), biscuits

2. Exercise a minimum of 4 hours every week - anything less then please just forget about special training programs, 'toning' exercises or 'tummy' exercises. Put the 4 hours in for good results. Excellent results requires more

3. Eat about every 3-4 hours - every 2-3 if you are wishing to gain weight. Prevents you from eating lots in one sitting

4. Eat fat's every day - only the good ones e.g. fish, nuts and seeds, cod liver oil, udo's oil, avocadoes, extra virgin olive oil. You need it for fat metabolism, hormone production, skin, hair, nails, concentration etc This is the most common mistake especially for women i.e. they are fat phobic

5. Lift weights 2-3 days per week - all the aerobic sessions in the world will not change your shape. Yes aerobic work will make you thinner and slimmer, it will NOT increase your muscle tone and you will still look flat!

6. Stretch - most over looked as many consider it a waste of time. Increase your flexibility will allow you to stay injury free and less tense. Most common cause of back, shoulder, shin and knee pain is tight hips and calves

7. Believe - You become what you think about most so fill your mind with how you want it to be a write your goals down then place them somewhere you can see them regularly. I did this over 4 years ago and still do it - 90% of what i wrote down i now do - great girlfriend with similar interests, my own business, yoga teacher, closer to my family, help others every day, maintain a great physique year round without any major injuries.


Best of luck to all and remember NO QUESTIONS OR DEBATES HERE JUST OTHER SUGGESTIONS AND COMMENTS

[g'em]

Good call, this is badly needed.

Doing weights will not bulk women up. Women just don't have the testosterone level needed to pack on that much muscle. The majority, if not all, female bodybuilders, take hormones to increase their size- it's NOT natural. Weights will however, tone you, increase your metabolism therefore helping you burn more fat even when sedentary, improve your posture, slow the aging process, reduce the risk of osteoperosis, make you stronger less prone to injury.

Snacking is good if it's the right kind of snack. A mid-morning snack and mid-afternoon snack easily help you achieve the 5-6 meal a day goal. ome fruit, a small handful of nuts, a fruit yoghurt, some cottage cheese and veggie sticks are all easy to eat and good for you. Cereal bars, low-fat crisps, salted/ roasted nuts are NOT good.

Even 'low-fat' foods can be bad. Most of those ready meals, soups, anything in a packet are loaded with sugar to taste and salt to counteract the sugar. Sugar is naturally low in fat but high in carbs, too much of it will make you put on weight.

Faddy diets don't work. Most people put back on the weight they lost and more within weeks or even days of coming off it. A healthy, sustainable eating plan that's easy to do is the best way to ensure a lifetime of healthy eating.

Starving yourself doesn't work. While you may lose a few pounds over the course of a couple of days, it'll be water weight lost and will be replenished very quickly. Your body is a machine that needs constant fuel supplies to function well. If it is not supplied with food, it will stockpile what little fuel it is given and stored as fat to prepare for further starvation.

Enjoy what you eat and how you train. If you don't, you won't stick to it.

Treat yourself from time to time. A little bit of a bad thing is ok. If it's chocolate try to eat 70% cocoa dark chocolate. If it's pizza, eat only a few slices of thin-based. Consider it a reward (if the hard work has been put in previously!!)

To lose weight, burn more calories than you consume. Simple as.

[Mr E]

Change your weights program regularly - You need to change your program every 4 to 6 weeks. If you keep doing the same exercises, your body will get used to it, and you will stop making gains. Change exercise types - do a different variation of an exercise, e.g. change from hammer curl to concentration curl, forward lunges to reverse lunges etc. Change exercise program (try super-sets, tri-sets and drop sets. If you have a spotter, try assisted reps and negative reps). Keep your body guessing!

[Dragan]

Supplements won't work unless the rest of your diet is up to form - you can buy and take whatever you want. But supplements are just that. If the basis of your diet is not up to scratch you will not get very far.

40,40,20 - for the majority of people, this is the ideal diet. Your calorific intake each day should be made up of 40% Proteins, 40% Carbs and 20% Healthy Fats. This is a perfect formula for the physically active, as it gives you exactly what you need to support weight training and muscle gains.

Cardio Vs Mass - next time you go to say "I don't do cardio because it sacrifices mass" take a good honest look at yourself in the mirror. If your 250lbs at 5% bodyfat and two weeks away from stepping on stage at a Pro bodybuilding show i will almost agree with you. But your not. So shut up and get on the treadmill.

Be honest with yourself - if you want to lie to yourself then fine, but you won't get very far. You can tell youself you eat right and train intensely and that you went WAY BELOW parallel on those last set of squats but the truth will out. For example, right now I'm a little fat, and there is no denying it. In 16 weeks i won't be. If i lied to myself and said i am not fat, in 16 weeks i still would be. Plain and simple. Honesty will help you find both your strengths and your weeknesses. I am fat. This is the truth. I am genetically blessed for adding mass with ease and speedy recovery. I also train more intensely than 99% of people. This is also true. See, it's easy.

Leave the Ego at the Door - If you try and lift too much you will use **** form and hurt yourself. Sure, you will be able to tell your friends you but your back out with a big deadligt, but i bet you won't tell them you had to use **** form.

[Mr E]

Keep Diaries - You can do this on 2 levels:

1. Keep a training diary. Either buy a small notebook, or use a spreadsheet. I use a very simple set of spreadsheets, with exercises listed down the side, and dates across the top. For every set of exercises you do, use the following notation on the spreadsheet:

Weight (Reps, Difficulty).

Weight: Obvious enough - the weight (in lb or kg) of what you are lifting.
Reps: the number of times you can lift/push/pull that weight.
Difficulty: A scale of 1 to 10 -
..... 5-You could do ALOT of them if you wanted.
..... 9-You could probably have done another 2 or 3.
..... 10-You were maxed out and couldn't do any more (or failed before your target)

With this information available to you from session to session, you'll know when to increase weight, or when to increase reps. You are guaranteed to improve from session to session.

2. Keep a food diary. If you're serious about body building (or dieting!), try keeping a food diary. Every time you eat something during the day, write it down (the time you ate, and what you ate). If you are bodybuilding, you can see if you are consuming enough calories. If dieting, you can see if you are consuming too much calories! Also try to keep track of the amount of water you drink (at least 2 litres, ideally 3 litres).

[tribulus]

Stop making excuses - if where you work doesn't have any place with decent healthy food, prepare it yourself!!

Half an hour spent every night preparing a meal or two for the next day can be the difference between breaking the cycle of poor nutrition or still grabbing a bottle of coke and a roll on your break because you don't have the time

Bring an extra meal with you - you never know when you might be held up in work/college/traffic etc, bring something healthy with you, like a brown bread sandwich with turkey and cheese to munch on instead of being "forced" to buy a chocolate bar and a bag of crisps.

[joejoem]

Put the friggin weights back on the racks! It takes two minuts and makes everyone elses life easier. Please please put the weights back where they are supposed to go.

[rubadub]

Take photos of yourself
Good to really see results, you may not realise how much weight you have lost/muscle you have put on. It is like seeing a little kid growing up everyday, you don't really notice the change since it is so gradual. It is good to look back at old pics and SEE the change rather than looking at a number on a scale or inch tape. As mentioned muscle weighs more so you may have changed a lot in appearance but not in weight. Also an incentive not to go back to old ways.

When full, stop eating. When pissed, stop drinking!
Avoid chippers after the pub. If you must go home and gorge on healthy food, everything tastes great drunk, how do you think abrakebabra are still in business.

Read and understand nutritional info on packets.
5% fat may sound low until you realise you drink it in 600g portions. "Low fat" muffins can be 90% sugar. "low sugar foods" can be high in fat. Do not believe packet "portion sizes" they are usually far smaller than the average person would eat, misleading you to think there are very few calories. Take into account the water content of foods, is it low calorie because it is watered down?

[Jak]

Basics of calorific surplus

People often perceive that they "eat so much" and yet never gain a pound. The truth is weight gain or weight loss comes down to maths for the vast majority of the world. Sure, things from rare genetic states to tapeworm might restrict some's ability to gain weight - but if you are in these categories you should be seeking professional help and not consulting a web forum for advice. I have never met someone who could not gain weight - only people who did not realise their mistakes.

As with many things in training, a log book or diary filters the random error which individual perception allows. Get one, and keep a plan of what you are eating. The links below are reasonable for calorie and nutritional data - search for others if they fail to meet your needs.

Food Calorie Value Search

Nutrition Data

The objective is to take in more calories than you use up. Now the obvious question is "how much do I use up?". Well we don't even really need to know that exactly.

1. Get your bodyweight

Obviously be sure to weigh yourself at roughly the same time of day in the same clothes. If you are trying to monitor change you can't do that from a moving baseline.

2. Diet Ratio

Ratio of carbs to protein to fats can be debated a great deal. Some diets even base their entire philosophy around them. However, a good balance for the purpose of weight gain would be

25% protein, 60% carbs, 15% fats

That said, if a particular mix is not working for you after a few weeks, or you feel better with a certain nutritional source/mix then adjust as necessary. Without someone dedicated to monitoring your diet you will simply have to employ a bit of trial and error to find what works. Once you have something, try to design a daily/weekly diet around this.

3. Calories

Now as mentioned the goal here is to take in more calories than we use up. Preferably not by developing sedentary habits and living in your kitchen. Clearly a cardio focus to your training will make it more challenging to achieve a calorific surplus - but weight gain can be achieved whilst maintaining a healthy active training regime. I always found a weight training focus to be beneficial in these phases. Once again you simply need to exceed your output.

The simple approach now is to employ some trial and error to your diet plan in 3 week blocks.

I.e. Try eating 25kcals per lb of bw per day with 2grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. So if you weigh 200lbs - try to get a daily diet of 5000kcal with 400g of protein - always bearing in mind the protein value of your food mix.

If after 3 weeks you have not gained weight or sufficient weight for your schedule:

Try eating 30kcals per lb of bw per day with the same level of protein.

And so on in increments till you find your level. Above all keep things as simple as needed, complex advice from others is often less useful due to the long term practicalities of sticking with it. The key is finding something appropriate which you can maintain.

[Jak]

Info



Nutritional Myths and Truths

Below taken from post by Mivi320 on Bodybuilding.com. Questions are generally taken from a bodybuilding training context, however, many regular and irregular trainers often adopt and read such techniques so here is a take on some myths.

Fruit Avoidance

Questions regarding whether or not fruit is acceptable in a bodybuilding nutrition regimen are the most common here in the nutrition forum. It's just a myth that fruit will make one gain unwanted pounds of fat because of the high amounts of sugar it contains. What makes one gain weight is excess calories, not fruit. Simple. What many people don't know is that all fruits are calorically sparse and rich in nutrients, vitamins, and fiber. Most fruits only contain 4-7g of fructose per serving. The fructose in fruits keeps the liver in a "fed state" which conclusively keeps the individual in an anti-catabolic state. Unlike other food sources, fruits are rich in antioxidants and other phytonutrients that go a long way in aiding in recovery from brutal, grueling, intense workouts. It would take a HUGE QUANTITY of fruit to experience any negatives associated with fructose. Bottom line: eat your fruit!

Carbohydrates At Night

If I had a dollar for everytime a member of the message boards asks "Will eating carbs at night make me fat?", I'd be a rich man. The truth is, eating carbohydrates at night is perfectly fine, but you must analyze a few factors first. Calories are what determines whether one gains or loses weight. If one exceeds their caloric matience level, more than likely, the individual will gain weight. If one creates an energy deficit, preferably through cardiovascular activity/restriction of calories/weight training sessions, the individual will more than likely lose weight. Simple as that! It all depends on one's overall calorie total that determines body composition, not the time carbohydrates were eaten. Carbohydrates have many anti-catabolic properties and should not be eliminated at any time of day. They can be very beneficial at night, bulking or cutting, by pulling out all the theoretical stops related to anticatabolism. In conclusion, carbohydrates should not be restricted at night in attempt of preventing one's body of storing them as adipose tissue because the true factor that determines weight gain is a calorie surplus.

Food Separation Techniques

Ah, the infamous food separation techniques of sticking solely to protein+fat and protein+carbohydrate meals. How foolish is that? Separating out carbs from fat fails to to prevent unwanted fat gain, although it would be pretty swell if it did. If this was true, one could ingest as much fat as one wanted on a ketogenic diet and not add an ounce of adipose tissue. And guess what? That doesn't work either. Conclusively, the potent combo of protein+carbs is much more anabolic than protein+fat alone. Again, it all comes down to calories in vs. calories out that determines whether one gains or loses weight. The optimal choice is to eat balanced meals consisting of protein, carbohydrate, and fat, as food separation methods truly fail in offering prevention of fat storage and are virtually silly to abide by.

Milk Avoidance

Milk and bodybuilding go hand and hand, right? Well there's a ton of myths out there that claim milk makes individuals add and store fat. Before I go into detail, I just want to say that whether or not you consume milk is your own personal preference and you should continue avoiding milk if you're lactose intolerant, bloat due to milk consumption, or have some other milk allergy. But if you're a bodybuilder that has none of these characteristics and you avoid milk due to the myths and speculation, listen up! The truth is, milk is great for bodybuilding purposes. Milk contains cogent anti-catabolic properties, insulinogenic properties that are ideal for the post workout period, a quality amino acid profile, and a wide array of vitamins and minerals. It's also a cheap protein source, and even makes your protein shakes taste 10 times better. Milk is so anti-catabolic/anabolic that it has outperformed whey protein in human research thus far! In conclusion, it all comes down to your personal preferences. If you bloat when drinking milk or have a milk allergy, then by all means, avoid it. But if you're simply avoiding this anti-catabolic substance because of the misinformed media and foolish speculation, then you make want to think twice about milk.

Whole Egg Avoidance

Another myth: refraining from ingesting the yolk portion of the egg. Many bodybuilders opt for the egg white and ditch the egg yolk for whatever reason. The truth is the egg yolks are the most nutrient-dense portion
of the egg. All of the egg's Vitamins A, D and E are in the yolk. Egg yolks happen to be just one of the few foods that naturally contains Vitamin D. The yolk portion also has more manganese, phosphorus, iodine, copper, calcium, zinc, and iron than the egg white itself. Egg yolks should not be avoided because of the high amounts of cholesterol either as high cholesterol levels are correlated with diets high in Trans Fat and Saturated Fat, and genetics play a big role in cholesterol levels. Egg yolks are also anti-catabolic because of the Arachidonic Acid found in them. Overall, there really isn't a reason to avoid whole eggs.

The Glycemic Index

Many bodybuilders follow the gylcemic index (GI) religously, and they shouldn't! Why so? Well, the GI is based on eating carbohydrates on an empty stomach without the addition of protein, lipids, fiber, water, etc. Therefore, it obviously has it's shortcomings and is not the be all end all choice for chosing our carbohydrate sources. Truth is, it's quite irrelevant when it comes to bodybuilding purposes. Let's take white potatoes for example. This food species is often avoided mainly because of it's high GI rank. Foolish. White potatoes are a very nutritious food and should be incorporated in a sound nutrition program. See, we're already spotting shortcomings challenging the elements and principles of the GI. But wait, there's more. The GI of that white potato can be drastically altered by combining it with the addition of protein, lipds, fiber, and other carbohydrates. In conclusion, the GI should not be followed religiously by bodybuilders and nutrient-density should be the main principle in one's nutrition plan, not the GI.

Nutrition Ratios

Many bodybuilders and nutritional fanatics stress over ratios of Protein/carbs/fat. It's not necessary. The fact of the matter is that ratios are completely irrelevant. Lean mass should influence your overall macronutrient reuquirements; note calories. 'Tis true. Ratios are nothing more than an unintentional characteristic of any individual's diet following whatever modifications have been made depending on a multitude of factors such as training, goals, activities, etc. Overall, ratios are actually unplanned and unintentional and should not be practiced.

Some Diet Options and Ideas

1) Tuna Casserole. Boil pasta, add tuna and mayonaise and mic thouroughly. This is really filling but has all the essentials. Feel free to add cold olive oil to it.

2) Chicken Korma- I have taken to buying like 10 packs of chicken fillets when they are on sale. Freeze them and cook one a week. Leave the 10 fillets in your fridge to work from during the week. You can get "Pakatani" (sp) from dunnes for around €2 a jar and it does a few lunches. Basically just boil the pasta and add chicken pieces. Use 3 fillets or so.

This can be changed to suit any pasta / chicken dish, tikka is beautiful with it, all the sauces are dirt cheap and usually one of them is under a buy one get one free offer.

3) Boiled eggs - Just boil them, cool them (under cold tap) and leave them in your fridge to work from as you need them. No matter how full you are there is allways time for an egg.

4) Tuna sambos - I mix up tuna and onion in a lunch box and leave it in the fridge for lunch. In the morning stick some wholegrain bread in the toaster and when popped just take a lump of tuna from the fridge and put it in your sambos. Bring a tomatoe in with you and slice it just before eating the sambo to avoid soggy bread syndrome.

[Dragan]

Where's your head at?

We all discuss a huge amount about lifting techniques, cardio, diet, rep ranges, workout structure and supplements. But we never talk about the mental aspect of an exercise routine. As such, I would like to put out a little thread and hope it gets added to about people thoughts on the mental aspect of gym time and working out. Please feel free to add to my ramblings, lets face it, we all need to think about this just a little bit sometimes.

Honesty : If your not honest without yourself, you can't suceed. I had this conversation with some peers down the pub on Friday night. Being a little overweight, would I be getting anyway if I was telling myself I wasn't? Nope, not at all. But due to being honest with myself, my current status, my current work ethic the results are now starting to come into play. Don't cheat yourself. Don't tell yourself your form was good when it wasn't , that you ran 3 kilometers when you only ran 2.7 , that you rarely cheat on your diet when you do so on a regular basis. It's not helping you, it's only holding you back and moving your goals a little bit each time. Respect yourself and be honest to yourself.

What do you think about? : When your in the gym, what do you think about. Are you sitting on a bike, wondering about work, or clothes or your next meal. Are you doing through the motions on curls without even feeling the muscles working?? If so, once again you are robbing yourself. Remember, your giving up the time to go to the gym, so well done. Make sure you are getting everything you can out of it while you are there. Do your best to immerse yourself in your workout and you will learn more about yourself and your body each time you are in the gym.

I'm not in the mood to workout : Why not? Are you tired? Did you have a bad day? Why do you need to look at going to the gym as being a bad thing? Get to know some people, have a laugh with the staff, enjoy yourself and you will grow to love it. Sure, we all have days where we think about going home. But these are the true tests, go anyway, have a good workout and you know you will feel better. Getting healthy and in shape can't just be done on days when your feeling happy!

Are you getting what you need? : Not physically, but mentally. As I said in the previous part, there is no need not to enjoy what you are doing, or no reason you cannot find a physical activity that you do like! There are tons of clubs and adventure groups out there! Every been rock climbing or hill walking? Ever gone caving or scuba diving! Fitness didn't start in an air conditioned gym and it sure as hell doesn't end there!!!

Be there for yourself : Having recently gone through a tough time of having to make a choice between my personnal goals and my relationship it has become clear to me that the only person you can do anything for is yourself. Sure, sometimes you may be aiming at the wrong thing and be a little misdirected, but with the right frame of mind you will find not only where you are, but where you truly want to be. The only person you can go to the gym for is you. You cannot try and be something for somebody else. Of course, sometimes they can make a suggestion that you have never thought of!

Depression : Sometimes even the best of us suffers from a bad day, your goals seem to be further away than they were when you started, and everything seems to be going wrong. You hurt your elbow doing dips, and your housemate keeps eating chocolate cake in front of you and the bitch never puts on a pound, it's taken you longer than you thought to get that 100 kilo bench press. These things happen. Setbacks occur. Never forget, your greatest strenght in the gym is also your greatest weakness. Your are human. As such you have the potential to do the most amazing things, but it will never be easy. Keep your head up, don't break and guess what. You'll be one step closer to that goal.

[g'em]

Once you've realised that all-important basic equation..

Gain weight = eat more calories
Lose weight = eat less calories

(its amazing how something that simple still eludes people )

..the next step to properly manage your food intake is to figure out exactly what your daily calorific needs are. Once you know this, you know how much food your body *really* needs and can add/ subtract foods as required. Basically, in order to succeed, you need to take the guess work out of it and know that everything that goes into your mouth and into your belly needs to be there.

The information and equation shown here is taken from The Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition but isn't just applicable to atheletes, it shoes the calorie requirements for everyone.

1) So.. first off you need to figure out your resting metabolic rate (RMR) or the calories your body requires just to exist if you were lying down for 24 hours:

Age Men
10-18 (body weight (kg) * 17.5) + 651
19-30 (bw (kg) * 15.3) + 679
31-60 (bw (kg) * 11.6) + 879

Age Women
10-18 (bw (kg) * 12.2) + 746
19-30 (bw (kg) * 14.7) + 496
31-60 (bw (kg) * 8.7) + 829

e.g for me, a 72kg 26 yo female its (72*14.7) +496 = 1554

2) Then calculate your lifestyle daily energy needs:

Activity level
mostly seated or standing RMR * 1.4
regular walking or equivalent RMR * 1.7
generally physically active RMR * 2.0

again for me its 1554 * 1.4 = 2176

3) Then estimate your daily exercise expenditure by working out how much exercise you do a week and divide by seven for an average daily value:
Weekly I do 4 hours of weights = approx 1536 cals
2 hours low intensity cardio = 600 cals
2 hours high intensity cario = 1200 cals
Total = 3336 / 7 = 477 cals

So add that to my daily energy needs.. 2176 + 477 = 2653

My maintenance calorie needs every day are 2653 cals/ day.

For weight loss: I need to reduce my calories by about 15% a day:
2653 * 0.85 = 2255 cals/ day

For weight gain: Increase your calorie intake by 20%:
2653 * 1.2 = 3184

Of course most importantly, make sure you meet your calorie needs from nurittious healthy sources. If you need help with that.. well see here

Hope thats of help

[g'em]

Ok, so one of the prevailing problems that crops up time after time on the forum is the question of eating right. Thing is, regardless of what your aim is - weight loss/ gain/ maintenance- we all require the same basic nutrients, minerals and dietary requirments. Putting it very simply, if you're looking to bulk, eat more, if you want to lose weight, eat less. But most importantly make sure you do not starve your body of what it needs and make all your calories come from healthy nutritional sources. There's a big difference between gaining 600 calories from a Big Mac and getting it from a balanced, nutritious meal. The general guidleines are that for weight training eat a 40% carb 40% protein 20% good fat diet, and for non- weight training athletes up the carbs to about 50-60%.

So.. just to help out anyone who's a little stuck or confused about how they should be eating, or even how to provide themselves with the food they need, I've put together a basic 'shopping list' of good foods that should help you get on the right track. Hopefully others will add to this with other ideas about what are good foods to include and post hints and tricks for eating clean day to day.

For the store cupboard- foods you should have on hand to make simple meals:
brown rice/ pasta
mixed dried herbs
dried spices
curry paste
garlic
tinned tomatoes (great for pasta sauces/ soups)
packets of unsalted, plain nuts for adding to salads- sunflower, sesame, almonds, cashews
extra virgin olive oil
flax oil (probably have to get this in a health food shop)
pulses- dry, bagged variety such as chickpeas, red kidney beans, lentils super easy to cook, high in protein and iron rich. Brilliant to add to salads, lentils are a fantastic base for soup. Try to buy dry instead of tinned/ pre-soaked which often have added salt.

Fresh foods to buy- preferably organic or from a farmers market, as fresh as possible:
fruit- all types, but include lots of 'easy to eat' fruit you can carry as a snack like apples, oranges, plums, peaches
a great tip I heard recently was to freeze raspberries or grapes and eat them as a snack in the evenings for those 'in front of the tv and wanna eat' moments
bananas are great post-workout but watch their high carb content
all berries and citrus fruits are high in antioxidants and brilliant to add to natural yoghurt/ skim milk for smoothies
vegetables- again, all types, especially broccoli, tomatoes, beans, mushrooms, carrots, cucumber, mangetout, onions, peas, spinach.
lots of leafy salad leaves- lettuce, cabbage, spinach, watercress, rocket.
sweetcorn and potatoes are great but high in carbs so consider this when adding them to a meal. Use new potatoes if possible, a lower starch content gives them a lower GI factor.

Supermarket items:
wholemeal pitta bread
wholemeal/ seeded bread/ bagels
Bulgar wheat/ cous cous
tinned tuna- buy steaks in tins as opposed to chunks
lean meat cuts, but particularly turkey/ chicken breasts and fillets
salmon steaks (expensive but so good for you- wrap in a loss tin-foil parcel with lemon juice, a little oil and pepper and bake for 20 mins- yum!!)
eggs
porridge oats
yoghurt- organic if possible, and live (bacteria-containing)
milk (personally its skimmed for me to get all the vits, minerals and protein, none of the cals)
cottage cheese
honey
peanut butter- you can buy it with nothing but 100% peanuts in it in health food shops, great for putting on corn cakes for snacks
rice/ corn cakes
baked beans- easy to eat snack, buy no-added sugar varieties.

Try to make sure every meal you eat has equal amounts of carbs and protein (or higher in protein if you're lifting). Use fats and oils sparingly, but include a small amount at every meal.There's no real need to have butter/ salt/ sugar added to any meal, use herbs and spices to taste meats, and nuts to give a kick to salads. While you may hear about athletes surviving on very minimalist and extremely restricted diets, this sort of eating will not sustain you for everyday living. The 5-a-day rule for fruits and vegetables is vitally important, they are the easiest and healthiest way to obtain many of the vitamins our bodies need in order to function, as are the minerals found in meats and pulses. Ensure you get pently of calcium and vitamin C -two of the most frequently neglected nutrients in Irish diets, but if you really feel the need to supplement (which you shouldn't if you eat properly) try a probiotic multi-vitamin like multibionta. There's also a great book called 'Food for Fitness' which is aimed at healthy eating for athletes, but has hundreds of recipes that are super-easy and quick to prepare and suitable for everyone's daily diet.

And of course there's the treats... For me, as a rule I don't keep any 'cheat foods' in the house. If its there, I'll eat it, simple as. This means that I have to actually plan to go out and buy cheat foods, so I'll make a conscious effort to treat myself with something that's not too sinful. It's often low-fat ice-cream or Green and Black's chocolate (I like to tell myself that all the flavenoids in the latter are really doing me lots of good ). For others its a burger, or sweets or a take-away. There's nothing wrong with a little bit of badness, but try to maintain an 80% clean attitude to food, that way you can eat treats virtually guilt-free!

When you make meals- if in doubt, just bung it all together, add a little seasoning and eat it!! That's how I've discovered most of my recipes (who knew that bulgar wheat, tuna, sweetcorn and spinach were so tasty together??!) As long as everything you put into it is good, there's nothing to lose. And above all else, enjoy what you eat. Cooking and eating shouldn't be a chore, and the more pleasure you get from eating the more it'll reinforce your healthy eating habits Have fun!!

[g'em]

Most popular myth on the fitness forum..

I need exercises to work my 'lower abs' and reduce my pot belly.
First, there is no such thing as 'lower abs.' The six-pack you're going for is actually one long muscle, called the rectus abdominis, that extends from below your chest to your pelvis. To work your abs, you should do exercises to target all four muscles: the rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques and the transverse abdominis.

Second, and more importantly, doing crunches will not help you get a 'six-pack' if you have a layer of fat over your abdominal area. In order the see the muscles, you must reduce your body fat. i.e. lesson of the day... take care of your diet before anything else.

[t-ha]

More Food Related Discussion;

The 'is a calorie just a calorie' question? Well, basically 'yes' in the strictest sense. In other words, if you have a calorie deficit you will lose weight, while a calorie surplus leads to weight gain. However, there are a few more variables that we can play with to optimise our body compositions other than merely our calorie intake (which g'em’s first post deals with very well, I got a pretty accurate calorie recommendation anyway). Why do we need to optimise – don’t we just create a calorie deficit/surplus and that’s it?

Well, if you look at the body, calories come in, waste comes out, and the difference is the net nutrients we take in from our diet. This can either be used for energy or stored, and here lies the crux of the problem.

If we have an excess of calories, in total we need to store more calories than we need to burn for energy, so our bodies are in an anabolic state (we need to be anabolic to make muscle, we also need to be anabolic to make fat – it’s all anabolism, and does not refer only to building muscle. It’s a state where the net metabolic effect is to create new tissues). We can store our nutrients in different ways; muscle, muscle glycogen & adipose fat being of most concern to us gym rats. Usually we want to maximise muscle gain, and minimise fat gain.

If we have a calorie deficit, in total we are burning more calories than we are taking in, so we can use dietary sourced nutrients for energy, or we can use up our stored energy, and here the same problem rises again – do we take fat, glycogen or muscle? This state is referred to as ‘catabolism’. Being in a catabolic state is therefore necessary to lose body fat, but we want to do it while losing as little muscle as possible. Therefore, we are looking to manipulate our energy storage partitioning at all times. Our main dietary concerns*, therefore, to affect this manipulation beyond a simple ‘calorie is a calorie’ approach will be;
1] Our macronutrient split (protein/carbs/fats/alcahol)
2] Our macronutrient timing

*You may wonder why I didn't include our daily calorie expenditure, as that seems like the most obvious parameter to play with apart from calorie intake - however I believe that the most successful manipulation of this parameter comes by manipulating our macronutrient variables [1] & [2] above, as well as just consciously increasing energy expenditure.

How can energy storage partitioning manipulation work? Well… it has too! Otherwise there would be no point bulking up, cutting up, doing much at all really – our overall compositions would never change and we would just get bigger or smaller. We know this isn’t true, Ronnie Coleman can carry 290lbs on his frame while having miniscule amounts of bodyfat. “But he manipulates his hormone levels!”. Damn straight he does! – and that’s exactly what we have to do (except in a less direct, more legal & less dangerous way , with our food & exercise). What hormones are we primarily concerned about? Well, the human endocrine system is pretty complex, and hormones have many ‘levels’ of effects and inter-effects with other hormones and so on, but basically, when manipulating our diet we are interested in insulin levels (& leptin & testosterone if you’re ‘hardcore’!).

Insulin is one of the most anabolic hormones you’ve got. Its function is to open up cell walls and let nutrients in through them. Insulin rises in response to all food intakes, but some more than others (usually carbs more so than protein or fat). You’ve heard of the post-workout shake? Why is everyone in such a hurry to get all that stuff into themselves so soon after working out – it’s because intense physical exercise spikes insulin levels. You’ve heard of the GI diet? How does it help keep you slim? – low GI foods usually (but not always) elicit a slow steady insulin response, and so stop your body going into ultra-‘store store store’ mode. Why are the majority of westerners overweight? – take a look at the back of one of those pre-made dinners next time you’re in the supermarket. Lots of carbs (highly processed carbs that will jump your insulin levels) coupled with lots of fat and minimal protein. Great! Open up the cell walls, and flood your bloodstream with fats and no protein. Follow that with a blood sugar crash to minimise physical activity. Most processed foods have pretty similarly bad macronutrient profiles.

Insulin sensitivity varies from person to person, and can be affected by diet and lifestyle (yes you can turn yourself into a fat-prone person by neglecting your health, and in extreme cases go the whole hog and give yourself type II diabetes, where your insulin production shuts down or your body just quits listening to it). In general, endomorphs (the easy gainers) insulin response is poor. That means they get a peak of insulin rather than a steady response to any remotely fast acting carbohydrate. This means that they will frequently have high levels of insulin and therefore will pack on both muscle and fat very easily. They can also suffer from blood sugar crashes if ingesting a lot of carbs or simple carbs as the insulin response is so high that the blood sugar is swept into body-fat storage very rapidly leaving levels below normal fasted blood sugar levels. Ectomorphs (hard gainers) have more trouble getting their insulin up, they typically become more active in response to ingesting a lot of carbs or simple carbs and have such high metabolisms that the blood sugar doesn't stay elevated for long. Their generally lower levels of insulin mean they have more difficulty putting on fat or muscle. Most people sit somewhere in between those two extremes.

Just so you know, leptin is a hormone whose level is linked to the amount of adipose tissue (fat) you’ve got. It makes it easy for an obese person to lose fat quickly while making it increasingly difficult as you approach lower levels of bodyfat. Testosterone, does a zillion things, but one of it’s effects is to prioritise muscle retention over fat retention, and muscle gain over fat gain, so for men especially, it’s a good idea to keep this guy happy. Anyway, lets keep moving – onto the basics of food macronutrients.