Sample Diet

After giving my nutritional guidelines, I thought I'd give you a sample of what my diet looks like on an average day. I also included any supplements that I take.

7 AM—Whey Protein Shake + Glutamine
7:30 AM—Go lean Cereal with Skim Milk and blueberries (3 eggs and whole wheat toast on the weekends when I have more time)
8:30 AM—Bowl Oatmeal, 5 Prunes, 1 Banana
9:30 AM—Chicken, Whole Grain Rice, Carrots
12 PM—Post workout #1 Protein Shake + Glutamine
12:30 PM—Chicken, Whole Grain Rice, Carrots
3:30 PM—Chicken, Whole Grain Rice, Carrots
5 PM—Bowl Oatmeal, Almonds as snack
7:30 PM—Post workout #2 Protein Shake + Glutamine
8 PM—Hamburger with whole wheat bread and Lean Ground Beef
8:30 PM—2 Servings each Broccoli and Spinach
9 PM—Peanut Butter on whole wheat bread + Yogurt
10 PM—ZMA tablet before bed

I am somewhat fortunate in that I have a job where I am at a desk most of the day and can eat at my convenience. If you are not in that position, try to at least get a healthy snack in between meals to keep your metabolism cranking.

Nutritional Guidelines

Below are the three most important nutritional tips to help lose or maintain body fat while achieving your macronutrient needs to support a strong mind and body:


1. Don't over eat

This may seem obvious but losing and gaining weight is simple math. Take in more calories than you burn and your going to gain weight, take in less calories than you burn and you'll lose weight, take in and expend an equal amount of calories and you'll maintain weight. If you take the first path and consume more calories than you burn, you're going to put on weight. Now, if you workout and want to add muscle (remember muscle helps increase our metabolism and burn body fat) it is not necessarily a bad thing to eat a little more than you expend. However, if you don't workout or significantly over eat, you'll put on the other type of weight--body fat.

2. Eat six small meals throughout the day

By eating frequently throughout the day, you'll keep your metabolism cranking. In this manner, you'll actually be able to eat more in a day than if you ate three large meals because you are burning more calories through increased metabolism.

3. Eat a clean diet.

• Eat whole grains rather than refined grains--they contain more fiber and less sugar.
  
• Eat healthy fats (monounsaturated and omega-3 fatty acids), which can be found in fish and nuts, rather than saturated and trans fats--they help prevent heart disease, cancer, and support brain development.
  
• Eat fruits and vegetables.--they provide vitamins and minerals (antioxidents used to ward off disease).
  
• Last but not least, eat enough protein to support your muscles--if your working out hard, that's one gram of protein per pound of body weight each day.

To help you figure out how much you should be consuming each day, use the calculator below. It will give two benchmarks for caloric intake. One if you workout, the other if you don't. It also divides your daily intake into six separate meals. Enjoy!

Calculate Your Caloric Intake!

Enter Your Bodyweight In The Appropriate Box Below:

Your Bodyweight In Pounds: OR In Kilograms:

Your Body Fat Percentage: % (Do not enter the percent sign.)

Workout and Nutrition for Young Athletes

I've been looking at a lot of questions from young athletes lately on various message boards. That got me thinking about all the mistakes I made as a young lifter. Therefore, I thought I give some simple advice for those just starting to lift weights:

• Use compound exercises (exercises using multiple body parts, such as bench press, pullups, squats)--these should be the core of your workout. In fact, you could make darn good progress using only those three exercises.
  
• If you do try muscle specific exercises (such as bicep curl or tricep extension) make sure you do the big compound exercises first because they work the largest muscle groups and that is where you will add the most muscle mass.
• Don't workout for more than one hour at a time. This was a huge mistake I made because I wanted to add muscle so badly. When you do workout for over an hour, your testosterone levels start to dip and you are being counter-productive.
  
• Eat your protein. Try to get 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. As an ectomorph, I didn't make big gains until I applied this concept.
• Do your homework and think about the future. Working out will get you plenty of girls for now, but when you're a poor twenty-something year old, nobody will be interested in how much you bench press.
  

There you have it. Its actually pretty simple. The good news is, as a beginner to weightlifting you are going to make gains way faster than I do these days.

Beginner's Exercise Program

Starting with the basics and moving towards more advanced, this post will be dedicated to a beginner's program with the premise that the trainee does not have a lot of history exercising and does not have much time to devote to fitness. The following will consist mainly of:

• compound exercises (movements that involve multiple muscle groups)

• short, but intense interval training (brief periods of high perceived exertion followed by rest)

MONDAY

• Incline Bench Press or Other Pressing Movement: 3 Sets * 8-10 Reps

• Stationary Bike or Other Cardio: 10 Sets (1 minute sprint, 30 seconds rest)

WEDNESDAY

• Chin-Ups or Other Pulling Movement: 3 Sets * Reps to failure

• Row Machine or Other Cardio: 10 Sets (1 minute sprint, 30 seconds rest)

FRIDAY

• Squats: 3 Sets * 12 - 15 Reps

• Ellipse Machine or Other Cardio: 10 Sets (1 minute sprint, 30 seconds rest)

NOTES

• Choose a weight where you are performing all lifts to failure (meaning you could not perform another repetition)

• Other compound pressing movements may include bench press, shoulder press, etc.

• Other compound pulling movements include pull-ups, row variations, etc.

• Running is my personal favorite for cardio, but I assumed that the trainee would not have access to a track or field.

• Rest 90 seconds or so in between lifting sets.

You should be able to knock out each workout in about half an hour--very efficient. If a sedentary person made a life style change by committing 1.5 hours per week to this program, they'd be quite pleased with the results. Your metabolism should increase both from added muscle mass and the short cardio sessions (which has shown to be more effective than longer sessions of light intensity).

Questions?
Comments ......

Workout Mission Statement

To provide the readers with advice, support and assistance pertaining to their personalized diet and fitness regimens. While experimenting with different dieting methods, lifting programs, and types of supplements, it became obvious that individuals need individualized programs. Whether you've never touched a weight in your life and have minimal time to workout and eat right, or compete regularly in bodybuilding or powerlifting and consider fitness a 24-7 job, I'd like to:

• Dispense my nutritional and exercise related advice to help improve your current fitness level
  
• Learn others' diet and fitness related successes and failures to disseminate their knowledge and even apply to my own routine