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Think you’re doing everything right nutritionally to help maximize your muscle gains?

Think again!

Here is a list of the most common nutrition mistakes that most aspiring muscle jocks tend to make:

1. Real men stick to their diet 365 days a year – Most people say to build muscle or lose fat you should stick to your diet 365 days a year. What happens by doing this is an occasional all out binge by eating six chocolate bars in two minutes and dreading your next meal.

Instead you should schedule a cheat day one day a week such as Sunday. Eat what you want, but do it early in the day so it can be burned off throughout the day. The rest of your diet throughout the day should be the same except don’t bother writing the nutritional value of the food you eat throughout your cheat day.

2. Putting on 5 lbs a week is better than 1 lb – Over doing carbs will make you fat. Most people realize this but they still take in huge amounts of carbs with the excuse that it gives them more energy to train.

If you put more than 1.5-2 lbs a week most of it will probably be fat or water so you would have done yourself no favors by putting on any extra weight.

3. Eating anything that doesn’t move – Some people get the idea that to put on muscle you need to eat as much as possible. Although bodybuilders and elite athletes must eat a lot, especially those with fast metabolisms, eating to many calories will only stored as body fat. It would be far better to eat at your maintenance level and add on another 300 calories on top of that to put on mass while limiting body fat.

4. Not eating enough – As well as people eating to many calories eating to little will also limit your gains. You should shoot for around 250 calories over maintenance level to make gains while minimizing fat storage. Not eating enough will send your body into a catabolic state that is when your body uses muscle for energy. This happening everyday is definitely not the way to build a superior physique.

5. Following diets from magazines – I too followed diets from magazines but I soon realized these are best served as an outline. For example, they tend to outline a diet for a person weighing 160 lb and they do not often mention metabolism which can make an impact on how much you should be eating.

6. Thinking fat is the enemy – You need good fats like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated best got from flaxseed oil and nuts. Although it is important to have fat in your diet try to stay away from taking in unnecessary saturated fats especially when dieting.

7. Training alone will help you reach your goals – Some people in the gym use perfect form, don’t spend ten minutes talking between sets, and are using a good exercise program. It’s a shame some of this straight after a workout head to the nearest fish and chip shop. They say your diet counts for around 80% of your overall progress so it makes sense to concentrate more on perfecting your diet than your training routine.

8. Using someone else’s diet just because it works for them – No two people are built the same so it can be a big mistake copying someone’s diet. Use the diets you read about for a base but also take into account your goals and your calorie maintenance level rather than focusing on the persons who gave you the diet to follow.

9. Supplements replacing a good diet – This is another common mistake. As someone is using a great supplement stack they forget about the whole food diet and rely solely on supplements. These guys although maybe using top notch supplements will never reach their potential due to a poor diet they follow. Whole foods should be a solid base to construct your diet then finish by adding supplements.

Researchers have uncovered new evidence to explain the observation that diets rich in protein stunt the appetite, according to a recent report in Cell Metabolism.

The findings suggest a novel link connecting macronutrients in the diet to hunger, the researchers said. The results also point to a potential new target for the treatment of eating disorders.

“It is well known that protein feeding decreases hunger sensation and subsequent food intake in animals and humans,” said study author Gilles Mithieux of INSERM and Universite Lyon in France.

However, the mechanism by which proteins exert their control over appetite remained unclear, the researchers said. In fact, earlier studies have found that a rise in dietary protein shows little effect on the major hormones that regulate hunger, they added.

In a study of rats, Mithieux and colleagues made the surprising discovery that diets heavy in protein spark the production of glucose in the small intestine. That rise in glucose, sensed in the liver and relayed to the brain, led the animals to eat less:

“The current findings provide an answer to the question of how protein-enriched meals decrease hunger and reduce eating, unsolved up to now,” according to the researchers. “Our data also brings to light a novel concept of control of food intake, involving the small intestine glucose metabolism as a key relay from the macronutrient composition of the diet to the amount of food ingested.”

The group found that protein feeding of rats markedly increased the activity of genes involved in glucose production in the animals’ small intestine. Those activities led to glucose synthesis and release into the portal vein–the vessel that conducts blood from digestive and other organs to the liver–a phenomenon lasting after the assimilation of glucose from the diet.

Furthermore, they found that the flux in glucose detected by the liver glucose sensor activated parts of the brain involved in the control of appetite, causing a decline in subsequent food consumption:

“In addition to protein’s ability to diminish appetite, it had also been suggested that glucose appearance in the portal vein, as occurs during meal assimilation, may induce comparable consequences,” Mithieux said. “Here, we connect these previous observations by reporting that intestinal synthesis of glucose is induced following food digestion in rats specifically fed a protein-enriched diet.”

“As in rats, diets high in protein suppress appetite in people,” the researchers added. “The human intestine also synthesizes glucose. Therefore, glucose metabolism in the small intestine may be a new target in the treatment of food intake disorders,” they said.”

So eat more protein if you want to get rid of those late night hunger cravings!!!

Here you are, trying another way of keeping down your body fat, so you look in your special diet cupboard, and look at the rows of different protein shakes. You hesitate because your mouth does not salivate; how many times has your mother told you ‘It doesn’t taste good but it’s good for you…’

But do we need to keep suffering? There must be a way to improve the taste of protein shakes containing whey powders? In this day and age it just cannot be beyond the wit of man to a better tasting, more palatable protein drink!

Well what about trying to make your own? We do and they are much, much better, so give it a go!

Try this out….

Choosing What to Put in Your Protein Shakes:

Before rushing off to your refrigerator to blend everything in site, let’s go through some basic principles you will want to consider first. Not only do you want to create the best tasting shakes but you should also aim to make the most effective protein shakes for your dieting requirements. This is important because there is no point throwing full fat ice cream, chocolate sauce, peanut butter and full fat milk all together to create a wonderful tasting fat gaining shake. You need to be a little wise when choosing your ingredients.

So what kinds of ingredients make good choices for your shakes?

Try using the following tips when getting your ingredients from the supermarket or refrigerator:

1. Try to keep as many of your ingredients as natural as possible. A good example of this is using natural peanut butter instead of regular peanut butter. The natural version has better protein content and also natural fats that are important in your diet.

2. Fresh fruit should be used whenever possible. Fruit contains the carbohydrates that will fuel your workouts and your day. The complex sugars in fruit are important to any diet (unlike the simple sugars in sweets, sodas, etc).

3. Think about ingredients that will boost your shake’s protein content. For example, you could throw a handful of nuts into the blender for a little extra protein without making the shake much thicker. You could add a few raw egg whites (if you are worried about eating raw eggs you may be able to find treated egg whites in cartons at your supermarket). You could always simply dump an extra scoop of whey powder in there as well.

4. Make sure you have enough liquids. If you get a little too carried away you may discover your shake is easier to eat with a spoon then drink from a glass. When you first start creating your shakes it is a good idea to add your liquids (water, fat-free milk, fruit juices, etc.) in stages so that you get your desired consistency.

5. Examine the nutritional information for each ingredient and consider the impact it will have on your dieting goals. For example, you may be opting for fat free (skimmed) milk if you aren’t trying to gain weight.

6. Always know what your goal is and make your shakes accordingly. If you are trying to shed the fat you will be skipping the types of ingredients that add too many carbohydrates and fats while trying to increase the protein content.

7. Think of how you might create a unique flavor. You can try things like cinnamon, vanilla, honey, coconut milk, etc. Once you get the hang of this you will see the possibilities are endless.

Making Your Protein Shake:

Always add your main liquid source to the blender first so that everything else you add afterwards is easily blended. Following this, add your protein powder and give your blender a quick ‘burst’. Now you are ready to add the rest of your ingredients and blend until you get the right consistency. At this point you may want to add a little more liquids to tweak your shake’s thickness. Throw in five or six ice cubes to make your shake more refreshing.

Just starting out with your bodybuilding program? Here are some basic things to think about when creating your muscle building diet plan…

1. Muscles require high quality nutrients supplied at short intervals to grow:
Quality nutrition is indispensable to gain Muscle. If you have a negative calorie deficit then you are wasting your time in the gym. Its absolutely crucial that you take eating seriously if you really want to build muscle.

2. To Build Muscle you must eat, eat and then eat some more:
The number 1 reason people call themselves Hard gainers is that they simply do not eat enough. After an intense workout the body craves high quality nutrients to repair itself and get ready for next workout. This training and eating cycle will force your body to add muscle to deal with the upcoming intense training session. Follow this advice and it will save you a lot of frustration and time waste in the gym.

3. Eat 5-6 meals everyday:
More than 3 hours without food leads your body no option but to tear itself and use that energy for fuel. This is called Catabolism. Its the enemy to Muscle Building (Anabolism).

Remember, we recently talked about the catabolic effects of cortisol in a past article. You have to get rid of the conventional practice of eating 3 large meals. Keep your body in a state of positive nitrogen balance and it will grow beyond belief. Just try it.

4. Maximize the Muscle Building Process:
There are 3 important meals which will maximize your Muscle building process. They are the breakfast, post-workout meal, and bedtime Meal. We will discuss in detail how to plan these in a future post.

5. Never exercise on empty stomach:
Energy demands are highest during your workouts, and you would not expect to win a race with no fuel for example.

Take our advice and apply it to your bodybuilding nutrition program today!

When we refer to “eating out” we aren’t necessarily referring to an oral sex act! LOL!

Even though the American economy is in the shitter right now, we still prefer dining out once in a while. But people on strict dieting fear eating out… especially all you amateur bodybuilders out there.

Food is not costly in this country, and as a result the portions of restaurant food entrees are often large. If you are smart about what you eat, you can get a healthy meal without interrupting your diet.

Just follow these tips the next time you go out to eat:

Avoid fried foods: Frying adds more fat than any other type of cooking. Restaurants often use cheap oils(hydrogenated oils), a source of trans fats.

Avoid dishes cooked with gravy and heavy sauces: Most of the gravy dishes are prepared with fatty pan (butter, ghee, drippings from meat, etc.,). It is considerably high in saturated fat. Sauces are made from cream, which is also high in saturated fat.

Ask the waiter for the size of your serving: If they are bigger than your usual meal, consider sharing your meals with someone else. And it is not a compulsion to eat everything on your plate. Take the leftovers to your home for another meal.

Investigate on how the dishes are prepared: Ask the waiter, whether the meal you are interested in is prepared with butter or ghee or animal fat. If it is, consider asking the waiter if the dishes would be prepared with olive oil instead, or that it be steamed or baked with less fat. Stay away from meal prepared with lots of cream and cheese.

Eat a light snack before going out: Munch on a piece of carrot or fruit before going out. That way you won’t be ruthlessly hungry on your dining table in the restaurant.

Share your dessert: If you have a sweet tooth, consider sharing your dessert with others on your table. This way you will get the full taste, but with only a fraction of the calories, sugar and the fats. You probably shouldn’t be eating dessert anyway, but we suppose a cheat meal now and then is okay.

Yum!! Yum!!

Any of you muscle obsessed gym rats drink Muscle Milk protein drinks after a hard workout?

Well THIS SHIT is just disgusting!

Just watch the video below and you’ll see what we mean…

Whether you’re a pro bodybuilder or just starting out, don’t make the mistake of believing that you only need water when you’re thirsty.

Your body can become dehydrated without any symptoms, whether on the hottest summer day or the coldest day of winter.

You lose water through perspiration (not just the kind you see, but continual “invisible” perspiration as well), through waste removal and through breathing.

Water loss increases with hot weather, necessitating greater intake and emphasis on water, but keeping properly hydrated should be a year-round priority.

Unfortunately, most people walk around in some state of dehydration all the time.

Symptoms such as fatigue, memory problems, lack of focus, constipation and headaches, just to name a few, can often be traced to a lack of water.

Additionally, digestive problems can often be aided or even cured by simply increasing water intake.

So far all you aspiring muscle boys who are currently running a bulking cycle, drinking plenty of water will help your stomach digest all that chicken breast your stuffing yourself with.

As a fitness enthusiast, chicken is probably a standard food item on your dinner table. And for good reason! It’s an inexpensive, versatile, easy-to-cook, low-fat, high-protein food choice that goes well with other foods.

What else can you ask for?

Well, chicken can get a little boring if eaten day in and day out. There’s only so much you can do with barbeque sauce! So we’ve gathered 10 tips and recipes to spice up chicken and make this mainstay a whole lot tastier.

Tip 1: Marinating
For a richer flavor, season and marinate your chicken for 24 hours before cooking and store it in the refrigerator. The longer you keep chicken in a marinade, the more it’ll be infused with flavor.

Tip 2: Healthy Marinating
To keep meals healthier, marinate chicken in seasoned fruit juice or chicken broth instead of oil-based marinades before grilling or broiling. Always store chicken in the fridge while it marinates, even if you only plan to let it soak for 30 minutes.

Tip 3: Seasoning
Use bold seasonings like freshly grated lemon peel, minced hot peppers, fresh herbs, and infused vinegars to add flavor to chicken dishes without adding fat.

Tip 4: Non-Stick Skillets
Sauteed chicken tastes great, but can be fattening if you use oil or butter. Instead, eliminate the need for oil and butter by using a non-stick skillet. Trim all visible fat from cuts of chicken and add some onions, green peppers, and spices.

Tip 5: Cooking Thermostat
Drying out chicken by overcooking it can ruin its taste. To get around this problem, use a cooking thermometer to determine when your chicken is cooked just right. The internal temperature of chicken breasts should be 170 degrees F. Another way to see if chicken is done is to pierce the thickest part of the meat to see if the juices run clear. If they’re clear and not pink, the chicken is ready.

Tip 6: Skin
When baking a whole chicken, it’s best to keep the skin on to avoid drying out the meat. The skin helps hold in the juices and flavor of the meat. It can be easily removed after cooking.

Tip 7: Brine
One of the best ways to cook a very juicy, tender, and flavorful chicken is to soak it in salt water, also known as brine, before cooking. To create good brine, dissolve a half-cup of salt and a half-cup of brown sugar in a gallon of water. Immerse the chicken completely in the solution and place it in the refrigerator right away. You may want to weight the chicken with a plate to keep it completely immersed. Let the chicken soak in the brine for 3 to 12 hours.

Before cooking the chicken, make sure to rinse off the excess brine with fresh water and dry completely with paper towels. Brine works by allowing moisture to pass through the meat more easily.

This process adds moisture to chicken, infuses the meat with more flavor, and shortens cooking time. It’s important to note that brined chicken will cook faster than chicken that has not been pre-treated, because water is a better conductor of heat than meat.

Tip 8: Salt-&-Sugar Rub
Another way to make tasty, tender chicken is to add it to a salt-and-sugar rub. For chicken breasts, blend 1/3 cup of course salt and 1/3 cup of brown sugar (do not use refined white sugar) with a mixture of your favorite seasonings. A tablespoon each of ground black pepper, paprika and chili powder are good seasonings to spice up this mix. In a large re-sealable plastic bag, rub the entire mixture evenly over the chicken, seal up bag, and refrigerate for 4 to 8 hours. You may find it easier to use several bags in this instance.

When ready to cook, rinse the chicken breasts thoroughly to remove the salt-and-sugar rub and dry the breasts with paper towels. The chicken is then ready for cooking.

Tip 9: Leftovers
Leftover chicken is great for lunches. It can be heated up or eaten cold. When reheating leftover chicken, cover the dish to retain moisture and flavor. You may want to consider brining your chicken if you know you’ll have a lot of leftovers. Brining chicken makes reheated leftovers much more tasty, tender, and juicy. One lunch idea is to roll up sliced chicken breast in whole wheat pita bread with fresh green peppers, onions, lettuce, pickles, mustard, and ground pepper. This makes for a delicious, high-protein, low-fat lunch meal. Try adding other fresh ingredients to make your own version.

Tip 10: Spice It Up!
Adding particular ingredients to a marinade, brine, rub, saute, or sauce can really enhance chicken’s flavor and give it an international flare. For Italian chicken recipes, use fresh minced garlic, dried oregano, dried basil, and dried thyme. For Indian-style chicken, you may want to try mixing coriander, turmeric, cardamom, and bay leaves into a marinate.
For Thai chicken, try adding some cilantro, lime juice, ginger, coconut milk, and lemongrass to the recipe. And for that Tex-Mex flavor, try adding cumin, sage, minced fresh chili peppers, or chili powder to chicken.

Bon appetit!