One can sum up my dietary habits into three big changes, none of which were that difficult to set into motion:
- Taking my multivitamin and fish oil once a day, every day
- Cooking in bulk, and portioning out my meals using tupperware or ziploc baggies throughout the week
- Creating a massive proteing/gainer shake to consume after my workout
.jpg)
1. Taking my multivitamin and fish oil once a day, every day
Buying from Bodybuilding.com is hands down the best way to acquire your supplements, for many reasons. Aside from the lowest prices online (which is lower than you'd find at brick-and-mortar stores), they offer you up to 3 free samples on protein, pre-workouts, fish oils, or other niche supplements. The shipping is standard, yet because of their distribution in Jacksonville, it usually arrives within 1-2 days of ordering, so if you can stick it out for a 48 hours, this is the way to go. I have never used fish oil or multivitamins before starting this program, but from the reviews, it seemed like a staple from all ranges of athletes. I can't say I feel a major difference, but I don't feel sore and I've been making steady gains so they may be working..
2. Cooking in bulk, and portioning out my meals using tupperware or ziploc baggies throughout the week
It's cheaper than buying lunch (which I still occasionally do if I want some Pollo Tropical or Del Taco), it's an easy way to track your macro nutrients, and it's usually pretty tasty. I have made some variation of the same meal for the past 3 or 4 weeks, but it always contains rice, chicken, and vegetables. In the picture I am showing what I ate today: yogurt, chicken fried rice, del taco (love the coupons), a liter of chocolate milk.. and then I'm ready for my workout. After I drink the milk, I refill the liter a couple times with water. Once I finish my workout and have my shake, I eat a medium sized dinner, usually pasta.
3. Creating a massive proteing/gainer shake to consume after my workout
I highly, highly recommend Muscle Juice as a protein powder to those who have a high metabolism, or to those who are trying to gain weight. It does have high amounts of cholesterol (though remember, dietary cholesterol doesn't equal body cholesterol).. but it is loaded with carbs, L-amino acids, protein, fat, and over 1000 calories per full serving. I usually create a monster shake with 2-3 cups of milk(300cal), 1/2 serving of Muscle Juice (500 cal), 1 banana, 1 scoop peanut butter, 1 tablespoon honey, and 1 cup frozen berries.
My caloric intake is not nearly up to where it should be (probably about 1000 calories less), but it's more than I've normally eaten as well, which has made a big difference in my recovery and progress.
Where did you do your research? I obviously don't need to follow your eating and diet regimen, but I'm interested in maybe taking a supplement that will boost my metabolism in conjunction with healthy eating and exercise. A starting point would be helpful :) Thanks broski!
ReplyDeleteHey Stacy,
DeleteI have to admit, a lot of what I follow as far as nutrition comes from the advice of online forums, so the integrity of the source is definitely flimsy. However, there are a lot of checks and balances on these forums so the conversations usually provide counter arguments to each claim, to give you a full understanding of each concept.
If you are looking into specific supplements, I would recommend perusing bodybuilding.com, to check their reviews of specific products (ie thermo pills, energy pills, etc), as well as my favorite time-wasting site reddit.com. reddit has a ton of useful subreddits like reddit.com/r/fitness, r/weightroom, r/supplements, and others.
Check back in once you've done some cursory research to let me know what you find.
Thanks for posting this, Mike. Is it standard to get most of your calories from shakes?
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed that you drink a liter of chocolate milk before workouts (did I get that right?). Since I mostly run and bike, I much prefer something light before heading out, usually half a banana. Do you think this is a difference between our personal preferences, or a difference between our activities?
Hey Jonathan,
DeleteAs far as the calories from the shake, it is normal to make a shake anywhere from 500-1500 calories if you are considering bulking, or gaining weight. I would say that about a third of my calories come from the shake alone, with the rest coming from breakfast (yogurt, 1 liter milk, occasionally oatmeal), lunch (chicken/rice/veggies), snacks (peanut butter sandwiches, cheese & crackers), and dinner (pasta, anything my girlfriend makes :D ). I have always read that if possible choose actual food over supplements like shakes, but in this case I am treating the shake like excess calories to increase bodyweight, which should be perfectly acceptable.
I think I wasn't clear about the spacing of my diet, let me try to timestamp it here:
9:00am yogurt
9:00-10:30am sipping on 1liter chocolate milk
10:00am oatmeal
12:00pm chicken/rice/veggies
3:00pm pb sandwich, snack
5:30-7:00pm workout
7:15pm shake
8:30pm dinner
10:00-11:30pm whatever garbage I feel like eating
I would definitely caution against eating too soon before the workout, because (Gumer can correct me on this one) the pseudo science here is that you are drawing blood supply to your stomach, and your body is focused on digestion, which conflicts with the signals you are sending your central nervous system when you work out, and distracts from fully activating your muscles.
I'm not happy with that answer so let me do some quick research and update this post. But to answer your question, half a banana is a great idea to limit cramping etc. Thanks for asking!
-MB
Pre workout eating is interesting. Mike drinking chocolate milk before workouts is a good idea because it provides a lot of fat calories which have the highest energy per gram of food. This provides a lot of immediate energy for the anaerobic (weightlifting) workout. Also keep in mind the fat absorption takes some time (could be from 30 minute to over an hour) so chugging milk a few minutes before a workout wont do much.
ReplyDeleteThe main limiting factor of pre workout eating is digestion during the exercise. While you are working out your body moves the blood supply from your digestive system to your muscles closing the blood vessels to the intestines. This can cause cramping because of the intrinsic increased demand of the intestines being stimulated by distention from food. People (like marathon runners) get used to eating small amounts of food during exercise adapting their digestive systems to the increased blood demand while their muscles have the increased demand from aerobic exercise as well.
Carbohydrates (pastas, breads etc) are important for long term energy use, which is the reason marathon runners or soccer players (aggle) eat a lot of carbs the day before the long aerobic exercise. This increases their glycogen stores (a form of energy from carbohydrates) which can stay high into the next day, thus avoiding the muscle cramping from eating a meal soon before the aerobic exercise. Eating a banana 30 minutes to an hour before may provide a small amount of energy for a long aerobic workout but the amount is marginal. The high fat chocolate milk is better for immediate energy but can also be valuable for longer exercise as long as it doesn't cause cramping.
Awesome explanation, thanks for taking the time to clarify that. Today I went to a Brazilian steakhouse and I'm pretty sure 80 to 90% of my blood supply was in my digestive tract by the end of it.
Delete