Meal Planning Masterclass: Build The Perfect Meal Plan For Health, Wellness & Training

1. Course overview: hi and welcome to the course. In this introduction, I want to give you a short overview off what you will learn throughout the program. It is quite a bit, but let me first tell you something about myself. So you know who I am and why you should listen to me. My knees feel it's harder and other fitness and dieting coach. A couple years ago, I published my Fruits, spoke the Gym Bible, which became an instant Amazon best seller and let me to publish five more books related to health and fitness. In 2016 I started teaching all night fitness courses and now have thousands of people taking my courses and following my block, simple muscled up. What sets me apart from many other coaches out there is my approach to fitness. Everyone's body is different and will react differently to special workouts and diets. That's why I don't give advice that is based only on my own experience. I want to make sure to recommend only what scientifically proven to work not just for me, but for the average person. With all these fitness trends out there, I think this is the most important thing looking at the facts to decide whether a diet workout makes sense or if it's just pure height. That's what I did for this course and what you're about to learn. So here's a quick overview of what we will cover. I broadly divided the course into two main parts. Meal planning and healthy diet. Meal planning will teach you everything you need to know about how the structure diet, to lose weight, gain muscle or to do both. If you regularly exercise, then you know that your diet and nutrition plays a huge role and is actually more important than you work out. To guarantee results into how can understand all the important aspects of immune planning, I will teach you the following What role calories playing your diet and how many you should consume. How the structure American nutrient split, meaning how many grams, protein carbs and fed need to take it every day, and what kind of protein cars and fed sources are best? How the time your meals throughout the day and how many meals you should actually eat? We will also talk about pre and post workout meals, cheap meals, adjusting your diet from muscle gain weight loss and the number of supplements that can enhance your results. In the second part of the program, we will talk about what I call a healthy diet. This includes all the estates from dieting that will enhance your quality of life by designing a well bell inside that will make you feel more healthy and energized. This is something many traditional fitness diets neglect that are simply geared towards building muscle or losing. Even though they tell you how much protein or carbs you need, They forget about things like vitamins and minerals that have a great impact on your help. So in this section we will talk about all the essential vitamins and minerals and how you can include them in your diet. General dining myths that need to be the boned The most common dieting trends, like gluten free paleo lok, are vegan or intermittent fasting and which makes sense and which are nothing more than marketing hype. How much do you really drink every day? Supplements for better immunity, how to increase the stars from naturally, and general guidelines to overall will be. I will also tell you where you can go to do your own research so you don't have to blindly trust every so called fit school out there. As you can see, we have quite a lot to cover, so let's get started. 2. Meal planning explained: No matter what goal in life you want to accomplish, you will have to come up with a strategy without the proper strategy in game plan. The goal is nothing more than a treat When it comes to meal planning and nutrition. Your goals might be to lose weight, to gain weight, to lose fat and gain muscle, or to simply live a healthy life. Whatever your goals may be, this program is meant to teach you how to reach your goals and show you what strategies and principles are proven to work. In order to give you a complete and concise introduction into nutrition, we have to start with the most abstract principles and then work our way towards more practical advice later in the course. So in this lesson, I want to teach you the so called nutrition priorities. These are the factors of your diet that will have the biggest impact on your diet success and determine whether or not you will reach your fitness goals. Imagine you're building a house. The first and most important priorities are a solid foundation and strong walls. Without them, the entire structure would collapse once the wall stand. You also need a roof and plumbing. But what comes after that is a lot less important because even an ugly looking house with only one window will still provide shelter and can be lived when he said of your diet, you're process is similar and that you first want to follow the most important attrition parities and only later cover the small details. Together, these nutrition priorities will make up what we call a meal and diet plan, and you have to understand each priority for your meal plan. Toe work. All of these priorities play an important role in your diet, but some are a lot more important than others. Here's what this hierarchy looks like. First come calories, then we have macronutrients, and third place is meal timing. Fourth are foods and lastly, and we have supplements. As you can see, how many calories you consume is the most important aspect of your diet and has the largest effect on your diet success. We will cover the importance of calories and more detail later, and all you need to know for now is that waking is mostly a matter of eating more calories than you burn and weight loss is mostly a matter off eating, fewer calories saber. Now you probably already know this and think it's obvious. But trust me when I tell you that a lot of people neglect this principle when setting up their diet plan. Determining your optimal calorie intake can be more difficult than you think. But don't worry. I will teach you everything in more detail in the following lessons. For now, just keep in mind that calories are everything. They're the most important aspect of any diet period. Macronutrients are in second place, where his calories define how much you eat macronutrients to find what eight or more specifically, what amounts of protein carbs and fat you consume. Getting this right is not as important as getting your calories right, but it still makes a huge difference in your meal plan, especially if you want to build muscle and lose fat meal. Timing comes in at third on the list, and it basically states when you eat. While third place might sound pretty high up the list. In reality, it's much less important than the 1st 2 principles. More in this in the following lessons foods take the fourth place. This will probably surprise you because we're often told to eat certain foods and avoid others. But as you will see in the course, even though the individual foods you consume are important for your health, when it comes only two fat loss and muscle growth they're not as important as the top three priorities. The same applies to supplements as the name suggests. Supplements are meant to supplement and already good diet. No product in the world can fix the broken diet, where you have your calories and micronutrients wrong and generally low quality food. Instead. If you focus on the important priorities first and come up with a good diet, the right supplements will further improve your diet and make it perfect. Off course, I will show you all the steps involved in this process, but let's start with the essential factors first. The worst thing you can do is to invest all your time and energy into small details that don't really matter all that much. Like so many others, you would quickly lose motivation and give up dieting. That's not what this course is about. Here we first built a solid foundation and later at all, the small improvements that will make your diet perfect. So without further ado, let's look at each dieting priority more closely and see how exactly it can help you reach your goals. 3. Calories: like I said in the last lesson. The most important priority in your diet are calories from a scientific standpoint. Whether you gain weight or lose weight is determined by the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed from one type to another. Now, I don't want to turn this into a physics list. But when applied to dieting, the first law of thermodynamics states that your body weight is dependent on Lee on the difference between the number of calories they consume versus the number of calories that you burn, which is known as your calorie balance. Before we go into the different forms of calorie balances, let's first talk about what a calorie actually is. A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature off one leader of water by one degree Celsius. Just as a side note, I'm talking about food calories here, also known as large calories or kilocalories. These are the calories that you will find on food packaging. There are also small calories, which are used more in a scientific context, and one large calorie equals 1000 small calories okay, back to the definition of calories. What you have to understand is that a calorie is a form of energy measurement. When you eat food, you're consuming the energy that is stored within the food. Your body then uses this energy to produce movement and keep your organism alive. Alternatively, if not all energy is used right away, it can also be stored for later use. Some energy can be stored in the muscles and liver is glycogen, but these stores Philip pretty quickly, so your body will then store any additional calories in the form of body fat. With this in mind, what is your calorie balance? There are three different types of calorie balances, and you can only be in one of them at any time. The first type is a positive calorie balance. Here, someone consumes more calories through food than he or she burns. Their body will then have all the calories it needs for survival on activity. But because there will also be some additional calories left afterwards, thes extra calories are then start as either glycogen and the muscle and liver or as fed in the Fed sells her definition. This type of calorie balance. Always results and weight gain because of surplus of calories means the surplus of energy that has to land somewhere. Therefore, the body will create new tissue as an energy reserve. This new tissue is usually body fed, but if you exercise, the additional energy can also be converted into a new muscle tissue. The second type of calorie balance is a negative calorie belts. This occurs when someone consumes fewer calories through food than he or she burns here. The body needs more calories to produce energy for its daily functions than it gets from the food you consume. That means that has to make up the difference by burning stored energy. It will therefore have to break down body tissue, which leads to weight loss. Now all these changes and wait so weight gain and a positive kelly balance as well as weight loss negative calorie ballons can be offset by changes in water attention, which is why they sometimes go unnoticed. But if we exclude this factor per definition, you will always gain or lose weight. If your calories don't met your energy expenditure, this brings me to the third and last type of calorie balance, which is a neutral calorie balance. Here someone consumes the same number of calories through food as his or her body burns. This means all the calories you consume will be used for some form of body process, and your weight will remain stable off course. The food you eat and the calories you burn will never match 100% on any given day. But over the course of weeks and months, a neutral calorie balance is definitely possible. If your weight hasn't changed over the last few months, your calorie balance is almost always neutral. Okay, so now that you know the fundamentals behind calorie balances, let's see how all this dry theory can help us with actual real life dieting. What you need to understand is that your calorie balance will determine how much muscle you can gain and how much fat you can lose over any period of time. Why? Because calories are literally the building blocks of body tissue. If you want to build more muscle, you not only need to train, but you also need to provide your body with the necessary raw materials to four muscle cells. On the other hand, if you want to burn fat, you have to make sure that your body doesn't have enough calories for maintenance and activity so it will draw additional energy from the Fed sells, which leads them to shrink. I will explain both processes and more detail later. 4. Macronutrients: after your calorie balance. The second most important factor of your diet are macronutrients. Macronutrients are the three main nutrients your body needs to survive. In fact, it needs each macronutrients and relatively large quantities to function properly. So what are the three macronutrients protein, carbohydrates and dietary fete? Protein is one of the basic components of food, and it makes all life possible. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and help provide for the transport of nutrients, oxygen and waste throughout the body. Basically, they provide the structure for all cells and tissue. By the way, one gram of protein contains four calories. Carbohydrates, on the other hand, are the main source of energy, especially during high intensity activity. Unlike fat and protein, carbs are not essential, meaning you could survive without them. However, as you will see, that is not ideal, and carbs are an important part of any healthy diet. They held regulate protein and fat metabolism and eight, and the growth and repair of tissues like protein, carbohydrates contained four calories per gram. Last our dietary fits, which are essential for home production, brain function and other body processes, and you cannot live without them. There are potentially hundreds of different fatty acids, but just a few dozen are commonly found in the food week. Nutritionists, usually classified dietary, fed as either saturated unsaturated or transfats, all of which I will explain in more detail later. One gram of fat has nine calories, which is more than double that of protein and carps. Okay, now that you have a broad overview of the three macronutrients, let's look at each individually, starting with protein. 5. Protein: No matter what fitness blogger you read or which expert you listen to, they will all agree on one thing. Protein is important. Not only is it important for building and repairing muscle fibers after exercise, but it actually has thousands of other central roles in the body, for example, producing antibodies for the immune system, manufacturing hormones and enzymes that are involved in most reactions in the body. Eating in the digestion and absorption of food. Maximizing the transport of oxygen to tissues and providing structure for muscles, tendons, ligaments, organs, bones here and skin. For fitness purposes, protein is actually the most important dietary macronutrients. That's because muscle is literally made out of it. If your muscles are the walls of your house, then protein is the concrete out of which the walls are built. It not only provides the building blocks for muscle growth, but also supplies the amino assets, which are essential and maintaining muscle mass when in a calorie deficit. As you can see, protein both builds new muscle and saves existing muscle from being lost. This makes it extremely important to get enough of it when you want to maximize your muscle growth and fat loss. Let's now look at what happens when you consumed protein. About 90% of the protein you eat is broken down into amino acids, which then become part of the amino acid pool that the body draws upon when it needs to build a repair muscle or other tissues. Unlike carbohydrates and fat, which nobody can store it for later use. Amino assets have no form of storage in the body, so it's important to have some protein every day. But wait before we continue. Let's clarify one thing. What are amino acids anyway? Armenia Assets are the building blocks of protein and are necessary to support muscle growth. Amino acids are usually categorized as either essential or non essential. There are eight or nine essential amino acids, depending on how you categorize them. But you don't really have to worry about them too much. Just understand that your body cannot create them and they must be obtained from foods and or supplements. And on the other hand, there also non essential immune assets, which can be produced in the body by reconfiguring other immune assets. 6. How much protein per day: How much protein do you really need? This question is as old as fitness itself, and it's one of those things beginners asked me about all the time. Now you might think that figuring out your perfect and take it easy and super straightforward. But to be honest, there is no one size fits all answer. That's because your protein intake will depend on a variety of factors, such as your weight, muscle mass and, most importantly, your fitness schools. The average person will have completely different protein needs than a professional athlete or a £250 bodybuilder. With this in mind, I will now show you how much protein you need for three specific cases. First, to simply live a healthy life next to build muscle. And, lastly, to lose fat. The first case is the easiest. The U. S Department of Agriculture recommends 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day for the average person. Now, this value might seem very low to you, and that's because it iss 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight is more or less what is necessary for the average person to survive without any major deficiencies. Obviously, you don't just want to survive, so your daily intake should probably be a little higher than that, depending on how active you are. I recommend 0.5 to 0.7 grams of protein for the average person not looking to build muscle . But what if you want to build muscle? This takes us to the second case. How much protein should someone consume? Who's working out and looking to grow muscle mass? If you ever joined a bodybuilding or fitness forum, then you will probably notice that this question pops up a lot, and it usually triggers a lot of debate. I always smile when everything's discussions, because people either post values that are way too high or way too specific. For example, they will tell you that you have to consume exactly 1.5 grams per pound of body weight or you will not build muscle at all. Off course. This is nonsense. What makes a lot more sense is to figure out a daily intake range that is in line with scientific studies and personal experience. If we look at the present research literature on protein intake for anyone looking to build muscle. The ideal daily intake always lies anywhere between 0.8 grams and one gram per pound of body weight. If you are below the strange, your body will not build muscle at the optimal rate. Now, this doesn't mean that you won't build any muscle. Just that if you fall below this range, your muscle growth could be better if you increase your protein intake by a bit. But the more interesting thing is that going above the ideal range doesn't bring any benefits. Our body can only build so much muscle at any time, even if you train perfectly and eat tons of protein. So instead of slamming down dozens off way protein shakes a day, stick to the either a range of 0.8 grams to one gram per pound of body weight, and you're good to go. Interestingly, this range is also pretty close to the old bro. Science advice off one gram per pound of body weight. Okay, now, what about the last fitness school where you want to lose fat instead of build muscle? Do the values I just gave you change and the short answer is not really when losing weight . Your primary goal is always to maximize fat loss and preserve lean muscle mass. To achieve this. Ah, high protein diet is very important. So again stick to around 0.821 gram per pound of body weight per day, which definitely counts as a high protein diet. If you are at a severe calorie deficit which I don't recommend by the way, you might even want to go a little higher than that. But 0.8 grams per pound of body weight is usually enough for most people. Follow this rule while eating mostly healthy foods, and I promise you that you will see results. 7. Fat: as with so many things and fitness and dieting vets are often misunderstood. That's a shame because they play a very important role in your health. So let's use this lesson to find out what fed is really all about and also debunk a few myths along the way. Besides protein and carbohydrates, dietary fat is one of the three main macronutrients and besides protein, one of the essential macronutrients. That means your body needs some fatty assets to survive and cannot produce them from other foods. You also need fed for optimal hormone production and to keep your skin and hair healthy. On top of that, it helps you absorb vitamins A, D, E and K, the so called fat soluble vitamins and lastly, fete sales in select your body and help you to keep warm. One gram of fat has nine calories, which is more than twice the number of calories in a gram of carbohydrates and protein, which each have four calories per gram. Okay, now that you know the fundamentals, let's talk about the different types of fed, and let's start with the two types. Most people are familiar with saturated and unsaturated fats saturated fats were long referred to as bad fats as was believed that they raise your alien cholesterol. Cholesterol is a soft, waxy substance that can cause clock or blocked arteries. Therefore, high LDL cholesterol can theoretically put your risk for heart attack, stroke and other major health problems. Nowadays, though, the effect of saturated fats on LDL cholesterol seems to be a lot less problematic than previously thought, which means that as long as you stick to healthy whole foods, you shouldn't obsess too much about your saturated fat intake. Just as a side note, I will give you some guidelines from the ideal friend intake later in the pores. Foods that contain a lot of saturated fat are animal products such as butter, cheese, whole milk, ice cream, cream and fending meats. Some vegetable oils, such as coconut palm and palm kernel oil also contain saturated fats. You can easily identify them as they're usually solid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, can help lower your LDL cholesterol. Most vegetable oils that are liquid at room temperature have unsaturated fats. Among the unsaturated fats, we can distinguish two kinds Mona unsaturated fats, which include olive and canola oil and Polian saturated fits, which included safflower, sunflower, corn and soy oil. One last type of event that you will stumble across our transfats transferred es. It's formed when vegetable oil is infused with hydrogen. This is often done to keep foods fresh for a longer time. The problem is that studies have shown that relatively small amounts of thes transfats will increase the risk of different health problems, including heart disease, Alzheimer's, breast cancer, depression and more. Therefore, do your best to avoid foods high in transfats, since transfats are usually found in junk food, which you should avoid anyway, switching to a better diet with more quality, unprocessed foods will automatically lower your transfer intake. 8. How much fat per day: since we already talked about the optimal protein intake, we also need to talk about the optimal fed intake. Fortunately, this is a lot simpler. In order to maintain your general health and fitness, you only need around 0.3 grams per pound of fat free mass per day. You're fed free mass is everything in your body that is in fact so muscle water and bone off course you probably won't be able to figure out you're fed free mess unless you have a specialist for personal trainer. Measure your body fat percentage, so to help you out, let me give you an easier rule of thumb. 0.3 grams per pound of fat free mass per day. Translate to roughly 15 to 20% of daily calories for most people, this is a target value that you should not undercut both. When dieting tools Fendt and when dieting to build muscle. That means at least 1/5 of your total calories should come from dietary fat. But as you know from the last section, what type of fat you eat is also important. You want to somewhat limit your saturated fat intake, avoid artificial transfats and favor Mona and Situated and Polian saturated fats. This approach is ideal for both health and fitness. I recommend you get the majority of your dietary fed from moment saturated fats and that you keep your saturated fat intake at or below 10% of daily calories. We will talk about which foods are perfect for this in more detail in the lesson on Fed sources. So be sure to listen to that one carefully. Now there is one more case We need to talk about where you want to further increase your unsaturated fat intake above 15 to 20%. And that's when your bulking bulking is the term used for going into calorie surplus. To ensure optimal muscle group. Skinny people looking to put on size often have a hard time with this. Let me give you an example to illustrate this. Imagine you need to eat 3000 calories to gain weight, but you've already reached your macro nutrient needs at 2000 calories. Then you have a choice to me. You can either eat more protein, more carbs, more Fendt or a combination of the three. In many cases, eating more fat is a good idea because of a few reasons. First of all, fence, at least the good kind, are very healthy. In fact, monounsaturated fats or some of the healthiest calories that you can consume. This includes all of canola oils, avocados, natural nut butters and many Ron, such as peanuts and almonds. You can also eat certain healthy situated fence like coconut oil or grass fed animal products. The next benefit is taste. Dietary fat makes pretty much any food taste better, and almost no one will complain when you at more fats to their diet. The same cannot be said for cars. By the way, the third benefit is probably the most important for people who have a hard time gaining weight. It's calorie density. Proteins and carbs have four calories program, and fat has nine calories per gram. Like I said before, that's more than twice as much. For example, a tablespoon of olive oil has more calories than an entire apple. So if you're already full but still need more calories to meet your daily calorie intake, extra fat is going to be a lot easier to consume. Lastly, most fits and healthy oils are fairly cheap, which means they won't kill your budget every time you go to the supermarket. Taken together these points after the power of fence as your default extra calories, keep in mind that in some cases carbs can also take on this role. But I will talk about this in more detail later in the course. 9. Carbs: the third and final macronutrients are carbohydrates, Just as with fat and protein, they are often misunderstood, and there are countless myths floating around about the rule of carbs in your diet. Before we get into these, let's first find out what cars actually are. Carbohydrates are found in foods including fruits, vegetables, grains, potatoes, pastry and candy, and they're considered the body's preferred energy source. More specifically, carps are sugar molecules that are a union of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Think of carbs as one or more sugar molecules that are bound together and then broken down by the body to be used. This fuel. When you consume high carb foods, your body breaks them down into the simple sugar glucose, which is then transported throughout the body to provide energy, fuel important reactions and maintain blood sugar levels. Any glucose that is not used can be stored in your liver and muscles as glycogen or, if the stores are full, this fat during high intensity activities, for example, weight training or sprinting your body uses clack a gin and converts it back to glucose for new fuel. If glycogen stores are low, your workouts will become more and more difficult, and your performance will suffer next to its importance for workouts. Carbohydrates have other benefits. They include first, the promotion of digestive health. Dietary fibre is a type of carbohydrate that is not broken down into glucose by the body. That means that passes through the body as is and helps with your digestion. There are two main types of fibre. Soluble and insoluble soluble fiber is found in both legumes and certain fruits. It draws in water and forms gel like substance. This substance increases the bulk of your stool and soft and said help make bowel movements easier On the other end. Insoluble fibre house with constipation because it makes her stool move faster through the digestive track, it can be found in whole grains and the skins and seeds of fruits and vegetables. Next, carbs help provide energy for your brain and nervous system. The brain is actually one of the biggest car consumers in the bottom. That means ensuring enough glucose in your blood will help with concentration and muscle activation. Doing workouts, for example, you probably know the feeling of tiredness after long workout. Well, a big part of that is actually a tired nervous system and not just your muscle soreness. That's why eating carbs before and after your train is always a good idea. We will talk about this in more detail in the lessons on pre and post workout meals. Carbs also function as an energy storage. Not only do carps for my energy doing workouts, the storage of glycogen in the muscles also plays a role in muscle growth. Low glycogen levels by themselves have been shown to reduce rates of muscle bro. So even if you trained correctly and eat enough protein, it still makes sense to include a good amount of carbs in your meal plan. Also, glycogen is stored along with water and the muscle, which means that filling your stores will make the muscle appear bigger, which is a nice side effect. And, lastly, carps trigger the release of insulin. The more carp seed, the more insulin will be released by your body. This is important because insulin plays a big role in muscle growth. It activates certain cells on the muscle, which lead to more growth. Making insulin very anabolic. Of course, you still want to avoid seven spikes and drops an insulin so don't think this benefit is a reason to eat. Process triggers that digest quickly. Whole food carbs will always be your best option, as they also trigger an insulin response, but just a little slower and more gradually. 10. The different types of carbs: When researching different carbs, you will inevitably come across some of the following classifications. Healthy versus unhealthy carbs, good versus bad carbs, slow versus fast carbs or its simple versus complex carbs. If you look at all these categories, it's no wonder people get confused. But remember, carbohydrates are just sugar molecules, all of which are broken down by the body into glucose. Glucose is a single sugar molecule that is used as fuel by the cells in your body, from your brain to your muscles. There are three types of carbohydrates that are defined by the number of sugar molecules they contain. First moment, Sacha rights. This is one sugar molecule, and examples include glucose gala toes, which you confined in milk and fructose, which you find in fruit. Next, we have dissect writes these air two sugar molecules bound together here. Examples include sucrose, so table sugar lack toes and milk, and maltose and beer. And lastly, we have police SEC rights, which are several sugar molecules bound together. Examples include starchy foods like pasta or potatoes and fiber, which promotes the passage of food through the gut and therefore helps maintain bowel regularity. When a carbohydrate is simple. It refers to Mona and dissect rights that are easily absorbed into the bloodstream because of their simple molecular structure. Think of milk, fruit and table sugar. Complex carbs, on the other hand, are police sec arise because of their more complex molecular structure that can take longer for the body to break down. Think of grains, vegetables and potatoes. Okay, at this point, you're probably saying to yourself, So simple Carbs are bad and complex Carbs are good, right? Well, the answer to that question is not as easy as you might think, because carbohydrates that cause your blood sugar level to rise rapidly are generally considered unhealthy, Whereas those there are absorbed slowly and have little effect on blood. Sugar levels are considered healthy. Nowadays, they're often ranked by something called the Glass Scenic Index. The Glass Scenic index was created to measure the speed with which carbohydrates are converted to glucose. Foods that digest quickly are high on the index, which ranges from 0 to 100 foods that I just slowly are lower on the index. This is important because large spikes of insulin levels can make you even more hungry, can negatively impact fat loss and even lead to diabetes if levels are chronically elevated . Here's a short list of some high and local icymi carbohydrate foods. What you need to know, though, is that even though the guy seeming next can be helpful, it's not perfect. For example, certain types of ice cream can show up as 30 on the Lycee Mick and next, so fairly low, along with some other carb sources, like spaghetti ease that don't offer a lot of nutrients and have quite a few calories per serving. Also, foods like watermelons that are, ah, high on the glycemic and next impact blood sugar levels for less when adjusted on a per serving basis. Simply because watermelon it's mostly water. This concept is referred to as the guy seeming load. Lastly, the glassy Mick and next only measures thean packed off isolated foods on blood sugar levels. That means the impact of a food only holds true when you eat it with nothing else on an empty stomach. Most people will not only advice but rice with chicken and vegetables, for example, Combining carbohydrates with other foods like protein or dietary fed slows down the pace of digestion and therefore lowers its impact on blood sugar levels. So as you can see, the entire concept of the glassy nakedness is not a solid, as many people believe. If you're confused now, don't worry. Here's a much simpler rule to follow when it comes to carps. If you're eating whole natural, unprocessed carbs, you can consider them a good car. But if it was made in a lab or has been processed, for example, soda candy or white bread, it's a bad carb. Or better yet, one that you shouldn't eat as often. Okay, one more question. I often get asked when explaining All of this is, Do bad carbs make you fet? There are countless fitness gurus out there preaching that a diet high in carbs will make you fed, or that you shouldn't eat carbs after six o'clock. The truth is that these claims are usually complete nonsense were taken out of context. Carves themselves, do not make you fit as you know from the last lesson. They serve important functions in your body, especially if you trained with high intensity. What is true, though, is that many processed foods such as candy or fast food, are high in sugar and other types of simple carbs. The's foods often lead to cravings and can make it easier to overeat even when you've already filled your daily calories but are still hungry. That is why many people who follow a diet that is based around search foods will see weight gain over time. But of course, in order to get fat, you always need a calorie surplus, which you could also reach with a high protein or a high fat diet. So as long as you include quality carbs in your meal plan, you will be fine and don't have to worry about the anti CART marketing out there. 11. How many carbs per day: We already talked about the ideal intake of protein and fat, So let's also discuss how many carbs you should eat for optimal performance. What you need to understand is that carbs are the only non essential macronutrients. So in theory you could survive without eating any carbs, which means there is no minimum intake that I could give you. But just surviving is not our goal. And because of all the benefits that we can get from eating quality carbs, it definitely makes sense to include them in our diet. In fact, for athletes, not getting enough carbohydrates will lead to worse workout performance, less muscle growth and more fatigue and sluggishness. So while you technically don't have to eat them, cutting carbs from your diet completely is usually not a good idea. So the question is, how many carbs should you regularly eat to get all the benefits I talked about earlier? The ideal carbon take is based on several factors, and in order to figure out exactly how many carbohydrates you need, we would have to do a lot of blood tests and other measurements. Fortunately, even without knowing your exact measurements, we can still narrow in on the range using only two measures. Your body weight in your training intensity. As you can see from the table, your carbon take will increase with training intensity. The harder workouts, the more carbs you will need to consume to fuel your muscles as a general rule of thumb. If you do light workouts, try to get 1 to 1.25 grams per pound of body weight. For moderate workouts, go with 1.25 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight and for heart workouts. Goal with 1.5 to 1.75 grams per pound of. But, of course, you're asking yourself right now what are light, moderate and heart workouts? Right? Light workouts will usually be around 30 minutes or less, and it's a workout with less than 10 working sets. If you're lifting weight, moderate workouts are anything between 30 to 60 minutes and more than 10 working sets. If you're lifting weights and lastly hard workouts are anything more intensive than a moderate work out? Whether that means longer workouts for more working, since please keep in mind that this isn't an exact science, so you will have to decide for yourself where you lie on the scale. I personally always like to train very intensively, even if it's only for 45 minutes, which is why I still consume my carbs according to the heart workout category. Now, before we go on to the next lesson, let's talk about one more thing. Can you eat too many carbs? This is a difficult question not only because carbs have been vilified in recent years by many popular diets such as the key toe or Atkins diet, but also because too many will differ from individual to individual and also on the type of carp that you eat as a general rule for most active people in athletes, there does not seem to be such a thing as an excessive carbon take as long as you also get enough protein and fat. We know from studies done with endurance runners and vegetarians that die. It's very high in carbohydrates can be very healthy in the long term. What this assumes, though, is that you get your carbs from quality sources such as whole grains, rise holds and potatoes these air all complex carbs that do not lead to sudden spikes and insulin and blood sugar levels, which is the case for simple carbs like candy and sugar. What this means is that if you exercise a lot and need the extra energy, then you can definitely consume large amounts of carbs as long as you get them from complex carbs and also stick to the ideal protein and fed intakes that I talked about before. Also, keep in mind that some people stomach simply don't react well. Toe a high carb diet. They will feel full, bloated and somewhat tired after they eat carbs. If this applies to you, I recommend you keep your carbon. Take at the level in the table and fill your outstanding calories with healthy fats. 12. Meal timing: let's now talk about the next priority on the list, meal timing or nutrition time. This is a huge topic of discussion, the fitness community and one that has always been controversial off course to know what exactly? I mean with meal timing, it's useful to first to find the term in detail. Basically, meal timing tells you when to eat your meals every day. This general definition also includes to other factors that we should talk about meal frequency. So how many meals you should eat every day and pre and post workout meals? So what, you should eat before and after your training sessions. Before we talk about all this, let me say one thing. Even though meal timing has its place in a well designed diet, its importance is almost always overestimated by beginners. Calories and macronutrients are a lot more important than meal timing, and if you cared only about them, you'd be totally fine. There are certain times of the day when it makes sense to eat certain foods, but this doesn't have the potential to make or break your diet, like your calories or macronutrients do. This also means that if you lead a busy life and don't have a lot of time to perfectly plan your meals. You can still see great results if you follow what I taught you in the last lessons. That being said, let's now look at what you can do toe optimize your meal time. 13. When to eat protein: when and how often should you consume protein per day? You probably heard the age old advice that you should eat six meals throughout the day to constantly supply your muscle with enough protein so it doesn't break down. The idea is that while our body can store dietary fed in the fed sells and carbohydrates and deliver and muscles, it cannot store excess protein. That's why for many years bodybuilders religiously plan their meals and always had a protein shake or protein bar with them to avoid going into a cata Bolic state where your body breaks. Don't muscle tissue for energy. If this seems extremely stressful to you and I have good news today, we know that even though the body cannot store excess protein, it's a lot smarter than many people think. And you don't have to eat six meals to grow and maintain muscle tissue. Nor do you have to time them exactly three hours apart. Let me explain when it comes to protein timing. Our one and only goal is to create a continual supply of amino assets from digestive protein into the bloodstream to avoid muscle breakdown. The one important variable we have to look at here is protein digestion, protein digestion describes how fast or how slow the consumed food is actually broken down into amino assets and then absorbed by the G I tract. How long this process takes depends on three main factors. Protein type, meal size and fat and fibre content. Let's look at each and more detail. First protein time. The fastest digesting protein is weight, which could be digested in less than an hour. After that come whole food proteins, so lean meat, poultry and fish. They take several hours to be broken down and digested and provide the blood with amino acids the entire time. The slowest digesting protein type are dairy products. That's because of their casing content, which clumps together in the stomach and can take up to seven hours to be digested and processed by the body. Okay, the next factor is meal size. Because our G I tract requires a certain time to break down and absorb food, you can further slow down the process by simply adding more food to your meals. This then will also reduce the digestion time of protein, for example. The normal protein check will usually be digested within an hour. But if you add some oatmeal to that shake, the same protein will be digested a lot slower. Also just eating more of the same food. So a larger piece of meat, for example, will result in slower digestion. What this means is that eating larger meals will not lead you to lose some of the protein Instead, the body's natural reaction to this is to slow down digestion, so it has more time to take in the protein. And the third factor is fat and fibre content, just like larger meal size is fat and fibre slow down digestion. That's why certain foods, for example, fatty meats make you so full. The combination off fat and protein in a steak forces your body to slow down digestion. So that means if you want to feel full for longer, it makes sense to at fiber and or healthy fed stream meals, and also eat them in combination with other foods. If you look at most of the traditional meals throughout the world, you can see that we intuitively do this. We don't just eat meat or chicken. Instead, we had vegetables rise and maybe even some peanut butter. Now, with this in mind, what's the bottom line on meal timing and meal frequency? When it comes to protein, first year goes to maintain a continual supply of amino acids to the muscle. Second, there different ways of achieving this. You can eat six small meals and simply follow the old bodybuilder advice. But you can also just eat three meals as long as they're large enough to cover both your daily protein needs and are slowly digested. Now, I probably wouldn't go lower than two meals per day, but I doubt that you would want that anyway. And what about protein timing when it comes to your workouts? The evidence on this is inconclusive. Some studies show a positive effect of post workout protein on muscle growth, while others find no such relations. Overall, it seems that as long as you meet your daily calorie and macro nutrient requirements through normal food, you don't have to drink a protein check right before or right after a workout. Like so many people think, what you want to do instead is get your pre and post workout meals right, which is something we will cover in later lessons. Lastly, What about before you sleep? I personally eat a fairly large meal for dinner and drink half away protein shake before I go to bat. But if you eat very little or no protein for dinner than a slow, digesting protein like casing might be a good choice before you go to sleep simply because it's digested so slowly. 14. When to eat carbs: Let's now look at carbohydrate timing. So when and how often you should eat carps first. How often to be honest, this is really simple because pretty much any set up will work. That means you can eat carbs in 2 to 6 meals throughout the day. Of course, if you eat a lot of them, you probably want to have more than two meals. But that's just personal preference. Also, in theory, carbohydrate meals that are too large to be converted into glycogen will be deposited Morris fat tissue. However, from my experience, the drawbacks are minimal here. What's more important is that you time you carves according to your workout schedule. Simply put, you want to eat some form of carbohydrates before and after your workout. Why? Because eating cars before you work out will provide your muscles with additional fuel for your training, which will indirectly affect your muscle goal because you will be able to lift more weight or train more intensively eating carbs after you work out. On the other hand, will refill glycogen stores, which have been depleted in your worker. Also, including carbs in your post workout meal will quickly raise insulin levels and keep them elevated for longer periods of time. Insulin has antique anabolic properties, which means it decreases the rate of protein breakdown that occurs after exercise. So you see, it's pretty simple how often you eat carbs throughout the day. It doesn't really matter as long as you get some before and after your workout. You probably want to know how long before and how long after you need to consume your carbs . And how much exactly? That's what I will talk about in the lessons on pre and post workout meals, so be sure to pay attention there. 15. When to eat fat: after we have talked so much about protein and carbohydrate timing, Here's some good news that timing is a lot simpler, really. The only time you should avoid fence is right before your workout. Since fat slows down the digestion of both carbs and protein, a meal high in fat white before you work out will not only make you more tired. It also limits the availability of energy in the form of carbs throughout your workout. That being said, if you eat your meal and our before your training session or even before that, then don't worry about fantasy. The only other thing you need to know about fat timing is actually not so much a problem as it is a benefit. Like I said before, that will slow down the digestion of carbs and proteins so it can be used to time meals over longer intervals. For example, if you cannot eat for some reason for the next five hours, a meal high end fed can be consumed before that interval, along with some protein and carbs. This will slow down the digestion off the meal and ensure consistent supply of amino acids and glucose. Don't over complicate this, though. As long as you meet your recommended daily Finnan take. This is the least important thing to worry about. 16. Pre workout meal: once you make sure that you're getting your total calories and macronutrients right for the day, both your pretty end post workout meals are the most important meal of the day and not your breakfast. Like so many people believe, Let's first talk about pre workout nutrition. Its main role is to fuel the workout itself and maximize your performance. Some simple right. That's because it is. Unfortunately, the fitness world has really over complicated. This and many horrors will sell you some super specific recommendations or products that really don't make a difference. Let's now cut through all that nonsense and figure out exactly what you should be eating before your work. Like I said before, this meal is meant to fuel your training session. From a scientific standpoint, it's meant to do three things. Reduce muscle glycogen depletion, reduce muscle protein breakdown and reduce post workout cortisol levels. Now, how exactly do you accomplish this? Easy. You eat carbs and protein before you work up. What this means is that the most important rule of your pre workout meal is to consume a good amount of both carbs and protein before you train. I know this sounds very simple and maybe too simple for you. But let me tell you that most people overcomplicate this and fear that if they don't consume X grams of protein and ex grams of carbs X minutes before the workout, they will build no muscle or lose no fat. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably trying to sell you some overpriced supplement . Of course, I don't want to leave you with no guidelines at all, so I will give you a few rough values that you can keep in mind when you prepare your pre workout meal. The truth Specifics year will always differ from person to person and depend on what time of the day workout or how much time you actually have before you work up. But they're still a good reference if you can eat a balanced meal with 0.2 to 0.25 grams per pound of body weight for both carbs and protein around an hour before you work up now, in case you don't have time for that and or your last meal eyes more than two hours prior to your training, consume liquid or easily digestive protein and carbs. 30 minutes before you work out, this could be a protein shake with a banana, for example, the liquid protein will be more easily digested, allowing your body to absorb nutrients faster. I personally like to eat a normal meal of brown, rise chicken and vegetables an hour before my workout. As you can see, this is nothing special. Just protein and carbs coming from normal foods 1 to 2 hours before working out. This is what has proven to get in the best results, and we'll keep things as simple as possible. There's really no need to get any more complicated than that. And no need to obsess about the specifics. Last but not least, in case you don't like rice and chicken or don't want to eat it every day, here's some more. Suggestions for pre workout meals means that you can eat up to one hour before your workout . Include oatmeal with way protein mixed in a large chicken sandwich with whole grain bread. Two more hard boiled eggs on an avocado toast. Whole grain pasta was some sort of protein again. This can be chicken or meat or whatever source of protein you prefer and snakes that you can eat 30 minutes for less before you work out. Include and banana with the protein shake or a protein bar. 17. Post workout meal: great now that I showed you what to eat before your workout. We also need to talk about what to eat after your workout. The main role of your post workout meal is to supply her body with everything it needs to repair and recover the muscle tissue that was broken down doing your training. Specifically, the goal of the post workout meal is to accomplish the falling refill muscle glycogen stores that were depleted during a workout. Reduced muscle protein breakdown caused by exercise, increased muscle protein synthesis. Reduce fatigue and muscle soreness. Improve your recovery from training and reduce stress levels. How can you achieve this by giving your body the same macronutrients you did in the pre workout meal, carbs and protein again? Your primary goal with your post work on meal is to consume a good amount of both carbs and protein in some form soon after your work up. How much and how soon, Exactly. You ask again, around 0.2 to 0.25 grams per pound of body weight for both carbs and protein. If you're really hungry, you can also increase the carbs. These air just general values to keep in mind. Timing should be around 30 to 60 minutes after your workout, and pre and post workout meals shouldn't be separated by more than 3 to 4 hours. That means if you had a large meal an hour before you work out, you have more time afterwards to prepare your post workout meal. One tip on days when you don't have time to prepare an entire meal right away after your training session is to pack a post workout shake. I explained how to do this in a later lesson, and it's super simple. 18. What about the anabolic window: One thing you probably noticed while I was talking about post workout nutrition is the lack of the phrase anabolic window. The idea of the anabolic window is that you have a specific window of time after you work out to eat food, and if you do this, your muscle growth, it's accelerate. If you don't, however, you will miss out on this benefit or even worse, blues muscle. Now most proponents of this idea usually tell you that the time window is anywhere from a few minutes to half a Knauer. After you finish your work up, they will say the sooner you provide your body with protein and carbs after you work out the better. However, there has been quite a bit of research done on this topic, and today we know that this window is a lot larger if it even exists in the first place. Like I said in the previous lessons, if you eat within an hour after your workout, you will be fine, and the closer your pre workout meal was to your workout, the more time you have afterwards. The bottom line is that it makes sense to eat a balanced meal after a train, but you don't have to do it as soon as you're done with your last set. As long as you stick to the basics, you will be fine. 19. Foods: now that we talked about all the different nuances off your meal timing and frequency. Let's look at the next priority of meal plan, which are the foods you eat. Food quality refers to the individual food seed, and they're given nutrients. At this point, you might ask yourself why this style aspect is sold on the list. After all, we're almost at the end of this section of the course. Don't fitness gurus always tell you that it's super important to eat certain foods and not others? For example, you often hear claims that they're special weight loss foods that will accelerate your metabolism and make cut loss that much easier. So why are we only talking about this now? There are two reasons for this. First, when it comes to meal planning for fitness, meaning your goals are to lose weight gain muscle or both. The food to eat really are a lot less important than people think. As long as you follow the guidelines I showed you regarding calorie consumption and macro nutrient intake, you will pretty much guarantee to reach your goals. What this means is that consuming enough protein, for example, is a lot more important than whether this protein comes from an egg or a piece of meat. Our bodies are very intelligent organisms and can handle a wide variety of foods. Second, when it comes to being healthy and consuming nutrient rich meals, there are differences between different foods. Of course, this is why I've dedicated the entire second part of the course just to what I call a healthy diet. In it, we will talk about individual foods and how they affect your health. I will answer questions like Does meat cause cancer, or is gluten really bad for you? In that sense, what you eat matters a lot more, obviously, but we will get to that later. For now, let's stick with what's important for meal planning for fitness. And here. The truth is that your foods will only have a minor impact on the results. Still, I believe you should know the difference is in the different sources of protein carbs. In fact, let's start with protein 20. Protein quality: protein quality can be measured in a number of ways. The most common concept you will hear about his bio availability, which describes what percentage of the protein that you consume is actually absorbed into the bloodstream. Another indicator of protein quality considers how much of the protein is composed of essential immune assets, which are those your body cannot make itself and how much of the protein is composed of non essential amino acids, which are those your body can make itself. Obviously, sources that are rich in essential immune assets are of higher quality. In this sense, in general, protein quality rings from animal sources to plant sources. Here's a short list of common foods ranked by their protein quality according to the concept I just mentioned, starting with the most quality source. First in first place comes way protein, followed by eggs and then meats and poultry. So beef, pork, chicken and turkey, fish and seafood ranks somewhere in the middle, followed by soy protein and Canoa. Then you have combined planned sources like beans and rice together and lastly of isolated plant sources, for example, whole grains for nuts by themselves. What this means is that all other things being equal. Your improvements and fitness will be better if the proteins higher on the list predominate in your diet. Over the proteins lower on the list, but and this is very important. Don't go out and buy buckets full of way protein powder while consuming nothing else. First of all, the differences between the foods are very small and make up only a few percent of diet success at the most. Second, there's nothing worse for your physical and mental health than a completely one sided diet . Even though nuts, for example, aren't the highest quality source of protein, they are a great source of healthy fats and micronutrients, the singles for other plant based proteins, or fish and seafood. This also means that vegetarian and vegan athletes will see great results as long as they make sure to get enough total protein while also eating a variety of plant sources. 21. Carb quality: just like protein quality carbohydrate quality can refer to several concepts. The most common is the glassy makin next, which we already talked about in the lesson on the different types of carbs. I will explain the concept of the glycemic index again in this list because it is the most well known measure off carbohydrate quality. If you already understood it or don't want to hear it again, you can skip this lesson in its simplest form, the guys seeming and next is a measure off both how fast food raises blood glucose levels and how much it elevates insulin levels. This measure is generally applied to carbohydrates and brings from 0 to 100. The faster car was absorbed, and the larger its effect on insulin, the closer it will be to 100. Slower absorbing and digesting cars, on the other hand, will be closer to zero. Here's a short list of common cards and their G ratings. As you can see, nuts and lagoons have the lowest G I ratings. Fruits and milk products are a bit higher. Whole grains are in the middle range process. Carbs are on the high end and anything high in sugar is usually at the top of the list now , just as with protein quality, the glass ceiling and next comes with a big caveat. And here's the problem. G I ratings are based on the glycemic effect of specific foods that are consumed, isolated and in a fast at ST. That means unless you eat first thing in the morning or after a long fast, you will never be consumed. Your carbohydrates and a past that state, and even then, a typical fitness meal plan always combines carbohydrates with fats and proteins, and since fibre infects will down digestion and absorption, they have a lowering effect on the glycemic and next of any corn, just carbohydrate. And even in the rare case that you did consume a high glass seeming carbohydrate source alone in a fasted state, it still won't affect you to any meaningful degree. Because unless you have a pre existing health condition, the human body is very good at keeping your blood sugar levels and insulin levels within a fairly precise range. This implies especially to people who regularly exercise. What this means is that even though the Lycee makin next is a nice theoretic concept, in real world scenarios, it's really not as important as many people make it out to be. Having your blood sugar or insulin levels increased to higher than normal rates isn't going to have any measurable impact on your muscle building or fat burning goals. So instead of comparing fast cars versus slow cards, here's what you should be focusing on. First, get the majority of a carbon take so 80 to 90% from high fibre, minimally processed sources. This includes foods such as oats, rice, potatoes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Second, consume your carbs as part of a complete meal with protein and healthy fats. As long as you do these two things, you're good at school, and there is no need to go crazy about car quality. 22. Fat quality: for your muscle building and fat loss schools. Fed quality is even less important than carb and protein quality. But consuming certain kinds of fits and staying away from others will make a big difference in your overall health. As you know, that's gonna be split into two main categories. Saturated and unsaturated fats. The's do can further be broken down into other sub categories. As you can see in the following chart, I recommend you focus on Mona on saturated fats such as avocados, nuts and olive oil. Vegetable oils are a good source of Polian situated fits, which, along with healthy saturated fats, should make up most of your daily fat intake. As for the saturated fats that you eat, most should come from meets animal products and certain plant oils. It's usually best to stick with the healthier versions like grass fed beef or a coconut oil , which are pretty healthy when eaten in moderation. The singles for cheese, eggs, butter and other animal products, which are usually not a problem for the average person as long as you don't consume crazy amounts. What you should limit or avoid, though, are transfats, which can be found in highly processed foods and most junk food transfats have been shown to not only have negative effects on muscle growth and fat loss, but they're also very bad for your overall health. 23. Supplement Intro: the last step in setting up your fitness diet is adding supplements. Like I said in the beginning, supplements are important. In fact, you could see great results without ever using. Also, most supplements are completely hyped in overpriced supplement brands literally spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to sell you their product. That said, there are a few supplements that I think makes sense to add to your doctor. The list is very short, and all of them are pretty cheap. Here's what I'm talking about. 24. Top 3 Beginner Supplements: the last nutrition priority we need to talk about our supplements. Everyone knows that supplements can never replace proper diet, planning and nutrition, but they can help you reach your fitness goals faster when you take the right ones. Unfortunately, with so many different supplements on the market, it can be difficult to find the right ones. I remember how intimidated I was after my first visit to the local supplement store, where they had literally hundreds of powders, bars and pills. It's also not helpful that most supplement ads make promises that are often exaggerated and sometimes even flat out lies. You should always be skeptical when someone tells you they build crazy amounts of muscle with some new product, especially if they're trying to sell it to you. The simple truth is that the supplement industry is huge, huge, as in billions of dollars every year. It's also true that most of that money is spent on worthless products that won't have any effect on muscle growth or fat loss. So to help you find the right ones that are worth their price tag, here's my short list of the best supplements for beginners. They're looking to build muscle and or lose fat. In the later lesson, I will also go over supplements for improving general health and your immune system, so be sure to check that one out, too. The first beginner supplement is protein power. Protein powder is probably the single most popular workout supplements. That's because when you want to build muscle through strength training, your body requires more protein for muscle repair and growth after work out. While this doesn't mean that you have to use protein powder to reach your recommended daily protein intake, consuming enough protein every day, it can be tricky, especially when you don't have the time to prepare high protein meals every day. In that case, the good protein powder can really make your life easier. That's why most athletes and bodybuilders use protein powders in addition to a balanced diet. You probably already know this and might just be asking yourself which protein powder is best. From way to casting to vegan products. There are a lot of options to choose from, and within the fitness and bodybuilding community, there's always a lot of discussion about which is best. But as I explained in the lesson on protein powder. It most likely won't matter all that much. Which kind of protein you buy, as long as you take it regularly. So just go with the one you like best. As for dosage, your optimal intake should be a maximum of 30 to 50% of your daily protein intake. Okay, the second beginner supplement is creating. Creating is an organic asset that helps supply the muscle cells with energy drink, high intensity, short duration exercise along with protein powder. It is one of the few supplements that actually delivers on its promise to help you see more fitness progress. Unfortunately, due to its popularity, there are also a lot of misconceptions about creative. No, it will not harm your kidneys unless you haven't already existing conditions. Study after study has proven this. It also doesn't build muscle by itself, but it will increase your strength level. If you have taken one of my muscle building courses. You know that the only way to ensure a long term muscle rule is by applying progressive overload, you have to continually increase the tension placed on your muscle to force it to adapt and therefore grow by enabling you to lift heavy your weight creating will indirectly help you build more muscle, but you still have to put in the work in the lesson on how to take creating correctly. I will teach you everything you need to know about the optimal dosage, timing and other factors that are important here. And the last beginner supplement is fish oil. Even though fish oil won't directly to more muscle growth, it no only boosts your mood but also helps maintain healthy cholesterol level and strong bones and ligaments. Unfortunately, most of us aren't eating enough fish, which is why the average person should go for the second best option, which is supplementing with fish oil capsules. The omega three fatty acids contained and fish oil are essential fatty assets that reduce the risk of heart attack and lower blood pressure, among other benefits. I also found that my skin has improved since I started taking fish oil supplements. Another great advantage official is that there are basically no side effects unless you're allergic to it. While you will find people on the Internet complaining about a fishy aftertaste, this usually only happens when you buy low quality products. I personally have never had this problem. The optimal dosage of fish oil is around 1000 to 3000 milligrams of combined EPA and the H A per day. 25. How to use protein powder: If you go into any gym around the world, you will pretty much always see someone with a protein shake. In fact, protein powder is probably the most popular fitness supplement out there, along with creating, which will talk about in the next lesson. Even though scientific studies have debunked many of the myths surrounding protein powders , for example, that they cost kidney damage, most people are still confused about how to use this supplement correctly. So in this lesson, I will address the most common questions related to protein power. First is a protein powder absolutely necessary to build muscle? The answer is no, even though your body requires more protein when you want to build muscle through strength training, this doesn't mean that you have to use protein powders or any other protein supplement. For that matter. As long as you reach your recommended daily protein intake, you will be fine and will see results. However, consuming enough protein every day can be tricky, especially when you don't have the time to prepare high protein meals every day. That's why most athletes and bodybuilders use protein powders in addition to a balanced diet. So if you're a crunch for time. The good protein supplement can really make your life easier. Next, what type of protein powder is best? There are a lot of protein powders that you can buy, but the most common ones are powders based on way, casing or egg. You will also find vegan powders such as rice, where other plant based alternatives within the fitness and bodybuilding community. There's always a lot of discussion about the best protein supplement on any online form. You will almost certainly find people praising their protein powder due to its special amino acid profile or some other magic ingredient. What is often forgotten, however, is the fact that as long as you don't get all your daily protein from supplements, which is never a good idea, you won't notice the's tiny differences among the different forms of protein. For example, it is often noted that vegan powders have an inferior amino acid profile when compared toa way protein. Now it is true that some vegan powders are low in one of the essential amino acids, but this won't matter if the rest of your diet is balanced enough to supply you with all the essential immunize its so My recommendation is to go with your favorite sort of protein . What this means is that protein powder selection is more about personal preference and less about the actual product. With that being said, there are two forms of protein that I don't recommend to beginners, beef, protein and soy protein. The problem with beef protein is not so much about the beef. After all, it's one of the best whole food sources of protein, not the fact that most of the time you aren't getting the real thing. Many beef protein powders are made from what's left after you take away the quality meat. This includes ligaments, joints and even years or hoofs, which isn't exactly what you had in mind when you bought it right. Soy protein, on the other hand, can negatively affect your testosterone levels due to it being rich and plant based estrogen. There's still not enough research on how exactly this impacts your ability to build muscle mass, but I would avoid or at least limit soy protein intake as long as we don't know more Next question. When should you take protein powder? You've probably been told that you need to drink your protein shake right after work. If this has let you to run into the locker room and prepare shake as soon as you got done, what the last workout said, I have good news for you. Protein timing is nearly as important as people make it out to be. Even though some studies show a positive effect of post work. Are protein on protein synthesis. Others find no such relations. Overall, it seems that as long as you meet your total daily calories and total macronutrients three your normal diet, and this includes eating a full meal within two hours, prefer your workout. It really doesn't matter when you drink your protein shake. How much protein powder should you take? This depends on how much total protein you need to consume per day. And remember, the adequate protein intake is around 0.821 gram per pound of body weight per day. The majority of your diet should always be based on whole foods, a rule which applies not only to protein but all macro notions so tried to include fish, chicken, beef, eggs or any other quality protein source and use protein powder only as a supplement and not as a substitute, depending on your lifestyle, your required protein intake and your willingness to cook, I suggest you get around the third to maximum 1/2 of your protein intake from protein shakes. And lastly, what is the best liquid to mix? Protein powder with water is probably the most commonly used option here, since it has no calories. Water is ideal for any weight loss diet. The only drawback might be the thin consistency, which could make the shake taste less creamy. Another option is milk, which will provide you with some additional protein but also leads to a higher calorie count. This makes it less of an option when you want to lose weight, obviously, milk. It's also not an option if your lack toes intolerant or a vegan. Other alternatives would include soy or almond milk. But unless you by fed free soy milk is typically higher in calories than regular milk and often has added sugars. Of course, the disadvantages of soy protein, which I talked about before, also applied to soy milk. Almond milk usually has a lower calorie count if bought on sweetened, and it also adds have been more off the creamy taste. So to wrap up this lesson, how do you use protein powder correctly? The most common protein powders way protein. But as long as you follow a balanced diet, basically any type off protein supplement works. And as long as you meet your daily requirements through your normal diet and eat an adequate pre workout meal, protein timing will have only a small effect on your results. Try to get no more than 1/3 to 1/2 of your daily protein from protein shakes and which liquid you choose is really up to you as long as you track the calories and the protein that you get from the shake. 26. How to use creatine: if your goal is to build muscle, creating is one of the few supplements that actually delivers on its promise to help you see more gains. And I'm not just saying that because I personally like it. Study after study has proven that creating a safe and so far no side effects could be found in healthy adults. Before we go over how to use creating properly. Let's summarize what it actually does to improve your workout results. Creating is an organic asset that helps supply the muscle cells with energy during high intensity short duration exercise, even though it is a non essential Nugent. Because your body can produce. Creating naturally, supplementation makes sense, as it will further improve performance, mostly through increased strength, without going into too much detail. Here, creating house produced 80 p more quickly, which is the primary energy molecule used during weight training. Faster, 80 p availability translates to more strength, which in turn means more lean muscle gains over time. Along with increased strength. Creating will cause more water retention in the muscle, which makes them appear bigger and fuller. Now, how do you use creative for that? Let's go over a few frequently asked questions First, which form of creatine sure you use The research is very clear on this. Creating mono hydrant is still the most effective form of creative, while its variations like Creagh Colleen, which is buffer creating or creatine ethyl ester, are often sold for more than double the normal creating price. Scientific studies showed no additional benefits. If you want to save money without sacrificing results, go for a traditional creating more hydrate supplement to make sure you're getting 100% Mona hydrate. Look for the Korea pre or trademark, one of the most well known suppliers of creative Mona hydrate in the world. Next, when should you take creating? Creating doesn't have immediate effects, so it's timing really doesn't matter as long as you take it regularly. This means taking it before your exercise will not lead to increased strength right away. Every now and then, you will hear someone telling you that you should take it after your workout because it has been shown to lead to better results. Usually they will cite a study that supposedly proves that taking creating post workout needs to better absorption, but what you need to keep in mind is that the researchers themselves admitted that the difference was so small that their findings were in statistically relevant. In practice, this means that you can take creating whenever it fits you best. I personally like to drink it in the morning, along with the way protein shake, simply because that way, I have to worry about one less supplement throughout the day. Next. How much? Creating sure you take 3 to 5 grams per day is the recommended dosage, which is about a teaspoon. This is enough to saturate the muscle within 2 to 4 weeks and enough for maintenance afterwards. Taking and more won't lead to better results, as you will pee out the excess creating with what liquid should you makes, creating whatever drink you prefer. Honestly, it used to be common practice to mix, creating with a high sugar drink or some kind of juice. But research has again shown that this leads to no increase in creating uptake. The spike in insulin levels triggered by the sugar might lead to faster absorption. But as I explained before, this doesn't lead to better performance right away. Another common question is whether or not you needed loading face, and the answer is no. Some people like to do a loading face, which involves taking 20 grams per day for 5 to 7 days before then, switching to the recommended dose of 3 to 5 grams per day. Whether or not you want to do this is up to you. The higher initial dose will lead to a faster saturation of the muscle cells with creating , but only by a few days. And the normal dose will also get you there. And lastly, do you have to cycle creating also? No. There are no studies that link continued creating use with health risks or decrease in the body's natural production of creating. If for some reason you want or have to stop taking, creating your body will not undergo any withdrawal symptoms besides the decrease in strength. 27. How To Determine Your Ideal Calorie Intake: Okay, Now that you have learned the basics of meal planning theory, let's put everything into practice. Remember how your calorie balance is the number one determinant of your diet success, and that there are three different states of a calorie balance negative, positive and neutral off course. To reach any of the three states, you will have to know how many calories your body spends every day. There are several different equations and strategies you can use to calculate this valley. Some of them are more or less accurate and more or less difficult than others. I will now show you the easiest, most straightforward weight, which is to calculate your TD. Your TV describes her total daily energy expenditure, which is the number of calories that your body burns one day. It is calculated by estimating how many calories you burn while resting. This is called your basil medical, a great or BMR and adding a certain number of calories on top, depending on how often you exercise. If you were to consume roughly the same amount of calories as your TV, you'll be in a neutral calorie ballots. If you consume more calories than your TV, you would be in a positive calorie balance. And if you consume fewer calories than your TV, you would be in a negative calorie balance pretty easy. The simplest method of calculating your TV is by using an online calculator, such as the One Island in the Resource Such, it will ask for your age weight Hyatt Weekly exercise. While the result will not be 100% accurate, since we all have different metabolisms and be a Mars, it will give you a good idea of how many calories you need to consume in order to maintain your current weight. If this is not exact enough for you or you feel the value you got from the online calculator is a little off, you want to do the following. Use the estimated T value and consumed around this number of calories every day. Next, weigh yourself twice a week and monitor changes and wait. If you're losing way, the estimated TV was too low, and you should increase it by 100 calories. If you're game with the estimated TV was too high, you should decrease it by 100 calories. Continue the strategy until you wait stagnates, which is the point where you have found your true TV to make things easier for you. Let's take the example of a man. Waste £180 is six foot or 180 centimeters tall and 25 years old. If we assume he trains 3 to 4 times a week at high intensity, his TV will lie anywhere between 504,700 calories per day. You would then start with one of the two values and diet accordingly for about 10 days to two weeks. If you're gaining with, you will have to decrease your initial calorie value. And if you're losing weight, increases for the simple diet, which we will set up in the next lessons, I will assume a TV off 2600 calories per day. 28. Finding Your Ideal Protein Intake: the first and most important macro new teen is protein and wheelbase are amounts off the optimal intake requirements mentioned in the lesson on protein intake. This is pretty straightforward since optimal protein intake is around 0.821 gram per pound of body weight per day. So £180 male, for example, which was an average intake off somewhere between 145 grams to 180 grams of protein per day . If you hit this range every day, you'll be fine. But if you want to be even more specific there two factors that determine where exactly you are on this range. Those are body fat percentage and activity level. Simply put, the leaner you are meaning the more muscle instead of fat you have, the more proving your body requires. The same goes for people that are more active, either through their training during their hobbies or while they're working. If you're leaner than 10% body fat for meals and 20% for females and you're very active and train with high intensity, then you probably want to shoot for one gram of protein per pound of body weight. However, most beginners will get enough with 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. Let's assume for a sample die plan that your £180 male beginner that means your daily recommended protein intake will be roughly 100 45 grams of protein, No one to carbs. 29. Finding Your Ideal Carb Intake: in the less than optimal carb intake. We learned that your daily carps depend on a number of factors, most importantly training intensity. I also provided you with the table that roughly outlines how many grams of carbs you need, depending on your intensity. To recap, light workouts will usually be around 30 minutes or less and a workout with less than 10 working sets. If you're lifting weights, moderate workouts or anything between 30 and 60 minutes and more than 10 working sets if you're lifting weight, hard workouts are anything more intense than a modern work out whether that means longer workouts or more working sets. I personally always go with the highest car value because I trained fairly intense and my body reacts very well to them. Remember that carbs are the best fuel for your body, and getting enough of them is very important unless you don't train at all and your body has problems digesting carbs. There's really no need to choose the very low value here. For that reason, I will go with the 1.5 grams per pound of body weight for a sample diet. In our case of the £180 man. This means 270 grams per day. Now, what about rest days? You might ask. I personally keep my diet pretty consistent even on rest days. Especially when I'm bulking when you're dieting. In theory, you could lower your carbs on rest days because you don't need the energy. If you do this, make sure to keep your carbon take higher on training days. Otherwise you will sacrifice strength. 30. Finding Your Ideal Fat Intake: like I said in the lesson Fed and take your ideal intake should be roughly 15 to 20% of your daily calories, which is a good value to shoot for to ensure hormone production and general health. Assuming our 25 year old man has a TD off 2600 calories per day, that means if we take 15% you should consume at least 390 calories of mostly healthy fence , and for 20% that would be 520 calories. Now that might sound like a lot at first. But remember that one gram of fat has around nine calories, so there's only translates to around 45 to 60 grams or fed per day. For example, that means we now have a protein intake off 145 grams fat intake at 60 grams and carbon take at 270 grams. Let's see how we can bring everything together 31. What About The Remaining Calories: Let's see what we have So far. Our 25 year old, £180 man has a daily calorie balance of around 2600 calories to maintain his weight. Keep in mind that he trains intensively 3 to 4 times per week, so if you trained, more or less than this, value will differ off. Those 2600 calories, 145 grams will be from protein. And since one gram of protein has four calories, that translates to around 600 calories from protein Now comes fed 20% of 2600 is 520 calories, or roughly 60 grams of fat. As for carbs, we determined that he should consume 270 grams, which is around 1000 calories. Know that I rounded these numbers so you might get different values. When you subtract these numbers from 2600 you will notice that you still have around 500 calories left. Now how do you feel those remaining calories? Do you eat more protein fat or carbs? I talked about this before, but let's quickly recap everything. So you really understand it. What you have to keep in mind is that we calculated minimal needs to ensure muscle growth, and we're muscle maintenance. Drink fat loss. How you feel your remaining calories is up to you. I personally don't recommend protein, because once you go over one gram per day, you won't notice any extra muscle growth quality Meat export chicken can, however, be very expensive, so why waste the money? Instead, go for either additional carbs or fat, which one suits you better will depend mostly on your stomach. If you are a healthy adult, that leads an active lifestyle, and your body has no problems digesting carbs. And there's really no limit to your daily carbs as long as they come from quality sources such as brown rice, sweet potatoes or quinoa. The extra carpets will also give you additional energy, which is great for your workouts. If, however, your overweight and not very active for your body simply can't handle high amounts of carbs than fat, will be your better option here because it's one easily digested by our bodies. Make sure, though, that here, too, you get your extra fat from quality sources such as olive oil, avocado and nuts, and not bad and saturated fats like fast food or too much meat 32. Finding Your Ideal Meal Structure: now that we have determined how many calories, proteins, carbs and feds you should eat every day, we have to come up with a meal structure. Neil Structure refers to how your diet is set up, taking into consideration before following variables, number of meals, protein intake around activity, carbon, take around activity and fed and take around activity with meal number. Anything between three and eight meals per day is both effective and realistic. Like I said, then, the less Nomura frequency. You can get away with only two meals, but it makes things more complicated than they need to be. For this lesson, I'm going to assume that are 100 and £80 man. It's five meals per day. If you eat fewer meals, then don't worry and simply combine two meals. So Step one and are real. Structure is done, and we now have to add the right macro and takes for each meal. Let's start with protein. In general, a protein timing is not a very important factor in your diet, as long as you consume some sort before and after your workout. In the last nine pre and post workouts, you learned that there should be around 0.2 grams per pound of your target body weight. Let's assume he wants to roughly maintain his body weight so you would have to consume around 35 grams of protein pre and post workout. This leaves us with 75 grams of protein that we will have to evenly consumed throughout the day onto carbs. Just as with protein, you want to provide your body with Carson before and after your workout. And again a trivial, easier upon two grams per pound of your target body weight. Since going higher than this isn't really a problem, is thes air some simple guidelines? I will assume that our 25 year old it 0.3 grams before his workout and 0.4 grams after her workout as he just got out of the gym and is hungry. This still leaves us with 145 grams of carbs for the rest of the day. How you divide them up is really up to you. You might want to eat a large breakfast, or maybe a snack before bed. For the sake of simplicity, I will divide the remaining carbs of evenly among the meals, but feel free to change this up according to your lifestyle. Last on the list is fat timing. Fed time should be the least of your concerns, since it really doesn't matter. Like I said before, the only time it can have a negative impact is right before your workout as it slows down the digestion. Awful carbs and proteins. So if you eat your pretty workout, feel very close to your workout. Keep this in mind. At this point, though, I think things are complicated enough, so I will just evenly divide the 60 grams throughout our meals. This leaves us with the following meal structure. Now, as you know, there are additional calories needed to reach the TV off 2600 which should be either fat or carbs. Feel free to add them to any meal you like. Your largest meal will probably be either your breakfast and or your pre and post workout meals, so they are always a good option 33. The Best Protein Foods: after you have set up your meal structure, you will probably ask yourself what foods are the best sources of protein carbs and fats to include in your diet? I already gave some examples and previous lessons, but to give you some inspiration here, even more ideas. Let's start with protein. High protein foods and the Darien X category include Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, Swiss cheese, eggs, of course, milk and way protein. High protein needs include lead cut steak, ground beef, pork chops, chicken breast and turkey breasts. High protein seafood includes tuna, halibut, Salman and chill Appia. High protein can foods can include anchovies, corned beef, sardines and beans. And high quality is next To go can be jerky. Peanut butter. We're nuts. For example. Hi porting, vegetarian and vegan sources can be beans, chickpeas, nuts and nut butters. Tofel Chia seeds and Leaf agrees 34. The Best Carbohydrate Foods: As for quality carbohydrates, the best sources are unprocessed whole foods like fresh fruit, legumes, whole grains and many vegetables. These foods also contain fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Foods made with refined grains have fewer of these nutrients and foods loaded with editors , usually at access calories. Hi carpe whole grain sources can be whole grain bread, whole grain pasta and whole grain cereal with no sugar. Of course, high carb fruits include bananas, mangoes, apples, oranges and pears. Hard card wounds include beings, peace and lentils. Other sources that I haven't mentioned but are also good include sweet potatoes and normal potatoes, brown rice and normal rice, Canoa old meal and two ts. 35. The Best Fat Foods: consuming quality fed can actually be pretty easy and delicious at the same time. You're a few high fat foods that are incredibly healthy and nutritious. Sources of unsaturated fats include avocados, salman olives and olive oil, nuts and nut butters when they're not highly processed flaxseeds, tuna, dark chocolate and son floor seats. Sources of saturated but healthy feds include whole eggs, high quality meat, full fat milk and chicken breast. Now, sources of transfats or feds that you want to limit and avoid include pizza, hot docks, hamburgers and basically any type of fried were fast food. 36. Adjusting Your Meal Plan For Gaining Muscle: you probably heard that most bodybuilders and athletes work in two phases, called bulking and cutting. First, you focus on building strength and size while consuming more calories than your body burns throughout the day. And then you try to get rid of any extra fit by cutting calories while maintaining lean muscle mass. In this lesson, I will teach you everything you need to know to successfully bulk up by adding muscle mass and maintaining a relatively low level of body fed over a period of several weeks. So why do you need a booking plan anyway? The logic behind a well designed bulking planets simple. In order to force your body to grow more muscle tissue in a very little time, we need to lift heavy and consume extra calories. Basically, all successful bulking guides rely on these two factors. If you work out is too light, meaning not enough weight and too many reps percent or you simply don't taken enough calories. Even hitting the gym five times a week won't get you any results. Complete beginners an exception to this rule because they can often lose weight and build muscle at the same time since their body reacts extremely well to the new training stimulus and builds muscle faster than experienced lifters. The more muscle you have, the more difficult it becomes to add more without any extra calories. Okay, so how do you diet during a book, you'll find tons of bulking meal plans on the Internet, some good and many bad, the good ones awful of more or less the same pattern. First you calculate your TV. Then you add a certain percentage to Utd to get the ideal calorie count for your bull. And then you reach this calorie count by eating mostly healthy foods. Let's look at all these steps individually. I already showed you how to calculate your TV and an early lesson so we will skip this step . And if you don't remember simply go back to that list. Next, you want to add a certain percentage to Utd to get the ideal calorie count for your book. This part is probably the most controversial part of any bulking program. Some gurus will tell you to lean Bogue, adding only around 10 to 15% of additional calories to your TV to avoid getting any unnecessary fit in the process. Others will tell you that this number is too low and your metabolism will most likely speed up and erase such a tiny surplus. So who is right? As often in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It is true that the human body has a limit of calories and can put towards the process of muscle growth. Consuming more calories than that won't speed up muscle growth, but it will make you fatter. However, most skinny guys were super skinny. Guys won't mind a little extra fed and will also have an easier time losing it afterwards. It is also extremely time consuming to maintain a lean book over several weeks, having to perfectly track your calories all the time. This is why, in my personal bulking program, I prefer to eat around 500 calories more than novel, which is around 20% of additional calories to my TV. That way, I make sure to give my body enough energy to build muscle, even if my metabolism, where to speed up mu. Planning is also easier that way because 500 calories equals more or less to an additional meal. How larger daily bogan calorie count has to be really comes down to how your metabolism re extra more food and how you feel about tracking calories and gaining unnecessary fit. If you're a skinny and simply want to get bigger, don't be afraid of eating a lot. You won't get fed overnight and have plenty of time to counter. Act should your body fat percentage rise too quickly. If you have a normal metabolism and feel that a small surplus is enough than 250 extra calories a day will probably be enough. Smaller surpluses also work better for women who generally have lower te's and would gain fed a lot quicker with 20% extra calories. Now in step three, you want to reach this calorie count by eating mostly healthy foods. We already talked about quality sources off protein carps and feds before, so just make sure to not go crazy during a bulk by eating nothing but pizza and ice cream 37. Cheat Days & Cheat Meals: Okay, let's now talk about one of the most controversial topics. There is fitness and nutrition, and that is cheat days and cheat meals. I will start with the smaller version of the to the cheap meal. Let's assume you've been eating clean for most of the week, consuming healthy foods like chicken rest, fish, old meal, rice and veggies. And now you're wondering if it would be OK to sneak in that chocolate bar or cheeseburger at the end of the week without compromising your results. This is what's typically known as a cheat meal, a small amount of junk food that you including your diet as a reward for the hard work you've been putting in. So are cheap meals. Okay, is having some high sugar, high fat food here, and they're going to have any negative effect on your muscle building or fat burning progress? The short answer is no. As long as you keep your calories and macros and check. Remember what I taught throughout the course. Calorie balance and macronutrients are the most important aspect of your diet. Your body does not view your diet within the context of individual food items. It does not distinguish between a piece of fish, potato, a cup of broccoli and a Snickers bar. All it seizes the entire diet as a whole. The total calories, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fibers and micronutrients all combined into one giant ball off Trudeau Group. If you're eating clean the majority of the time and then have a slice of pizza, it's not as if a giant red light begins fleshing within your body. Head storage doesn't go into overdrive, and your health and energy levels will not plummet. Remember, the proper nutrition is all about the big picture. The key is simply moderation tracking. That's why I always tell my students that 80 to 90% of the diet should be coming from traditional clean and healthy foods, and the remaining 10 to 20% can come from whatever foods they like, as long as they fit their total daily calories and proteins, carbs and fats. This will ensure that your needs are being fully met when it comes to quality protein, fiber and micronutrients. But it also easy with 10 to 20% of your total calories to play around with, however you like, as long as you stick to the basics of correct dieting cheat meals are not going to magically cost you to get fat or lose muscle. I know that a lot of fitness scores on INSTAGRAM or YouTube preach that they can eat clean 24 7 And that's fine if they have the time and energy to do that. But the average person is often under a lot of stress and requires a more flexible approach to dieting. Just remember that this isn't a free ticket to begin eating tons of ice cream and pizza. The flexible foods that you include still need to reasonably fit into your overall diet as a whole in terms of calories, proteins, carbs and fats. And that's the problem with cheese days. Instead of cheat meals, G days our entire days, we don't watch your calories and macro and take and just eat whatever you like. In its simplest form, fat loss always comes down to a numbers game based on your total calorie intake versus your total calorie expenditure. In other words, in the big picture, over the course of a few days and weeks, you must maintain a net calorie deficit by burning more calories than you consume If you don't have a proper calorie deficit in place, you aren't going to lose anything at all. Individual cheap meals won't significantly affect this, but entire days can. For example, let's say we're sprawling, a standard deficit of 500 calories below your maintenance level. This would mean that over the course of six days you have created a total deficit off 3000 calories. If you now go ahead with your cheat day on the seventh day, every calorie that you consume above your maintenance level will be directly counter acting . That 3000 calorie deficit you had in place. Everyone is different, of course, and has different appetites. But trust me when I say that you can easily eat 1500 calories above maintenance on your cheat Day, that would already cut your weekly deficit in half. Now imagine going all out and eating 2000 or even 3000 calories above maintenance. That way, you basically use all the progress you made throughout the week. All it takes is a couple high calorie restaurant meals, some cake and some ice cream for dessert. So direct things up. Always keep an eye on your daily and weekly calories to lose fat. Make sure that you stay at a deficit, and as long as you account for the right proteins, carbs and fats, you will be fine. Cheap meals probably won't affect us, but she days most definitely can. At the end of the best approach is always to develop a flexible diet that fits your individual lifestyle and preferences. 38. Post workout shake : When it comes to post workout shakes, you will notice a lot of debate online over their importance and what makes up the perfect shake. As with everything, fitness related. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bro science and minutes out there. So let's take a look at some sign space effects so you can decide for yourself. So the first question. Do you even need a post workout shake? The short answer is not really. This might surprise you because we have all been told about the animals would know and how . After work out, your glycogen stores are depleted. To avoid massive breakdown, you need to take him protein and simple carps right after a workout. While the logic of this theory sounds convincing, imperial studies have found no evidence to support the claims that simple cars are needed right after you workout to avoid muscle breakdown. The case for post work on protein is a little more complicated. Some studies show a positive effect of post workout protein on protein synthesis, while others find no such relations. Overall, it seems that as long as you meet your daily calorie and nutritional requirements through your normal diet, a post workout protein shake will have little to no impact on your muscle gates. So does that mean a post workout check is completely useless? Not so fast, as you will see in the minute. There's still an argument for the post workout shape to be made. Even the research suggests that there's no such thing as a 30 minute anabolic window. It still makes sense to take in quality protein and carbs wanted two hours after your training, just like I taught you in the lesson on post workout meals. Unfortunately, there are days when you don't have the time to prepare an entire meal right away. And this is where post workout chase come into play. They're quick to prepare and easy to drink when you're on the go. Here's what I put in mine around 40 to 50 grams of instant odes and about 30 grams of way protein, maybe even a little more. A good idea is to also add a banana really taste good, and you can either eat it separately like I do. But if you have a blender, feel free to add it to the shake. Some people also like to add peanut butter which X is a good source of unsaturated fats. The shaken be mixed with water, milk, juice or whatever liquid you want to add. 39. Healthy Meal Planning Introduction: Now that we have finished the meal planning section of this program, you already know more than 90% of the population about how gay, muscle and loose fit this section will focus on what I call a healthy diet. Healthy dying consists of understanding and designing your diet, not just in the context of fitness, but also over a health and will be. When I started working out years ago, I completely ineffective this even though I look better on the outside because I had gained quite a bit of muscle, I will still constantly tired but stomach cramps and just didn't feel as good as that could have. Since then, I made changes to my diet, some small, some big that greatly improved my level. Overall health and happiness and the falling lessons. I want to share my knowledge with you and answer the most common questions people have when it comes to healthy diet. Unfortunately, why there is a lot of good information available outline. There is also a considerable amount of misinformation, so, as always, I based my advice on actual research and not just my individual experience. We will also cover the most common fitness trends and how they hold up when looked at. From a scientific perspective, I'm sure this information will be valuable to you because, like I said before, it really makes a difference in your quality of life. Let's get started. 40. Myth #1: Carbs Are Bad For You: telling people carbs are bed is one of the most common advice false fitness gurus will give you while at the same time trying to sell you their special diet. Generalizing about carbs and insulin seems to get more popular by the year. Many people believe that the Glass Simic Index and the insulin index rank foods by how dangerous they are. I already explained the flaws of the glycemic index and an early lesson, but you should also know that insulin itself is not bad. Actually, it is required to store glucose, which is the sugar in your blood, and to use it for energy. So then what is this anti car propaganda all about? While there's some evidence that carps can cause insulin insensitivity, this is pretty much only the case for people with pre diabetes that are at the same time overeating, simple high sugar carbs. So, yes, if you don't exercise and your diet consists mostly of candy bars and chocolate, then such carbs will negatively affect your health. However, if you follow well balanced diet and exercise regularly than quality, carbs will actually be necessary to fuel your workouts. This is also why I usually don't recommend a low carb diet unless you're completely sedentary or your stomach simply doesn't digest them well. Most people, however, will be better off sticking to quality carbs because cutting them from their diet means restricting their energy source and limiting their potential for muscle growth. So if someone tells you that you need to go low carb to lose weight or to be healthy, you know, know that they're probably trying to sell you their alternative superior died that most often is nothing but hype. 41. Myth #2: Fat Is Bad For You: Another common dieting minutes is that fat is bad for you. Many people believe that if you eat fed, you gain fat automatically. That's why, for many many decades, the traditional way to lose weight was to follow a low fat diet Today. We know, however, that eating fat doesn't make you gain fat unless you leads to a long term calorie surplus. In fact, cutting all your fed from your diet can be dangerous, since your body needs to consume Fetty assets for home production. Low fat diets can decrease your testosterone production, so make sure to always get some home ago. Three and omega six fatty acids. Also many low fat products actually contain more calories than their normal counterparts, which really defeats the purpose of cutting Fred from your diet to lose weight. Then there's also the idea that saturated fat causes health problems. Now there is some truth to this because based on what we know today, large amounts of saturated fats might be problematic to the heart. However, there is no evidence that they are the direct costs of heart problems for now, and make sense to limit saturated fats to re certain amount. While sticking to quality saturated fats like coconut oil or high quality meat. What you need to know is that at the end of the day, transfats are the only kind of fat that is directly linked to your health problems and that you should avoid. But again, a little won't kill you as long as your overall diet is healthy. 42. Myth #3: Protein Is Bad For You: carbs and fats are often blamed for various health issues. But even protein has sometimes been made out to cause a number of health problems, most notably kidney damage. So is this true? Is eating too much protein bad for you? People that propagate the Smith will usually argue that consuming too much protein hurts the kidneys and, well, Leslie to renal failure. Now there are some animal studies where this has been the case. But human studies have always shown that healthy adults who exercise regularly have no problems with consuming high amounts of protein, both in regards to their kidneys and their overall health. Now, if you haven't existing renal disease for existing kidney problems, then I would suggest you limit your protein intake. But you probably already know this and have talked about it with your doctor. This normally doesn't mean that you have to cut out protein entirely from your diet, which isn't even possible, but that you have to be more careful when consuming more protein. Another scary story placed at the feet of a high protein night is the risk of bone density problems and the development of bone diseases such as buster paralysis This is based on the theory that by consuming more protein, our bones will excrete more calcium, which is required to sustain bone density. This idea comes from early studies, which show that the acidity of an individual's urine is greater when consuming a diet high in protein. It was suggested then that calcium is drawn from the bones to buffer the acid load. However, more recent studies show that the predominant source of calcium and urine is not from bone breakdown, but in fact it is from the intestines. Data also now suggests that elderly individuals at risk of bone density and osteoporosis should actually aim to consume more protein than the current recommended daily allowance. Now, what about protein shakes? Surely protein supplements are not as good as the real food right. Admittedly, whole food proteins from animal sources provide the highest quality of protein, which we can consume. Foods such as poultry, meat, fish, eggs and milk should always be component of a balance and nutritionally optimal diet. For those who exercise, these sources provide complete proteins with a dose of the essential amino acids required to boost muscle protein synthesis and counter act degradation. However, there are also issues with these sources. First, not everyone eats meat or other animal products, which significantly reduces their chances of consuming a high quality protein diet. So supplementation is a good way to prevent efficiencies for vegans or vegetarians. Secondly, food is not always the most efficient, easiest or even preferred option to get a high dose of high quality proteins. Often people don't want to or don't have the time to cook. Sometimes you just want a quick and simple solution to boost protein synthesis. And a supplement shake can be the best way to do this. Lastly, whole food sources do come with additional factors, namely saturated fats and cholesterol. Therefore, when following a strict diet, getting the correct amount of protein without elevating fat intake will often require people to get their protein without having to worry about extra fat and calories. This can almost only be done by protein supplements, which are basically pure protein. So all in all, I would agree with nutritional guidelines that suggest whole food sources of protein to be the predominant means of protein consumption. But protein supplements have their place in a well rounded diet and will not lead to health problems when used correctly 43. Myth #4: Eating Eggs Raises Chollesterol: eggs have been demonized because they're yokes, which are chock full of nutrients contained high levels of cholesterol. Does that scare you? It should, because eating foods high in cholesterol does not directly translate to increased cholesterol levels in your body. More to the point and clinical tries, no association was found between eggs and cardiovascular disease, except maybe in some people with specific pre existing conditions, such as diabetes for hyperglycemia. Here's a short summary of what studies have shown in healthy people. Eating even six eggs a day doesn't seem to adversely affect blood life. It's some studies, no, no change in HDL, LDL cholesterol and some not only a very small increase also, and healthy people accept never been directly associated with an increase in cardiovascular risks, and such an increase was always merely assumed from the increase in circulating cholesterol in unhealthy or overweight people at conception might negatively affect blood levels of cholesterol and lipoproteins, but we still need more evidence for this. This means eggs are a great source of proteins, fence and other nutrients, and their association with high cholesterol on cardiovascular disease has been severely overblown. 44. Myth #5: Avoid Salt At All Costs: Should you really avoid salt at all costs? Here are the facts. Salt or sodium is an essential mineral. Its consumption is critical to our house. The problem is that the average person consumes double the recommended amount, so quite a bit more than the Tora will upper intake. So this myth is rooted in a grain of truth. It is true that people with salt sensitive hypertension should avoid too much salt because it raises their blood pressure. In most people, however, there appears to be little to no association between salt consumption and hypertension. When controlling for other factors, you have to understand that excess sodium may not raise blood pressure, but it is associated with other health issues, such as kidney damage and an increased risk of cognitive decline. So the bottom line salt or sodium isn't strongly associated with high blood pressure except in people with salt sensitive hypertension. Still, anything in excess is harmful, and sodium is no exception. 45. Myth #6: Red Meat Always Causes Cancer: Recently, the World Health Organization published a report where certain animal products, including red meat, were labeled as possible causes of cancer. As you can imagine, this led to an outcry in the fitness industry, where many people rely on me as a quality protein source. So is it true? You might ask, Should I really stop eating need? Well, here's what the reason says. First of all, cancer is a particularly difficult disease to discuss in absolutes, after almost everything we eat has the potential to be involved in cancer development. For example, antioxidants can both promote and Hendra cancer growth, but the effect is usually too small to notice. Some compounds found in smoked meats have been found to damage cells, which is the first step to potential cancer. Current evidence suggests that red meat campos cancerous for people with poor diets and lifestyle choices. What this means is that people who are overweight and don't exercise will be under a lot greater risk of getting cancer for meat. Why is that? Various compounds, produce and meats during cooking and processing have possible cancerous effects when consumed by humans. However, the amount of these compounds and their aggressiveness depends on the preparation method of meat. This is because these harmful compounds are not inherent to the meat but our side effects from treating it with fire. Now, is there anything you can do to reduce these harmful compounds? Yes, definitely. First of all, smokers and people following a one sided and generally unhealthy diet where the highest risk group and all studies. So make sure you start with the basics. Stop smoking, set up a balanced diet with more vegetables and start exercising. This alone will reduce the risk of cancer from need and a general be a lot more healthy when it comes to meet preparation. Studies have shown that marinating it before cooking reduces harmful agents in the meat. Also, preparing meat under higher temperatures such as grilling and directly above the fire seems to create more harmful agents than baking or broiling it. With this in mind, what's the bottom line on meat and cancer? Fears of cancer red meat have probably been exaggerated, making healthy lifestyle choices such as staying at a healthy weight exercising and not smoking is a lot more important than micromanaging your meat intake. If you're going to lay of red meat, start with avoiding too much process cured or smoked red meat 46. Common Eating Trends Introduction: now that we got the most common nutritional health Miss out of the way. I want to talk about some of the well known diets out there. These air diets that are either currently popular or happened popular over the last few years. As you will see, the dining industry is similar to fashion and that there are always some trends. Everyone seems to fall. Sometimes these Dia trends makes sense, but oftentimes they're just fats that won't stand the test of time. The problem is, of course, that with all these different diets, it's easy to lose track, especially if you are a professional fitness coach. So in the next few lessons, I will explain the concepts and ideas behind each night and also tell you when it makes sense to follow each one. As always, I don't just want to rely on my personal experience, but on scientific studies and objective research, Let's get started 47. Gluten Free Explained: the first diet we will analyzes the gluten free diet. Gluten free is one of the hottest diet trends right now, so it's crucially understand where it comes from and what it has to offer. Many blocks and magazines will tell you that gluten can be extremely dangerous, and getting often has changed their lives completely. As you know, if you read my block, I'm always a little skeptical about such absolute statements, especially when those people are also selling their own products. So let's look for ourselves and see what gluten is really all about. Gluten is a naturally occurring composite of two proteins, glutamine and bleeding, that is found mostly in riot wheat and barley products. It's the substance that makes toe resilient and stretchy, and it's also often used as a thickening agent and other foods. Because gluten makes big products more elastic, it's often found in things like pizza dough, pastas, breads and crackers. Now that doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, it can be problematic for some people because blue molecules aren't broken down by heat or directly digested. They will be absorbed by the small intestines, which can provoke an autoimmune response, and some people. These people would then get headaches, stomach cramps, diarrhea and generally feel bloated. Things could get even worse and result and got inflammation. If these people keep getting glued now, this sounds pretty bad, right? But here's the good news. All these symptoms occur only in the people with celiac disease, which is verifiable by the presence off certain antibodies produced in response to boot. It's estimated that between 0.3 and 1.2% of the population has celiac disease, which means that you probably don't now. What about healthy people without celiac disease? Should they also avoid gluten? Unfortunately, the answer is, it depends according to recent research for every personal s celiac disease there probably six or seven people who have a gluten sensitivity, which means you get symptoms. Similar interests, Elliot. But you don't have the antibodies or intestinal damage. Sounds like a lot, but that's still only between 3 to 7% of all people, so you probably don't have gluten sensitivity, either. What this means is that the vast majority of people don't need to follow a gluten free diet . In fact, the group of free diet itself offers no special health benefits, and most gluten free products tend to be less nutritious, low and protein higher and fed and cost more than double. This is also the reason why many people with celiac disease that are forced to follow a gluten free diet have micronutrient deficiencies simply because it's more difficult for them to follow a well balanced diet. Now I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's more difficult. Another thing that is sometimes mentioned but completely made up is that it looked free. Diet will help you lose weight faster. Even on a gluten free diet. You still have to follow the rules of weight loss that I explained earlier meaning you have to create a calorie deficit. Now. I don't want to completely bash gluten free diets because there are a few studies that indicate that over time, diets high in gluten can cause damage to the intestinal cells and non Celia people. The problem is, researchers still don't know why this is, and the evidence isn't clearly linked to gluten as a trigger. What this means is that if you want to play it safe, limit you gluten intake to a few meals a week. Other than that, however, you don't have to worry about it 48. Paleo Explained: next to the gluten free diet. The paleo diet is another hugely popular diet Right now, many people will tell you that can help you with weight loss, cravings, sleep and even allergies. So again, this seems pretty good, right? Well, let's find out first. What is the paleo diet, anyway? The idea behind the pal your diet is to eat the same foods our hunter gatherer ancestors supposedly ate. So fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood and nuts what you want to avoid our process foods, dairy products, potatoes and grains. If a caveman couldn't eat it, neither can you. Advocates of this diet will argue that the average human back then was tall, muscular, agile, athletic and incredibly versatile, whereas the average human now is overweight, out of shape, stressed out and unhappy. So we should go back to our roots and bring back the caveman diet. The problem with this, though, is that we now know from excavations and bone analysis that people back then where nearly as tall and healthy as paleo advocates make them out to be. They also didn't have all the abundance of food we have today, so it was basically impossible to become overweight for them. But these air details that don't really matter when it comes to dieting, because the paleo diet could still be healthy, even if in theory it doesn't really make sense. And in fact, many of the aspects of paleo dieting are very healthy eating lean needs and the seafood will provide with a lot of protein, which is very important to build muscle and maintain muscle mass. As you know now. It also excludes processed meats, which can pose a health risk when consumed in great quantities. It includes a lot of veggies and fruits, which are high in vitamins and generally nutritious and excludes basically any type of candy and processed sugars, which usually have little nutritious value. And it also excludes transfats, which are generally bad for your heart and overall health. Like I explained before. So in these aspects, paleo is a pretty good diet. There's just one problem and also forbids quite a few foods that offer great health benefits. For example, whole grains are an excellent source of quality carbohydrates that have been shown to reduce inflammation in the body and decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, and dairy products provide calcium protein and vitamin D. Of course, some people are lactose intolerant, but for those that do find with dairy, it's a highly nutritious food. Also, lagoons are a good source of plant based protein and have been shown to degrees total and LDL cholesterol levels. But all of these you couldn't eat as a troop. Aaliyah dieter. Now, often the argument for this is that whole grains damage the intestines, and lagoons contain entry nutrients that interfere with nutrient absorption. My problem with these claims is, however, there's little scientific evidence to back them up and that most of these problems aren't really problems. Anti nutrients and lagoons, for example, aren't dangerous and normal intake levels, and it's part of a properly balanced diet and can also be easily reduced by cooking them. So what's the bottom line on paleo? The foods that are recommended in the diet are pretty healthy as long as you stick to lean and unprocessed meat, so there's nothing wrong with that. The problem comes from foods that should be avoided according to the diet, especially the whole grains, which are one of the best sources of quality carbs trying to get your carbs solely through foods will be difficult and it's not recommended. So if you really want to follow the paleo diet, I suggest you go with a less drastic approach and still include some of the non pal your foods when you need them. 49. Low Carb Explained: while the diets we talked about so far I have seen an increase in popularity Onley in the last few years. Low carb diets have been around for decades. As the name suggests, low carb diets are low in carbohydrates. This means that if you switch to a low carb diet and consume the same amount of calories, you will have to consume more protein and or more effect to make up for the lost calories. Since carbs are the only non essential micronutrient, which means our body doesn't need them to survive, unlike protein and fed. In theory, there's nothing wrong with a low carb diet. But like I said so many times before, there is a difference between simply surviving and feeling great. Advocates of low carb dieting will often tell you that reducing your carb makes sense because eating carbohydrates produces insulin, which in turn triggers rapid fat storage. So the key to a healthy diet, they say, is to eat as few carbohydrates as possible. Now, I already talked about how this could be true for simple carps like high sugar foods and candy. But when it comes to quality complex carbs than these claims are simply falls. In fact, if you regularly exercise than not, consuming complex carbs will hurt your strength level and therefore your muscle gains. Trust me, you'll feel a lot weaker, and your workouts will become very difficult if you don't provide your body with the fuel in the forms of complex carbs. What this means is that if you want to gain muscle than low carb, diets are not optimal, and I don't recommend them. No. What about weight loss? Does a low carb diet makes sense when wanting to lose fat? As so often, the answer is it depends if you're completely sanitary, meaning you almost never exercise. Then, yeah, it makes sense to cut carbs simply because carbohydrates are primarily energetic, so their purpose is to give yourself energy. If you don't do anything with your body, it doesn't need to very much energy, so it doesn't need the carbs. Thus, a relatively low carb diet would make sense for a sanitary person, and somewhere around 100 grams per day would probably be enough. Also, people who consume primarily simple carbs, such as process and junk foods, will benefit from eating less of them simply because anything you eat instead of junk food is probably going to be more nutritious. That being said, to lose weight, you always have to follow a negative calorie balance. Like I said so many times before, no matter if you're eating low or high carb. The problem with low carb diets, though, is that it's easier to overeat. For many people, the absolute worst part of dieting to lose weight is the hunger, which often leads to cravings. Unfortunately, a low carb diet basically guarantees that you're going to struggle with hunger. Carbs, especially the fibre rich types, have a significant impact on your fullness, whereas dietary fats don't. That is, eat a bunch of fibres carbohydrates, and you'll feel very full for quite some time. Eat a bunch of dietary fed and you won't also, if it is a lot more calorie dense, with one gram of fat, having double the calories of one, a ground of carbs. So as you can see, unless you don't exercise at all or have problems with your insulin sensitivity, low carb isn't the best choice. Off course. Different people react differently to more or less carp intake, so it makes sense to try it out at least once. Maybe you're one of those people that actually feel better with less carbs, and that's what matters in the end. 50. Intermittent Fasting Explained: even though the concept of fasting has literally been around for centuries, the idea of intermittent fasting has only become popular over the last few years. But let's not get ahead of ourselves first. What is intermittent fasting anyways? The average person, probably its food from around 8 a.m. to maybe nine PM and form of various meals and snacks . That means you eat for around 13 hours, and then he'd nothing for about 11 hours. Once you stop eating and your body has processed all the food from your last meal, you will go into a fasted state would probably last around 6 to 7 hours. Intermittent fasting doubles this by having you fast for 16 hours and eat for only eight. Some diets go even as far as 20 hours, fasting in four hours eating Now what happens when you do this? Proponents of the intermittent fasting dad will tell you that longer fasting will lower insulin levels increase testosterone help with singular repair in gene expression sounds pretty amazing, right? Not so fast. The problem with this is that all these changes, even if they actually take place and are made up, are so small that they won't make a noticeable difference. At least that's what a matter study off over 40 studies on intermittent fasting found. The scientists concluded that intermittent fasting is not superior to traditional dieting and found no significant benefits related to body composition fellows, insulin sensitivity or Hormel's. This means that much of the marketing done in the name of intermittent fasting is made up or completely exaggerated. That being said, I do believe this dieting approach can make sense for people that fall into one of two categories. First, anyone who doesn't have the time or discipline to eat five or six meals per day and prefers to eat large amounts of food within a small time frame. Like I explained in the lesson on meal frequency, it really isn't that important how often you eat. What matters is how much you eat and calories and what you eat and macros. Intermittent fasting takes this to the extreme and hazard eating large amounts of food within a few hours. If this approach appeals to you, then go ahead and try it. I personally am completely happy with the traditional approach and feel weak when I go several hours without food but that might be different for you. The second category of people who might benefit from intermittent fasting is anyone who has trouble counting calories. Since you will be consuming most of your food and just a few hours, it'll be easier to monitor a calorie intake and stick to a calorie deficit. If you don't allow yourself to eat outside the six hour window, you already eliminated one of the biggest reasons why people don't succeed. A diet high calories next. I personally don't have this problem have died it successfully for years. So again, this approach isn't my favorite. But if it fits your lifestyle and preferences, go ahead and give it a try. And this is basically the bottom line for intermittent fasting. It's not some amazing cure for all your weight loss muscle building problems. In fact, if you still consume the same amount of calories and the same mackerels, you probably won't see any changes. But the stricter approach does help some people to get back on track and simply stick to their diet plan 51. Veganism Explained: Some people believe that vegans cannot build muscle and will inevitably suffer from protein and vitamin deficiencies. Others think that veganism is the best thing since the invention of the Internet, and that they have to convert everyone they see to become a vegan. So who is right? And what is the vegan diet really all about? As you probably know, vegetarians do not eat meat, fish or poultry. Vegans, in addition to being vegetarians, do not consume other animal products and by products such as eggs, dairy products and honey. Now, while some people will choose to go vegan because of environmental or ethical reasons, I will talk about it on Lee from a fitness and health perspective. Since the field of veganism is so broad, we will start with a rather simple question. Can you build muscle as a vegan? And the answer is yes, absolutely. But it's more difficult than on a normal diet. The main reason for this is protein, as I have discussed in detail in the previous lessons on protein and this dozens off studies have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. Ah, high protein diet is very important for building muscle. Our body simply need amino acids derived from protein to repair and grow muscle tissue. Without it, you won't provide your body with the material for muscle growth when we look at vegan diets and compared it to traditional diets from a macro nutritional perspective, the main differences protein intake Most people eating an even halfway healthy diet are already getting a large percentage of their carbs and fats from plant based sources like grains, fruits, veggies and nuts and oils, which doesn't change when you become a vegan. What does change, however, is protein intake because your replies high protein animal foods like meat, eggs and dairy with lower protein foods like beans, grains and nuts. Now don't get me wrong. Beans, grains and nuts are very healthy foods and generally quality sources of protein as part of a balanced diet. You run into problems, though, when you use them as your single source of protein. Why? Because plant based proteins come with the truth. Drawbacks. First, Not all of them are complete proteins, which means that they don't contain all the nine essential amino assets or don't have sufficient quantities of them to meet the body's needs. As you know amino acids are the building blocks of protein and tissues in the body, including muscle tissues. The body needs 21 amino acids to stay alive, and nine of them must be obtained from food. Unfortunately, many nuts seats and lagoons are incomplete. Proteins that don't contain all nine essential immunize its, but fortunately, there is a very simple solution for all this. If you're a vegan, don't rely on these as your protein source. For example, if you combine them with other foods, you can get the right balance of essential meals. Proteins that in combination make a complete amino acid profile are known as complementary proteins. Here, a few good examples. Rice and beans. Spinach salad with almonds, Hamas Withhold grand PGAs, whole grain noodles with peanut sauce. Now the second problem with plant based proteins is that some sources aren't absorbed as well as others. This means eating 100 grams of hemp protein isn't the same as eating 100 grams of rice for pea protein. Heme protein has much less muscle building potential than pea protein. What this means is that as a vegan who wants to build muscle, you have to make sure you're getting enough protein that is well absorbed well and rich in a central amino assets. Doing this isn't impossible, but it's more difficult than simply relying on meat and dairy as your protein source to help you out here. A few protein sources that should make up the majority majority of daily protein are grains like we'd rise and olds vegetables and legumes like peas, beans and potato nuts like almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pistachios and seems like a no and back. We'd also make sure to combine them with one another to get all the essential amino acids. Okay, now that we talked about how to overcome protein efficiencies, what about micronutrient deficiencies? You probably heard that going vegan does increase the risk of various neutral deficiencies , and this is true. The most common ones are deficiencies in vitamin D and B 12 iron, calcium, zinc and omega three fatty acids. Now many vegans will tell you that these common deficiencies can be avoided by simply adding certain foods treated diet. While this is true in theory, things look a lot different in practice. For example, to get the same amount of calcium from vegetables as from dairy products, you would have to consume multiple servings instead of just one the singles for zinc. Unless you want to micromanage who died and always check for your micronutrient intake. This means you will have to supplement. Supplementing for vitamin D. B 12 and omega three fatty acids is actually fairly common among experienced vegans and something I would recommend. So what's my conclusion on the vegan diet, you can build plenty of muscle and strength as a vegan. If you know what you're doing, you will have to closely monitor your foods and protein sources and probably invest more time towards meal planning to avoid deficiencies. If you're willing to invest the time, then the vegan diet can definitely be a healthy alternative and help you gain muscle. 52. Vitamin A: Vitamin A is a fed, salable vitamin that you need to maintain your eyesight and prevent night blindness. It can also improve your immune system and helps with fed storage and protects against colds, flu and some infections. You also need vitamin A to grow new cells, lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. On top of all, that vitamin A slows down the aging process. So where can you get your vitamin E? We can get vitamin A from animal livers and from green and yellow vegetables. The type of vitamin A from animal sources is called pre forms and has found in very high levels and fatty liver dishes. However, as you can imagine, those aren't optimal for most fitness oriented diets. This is why fitness experts recommend getting vitamin A primarily from plant sources. This form of vitamin A is called pro forms, and green, yellow and arch vegetables can be great sources of these types of vitamin E. For example, a single serving of sweet potatoes, carrots and even pumpkin pie has more than 100% of your recommended daily value. Bell peppers, broccoli and leafy greens like spinach also contain a significant amount of vitamin A. The recommended daily intake for vitamin A is around 900 micrograms per day in men and 700 micrograms per day in women, and microgram is 11 thousands of a milligram, so very little. Now, signs of vitamin A deficiency include night blindness and Scalea skin. But most likely you're already getting enough through your balanced diet, so supplementation is not necessary. Unless, of course, your doctor told you so. 53. Vitamin B: vitamin B is actually made up off several B vitamins that were together in the body, with each of the B vitamins performing unique and important functions. This group includes the following vitamin B one b two b three b five, b six, B 12 folic acid and by ity. These vitamins are essential for the breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose. This provides energy for the body, the breakdown of fats and protein, which aids in the normal functioning of the nervous system, muscle tone in the stomach and intestinal tranq your skin, hair, eyes, mouth and liver. Vitamin B is available on dark green vegetables, grains and meat, but deficiencies can accord even in general. Population, especially vegans, are at high risk of B 12 deficiencies along with pregnant women. So if you fall into one of these two categories, do a blood test and speak to your doctor about supplementation. Supplementation can be either done by a complex formula that has all the vitamins in it, or you can just get a single B vitamin. If you prefer that for extreme deficiencies, shuts of B 12 may be possible. But for most people, supplementation with capsules will be enough 54. Vitamin C: Vitamin C is a superstar among the vitamins and acts as an antioxidant, which we need for more than 300 metabolic functions, including new tissue growth and repair. Many diseases are caused by low levels off anti stress hormones, which vitamin C helps to produce. It also helps wounds and burns to heal and protects against abnormal blood clotting. So where can you get vitamin C? Literally? Just eat a plan and you get a decent amount of vitamin C. For high levels of vitamin C. Try Berries, Citrus fruits and green vegetables like broccoli, brussel sprouts and green peppers. Really, few vegetables like spinach are also great source. Even some breakfast cereals are fortified with vitamin C as an added benefit. When you eat vitamin C at the same time as aren't it will help to absorb more of the iron. The recommended daily intake is around 90 milligram for men and 75 milligrams per day for women, which will most likely get through a normal diet. So chances are that you don't need to supplement your vitamin C intake, but it can make sense to help people boost their immune system, especially when you're sick or starting to feel sick. 55. Vitamin D: vitamin D is a vitamin. We need to absorb and use phosphorus and calcium, and for the normal growth, development and maintenance of bones and teeth. It's involved in regulating your heartbeat and protects against muscle weakness. We also needed for cellular growth and newer muscular function, and to enhance or immunity Vitamin D is somewhat unique because your body can produce it when your skin is exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays. Besides that, eggs, dairy products and fish oil contained significant amounts of vitamin D. However, the main source of vitamin D for most people should always be sun exposure. And this can be a problem for people during the winter or those of us that live in colder parts of the world. The recommended daily intake of vitamin D is around 600 i you, which stents were international units, both for men and women. However, this is the bare minimum to prevent efficiency, and the optimal recommendation would probably be around 1000 to 2000 I use per day. That's why vitamin D deficiency is relatively common in adults, particularly older adults, mainly because of limited exposure off bare skin to sunlight. People who typically wear clothing that covers all or most of their skin. And those of us that are homebound haven't increased mist of deficiency. So what should you do again? Do a blood test and check your vitamin D levels if you're deficient. This simple vitamin D supplements can help you out, and it can really work wanders. I've seen people who used to be tired and unmotivated all day become full of energy and motivation just by increasing their vitamin D intake. 56. Vitamin E: Vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamins, which has a number of important functions in the body. The main benefit of vitamin E is that it acts as an antioxidant, which means it protects the body from the damage costs by using oxygen every time your body uses oxygen, this house produce free radicals as a byproduct. These free radicals condemn cause damage to the body. However, anti oxidants prevent and repair the damage caused by free radicals, meaning that vitamin E can provide significant protection toe all your body's cells. Apart from this, vitamin E provides further benefits, which include the effective preservation of foods, prevention of diseases such as cancer and diabetes, promotion of a healthy nervous system, protection against heart disease and protection of the eyes. Men are advised to consume around four milligrams of vitamin D daily, and women should consume around three milligrams, which you probably get through your novel diet. Since vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin, you will not pee it out if you're getting too much of it. That means there is a risk of overdosing and supplementing it without consulting a doctor and doing a blood test first is not recommended. 57. Vitamin K: vitamin K is needed for a block to clock properly. It's also essential for growing and repairing bones, and it converts glucose into glycogen so our livers construe, or it vitamin K is highly concentrated and leafy greens like kale, collard greens and spinach. It's also broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, liver, egg yolks and old meal. You can also find it in needs and colorful fruits, but in smaller amounts. The recommended daily intake is around 120 micrograms per day for men and 90 micrograms for women. You will usually get enough Benjamin K through your normal diet, and deficiencies were occur only rarely. However, a deficiency in vitamin K may occur when you're taking certain drugs. So check for that. The classic sign of vitamin K deficiencies are excessive hemorrhaging and bleeding. Additionally, vitamin K deficiency is maybe a contributor to osteoporosis. The two groups most at risk for deficiencies are newborn babies and people with mal absorption disorders. Vitamin K doesn't cross the placenta very easily, so that makes it difficult for the fetus to receive it again. Please speak to your doctor before supplementing this vitamin, just to make sure that you really need it. 58. Calcium: now that we have talked about the most important vitamins, let's continue with the so called macro minerals. They're called macro minerals because we need them in fairly large amounts. They're important for a nursing wing, muscular contraction, tissue structure and our bones. For athletes, it's important to maintain optimal levels of macro minerals because of the extra stress that is placed on the muscles, tissue and bones. And because we lose a lot when sweating the first important macro minerals calcium, which we have in our bodies more than any other mineral, it supports muscle function, transmits nerve impulses, help sales to communicate and is involved in the release of certain horror. Holtz. Most of the calcium is stored in our bones and teeth where's used for structural purposes. We get calcium, mostly from yogurt way protein supplements, milk, cottage cheese and dark leafy greens. And if you need those regularly, you most likely don't have to supplement calcium. One problem, however, is that it's difficult to detect a calcium deficiency because in the short term, our bodies will simply use the calcium stored in our bones to maintain normal blood calcium levels. Over time, though, your bone density will suffer and you will feel the consequences. In general, vegetarians and people with lactose intolerance are at the greatest risk for calcium deficiencies because they don't consume enough were no dairy products at all. If you fall into one of these two categories, please check with your doctor and consider supplement. 59. Magnesium: magnesium is involved in many biological processes, including protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, blood pressure regulation and energy production. Why calcium? Much of our magnesium is stored in the bullets. This could make it extremely difficult for anyone test to give an accurate account of magnesium levels in the blood. We get magnesium through foods like dairy products, meat, fish and seafood. It can also be found in high amounts and green vegetables, especially leafy greens as well as nuts. The recommended daily intake for magnesium is around 420 milligrams per day for men and 310 milligrams for women. Even though studies have shown that the magnesium intake of the average person is likely to be below the recommended daily intake, I don't feel comfortable recommending to supplemented without knowing your details. So please talk to your doctor first. This is also since acute signs of deficiency are uncommon because much of the bodies magnesium restored in tissue, and there's plenty of it to draw from if you're not consuming enough in the short term. If you have a chronic deficiency, though, this can lead to a weak muscle, contraction, fatigue, disruptions and mineral stability, abnormal heart rhythms and even personality changes. So this is a serious topic 60. Phosphorus: phosphorus is a very abundant mineral in our body and can be found in our bones, cell membranes and energy molecules. Essentially, we used phosphorous and tissue groove, and some has regularly lost through sweat and urine, so you want to replenish the amount you lose every day. You can get phosphorus from protein rich foods such as meat, poultry and fish. But plans such as we'd potatoes and peanuts are also an excellent source, and it's found to some degree and almost all foods. The recommended daily intake of phosphorus is around 700 milligrams per day for men and women, and it's unlikely that you need to supplement it. In fact, getting too much is a more common problem than getting too little. If, however, you have phosphorus deficiency, this can have a drastic effect on bone structure and stability. It can lead to fragile bones, stiffness of joints and general bone pain. Deficiencies can also lead to numbness, reading difficulty and general weakness. But like I said before, you probably don't have to worry about this too much and are getting enough of it through your normal diet. 61. Potassium: potassium is an electrolyte that's necessary for muscle contraction, nerve impulses, protein synthesis, transferring nutrients through cell membranes, breaking down carbs and maintaining a regular heart rhythm. You can lose a lot of potassium through excessive sweating, and this can lead to muscle cramping. So if you regularly have muscle crimes, more protests, um, might be a solution. Some of the best sources of potassium are spinach, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yogurt, meat, poultry, fish, nuts, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, act plant and carrots. The recommended daily intake for potassium as around 4700 milligrams per day for both men and women, signs of deficiency include weakness, muscle cramps, fatigue, constipation and abnormal heart rhythms. I know that people who take laxatives experience prolonged vomiting or diarrhea or have kidney disorders are increased risk of potassium deficiencies. So if you fall into that category, please check with your doctor. 62. Sodium: sodium, makes up half of sodium chloride, which is also known as table salt. Sodium is a electrolyte that plays a role in a nerve signaling muscle contraction, fluid balance and the transferring of nutrients through cell membranes. Our body usually does a good job at maintaining sodium levels in the blood. Excess sodium has peed out, and only when you really taken way too much can you develop high blood pressure. When it comes to sodium sources, Table salt is the most direct one. Our bodies need around 1500 millions per day of sodium to function properly. But because we get so much sodium through our diets, you actually want to watch out for overdosing and not under dozing. Symptoms of overdosing are dehydration, fatigue and confusion and have left untreated for a long time. Brain injury can occur. A good way to prevent this is to simply drink more and, of course, consume less high salt foods. 63. Copper: okay now that we have gone over the most important macro minerals onto the trace minerals, which our bodies only need relatively small amounts. As you will see, the effects of many trace minerals are white, spread throughout the body and, despite their small concentration, have very big impacts. The first trace mineral I want to talk about is copper. Along with iron, copper is essential for the production and functional bread block cells. It also aids in maintaining blood vessels, nerves, the immune system and our bones. You can get copper from foods like oysters and shellfish, potatoes, beans, nuts, liver, kidneys, dark leafy greens and pepper. The recommended daily intake for copper is around 900 micrograms per day for both men and women, and the probability that you have to supplemented is relatively low now. While copper deficiency is rare, it can lead to anemia and osteoporosis, symptoms of a deficiency and who diarrhea, weakness and skins force in amounts greater than the opera Tolerable limit. Copper can also be highly toxic, causing copper deposits to accumulate in the organs, including the brain here, symptoms of over consumption and coo depression, irritability, nausea, vomiting, nervousness and pain in the joints and muscles 64. Iron: iron is another important mineral that is involved in various bodily functions, including the transport of oxygen in the blood. This is essential for providing energy for daily life. Iron is lost from the body through shedding intestinal sales, sweating and blot loss. Good sources of iron include beef and chicken, nuts, vegetables, grains and fortified cereals. The recommended daily intake for iron is around eight milligrams per day for men and 18 milligrams per day for women now, iron deficiencies uncommon and developed parts of the world and the probability that men will need to supplement with iron is low. But the probability is moderate for women because of their higher recommended daily intake . Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, impaired mental capacity, impaired immune function, decreased work performance and, in extreme cases, anemia. 65. Zinc: zinc is found in cells throughout the body, it is needed for the body's defence immune system to properly work. It plays a role in cell division, cell growth, wound healing and the breakdown of carbohydrates. Zynga's also needed in the senses of smell and taste during pregnancy, infancy and childhood. The body needs things to grow and develop properly, and it also enhances the action of insular. Since the body doesn't have a specialized storage system for it, we need to consume zinc every day. The majority of zinc in the average diet comes from beef and poultry, but oysters are actually the most sink potent food. You can also get sing from vegetarian friendly sources such as peas, nuts, beans, old meal and dairy products. However, it's difficult to get enough sink solely from plants because there are compounds and plans called fight aids that reduce our body's ability to absorb it. Because there are compounds in plants called fight aids that stopped our bodies from being able to absorb it. The recommended daily intake for zinc is around 11 milligram per day for men and eight milligram per day for one. Now, even though most people get enough oozing from their diet, supplementing and can make sense. If you have a weak immune system and often suffer from Coles, it could also have with acne and other skin problems and this popular in combination with vitamin C. Make sure, though, that you stay 140 milligrams of date because too much zinc can be toxic in the long term. 66. Water: Okay, So after talking about all these vitamins and minerals, you may have noticed that I left out something very important. Until now, water intake is vitally important for optimizing health and performance. The bottom line is that if you're currently not drinking enough water, you're going to notice several immediate benefits by increasing intake to optimal levels. So in this lesson, I want to teach you how much water you need exactly and what kind of water you should be consuming. As you probably know, water comprises over 60% of your total body weight, and every part of your body requires water. For example, water is a vital part of your body's detoxification systems. It's used to digest foods and shuttle nutrition's to its cells. It's needed to keep your eyes, nose and throat moist. It keeps our joints lubricated and supple, which is vital for preserving joint health and brain cells. Required a delicate balance of water and other chemicals to function properly. So it's obvious that staying hydrated is important and dehydration will slow you down both mentally and physically know how much water should you actually drink them to stay hydrated . Interestingly, the question should really be how much you eat and drink, because many foods, such as fruits and vegetables, contain significant amounts of water. For example, research shows that in the United States, about 20% off our water and take comes from the food we'd with this in mind. How much water should you be drinking every day? You have most likely heard the traditional recommendation off a glass of water per day. But the problem is that optimal water intake will differ depending on your weight and activity level. This is why the institute from medicine actually recommends relate thirst. Be your guide. I know this sounds really big, but our bodies are actually very good at recognizing dehydration, and once this happens, you will feel thirsty. Now you probably still prefer a specific value that you can target just to make things a little more tangible. A good target value is about 2.7 leaders or 3/4 of a gallon of water for women per day and 3.7 leaders or a gallon for men per day. So this should be your baseline to shoot for every day. No, If you're like me and exercise regularly, then off course, you need to add some additional water to the baseline simply because you sweat more than the average person. A good recommendation is to add around one leader per hour of exercise to make up for the additional sweating. Okay, now that you know how much water you need, the next question is, what kind of water should you be drinking? This will heavily depend on where you live in the world. In developed countries, tap water is usually fine, but research has shown that even there it can sometimes be contaminated with all kinds of pollutants, like bacteria and heavy metals. Many people know this and drink bottled water instead. But the problem is that bottled water, especially when it comes from plastic bottles, also contains quite a few chemicals, mostly from the plastic leaking into the water. Also, bottled water can be quite expensive when you drink a lot of it. So what's the solution? Children tap water. Home water filters are getting better and cheaper by the year. The key to judging them is the amount of dissolved solids they leave in the water, which can be measured in terms of parts per millions to use them. You simply put water in the top container of the filter, which then slowly passes through the filtration mechanism and comes up pretty much chemical free. A good water filter will produce clean water for many months before needing a change of filters, so drop about this lesson to make sure you get enough water. Let thirst Beer Guide and shoot for 2.7 leaders if you're women and 3.7 if you're a man. If you exercise regularly, drink around one leader per hour of exercise on top of that. And if you're concerned with chemicals in the water who water filters are a great way to get rid of them without spending too much money. 67. Specific Meal Planning Tips & Strategies: good nutrition is one of the keys to a healthy life. As I showed you in the previous lessons, you can improve your health by following a balance tied that will help you see results fast . We talked about dieting to build muscle dieting to loose fat meal planning and specific diets like the vegan diet would tell you that I almost explained the role of vitamins and minerals in your diet and which foods provide the best. So by now we have a pretty good understanding of successful nutrition, which already sets you apart from most people out there who still follow fan diets or simply don't know how certain foods will affect their pots in this section. I want to talk about a variety of more specific diet strategies and tips, for example, how to improve your immunity or how to increase testosterone. Naturally, I will also teach you how to correctly read nutrition label and where and how you can do your own research on dieting and nutrition. My ultimate goal is that you will be able to set up your own Dia plant and adjusted according to your last tile meets. So let's get started 68. 5 Best Supplements To Boost Your Immune System: germs and bacteria are all around us are immune. System usually does a great job of defending the body against them, and when it's working properly, we don't even notice them. Sometimes it can fail to do its job, however, and then we are at greater risk of development infections and other health conditions besides the obvious lifestyle changes that will affect your immune system, like improving your diet, getting enough sleep and avoiding alcohol. There are a number of supplements proven to help build up very defenses here, the ones with the most scientific research proving their effectiveness in no specific order . Number one is garlic and garlic supplements. Garlic has a variety of overall health benefits, including cardiovascular health, cognition as well as physical and sexual vitality. Its ability to improve your resistance to infection has also been proven in various studies . One study compared garlic extract at a dose of 2.5 grams daily to a Class C boo and noted that after 90 days of supplementation, there was a decrease of 61% in the number of collective sick days that decrease of 58% and reported sickness incidents and the decrease in symptom severity of 21%. Number two zinc Zinc is one of the essential micronutrients, which could be found in eggs, meat and lagoon products. As a natural aphrodisiac, it can boost testosterone, but only if the user is deficient in zinc. It's also vital for hormone production in the immune system. One minute study concluded that zing intake is associated with a significant reduction in the duration and severity of common cold symptoms, however, and had to be administered within 24 hours off the first sign of symptoms. When taken regularly as a supplement, zinc was shown to produce cold incidents, school absentees in and prescription off antibiotics and Children. They're two standard dosages of zinc. The low dosage is 5 to 10 milligrams, which works well as a daily preventive, while a high dosage is between 25 40 milligrams and should be only taken one at risk of zinc deficiency. Number three is vitamin C. Like sink, vitamin C can reduce the duration and frequency of the common cold. It can also be taken as a daily preventative. However, active people seem to benefit more from vitamin C supplementation than those that do not exercise. Other benefits of vitamin C include protection against cardiovascular disease, skin wrinkling and I disease. So even though vitamins he can be found in many fruits and vegetables, it might still make sense to supplemented. Especially if you're an athlete. I personally do and have a great experiences with it. Number four is extra Gallus Astra goddesses of her. Originally used in traditional Chinese medicine, it seems to have anti inflammatory effects, and it's especially beneficial to the kidneys. In 17 day study, 1.2 grams of extra gallus taken into divided dosages. The day was shown to activate the immune system and activate T cells to degree higher than a reference drug. Since, as for Gallus has a low by availability, it doesn't quite circulate that well through the body after being ingested. That's why the University of Maryland suggests taking 250 to 500 milligrams Astro Gallus extra 3 to 4 times daily. Number five on the list is spirulina. Spirulina has been shown to be effective at reducing symptoms of most nasal allergies, and this includes alleviation of the stuffy nose and sneezing. Even though further research has to determine whether spirulina directly boost the immune system and has been shown him toe also be effective at reducing liver fed and protecting the heart. An optimal dosage here would be around two grams daily, taken alongside with a meal. 69. How To Naturally Increase Testosterone: one of the most common questions asked by my students is, How can you increase testosterone levels without using steroids? This is a valid question because we all know that testosterone is the primary hormone responsible for muscle roof, sex drive and oftentimes overall well being in men. So no wonder guys want more of it off course. They're also quite a few women who prefer to have higher testosterone levels. So the question then is others safe strategies we can use to naturally increase our testosterone levels. And the answer is yes, definitely. What you have to understand, though, is that these strategies have limits. Many people who ask these kind of questions are beginners looking for a fast and easy way to build more muscle. Even though the strategies I'm going to talk about are proven to work, they will not make you look like a bodybuilder or double the amount of muscle you can build within a month. Much of your body's ability to produce testosterone is limited by your genetics, so what we can try to do is to take advantage of your full potential which will have a positive impact on your muscle gains and overall mood. But don't think of this as some sort of diet. Heck, that will make you become the Incredible Hulk without ever setting foot into a gym. Also, what I want to make clear from the beginning is that I'm not going to talk about some sort of testosterone boosting supplement. Why? Because the vast majority of the supplements, marketed as testosterone boosters, simply don't work. None of the legal testosterone supplements will have a significant impact on your testosterone levels and or your ability to build muscle. That's the hard truth, so even the most sales pitches will tell you otherwise. They're mostly a waste of your time and money. With that being said, here's some legit ways to increase your testosterone. Number one is higher fat intake. Like I said before, dietary fat is important for the production of hormones, including testosterone. Studies have linked lower fed diets to lower testosterone levels and higher fed diets to higher testosterone levels. That's making a sufficient fed and take an important aspect of your diet. So how much fed should eat per day to make sure you're getting enough? The minimum number of 20% of your calories I gave him. The less fat intake will usually be enough for most people, but if you want to test things out, you can go a little higher until maybe 30% to see if you notice any differences. Of course, that fractures deal come from him. Good makes up saturated more and saturated and Polian saturated fats number two is vitamin D. Vitamin D has become one of the most recommended supplements over the last few years due to its proven positive effects on immune function, bone health mood, reducing the risk of a variety of diseases and more. Unfortunately, many Europeans and North Americans have vitamin D deficiencies, especially during the winter, so bringing your vitamin D levels back up to normal can help with testosterone production. But how can you find out for sure? If you're deficient, go to your doctor and get your blood tested. That's the only way to know for sure. If you have a legit deficiency, your doctor will probably prescribe a fairly high dose of vitamin D to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, then followed by some smaller maintenance does to continue taking. From that point on. Number three on the list. Zinc research also shows a link between zinc deficiencies and lower testosterone levels. And just like with vitamin D, when zinc supplementation bring things up from deficient to optimal levels, testosterone increases right along with it. Also, just like with vitamin D. If you're already getting a sufficient amount of sync, additional supplementation beyond that point will not have any positive effects on your testosterone levels. Due to the additional benefit of zinc for your immune system, I supplement with a fairly standard dose of 10 milligrams per day. Alternatively, you could also increase your consumption of food high in sing such a shellfish, beef, lamb and certain nuts and seeds. But I'm personally not a big fan of micromanaging my diet. Next is alcohol. As you can probably imagine, A large and excessive amounts of alcohol can potentially harm your testosterone levels. So my advice here is pretty straightforward. Try to limit your alcohol intake. You don't have to stop entirely drinking it, but when you're going to drink it, stay within the runoff. Moderate alcohol consumption and you will probably be just fine. But the more you exceed this moderate level, the more negative effects you will notice off course not just on your testosterone levels, but on your general health. Another important factor is sleep study showing association between insufficient amounts of sleep and lower testosterone levels. Studies where participants had to sleep less than five hours per night showed an immediate 10 to 15% reduction testosterone levels. Now, of course, very few people will sleep less than five hours. But I know quite a few people who only sleep six, and this is usually not sufficient. Anywhere from 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night will be ideal for most people. And going below this will negatively impact your testosterone level and your overall health . And the last thing I should mention is stress. The more stress we experience in our lives be at mental or physical stress, the more our cortisol levels increase and the higher cortisol levels increase, and the longer they remain elevated, the more problems you will have in terms of overall health. Well being end off course. Testosterone stress comes in a variety of forms. Most people will be thinking of the typical stuff issues with your job, school work, family, friends, partner, etcetera. This kind of stress is often mental and reducing. It will likely be something you want to talk about with your therapist and not your diet coach. But there is also physical stress. For example, not enough sleep like I mentioned before were overtraining or the wrong kind of training. Excessive calorie deficits and digestive issues also countess physical stress, and these are the things you can change in the short term. This nutrition program alone should help you avoid excessive calorie deficits and digestive issues for the right workouts you to check out my other courses or talk to a personal trainer you trust simply. Keep in mind that whatever you can do in your life to reduce stress and let's keep your cortisol levels where you want them to be will benefit your testosterone level and your overall well being. 70. How To Read A Food Label: When it comes to proper dieting, food labels are extremely important. They pretty much tell you everything you need to know and give you a perfect overview off the nutritional value off the food at hand. Unfortunately, many people don't know how to read a nutrition label, which is something we will change now. This lesson is intended to make it easier for you to use nutrition labels to make quick informed food choices that contribute to a healthy diet. So the first thing you always want to check is actually no in the nutrition label, but somewhere else. On the packaging, which are the ingredients ideal year. You want to have as few as possible. If you buy a head of lettuce, for example, the only ingredient will be lettuce. The same goes for most other fruits and vegetables. Being realistic, though, most people purchased package or frozen foods that have more than one ingredient. But then a similar rule applies the short of the green list, the better. I also understand that ingredients are ordered by volume. The higher up on the list of ingredients is the more of it you will find in the product. So for example, if sugar, corn syrup or any other sweetener is the first thing on that ingredient list, then you probably want to avoid this product where it leased. Limit your intake. Okay, now to the actual label. Here's a sample label from the FDA. Always started the top and check the serving size. I always like to compare my foods on 100 grand basis, so one serving is more or less than 100 grams. You will have to do some calculating to just the values on the label. Next, you want to check the total calories. While this will tell us how much energy the food contains, it doesn't say where the energy comes from, so then we go further down the label and check the three main macronutrients, fat carbohydrates and protein First fan. As you know, fed per se isn't bad, but it should come mostly from unsaturated fats, maybe some saturated feds and little to no transfats. Therefore, the high transferred value is an indication to avoid this product. The values for cholesterol and sodium should also be low on quality foods. You can check this by looking at the daily percentage on the right side of the label you're anything below. 5% is low, and anything over 20% is regarded as high onto carbs. Like feds. Carps aren't bad, but you have to make sure that the carps in your food don't just come from sugar. So if you see, for example, that a food has 30 grams of carbs and off those 30 grams, 10 are from sure it's not a good sign. As a rule of thumb, the lower the sugar value, the better. The opposite holds true for dietary fibre, which you want to get quite a bit off. The last macronutrients protein is actually pretty easy to get right. The higher the better, at least when it comes to diets, folks on building muscle and losing weight. The very bottom of the label will tell you the microchip value of food. In general, the more vitamins and minerals, the better. One exception is sodium, of course, but it's usually not found down below, but higher up on the label. And we already discussed this and that's about it. Reading a food labels actually pretty simple, and there isn't much you can do room once you know how to do it 71. How To Do Your Own Research: Now that we're reaching the end of this program, I want to give you a few tips on how to do your own research when it comes to health dieting. Since there's so many new diet trends popping up each year, I will never be able to analyze each and every single one. So it's important you know how to do this yourself. In this lesson, I basically outlined my thought process when I stumbled across a new diet or a new piece of dieting advice that I haven't seen before. I'm sure you will benefit from this, and it will help you to sort through all the information available on the Internet a lot faster. So the first thing I do is look at the diet and see how it stands in regards to the most important dieting principles I outlined in the first section of this program. So this includes things like calorie balance, macronutrients, etcetera. What I'm looking for is whether the diet is in line with these principles and incorporates them. If so, then at least I know that the general design of the diet makes sense and can continue from there. If, however, the diet violates thes dieting principles. And that's a huge red flag. For example, there many diets that promise to help you lose weight simply by eating certain foods without ever watching your calories. Now these foods air usually healthy and good for you, which is great. But it still doesn't alleviate you from the fact that you have to create a negative calorie balance to lose weight. If a certain diet hides this fact, I usually know that they're trying to market toe uninformed customers. Next, I checked the promises the diet makes now. Big promises aren't or medically bad. After all, you can't make pretty dressed changes to your body if you diet and exercise correctly. Instead, what I'm looking for are unrealistic promises like Drink a glass of water early in the morning and you will lose fat like crazy or this one. Food will make weight loss a breeze most times these claims are based on a grain of truth, which is completely blown out of proportion to again market to uninformed consumers. If, however, a diet passes this test, I then check whether it is overly complicated or makes absolute assumptions. One example would be low fat diets that outright condemn all kinds of fits. No matter if they're saturated, unsaturated or transfats. The same applies to low carb diets. Of course, what you also have to understand is that dieting is a highly individual subject. So, yeah, there will be people who have problems digesting carbs and fats, but that still doesn't mean everyone should avoid them. Overly complicated diets include diets where you have to eat specific foods at specific times of the day or avoid specific foods at specific times of the day. Unless, of course, you like this kind of strictness. It's usually not necessary and doesn't have any added benefits. Last but not least, what I do is check trusted sources and research done on the diet. There's so much contradictory information out there, so finding trustworthy sources that look into all the studies and carefully weigh up and reference that data can be difficult. But fortunately, there are still some sources that I personally trust and have learned from a lot. In my opinion. The best platform is examined dot com, which publishes regular summaries of the most important research on fitness, health and nutrition. Examine, also has a supplement guide which is literally 1000 pages long and lists all the most important supplements and research done on them. Much of the content of this course is based on this guy, and it was by far the best nutrition resource I ever bought. I will leave their website in the bonus lecture, so be sure to check it out, and that's it. If you follow these steps, you will notice that many of today's diets are either completely overhyped or way too complicated. Stick to the simple principles later in this program and you will see results. Good luck.