I'm a huge health nut. I don't have the greatest body in the world, but I like to think I'm in shape. I also happen to pay very close attention to the foods that I put into my body on a regular basis; it's no surprise to me that I lose a few pounds of fat or gain a few pounds of muscle over the course of a few weeks depending on what my diet consists of.
Now, maybe this topic is so important to me because when I was in college, I remember gaining the freshman 15 (possibly even 20!). I remember this friend took a picture of me standing with her and when I saw the pic, I couldn't believe how chubby I had gotten. There was no way I was going to let this happen. So, I asked one of the guys living in my dorm if he would be kind enough to give me advice on how to get into shape. He was totally ripped and on the wrestling team so I absolutely trusted anything he had to say. He wrote down my body weight, height, and calculated my body fat. From there, he did these calculations and asked me what it was I wanted to achieve with my body. Well, I just wanted to lose the flab and get toned.
He told me to stop eating three times a day, because that actually hurts fat loss. He told me to start eating 5 to 6 times a day and make sure the meals are smaller in portion. In fact, I remember him saying to try to keep each meal within a certain calorie range because he said that for me to get in shape, I need to feed my body "X" amount of calories per day, and my body needs those calories to come from very high quality foods. So I took the amount of calories he told me I needed to eat in a day, and divided that by 6 (because I ate 6 meals a day). He gave me a list of foods that would be ideal such as chicken breast, lean ground beef, egg whites, turkey breast, pretty much all veggies, and certain fruits. He also stressed the importance of my body needing as much lean protein per day to match my weight. So, if I weighed 160 lbs, I would need to eat a minimum of 160 grams of protein per day. I started eating lower fat foods, and I also eliminated carbs from my diet (breads, pasta, potatoes, rice), and I increased my protein intake (many people don't know that getting enough lean protein into your diet is so incredibly important for fat loss and building lean muscle).
What I noticed is that in a VERY short amount of time, my body got seriously lean. I mean, when I went home for Thanksgiving, my mom pretty much collapsed. That was the first moment I knew I must have made a huge change in my body. So yeah, it's true, I noticed huge results in just a month, but I hadn't done much other than change my diet. I was already working out before I gained the unwanted weight, so I don't think the exercise had an enormous impact on my body's physical changes.
So, the bottom line here is that I lowered my carbs, lowered my fat (even though I remember my coach friend telling me not to worry too much about fat intake because it's really hard to avoid fat in foods), and I paid close attention to the calories I was putting into my body each and every day. That alone is what got me ripped. The results I got would not have been nearly as great had I not first calcultated my body weight, height and body fat percentage. This is what determined what foods I was to put into my body in order to get lean.
Please don't get suckered into low fat or low carb fad diets. It's very important to undertstand these concepts. If you want to get into shape, there are several new programs out there that are WAY more current and realistic than some crazy fad diet on the market. I actually just stumbled upon a web site the other day called The Muscle Maximizer that looked like one of those "as seen on TV" ads (I guess any new product needs pizzazz!) but the guy in the introductory video does a great job explaining nutrition and how it affects your body. Below is the link for those of you who would like to get more information on how you can get lean and drop the fat in a very realistic and very quick way.
Get lean in a quick and realistic way - [http://tinyurl.com/c4lqsp7]
Now, maybe this topic is so important to me because when I was in college, I remember gaining the freshman 15 (possibly even 20!). I remember this friend took a picture of me standing with her and when I saw the pic, I couldn't believe how chubby I had gotten. There was no way I was going to let this happen. So, I asked one of the guys living in my dorm if he would be kind enough to give me advice on how to get into shape. He was totally ripped and on the wrestling team so I absolutely trusted anything he had to say. He wrote down my body weight, height, and calculated my body fat. From there, he did these calculations and asked me what it was I wanted to achieve with my body. Well, I just wanted to lose the flab and get toned.
He told me to stop eating three times a day, because that actually hurts fat loss. He told me to start eating 5 to 6 times a day and make sure the meals are smaller in portion. In fact, I remember him saying to try to keep each meal within a certain calorie range because he said that for me to get in shape, I need to feed my body "X" amount of calories per day, and my body needs those calories to come from very high quality foods. So I took the amount of calories he told me I needed to eat in a day, and divided that by 6 (because I ate 6 meals a day). He gave me a list of foods that would be ideal such as chicken breast, lean ground beef, egg whites, turkey breast, pretty much all veggies, and certain fruits. He also stressed the importance of my body needing as much lean protein per day to match my weight. So, if I weighed 160 lbs, I would need to eat a minimum of 160 grams of protein per day. I started eating lower fat foods, and I also eliminated carbs from my diet (breads, pasta, potatoes, rice), and I increased my protein intake (many people don't know that getting enough lean protein into your diet is so incredibly important for fat loss and building lean muscle).
What I noticed is that in a VERY short amount of time, my body got seriously lean. I mean, when I went home for Thanksgiving, my mom pretty much collapsed. That was the first moment I knew I must have made a huge change in my body. So yeah, it's true, I noticed huge results in just a month, but I hadn't done much other than change my diet. I was already working out before I gained the unwanted weight, so I don't think the exercise had an enormous impact on my body's physical changes.
So, the bottom line here is that I lowered my carbs, lowered my fat (even though I remember my coach friend telling me not to worry too much about fat intake because it's really hard to avoid fat in foods), and I paid close attention to the calories I was putting into my body each and every day. That alone is what got me ripped. The results I got would not have been nearly as great had I not first calcultated my body weight, height and body fat percentage. This is what determined what foods I was to put into my body in order to get lean.
Please don't get suckered into low fat or low carb fad diets. It's very important to undertstand these concepts. If you want to get into shape, there are several new programs out there that are WAY more current and realistic than some crazy fad diet on the market. I actually just stumbled upon a web site the other day called The Muscle Maximizer that looked like one of those "as seen on TV" ads (I guess any new product needs pizzazz!) but the guy in the introductory video does a great job explaining nutrition and how it affects your body. Below is the link for those of you who would like to get more information on how you can get lean and drop the fat in a very realistic and very quick way.
Get lean in a quick and realistic way - [http://tinyurl.com/c4lqsp7]
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