Bodylines Fitness introduces the age old 40-40-20 diet.
Food is essential to survive, we all know this. Food tastes good, especially sweets, carbohydrates, and fats. This is true too. So were do we go from here? How can we eat good food, yet maintain a slim figure? What is the answer?
Here they are:
1. Compromise
2. Education
3. Time
4. Patience
These are the four components to a healthy productive diet that produces results. Does this sound strange? Probably, but that's ok, let us explain.
The importance of being able to Compromise what you eat in your diet is critical for successful weight loss. Weight loss is not usually a simple formula of eating less than what your body burns in total calories and voila' weight loss. This may happen for some people, but not most. Instead it takes compromise, knowing that not every meal, and situation will work out perfect. If your work entails taking clients out to lunch or dinner on a regular basis, then a different understanding of your diet needs will be necessary. Eating a nourishing and productive meal can happen everywhere once some compromise is found regarding the food proportion and selection.
Educating yourself about food selection and proportion is the key ingredient that will create the foundation of a successful meal plan. We recommend using Bodylines Fitness Protein/Carbohydrate/Fat tables as a reference for understanding the correlation between ounces and grams in all foods. Libraries and Bookstores will also have these tables in their cooking sections to use as a resource to learn about ounces, grams and food proportioning.
Research concludes that active adults who begin weight training programs need increased amounts of lean proteins in their diet to support muscle growth, and production. The ratio is generally about .8 to 1.0 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. If someone weighed 200 lbs then they need 200 grams of protein daily! This is not a high protein diet, but an adequate amount of protein to nourish a healthy active, weight trained body. The most important aspect of proper protein intake is to also eat Carbohydrates in the same proportion of protein. This means that 200 grams of carbohydrates should also be consumed daily for the 200 lb adult. That is the key that will unlock your body's metabolism, and ability to shed bodyfat. Eating protein and carbohydrates in the same proportion of one another. The fat in the protein source will be the fats that round out the diet. This may be new territory for many people not exposed to food proportioning diets. It is important to make every attempt possible to consume 5 small meals daily in order to promote a metabolism that more quickly digests the food it consumes. The individual that needs 200 grams of protein, and carbohydrates each meal will then consume 40 grams of each per meal. The fat intake will be between 8-15 grams also depending upon the quality of protein and carbohydrate source. Contact Bodylines Fitness for further details on this meal plan, and we will direct you to additional sources of information.
Patience is the most important element to allow your body to change. The current environment we live in now is most associated with productivity, speed, and deadlines. Our body's simply do not work this way. If it takes 10 years, 5 years, or even 1 year to get out of shape it will not become lean and "fit" in a few short weeks. Yes, it may be possible, but it won't be a safe healthy change in lifestyle. Patience and acceptance of where you are plus the determination to stay with your plan is the element necessary to change your body.
Allow yourself enough Time to adapt to all the changes taking place in your diet, and new lifestyle. The body will need time to adjust to a new diet, plus additional experience and troubleshooting of food combinations that will work for each individual person. Because we all have busy lifestyles, it is important to solutions to the everyday time crunch we all experience. With the advent of nutrition bars and protein powders, nutrition needs can be met when time is short. Contact Bodylines Fitness to find out what bars are best and why. Remember, changes will not happen overnight, but a well thought out plan is what will lead you down the path of successful bodfat reduction, and weight loss.
Nutrition Q&A.
-Protein, what is it, and how much do I NEED?
Protein is essential for everyone, especially those who embark on the journey of Fitness. The reason why protein is so important for the weight training adult is your ability to build lean muscle tissue. Protein comes from animals, and dairy products like milk, cheese, plus other sources including nuts. Protein breaks down in our bodies into substances called amino acids, and these are the building blocks for muscle development and other functions in our bodies. This is a basic explanation of what protein is, and most of the sources of where it comes from.
The most important aspect of this question is "how much do I need" for myself? Reliable sources of information like double blind studies conducted by clinics, reports in the New England journal of medicine, and T-mag, will give a range of requirements. Those requirements are between .8 and 1.2 GRAMS OF PROTEIN, per POUND of BODYWEIGHT. This is emphamsized because it will be more than what most people are used to. Let's take 1.0 grams per pound as a nice medium between those figures. If a person weighed 150 lbs, then 150 grams of protein would be necessary to provide adequate protein to build "lean" muscle tissue over the course of a month of possibly 1 maybe 2 lbs. This amount of protein is necessary because our bodies need protein to facilitate everything from organ function, hair growth, skin/nail growth, and many other functions. So after all of this protein is used for these bodily functions our muscles are then given the extra protein. This equates to around 20-30 grams extra for new muscle growth. This amount will vary depending upon several factors like protein choices and bio-availability of nutrients and digestive enzymes in our intestine's for absorbtion. Plus humans do not build 100% muscle tissue every few weeks, there is some intracellular fat that should be included also. This is the same as different percentages of fat in meat products we buy at the store that are not 100% percent lean. This is why we recommend 1.0 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight for WEIGHT trained individuals. It gives your body the adequate amount of protein to build "lean" muscle tissue in a healthy manner.
-if you would like a detailed source of protein choices. Contact us, we would be glad to provide you one.
Q What about these Lo-carb, and No-carb diets?
This is a very hot topic right now, as the Atkins diet has made this a popular option for weight loss. We see this as a current trend and one that will not be in a few short years. But, these diets do work, we have had success with them, but not for the long term.
If you are looking for immediate weight loss following a diet prescribed by the late Dr Atkins is a way to go. We have clients that lose 60 lbs and even more, but it is something that will eventually need to be modified. Reducing drastically, or even completely eliminating carbohydrates in your diet will create a "state" in your body that equates to weight loss. "State" meaning hormonal shift, metabolic shift, and something called Ketosis and the reshuffling of ingested nutrients in your body. Granted this is a quick snapeshot of what happens, but here is what is important to know. Your body needs carbohydrates to FUNCTION! It is not healthy to starve the body of carbohydrates and go on a prolonged diet without them, or your cholesteral level will eventually rise, and your colon will become irritated to put it nicely. Most people do not know that Dr. Atkins first created the diet for bed ridden obese people who needed to loose weight so they could then go to a doctor. It was created for dramatic weight loss so these people could literally stand up! If you are not in this scenario then let us guide you to a more lasting, beneficial, and successfull option. This is not a diet that bodylines fitness would ever recommend, it does work, clients do use it, but we do not like it.
Q How many calories should I eat if I want to lose weight and bodyfat?
This is a common question everyone always has. And the quick answer is: follow the meal plan. Eat 5 meals daily that incorporate the correct balance of protein and carbohydrates. For most women that will be around 20+ grams of protein and 20+ grams carbohydrates per meal. If you do this your calorie intake will be balanced keeping energy levels high and insulin levels steady. This is good. Now the long answer begins to be an exploration into more recent developements into food partitioning and nutrition analysis.
Food partitioning and food timing are theories about ingesting different food combinations in order to make the body manipulate/release different hormones in order to increase metabolism and or Testosterone levels plus many other different goals. This becomes a more technical and complicated system of eating that does produce great results but you will need time and lot's of it everyday to cook and eat these meals that are specific to just certain protein sources. The idea is to eat foods that make our bodies release different hormones and create different metabolic pathways that will create a "cascading" effect on muscle building and fat metabolism. It accounts for things like the Thermic affect on food, which addresses the problem of when we ingest foods into our body our metabolism, body temperature, stomach acidity, and some other factors like food quality affect how much we ingest/assimilate per meal. When the label says this is 35 grams of protein for the beef patty you just ate, you are not actually going to assimilate all 35 grams of that protein. A couple of grams will be lost in just the breaking down and "thermic or heat" of the digestive process. Plus the same goes for the carbohydrates ingested and when you combine this with food timing it becomes a little to technical for most folks. I doubt people in this day and age want to figure out when they only should eat this type of carbohydrate and nothing else. Or go through a period where they only eat protein for a few days and have to figure out how much they will not assimilate per meal.
Now you can see why we make this as simple as possible. If you would like to learn more about this go to www.T-mag.com you will learn more then you ever wished for. Or if you want to keep it effective, but easy, trust the fact that we give you practical, yet very informed information.
