Diet and Exercise Expectations

So I’ve heard some discussion lately about leg size in relation to working out in Bill’s class. This made me think that it would be very helpful for all of the participants to know what they can expect to achieve by attending Bill’s class. The following is an explanation of some of the key topics surrounding diet and exercise:

Weight loss is the main focus of the majority of the people that begin a workout routine. Weight loss occurs when you use more calories during your daily activities than you consume during the day by eating and drinking. A quick example: a woman’s Basal Metabolic Rate, BMR, is 2200 calories per day and she participates in Bill’s class in the morning and burns 500 calories which means she uses 2700calories during the day. This same woman eats 2000 calories worth of food this same day. This adds up to her burning 700 more calories during this day than she consumed. This is called a caloric deficit. The energy needed to burn these extra calories came from what was already in the woman’s body at the beginning of the day. Once this woman has experienced a caloric deficit that adds up to 3500 calories over consecutive days, she will have lost about a pound of excess body weight. This seems like a very simple relationship, you eat fewer calories than you burn during a day and you will lose weight. It is true that you will lose weight but depending on the types of food you consume, the weight you lose will be a combination of muscle and fat—not just fat. Consuming a sufficient amount of protein during the day will ward off the loss of muscle while dieting.

While you are experiencing a caloric deficit and losing weight, you will not be able to make your muscles grow and your main goal in addition to losing fat is to hold on to all muscle that you have. The amount of muscle that you have on your body is the determining factor in how many calories you burn each day while at rest, your BMR. So if you lose muscle and fat at the same time, it makes it harder to keep that weight off because your BMR will have decreased and you will have to eat less food to maintain your weight.

After reading the information in the last paragraph we can now explain the initial comments about leg size and participating in Bill’s classes. If you are eating fewer calories than your body uses your muscles will not be growing, but hopefully you will hold on to the muscle you have and shed the fat that is on top of the muscle resulting in an overall smaller/leaner leg. This same concept of shedding fat and preserving muscle applies to the rest of your body as well. The fat that you lose will start at your extremities and work its way to your thighs and stomach.

A quick side note about muscle size and working out in Bill's class: during the first few weeks of participating in the class, your muscles will become firmer and slightly larger because they will be filled with more blood and nutrients while attempting to repair themselves due to the increased stimulation. This size increase will not continue as long as you are keeping your diet in check. Also, an immediate result of participating in Bill’s class is that the muscles worked during the class will be swollen for a few hours after the class is over. The term for this is ‘muscle pump’. The pump occurs because your body is delivering needed nutrients and blood to the recently stimulated muscles. Because the muscles you worked in class will be swollen for a few hours after class, this is not the time to try to fit into tight clothing. In fact I have mistakenly overlooked this fact in the hours following a leg workout and actually torn a pair of my favorite jeans.

Keep up the hard work and be sure you take both exercise and diet into account when working to achieve your fitness goals!

Robert

Guidelines for Eating Out

One of the easiest ways to derail your fat loss efforts is choosing less than ideal foods to eat when eating out at a restaurant. If you keep these few criteria in mind while choosing what to order you will have no problems eating a sensible meal when dining out.

1. If you are ordering a salad, be sure to get a low fat or fat free dressing. Ideally you would request this salad dressing on the side of the salad so that you can use only as much as you want. Excess salad dressing will add unnecessary calories to the meal.
2. Include protein with every meal that you eat
3. Make sure this protein is baked or grilled, not fried or breaded
4. Stay away from any buttery or creamy sauces that restaurants like to top meats with
5. When choosing what carbohydrate to eat, again pick ones that are low in fat and not topped or made with butter or creamy sauces. Grilled vegetables are a great choice since they are low in calories, high in fiber and quite filling.

You are probably thinking that finding a selection on the menu at a restaurant that fits all of these criteria will be nearly impossible. It would be very hard, but you can easily solve this problem by asking the waiter to have your meal prepared the way you want it. Don’t be afraid to make special requests for your meal. I have rarely found a waiter that isn’t happy to accommodate my requests.

Have fun!

Robert

Alcohol and Diet

Many of you may not realize that there is a very easy way to make big progress in your health and fitness—eliminate alcoholic beverages from your diet. Some of you may already know that alcohol is full of empty calories, and by “empty calories”, I mean calories that aren’t useful for the functions of the body but still have to be worked off just like useful calories.

Here is some less widely known information about alcoholic drinks: A shot of alcohol contains about 100 calories. So, lets put a night of drinking into perspective. If you have 6 shots of alcohol during a night of drinking that is 600 calories. Margaritas have significantly more calories than shots. A typical margarita has 300 calories. If you have 6 margaritas, that is 1800 calories! A woman that weighs about 130 pounds and exercises 5 times per week burns about 1700 calories over the course of a day. Depending on the drink you choose to imbibe during a night of drinking, you will have consumed between 30%-105% of your daily needed calories by the end of the night.

The following is a list of the other effects of a night of drinking:

1. In addition to having ingested many extra calories, since the drinks were consumed right before going to bed, very few of the calories will be used as fuel in the near future and instead will be stored as fat.
2. The next effect of consuming alcohol at night is the disruption of your normal sleep cycles. Since you don’t sleep well after a night of drinking, your body doesn’t repair itself as well as a normal night’s sleep.
3. Drinking alcohol dehydrates your body as well as depletes your body of vitamins and minerals that it needs to function. Until your body is rehydrated and supplied with the needed vitamins and minerals, it will not process food correctly. The process of rehydrating and replenishing your body with the needed vitamins and minerals takes a day or more.
4. Drinking alcohol slows your metabolism. The more you drink, the worse the effects are.
5. Many studies have shown that consuming more than three drinks in one sitting will halt all muscle repair for many days. This means that the muscles that you worked out earlier in the day will not repair themselves well, resulting in little strength and muscle gains from the day’s workout.

All of these side effects of a night of drinking add up to halt any weight loss for a number of days and possibly lead to weight gain. My suggestion to those that do drink is to cut down on the number of drinks you take in during one sitting and stick with drinks that are sugar free so that the calorie content is lower. Some people only drink one or two drinks at night to “ease the tension” and those people probably are wondering if all of these effects apply to them as well—the answer is YES. Obviously the effects aren’t as sever, but they are still there slowing/stopping your fitness progress. The moral of this story is, enjoy the company of your friends and your surroundings without drinking alcohol so that you can reach your goal of a healthier, sexier body.

Robert

Robert's Meatball Recipe

The recipe includes the following ingredients:

• 2 pounds of 96% lean ground beef
• ~ 1/2 pint of egg whites
• 1/2 cup of oatmeal...
• 4 oz of tomato paste

Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a mixing bowl. This recipe should make about 10 meatballs at 4oz each for the ladies and 5 meatballs at 8oz. Divide the mix up into the appropriate size meat balls and cook on a cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to 375deg. Cook the meatballs at 375deg for 24 minutes. If you want the meat balls to be a little juicier, add more egg whites to the mix and a little less oatmeal.

One meat ball will satisfy the protein requirements for one meal if you are eating 5 times each day. You can also substitute 99% lean ground turkey meat for the lean ground beef. It is important that you use the leanest ground beef. When you use the fattier meat, you add a huge amount of unneeded calories to the meal.

Robert