Why Cutting Carbs at Night Can Help You Build Muscle

Building your muscles gets harder and harder when you enter your 30s, as your levels of testosterone and growth hormone naturally start to decline. However, this problem gets even worse if you have a high amount of sugar in your diet. Manhattan endocrinologist Florence Comite, MD, author of Keep It Up: The Power of Precision Medicine to Conquer Low T and Revitalize Your Life, explains, ‘High blood sugar can compound that problem by hampering the production of both hormones and triggering fat storage. In fact, something as seemingly benign as having a cookie or a couple handfuls of chips late in the evening can undermine your efforts to build muscle.’

 

According to Comite, ‘Sleep is when your body does most self-restoration. Crucial to this process are human growth hormone (HGH) and insulin growth factor (IGF-1), which are typically produced at night. IGF-1 is triggered by the presence of HGH and is released by the liver and skeletal muscles to help build and repair tissues. Unfortunately, IGF-1 shares the same receptor sites as insulin, the peptide hormone that regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism. When insulin is present because you’ve indulged in a high-carb snack before bed, IGF-1 is pushed aside. Eating carbohydrates at night hampers the muscle-repair process because insulin levels increase, preventing IGF-1 from binding to receptor sites.’

 

Therefore, if you avoid eating carbs after your evening meal and try consuming smaller meals low in high-glycemic carbs throughout the day, you may be able to get your muscle wellness back on track. However, if you really want to build muscle, you need a few more tricks up your sleeve:

 

1. Eat Plenty of Protein: ‘Protein provides the raw material needed to repair your daily tissue damage, not just your muscles after a workout,’ says Comite. ‘For example, your body replaces blood cells every 100 days or so. That’s a lot of cell turnover, and almost every system in your body is constantly renewing itself. You need to fuel that repair and renewal process by eating protein throughout the day. As a bonus, eating protein also helps you burn more calories because it takes more energy to metabolize protein than carbs (sugar) or fat.’

 

2. Eat it Early: Comite asserts, ‘I recommend this to almost every patient: Start each day with a protein-rich breakfast. It sets you up right. If you eat within 30 to 60 minutes of waking, you signal the body to start burning energy.’

 

3. Fill Up On Fibre: ‘Fibre, like protein and fat, helps you feel full, takes longer to digest, and slows the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream,’ notes Comite. ‘It also helps maintain digestive health and lower cholesterol. The daily recommendation is around 25 grams of fibre. Eating lots of vegetables will help you get there. Other high-fibre foods are apples, beans, and nuts. Grains like oatmeal (steel-cut is best) and quinoa are also good.’

 

4. Avoid Alcohol: Comite advises, ‘Cutting back or completely eliminating alcohol is one of the most effective ways to lose weight and improve your blood sugar levels. Think about it: Beer has one of the highest glycemic values of any beverage—a double shot of sugar from alcohol plus carbs. Wine, too, is very high in carbohydrates. Having one or two glasses of wine a couple of nights a week is generally not a problem.

 

5. Invest In Your Index: Your glycaemic index (GI) is ‘one of the best tools for combating diabetes (and losing weight),’ Comite points out. ‘This measure indicates how a typical serving of a certain food will raise your blood sugar.’

Categories: Blood Sugar, Build Muscle, comite, cutting carbs, eating protein, growth hormone, late night eating, muscle building, nbsp, Protein, receptor sites, Sugar

Four Fat-Busting Foods that Can Help Men Lose Weight

A lot of weight loss articles are aimed at women, but what about men who want to shed a few pounds? Stubborn fat affects everyone’s wellbeing, so male diet wellness shouldn’t be ignored. If you are a man looking for a shortcut to losing weight, we’ve got a list of the top fat-burners for you. These foods will rev up your metabolism, whether for better, more confident looks, or a reduced risk of heart diseases and type 2 diabetes.

 

1. Oats, Whole Grains and Milk: These foods work well together, so we’re discussing them at once. Oats, whole grains and milk are fortified with complex carbohydrates, lots of fibre and calcium – all of which help with weight loss. Fibrous complex carbs keep your metabolism at top speed and keeps insulin levels in check, meaning that your body will not store extra calories as fat. Moreover, these foods are burned off slowly, giving you a time release of energy and helping you feel fuller for longer. As all three of these foods kick-start your metabolism, you should eat them as part of your breakfast.

 

2. Cayenne pepper, Jalapenos and Habaneros: All of these spicy foods contain capsaicin, which is a chemical that increases your heart rate. In the 80s, a study showed that eating at least one spicy meal a day increases your metabolism by as much as 25%. More recently, researchers in Quebec showed that not only does one spicy boost your metabolism; it also helps your body to burn more calories for the next three hours. In fact, adding more spice to your food, or choosing spicy snacks in between meals, can help you burn an extra 1000 calories per day.

 

3. Coffee and Green Tea: The reason why these two are clubbed together is that they provide the same results in the same way, albeit through different channels. Both coffee and green tea increase your metabolic rate, but coffee does this through caffeine and green tea achieves this thanks to EGCGs. Researchers has found that consuming three cups of either beverage every day helps you to burn an extra 80 calories – even without doing any physical activity. Scientists also note that men who drink a cup of coffee roughly two hours before going to the gym are able to work out for longer. Plus, your body uses up more oxygen in the process, meaning that you build up on more lean muscles, and that again helps to burn fat cells.

 

4. Lean cuts of meats: Lean pork, beef, chicken and turkey are all high in protein, and red meats contain iron and zinc. These two minerals help men to build muscle effectively, which means that, contrary to popular opinion, eating red meat will help you lose weight faster – as long as you opt for lean cuts. Compared to complex carbs, the protein coming from meats takes longer to be digested and broken down by your body, meaning that your body uses up more calories to break down the food. There has been extensive research into this topic, the best of which reveals that men who eat 20% more protein as compared to carbohydrates burn almost twice as many calories as those who eat just carbs. While white meat is still a great source of protein, lean red meat is more often recommended for men. This is because lean red meat is the best natural source of creatine you can find. Creatine is amazing for helping you build muscle, and, for men, the top fat burning foods will obviously include foods that help build bigger muscle.

Categories: Build Muscle, Complex Carbs, foods, green tea, lean cuts, lean red, lean red meat, Lose weight, men, red meat, Weight Loss

Bulk Up: Advice For Women Who Actually Want to Put On Weight

For women, wellness advice is often tailored towards losing weight, slimming down and looking after your overall wellbeing. While these are all solid goals, what happens if you’re a woman who wants to actually gain weight and build muscle? This seems like an odd goal to a lot of people, which means that the advice out there is scarce. There’s plenty of information on fat loss for women and muscle building for men, but not much for women who want to get bigger. That said, implementing the same basic muscle-building recommendations for men into your nutritional and workout programme can work for you too.

 

When you start weight training, most women assume their eating enough calories. Women who want to lose or maintain their weight often underestimate their daily calorie intake, but women who want to bulk up often overestimate their daily intake of calories. Therefore, being honest with yourself about the number of calories you consume daily is your primary hurdle to overcome. For this, a common weight loss tip can easily be applied; keep a food journal. While dieters should keep a journal to find out exactly what they’re eating and where they can cut calories, you should keep a food journal for several days to see what you are eating, the times you are eating, and the gaps in your daily meals.

 

Another way in which you have to be honest with yourself is to realise that you need to eat in order to grow and put on muscle. As a woman, you can be reluctant to consume carbohydrates and worried about getting fat, but you have to consume an adequate amount of proteins, carbohydrates and fats to build muscle. When using your food journal, add up your total calories at the end of each day – including those that come from carbs, proteins and fats – and see where you can add in more. Yes, eating more of these foods will add on a little fat, but without this fat you are never going to put on muscle. You need to be in a caloric surplus, and so you need to take steps to gradually accomplish this.

 

The reason why we say you have to go slowly is that suddenly adding a load of calories to your diet will cause you to gain too much unwanted body fat. For the best results, you should begin by adding an additional 200-300 daily calories for a week, preferably from carbohydrates. If you currently consume 1,600 calories a day, for example, you should increase this to 1,800 calories every day for a week. After this week is up, take a look and evaluate your progress. You should aim for a weight gain of one to one-and-a-half pounds a week, but certainly no more than two pounds weekly. This is a slow process for sure, and it can be frustrating, but in the long run you will be more satisfied.

 

In order to see results, you need to stick to your increased caloric intake for at least thirty days, if not more. The slow progress may make you want to give up, but stick with it! At the very least, it’s worth giving a month of your life to see what might happen. Another foodie tip to consider is to have the best possible pre-workout meal, as this is a great place to add in those extra calories. A pre-workout snack of 20 grams of whey protein and some fast carbs such as a big bowl of cream of rice or a white bagel, for example, will help you to bulk up and work hard. Remember, you will grow outside of the gym not in it.

Categories: Build Muscle, calorie consumption, calories, daily, Food Journal, Muscle, muscle building, Pre-Workout, weight, weight gain, Women

Hit the Iron: Why Building Muscle is Central to Weight Loss

So many of us make the mistake that losing weight means cardio, cardio, cardio and nothing more, but this is do detrimental to your results – not to mention your wellbeing. According to personal trainer Ashley Johns, athlete for the first ever Team Bodybuilding.com, ‘Some may not want tone and just may want to follow suit with what the girls in magazines look like, and think all they have to do is tons of cardio and hardly eat.  For the most part, that is just a shape that has been photographed and is insanely distorted to look even more skinny and beautiful.  The women in magazines are genetically made that way and that is why they are models.’ In order to lose weight, it’s absolutely vital for your wellness that you build muscle.

 

Johns notes the views of friend and personal trainer Travis, who comments, ‘From a Certified fitness trainers perspective it is a treat to see women hitting the iron. Most women have the same goal and I hear it time and time again. They mostly want to lose weight (fat) and tone up. It is a scientifically proven fact that anyone looking to lose fat and tone up will see more benefits when they incorporate a resistance training program along with a good aerobic routine. Basically what this means to women is that they will see a greater increase in body fat reduction by adding weight lifting to their cardio routines. Adding muscle mass to their bodies will increase metabolism and burn more calories, which, in turn, will make not only the cardio but also calorie restricted diets more effective.’

 

So then, what do you need to do to build muscle and lose weight effectively?

 

1. Visualise it: Do you have an image of what you want to look like? Johns recommends learning the body parts you love – both on you and on other people. She details, ‘I have found that one of my favourite muscles right now is my delts.  I love way Jessica Biel’s delts look and there are very few women, unless they are competing, who have built delts. You can tell she works for them!’

 

2. Set your goals: ‘When I first started out, my goal was to lose fat to show the muscles I had hidden beneath,’ Johns recalls. ‘I thought losing body fat would give me those toned arms.  What I didn’t know is that lifting is an integral, if not one of the most important parts, of losing fat and toning up. It’s like a two for one, it gives you that and builds leanness on your body that nothing else will give you.’

 

3. Get musically motivated: When you’re flagging, you’re going to need a workout playlist. Johns adds, ‘When I get new music, it brightens my week and helps me look forward to going to the gym and working it to the new music I have even more!  It really does wonders.’ While running compilation CDs are packed with top tunes to get you going, it’s really whatever floats your boat that counts.

 

4. Understand the reality of lifting: You may be worried about looking like a body builder, but really that just won’t happen if you’re a woman. ‘Get the idea out of your head that if you lift too heavy you will bulk up,’ says Johns. ‘Plain and simple, it will be hard for you to bulk up.  It will also be hard for you to tone up because the art of weight lifting is tough, but you fight through that.’

Categories: Build Muscle, Building Muscle, Cardio, cardio cardio, johns, Lifting Weights, Lose weight, nbsp, Personal Trainer, weight, Weight Lifting, Weight Loss