04 Jun Diet, the Foundation for Building Better Bodies

Introduction

You are sitting at home, taking care of your kids, watching your favorite TV shows and eating tons of junk food. Do you feel good about it, or do you think that you are going to feel some consequences for neglecting your physical state? Do you think you will be able to follow up with your kid’s demands when they start to run faster, play more, etc.?

It’s easy to change that; it’s easy to prepare decent, healthier food; it’s easy to do some basic workouts that will affect your physical and mental strength and your weight, as well. If you use your free time to work on that, you will never regret it, you will never be disappointed, and you will have permanent and visible results.  But, the hardest thing you need to do is to START changing some of your bad habits that you might have at the moment.

The first and most important thing you need to do is to change your eating habits. Depending on the time of day, our body has different needs from time to time. The following piece of text will show you how important your diet actually is:

Habits

Water

When we wake up, we are dehydrated. We are in desperate need of water. As soon as you wake up, your body needs to be hydrated, so pour a glass or two and, as they say: “bottoms up!” A fully hydrated body can be up to 19% percent stronger. Never forget that our entire body is 70% water, so drink plenty of it regularly. If you are feeling thirsty during the day, you are already dehydrated, so your body will enter the shock state, and hydrate itself from a very bad water supply tank in our body. You should not ignore this – drink water!

Breakfast

In order for it to function properly, you need to power up your body with a good and healthy breakfast. There are a lot of solutions for a healthy start, but the important thing that you need to understand is that, under no circumstances, should you skip the breakfast. That is, was, and will be the most important meal of the day. Skipping it sends a clear signal to your brain, so it panics, and enters a state of shock. I think that it is unnecessary to mention that shock is bad (mkay). The thing is, while in panic mode, the body understands the signal from the brain like “If this guy is not going to feed me properly I will use less than I need and storage something for later”. Skipping meals, especially breakfast, leads to fat storage, and I know, and you know that you don’t want that.

Try to understand that our body is like an old-school stove… If you want the fire to burn, you need to insert wood all the time during the day, right? The same thing is with our body. If you insert proper “fuel”, it will keep burning, and burning. The signal sent to our brain would be something like “OK, I got enough, lets burn this extra storage I have, seems I won’t be in need of it after all”. It’s as easy as that.

Snacks

Breakfast is not enough. You need to keep pouring fuel into your body. Don’t let the flames vanish; just adjust the amount of “fuel” you use. Then next meal should be light – a quick snack that should consist of fruit (apples and grapefruits are perfect) and some nuts. But, remember, nuts are high in calories, so be careful about the amount you plan to eat. Seven to ten combined with some fruit are more than enough to keep your body active.

Lunch

Lunch is the second most important meal of the day. It should have less carbohydrates, more protein and the same amount of fat as breakfast, lots of vegetables, a good protein source and healthy carb sources.

I will give you a couple of examples later on so you can decide what’s best for you. The amount of time you will need for a healthy lunch is 30-35 minutes at most, so you can’t say that is an issue.

Second snack

After a while, it’s time to refuel, yet again. A protein rich snack is the best solution before dinner. How do you prepare a protein rich snack? Just replace nuts with either a glass of milk, yogurt, or any other dairy product for that matter. It’s that easy. Remember to make a list of dairy products with low fat percentage.

Dinner

Dinner is the final meal for this type of diet. It should be similar to lunch but with only 1/3 of carbohydrates. You don’t need that much energy. It is bedtime soon and you just need some protein rich food in the evening to help your body regenerate over night.

Keep in mind, that the protein source should be the same as lunch. The reduced carb intake makes the actual difference. Take a good look at what the percentage looks like the in the previous table.

Summary (of what has been said so far)

As everyone probably noticed, there are 5 meals in this diet I have described. All you need are normal, balanced and decent meals and you will start noticing results in no time. Unfortunately, the overall food quality dropped as the years passed by, so some basic supplementation will be necessary. I highly recommend using “Omega3” caplets and some multivitamins – nothing more for starters. Depending on the manufacturer, the timing for using supplements is flexible. Always, and I repeat, always read the product label before using any kind of supplement. Also, try to do some basic research before purchasing.

I might be boring, but one of the most important things, whether you decide to use this kind of diet or not, is to keep your body hydrated. It will be hard at the beginning but eventually you will get used to it for sure. For my clients, I recommend the following strategy on how to make a habit for drinking plenty of water. When you wake up, drink 2 glasses of water, and do so also before each meal, including snacks; try and include 1 glass of water every hour and one before going to bed.

This is a very simple way of getting proper eating habits and building a solid foundation for future progress. There are certain calculations that need to be done for achieving certain goals, such as weight loss, muscle building or even gaining weight. I’m sure there will be some difficulties, but the reward your body will give you is far more precious than the satisfaction you will receive from not trying and eating casual junk food. I’m not saying you should remove everything at the beginning, but try to cut down on some bad habits for a start, by implementing some healthier solutions.

For example, for dinner, instead of having French fries, try regular potatoes baked in the oven. Instead of a candy bar, eat a fruit. All in all, you should replace high fat dairy products with low fat products. These small changes will have great impact on your daily calorie intake, meaning, if you are a bit obese, you will start your weight loss process. You will notice huge difference within a few weeks, as your motivation will rise up. Just start – you will not regret it!

Breakfast: The post-workout meal

By now, we have covered, let’s say, the “decent” eating habits, so we can move on to the next level. Keep in mind that by eating accordingly, your energy level will be higher; you will have less blood sugar oscillations and a lot less need for sleep during the day.

Now you probably understand why I insisted you should start with changing your eating habits. You are prepared to start with some basic workouts, and implementing small changes in regular 5 meal diet, considering the time of the day you plan to use for your workout.

I highly recommend that you do your daily morning workout after the first snack. I’m going to explain what the benefits of starting like this are.

As I said in the text above, when your body is fully hydrated, it gets stronger by up to 19%. But, it takes time to fully hydrate it. If you hydrate your body regularly, it will take around 6 hours for it to fully hydrate. Since your first meal, breakfast, should be as soon as you wake up, your second meal should be around 3 hours later. It would be perfect to start your workout 6 hours from then, if you have followed my simple rules for hydration I described before. Keep in mind that an increase in water intake will have a high impact on your weight loss, so, again I will emphasis on the fact that you HAVE TO drink water regularly.

The next thing you should focus on is to upgrade your meals and inserting the 6th meal, one of the most important meals of your day. Your 6th meal should be immediately after your workout. If you are not using supplements at the moment, don’t worry, it’s not going to be a problem for a start.

I recommend doing one simple experiment before starting your workout. Measure yourself and write down your weight. Immediately after the workout measure your weight again. You should notice a small difference in your weight, depending on the workout intensity. That small difference is actually the water you lost during the workout, so you know now how much water you need to replenish after the workout. By following this piece of advice, you will have even better progress.

Now we can continue upgrading your meals even further. I am going to list some proper solutions for 3 main meals of the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Breakfast

So, without further ado, here’s a list of some of the best breakfast solutions you might find useful, and the recipes for them. Don’t discourage yourself if you fail to prepare a tasty meal, since you need to practice in order to find the right recipe which suits you the best. But remember, there are no two identical people on this planet, so maybe my own preferable meals won’t be your meals of choice.

Pancakes

Ingredients: 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of buckwheat, 4 tablespoons of honey, 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder, 2/3 cup of milk, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Put all the ingredients in a blender and mix them up nicely. Keep mixing them with a spoon until the mixture is glue-like. In the meantime, heat up a frying pan and add some butter and start baking traditional American pancakes. Use some organic maple syrup as a sweetener.

Omelette

For this meal you will need 5 egg whites, 1 whole egg, 2/3 cup of oats, 2/3 cup of cottage cheese, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1/2 cup of milk and some salt and pepper.

Mix everything up nicely in a bowl and put all the ingredients in a heated frying pan. This is one of my favorite recipes for omelette, but there are a lot more “lighter” versions of it. A perfect addition to this meal is some ruccola salad and some low fat dressing. Also, feel free to add some frozen veggies to your omelet. Like I said, there are a lot of variations you can use for this meal.

Light omelette

If you want your omelette to be light you will need 4 oz of low fat Cheese, a 2/3 filled cup with canned mandarin orange, 2 teaspoons of olive, flax oil, 4 whole eggs and 1 cup fruit juice.

This is a very simple, light breakfast for people with a busy schedule.

These are just a couple of examples for a light, healthy breakfast and I’m sure you will adapt and use these examples to find the right recipe for your own taste. Also, remember to have your breakfast in the 1st hour after you wake up.

Post-workout meal

Here, I’m going to talk about the 6th meal of the day (mentioned above) a bit more. The only thing that you should worry about is that it needs to be rich in protein and it should be absorbed fast. The only way to absorb something fast is by preparing a meal in liquid form. Like I said, if you don’t have any kind of supplements, it’s not going to be a problem at the beginning, at least you’re going to build even better eating habits.

The most basic post-workout meal you can have is very simple: 1/2 cup of oats, 2 glasses of skimmed milk and a teaspoon of honey.

Keep in mind that you need to prepare oats a day before you eat them. It’s easy to do that, so don’t worry. Before you go to bed, grab a bowl, grab cup of oats, put them in the bowl and pour some water over the oats. The next morning your oats are ready, just remove the water and use the proper amount for your post workout meal, as I described. You can even add a tablespoon of peanut butter, but keep in mind that it needs to be organic, so please  check the product label before you buy it. I’m sure you’re going to love the taste of this meal, especially when you start adding some supplements, after some time passes, of course.

It’s going to be even easier to prepare this meal in a blender, since the oats should be chopped and you can even add some fruit along with the other ingredients. But, keep in mind that fruits are nothing more than natural candy, so don’t consume a lot of it, especially bananas. Berries are the best possible choice you can make. Also, if you are using some fruit, drop the honey – too many calories . By preparing the meal like this, it’s going to be easier for you to absorb it faster.

Let’s discuss why that 6th meal is so important. After the workout, your body acts like a sponge. But what does this mean? It means that it absorbs nutrients a lot better in the next 30-45 minutes, after the workout. Considering the fact that the foundation for muscle building is protein, you now understand why it is so important to have your post workout meal rich with protein.

High motivation levels, weight loss and muscle gain. When you started this type of diet, did you think  that the holy trinity will be the reward that you will receive?  Now we have to focus on your lunch, quick snack and dinner in order to improve your results and progress even more.

A few healthy pointers

Before we move onto some “decent” and healthy lunch recipes, I need to point out some things. Always try to have groceries as fresh as possible and have your meal plan ready the day before, so you don’t waste time thinking what to prepare. This way you will save a lot of time and energy, so you can keep your focus high. The time needed to prepare a healthy lunch is around 25-45 minutes, depending on the kind of meat you’re having. White meat/fish takes a lot less time to prepare than red meat, and, also, it is a lot healthier choice – it’s easier to digest, so it’s less stressful for your system.

Lunch recipes

Beef & pasta

Ingredients: 8 oz of Beef (lean cuts); 1 cup of Celery; 1/2 cup of Onions; 1/4 cup of Tomato; 1+1/2 cups of Pasta; 1+2/3 tsp of Olive oil.

With the next recipe, you will be making a slightly “heavier” lunch, which will keep you going for a while. Since red meat is the main ingredient, you’re going to need more time to prepare the meat, depending on what type of meat you prefer (medium, rare or well done). I recommend you start preparing pasta at the same time you start cooking meat and also try not to overcook veggies. It’s gong to take around 45 minutes to prepare this meal.

Chicken & Rice

Ingredients: 8 oz of Chicken breast (skinless); 2 cups of Mushrooms; 1 cup of Onions; 3 cups of Tomatoes; 1+2/3 tsp of Olive Oil; 1 cup of Rice.

Chicken with sautéed vegetables: an easy meal to prepare. Try seasoning the vegetables with salt and pepper according to your taste, plus some basil and oregano. In general, chicken is a very easy and fast choice of meat you can prepare and you have a lot of different choices concerning how to prepare it. You just need to use your imagination and use the ingredients I recommend, or just mix it all up with some of your own. The chicken will be ready after 25 minutes, but it’s going to take some time to cook rice, so I recommend starting earlier, maybe even right after breakfast, since it takes around 1h and 30m to prepare.

Tuna & Vegetable Salad

Ingredients: 8 oz of Tuna (canned in water); 1 cup of Celery; 1 cup of Cucumber; 1 cup of Tomatoes; 1 cup of Grapes; 2 whole Pita; 2/3 tsp of Olive Oil; 18 Peanuts.

Roughly chop the vegetables and grapes and mix them with olive oil and add a dash of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Add tuna and peanuts over the vegetables when you’re done. This is a very light lunch and it takes around 15 minutes to prepare, or even less.

Now you have a bit bigger picture of how a healthy lunch should look like. There is a lot of free space to work with and all you need to do is to use your imagination and prepare dozen more tasty recipes for both you and your family.

Snack examples

You can use these snack recipes for both the pre-workout snack and the second snack. Just keep in mind that you need a lot more carbs in pre-workout snacks, since you need a lot more energy in the morning than in the evening. Evening snacks should have a lot more protein, and, on the other hand, very little to no carbs at all.

So, here are some recopies:

• 1 cup Yogurt, plain, low fat; 1 apple; 1/3 tsp of Olive oil.
• 2 cups of milk, 1% fat; 1 Grapefruit; 1/3 tsp Olive oil.
• 2 rice cakes; 1 glass of milk; 1 tsp peanut butter.

These snacks are light and they have around 300 calories (or a bit less) and contain some protein and some carbs as well.

Dinner recipes

Like I said before, dinner should be very similar to lunch, but with a lesser concentration of carbohydrates – approximately it should contain 1/3 the carbs you used for lunch (mentioned above). The reason is very simple, you are going to bed soon after and you don’t need as much energy. Basically, you can use the same recipes for lunch, just reduce the carb source. A perfect choice for dinner is either fish or turkey/chicken breasts.

Sweet & Sour Whitefish

Ingredients: 10 oz of Whitefish; 3 cups of Carrots; 2 cups of Celery; 2 Lemons; 1+2/3 tsp of Olive oil; 1/2 cup of Pasta.

Sauté chopped vegetables until tender. Add tomato sauce, lemon juice, and a little bit of brown sugar. Place the fish on a pan and pour mixture on top, cover it with foil and bake at 350℃ for 20 minutes. This is one of my favorite meals – light, tasty and full of good nutrients.

Grilled turkey with seasoned beans

Ingredients: 8 oz of Turkey breast (skinless); 2+1/4 cups Beans (green or yellow); 1/4 cup of Beans (black); 1/2 cup of Chickpeas; 1/2 cup of Cucumber; 1/2 cup of Pasta; 1+2/3 tsp of Olive oil.

This meal will take some time to prepare, so I recommend you start preparing it right after breakfast.

Let the beans and vegetables marinate in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and seasoning for at least a couple of hours. Grill the chicken, rubbing it first with a seasoning mixture of salt, lemon and pepper.

Let’s summarize some more

Now you have an idea on how your meal plan should look like to the fullest. Depending on your taste, you just need to adapt the recipes and find your own best possible choice of ingredients. To make things easier, here is the time schedule you should follow, depending on the time when you get up.

• 06:00 am breakfast
• 09:00 am Snack (pre workout)
• 11:00 am Post workout meal
• 02:00 pm lunch
• 05:00 pm 2nd snack
• 08:00 pm dinner

Implementing this kind of diet will have a tremendous impact on your weight control and the overall progress that you desire. Also, these are only a couple of recipes for you to get the bigger picture of how you should organize your day and your meals. Don’t be a stranger and try to experiment with the meals and use your imagination to your advantage. Follow this plan and build the body you always wanted!

Workout gear, beginner workouts

If you want to start following the diet I prescribed, it will be really easy for you to fit in these simple beginner workouts into your routine. Depending on your current fitness level, you are going to need at least 2 weeks to adapt and to some advanced and more complicated workouts.

First of all, let’s discuss a few things about some of the equipment you are going to need for your basic workouts. Don’t be afraid, it requires minimal investments, and I also recommend that you find second hand gear, if possible. There is no need to spend tons of money on brand new gear, and I’m sure you will be amazed how little you need to spend in order to build a great figure.

Pull up bar

This is one of the most essential parts of equipment you will need. Unfortunately there is no replacement for a pull up bar. It is a must for any kind of upper body workout. There is no need to panic, however, since there are a lot of cheap solutions on the internet, or you probably even have something at home that can be used as a pull up bar. The mounted door pull up bar is a great solution for your problem and its relatively cheap – it probably costs around 30$.

Dumbbell set

Another essential part of your equipment are the dumbbells. Dumbbells offer amazing versatility and are very convenient for use. The handy trait is that dumbbells can be used to train almost each body part, so basically they are an unavoidable part of workout equipment. Just like the pull up bar, dumbbells can also be found on the internet at very low prices, or you can try to find some on some garage sales. But keep in mind that you will need a steel plated dumbbell set, which can be easily configured and adjusted to the proper weight.

Home cardio gear

This is nothing fancy, nothing expensive.

Your home cardio gear should consist of a pair of running shoes and a jumping rope. That’s all you need! Focusing on doing cardio every day is a priority, and there isn’t anything easier than jumping a rope for 10-20 minutes, or even, if it’s possible, to go for a jog for 30-40 minutes.

These four items mentioned above are part of the essential gear that you will need, and now I’m going to suggest some additional options for your workouts, depending on what kind of room you have at your home and how much space you are willing to give up. Like I mentioned before, I’m not going to include any fancy and expensive stuff, just some cheap and effective solutions.

Besides the essential workout gear, there are other things which may help you a lot with your overall progress. Depending on the free space you have, you can transform your whole room, attic or even a basement or a garage into your personal home gym.

Push up bars

Push-up bars are a very useful part of your equipment. They are cheap and they use up no space whatsoever. With these, you can expand the whole set of workouts you can do at home! But the most important thing you will get by adding these to your gear set is a lot less stress for your wrists and less chance of getting injured while doing push-ups or other similar workouts. Buy them, I tell you from my personal experience that you will not regret it.

Bench press

Getting a bench press might be tricky, since it requires a bit more space than the rest of the gear I have recommended so far. A bench press enables you to isolate and force your chest muscles to the max. This typical bench press is suitable for flat exercises. The leg extension part can be disassembled, so you don’t need to worry about that extra space. If you have an attic, garage, or if you can spare a whole room for your workout gear, this is a perfect choice for you. Also, I recommend additional weight sets, like an “EZ” bar and an Olympic bar, if possible, of course.

EZ and Olympic bar

Combining the EZ bar with a bench press enables you to do various isolation exercises which I will describe later on. Having an Olympic bar (weighs 45lbs) is a valuable asset in your gear set, but only if you have enough space for it all.

There are a lot more gadgets you can get to make your home gym an awesome one, but I’m not going to mention all of them, since the list would be huge, but I’m sure you will get a lot more stuff that can make your workout more fun and efficient.

Beginner workouts

Supposing that you have acquired all the necessary tools, we can now start with some basic workouts that will engage your muscles. We are going to employ a type of circuit training you’re going to follow for about 2 weeks. Basically these workouts are preparing you for the real deal, but they are as important as the advanced workouts, meaning you should not skip the basic workouts and go right after the advanced ones. There is no need to rush or to stress your system. Patience is your best ally when you are starting to work out and the results will come in time.

For starters, you should do some basic circle training to get your body used to being active and to avoid massive sourness. The whole idea is to hit each body part 3 times a week for 2 weeks and then you can move on to an advanced workout plan. I recommend having these strength workouts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and for the rest of the week, do some cardio. For a start, just do either some jogging or rope jumping. Depending on your fitness level, start light – jog for about 20-30 minutes. Don’t worry, if you can’t manage it, you CAN increase the time you spend on jogging, just take it easier when you start. If you choose to jump rope at home, start light as well. Your goal is to use jump rope for 20 minutes overall. This doesn’t mean that you have to jump without stopping. The whole cardio workout should last for 20 minutes, so you can adjust the level of intensity which suits you best – just avoid long breaks.

The plan for strength workouts should look like this:

• Squats, 2 sets, 15-20 repetitions
• Lunges , 2 sets, 10 repetitions for each leg
• Wide pull-ups, 2 sets, max repetitions
• Chin-ups , 2 sets, max repetitions
• Normal push-ups, 3 sets, max repetitions

Conclusion

Well, there you have it – everything you need to know to get your body ready for some serious working out. If you have gone through the text thoroughly, then you should have a clear picture on what you are to do. If not, well, go through it again. Now, it is all about signing into a professional gym, finding a professional trainer, and the rest will come naturally. One day, when you look yourself in the mirror, and you see that you have finished your pursuit of the ideal body, the sense of satisfaction that you get will be priceless. So, actually, what I am trying to say is: DON’T STOP AND GOOD LUCK!