Getting fit with SwordsMaster

[Vladimir]

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to easily increase the amount of veggies one eats in a day? I don't have a domestic engineer chained to the kitchen so time for meals is usually tight. Right now I only really eat them during lunch in my sandwich and maybe at dinner. How important are they in increasing your physical fitness vs. vitamins?

[edyzmedieval]

Cut back on the sugar. Eat a clean diet. I've actually read quite a lot about this subject recently. What are you eatting on an average day, Edyz?

Breakfast - cereals with milk OR omlette OR gauffre de liege OR small croissants with chocolate

Lunch - typically potatoes/rice with beef/chicken and on friday we have fish - I always eat a salad before, usually made of tuna, corn, tomatoes and cucumbers, with some onions (today feta cheese and olives were available, so I made a mega-salad)

Dinner - similar to what we eat at lunch, salad included for me

Between meals I eat chocolate like Milky Way or I get an ice cream. My problem is that I dont eat fruit and it might be detrimental. I will try to switch on fruits - typically in the summer I go ballistic over strawberries (3-4 kg in a single shot) and in the winter I go ballistic on mandarines (4-5kg on a single shot). Bananas are good and I eat them, as they have fructose which is very good for you.

I also eat cereal bars with fruits in between, but they might be bad, so I stopped eating them. I also eat biscuits.

[Ice]

Breakfast - cereals with milk OR omlette OR gauffre de liege OR small croissants with chocolate

Eggs are excellent to eat in the morning. True using 1 egg with 2 egg whites (egg beaters are the same thing). Use lowfat cheese also. Cereal is ok too, but make sure it is whole grain and you get some protein in there. The croissant with chocolate is pure garbage. Ditch it.

Lunch - typically potatoes/rice with beef/chicken and on friday we have fish - I always eat a salad before, usually made of tuna, corn, tomatoes and cucumbers, with some onions (today feta cheese and olives were available, so I made a mega-salad)

The salad is an excellent idea. Cut back on the starches a bit. You can eat carbs, but just make sure they are whole grain, unless it is immediately following a workout.

Dinner - similar to what we eat at lunch, salad included for me

Between meals I eat chocolate like Milky Way or I get an ice cream. My problem is that I dont eat fruit and it might be detrimental. I will try to switch on fruits - typically in the summer I go ballistic over strawberries (3-4 kg in a single shot) and in the winter I go ballistic on mandarines (4-5kg on a single shot). Bananas are good and I eat them, as they have fructose which is very good for you.

Fruit is good, but it does have a lot of sugar and carbs. Just make sure you don't go overboard. I would pitch the Milky Ways and Ice Cream though. All that will do is make you fat. If you want to lose weight, like I said, eat a clean diet.

I also eat cereal bars with fruits in between, but they might be bad, so I stopped eating them. I also eat biscuits.

Good move with the cereal bars, but please, god, get rid of the biscuits. Loaded with unhealthy fat and simple carbohydrates.

Another tip would be to eat smaller meals every 3 hours. Even if it is a lowfat yogurt or banana, keeping your metabolism is very important to burning fat. People often forget this and don't eat anything for hours on end. Unforunately, this has the opposite effect. Your body starts to burn muscle and not fat, as your metabolism slows down.

[edyzmedieval]

Our program is this - 7 o clock wakeup, 7:30 breakfast, 8 o clock classes, 10:15 break time, after 15 minutes classes again, 12:20 lunch, 13:15 classes till 15:30

16:00 sports, shower and at 18:25 study time
19:30 dinner, 20:30 study time till 10:00
10:45 bedtime

Is it healthy to eat after 10?

Oh, this summer, since I'll be cutting down the school, I will eat less sugars and carbs. I want that hot body like a guy who wants water after 10 hours of walking in the desert.

[Ice]

Is it healthy to eat after 10?

Yes, it is very healthy to eat after ten. Before you sleep, foods such as cottage cheese are excellent to consume.

Oh, this summer, since I'll be cutting down the school, I will eat less sugars and carbs. I want that hot body like a guy who wants water after 10 hours of walking in the desert.

Don't we all man. I'm working on that myself.

[SwordsMaster]

Let's see:

There is nothing wrong with your quads being bigger than your arms: think about it, if you walked on your arms all day, surely they'd be bigger too!

There is nothing you can do about a "heavy head" so don't worry about it, and leave it alone. Maybe you have a big brain. Or maybe you should cut your hair every now and again .

As of food: Don't mix protein: if you're having fish for a meal, then have just fish. If you're having chicken, then don't put tuna in the salad.

The chocolate must go. If you must have something to keep you awake, have coffee, but not at least 4 hours before bed.

I personally don't recommend eating just before bed, but if your body can take it, go for it. Eat cottage cheese and fiber - brown bread toast or something like that, and add that to your eggs in the morning. 2-3 eggs with tomatoes and brown bread toast usually do it for me when i have the time to make them. In between meals, have a glass of milk and an apple, it'll keep you going for quite a while.

Again, for proteing during the day go with fish or chicken, it's leaner, I usually only eat beef or pork about twice a week, eat fish at least twice too, and chicken or eggs the other days.

Basketball is a cool sport to play, and you need strong legs, so train them!

Pretty is not half as important as strong and useful, so remember that. If you want pretty, the easiest is to get surgery. Now, did you ever see an olympic athlete who had liposuction?

It takes some discipline to give up food like chocolate. Sugar triggers "feel good" chemicals so you always want more. But you have to suffer for your art. So If you really do want to be strong, you'll have to make the effort.

[edyzmedieval]

I always have a Beckham-style mohawk for my hair. So that's not a pile of hair.

Ok, thanks for the advice for the protein thingy. It depends on the school routine too, because they decide what we eat. When I dont like I just make a mega-salad and stick with that. I never put sauce or something else, I dont like it plus its unhealthy. Except when it's just a tomato+cucumbers salad, where olive oil and vinegar go really well.

Chocolate will be a problem. I don't drink coffee, and the energy consumption is very high because I run a lot through the campus, I use my brain....everything. A healthy alternative? Bananas? Fructose?

I'm training my legs heavily because I will seriously need it. Right now I want to dunk, so I have to work on legs A LOT... I need to jump almost 1 metre!

What do you think about my workout?

[SwordsMaster]

What you're telling me about eating chocolate "for energy" is an excuse, and we both know it. If your goal is to lose weight, chocolate is out. No discussion bout it. The whole idea behind losing weight is to use more energy than you eat.

In any case, how old are you? if you're under 19 or 20, cutting energy intake and reducing bodyfat drastically should only be done if you're really overweight and under medical supervision. Your growth might be affected, and it is generally a grey area where not much conclusive research has been done.

Your routine seems ok for what you're doing. I would focus on the basics: squats, bench presses, deadlifts, pullups, and do a lot of sprinting.

[edyzmedieval]

I'm around 1.76-1.77, around 72kg (so not even close to overweight) and turning 17 in July.

Sprinting I will really need, as I suffer in basketball because of the lack of speed. Will try the other ones too.

[Beirut]

Hey SwordsMaster,

A question: what is the best sugar to use when making energy bars. I usually use molasses (a 1/4 cup for roughly 8 to 10 good size bars end product), but brown sugar makes the bars nice and chewy and seems to help hold them together. White sugar is out because white sugar is white death, as my sister puts it. What about honey? I already put in a good amount of dark chocolate chips but all in all the bars aren't very sweet at all nor do I want them to be. But I do want something in the bar that will give me a quick boost, as opposed to all the slower acting stuff I put in, like oats and nuts. Oh, I do put in raisins and dried cranberries as well.

[SwordsMaster]

Hey SwordsMaster,

A question: what is the best sugar to use when making energy bars. I usually use molasses (a 1/4 cup for roughly 8 to 10 good size bars end product), but brown sugar makes the bars nice and chewy and seems to help hold them together. White sugar is out because white sugar is white death, as my sister puts it. What about honey? I already put in a good amount of dark chocolate chips but all in all the bars aren't very sweet at all nor do I want them to be. But I do want something in the bar that will give me a quick boost, as opposed to all the slower acting stuff I put in, like oats and nuts. Oh, I do put in raisins and dried cranberries as well.

Wow, that's a lot of energy there. General rule of thumb: sugar, as unrefined as possible.

Now, raisins are ridiculously high in energy. This one summer, I spent a week days eating raisins for 2 of my meals a day, only stopping for one meal - was driving through France, time was of the essence - long story - and in a week of driving 6 hours a day and eating about 2 pounds of raisins a day I put on 4 kg. So you might be getting enough energy already, specially if you complement with chocolate. Of course if your weight is steady, i guess no harm is being done (unless you're losing the muscle and packing on the fat...)

Generally also, the darker the berries in their original state, the better they are for you, so cranberries are great, dark grapes and dark raisins (and red wine!) are great too. (And so is Guinness, for example, but that's a different can of worms...)

Honey is also great stuff. Again, go for the least refined, darker variety you can find, and generally use at your pleasure. There are few natural sugars that are as good and easy to work through the system as honey.

So roughly, pure sugar should account for the least calories possible. For quick energy use raisins, honey or berries instead, if you can. Oats should be a substantial component so you keep going, as well as nuts, that have great fats and pack some of the best calorie-per-gram densities you'll find.

I hope this helps. Generally remember that fat has 3 times as much energy per gram as sugar. Protein is in between. Sugar is the easiest to absorb, followed by protein - so unless you use it to build muscle, will get burnt for fuel, and fat takes longest to get rid of (never woulda guessed...)

Beirut and his talk of baking made me hungry now...

[Beirut]

The bars are in the oven as we speak. I checked here before I finished mixing the batch, but I only saw your post after I had made them. I ended up using some maple syrup and some (very little, tablespoons) brown sugar. The end result for a dozen muffins is: 1 1/2 cups organic oats, 1/2 cup organic spelt flour, 1/2 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup ground pecans, small bag crushed walnuts, lots of raisins and chocolate chips, 2 eggs, olive oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, and heat.

I use soya or hemp protein sometimes, and usually cranberries, but I don't have any now. Any additions you think are a good idea, please share.

This won't be the best batch, but they should be pretty good. For the most part, they serve as a daily second breakfast and emergency stop-the-shakes food to keep in the lunch box. But I usually eat only one a day. The rest of the day, aside from lunch, is always a litre of fruit juice, and lots of green apples and bananas.

The problem with bananas is they make you very sexy to the blackflies for some reason. But that's what Off! is for.

[SwordsMaster]

That sounds great! Extra protein is always good. All kinds of berries can go there - from cranberries to blackberries or blueberries or anything else. Use them for variety or flavour.

Bananas are wonderful. As are apples. And plums. And nectarines. And mandarines. Mmmmmm.

Also, just something to keep in mind is that if you're using a lot of nuts (60 -70 g per bar), the extra protein might not be necessary. Specially if you do need the extra energy, go for that instead.

The thing with fruit, is that mostly it gives you a nice boost of energy, but it won't keep you full. Green bananas are good for fiber, but combining fruit with a handful of nuts might be best for longer term energy. Plus you won't be hungry so quickly.

Anyway, happy baking.

[edyzmedieval]

Swords,

What's the best way to get protein, apart from meat and fish? Bars?
I workout especially to improve for basketball, and one exercise strongly recommends that I intake 30g of protein at least after I do the exercises. But how? Immediately after I mean.

[SwordsMaster]

Immediately after, a shake or bars are probably your best bet. Get some whey, for example.

[edyzmedieval]

But is it recommended for a 17 year old? Would it interfere with something?

[SwordsMaster]

Nope. Just be careful with the heavy lifting.

[Ice]

Swords,

What's the best way to get protein, apart from meat and fish? Bars?
I workout especially to improve for basketball, and one exercise strongly recommends that I intake 30g of protein at least after I do the exercises. But how? Immediately after I mean.

Take a protein shake about 10-15 minutes before the activity and immediately afterwards.

It really is great stuff. It is all around good for your health:http://www.wheyproteininstitute.org/benefits.cfm

http://www.nextag.com/gnc-whey-protein/search-html

One scoop of this stuff in water and you'll be good. It will help you put on lean mass.

[BigTex]

Swords,

What's the best way to get protein, apart from meat and fish? Bars?
I workout especially to improve for basketball, and one exercise strongly recommends that I intake 30g of protein at least after I do the exercises. But how? Immediately after I mean.

15-20 minutes after workout is the optimum time to consume protien.

Bars are generally going to contain a mix of protien isolates. Usually whey, calcium caseinate and soy.

As far as powders go you may be better served by using a whey and calcium caseinate blend. If your goals are to slim down and make speed gains it will definitely help. Casein's gel in the stomach and much take longer to digest then whey and provide a longer sustained release of protien. Where as whey is going to be digested within an hour and a half or less. Whey's wonderful though if your trying to bulk and add strength gains, it's highly anabolic. As the name suggests it also contains a lot of calcium. Which can help burn fat, but more importantly repair bone which is broken down while running and lifting.

[salemty]

i would like to know what the best excercise is for building chest muscles

[SwordsMaster]

i would like to know what the best excercise is for building chest muscles

pushups. The marines do 800 a day.

[Byblos]

SwordsMaster, this is brilliant.

17 years old. Roughly 5"10 roughly 8st.

Basically I am a skeleton wanting to get some muscles. Joined a gym, once a week, hopefully i'll find time for 2/3 times a week. Focusing on upper body strength.

What should I do aswell as the gym work? (you see my thread on whey protein?)

Seen the diet advice, starting that as soon as.

What I can gather is that you like press-ups

nb, I have ok cardio vascular fitness being able to run a mile in 4.45 minutes and shift it in sprints. I don't want to beef up too much as to lose this.


Anything else you want to know?

[edyzmedieval]

8 stones at 5 10 and 17 years of age?!?!?!
What have you been eating (or not eating) for the past 15 years?!

First of all, if you want muscles, get a bit of fat first. It's a bit dangerous when someone is that skinny. Then, eat LOTS of protein. It will help you build some muscles. Then go work out and take whey protein after (no more than 3 times a week).

I am around 1.78 (5 10) but I weigh 11 stones - I'm perfectly proportional. Seriously, start eating. It's the best thing you can do now.

And for sports, do LOTS of swimming and play a team sport (basketball) or play tennis. It will really help.

[Byblos]

The fact is I have played team sports all my life and ate really well. The good old british meals like sunday roasts and hearty stews.

[edyzmedieval]

The how are you only 50 kgs then? If you are normal, then that really is a very abnormal metabolism rate.

[Byblos]

I really do not have much fat at all, what muscles I do have (not many) tend to show up well, for example my stomach muscles. I think I may need a more accurate weigh. Edit: 8st8

[salemty]

are you sure that push ups are best for building chest muscles? ive been doin 80 push ups a day for nearly two
years now and it doesnt seem to be helping greatly, perhaps a second opinion?

[Beirut]

are you sure that push ups are best for building chest muscles? ive been doin 80 push ups a day for nearly two
years now and it doesnt seem to be helping greatly, perhaps a second opinion?

Depends on how you're doing them. If you're doing forty sets of two push ups each, you might want to change your routine. If, on the other hand, you're doing all eighty at once, that's pretty darn good. Also depends on the quality of your push ups.

I do sets of twenty-five, but I do slow nose to floor push ups. Not those half descent spring action jobbies.

[SwordsMaster]

I do sets of 40, slow down, hold for 3 sec, then up. Alternatively do bench presses.

[edyzmedieval]

Swords, what do you think is better? Bicycle (staying in the same place) or running on the treadmill? Losing calories and training the leg muscles, as this is my focus this summer, along with the upper body.