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Weight Loss Exercise

Meal Sizes and Frequency


Meal sizes and frequency are very important. Over the years people are amazed by how much food I eat at work in a day and part of this can probably be explained by decent genetics but more importantly I make sure that I have a higher metabolism by eating more smaller meals.

Most people will eat Breakfast lunch and dinner or even less often as in the case of my parents where the only real meals are breakfast and dinner. I on the other hand eat at 7:30, 10:00 12:00 3:00 5:30 and 8:00. I have been eating six times a day for years. My only large meal is dinner the other feedings are smaller snacks even lunch and breakfast.

There are a few reasons to eat small meals often:

  • One reason to eat a smaller meal is that your body can not metabolize as much food as the average North American eats so some is wasted and some is stored as fat.
  • Secondly, if you go a long time between meals your body stores food as fat to get you between meals when your blood sugar drops.
  • Thirdly, you blood sugar will fluctuate a lot during the day if you have a big meal then a long break and then another meal and you will feel your energy constantly going up and down.
  • Fourthly, you can really vary what you eat and enjoy food more when you do not have four or five things to eat at a time.

Here is a sample of what my day will have for food:

7:30 Bagel and Natural Peanut Butter
10:00 Apple, protein bar, coke
12:00 Frozen lunch entrée or leftovers from last nights dinner
3:00 banana, chocolate bar and a granola bar
5:30 a regular dinner, Meat, vegetables and maybe desert
8:00 popcorn or fruit

You will notice that this is not the best diet, I really have some work to do still but the meals are spaced and the sizes are smaller.

One of the most important ways to look at food and meals is that you should eat six meals a day and each of these meals should have about 30 grams of protein and 50 grams of carbohydrates. This kind of meal is important as it will give you the energy you need to get through a great day including a hard workout. With a meal this size as well you should not gain weight and you should not waste any protein, your body can assimilate this much protein every three hours or so.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Gain Muscle Weight Fast


Read a great review of the Fat Loss for Idiots program. See if you can lose 9 pounds in 11 days and what Cycled Eating is

There are a few things that you can do to gain muscle weight fast. The first thing to remember is that to gain muscle weight fast you need to take care of your diet, you need to train correctly and finally you need to rest very well so that you can make the most of those workouts.

Gain Muscle Weight Fast

Gain Muscle Weight Fast

In the last article I pointed out that most people do not use weightlifting as a form of exercise although it is critical to do this instead of just cardio to help drive up your metabolism. There are a few problems though. Most people as they try to gain muscle weight fast make the critical mistake of overtraining while also not eating and resting enough.

So lets look at the proper way for eating, resting and training to maximize gains and minimize overtraining in your quest to gain muscle weight fast.

Eating to Gain Muscle Weight Fast

Eating to gain muscle is critical. Every time that you work out you are going to be breaking down that muscle and you need water and protein to rebuild your muscle bigger and better to handle higher weights. Most people eat very little protein and lots of carbohydrates, especially grains and other white carbs instead of colored vegetables.

The best way to eat is as I have mentioned lots before is to have 6 meals a day. These meals are made up of getting all of your claories in one day and then break that up into six small meals. This means that your meals are a lot smaller than you may be used to.

The next thing to worry about is the amount of protein in each meal. Eat 20 grams or so of protein in each meal and then over time if you get really serious about becoming a serious bodybuilder then you would take this protein up to 30 or even 40 grams of protein in a meal. 20 grams of protein by the way would be something around half a chicken breast or 2 to 3 ounces of meat.

Lastly remember that if you are taking in this protein that you can not just substitute by eating a giant steak instead all at one time. Your body can not process that much protein at once and you will just pass it unused. With the price of steak and chicken we may as well be making the most of it instead of wasting it.

Resting to Gain Muscle Weight Fast

Rest is also critical when trying to gain muscle fast. You need to make sure that you are sleeping well and not being affected by stress as these two things are the really important actions to gaining muscle after a tough workout.

As you may or may not know the workout that gets you strong is only the fiest part of gaining muscle. The only time that oyur body actually recovers and gains muscle back is during the night when you are sleeping. If you get lots of sleep then your muscles will heal, if you sleep poorly or not enough then your body will not recover fully and your body will become overtrained easily.

Stress also is a roadblock to muscle gains. Your body is not going to recover from a stressful workout if you are not allowing yourself the recovery period. Stress causes your body and muscles to be tight and the tightness of the muscles is a primal reaction that allows you to react quickly to the various dangers that our caveman background was preparing for. So eliminate stress wherever you can.

Training to gain muscle weight fast

OK, I saved the biggest until last. To really gain muscle weight fast you of course need to workout smart and get the most out of your muscles without over-training.

Have you ever looked at a construction worker? They tend to be big with muscle and fat but considering how much they lift they are not huge as bodybuilders. The best way to build muscle is not to just lift a lot of weight throughout the day but instead you need to lift a lot of weight in a short period of time. Even most people training in gyms do not realize this as you will see guys doing set after set with long rest times between sets.

I can tell you that the best way to workout is to warmup your muscles and then do sets to failure. Going to failure means that you are doing a set of 10 reps or so and that at the end of that set you have nothing left ot lift with. After you have a couple of months of working out like this you will be able to use advanced strategies like stripping weights, pauses, and supersets but at this point just try to make sure that you need a spot on that last rep or two.

As far as number of sets try to do two sets to failure for two exercises in each muscle group. This means that for back for example that you would do lat pulldowns for two sets to failure and the two sets of seated rows to failure.

Using this weightlifting strategy should also make your workouts much quicker than you would expect. Your workouts should not last more than 45 minutes total.

How to gain muscle weight fast

So her you are a total strategy to gain muscle weight fast. As you can see there are really only three things to be aware of. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said that gaining muscle was 99% mental and I have to agree. If you are not only aware but have conviction in your actions when it comes to getting the right amount of rest, eating the right foods at the right times and training like a superstar for your body then you are going to gain muscle weight fast.

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General Weight Loss Tips

One Dinner For Two

This is a quick little post before I go crash somewhere, bed or couch, haven’t decided yet.

Breakfast was a bowl of peanut butter and jelly oatmeal. 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup milk, 1 T peanut/almond/cashew butter, 1 T all fruit jelly, 1/4 serving granola. about 400 calories

Lunch was a wrap: one slice deli turkey, one slice cheese, a bit of hummus and vegetables. A side salad with dressing and a handful of veggie chips. About 400 calories.

Dinner came around 7:30pm, both of us starving. We decided to share the chicken fajita dinner. I think I could have eaten 1/4 of this meal to be honest. I also had 12 chips with salas. 800 calories

Total calories: 1,600

I’ll be back tomorrow with a bit more energy.

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