| God's Body by Design - Macronutrient Ratios by J.R.Smith |
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Back to Nutrition |
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God’s Body by Design - Macronutrient Ratios Hi everyone! I pray you each had a great Christmas holiday. I know that the New Year is here and many of you have made some very aggressive resolutions and some of you are stopping by here to get motivation to just get healthy. Either way, I pray that all the plans you make for your health, wellness and sport will be the right plans and that you lay them before Christ and all Him to direct your path. Over the last two months I have been giving you a small lesson on how the body uses nutrition and how we can capitalize on that science to be better at what we do, be it bodybuilders, powerlifters, marathon runners or cheerleaders. Regardless of your sport, you have to fuel it correctly in order to maximize your performance. For most of you here, bodybuilding is your love. And what a great sport it is. I love the feel of challenging myself in the gym, not just to get stronger, but bigger and to builder greater muscular endurance by increasing the reps with heavier and heavier poundages. Whewww…..what a great workout!!!!!! But you must fuel your body not only with the proper ratios of carbs, fats and proteins, but also with the right amount of those calories. For example, almost every diet plan I know does not address the issue of basal metabolic rate or personal physical activity expenditures. Why is that? Because if all the diet plans were to offer this type of service, they would probably go broke simple because not everyone fits into a single mold. It takes time to determine what your personal nutritional needs are and then begin a program of making small weekly adjustments to fine tune your plan to work with your metabolism. All the big diet plans are designed for everyone to fit into single mold and to get you on the diet quickly which increases profits. This month, I want to cover with you this issue. A guide line of what the correct ratio of macronutrients are for a bodybuilder in the off season should be and provide you with a link to where you can get a basic idea of how many calories per day you should be consuming. Granted, this will not be exact, but it will give you an idea and from there, you can work on perfecting your diet plan. Also I can make available to you nutrition menu planning software that will help you to personalize and zoom in your really making your diet plan easy to figure. Now on to the good stuff. According to the International Sports Sciences Association (www.issaonline.com), Specialist in Performance Nutrition program, a bodybuilder should be consuming the macronutrient ratios in the following: In the off season: 20% fat; 25% protein; 55% carbohydrates. During preseason those macronutrients should look more like this: 15% fat; 30% protein; 55% carbs During contest season they will look more like this: 10% fat; 40% protein; 50% carbs Of course the Law of Individual Differences do apply so some of you may operate more efficiently on a contest season diet of 30% fat, 50% protein and 20% carbs but you won’t be able to do it for very long without experiencing tremendous burnout. Just as sports have a periodization to training, so should your nutrition planning. It will be during the times you are attempting to gain the most muscle mass that you will need to consume as much of the right types of carbs in order to fuel the work being done in the gym. Bodybuilding is a unique sport in that it doesn’t require any athletic skills to actually compete. Basically it is what I call an “Athletic Beauty Contest”. I don’t mind that at all myself. Unlike trying to run for a touchdown or score the winning run in the World Series or break the world record in one of the sprinting events in the Olympics, bodybuilders for their particular sport just need to have excessively low bodyfat levels, huge muscle, shape and symmetry and be able to display that work on stage. The real work, though in order to get to that stage, is where the athleticism comes in; in the gym under all that iron. And that is where the nutrition science comes in. I would like to introduce to you today a method of muscle growth and fat burning that was first developed by Dr. Fred Hatfield, co-founder of the ISSA and the first man in history to squat 1,004 pounds in competition. For those who don’t know Dr. Hatfield, they call him Dr. Squat and for good reason. If you ever want to know more about him you can go to his web site at www.drsquat.com and research his many, and I do many accomplishments; but I digress…. This method metabolic turbo-charging that I am speaking of is called zig zagging and is a very simple yet so effective method of stripping off fat and building muscle. In order to fully understand how it works, you need to have a bodyfat assessment done and have your overall nutrition profile assessed complete with a VO2 max and a look at what your goals are. But in a nutshell, the zig zag method would look at your current numbers and goals and then begin to add or take away calories from your daily nutrition plan creating the best possible environment within your metabolism in order to add muscle or strip fat. Zig Zagging will take place either on a weekly basis, daily basis or an hourly basis, depending on your goals and how close to contest time you are. NOTE: Muscle consists of about 2400 calories per pound: Fat consists of about 3500 calories per pound. Can you strip off fat and build muscle to achieve your goals? Yes you can but it should be under the direction of a certified specialist in performance nutrition. It can take some time to zero in one your plan, tweaking the program on an almost daily basis but it is one that can be done with much success and little hunger even while preparing for a contest. If you are interested in finding out more on this type of sports nutrition planning you can contact me via my email listed at the end of this article. I also told you I was going to give you some links to web tools that will help you to get an idea of what you should be looking at as far as calories consumed, BMR and such. Here is the link to those tools. Remember, these are not exact. You should always have a bodyfat assessment performed in order to get exact. http://www.active.com/calculators/index.cfm Not all the calculators will be necessary at this web site but you can look at them and have some fun. Personally I feel the nutritional needs calculator is way off with the 40,30,30 plan from The Zone diet plan but more on that later when I discuss fad diets. There is also a bodyfat calculator at this site as well although I am not sure it will give you the best reading. As I stated earlier, you should see a certified professional in this area. When you are attempting to design your personal nutrition plan, you should opt for a minimum of five meals a day and as many as seven. You should also plan your meals around your training. And if you are trying to gain muscle, do not consume any carbohydrates or protein drinks while you train. Just drink plenty of water. Make sure you consume everything necessary at least two hours prior to training. Then once the training is over, you should make a concentrated effort to offset catabolism and add to the recovery process as quickly as possible. Once training has been completed, here is a very wise and quite successful approach to post training nutrition. Follow it and I promise you, you will see some results. Nothing fancy here either as that is not how God planned our bodies to operate. Immediately after training, consume at least 10 grams of pure branch chain amino acids with water. You can also add to your water L-Glutamine. Thirty minutes after training consume 30 grams of simple sugars. I choose a fruit juice and I add in my creatine at this time. Research is now pretty conclusive that all you need a day is about 5 grams of creatine and the loading phase is no longer necessary. After about 49 days you will have reached a ceiling limit on how much creatine your body can absorb anyway. One hour after training, begin to consume a high quality protein drink the about an hour later, get in your first high quality, muscle building meal complete with complex carbs for recovery. On days you are not training, you do not have to follow this plan since there will be no need for it. But make sure you do get your L-Glutamine and creatine in every day. It is important for your recovery and daily performance in the gym to get the necessary nutrition and sports performance enhancing supplements to push you to the next level of training. Gains don’t come easily but they can come more scientifically if planned for correctly. As far as supplements go, I am a big believe in Beverly International but Shaklee has some fantastic products and are by the way, a line of supplements that has more medical and university research done on it than any other supplement line in the world. Also another line of supplements that I like in limited use is Advocare. They have a great sports nutrition line but some of their prices are a little steep. Check with me sometime and I will be happy to help you find which ones will work best for your particular needs. As the New Year has quickly arrived, please don’t just jump on the first diet plan that comes down the gym floor promising you big muscles and stripping the fat in only 10 days. It doesn’t work that way but those kinds of headlines do sell magazines and supplements. Remember what Proverbs says, “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 16: 25 God has a plan for you as a person, a child of His and as a bodybuilder. Following His plan will always yield high results and never lead you wrong. Hopefully this month’s article will help you in putting you in the right direction of a healthy and successful attempt at bodybuilding, whatever that may be for you. I mentioned earlier about software for your menu planning. Contact me at my email address listed here below and I will tell you how you can order this software that will make all the difference in the world in your daily menu planning. It has 36 weeks of menu planning on it and everything you will need including the ability to create unlimited menu plans for every season of training for your bodybuilding or weight loss. I have also created a message board for all of us who may want to interact a bit more as Christian bodybuilders, powerlifters, figure competitors or those who are just seeking the Lord more. The message board is for posting messages and interacting with others seeking to know more about training, nutrition, supplementation or just are asking questions about the events happening around the world today and how they apply to the Word of God. You can stop by at: http://www.voy.com/198177/ ( make sure you get in that last backslash in order to the address to work) In the meantime, I pray you have a wonderful and happy New Year. Dedicate this New Year to the Lord and He will bless all the work of your hands. Stay Healthy – Stay Strong. J.R.Smith has over 38 years of experience in the fitness and sports field, a former black belt in martial arts and holds multiple certifications from various organizations including the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA –www.issaonline.com). He is also the first fitness professional in Kentucky to take and pass the national board exam given by the National Board of Fitness Examiners (www.nbfe.org) . Currently J.R. is the Director of Wellness for Lifeline Home Health and owns a private wellness consulting firm called Kentucky Wellness Solutions. He is the strength coach for the Somerset High School boy’s basketball team and provides private one on one personal training and nutrition counseling. J.R. is also a certified biblical counselor through the American Association of Christian Counselors. . You can contact J.R. at: bodyfit2day@hotmail.com or by cell phone at 606-271-0981. JR Smith, c.f.t., s.s.c., s.p.n NBFE Board Registered / Fellow Executive Director Lifeline Wellness Center CEO Elite Performance Sports & Fitness Training Systems 606-271-0981 |
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