Theory Behind the Meal-Plan: Ketogenic Dieting

Concluding my "Theory Behind the Meal-Plan" series, is a discussion on ketogenic (or "keto") dieting.

So what exactly is ketogenic dieting? Well, it's an interesting approach to dieting in which you try to stimulate your body to release organic compounds called ketones, which are used by the body to breakdown fat, and are released during a biological process called ketogensis. Ketones have the organic structure of a double-bonded carbon atom to an oxygen atom, with that same carbon atom having two other organic structures attached to it (denoted by the "R's" in the figure below).

Source: wikimedia

 

Your body likes to run on carbs as its main source of energy. That's why you crave them so much. They are efficient sources of energy and a lot easier to break down depending on the carbs you eat. When you have an adequate amount of carbs, or an overabundance of carbs, floating throughout your body, your pancreas releases insulin. Insulin is a VERY powerful hormone that can cause major changes in your physique. Its main purpose is to store glycogen, amino acids, and other things into your muscle cells (depending on the type of carb), while storing the excess in your body as fat.

When your body is low on carbs, from fasting or simply eating a very small amount of carbs, your body starts to release ketones through ketogenesis so that it can break down fat for energy due to a lack of carbs. This is beneficial from a physique transformation standpoint because, well.......you're breaking down unwanted fat. While insulin is released by the pancreas, ketones are produced and released mainly by the mitochondira of the liver cells.

Source: fgamedia.org



Theories and Protocol to Keto-Dieting

*Consume an extremely low amount of carbs (like under 50-100g of carbs) on days you don't work out / most of the week. This means that most of your carbs will only really come from the residual carbs eaten through your protein and fat sources.

*Consume about the same amount of protein that you would on most other bodybuilding meal-plan protocols, i.e. about 85%-100% of your bodyweight in grams of protein.

*Consume an INSANE amount of fat. Like well over 100-200g of fat. In doing a quick web-search on keto-dieting protocol, I've found it to typically be about 60% of your daily calories coming from fat. (That's from non-scientifically credible sources though...so do a thorough search to come to your own conclusion).

*From having so much fat readily available, and almost non-existent carbs, your body will stop releasing insulin and start releasing ketones.

*By stimulating ketone relase, your body has a lot of ketones floating throughout the body for which to start breaking down fat with, resulting in a leaner body over time should one continue this dietary protocol.

Source: ucsf.edu

So keto-dieting involves eating adequate protein, low to no carbs, and LOTS of dietary fat. The fat comes from foods that are high in fats like certain dairy products, non-lean meats like bacon, super dark chocolate, nuts, etc. By eating such a high level of fat, it is thought that your body will release ketones to dissolve fat.

I think it's important to note that fats do not make you fat. Consuming more calories than your body uses throughout the day results in fat, whether that be through carbs, proteins, or fats. Fats are just more calorie-dense and therefore easier to step over your caloric maintenance calories for the day. 100 grams of carbs and protein is roughly equal to 400 calories while 100 grams of fat is equal to about 900 calories. So long as you are within your maintenance calories or eating under that, you WILL lose weight.

But back to the topic at hand. How do you know if you are in a state of ketosis? Well, you can attain over the counter urine tests to see if your body is in a state of ketosis, since ketones are released in the urine through its effects on biological structures and processes. They use a color-coded scale to indicate just how intensely your body is in a state of ketosis. However, I've heard that these tests are a good ballpark measure, but aren't exactly super accurate or reliable.

An example of a keto test strip test

Source: wikimedia

Another technique you can use to indicate whether or not you are in a state of ketosis is a very non-scientific, bro/gym science method. In reading through forums on various fitness sites, I've been told that when you start having a kind of sweet taste in your mouth while working out or doing strenuous activity (times where your body needs a lot of readily available energy), the things you are tasting are in fact the ketones released by the body (granted that you didn't consume a high amount of sugar pre-workout....because that could be where the sweet taste is coming from). I can tell you that when I've personally tried the keto diet, I did in fact have a sweet taste in my mouth more often than when I was consuming more carbs, and that when I do long periods of cardio after not having eaten anything for a while, I get the same taste in my mouth. So there MIGHT be some credibility to the claim. Take it with a grain of salt though. I have no scientific studies for which to back that up.

As I just stated, I've personally tried keto-dieting. I can say that my body did in fact seem to react in a way that was in line with what others were experiencing while on the keto protocol. However, I can't say that I stayed on the diet long enough to tell any of you reading this post as to whether or not it is highly effective. Why didn't I stay on it for a long period of time? Well, because my body was reacting to it like you would expect it to.........like it was deprived of all readily available energy.

I literally had close to no energy during my workouts, and every day that I worked out seemed to drag on endlessly. My intensity fell and, since my carbs were very low, I had no pump and my muscles were consistently flat from the lack of glycogen and fluid retention. Since my workouts suffered, and my aesthetics were thrown off, I decided to go another route with my nutrition. You might find that a ketogenic diet is the right diet for you and your lifestyle though!

And there you have it. I believe that keto-dieting has some interesting theories behind it that appear at least on the surface to be valid. I think I would recommend this diet for those who are interested solely in losing weight, but not so much for those trying to maintain muscle size and bodybuild. Give it a shot, and let me know what you think!

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Generation Iron: My Review

So this post is a little late, but I wanted to type it up anyway!

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be near a theater that was showing Generation Iron, a new documentary about the top bodybuilders in the game today. If you've ever seen Pumping Iron, it's somewhat similar to that. If you haven't seen Pumping Iron, what is wrong with you? Watch it ASAP!

Every single one of my friends who are as into bodybuilding as me, and who have been waiting for this movie to come out as long as I have, anticipating its release, came along to accompany me and enjoy the experience.

...So exactly zero friends came along.

That was ok though! I knew that this would be a movie for a very niche audience. I was going to go on opening weekend regardless of how many people wanted to come along. Was I that guy who showed up 20 minutes early? Was I that guy who was wearing a Gold's Gym Venice, California stringer tank top to the movie? Yes to all of the above.

Source: flexonline.com

Let me tell you, if you are at ALL into bodybuilding, you need to watch this movie. If you follow any of today's top bodybuilders, like Kai Greene, Phil Heath, Branch Warren, Dennis Wolf, Jay Cutler, etc....you will not be disappointed.

I felt that the movie did a very good job at profiling each of the bodybuilders' personalities, and each time you were introduced to one of them in the film, you entered this aura of filmography and ambience that reflected their personalities really well. When you saw Kai Greene, you felt like you were along the ride with his journey of him vs. the world. You entered that world of Draconian grinding. You felt like you were working as hard as he was to show everyone the power of hard work, will power, and a greater understanding and unlocking of self. When you saw Phil Heath, the mood changed to a more flashy upbeat vibe, as you saw the gigantic house and expensive cars, custom tailored high-end suits, and hanging out with such people as the Denver Nuggets...just shooting around....like it was no big deal.

Source: gymflow100.com

I enjoyed how the movie decided to go with Mickey Rourke as the narrator for the movie. I can't really think of anyone who can deliver that masculine, battered, stoic persona and voice like Mickey can. I also liked how he was more or less sprinkled in there. He narrated at the right times, saying the right things about only the stuff you needed to know. The movie more or less centered around the bodybuilders each narrating their own lives, and own experiences. I thought that was a really nice touch.

While a look into the lives of each of the bodybuilders profiled in the movie was great, there are some other things I think I would have enjoyed seeing. For example, I think that insight into the specifics of certain bodybuilders' workout routines and specific dietary habits would have been fantastic. While some workouts were shown, the movie more or less showcased the recreational activities of each bodybuilder, along with the sponsorship side of things. It would have been great to see some more clips of how hard each bodybuilder grinds in the gym, with slow motion clips and intense facial expressions. But maybe that's just me.

I also thought that the movie could have been a little shorter for the content that they showed. The movie led up to last year's Mr. Olympia contest results. In the time it took to get up to that point however, they circled around a lot of the same themes with different people. Maybe they could have chosen fewer bodybuilders to profile and go deeper with. I didn't mind all the content, but I could see how some people could say that you could have cut the movie shorter with the content it tried to present, or maybe choose fewer bodybuilder to profile and get more in-depth with.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It was a real treat. I'd even see it over again and I hate seeing the same thing over again. It's a movie that is good for both fans of the sport and lifestyle, as well as those who wish to understand more about it. I give it two thumbs up! Check out the trailer below!

P.S.: It's a limited release movie, so it might not be readily available at a theater near you. You can click here to find out where the closest theater to you is! If you see it, let me know what you think!

-Jtrain

Theory Behind the Meal-Plan: If It Fits Yor Macros

"If it fits your macros", or IIFYM as it's referred to in bodybuilding circles, is a meal plan that centers around figuring out what you body needs to achieve your fitness goals, and filling those needs every day. You calculate your macronutrient requirements (protein, carbs, fats) and eat enough food to fill each of those macronutrient requirements. IIFYM is also referred to as "flexible dieting".

Source: doyoueven.com

When trying to adhere to a flexible dieting meal plan, there are things to keep in mind. First, you need to figure out roughly how many overall calories you need to attain the body composition you are looking for. You can figure this out by typing in and finding a "calorie calculator" into google. There are many of these online, and a lot of them work well for ballparking where you should be. Personally, I like the one you can find on www.freedieting.com. Keep in mind that everyone is different (different gender types, food sensitivities, metabolism types), and you may need to add or subtract a few calories to get closer to your body composition goals. This is just used as a nice starting point to see how you progress week to week. The calories that you are given (via the calorie calculator) as your calories used throughout the day are considered your "maintenance calories". These calories are the calories that, given you do the exact same thing every day, you will burn without exercise given the demographics and lifestyle patterns that you put into the calculator.

Once you figure out your caloric needs, you need to figure out what your protein, carbohydrate, and fat requirements for the day will be. If you've read my nutrition section (located here), you'll know how to do that. To summarize though, you roughly need your bodyweight in grams protein for bodybuilding, about 30% percent of your bodyweight in grams of fat, and the rest of your calories filled with carbohydrates. That's if you're bodybuilding. Different fitness goals could have completely different macronutrient goals.

Source: breakingmuscle.com

Theories and Protocol to IIFYM

* Meal frequency doesn't matter. You simply need to fill your macronutrient needs for the day, regardless of how many meals you eat in a day or how frequently you eat.

*Macronutrient sources don't necessarily matter. Any protein source qualifies as protein, any carb source counts as carbohydrates, and any form of fats qualify as your fat requirements for the day. (This is at least how I understand it...correct me if I'm wrong).

*Eating above your maintenance calories will cause you to gain weight, eating below those calories will make you lose weight. When you want to "bulk up" consistently eat over you maintenance calories, and when you want to "cut up" you consistently eat below your maintenance calories.

Source: menucost.com

That's pretty much the basics behind IIFYM. Think of your body as a bank account. Adding more cash will make your account grow, while spending more than is available will put you in a deficit (except in bodybuilding this can be a good thing haha). Of course, you can be more advanced with the protocol by timing your macros at specific times of the day, or choosing cleaner foods to fill your macros. You can even incorporate protocols and theories from other diets when doing flexible dieting (this can apply to all of the meal-plans I'll discuss on this blog actually).

My one gripe with IIFYM is this: flexible dieting tends to lead those who choose to do this meal-plan to believe that all calories are the same. That fried chicken is the same as chicken breast so long as you are still hitting the equivalent macros in your diet. This is where the draw to IIFYM comes in. A lot of people like it because they are lead to believe that all calories are the same. I have a hard time buying that. I think that clean bodybuilding foods will have a much different response on your body than highly processed foods, or "junk" foods. There's no real way to escape clean eating from my viewpoint.

However, in my opinion, this is the meal-plan I buy into the most. I've been using IIFYM (with theories from other diets mixed in a bit) for a while now, and I haven't really seen any negative gains or real difference in body composition than when I was eating multiple times a day. I also like the idea of eating the amount of food that works best for MY lifestyle. IIFYM lets you do that. From my perspective, you should always choose a diet that works the best for YOUR lifestyle and puts you in the best position to see the best gains. Flexible dieting lets you do just that because it's......well flexible. So long as you are hitting your macros each day, and not going well over or well under those requirements, you should see positive gains from the perspective of what you are trying to achieve.

Let me know if you've had success with this meal-plan. Let me know if you have any other thoughts or comments on this meal-plan below!

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Theory Behind the Meal-Plan: Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting (IF) changed the game you guys. Out of nowhere, it punched the world of bodybuilding (at least natural bodybuilding) in the face and didn't apologize for it. Everything we thought we had figured out in bodybuilding, intermittent fasting told us we had absolutely no clue.

For years....decades even, bodybuilding told us that multiple small meals throughout the day was the most efficient way to build the physique of your dreams. That concept, along with many other well-established concepts were completely turned on their heads once intermittent fasting hit the scene. Almost every dietary protocol used by natural bodybuilders was reversed or completely re-worked with intermittent fasting protocol.

Intermittent fasting is a dietary technique in which a person does not eat any calories or almost no calories for prolonged amounts of time (literally a fast). Once they have finished fasting, they "break" the fast by eating all of their daily calories within a given "eating window".

Source: blogspot.com

The idea behind intermittent fasting has been played around in bodybuilding circles before, but has recently seen increased popularity from Martin Berkhan's "Leangains" website (www.leangains.com).

I've tried intermittent fasting before, and so I can offer what I experienced while on it, as well as the pros and cons that I think come along with this way of dieting.


Some of the theories surrounding intermittent fasting are:

* When fasting, your body has no other source of energy to use than your fat stores due to a lack of food to break down. Prolonging the amount of time your body is in a fasted state prolongs the amount of time your body will turn to fat for energy.

*While fasted, your body does not have the same amount of insulin floating around in response to food that would normally happen from constantly eating throughout the day (spiked insulin is thought ot be a bad thing to have during most parts of the day for muscle gains). Without an insulin spike from food, your body has a more beneficial hormone response, releasing growth hormone from lack of insulin (insulin and growth hormone are thought to be counterproductive to one another in bodybuilding).

*When training while fasted, your body will again turn to fat for energy, and burn it at a quicker pace in response to not having readily available energy from food.

 

Source: skinnymom.com

A general protocol for intermittent fasting is:

* Fast for 12, 16, 18, 20, or even 24 hours (this includes the time you sleep if you want it to). Nothing is eaten.....at all. No calorie foods like water, diet drinks, black coffee, and tea are acceptable during this fasted period. Note: those who fast for 24 hours do not do it every day of course. They usually atlernate days of eating and not eating.

* Once you've fasted for however long you wanted to, you take the remaining hours of your 24 day to eat all of the calories and macros you've calculated to be necessary for whatever your fitness goals are.

*BCAAs (Branched-Chain Amino Acids) may be consumed during your fasting window.

 After your fast, you eat all of your calories for the day during a "feeding window"

Source: sunsetstation.sclv.com

That's pretty much the basics of IF. You eat all of your calories during your feeding window and don't eat ANYTHING during your fasting window.

IF actually has multiple studies indicating benefits of such a diet, such as on brain health and longevity of life. Systematic reviews even exist on the subject, which I was happy to see. If you would like to be pointed in the direction of some of these articles, I'd be happy to show you.
I've tried intermittent fasting before. I'm not sure I've ever been on it long enough for it to be super effective, but I've never, during my time on it, thought it was THAT much of a gamechanger. I will say this though: Intermittent fasting seems to work really well for certain people. If you are one of those people who loses weight very easily (ectomorphic), intermittent fasting seems to be a good choice when determining which diet is right for you.

Do I think IF is THE diet of all diets? No. I admit that many people have found success while on it, and I definitely think that IF had something to do with said success. However, it's important to keep in mind what other variables might be confounding one's conclusion that it was IF alone that made them find success. Perhaps restricting calories throughout most of the day and then trying to eat 3000+ calories over the course of a few hours skews the caloric abundance one would have from allowing themselves to eat throughout most of the day, i.e. they don't snack as much and go over their caloric maintenance for the day. Who's to say that someone actually sticks to eating ALL of that food in that window as well? I can tell you from experience that eating all of that food in such a short amount of time can make you feel full to the point where it is literally painful to move at all. I wonder if there are many times while one is on IF that they don't actually completely follow through with all of the calories they are supposed to eat and are therefore in a caloric deficit for the day. I could definitely be wrong though.

There's also the issue of whether or not you are able to properly function while on IF. While on IF, I found it extremely hard to focus at work and give 100% to what projects I had to work on and the workouts that I had later that night. My workouts dragged on and I didn't feel like I had enough gas in the tank to really push it to the limit with the weights.

Also, while on IF, I found that I was more likely to fall into cravings for junk foods. When your body is in a prolonged state of hunger, your mind's survival instinct kicks in and starts to make you crave foods you know would ruin your diet to a more intense level. Sweets and snacks started to look a LOT better and I craved them a lot more than I did when I was eating small meals throughout the day.  So that's a pitfall to IF in my opinion.

Finally, while on IF I also found that it took a lot out of my day preparing 2700+ calories of food, eating the food, and then cleaning all of that up while still going to bed at a reasonable hour. It didn't fit into the lifestyle I currently have.

Honestly, I think that your body transformation success from a nutritional standpoint comes down to whether or not you're eating more energy than you take in. If you eat more energy than you use, it will be stored and vice versa. Whether you choose to eat those calories over 1 meal or 5, after fasting, before fasting, or throughout the day, I think it's all about what you need and how much of what you need you're eating. Food choice is also important. I find IF to be more of a tool for your diet rather than being the thing that the rest of your diet revolves around.

However, bodybuilding is very much a trial and error thing. Maybe you try intermittent fasting and you notice it fits perfectly into your lifestyle and you see amazing progress. A lot of people swear by it, and you might be one of those people. But do not think that it's THE diet that gives you the most success. While some people swear by it and might try to push you towards doing it, the best diet is the one that fits your lifestyle and mentality the best, and allows you to train the best.

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Theory Behind the Meal-Plan: Eating Every 2-3 Hours

In looking at my now 26 blog posts (not including this one), I've realized that I haven't posted that much about nutrition. I found this funny, since nutrition always has and always will be what I believe to be the most important thing to transforming a body. It's been my focus on bodybuilding ever since I started, and I plan on reflecting that in future posts. So, without further ado, I'd like to take the next few blog posts to introduce my "theory behind the meal-plan" series, which will chronicle some of the most popular meal-plans / ways of eating in the bodybuilding community today and offer my opinion and experience with these meal-plans. I will also discuss the theory behind their implementation, as well as my opinion on the pros and cons behind each meal-plan.

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Theory Behind the Meal-Plan: Eating Every 2-3 Hours

I have no way of verfying this, but this may be the oldest meal-plan to be widely used by bodybuilders, aside from the exploratory years of the hobby / profession where people would just steamroll food into their mouths and see what happened. Personally, this was the way I ate from day one of my bodybuilding journey up until about a year ago, since literally every bodybuilding / fitness source I looked at when contemplating whether or not to get into bodybuilding advocated this type of eating. Whether or not there was a cause and effect in doing so is debatable, but I know that the gains I've seen in my physique came while on this meal-plan. So I have a lot of experience and understanding with the benefits I think I received, as well as what was difficult about implementing this meal-plan. 

The theory and protocol behind eating every 2-3 hours is as follows:

• So long as you're awake, you eat small-portioned meals every 2-3 hours

• Each meal has a small portion of each macronutrient (protein, carbs, fats) required for the day

• Eating small meals provides optimal absorption of just the right amount of nutrients your "body can absorb at one time"

• Eating small meals in theory keeps your metabolism in a constant state of work, burning calories

• Eating small meals every couple of hours in theory prevents your body from breaking down muscle for energy

So you calculate what you think your macros should be using whatever dietary calculator you find using a search engine. Once you've figured that out, you space out those calories over multiple meals every two to three hours. This usually comes out to about 5-8 small, miniature meals eaten throughout the whole day.

Source: rugbyea.com

Once you start to get used to this meal-plan / way of eating, and start to master it, you can start playing around with when the best times to eat a carb, a fat, a protein, etc are. For example, many people will front load their carbs (eat them first) over their first 2-3 meals so that they get the energy required to function throughout the day, whilst at the same time not getting a spiked insulin response before bed due to alleged increased suseptibility to fat storage while asleep with insulin hormone floating around to some heightened level (not exactly proven). They may even go heavy on the carbs before a workout to get a nice kick of easily ready energy for easier, more intense workouts.

People on this meal-plan will also go heavy on the fats before going to bed since fat slows down the absorption of other macronutrients (since your body has to take a lot of time to digest fats through more complex pathways than carbs and protein), and thus you get a steady slow stream of macronutrients absorbed by your body throughout the night and close the window to which you go without eating / starving (since your body essentially fasts while you are asleep).

All in all, the name of this meal-plan game is to constantly provide your body with nutrients and prevent "starvation mode" from occuring in your body while keeping your metabolism going and giving your body  only the amount of food that it can digest while not storing it into fat due to excess. A lot of "bro-science" going on with this meal-plan. For those of you who have no idea what I just said, "bro-science" is a term used in the bodybuilding world to describe methods / ideals / techniques that are passed off as proven fact without really any hard science to back them up. This is not to say that the 2-3 hour eating method is without merit though and many professional bodybuilders use this method to attain amazing physiques.

Benefits of this meal-plan

The main benefit that comes from following this kind of meal-plan in my experience is that you won't want to pig out or go crazy on food from intense hunger pains (if you're doing it right, i.e. getting enough protein, fiber, etc from each meal) since you'll be eating often. Once you follow the protocol of this meal-plan for a while, your body starts to get into rhythm with how you are eating each day and you eventually become fuller easier from a smaller portion of food. This diet also teaches you how to prepare for things ahead of time and follow a strict schedule.

 

Source: fitgirlpersonaltraining.com

Cons of this meal-plan

Eating.....every 2-3 hours......sounds like it could be pretty inconvenient at times right? Exactly.

People who knew me during the time I was hardcore with this meal-plan will tell you how crazy I sounded with how I ate (they still do by the way), and how intense I was about doing whatever it took to feed the beast every 2-3 hours. I'd skip out of hanging out with people, refuse going places, or just not show up to places at certain times because I wanted to make sure I ate. I'd bring to class whole meals to eat during lectures that would go over the times I wanted to eat. If I went on a trip / vacation, I would stock up or tell people to stop by some place so that I could get a protein bar or a sandwhich so that I didn't miss a meal and hit the macros like I thought I should. It was pretty insane.

 

Source: doctorramey.com

I didn't stop because I wanted to appease those people though. Of course not. Whether or not they understood just how focused I was, how much all of this meant to me both personally and physically was of no concern to me. I don't and never will hold my social life above the greater message that my hobby of bodybuilding exudes and means to me. Rather, I started to realize that it wasn't so much the frequency of the meals as it was how you hit your macros compared to how your body uses those macros within a day over time.

And that's really the only negative aspect about this meal-plan I can think of. If you take out the whole meal frequency aspect of it, you essentially just have a normal meal-plan. It's the clashing with the other responsibilities and events in / out of your control that can make this meal-plan an issue.

My view on this meal-plan

Whether or not it really WAS the meal-plan that helped me attain the success I've found on my bodybuilding journey, the values that I gained while trying to follow the meal-plan has made me, in my opinion, a better person in many aspects of my life. It taught me how to keep a schedule, how to stay focused, and how to innovate my diet around my schedule and responsibilities. I definitely DID feel that I got hungrier more often while on this meal-plan, but also got fuller with less food. It might be a placebo thing, but I kind of DID feel like my stomach was constantly working. That could be all in my head though.

But if we think about this meal-plan from a biological / evolutionary standpoint, does your body really know what 2 hours is? 3 hours? Was it bioengineered in a time where eating that much food that frequently would EVER be a possibility? I don't think so. I don't think your body has some magical clock or mechanism that goes on and off that stimulates metabolic activity and muscle growth either by simply hitting time intervals that are arbitrary and relative to the body. Rather, I believe your body just reacts to how many macros you consume to what is necessary and required for that day / week / etc in storing or breaking down fat. Hormonal manipulation as it pertains to insulin and growth hormone release might come into play here with which macros you eat at what time / how frequently you eat, but I'm not sure it's that much of a gamechanger for natural bodybuilders.

Your body also won't automatically store fat if you exceed a certain limit of food per meal. Again, I doubt your body thinks like that. I don't think it spaces out calorie allotment in some biological interval system.  Rather, your body will just take longer to digest it and, if you're under what your body's maintenance calories are for the day, will not store fat.

And that thing about your body dissolving muscle if you don't eat? I think that's absolutely ridiculous. So long as you are carrying bodyfat / glycogen, I find it VERY hard to believe that your body's initial response to not eating food is to attack and breakdown its means of locomotion for attaining that food / sustenance. Personally, I think your body breaks down muscle to an extreme extent ONLY when you are REALLY denying it of proper nutrients.....like in a state of starvation.....a PROLONGED state of starvation over the course of days or even weeks. What people confuse for "muscle breakdown" during times of dieting is not muscle being broken down in my opinion, but rather a decrease in carbs / glycogen and thus muscles that aren't as full as they would / could be. As an aside, a LOT of your muscle mass isn't exactly straight muscle but also the things that fill the muscle.

And that's my overview and opinion on the eating every 2-3 hours meal-plan. If you are someone who CAN fit this kind of meal-plan into your day along with your other responsibilities, then I think it's a great place to start. It was difficult to find any systematic reviews / studies on this, so excuse me if I cannot back up any of the claims I just made. Try it for yourself, let me know if you found any success!

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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How Often Should You Change Up Your Training Routine?

If you've been working out for a while, there may eventually come a time where you start to realize (or at least think) that you aren't making as many gains in the gym as you did when you had originally started working out. In the beginning, you might have noticed that you've gotten bigger (in a good way) within what seemed to be a very short amount of time. However, as time went on and you continued to work hard and keep up the intensity in the gym, you start to believe that you're slowing down in the progress you're making. You then start to wonder, should I change up my routine?

There are a lot of theories out there on topics such as "muscle confusion" which advocate that you constantly barrage your body with different types of exercises, changing it up often to "confuse the muscle" into not being able to prepare itself for what is about to come next, and thus shocking it into thinking that it should put on size and mass quicker to prepare itself for anything that may come its way, and therefore produce  gains at a faster rate than if you were to stick with the same routine every day.

Source: johnsibley.com

Maybe you're interested in changing up your routine to see if this muscle confusion theory works, or maybe you've just become bored with your routine. If your case is the latter, then there's not much I can do for you. Your issue is one of finding out what's important to you, and how bad you want to achieve something rather than trying to maximize your muscle growth in the most efficient way possible. If that's NOT the case, please continue reading.

 

Source: martindavis01.files.wordpress.com

 

Personally, I'm not sure if I buy the muscle confusion theory. This is not to say that I don't agree with adding in new techniques and exercises to your routine, as it's good for advancing your technique / understanding as well as stimulating each muscle group with different angles that you wouldn't normally be doing with your current routine. For the most part though, I recommend sticking to a routine that has given you results and has shown you the best progress.

Your body responds very well to whatever patterns you start giving it. For example, if you start going to sleep at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each day, your body will eventually be in tune with this pattern and you'll start to notice you get more and more tired at the same time you've been consistently trying to go to bed at. If you constantly walk around in a shoe that scrapes across a certain part of your foot, your body will create calluses in that same area of your foot to prevent your skin from easily being scraped apart. There are countless other examples that illustrate this point, but I think you ge the idea.

Your muscles in my opinion work in much the same way. If your body doesn't expect a certain stimulus to happen on a regular basis, it won't be in tune with the need to prepare itself for said stimulus. If you constantly put your muscles through the same exercises that consistently strain them over and over again, your body will eventually catch on and believe that it needs to respond by doing something that best prepares itself for dealing with the stress it keeps being put through......i.e.: start growing muscle.

In fact, in my years of being part of the bodybuilding scene, my routine looks very similar to the way that it did the first time I started lifting. In talking to bodybuilders who have actually competed, they chuckle when the whole "muscle confusion" concept is brought up and then begin to go on about how their routine has been the exact same for the past 20+ years.

What I believe to be important is not the routine you're doing so much as the advances you make and how often you keep challenging yourself. If you're trying to put on as much muscle as possible for example, swapping one exercise for another is no as important as say making progress in the amount of weight you use or the increase repetitions you do (all of which going until muscle failure). Also, there are some exercises that are so good for putting on size for certain muscle groups (dumbbell presses, curls, rows, etc), that not incorporating them into your routine for their corresponding muscle group would be doing you a disservice. If you really have to mix things up, I recommend maybe changing the days you do the exercises, which muscle group you start with if you're doing multiple muscle groups that day, and / or changing the order to which you do the exercises.

Also, keep in mind that muscle growth is a very.....VERY.....slow process. Don't believe the hype of someone saying that they "gained 25 pounds of muscle" in a  year or whatever. It just doesn't work that way. It's not like losing fat which takes a relatively short amount of time compared to building muscle. What you might view as "not making progress" could in fact not be the case. You might be gaining, just at a slower pace. Furthermore, the pace to which you grow muscle gets slower and slower the longer you bodybuild / lift weights for, and eventually you reach a genetic cap that you will not be able to bust through without the help of synthetic drugs.

Muscle growth takes time. Lots of it. What may not look like progress could in fact just be slow progress

Source: blog.marketo.com

But the main point I want you to take away from this post is this. WHATEVER workout routine, and even nutrition plan, you choose, stick to it. Stick to it for a long time. Body transformation is not and never will be an immediately gratifying experience. It will never happen overnight. Don't bail on a routine because you don't have six-pack abs the next week. This is a labor of love that requires another level of commitment. Furthermore, if a routine has been working for you, I recommend sticking with what got you to where you are and has shown you the most success. If anything, just do minor tweaks in the routine that has shown you this success without changing over to a completely different routine.

When it comes to lifting, don't make things too complicated. Your body isn't some sinister villain out to try and battle you in some crazy game of whit and confusion. Just lift the weight. Lift hard, constantly push yourself, and bring tons of intensity into the gym with you. If you stick with that mindset you'll see gains I guarantee you. Find a routine that works for you and commit to it.

-Jtrain

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Working Out Without a Gym

So, you've decided that you want to get into the fitness game. The only issue is that you don't have any money to purchase a gym membership to your local gym. So what are you to do? You want to get healthier, stronger, bigger, thinner, etc, but due to other circumstances going on in your world, a gym membership just isn't something that is financially feasible.

Source: mytnnews.com

Not to worry! You absolutely do not need to have a gym membership to start working out. In fact, there are some fantastic exercises you can do on a day to day basis that will not require anything other than you and your willingness to workout. So for this blog post, I will discuss some exercises you can do that require very minimal reliance on equipment and your environment.

A lot of the exercises that I'm going to highlight here are good, not only because you don't need to visit a gym to do them, but because they also incorporate many different muscle groups that you can stimulate at the same time while doing them. These exercises also have many different variations to them that you can use to work out and target different muscle groups.

Ready to workout without the bells / whistles / and costs of a gym membership? Well here we go!

Cheap and Effective Muscle Gaining Exercises:

1) PUSH-UPS - If you have two arms and a floor you're good to go! You can literally do push-ups anywhere. In your room, at a friend's house, outdoors, in the office, in the bathroom (though not recommended), etc. It just might be the most versatile of all exercises in how little is needed to do them. They are also the biggest bang for your buck exercise in that literally no money needs to be spent on them, all while greatly stimulating many muscle groups at the same time. Depending on where you hold your arms you can be working out your chest, your triceps, or your shoulders. Whichever variation of push-ups you do, drive through the heel of your palms to get a nice activation of the muscles. Drive backwards for more tricep stimulation, and drive through the center of your chest for more pectoral stimulation.

Source: fitbod.ca

 

2)PULL-UPS - Another fantastic exercise that requires nothing but some kind of sturdy beam that you can hang from. If you live near a playground, you'll most likely have something you can adequately do pull-ups from. Any elevated bar will work however. You could even install one in your house or purchase one of those pull-up bars that mount onto a door for under $30. But again, you could absolutely do these while incurring no cost.

Pullups can work your back and biceps very well, with one being activated more than the other depending on how you grip the bar. A more outside grip with fingers pointing away from you will stimulate the lats more, while a closer inside grip with fingers pointing in towards you or facing one another will stimulate the biceps more.

Source: Youtube User: Simon Boulter

3) DIPS - These may require more equipment than the previously stated exercises, but what you need will still be minimal. If you can find two parallel bars of any kind, you can do dips. People often use chairs to do dips as well, where they place their legs on one chair, and then leave a gap between their body while grasping onto another chair. If you go the chair route, I'd recommend finding a way to elevelate your legs to load your triceps more with stress. Triceps will give you fantastic tricep, chest, and shoulder development.

Source: tone-and-tighten.com

 

4) Crunches - You know what a crunch is. You also know that you can do them anywhere, just like with push-ups. Find a nice clean floor and lay on your back. Put your hands behind your head and focus on a point above your face on the ceiling. Bring your face up towards the point on the ceiling and bend at your core, flexing hard at the end range of motion. You do NOT need to sit all the way up. Just get that nice....wait for it....CRUNCH in your stomach. Hold for a half a second to a second and come back down. These are great for nice core aesthetics.

 Source: Youtube User: Scooby1961

BONUS: Bicycles are also good for core development and require no equipment (see figure below).

 

Source: builtlean.com

5) Lunges - I couldn't in good concious tell you about all the great upper-body and core exercises you can do without throwing in some exercises for leg development. Do you need a squat rack? Heck no. A leg raise machine? Of course not. Hamstring curl / calf raise machines? Stop it.

Lunges are a fantastic leg exercise. In my opinion they are the BEST exercise for quad development. Yeah I said it. All you squat lovers come at me. I can take it haha.

 Source: Youtube User: Scooby1961 (Again)

Lunges are great in that they only require your legs and a long enough path for you to do them on. You can grab something heavy (like filled gallon jugs) if you want the lunges to be weighted. To find out how to do a proper lunge, refer to my "top 5 leg exercises" post located here. Remember to drive with your heels!


And those are the exercises I would recommend for gaining muscle mass. I remember way back before I even entered a gym for the first time in my bodybuilding journey, I literally spent 3 minutes or so every single night doing 3 sets of 30 push-ups. I made sure I did them EVERY night and, eventually, people started asking me if I was working out. So you can get results without the fancy gym card that shows you're super serious about making gains in the gym. Just remember that since a lot of these exercises aren't weighted or offer the same kind of fancy resistance a gym would, that you will have to not only do each set until absolute failure (where your muscles refuse to continue doing the motion), but in my opinion do more sets. So instead of the 3-4 sets you're doing in the gym of four exercises, maybe do 6-8 sets of each of these exercises. Also try to do them most days out of the week.


Cheap and Effective Cardio Exercises:

1) Running Outdoors - SO much better than running on a treadmill. You will also enjoy the fact that you don't have to invest in the money and / or space of buying a treadmill or getting a gym membership to use one. Just get some nice stable running shoes and go outside! Enjoy the scenery. If it's cold, bring a hoodie.

 

Source: californiayogasport.files.wordpress.com

2) Bicycling - I'm a fan of cycling. It's actually my favorite form of cardio as of recently. If you have a bike or want to invest in a cycling machine, use it to go outside for a nice biking session or enjoy your nice new equipment at home! If you are strapped for cash and don't have a bike, this might not be as feasible as say running would be unfortunately.

 Source: hickorywellcrafted.com

3) Jumping Rope  - A jump rope costs, what? $10 maybe? You probably don't even need to invest in a fancy jump rope and could just use any kind of rope if you wanted to, or anything that resembles a rope. In fact, if you want to just jump in place you could probably just do that too....if you're ok with looking odd and having people wonder why you're jumping up and down for whatever reason.

 Source: defeatdiabetes.org

And that's just a handful of what you could actually do for cardio. The possibilities are endless. You can literally do anything to achieve a great cardio session so long as you're keeping your heart rate up adequately. Get creative! Use the internet to find some great new ways to do cardio WITHOUT a gym membership.



Working out doesn't need to be expensive. Your body was engineered far before the first floor-plan for a gym was. Your body doesn't know the difference between a shiny new dumbbell at your local gym and some random hanging bar at a playground. So long as you're stimulating the muscle adequately you're doing things right and sending a message to your muscles to grow. Just keep your intensity up, practice good form, rest well, and supply your body with great nutrition.

Now get out there and build that image of yourself you aspire to be!.........On a budget!

-Jtrain

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Jtrain's Theories on Sleep and Techniques for Sleeping Well

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Sleep is the MOST underrated supplement of all time when it comes to not only muscle growth, but a healthier you in general. Based off of my own experiences and assumptions made from reading about sleep, those of us who find the time to invest in consistently getting enough sleep find many benefits from doing so, including (but not limited to):

• Increased Energy
• Increased Positive Mood
• Better Healing from Injury and Soreness
• Increased Immune Function
• Faster Gains from Training

As stated previously, those are mostly assumptions, as scientists have yet to narrow down the exact reason behind why certain organisms sleep. So excuse me if, as I continue to expand on this blog post, I fail to reference my claims adequately.

What is Sleep?

In humans, sleep is a state where we lose conciousness and inactivity of voluntary muscles (the muscles that we can control voluntarily). When we sleep, there is a decreased ability to respond to a stimulus and sensory activity is somewhat suspended (source: wikipedia).

 

Source: somnapuresleepaid.com

Why is Sleep Important to Fitness and Well-Being?

When we sleep, we are put into an anabolic state. If you are interested in bodybuilding, this is VERY important. Anabolism is a metabolic process where your body takes molecules and builds them into structures like muscle (the reverse being catabolism). The bodily structures constructed during anabolism are not limited to muscle tissue however, as nervous, skeletal, and immune systems / structures are repaired, maintained, and contructed as well (source: wikipedia). So, the more sleep one gets in turn gives the body more time to work in an anabolic state. This is why sleep / rest is so crucial to bodybuilding and recovering from fitness, as well as preventing vulnerability to contracting disease.

Sleep plays a role in one's mental and emotional state as well. Not getting adequate amounts of sleep impairs one's thought processes, memory, and ability to learn (source: WebMD). Those who do not receive enough sleep are also more irritable and more prone to thinking negatively from not being able to function properly, at a high level, and / or with enough energy.

Source: thedementiaqueen.com

The Jtrain's Theory on Sleep

I might be saying a lot of what has already been said in this post, but I want to re-iterate, sleep is priceless to fitness. Body transformation success stems from a successful and working relationship between workout decision-making, dietary decision-making, and amount of rest. A great workout with a diet that is on-point is absolutely worthless if you're not putting your body into an anabolic state for an adequate amount of time through sleep. Your gains in the gym will be hindered or suffer if you're not getting enough sleep. The early bird might get the worm, but that bird doesn't get optimal muscle growth. Another popular saying is that "sleep is for the weak", when it fact it should be "those who do not sleep are weak".

Sleep to me is a time where your body puts everything together. It's the time it builds and repairs muscle, gives you the gains you've stimulated through your workouts, and serves as a biological switch to determining when your nutrition has started and stopped during a 24-hour period (kind of). Sleep is the BEST energy supplement, because getting enough of it gives you immense amounts of focus and energy that you can use to attack the workload you have in front of you for the day, whether work related, gym related, or social-relationships related. Sleep prepares your body to be the most optimal you for the next day, allowing you to attack everything with your all.

The Jtrain's Techniques for Falling Asleep

Man, if I had a dollar for everytime someone told me "I can't sleep" or "I've never been able to sleep" I'd be very well off financially. I'd be even richer if I had a dollar for every time they gave me an excuse as to why they couldn't fall asleep.

The truth is, I believe almost everyone is able to sleep well consistently if they use some of, if not all, of the techniques I'm about to propose (or other techniques they find useful). I understand that some people might actually have a relevant medical condition that prevents them from getting sleep....but let's be real guys.....you're probably not one of those people. So please keep an open mind when reading through these.

1) Sleep in a room that is cool / cold / low temperature

This is something that always worked for me. Personally, if the room is too humid / hot, I can guarantee you that I will wake up every 10 minutes trying to find a cooler spot on the bed or adjusting myself into a more comfortable position. Also, I tend to have nightmares more often when the room is hot.

 

Source: blogcdn.com

I realized that in the winter time I would have an easier time falling asleep. When I turned the AC up in my room and cranked some fans I would fall asleep no problem. This may or may not have had something to do with the cold air serving as some biological stimulus for  blood to be rushed to the middle of my body and trigger some switch in my brain that my body needed to be shut down to conserve energy. I've shared this idea with some people, and they've reported positive experiences with sleep after doing so.

2) Never............EVER...........think about falling asleep

In fact, don't think about anything...at all. If you worry about that test tomorrow, your girlfriend breaking up with you, how you're not going to get enough sleep.....you will NOT fall asleep efficiently. Your mind will constantly be too bombarded and occupied with thoughts of falling asleep that it won't wonder off into a state of relaxation and sleepiness. We all have issues to deal with. We all have problems we'll have to eventually solve. But this is a sacred time. A time where you're going to cash in on how tired you feel and invest in repairing your body both physically and mentally.

Don't worry about the sleep you missed out on, but rather embrace and feel happy about the sleep you WILL get.

 

Source: wherewhywhen.com

Sleep is kind of like love. We call it "falling asleep". You fall into it. You let it take hold of you. You wander into it. Fall back, empty your thoughts, and let sleep take hold.

3) Sleep in a bed that is comfortable for you

Do you like a firm bed or a soft bed? If you don't know, you need to find out. Those who sleep better in firm beds will find trouble falling asleep in a soft bed and vice versa. Personally, I find myself most relaxed and able to fall asleep in a bed that is super soft and conforms to my body as opposed to a rigid bed. My parents are the complete opposite, and so I find it harder to sleep on my mattress at their house when I visit since all of the beds have firm mattresses.

Source: apartmenttherapy.com

4) Develop a wind-down routine

 This is very important. If you go straight from what you're doing into trying to go to bed, your body is going to have a more difficult time adjusting. Find a routine that you can do every night before bed that calms and relaxes you and winds you down before trying to sleep. Personally, I turn off all of my lights and lounge in bed with the t.v. on for a good 20-30 minutes. Some people might like listening to music or checking their Facebook. For the longest time, I would also drink a glass of milk while watching t.v. Whatever it is, find something that winds you down. Sleep (and wake) cycles are very much something that needs to be "warmed up" or "primed" before getting into. Your body needs to be eased into sleep. As an aside, I also believe this to be true for waking up. Your body needs time to get ready to wake up, and so I'll take a 45 minutes to get myself ready to get out of bed in the morning, turning on the t.v. at the "20 minutes left" mark.

Source: stuartduncan.name

5) Develop a sleep-cycle

Going to bed at 1:00am for four nights in a row and then suddenly trying to go to bed at 9:00pm will be a difficult thing for your body to deal with. Your body is very good at adjusting to patterns that you give it over time (eating habits for example), and will therefore catch on around what time you start to go to bed. This is why it's important to go to bed at the same time each night, plus or minus an hour so that you and your body can be in-tune for when to start falling asleep. You'll start to notice that you'll get tired and want to fall asleep at the same time each night if you stick to a sleeping schedule. Having a sleeping schedule that is all over the place will confuse your body and will make falling asleep difficult.

6) Do not take naps

One of my views on sleep is that, to get a great night of sleep, it's important to accrue as much fatigue during the day as possible. and exhaust your body up until you plan on going to bed. In fact, sleep is very much like a bank account in that a surplus of sleep from days past will make it hard to sleep, and a deficit of sleep will make you crash harder when you sleep, or wear you down more and more each day if you keep getting inadequate amounts of sleep each night (source: wikipedia). If you take naps, you'll be closer to a sleep surplus and find it harder to fall asleep at night when you want to since your body has already attained some of the rest it needs. On days that I've gotten very little sleep, I refuse to take naps. This is because I know that if I skip a nap, I'll be that much more tired when it comes time to falling asleep and cashing in over night. Some people are all-in on naps and swear by them. In my opinion however, it just further messes with whatever sleep cycle you're trying to attain.

7) Exercise or do something that tires you out

Pretty self-explanatory. If you live a lifestyle that is sedentary and does not require you to expend energy, your body will find no reason to want to recharge or rest. Using the techniques above, I've never had a bad night of rest since middle school, but since bodybuilding have had a REALLY easy time falling asleep. It's because I exhaust myself in the gym. But it doesn't need to be the gym. Find any activity that will deplete enough energy for your body to be stimulated into making you want to rest. You'll not only be rewarded with a nice night of sleep, but with a healthier body from a more-active lifestyle!

Source: youbeauty.com

And those are my techniques for sleep. I'm really excited that I got to finally discuss it in my blog. It's something I've really be interested in as of late and wanted to share with you guys. These are things that have helped me have a great night of rest since I can remember. Let me know how they work for you, or if there are any other techniques that help you fall asleep that you'd like to share!

-Jtrain

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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