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This post was actually going to be a bonus ebook for a product I was going to release earlier in the year. But instead, I decided to turn it into a blog post. The fitness lifestyle is all about turning what we do into a habit. That’s how you stick to it long term. And the habit builders below will help you do just that.
1) Get your recovery periods in check @ food ‘The Big 3′ (meals)
You already know what that is. But if there is one aspect of your training that you need to learn to get right, it’s this
A. The types of proteins and carbs you consume
B. The time of day you decide to train
if you plan on training in the morning then its a good idea to get into the habit of eating your 3rd of ‘The Big 3′ a little later than usual. This is because that will be the meal your body feeds off for that morning workout. Eating late has also proven to be an effective strategy for increasing muscle mass and promoting fat loss. Which is of course the ultimate goal when building the shred with bulk physique. And it is because of this meal why you wont really need to eat a big breakfast.
Why?
Well lets look at the realism of the situation.
Now, ‘The Big 3′ is all about meal portion size over meal frequency. It’s just a more realistic way to eat and structure your day. Heck, the majority of us were taught to eat this way anyway. And even then, most of us wouldn’t even keep up with that, even when we weren’t fitness meat heads. So while lack of extra nutrition may have previously been your concern, it really doesn’t need to be, because all you are doing now compared to what you wasn’t doing before, is just doing what you were supposed to be doing in the first place. eating ‘The Big 3′ (That’s whether you are bulking as a hard-struggler or shredding as a skinny fat)
But again, lets look at the logistics behind that.
Now, we all know about carbs, proteins fats and that they aren’t all equal, in terms of the foods we need to consume in bodybuilding nutrition.
But heres some real basic understanding on food digestion periods
Fast absorbing protein Empty stomach On a big 3 stomach
3 – 4 hours 5-6 hours
Slow digesting protein 10 hours More
With that being the case, can you see how and why the 3rd ‘Big 3′ meal will act as ‘In The Zone nutrition’ for your morning workout. Of course you can.
1st – You will get plenty of rest from sleeping a max of 8 hours (growth time)
2nd – You will have snacked on so many extra macronutrients in that big 3rd meal as well as 100 grams of protein or so (regardless of the type, although solid slow digesting is recommended) that the digestion period of all that protein and carbs would have been largely slowed. Which means your ultimate pre workout meal worry has been cured.
Which is..
What if i don’t have have enough protein and carbs in my system to get me through the workout?
Seriously, that 3rd Big 3 meal will stack your body so well that you shouldn’t wake up hungry. (An emphasis of slow digesting proteins does indeed help and make a difference)
But cant the body only handle a certain amount of protein consumption in one sitting?
That really has nothing to do with it. If you eat more protein in one sitting, it just means it takes longer to digest into your system. Its all about portion size. You were raised that way I’m sure. Why should that change now that your in fitness. The only thing that changes is
1) Food recovery periods
2) Types of foods that you consume in the red zone
That’s it. And if you train the ‘In The Zone – Train insane way’, trust me… you will get plenty of sleep and rest, which is of course when you grow.
The only concern here is that when you wake up, you may feel a bit peckish. Most of this is your brain and tastes buds getting at you. Which is fine. At this point just snack on a high protein snack. It never hurts to get some quick protein in before a workout for an energy boost. But in terms of what your body needs in order to build the shred with bulk physique… you gave it all of that the night before on your 3rd meal of ‘The Big 3′.
2) Prevent sickness
Wear layers
Sickness is 2nd to injury in the race to what will kill your muscle building endeavors and fitness motivation. The natural way to prevent sickness is to…
- Eat well.
- Sleep well
- Next, is to take supplements
- Hygiene in the gym
Wear layers in winter
All of these are pretty common ground, in the goal to prevent sickness. But I’m pretty certain that many of you don’t follow through with all of them. And if you want to find long term success with any of the Stay Fit Bug workouts (Year long workout broken down into 4 periods), then you better just start doing that. Because I can tell you now. Sickness will knock you for 6 when it comes to maintaining that shred with bulk physique you worked so hard to build. You’ll lose your appetite, you won’t be able to get out of bed and worst of all, you won’t be able to workout. If you do, you’ll only be adding fuel to the sickness fire, as well as putting everyone else in the gym at risk of picking up your nasty germs. Yuck.
Eating well
This is a no brainer. Just follow the In The Zone nutrition plan to perfection and you’ll get all the correct nutrition needed in order to help prevent you from catching the flu or any other related sickness.
Sickness detection solutions
Avoid crap food
When you are sick, the first thing you will start to think about is eating more food in order to…
1) Maintain your gains (More protein in this case – more on that later
2) Help you get over the flu
So good thinking. That’s the right mind set to have. But what you need to be avoiding is crappy foods such as cookies, hot chocolate and ice cream. Those will just make your shred with bulk results disappear. Banishing you back to the land of the ordinary gym goer. Something you definitely don’t want. So avoid them like the plague.
What you can do
Like I mentioned earlier, stick to the meal plans over at In The Zone Nutrition on the spreadsheets. In short.
The Big 3 +EFA’s + 1.5 grams protein per pound of lean body weight.
The decrease in calories should account for that extra time you find yourself in doors knocked out on the bed from sickness.
The drop in the amount of carbs you consume is due to you being out of training and because of the drop in calories.
The higher protein in take is of course related to balance out catabolism rates while you are in your sick state. And of course to keep a positive nitrogen balance. The food sources you should consume here should of course be lower in carbohydrates. In fact, you’ll need foods to be low in simple fast digesting carbs too (cottage cheese,omelets or other fast digesting proteins – refer to the guide to necessary supplementation)
Why?
Because a sick body is not in a good state to ingest these type of carbs (Which we know are best consumed pre-post workout).
So unless you’re on a morning in the zone workout, consume slow digesting carbs early on in the day. When you awake is the time when your body is in a positive state of glycogen storing.
And if you were wondering what the importance of consuming 1 fish oil in each of the big 3 meals, then this is it.
We know that EFAS play a vital role in improving the function of immune cells in our bodies. And when you are sick your body will start forming new cells in order to fight off the sickness (Hence the importance of good structured nutrition). With this being the case, it’s important to get those EFAS in (omega-3) To ensure your body fights off the flu effectively.
Basically follow ‘In the zone’ nutrition as it stands. Nothing extra needs to be consumed there in the case of sickness
Drink water
Why?
1) Because the body is made up of 70% water
2) Because we lose water, even more so when we train insane.
- Through the build up and excretion of mucus
- Stationary breathing
- Sweat (Obviously we do plenty of this in training. But if you ever suffer from a fever or flu, trust me, you will sweat)
- The bodies extra work in creating new cells and fighting off the sickness
- Higher protein intake
The importance of staying hydrated when we workout is high enough as it is. All the extra factors listed above raise those stakes even higher. And trust me, when you are sick, you will feel the need for the extra H2O consumption.
Sleep well
I wrote a pretty detail post back on stayfitbug.com about the importance of getting enough sleep throughout your lifestyle of fitness and bodybuilding.
Detection
Like I mentioned earlier, when you are sick. Stay away from the gym
1) You’ll delay the process of getting better (Backwards thinking)
2) You’ll spread your nasty germs (When there really is no need for it)
The best thing you can do is sleep and nap the flu off. Stick to the usual 8-10 hours that I speak of in the article. And try to nod of a few times during the day too. The more rest you get, the better you will feel each waking morning during the sick period.
Taking supplements
There are a lot of positive and negative discussions when it comes to bodybuilding supplements
A) Supplements aren’t needed. You can get all the nutrition you need from natural food sources in order to build muscle. (True). Big supplement companies are just pure evil, unnecessarily robbing from the pure to feed their own riches. (Which is why we created the guide to ‘necessary’ supplementation).
B) As a bodybuilder, our bodies are put through extra stress than your non gym goer. There fore, the body needs to be supplemented extra in order to grow effectively…. And to avoid sickness
Both arguments are true. Point A is fully covered in In the zone nutrition and which supplements are needed and when to take them is fully described.
Point B holds true to. But all one really needs to do is…
- Eat well
- Sleep well
- Focus on gym hygiene
And most worries about extra body stress are put at ease.
What you really need to take note of in point B is the last part…
And to avoid sickness
If you intend to live the fitness lifestyle and make it a year 5-10 year stretch. Then your best option is to take a long term approach in regards to the extra supplements and vitamins you need to take. Building a strong foundation is paramount in any long term plan to prepare for a ‘brighter’ future) (House building being the usual cliche here).
With that said. It is indeed important to focus on taking extra vitamins and supplements in the case of preventing future sickness (More so extra vitamins).
3) Cheat meals moments (the evening meal)
It’s time to talk about real life.
Now, as this is real life, and not just some robotic program to turn you into a living terminator (Now head of Cali – what has the world come to). The chances are that you will probably have some real friends. And unless you have just come out of a relationship, chances are you probably have a special someone in your life.. or at least have your eye on someone. If so, how would you think they feel about you becoming some robotic drone that lifts weights all day. As a male, I can tell you now. She will not appreciate. Yes, she doesn’t want a skinny man, fair enough. But she definitely doesn’t want some one who puts working out before her. However as a woman, she’ll be into fitness too, as it’s a natural way of healthy living and also prevents hair loss in women.
Any how, as we are on the habit builder and as we are talking about nutrition under this sub heading. One thing you could start to get used to is to go out every week with your partner.
Specifically.. go out for a meal, to a restaurant of your personal choice. It really has nothing to do with bodybuilding nutrition. Go out to go out and enjoy yourself.
How to gauge it?
Now, it would be very bad of me to tell you to just gauge down cheat meals freely. But the core rule that stands is that you should stick to a in the zone nutrition plan at least 80-90% of the time.
- 28-30 meals per week
- 6 cheat meals max per month
Meaning you are eating clean 80-90% of the time in a 4 week period.
Meaning that you should make it a habit to go out and eat what the hell you like at least once a week, a night out, with your partner. Which is actually healthy for both your sanity and for maintaining a healthy relationship. Seeing as the no.1 relationship killer is a break down in communication.
What makes it an even better habit to get used to?
If you have picked any of our programs/ebooks, the chances are that you are probably either a very busy (possibly cash strapped student) or a busy professional. In either case, time is against you. Even if it isn’t, I know that going out 4 times a month with your partner is still probably a rarity (unless you are going through that honeymoon period). With that being the case, this one habit could therefore enhance your relationship and save it at the same time, from preventing you from becoming a robot gym bore who does nothing but lift and eat for the gym ONLY.
P.S
We also recently bundled all of our ebooks into one package. So feel free to check it out below