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the research is pretty straightforward: low-glycemic carbohydrates are best for prolonged (2 or more hours) endurance exercise, and high-glycemic carbohydrates are best for shorter, more intense workouts.9
terms of numbers and timing, I recommend eating 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrates 30 minutes before you train to feel a noticeable improvement in your performance.
That’s it for pre-workout nutrition: 30 to 40 grams of protein (and whey is best), and 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrate 30 minutes before training is all you need.
If you’re training in a fasted state, proteolysis is even greater, especially at three or more hours after training.14
eating more than 20 grams of protein after working out did nothing more in terms of stimulating additional muscle growth.
The more you move around, the more protein your body needs.20
The older you get, the more protein your body needs to maintain its muscle.21
What is true, however, is that a post-workout insulin spike decreases the rate of protein breakdown that occurs after exercise.26 And as muscle growth is nothing more than protein synthesis rates exceeding protein breakdown rates, anything that increases the former and decreases the latter improves this “equation” in our favor.
two reasons to include carbs in your post-workout meal are to quickly raise insulin levels and keep them elevated for longer periods of time.
In terms of how much carbohydrate to eat in your post-workout meal, a good rule of thumb is about 1 gram of per kilogram of body weight.
when to eat the carbs, the general recommendation is “immediately after exercise.” Research also
Post-workout protein or carbs would only be needed if the cardio were particularly long and intense (longer than 1 hour, with a fair amount of sprinting).
muscle memory” allows you to rapidly regain muscle you once had).5
You should never feel starved and running on empty when cutting.
you should feel comfortable throughout the day.
If your weight has remained the same for seven to ten days and you haven’t gotten any leaner, and you’ve stuck 100 percent to your numbers, you simply need to move more or reduce your calorie intake. My first choice is always “move more,” but you can only do so much exercise. I recommend doing no more than five 60-minute weightlifting and four 30-minute cardio sessions per week.
You can have a cheat meal every week, but keep it moderate. We’ll talk about why soon, but a high-protein, high-carbohydrate cheat meal is preferable to a high-fat one.
Don’t think of “maintaining” as “staying the same,” though. I think you should always have the goal of getting at least a little stronger every month,
you should see a steady increase in reps and weight over time.
Here’s your starting point for maintenance: • 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, • 1.6 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day, and • 0.35 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day.
If you go slightly over your normal intake one day, you can go slightly under the next day and it balances out. Don’t get too sloppy though, dramatically overeating one day and undereating the next.
Get at least 80 percent of your daily calories from healthy (micronutrient-dense) foods that you like. One of the biggest problems people run into when dieting is they get to a point where they just can’t stomach chicken and steamed veggies anymore, and one taste of something savory leads to an all-out binge.
Personally, I get about 90 to 95 percent of my daily calories from relatively unprocessed, nutritious foods, but I’m not afraid to work in a a bit of sugar or “junk” here and there.
avocados; ○ greens (chard, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, and spinach); ○ bell peppers; ○ Brussels sprouts; ○ mushrooms; ○ baked potatoes; ○ sweet potatoes; ○ berries; ○ low-fat yogurt; ○ eggs; ○ seeds (flax, pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower); ○ beans (garbanzo, kidney, navy, and pinto); ○ lentils and peas; ○ almonds, cashews, and peanuts; ○ whole grains, such as barley, oats, quinoa, and brown rice; ○ salmon, halibut, cod, scallops, shrimp, and tuna; ○ lean beef, lamb, and venison; and ○ chicken and turkey. • Eat foods you like.
Eat as many or few meals per day as you’d like, although I recommend eating every 3 to 4 hours as you’ll probably find this most enjoyable. • Eating protein more frequently is likely superior to less frequently, and each protein feeding should contain at least 30 to 40 grams of protein. • Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein about and 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrate 30 minutes before training. • Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight after your weightlifting workout.
Consider eating 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight 2 hours after your weightlifting workout.
First, I recommend making a long list of nutritious foods that you like and that you could eat every day. You can break them up into breakfast foods, snack foods (mainly quick and easy sources of protein and carbs, like Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, nuts, fruit, and so forth), and lunch and dinner foods.
Build these lists out using www.calorieking.com or caloriecount.about.com to look up the various foods you like.
Thus, a good cheat meal is a high-protein, high-carbohydrate, low-fat, and alcohol-free meal that doesn’t put you in a large calorie surplus for the day.
Eating protein more frequently is likely superior to less frequently, and each protein feeding should contain at least 30 to 40 grams of protein.
Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein about and 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrate 30 minutes before training.
Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight after ...
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A good cheat meal is a high-protein, high-carbohydrate, low-fat, and alcohol-free meal that doesn’t put you in a large calorie surplus for the day.
According to a meta-analysis of clinical trials evaluating fructose intake, 25 to 40 grams of fructose per day has no negative impact on our health.12 That’s 3 to 6 bananas, 6 to 10 cups of strawberries, 10 to 15 cherries, or 2 to 3 apples per day. Or, as the old advice goes, a few servings of fruit every day.
will focus on free weights
heavy, lower-rep weightlifting and compound exercises like the squat, deadlift, military press, bench press, and many others.
To achieve maximum overload and muscle stimulation, you will train one or two muscle groups per workout (per day).
You knew I was going to have you lifting a lot of heavy weight, and here’s what it comes down to: working in the 4- to 6-rep range for nearly all exercises (we’ll go over the exceptions soon).
This means that you’re going to be using weights that allow for at least 4 reps but no more than 6 reps (if you can’t get 4 reps, it’s too heavy; if you can get 6 or more, it’s too light). Generally speaking, this is about 80 to 85 percent of your 1RM for each exercise.
If you’re more experienced or just have plenty of energy at the end of 9 sets, feel free to do the 3 extras.
Don’t get overzealous and do more than this in each workout, though, even if you feel like you can keep going after 12 working sets. Doing more isn’t going to help you build more muscle and can eventually lead to overtraining.
Due to the amount of weight you’re using in Bigger Leaner Stronger workouts, you should rest for 3 to 4 minutes in between your working sets.
resting 3-5 minutes between sets produced greater increases in absolute strength,
If your workouts are going much longer than an hour, something is wrong. You should be able to finish every Bigger Leaner Stronger workout in 45 to 60 minutes.
Research has shown that even in the elderly, significant strength loss isn’t seen until about five weeks of no exercise.
once you hit 6 reps for one set, you add weight for your next set. The standard increase is a total of 10 pounds: 5 pounds added to either side of the barbell, or a 5-pound increase in each dumbbell.
For instance, if you get 225 for 6 reps on your first set of incline bench press, you then add 10 pounds (5 pounds to each side of the bar), rest, and work with 235 going forward.
If, after moving up like this, you only get 2 to 3 reps, you can reduce the weight by 5 pounds (leaving it at 5 pounds heavier than t...
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Your primary goal with every workout should be beating the previous week’s numbers, even if only by 1 rep. If you do that again the next week, you’re ready to move up in weight.
