Ok, this site is a little addictive: http://www.nutritiondata.com .
You can type in various food categories, and it will then give you not just the standard “Nutrition Facts” label, but also some highly detailed analysis of the quality of the food. Because proteins, carbs, etc. have subtleties beyond the standard label, I think if you play with this site a bid, you’ll be as addicted as I am!
Let me walk you through an example…
I was curious about why so many body builders put pumpkin in their home-made protein bars. So rather than drive to the store, I went to nutritiondata.com and found that they have various options to choose from:
I figured “vegetables and vegetable products” made sense.
And then, drilling down one more level, I checked out “pumpkin, canned, without salt”. Here are a few screen shots (way too long of a page to show you all of them):
But here’s my take away: pumpkin is low fat, decent omega-3 and -6 fatty acids, high dietary fiber, moderate sugar, and a little protein. Because I do a lot of running in addition to weight training, pumpkin is looking like the perfect food to work in around my 8-mile runs.
In contrast, here’s part of the screen for Snickers’ protein performance bar: (http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/snacks/9963/2)
Not surprisingly, it has a ton of sugar. Yeah, it’s got a lot of protein, but this is essentially a candy bar with a scoop of protein powder mixed in. Better than a regular snickers, but something you should consider as a treat outside your regular diet. [If you crave protein bars, make these yourself.]
What do you think of nutritiondata.com? Do you have other sites you’d recommend? Chime in!
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Continue reading about Nutrition Data – Easy As (Pumpkin) Pie
Getting the right amounts of food is a huge part of the muscle-building and fat-loss equation. You can train as hard as you want enough in the gym, but if you don’t get enough food, you’ll never have the fuel needed to become stronger.
On the other hand, if you eat too much, you’ll end up overweight and wondering where your muscle is buried beneath the fat. So the question is: How much food, or how many calories do I need to consume?
The truth:
Counting calories is a great way for you to know that you are eating the correct amount of food. In fact, it is the best way for you to measure your daily calorie intake. But the truth is that most of you are never actually going to weigh your food and do the work necessary for calorie counting to pay off.
We can talk all day about how many calories you should be eating, but it won’t do you any good unless you are actually counting your calories.
Portions:
Since most of you are too lazy to count your calories (just admit, and I will too) I recommend the portion method for most people. This simple method has been around for a long time, and it is the quick and dirty way to know the right amount of food for you. Here’s how to do it:
Six small meals: Each meal should (more…)
Continue reading about Portion Sizes & Calories Needed to Build Muscle, Lose Fat
Image Credit: Lost Fun Zone
Read part 1 about quitting junk food here.
You’ve probably heard it a thousand times: you are what you eat. So if we’re going out and eating like crap everyday, then what are we? You can think that one over, but in the meantime, something needs to be done about it.
Quitting junk food won’t be easy though, because your body grows accustomed to what you feed it. Being stuck on junk food is nothing like being a crack addict, but some research shows that junk food still has many addictive properties.
So it’s gonna be tough, no doubt about it. Here’s how to do it:
1. Have a purpose: You’re not just quitting for the hell of it. You want to get something out of your hard work. Hold onto that thought and let it be your motivator… maybe it’s to impress a girl/guy or look (more…)
When it comes to losing fat and building muscle, eating less food is not the answer to getting lean and cut. Others will try to tell you that losing excess fat is simply a matter of using more calories than you eat. What they don’t tell you is that eating less will slow your metabolism.
Part of the secret to eating the right amounts of food while keeping your fat levels in check is to use the thermic effect of food to your advantage.
The thermic effect (also referred to as specific dynamic action) is the incremental energy requirement above your resting metabolic rate used due to the cost of digestion, absorption, and disposal of ingested food.
Translation: Some of the foods you eat speed up your metabolism more than other foods.
You’ll find it much easier to reduce your fat levels if you consume plenty of foods with a higher thermic effect. Proteins tend to have a much higher thermic effect than other types of foods.
Calculating the thermic effect: A general guideline used by some to calculate the thermic effect of the foods you eat is to take your total calorie consumption and multiply that (more…)
Continue reading about Burn Fat With The Thermic Effect of Food
Image Credit: this lucid moment
You know you need to do it… you know you need to quit eating crap.
It wasn’t easy for me either, but I’ve done it. In fact, I went for an entire year of my life without eating any sugar at all and almost no fast-food junk. You can do it too, but just like anything in life that’s worth your effort — there will be challenges.
If you know the challenges ahead of time and what the rewards are, you’ll be able to handle it. We’ll talk more about the specifics of how to quit junk food another day (Done! Click here to read).
How it happened: Sometime in mid-January, one of my good friends in college and I were talking about all the junk food that’s making everybody so fat. My friend mentioned that he and another friend (more…)
Ever heard somebody say that you better watch what you eat? Watching what you eat is very important, but you’ll also need to pay attention to what you’re not eating if you want to keep muscle on your body.
I’m sure you’ve already heard that you need to eat plenty of protein to keep your body in good shape and build muscle, so I probably don’t need to repeat that to you.
But if you’re wondering how much protein you should get with each meal, when to eat it, and how to eat it… I might be able to help you out there.
Protein Every 3 Hours
First, let’s talk about the when and the why. Imagine, for a moment, that your body is a factory. This small factory works each day to produce the materials that it needs to keep its own walls and floor in good shape.
Imagine that the bricks in the factory walls are constantly wearing out, so a conveyor belt is needed to bring new materials into the factory. This is pretty similar to what’s going on inside your body as your cells are constantly being replaced. Just as the bricks in the factory wall need to be replaced, your body needs protein to rebuild it’s cells.
Your body is good at storing all those excess calories that you eat as fat cells, but protein isn’t really stored in your body for long periods of time. Protein only stays in your body for about 3 hours.
So, going along with the conveyor belt analogy, if more bricks end up on the conveyor belt than are really needed, they just fall off the end of the conveyor belt and are swept away to another place. They aren’t stored or used to build the walls. If you eat too much protein, it isn’t stored for later. (more…)
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