Q&A for: 4-Nov-07
2487. Q:
Does protein from sources like brown rice and almond butter build muscle?
A:
Absolutely, all protein in your diet counts! However there are a few things you should keep in mind when it comes to protein from non-animal sources...
First off, it is not easy to get a lot of protein from non-animal sources. Recall that a typical athlete or a person looking to lose fat or build muscle would do well to aim to get at least 20% and preferably 30% of their calories in the form of protein. That's quite a lot of protein! For example, if you eat a 2500-calorie daily diet (which is fairly average), 20-30% of those calories in terms of protein would mean 130-180 grams of protein daily! There's just no way to get that much protein from things like brown rice or almonds without eating A TON of those foods, much more than 2500 calories worth.
On the flip side, if you take a vegetable like spinach that has very high protein content (50% of spinach is protein!) the problem becomes that it becomes impossible to eat enough of it to get a significant amount of protein. A cup of spinach contains only 8 calories and 1 gram of protein -- to get a significant amount of protein from spinach you'd have to become Popeye!
So if you are a vegan or eat very few animal products, then you would do well to incorporate a lot of beans, lentils, and soy products in your diet. They combine both high protein content (up to 50%) and relatively high calorie density that it's quite reasonable to get 100 grams of protein or more daily from these legume sources.
Besides the difficulty in finding non-animal source foods that are both rich in calories and in protein (other than legumes), there's also a matter of getting complete source of protein. Protein is just a generic name for different amino acids and different protein sources contain different proportions of the different amino acids. Animal protein sources, including eggs, dairy, and whey protein powder, have what is called a complete amino acid profile -- meaning they contain enough of each amino acid to provide maximum benefit. However plant protein sources typically contain incomplete protein (soy comes the closest to being complete), so if you get all of your protein from a single plant source you will likely get subpar protein profile. So it's important to combine different plant protein sources (such as beans with rice, for example) to make sure you get a complete set of amino acids.
So to summarize, yes, all protein sources count, including plant protein. But you have to plan your diet carefully and incorporate lots of beans, lentils, and soy to make sure you get sufficient amount of protein if you don't eat any animal-source products. You also should incorporate different plant protein sources to make sure you get a complete amino acid profile. One last tip, is that if you are vegetarian, but can eat eggs and dairy both of them contain a lot of high-quality animal protein -- and you can always supplement with whey protein powder.
2488. Q:
alright its me again, the 5ft6,183lb guy.....my diet is pretty much a sadwich in the morning, a plate of chicken or steak and rice in the afternoon, and some fish and mixed vegetables for dinner....is this a good diet or should i be cutting down on some of thse foods?......will doing cardio just 1-2 hours a week be sufficient to lose any weight?...ill give that a try and the diet plan you reccomend
A:
The foods you eat sound OK. Sandwich may be less than optimal, depending on what goes into it, but it shouldn't be a big deal -- just use whole wheat bread. Rice is hopefully brown rice. But the problem with your diet is that you most likely don't eat ENOUGH to lose weight! I know that sounds a little crazy, but the fact is if your body 'thinks' you are starving it then it will do everything in its power to hang on to whatever fat it has.
Let me try to guesstimate your current calories... A sandwich could be anything, but around 400 calories is typical for 2 slices of bread, a little mayo, and some turkey slices. Chicken or steak with rice is probably another 500 calories or so. Fish and veggies for dinner is maybe another 400 calories. So altogether you eat only around 1300 calories daily. If you fill out my Fitness Guide you'll see that I recommend that you eat TWICE as much when trying to lose fat!!
As long as you eat as little as you do it will be difficult to make signinificant progress losing fat and weight because your metabolism will be very depressed and your body will be in starvation mode, trying to save every little bit of fat that it can. You need to slowly gradually start increasing your calories, working your way up to at least 2000 daily, spread over 5 meals or so. Increased calories and more frequent meals will rev up your metabolism and jump-start fat burning. It will take some time, easily a month or more to build up your diet to where it should be, but once there you'll start seeing results (even if you happen to temporarily gain a couple pounds while increasing calories).
So I hope you follow my Fitness Guide suggestions and start climbing out of the metabolism pit you're currently in. Good luck!
2489. Q:
Hey Mike, I'm Mike and I want to know if taking creatine monohydrate with mass builder is ok. And if it is how should it be done?
A:
By 'mass builder' I assume you mean weight gainer powder. Personally I am not a big fan of those things -- they are effectively a ton of protein with a ton of sugar or sugar-like substance. Protein is great but there's nothing good about sugar -- it will not only add muscle mass but also new fat (not to mention rot your teeth and in the worst case lead to type II diabetes). And weight gainers are notorious for misleading advertising in which they claim to be 'sugar-free' -- instead they just substitute maltodextrine or similar products which are technically not sugars but have the exact same effect. I strongly recommend eating natural nutritious foods instead of weight gainers (you can still use plain whey protein powder) to build quality muscle without the extra fat. Check out my Nutrition and Protein articles to read more about this subject.
Now... having talked about weight gainers in general, back to your specific question about creatine monohydrate. Yes, ideally you want to take creatine monohydrate with a good dose of carbs to increase its uptake into the bloodstream. That means taking it along with a weight gainer would be effective. Alternatively, you can take it along with any other carb-rich meal. Exactly how you do it doesn't matter too much as long as it happens at basically the same time as the meal. If you are making a weight gainer shake, for example, you can mix in creatine into the shake. Or just gulp it down with a little water during a regular meal. The only thing to be careful about is don't leave creatine dissplved in water for too long -- it decomposes relatively quickly. So mix it in right before you gulp it down.
2490. Q:
how would you suggest to become bigger/buffer plus getting cut as well im 17 and weigh 180 i am happy how i am but i would really love to become more bulk and cut is it possible to become both at the same time? if so what supplements do u believe is best? i have a meal plan with contains about 2900-3100 calories but i would really love to make it 3900 what breakfast meal do you suggest to become most effective. thank you
A:
It sounds like you are in pretty good shape already, which means it will be pretty difficult to both increase muscle mass and lose fat at the same time. On the plus side you are at the best age to accomplish something like that so it may not be impossible. If you want to try that route, my advice would be to make sure your diet is as clean as possible and to slowly increase your calories by about 200 per week from the current maintenance level until you are noticing that your weight in increasing. You want this weight increase to be as gradual and slow as possible. My usual advice of a gain of 1 pound every two weeks should be considered the FASTEST you can afford to gain weight -- slower would be better. Make sure to read my Diet article to find out what foods and meals to eat. You can also fill out my Fitness Guide to get a sample diet plan.
In addition to very careful diet control I would recommend that you do a little bit of HIIT cardio (read up on 'HIIT' using the search feature in the upper right of the page) -- limited HIIT does not have the possible muscle-burning side-effect of regular cardio and can serve to provide a little additional fat control. Just make sure you are still gaining weight very slowly. And of course you will want to continue to do heavy whole-body weight training through it all with relatively high volume.
If you do everything well and with some luck you may be able to accomplish your goal of building muscle at the same time as losing fat. Just keep in mind that it is a very vewry ambitious goal for somebody already in good shape so be prepared to choose a new course of action in case it's just not happening -- you'll then want to alternate bulk and cut cycles as you take turns on focusing first on building muscle and then on losing fat.
As far as supplements, I very rarely recommend them (aside from plain creatine monohydrate and whey protein) simply because they are rarely effective, always way overhyped, and often have unwanted and sometimes even dangerous side-effects. At your age there is simply no reason to resort to supps when you are entering the 5-10 years of prime muscle-building fat-burning age. If you are not getting enough protein from regular foods you would do well to add protein whey powder as a supplement. And if you want a little extra bulking boost you can try creatine monohydrate -- just remember that creatine typically increases water retention so it's next to impossible to become more cut while supplementing with it. Hope that helps, good luck!
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