3 Nutrition Game Changers

I get asked all the time about the best nutrition plans, what diets to use, what I think are the best.

My Answer?

it depends

I work with a whole host of people form the general public – office workers, professional people, mums to athletes – MMA fighters, kick boxers and so my answer depends on their own journey and goals.

Since my principles revolve around health, my primary focus is always removing reactive foods and replacing them with health giving nutritious foods that serve the body and allow it to look after you.

The focus of this article however is to go further in breaking that principle down to reveal 3 “game changers”, which not only focus on health, but also lean gains and fat loss.

1. Carb cycling

This has been one of my mainstays for like forever. based on the fact that depending on your lifestyle you do not need excess amount of carbs every day. In fact if you are sedentary, you need minimal carbs every day. you simply do not use them. Lets think about that..

you get up in the morning and then sit down to breakfast, you get ready and sit in your car and drive to work. You get to work and sit down for 8 hours. then you do the reverse you did in the morning.

so why you need to eat cereal/toast for breakfast, a carb based snack such as crisps/sweets, then a sandwich, then another carb based snack, then you dinner, which has pasta or rice or potatoes.

you are eating carbs all day and simply not using them, so guess what, your body stores the as lard round your body.

The principle of carb cycling is based that over the week, you have either high, medium or low carbohydrate intake. You then make sure that the high carb days are when you are lifting heavy at the gym and low carb on rest days or low intensity training days.

Why should you do it?

• Increase fat burning
• Increase lean muscle mass
• Improve insulin sensitivity

2 Intermittent fasting

I can remember when I first read about this 5 years ago and I actually dismissed it. At the time from a performance perspective I was all about the protein and didn’t look at it objectively

It certainly seemed to go against the grain. But I have since researched the subject in depth and used it my self and had great results with it. There are many ways to do it but what I have found works are 16-8 and 24-0.

16-8 is when you fast for a 16 hour period and eat with in the 8 hour window. so lets say your last meal was 6pm, the next meal would be 10am the next day. I also like to add a 24 hour fast 1 day a week on a low intensity day. This may sound extreme but it really isn’t. your body has plenty energy reserves and it actually helps to enhance fat burning.

Why should you do it?

• Improved fat burning
• Increase lean muscle gain
• Improve insulin sensitivity
• You are not tied to traditional meal times
• Improves sleep

 3 Calorie Cycling

Similar to carb cycling, calorie cycling is another method that I have found can help to get great results. Calories are cycled instead of just carbs, with a similar outcome. Increase the amount of calories on training days and reduce them on non training days, where you are less active. The main difference between carb cycling and calorie cycling is that with calories you can increased intake using fats. This is perfect for increasing calories when on a low carb diet.

Why Should You Do it?

• Improved fat loss
• Increased muscle mass
• More Energy.

Understanding food.

You must have a basic understanding of good foods to use whilst avoiding the bad.

Good Choices:

Protein: chicken, beef, eggs, fish etc

Carbohydrates: quinoa, rice, gluten free oats, sweet potatoes etc

Fats: avocado, nuts, seeds, coconut oil, olive oil etc

Vegetables: Broccoli, Cauli, Kale, green beans, spinach etc

Bad Choices:

Anything low fat

sweeteners

dried fruit

cereals

bread

Dairy

As you can see, to get the most from a nutrition plan, you must understand that it isn’t just about calories in and calories out, it is about balancing hormones through proper food intake. You can still lose weight and be unhealthy, but looking good isn’t enough, you have to feel great too and bullet proof your body and keep your immunity high and the only way to do that is to help your body from the inside out.

Putting a plan together

In order to put a weekly plan together I like to categorise the different daily meal options, then you choose which day of food you will use in accordance to your training plan. I categorise them as
A1- High carb (Carbs at breakfast, post work out and in the evening) – high Calories
A2- High carb (Carbs in the evening only)- normal calories
B1 – Low carb (no carbs just green vegetables) – normalcalories

Here is an example of a 4 day weight training program

If you have any questions about the article then let me know in the comments. if you want to try it out then let me know how you get on.

If you would like a custom nutritional plan, then contact me through the website and I will contact you to see what your goal is and how I can help you.

to your strength and health

Dean