Nutrition
“Working out is your king, Nutrition is your queen.”
People told me that they workout 4 days a week, 5 days a week and even there are some that told me the workout 7 days a week and asked me whether or not they over train. Well I told them that “No, you don’t”. Why did I tell them that they do not over train? Because they really don’t! The fact is human body is not stupid, it may be exhausted if we workout 7 days a week but it will get used to it! Working out 7 days a week is great for your progress and for your muscle growth unless you do not have the proper nutrition to support it.
Today’s topic is about nutrition.
“What kind of food should I consume daily?”
“What kind of food should I avoid?”
“What are the do-s and don’t-s?”
Well it begins with our unique genetics. Our genetics are different with each other. There are three genetics which are; Ectomorph, Mesomorph, and Endomorph. But for me, it is better to lean bulking rather ran bulking and then cutting. It just doesn’t work as I expect.
Ectomorph
People who have this genetics were usually born skinny. Like me. These type of people are the hard gainers, are very hard to gain weights, fats and even muscle. If you have this genetics and have the same goal as me which is to gain weights with muscle not with fats, then my suggestion is to keep your testosterone level high and consume your protein carbs, and fats by 40%, 40%, and 20%. How?
People say breakfast is good, but for me I prefer not to. As you skip breakfast and straight to have lunch, it automatically increases your testosterone level in your body. By the time you have your lunch, every nutritions even fats and carbs will be fully used by your body because your body have been starving since morning. This burns your remaining bodyfats in your body and at the same time it helps you to fully utilize all the nutrition you consume. I am not saying that you should reduce your calories intake by eliminating breakfast. You can always have your same macros and move your breakfast to be your evening meals.
As I said that you should consume protein 40%, carbs 40%, and fats 20% as your macros, means that you should balance between protein and carbs. For me with the current height of 173cm and 65kg, I consume protein at least 120grams, carbs at least 100grams and fats around 50-60grams. Additionally, to maximize results I purposely add 2 days to consume the carbs twice than usual amount. These 2 days are on Wednesday and Saturday. This is called as “refeed day” and it functions to jumpstart your metabolism that is already got used to normal macros.
Mesomorph
People who have this genetics are the luckiest I would say. This is due to the felixibility of the genetics that are very unique. This type of genetic burns fat and also gain weight pretty fast. This is like the middle genetics between ectomorph and endomorph. As under this genetics, I suggest to do the same thing like ectomorph since it can burn almost as fast as ectomorph genetics and can gain weight easier. So the macros is suggested to be at protein 40%, carbs 40%, and fats 20% with additional two days of refeed day and skipping breakfast.
Endomorph
This genetics is the opposite of ectomorph, whereby people who have this genes can gain weight fast however they will not be able to burn as easy as ectomorph genes. And this genetics easily gains fats. Therefore it is advisable to cut down the intake of carbs a little bit. Use the macros of 50% protein, 25% carbs and 25% of fats. And the additional 2 days of refeed day may be useful as well to increase the mteabolism in the body.
Skipping breakfast is very recommended for this genetics, because this genetics needs much faster metabolism to be able to burn the fats gained.
Food to avoid
There is no food that we are forbidden to eat. We can eat anything because all the foods has each of the nutrition that is good for our body. But, to maximize the result it is advisable to watch your daily macros and keep the fats level as low as possible.
Sometimes it is not the food that we need to avoid, often times it is the ingredients that we need to consider more. Sodium is the number 1 enemy of every genetics especially for endomorph. Too much sodium would retain water in our body. Technically our body only needs 2000-2500mg of sodium daily, but I prefer to keep the sodium as low as possible with the range of 1000-1500mgper day.
In addition, in terms of drinking such as beer or liquor and any other liquid drinking that consists of alcoholic, it is not recommended because alcohol in fact makes all the nutrition of other food more difficult to digest. It reduces the amount of digestive enzymes which the pancreas produces to help us to break down the fats and carbohydrates we eat.
Tips: Use ‘My Fitness Pal’ apps to keep tracking your macros.
Peace out!
Dennis Hadi