Nuts and Bodyweight – Q&A
I have a followup to the article you posted on Monday regarding 10 Tips to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain. A lot of parties I attend during the holidays have various sorts of nuts as snacks and my question is how they impact on body weight. I have read that they are healthy but they also seem to contain a lot of calories, what’s the deal with them? Thank you.
General Philosophies of Muscle Mass Gain
In this article (which will actually form an introduction to a series of articles I’ll be doing over the next several weeks and months), I want to talk about some basic concepts related to mass gaining nutrition, primarily looking at some of the different philosophies of mass-gaining that are out there. As usually, I’ll look at each in my normal way, looking at the various pros and cons of each approach.
How Many Carbohydrates Do You Need?
Arguments over recommended carbohydrate intake have a long history and it doesn’t appear to be close to ending any time soon. Typical mainstream recommendations have carbohydrates contributing 50% or more of total calories while many low-carbohydrate advocates suggest far fewer (ranging from the 40% of the Zone diet to close to zero for ketogenic diets).
Meal Frequency and Energy Balance
Perhaps one of the longest standing dogmas in the weight loss and bodybuilding world is the absolute necessity of eating frequently for various reasons. Specific to weight loss, how many times have you heard something along the lines of “Eating 6 times per day stokes the metabolic fire.” or “You must eat 6 times per day to lose fat effectively.” or “Skipping even one meal per day will slow your metabolic rate and you’ll hoard fat.” Probably a lot.
Lyle MacDonald
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Bench Press Technique
Now, let me say right up front that I am going to be detailing a very specific variation on bench pressing, which is the raw generic power bench press. Lemme explain those terms. Raw means no gear as in no bench press shirts. Yeah, a lot of guys belt but, unless you’re using the belt to hold down your bench shirt, it’s pretty pointless. And I guess you could consider wrist wraps gear, I can’t say I’ve seen many non-powerlifters use them. But raw in this context means no bench shirt.
Insulin Levels and Fat Loss – Q&A
This is because, in a lot of ways, insulin is a schizophrenic hormone. Depending on what folks read (e.g. bodybuilding literature), they will be told that insulin is great, it’s the most anabolic hormone in the body, it’s key to getting big. And if you read other stuff (a lot of mainstream dieting literature), you’ll hear that insulin is the devil, it makes you fat and ruins your health. Who’s right? Well, everybody…sort of.
Rigid and Flexible Dieting
With the holidays looming, and all of the food and candy that that entails, I wanted to write a quick article post about a topic that I consider very important. In fact, it’s so important to the goal of long-term body composition changes that I wrote an entire book (My A Guide to Flexible Dieting) about it.
