The Adler Blog

In the last segment, I spoke about how to set up your macronutrients and calories for a successful diet. Today, I want to try answering the question as to when to eat. To be very clear, overall calories matter much more than nutrient timing, so first of all you need to make sure you have your overall caloric intake in check and know your macros.
Most people have heard that you should eat 3 meals and 2 snacks during the day. This is a good guideline, even though heavy athletes in training can require more meals. Michael Phelps, just as an example, eats about 12,000 calories a day – it would be impossible to fit that into three meals.

So, we have 3 meals and 2 snacks. Are any meals more important than others?
Absolutely! Breakfast and peri-workout meals (meals eaten within a 2-hour window of the workout) are critical for your diet success.

Breakfast literally “breaks the fast”. Your body is catabolic (destroys muscle) during most of the night, so breakfast will shift you back into being anabolic and jumpstart your metabolism. You can never skip breakfast. Even if you are not hungry in the mornings, at least consume some liquid protein with oats.

The meals around your workout are providing the energy and the material for recovery, so make sure to have 2 meals planned. If you don’t eat before the workout, you won’t have much energy to train and your intensity will suffer. Lower intensity means fewer calories burned. If you skip the post workout meal, you are risking losing muscle, since your body will turn to the amino acids for energy.

So let’s put all this into a practical example. We shall reactivate our female from the last post; she gets to eat 1,600 calories, 140 grams of protein, 40 grams of fat, and 170 grams of carbs. Let’s design the critical meals first:

Breakfast matters, so here I would say 35 grams of protein, 50grams carbs, and some 10 grams of fats. This could be a cup of oatmeal with a scoop of whey protein and some peanut butter.

Before the workout I would recommend 35 grams of carbs and 20 grams of protein. The same for post workout. This could be a large bagel, split between the meals, eaten with yogurt.

Now we are left 50 grams of carbs, 65grams protein, and 30 grams of fat for the remainder of the day. I would split these evenly into lunch and dinner, shifting the carb sources away from starches toward vegetables. Fish/beef with greens and some nuts would be possible choices.

As for the “Don’t eat after 5 pm or you gain weight”, that is simply an old wives’ tale. Calories matter and, if you train from 5-6 pm, as most people do, you will need to eat afterwards.

When designing your diet, make sure you take into account the time when you workout. And enjoy breakfast!

Train hard
Maik and Scott

When setting up a diet, a lot of people seem to be confused how to go about it: low carb, low fat, ice water for lunch?

In the following segment, I’ll try to clear up some of that confusion.

Rule number 1: calories matter! Regardless what kind of a diet you choose you need to eat less than you burn. If you don’t have a deficit, nothing will happen.

Which brings me to rule number 2: know your metabolic rate!

When structuring a diet, any diet, you have figure out your basic metabolic rate first (BMR).
The Benedict-Harris formula works well for most people. If you dont want to go through the trouble, women can use 14 calories per lbs of bodyweight, men 16 calories (if you use kilos 30 resp 35). From there on, you decide how much of a deficit you want, small (10 %), medium (10-20%) or larger (20%). I prefer a medium-sized deficit, which allows you to have a life and still get the diet done in a reasonable time frame, but that is just my preference.

Rule number 3: Protein, fat, carbs…Protein,fat,carbs…

This is what you need to know about your macronutrients: protein (4 calories per gram), carbs (4 calories per gram) and fats (9 calories per gram).

The first one to look at is protein. Why? Without it, you die. That aside, protein helps you to protect your muscles, which in return keeps the metabolism high. Furthermore it acts as a hunger suppressant, so it makes the diet a bit easier. You should eat at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (or 2 grams per kilogram).

Next, you have the two energetic nutrients: carbs and fats. Fats are essential for survival, so you can’t go without them. At a very minimal level, you will need 20 grams of essential fatty acids.

We are left with carbs: carbs aren’t needed for survival (the brain can make glucose from ketones) but they taste good and make people feel better. Use you remaining calories of the day for carbs – you want to eat them.

Now, let’s put all this into a practice run: assuming we have a female at 140 lbs, with a basic metabolic rate of roughly 2,000 calories a day if we assume three one-hour workouts per week. She then chooses a medium deficit of 20 % which comes to 400 calories a day. This leaves her with 1,600 calories per day.

Let’s calculate the macronutrients. As discussed before, she needs 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, meaning 140 grams. Translated into calories, 140grams x 4 (calories per gram) = 560. 1,040 calories are left for protein and carbs.

I would not recommend the fats intake to be lower than 40 grams a day, so 40 x 9 (calories per gram) = 360 calories from fats. Bear with me, we are almost home.

Lastly, she is left with 680 calories to spare for carbs, 680 divided by 4 equals 170 grams for the day.

In the end, our fictional character gets to eat 140 grams of protein, 170 carbs and 40 grams of fat a day. This splits up into 35 grams protein/42 grams carb/10 grams fat for a meal, 4 times a day. If you want to split it into smaller meals, that is fine. I personally don’t consider meals fewer than 300 calories worth sitting down for, but do as you like.

I hope to have cleared some confusion on setting up a diet.
Just remember the roadmap: 1.BMR. 2. Deficit. 3. Protein-fat-carbs.

Train hard
Maik

Ah, supplements, a lean and strong body in a bottle for only 69.99$! Gain 10 lbs of muscle, while losing 20 lbs of fat and your IQ will also rise. Supplement companies have excellent marketing departments, powerful graphics and extremely convincing before-after pictures.

So what are supplements REALLY and who needs them?

Supplements are additions to your diet, which can be macro or micronutrients. They are your protein and carbohydrate powders, essential fatty acids, such as fish oil, as well as minerals, or vitamins, or derivatives thereof.

Protein powders, essential fatty acids and multi vitamins can come in handy since the modern life style doesn’t always allow for 5 quality meals a day. A protein shake with oats and peanut butter is a good and quick alternative since it can be prepared and consumed in less than 5 minutes.

As for the rest, however, keep in mind that they are called supplements for a reason. They are supposed to supplement an already solid training and diet regime. You need to have your training, food intake and the rest in check before even considering supplements. In short, if you workout haphazardly, sleep less than 8 hours a night and have no clue how much protein you ate yesterday, no supplement and no drug can help you to achieve a better body.
Also, read the label: often that new super fat burner is nothing more than an over-priced caffeine pill.

In my opinion, the 2 best supplements you can buy are a food log such as SUC and a workout log where you record your sessions. Ask yourself every 6 weeks: Am I leaner? Am I stronger? If not, go back to the basics. Maybe you need a new routine, rest more or change your diet up a bit.

Till next time
Maik and Scott

So the New Year is upon us and everybody made their resolutions: x pounds need to disappear, need to fit into a size 4 dress, etc.

This leads to gyms filled with highly motivated newbies, who will work out 2 hours + for the next 10 days, just to never show up again. Why? Well, for once, we live in a society where everything should come fast and effortless. And this is simply not the case when building a physique. You need to plan in months and years, not days.

The other problem is that newbies don’t have a plan. They go from machine to machine, spend hours on the treadmill to “burn fat” and end up over trained and frustrated.

What to do?

1. Be realistic in your expectations. If you have 20 lbs to lose, plan for 20 weeks. Getting and staying in shape is a lifestyle, not a sport.

2. Put together a strength routine. Doing cardio alone will not get you in shape; you need to strengthen your muscles to spike up your metabolism. If you need help, post a comment, I will gladly offer guidance.

3. Go food-shopping. This might be the most critical point. 90% of your success hinges on your diet, so make sure your kitchen is filled with chicken, greens, oats, lean beef, nuts , fish, avocados etc. What you do outside the gym in terms of cooking and resting matters as much or even more than the actual workout.

4. Believe! It is all up to you. Anyone, absolutely anyone, can build a great physique if training and diet are in check. Don’t deny yourself that feeling!

Till next time,
Maik and Scott