Diet and Nutrition for abs                    

The factor for continued fat loss and lean muscle development

If you love to eat, here is some good news: Frequent meals, five, six or more per day will help you get your abs lean and stay lean for life!! (provided those meals are composed of the proper foods). You should gradually increase your calories from lean proteins, starchy carbohydrates and fibrous carbohydrates to build your metabolism for more efficient fat-burning and muscle-building. Each time you eat you provoke a storm of hormonal activity and you prospectively influence the state of your mind for the ensuing several hours in four critical aspects.

-Fuel usage: Whether you will burn fat or store fat

-Mental state: Whether you will experience an alert, clear-headed state of mind or a sluggish, foggy of mind.

-Energy level: Whether you will experience a higher energy level or a lower energy level.

-Appetite: Whether or not you will experience food cravings.

For this reason eating should be viewed not as an event limited to time, but rather as a means of priming your hormonal environment for the ensuing hours in terms of fat-burning/storage, mental state, energy levels and appetite.

This pattern of eating is metabolically beneficial for three reasons. First, it helps naturally elevate your body’s levels of insulin, a hormone with powerful anabolic effect. One of its main roles in the body is to make amino acids available to muscle tissue for growth and recovery. The release of insulin is triggered by the conversion of carbohydrates into glycose by the liver. When glycose is introduced into the bloodstream the pancreas releases insulin in response.

For muscle growth to occur, insulin must be constantly present in the body so that amino acids and glycose can move into the muscle tissue. Following a meal, amino acids remain available for protein synthesis for only about three hours. By eating meals of protein and carbohydrate every two to three hours you ensure that your body is releasing adequate amount of insulin which in turn can exert its growth-producing action. Insulin also benefits muscle by inhibiting protein breakdown. Please notice here that this hormone might be a reverse knife to your efforts trying to get ripped cause insulin in excess amounts can add you more fat and also prevents your body to ultilize it for energy. So by having 5-6 small meals per day you promote optimum and stable insulin levels something appropriate for transforming your body to a fat-burning machine.  

Proper Nutrition = GREAT ABS!

The second reason frequent meals are so beneficial involves thermogenesis, the production of body heat from the burning of food for energy. In simple words thermogenesis is the activity that is going on inside your body to break down and process the food you eat it. After a meal your metabolic rate is elevated as a result of thermogenesis. Scientific research has found that meal frequency increases thermogenesis and fat utilization. Consequently, the more meals you eat, the higher your metabolic rate stays throughout the day and potentially the more fat you can burn.

The thermogenic effect of food peaks within one hour after a meal is consumed and the magnitude of this action ranges 10%-35% of ingested calories and varies depending on the type of food eaten and individual metabolic differences. Of the three macronutrients, protein outdistances both fat and carbohydrates as a thermogenic stimulant due to caloric cost incurred in processing amino acids. Research has shown that a meal of pure protein elicits a thermogenic effect amounting to approximately 30% of the meal’s total calories, about twice as much as carbohydrates and more than three times as much as fat. In other words, next time you look at the label on a package of lean meat, you automatically subtract 30% of the calories. Therefore you can achieve a great thermogenic effect from a meal you eat, provided you choose the right macronutrient content for it.

Third, with a constant nutrient supply, you are never forcing your body into a starvation mode, a state induced by repeated cycles of low-calorie dieting in which the body prepares itself for famine and muscle loss should occur. Since muscle is your body’s most metabolically active tissue you certainly don’t want to lose it. Eating frequently throughout the day is one way to prevent muscle loss. Also when meals are coming at shorter, regular intervals your body learns somehow to process food more efficiently and your metabolism is elevated as a result.

The evidence in support of meal frequency is too powerful to ignore. You should start planning your meals accordingly. Here are some step by step guidelines:

a) Decide on how many calories you require per meal. Select your calorie base and divide that number by the number of daily meals you will eat whether five, six or more. This calculation gives you the approximate number of calories to eat at each meal. For example, if your calorie base is 3000 calories and you plan to eat six meals a day, each meal should provide exactly 500 calories.

b) Choose protein sources. Next determine how much protein you need to meet your daily protein requirements. Each day you should eat 1.2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight (if you aim is to add lean muscle mass). At least one gram of protein per pound of your bodyweight should come from complete protein sources such as turkey, fish, egg whites or protein powders. The remaining protein should come from starchy and fibrous carbohydrates which also contain some protein. To determine the exact amount of protein to consume use the following equation:

Your bodyweight x 1.2=required grams of protein per day. Divide your daily protein intake by the number of daily meals to calculate how many grams of protein you need at each of those meals. This will be done in your Personalized Plan.

c) Choose carbohydrates. Decide which fibrous carbohydrates you will eat and how many grams of each. Figure in one or two per meals. At this point sub-total your calories to see how much you have to left to spend on starchy carbohydrates. Figure in one or two starchy carbohydrates a meal.

d) Add in calories from supplements. To increase your daily caloric intake use sports drinks, protein powders or sports nutrition bars. Each of these supplements can help you increase your calories and meals.

Undoubtedly the battle against body-fat is very painful and time-consuming. It demands a lot of dedication and sacrifice for achieving a hard-ripped body and great six pack abs, but if you adapt the above guidelines you will have covered more than a half of this tough path leading to a better body.

 

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