If you are new to working out and fitness lifestyle, maybe you don’t know that nutrition is the key to good results. Meals around your workout session are most important meals you’ll have. Pre workout meal will give you the energy required for your workout session and post workout meal will give you all the nutrients required for your muscle repair. If you are working out hard, you must focus on nutrition even harder.

Nutrition

Nutrition is the most important thing for any kind of result, weight loss, muscle gain or just health. Your body needs about 114 nutrients every day, and your goal must be to give your body all of them.
If you are reading this article, most probably you are already in the gym, you are training and you need some advice about nutrition. First, you need to boost your metabolism, this means to eat a 4-5-6 meals a day depends on how your day looks like. But 2 meals are the most important, pre/post workout meals. This period is about 4 hours (pre-workout meal, workout session and post workout meal) and your body significantly increase capacity to build muscle because it is the time when the body is most in demand, but also need the most of the nutrients that you need for the process of muscle growth.

Pre-workout meal

The pre-workout meal is second most important meal in the day. Main goal of PWM is to prepare your body for your workout session, to give you energy that you can use trough out your session of pouring it on the iron.
During your workout session, your body uses sugars for energy, and if you want to have that sugars. The sugars that your body needs you can find in food, your muscles and in the fat, fat is sugar that you haven’t used so it is stored in fat. Here is some fat loss tips to take those sugars and use it in your session.
First when you start to work out, your body burns the sugars stored trough out your body, and those sugars you need to replenish, so your body starts a process of glycolysis. Glycolysis is the process of conversion sugar (carbohydrates) into ATP, a form of energy that your body uses for muscle contraction.
Second, don’t forget on your protein intake BEFORE your workout session. During your session the carbs and protein are fairly digested, so your muscle repair starts when you are still working out. A couple hours before, I would suggest cottage cheese, because of casein, and 90-60 min before workout, chicken breast or eggs. And for carbs, oatmeal, rice, or fruits, try to stick with slow releasing carbohydrates.

For me, I always tried to consume a 100 grams of carbohydrates, and 30 grams of protein before working out, I eat a 60% of total daily carbs before workout, and 40% after workout.
You can also eat some fast digesting carbs, for me it works great, some mini “cheat meal”, but you must train in 60 min if you eat some fast digesting carbs, so they can’t go to your fat reserves.

Don’t eat fat before working out, it will slow your metabolism and that is something you definitely you don’t want to happen.
Pre workout meal will give you the energy and the strength for your session, so play a little bit, try different things before and see what works best for you.

Post workout meal

You have hit your iron, and your muscles are sore, you are tired, but feeling awesome. Now it’s time for some good post workout meal. I would recommend a post workout shake with minimum a 30-40 grams of protein with BCAA and some sort of amino acids. When you drink your food, like shake, it digest faster than regular food and that is something you want and need.
The main goal of post workout meal is to quickly and efficiently deliver the fuel that your muscles have used and allow them to repair itself, and to build new muscle tissue.
Half an hour after your workout session, your body has a process called “protein window”, this means that in half an hour your body is in state of shock and want to replenish all cells that are broken, like muscle fibers of replenish glycogen cells. And in these half an hour absorption of these nutrients is much faster and efficient.
An hour after your post workout shake, it’s time to eat, but this time solid food, but what?
After a workout session your body needs glycogen and protein, and you have to give it all. And if you remember a casein I’ve mentioned before, casein is slow releasing protein and it will help your post workout recovery a lot, but you need more protein.
I like to eat a fast digesting carbs to get my insulin level a little higher, because insulin is like a “gate opener” and it helps nutrients to go to your cells and to repair your body.
Like I’ve mentioned, a 40% of daily carb intake I eat after my workout, and minimum of 40 grams of protein.
Eat a variable sorts of protein, eggs and cheese, chicken and fish, add some soy, pees or beans, so you will get a different combinations of amino acids in your “protein window”.
Eat a fruit right before your post workout solid meal, like an apple or banana, sugar goes up, insulin is here. Or even some chocolate bar, I tend to eat a dark chocolate after my workout session because of magnesium. Don’t forget on your vitamins and minerals after your workout. Antioxidants are very important after your session because they protect your body against free radicals that are often produced during hard workout sessions. A glass of water with lemon will help you, combine vitamin C with a vitamin E for even better protection.
Magnesium is also a great nutrient that your body needs. It helps with synthesis of protein in your muscles. Magnesium may speed recovery and help protect you from inflammation due to how it regulates gene expression

What to eat after a workout session?

Mainly focus on protein. Like chicken, fish, eggs and etc. And don’t to forget to rehydrate. If you don’t consume enough water, a lot of nutrients won’t absorb. Drink a 1L of water during of your workout and before your solid post workout meal drink a 0,3L of water, it will help your body to recover faster.

For the end, this were some advices on your pre and post workout meals, what you should eat, and way, but for the end, test yourself, maybe some of these things won’t work on you, but mostly they will. Try with types of protein, carbs, and see how your body responds to it, if you eat a fast digestive carb before workout, maybe you’ll be strong as Hercules, or maybe you will feel sluggish in the gym afterwards, so try what works best for you. What kind of protein is the best for you, what you can eat after, which protein shake works best for you.
Thank you all for reading, hope it is helpful, so stay tuned and share!

The post Pre and Post Workout Nutrition appeared first on Workoutr.com.

A lot of people are trying to get fit and to lose weight in this time of the year, and they start with diet they have found online or diet that someone has recommended them. First couple of weeks it’s fine, but later on, the willpower begin to fade, and diet is no more, and another year they have tried another diet that didn’t work. Every change is hard, but it’s a lot simpler if you make sure that you have planned your 90 days or some other period.

Find a good source of information

Before you start, a must have is to find good source of information – website, book, friend who has been through this, or even a nutritionist.
You have to choose how much & when will you work out and then make a schedule.
If you are planning to go to the gym, you have to find a gym that is near you and you feel comfortable working out there.
Every diet, if is a quality one is different than your current diet, and you’ll have to find some articles that will help you to find the differences, to learn why are you eat chicken and not hamburger, and this will help you to understand that you have to make some changes.
Find out what will you eat, what is bad, what is good, when to eat some things, why oatmeal is ideal for breakfast and so on…
Learn about nutrition and training, and you’ll see that will pay off.

Mindset

Every athlete, prepares mentally for game, match or competition. You must understand that you can do something if you try, champion mindset, devote yourself to success, prepare to say no to your friends when they want to go out for pizza, it’s hard, but your mindset must be ready.
There will be a lot of setbacks but if you are prepared, you’ll pass them without any trouble.
Find out your why, why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to add more muscle mass?
Why do you want a flat belly? Why do you want to feel better?
Answer these questions, and write it down, and every time you feel like you want to eat a junk food, or miss a training session, just read your why, and move forward.

Find a training routine

You are going to the gym or you work out at home, but what exercises? And how?
Internet is full with workout routines, for gym, home, with equipment, without equipment.
There is no room for excuses, before you start, find a routine and watch it, just to see what is waiting for you. Yes, you’ll see the sweat, but sweat is crying.
Find friend who works out, ask him if it’s this program too advanced for you, or is too simple, and ask him how to do some of exercises.
If you don’t have that kind of a friend, you can contact us and we will answer to all of your questions.

Start step by step

If you are eating 2-3 times a day, first week start with 4 meals a day, and after week, if you are comfortable with 4, add another meal, because goal is 5-6 meals a day.
If you want to start to go to the gym, go once, just commit to go 3 times a week, you have your workout routine, you know how to do some of exercises and you can start!
Start to remove junk food from your current diet, and in a few weeks, you’ll be on your new diet without junk food, without even noticing that you have removed junk food.
Don’t listen to others when they say, “don’t go to gym, it’s a waste of time, just to a 2 hours of cardio every day and don’t eat anything and you will lose weight”, or “why do you need a diet? Don’t eat anything and you will lose weight”. But if you go on your path of losing weight like this, you’ll lose your health.
Or if you don’t go to gym, if you work out at home, it will be the same.

Measure your progress

When I started my fitness journey, every Sunday I was taking pictures of myself, and after couple of weeks, I couldn’t see the progress in the mirror, but pictures were showing me wrong. And when you see progress after a couple of weeks, you don’t want to stop, but only you can see the progress, is if you measure your progress, pictures are better than scale, if you ask me.
Take your measurements, arms, hips, chest, thighs. Put measurements on the fridge, so if you come in temptation to eat some junk food, you’ll see your progress and you won’t even open the fridge.
Enjoy in the progress, it’s a lot more fun than destination, because one you reach your goal, you want more, because you have enjoyed in progress and you miss that journey.

Test yourself

I had a 3 different kinds of chocolate bars over my keyboard, and every time I was on computer I looked at them, I asked myself, “Do I really need this, does my body needs all this sugar?”
And always, always, answer was no, so I was 6 months without any kind of chocolate, cause I was testing myself every day.
It’s easier to not want something than forbidding something to yourself.
When you are at party or celebration, and someone offers you a some sort of junk food, and you are on your diet and you don’t want to mess up your diet, just say “I don’t want to eat that”, not “I am on a diet and I am not allowed to eat that”.

Preparation

“If you don’t prepare for success, you’ll fail.”

All excuses comes from poor preparation, I don’t have this, I don`t have that and so on…
You must make a list of things that you’ll need for your journey. When I started running in the morning, for I prepare my shoes, shirt, shorts and iPod, and when I wake up, everything was set and I just put my clothes on and walk out the door and start running.
When I decided to start gym, but seriously this time, I’ve written a 6 months training plan, with couple of routines. And it way easy to follow trough
Every morning you must know, what, when, and how will you eat. For example, if you will eat a 2 meals of chicken breast, you must wake up one hour earlier to prepare meals, you have to put them somewhere.

For the end, every beginning is always hard, but why wouldn’t give yourself a chance for change?

If you are reading this article, I assume that you are considering to start something, or you have already started. The moment when I decided to make a change was when I saw a photo of me shirtless, and I knew, I must change something. I’ve changed my whole life in past 2 years, but everything has changed for better.

Jim Rohn once said:

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

Think about that quote!

Stay tuned and share if you like it!

The post Successful Diet Plans – Tips For Beginners appeared first on Workoutr.com.

Summer is only a month away, so everybody wants to know how they can have a summer body as fast as possible. For best results, you have to begin NOW. You can make some serious results with serious effort. This 10 tips will help you to incorporate some new habits in your lifestyle.
This 10 tips are based around nutrition and training.

1.    Eat every three hours

First step of any good diet, of nutrition plan, is more meals throughout the day. Everybody knows this quote, “If you want to lose weight you must start to eat more meals, the same amount but more meals”. This quote is true, but it’s not that simple. Some people tend to not eat at all, and scale will show result, you will lose pounds, but pounds of what? Pounds of water and muscle, and fat will stay.
Eat every three hours. Protein based foods, with complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.
Whole wheat bread, oatmeal, brown rice, barley, lean meat, eggs, chicken, cottage cheese, tuna, cod and etc. With only this ingredients you can have a lot of different recipes.

2.    Train at least two times a week

If you haven’t trained some time, start with only two times a week, but I recommend three times for better results, and of course, five times a week for a much better results.
Train whole body at once, try to hit every muscle as possible, HIIT is a great example of fast and easy training, with HIIT, in an one hour you can burn up to eight hundred calories.
Push-ups, squats, lunges, burpees, mountain climbers, leg raises, jumping jacks, high knees, plank…
All of these exercises have a lot of modifications, I’ll post some of HIIT workouts, that I am doing and what helps me to stay fit.

3.    Drink water

Water, water, water. 80% of people doesn’t drink enough water. You need to drink a 34 fluid ounces per 55 lbs. of body weight.
Have a glass of water first thing in the morning, before every meal and before you go to sleep.

4.    Eat more protein

People think that protein is only for bodybuilder, but protein is essential for all of us. Protein helps you to build muscle, burn fat, reduce cravings and much more.
As is mentioned in tip no 1. eat protein based meals, that means, first you’ll have to put protein on a plate, and then everything else.
Try to eat at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, for those who are training in the gym or want some serious muscle mass, eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

5.    “Open fist” meals

This sound odd, but it’s a really powerful tip, it has helped me when I started, and try not to eat too much, and still feel full.
Open fist meals, what does this mean?
The meal you eat, shouldn’t be bigger than your open fist, treat this like easy way to see how much is enough. If you feel hungry check how much protein does meal have, and if it’s too little put some more meat.

6.    Vegetables

Next to your protein on your plate, for fat loss, vegetables are must have. Vegetables have fibers that you need, and no one eats enough fiber, the same case like the water. Fiber will help you to normalize your body sugar levels, and reduce fat loss.
Just change your side dish, if is it rice, potato, pasta, bread, put green peas, lettuce, tomato, broccoli.
These are simple vegetables that you can eat whenever you want, and will taste great.

7.    Drink more tea

When it comes to drinking tea, not only in the winter, but whole year. It’s weird to drink tea in summer, but it will help you to shed fat down.
Green tea, early grey, rooibos, hibiscus, yellow tea, chamomile (before bed time).
You can make a lot of smoothies with teas, because they taste great and will give a fresh taste to your smoothie.
Or you can make ice tea, just put tea, lemon and ice. You can drink this throughout the whole day.
Personally I recommend to drink green and earl grey. I drink them at least once a day. They will burn fat and give you energy. Chamomile is great before bedtime, because it will relax you so you can have a good night sleep.

8.    Remove junk food, and fast sugars

Junk food, without exceptions, is calorie-dense and nutrient poor. As consumption of junk food has increased dramatically,not only in US but globally, where almost  25% of people  consumes predominantly junk food meals. This trend brought us rising epidemics of numerous chronic diseases and accounts for a long list of reasons why eating junk food is bad – diabetes, obesity, depression, nutrient deficiencies etc.

9.    Two week challenge

Try to do this simple method, it takes a little time, but you can test yourself if you are really serious.
This will test your willpower, remember, you can have a great result if you stick with a nutrition plan.
2 weeks challenge is, trying with nutrition and workout plan, and if you succeed you can go for 3 weeks challenge, and so on, 4 weeks, 5 weeks…
For this challenge you will need, a list of meals that you will be eating in course of 2 weeks. Also you’ll need workout plan, because you need to know what and how to work out.
Buy all things you’ll need for this 2 weeks, so you can’t have excuses, like, “I don’t have this or this”.
If you are having a bad time without junk food, fast sugars and so on, after 2 weeks if you didn’t eat anything bad, you can have a little cheat meal, just to taste, best cheat meal is little fat, but with fast carbohydrates. But only ONE meal, not whole day, and if you eat this, you must go for 3 week challenge afterwards, not back on your old diet.

10. Don’t drink your calories

When you go to coffee shop or to supermarket, you’ll see a lot of hidden calories.
All those sodas and juices taste great, but you can check nutritional label, and you’ll see a lot of sugars and additives that will sabotage your progress.
If you want to drink orange juice, buy oranges and make it by yourself, don’t buy it from the store because is full of sugar.
The best thing is to drink water or tea, but not flavor water or some other variation of water, drink plain water or spring water.

This were short, basic tips, if you have more questions write it down and we will try to reply as soon as possible. Give yourself a courage to change your lifestyle step by step. You can achieve lot of things in your life just by taking little steps and giving yourself time and patience. Our team will begin to put a lot of new things on this website, like new articles about nutrition and training, shop with new items, and a lot more. Stay tuned!

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