Some workout and diet tips
Below is an email I wrote to a new client. I asked him to describe his workout and diet and I provided him some feedback. You'll find helpful tips in here that you can relate to your own training.
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Okay, we'll start broad and go narrow...
Your Mon - Friday workouts look good. I don't have a shoulder day,
I blend it in with back and chest, but we can talk about that when
we meet. I am curious what your rep range is, and are you able to
go up in poundage or not? If not, it might be because of you're
diet.
Your diet...starting broad and going narrow...
You want to definitely have something in your stomach before
working out. Blending oatmeal and protein powder together is a
great combination that is fast, easy, and effective. If you really
want to round it out, put some green powder mix into it.
After your workouts you NEVER want to go past 45 minutes without
getting a recovery meal into your system. This is where meal
replacement shakes come handy. I recommend N-Large2 by Prolab. It is a great bang-for-your buck and provides for your system the
necessary proteins, carbs, and fats that will start your
post-workout phase to gains. Remember, the workout is just a
trigger, it is everything else you do (the other 23 hours) that
determines your gains (cuts, fat loss, lean muscle mass gain,
etc.)
If you are having difficulties getting in protein to every meal, I
highly recommend Muscle-Milk. I recommend the "naturals" version
to keep away from the artificial flavoring (aka: rat poison) as
much as possible.
For instance, I just cooked up some rice and noticed I am out of
chicken breasts so I decided to have a serving of muscle milk.
Also, if you don't want to cook your 5 meals a day (I don't know
anybody who does), the N-Large2 by Prolab I recommended is an easy
way to get in a quick well balanced meal. Literally it can take
the place of 2 - 3 meals a day, and of course you want to get in
about 5 meals. 5 meals essentially means you are eating
approximately every 3 hours. The body loves this...it
speeds up its metabolism (hello fat burn) and has all the goodies
it needs to pack on lean muscle tissue (hello cuts, hello six-pack).
A tip:
Trader Joes has some excellent frozen rice. It comes in a small box
that has 3 bags in it. You can choose white or brown rice, and the
excellent thing about this rice, is you just poke a hole into the
plastic bag and through it into the microwave for 3-4 minutes and
WALLAH you have perfectly cooked rice in an excellent quantity of
serving. It is so simple and fast; there to to optimize effectiveness and
efficiency. With that bag of rice you can choose any protein item
to have with it BUT YOU MUST HAVE A PROTEIN ITEM WITH IT!
ex.
a can of tuna
a chicken breast (pre-cook it on Sunday if necessary)
a serving of cottage cheese
a serving of muscle milk
...
YOUR MEALS MUST BE BALANCED!! If not, then you might as well cut your workouts in the gym down to 25 minutes. Supply must meet demand... You may be surprised at your gains just by following through on this simple yet all important factor of production.
I hope this helps a bit, and please feel free to ask any more
general and even specific questions.