|
 |
Power Eating For Women
Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN
As a 44 year old mom, I never really thought that I would have the goal of getting buffed. Being active in sports and a sports nutritionist, I've always been healthy with good cardio fitness, strength, and flexibility. But now I want to be even stronger, and I want my muscles to show. It just feels good. And I'm not the only one. Most of the women who step over my office threshold desire to be leaner with a more sculpted physique. "Not ripped," they say, "just buffed."
If that's where you want to go with your training and fitness, then here are the key points that are the foundation of the POWER EATING plan, the diet that will help you build muscle, gain energy, and lose fat.
| #1 |
Eat enough calories. If you've been a dieter (and who hasn't been), you know that there have been plenty of times that you've been on very low calorie diets; existing on less than 1200 calories per day. Aside from feeling lousy, the result of this kind of dieting is to slow down your metabolism so that your body can still function, but not at peak levels. Your body requires a minimum of 1600 calories each day just to get in all of the nutrients that it needs from food to maintain health. If you are trying to exercise on fewer calories, you won't be able to work out at a high enough intensity for a long enough period of time to gain the weight control or muscle building benefits of exercise. Over time, your body will swap muscle for fat. Since muscle is the tissue in your body that burns calories, your metabolic rate continues to slow, and no matter how much you diet, you will not lose fat.
It takes muscle to burn fat. Regardless of whether maintaining or gaining muscle is your goal, you must eat enough calories to fuel your strength and cardio workouts, and fuel the process of muscle maintenance, repair, and growth. And when you don't eat enough calories, protein is recruited as an energy fuel, rather than working in its primary job as a structural nutrient. For best results, base your calorie needs on 13.5 to 15.9 calories per pound of body weight.
|
| #2 |
Eat enough carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is the energy that fuels strength-training exercise. Don't be misled by fads. The research is clear: if you want to train hard and long, you need plenty of carbohydrate to achieve your goals. When you combine intense cardio work on top of a good strength training program, your body needs 2.0 to 2.3 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight (use the lower number when you use the calorie level at the bottom of the range). Pay attention! Your body needs more than just carbs to train and build. Don't get so focused on carbs that you don't get in enough protein and fat. But make sure to eat the recommended amounts.
|
| #3 |
Eat enough protein. The guys have this part down, but women have not focused on protein needs. When you are training your protein requirement is just the same as his, so join in on the protein fun. Protein is required not only for the maintenance, replacement, and growth of body tissues, but it is used to make the hormones that regulate your metabolism, maintain the body's water balance, protect against disease, transport nutrients in and out of cells, carry oxygen and regulate blood clotting. If you don't eat enough protein during training you just won't achieve your sculpting goals. Calculate your protein needs at 0.82 grams per pound of body weight. If you do not eat any animal foods (that is, you consider yourself a vegan) add another 10 percent to your protein calculation to cover the variation in the quality of protein from only plant sources.
Don't get caught up in the percentages of calories from protein, carbohydrate and fat. As you can see, protein and carbohydrate needs are based on your body size and exercise requirements, not your total calories.
|
| #4 |
Don't have fat phobia. The essential fats—linoleic acid and linolenic acid—are not made in sufficient amounts by your body, and must be acquired from the diet for optimum health and growth. They are required for the maintenance of cell membranes, healthy arteries and nerves, lubrication and protection of joints, healthy skin, absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, and the breakdown and metabolism of cholesterol. Fat on your body is important not only as a source of fuel, but also as protection for your organs.
Fat is definitely an exercise fuel. It is your body's preferred fuel during aerobic exercise lasting longer than 20 minutes. But during strength training your body prefers to burn carbohydrate for energy since this process does not require oxygen. Oxygen is required to burn fat as fuel, and it isn't available to the muscle rapidly enough to use as a fuel source during strength training exercise.
But that's not to say that strength training won't help you burn fat. In fact, one of the advantages of strength training and aerobic exercise is that the more well-trained you are, the better your body becomes at burning fat as fuel. The more fat you can break down and burn, the more defined you will look.
So how much do you need? That's the easy part. Once you have determined your total calories and grams of protein and carbohydrate, all the leftover calories are fat calories. Protein and carbohydrate contain 4 calories per gram. Add your grams of protein and carbohydrate together and multiply by 4. That is the total calories of protein and carb in your program. Subtract those calories from your total calories for the day, and you have the total amount of fat calories that you need. If you then divide those calories by 9 (since each gram of fat contains 9 calories), you will have your total fat grams for the day.
Because the type of fat in your diet influences your blood cholesterol levels and your risk for developing heart disease and cancer, choose the heart healthy monounsaturated fats like high-fat fish and shellfish, olive, peanut and canola oils, avocados, nuts and seeds, as your main sources of fat. Add polyunsaturated fats from all other vegetable sources next, and last, include limited amounts of saturated and hydrogenated fats from animal foods like meats, butter, and milk fat, and fried foods, baked goods, crackers, chips, and convenience foods.
|
| #5 |
Drink plenty of fluids. Drinking fluid is absolutely essential to promote peak performance. We have a poor thirst mechanism, and are already dehydrated by the time we feel thirsty. So you must drink before you are thirsty. Even mild dehydration will limit your mental and physical performance, and it may impair your long term health. Drinking plenty of fluids may also help you control your appetite because it helps you feel full.
Drink 1 quart (4 cups) of fluid for every 1,000 calories of food you eat (minimum 8 cups per day). This does not include the extra fluid that you need during exercise. Since more than 2-3 caffeinated beverages and all alcoholic beverages cause your body to lose fluid, don't count these as part of your fluid requirement. In fact, if you drink more than 2-3 caffeinated beverages, replace the extras and all alcoholic beverages with 1 cup of water. You need more fluid when the temperature is hot and the environment is humid, at high altitude, low humidity, when you are traveling, ill, pregnant, or nursing.
To prepare for exercise, drink at least 2 cups of water or sports drink 2 hours before exercise. Drink 4 to 8 ounces of cool liquid every 15 to 20 minutes during exercise. After exercise, drink at least 2 cups of fluid for every pound lost during exercise.
|
| #6 |
Timing is everything. This is one of the newest areas of sports nutrition research. We've known for a while that eating small, frequent meals promotes calorie burning versus fat storage. Five to six meals a day are best—more if your calories are higher than 3,000 a day. Eat smaller meals in the evening, and avoid eating within 2 to 3 hours of bedtime.
The latest research information points not only to timing of meals, but timing of nutrients. About 2 hours before exercise, eat a small meal that contains both carbohydrate and protein, and little fat. This will allow for rapid digestion and help lessen the muscle damage that occurs as a result of hard exercise. Some well-trained strength athletes also have about 100-200 mg of caffeine (1 cup of coffee or 2 colas) before exercise to help promote fat-burning and decrease their perception of exercise intensity. If fat-burning rather than performance is your goal during exercise lasting 60 to 90 minutes use only water to replenish your fluids rather than sports drinks that contain carbohydrates. Immediately after exercise and again 2 hours later, promote muscle building and glycogen replenishment by consuming at least 70 grams of carbohydrate and 17 grams of protein.
This can be done by using liquid supplements, sports bars, eating food, or making a smoothie and adding some protein powder. Don't be afraid to experiment.
|
Final tips
- Learning the portion sizes for servings is the foundation of success. It is the way that calorie control is built into the POWER EATING plan.
- Keep a log. The best way to change old habits into new habits is to write things down.
- A one-a-day style vitamin-mineral supplement is a good idea, along with 400 IU of vitamin E and 500 mg vitamin C. Calcium is fairly well built into the plan, but if you are concerned about your calcium intake, supplement to a total intake of 1200 mg of calcium, including food and supplement.
- Good things come to those who wait. Although you will feel and see some changes right away, big changes come about every 6 weeks to 3 months, depending on your fitness level starting out. Be patient and know that you are making the last diet change that you'll ever make. You will be POWER EATING for the rest of your healthy and fit life. Now go get 'em girl!
 //////
|
|
