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Weight Training Questions - Eating Healthy But
Bloated
Weight Training Question:
I'm trying to stay skinny and eat the right things. But no matter
how healthy I eat and even how little I eat, I still get really
bloated. I'm always worried about getting fat! Can you tell me a
good way to keep my weight constant and my stomach thin (no bloating)?
I run track and exercise on a daily basis, so I'm very active. In
terms of my diet, here is what I ate today:
- Breakfast: bowl of cereal (Mini-Wheats)
- Snack: Kellogg's cereal bar (the 90 calorie ones)
- Lunch: chicken salad sandwich on wheat bread with some
tortilla chips
- Snack: apple with peanut butter
- Dinner: small bowl of chicken stir fry with chicken &
veggies over noodles
By the way, I always followed strict portion sizes with each serving
of food I eat. I do not drink any soda, just lots of water and juice
on a daily basis.
Weight Training Answer:
Your current diet plan is far from ideal for dropping body fat
and attaining a lean physique. Here are a few tips to help you:
- Shoot for 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
Split up the total over the course of 5-6 meals. Evenly spacing
your protein throughout the day is much better than consuming
huge amounts in one sitting. Protein is critical for maintaining
and building lean muscle tissue. You really want to focus on keeping
the quality muscle you have since muscle tissue is the most metabolically
active tissue in the body and burns calories even when you're
at rest. By just adding 1 pound of lean muscle to your body, you
will burn approximately 50 extra calories every day. On the other
hand, if you lose a pound of muscle then your metabolic rate will
decrease (number of calories your body burns) and you will have
a much more difficult time losing body fat. This is why its so
important to always include weight training in your overall fitness
program and to also make sure to eat enough protein every day
to fuel your muscles.
 Cut
out the empty carbs and processed foods. This includes cereals,
noodles, cereal bars, juice, etc. If your juice is not 100% fresh
squeezed (unprocessed), it has way too many sugars and calories
which will spike your insulin levels and limit your fat loss.
These are not the optimal type of calories and they will not help
you achieve your fat loss goals. Even if buy fresh squeezed juice,
its not really the most ideal thing you want to consume if your
goal is to get lean. Although fresh juice has many great vitamins
and minerals, it simply has too many simple sugars which are easily
converted into body fat. Remember, fruit sugar contains fructose
which is stored as liver glycogen, not muscle glycogen as it would
be if you ate a starchy carbohydrate like brown rice. Liver glycogen
can only hold about 100 grams of carbs before they "spill
over" into body fat. So, try and really watch your consumption
of any drinks with carbs which include all types of juices. When
in doubt, stick with water.
- Most of the food bars on the market are glorified candy bars.
Make sure to check the sugar content and grams of protein. When
you look on the back of the label, look for "sugar alcohols"
listed under carbohydrates on the nutritional breakdown. Sugar
alcohols act as basic sugars in your body and they need to be
taken into consideration when choosing a food bar. Make sure the
bar has at least 15 grams of protein, and ideally around 20-30
grams. The fat content is also very important, so look at the
overall total number of fat grams since many of the food bars
on the market pack their products with fat in order to achieve
a good taste. Overall calories are of the utmost importance. Any
protein bar or meal replacement bar should not contain over 500
calories. The ideal calorie level should be between 300-400 calories
per bar.
- Add weights and cardio workouts to add lean muscle mass
and burn extra calories. This is the cornerstone to achieving
a lean physique. Combining this with a clean diet will result
in amazing changes in your body. Don't worry about getting too
big if you're a woman. Women simply do not have the levels of
testosterone that men have and no matter how much you lift weights,
you will not get as big as a guy. The importance of including
weight training along with cardio is to maintain and even gain
lean muscle tissue. As noted above, your BMR (basal metabolic
rate) will decrease if you lose muscle tissue and you will have
a much harder time trying to strip off body fat. You want to create
a powerful fat burning furnace and the way to do that is to add
lean muscle to your body. Weight training will also give women
a sexy, athletic physique which many men find very attractive.
- The bloating issue you have is probably due to your sodium
consumption. Pay careful attention to the amount of salt you
eat (added to foods) as well as the sodium content in the foods
you consume every day. Look on the back of the food package at
the nutritional information and be aware of the milligrams of
sodium it has in it. Drinking water will help flush your system
as well. If you consume alcohol, this can also cause you to be
bloated so make sure to watch the beers or other alcoholic drinks
you partake in.
- Cut back on the starchy carbs at dinner time. You are
currently eating noodles as your last meal of the day which wreaks
havoc on fat burning. Replace the noodles with fibrous carbs (veggies)
such as broccoli, mushrooms and zucchini. The reason you want
to avoid starchy carbs at night is due to the insulin spike as
well as the "feel good" hormones that are released when
you have a high carb meal later in the day. Carbs like noodles
spike your blood sugar levels and when your body has increased
blood sugar, it releases the hormone insulin in order to bring
your levels back down to normal. Your body cant burn fat in the
presence of insulin, so make sure to cut back on the starchy carbs
at night. Also, your body releases "feel good" hormones
(dopamine and serotonin) which tends to make people eat more once
they get into this zone when they consume carbs later in the day.
This is the perfect storm for an all out carbohydrate binge, so
make sure to control all of these hormones by replacing all starchy
carbs with fibrous ones at dinner time.
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