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This article is written in the context of a weight trained male or female with a decent amount of muscle mass, trying to lose fat.

I felt this topic was worth writing about as I see countless people thinking that they have to make drastic dietary changes in order to see results. This often involves adoption of an extremist style diet such as paleo, keto, 0 sugar, or some other diet that involves a list of foods which you can and can’t eat. While these types of diet can and do work, for the short term, they are often unsustainable and so make long term progress difficult.

I do NOT advocate separating foods under “acceptable” and “unacceptable” labels like this!

Exclusion style diets are especially difficult to make continued progress with if quantitative (countable) calorie and macronutrient goals aren’t present. Why this is important is because energy and macronutrient content of a diet are the most important factors for weight change and body composition, NOT eating a select bunch of foods, or certain foods at certain times. This means tracking calorie and/or macronutrients (carbs,fats,protein) is important for continued progress. This article is not about arguing fundamental concepts of nutrition, though. I would advise everyone to watch the entirety of the Eric Helms’ Nutritional Pyramid series on Youtube if you haven’t already, it will inform or refresh you about what factors of a diet are worth paying attention to.

What Do I Recommend?

Firstly, before you attempt to lose weight, start to track every food you eat in a free online database such as Myfitnesspal. Do this for a week and average the data. This is in an attempt to gauge what your diet is made up from on average in terms of calories, carbs, fat, protein, and fibre.

The same week, weigh yourself at the same time of day (at least 3x per week but preferably every day) in the same conditions. Ideally in the morning after visiting the bathroom and in the same clothes/naked. This will give you a base weight to work from. Keep your caloric  and macronutrient intake similar for the week following this, and keep weighing yourself. Now, average week 1 weight and week 2 body weight and compare them. Over these two weeks keep activity & training consistent (ie don’t suddenly increase cardio by 2x during the 2nd week). You now should have some rough data about what a certain caloric intake does to your body weight.

For fat loss periods while maximising muscle retention, weight loss should be kept within ~0.5-1.0% of total body weight per week. More than this and you risk losing too much muscle, and a slower rate than this means you can probably get away with more fat loss without sacrificing much muscle. Now, in terms of macronutrient content of the diet, shoot for around 1.8-2.7g/kg of protein/day (1). The lower end of this range is applicable to most people. The upper range of this becomes more applicable when you are extremely lean, and are losing weight quickly (to maximise muscle retention). Fibre should be around 10-15g per 1000 calories consumed, which usually falls into 25-40g/fibre day. Carbs and fats can be whatever you prefer (within total calories). There can be arguments made for dropping one or the other more. Higher carb may help to spare performance while in an energy deficit and therefore preserve muscle, and higher fat will help with satiety (feeling of fullness) and so might make the weight loss phase easier. Your intake of one or both of these macronutrients will very likely need to drop throughout the weight loss phase, so drop whatever you prefer but keep fat at least 30-50g/day minimum for health reasons.

The food you eat doesn’t matter, it is the total caloric, macronutrient, fibre, and micronutrient intake at the end of the day that is important.

Cardio

track your cardiovascular exercise as well as your nutrition. The most replicable way to do this is to use a cardio machine and have a set goal per week of how many calories you want to burn through cardio. The calories burnt on these machines is not always accurate with what the machine says, but it’s usually consistent which is what matters. This makes tracking weekly cardio quantifiable, and you can adjust calories burnt per week through cardio upwards or downwards depending on what weight loss is doing. Do cardio post training or on rest days, low to moderate intensity is usually what I advocate so training is not affected. High intensity cardio can be useful too but space it away from leg training days. Remember cardio is this context is just a tool for expending more calories. Different forms of cardio don’t offer special magic fat burning properties over the other. You don’t have to do cardio, but it allows you to eat more and lose the same amount of weight compared to if you didn’t do it at all.

Track body weight changes with a graph. When your weight loss stalls (weight loss <0.5% of total BW each week for two consecutive weeks), add more cardio for example 500kcal/week extra, or reduce calories by another 100-200 through carb and or fat reductions.

Weight gain rather than loss, but an example of how weight should be tracked over time so accurate macronutrient changes can be made.

Hopefully you have a good grasp of how to effectively lose weight and remain healthy. Eat what you want within reason, hit suitable macronutrient and fibre goals, and eat 5 serves of fruit/veg day and that’s 95% of the dietary picture you need to worry about.

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Reference

• (1) Murphy, C. H., Hector, A. J., & Phillips, S. M. (2014). Considerations for protein intake in managing weight loss in athletes. European journal of sport science, (ahead-of- print), 1-8.

Everyone who trains wants long term progress. To efficiently achieve this, we need to understand what is important in a training programme and what is not.

Volume

Firstly, it must be understood that the main variable in dictating long-term muscle growth and strength, is an increase in recoverable volume performed, over time. Volume is the product of sets x reps x load, and should mostly be completed at >60-70% of your one rep max (1RM) when your goal is muscle/strength gain.. There are other factors which influence muscle growth, but improving volume performed between training blocks should be prioritised over goals such as “getting a pump” “feeling the burn” “raising the heart rate”. Not that these aren’t useful, they just aren’t nearly as important as volume. It is also more important than rep range utilised. An interesting study (4) found 7 sets of 3 reps to be as effective as 3 sets of 10 in increasing muscle size due to equated volume, going against the typical gym goer mentality of higher reps being superior for growth.

An increase in volume over time results in greater and greater mechanical tension on the musculature which is likely the primary factor driving hypertrophic (size) gains (3). For example, increasing your 5 sets of 5 squat from 100kg to 120kg would elicit progressive overload through increased mechanical tension, resulting in hypertrophy. The goal to increase the weight, sets, or reps (likely a combo of all of them) on the lifts that utilise the most musculature, should be the backbone of your programme, whether your goal is bodybuilding or powerlifting related.

As I stated earlier, the volume has to be recoverable. More is not always better. Too much volume can hinder recovery to an extent that compromises the next training session, and there is a cap on how much muscle you can synthesise from a single session. For example, 10 sets of 10 at 60% of your 1RM would be a huge amount of volume at a suitable percentage, BUT would almost always be too much to recover from in time for the next training session.

Frequency

After we train, protein synthesis and degradation are both elevated. Muscle proteins have been broken down, and new ones are being synthesised. In order to gain muscle, protein synthesis must be greater than protein degradation on average. Protein synthesis does not remain elevated to any significant extent 48-72 hours following a training bout of a particular muscle group. This means that drug free lifters would very likely benefit from training each muscle group 2-3x per week, rather than the traditional 1x/week advertised by professional bodybuilders and muscle magazines. 2-3x/week frequency has been shown as more effective for hypertrophy in research reviews such as (5).

Training each muscle group 2-3x/week allows protein synthesis to be elevated for longer periods of time throughout the week. A study (1) found 3 training sessions/week per muscle group more conducive of muscle gain than 1 session/week EVEN when volume was the same between groups. This illustrates the importance of multiple sessions per week per body part. 40-70 Repetitions per body part per session, while training each body part two or three times per week, are suitable recommendations for most drug-free trainees (2).

Summary

• Pay close attention to total training volume (recording it if late intermediate-advanced lifter) and control its increase over time to control your gains.
• Prioritise using more weight, doing more reps, or completing more sets, with the big, compound lifts.
• Train each muscle 2-3x/week to allow for higher average protein synthesis.

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References

• (1) Mclester, J. R., Bishop, E., & Guilliams, M. E. (2000). Comparison of 1 Day and 3 Days Per Week of Equal-Volume Resistance Training in Experienced Subjects. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 14(3), 273-281.
• (2) Helms, E., Fitschen, P. J., Aragon, A., Cronin, J., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2014). Recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: resistance and cardiovascular training.
• (3) Schoenfeld, B. J. (2013). Potential mechanisms for a role of metabolic stress in hypertrophic adaptations to resistance training. Sports medicine, 43(3), 179-194.
• (4) Schoenfeld, B. J., Ratamess, N. A., Peterson, M. D., Contreras, B., Sonmez, G. T., & Alvar, B. A. (2014).  Effects of different volume-equated resistance training loading strategies on muscular adaptations in well-trained men. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 28(10), 2909-2918.
• (5) Wernbom, M., Augustsson, J., & Thomeé, R. (2007). The influence of frequency, intensity, volume and  mode of strength training on whole muscle cross-sectional area in humans. Sports Medicine, 37(3), 225-264.

Being big and strong doesn’t mean you need to grow a big gut just to lift heavy weight. It’s becoming more and more common now days to see lean weightlifters and powerlifters who look like bodybuilders but also lift a tonne of weight. Ever wondered how they do it?

There’s a science behind the nutrition required for getting stronger. Sure, eating loads will get you results, but it will get you a belly along the way. Here’s the 6 most important tips if you want to optimise your nutrition to gain as much strength (and size) as possible while also keeping fat gain to a minimum.

1. Tracking your energy intake & expenditure

TRACK?! You mean get a little food scale and be one of those compulsive freaks?! Well yes and no. While you don’t need to be accurate to the T, knowing roughly how much energy you require on an average day can help you to easily manipulate your weight while not going overboard. This means slow gains/cuts which result in optimal strength gain and fat loss.

The way to lose or gain weight is determined by your overall energy intake in relation to energy expenditure, but lets dive a little deeper.

Energy intake

There are two common measurements for energy intake. These are kilocalories (kcal) and kilojoules (kJ). We’ll go by kcal as this is the most commonly used measurement.

Your overall energy intake is made up of macro-nutrients:

• Carbohydrates (CHO) (4kcal per gram)
• Protein (4kcal/g)
• Fat (9kcal/g)
• (& Alcohol (7kcal/g) (will not be discussed in detail in this article))

These are important to consider as each macro-nutrient type has a different effect on the body (as you can probably already tell based on their caloric values per gram). We’ll explain these a little later into the article.

Energy Expenditure

Many factors make up energy expenditure, but typically the only one we can manipulate is physical activity. This obviously includes any exercise or weight training you do, but can also include activity we don’t necessarily think about such as fidgeting you do throughout the day. These all add up to make a fairly significant difference to your overall energy expenditure.

So, how to I determine my own energy intake?

• Assess average energy intake through inputting an average day of your diet into a food diary (like MyFitnessPal)
• Weigh yourself every day under the same conditions (for example in the morning before eating/drinking)
• Compare the average week to week weigh ins

Following this, adjust energy intake slowly (increase or decrease 100-200kcal per couple of weeks) to get the desired rate of weight change.

2. Protein Intake

As I mentioned earlier, different macro-nutrients have different effects on the body. So lets start by analysing protein why it is important.

Adequate protein is required to recover from training and support growth/adaptations. Protein is also useful to keep you full (has a high satiety value per amount of energy they provide) so high intakes are particularly useful in a fat loss phase.

Remember, even though it is important to get “optimal” strength/muscle adaptations, it’s not as important as total energy intake!

So how much protein should you be having in a day? The recommendations are dependent on whether you are in an energy deficit or not:

• Balance (maintenance): 1.4-1.6g/kg (2)
• Surplus: 1.5-1.7g/kg (2)
• Deficit: 1.8-2.7g/kg (8)*

*Note: the upper end of the deficit range is highly speculative and not necessary unless extremely lean and in a large energy deficit. The lower to mid end of the range will be applicable to powerlifters/bodybuilders in a weight loss phase.

Surpassing protein recommendations may displace CHO (carbohydrate) intake to a level not optimal for supporting training and recovery (10), especially during an energy deficit.

Thus, it is important to have a protein intake around the range just discussed. Given the same energy intake, too much protein can be a detriment to training performance due to CHO displacement!

Assessing Protein Intake

Weighing out foods out and observing nutritional labels for each individual food is the most accurate option but can be tedious when you aren’t accustomed to it.

• Alternatively, you can estimate serving size and link it with the nutritional label (or tables such as below)and remember that serving size for future consumptions

3. Fat and CHO

Now lets discuss the other two important macro-nutrients: Fat and CHO (carbohydrates).

Fat and CHO for Strength Athletes
Fat and CHO, like protein, both contribute to total energy intake, thus their benefits will largely be a function of total energy intake.

The rough recommendations are for CHO intakes to be between 4-7g/kg (9)

Fat recommendations: a general population recommendation of between 20-35% of total energy will reduce likelihood of eating too much saturated fat, as well as allowing sufficient intake of essential fats (7).

There is a large amount of research regarding this area. We’ve just touched the surface as these general guidelines are really all you need to know for optimal strength training.

4. Nutrition around Training

Now that we’ve got overall energy intake out of the way, lets discuss the infamous pre & post workout nutrition.

Implementing scientifically based pre & post (in some circumstances) workout nutrition strategies may be helpful in maximising training performance and adaptation.

Total daily CHO intake is key, however some research shows a moderate to high amount of CHO consumed pre-workout may be useful in improving performance (1).

Like with CHO, total daily protein intake is key, BUT 0.4-0.5g protein per kg of lean body mass (will fall between 20-40 grams) in both pre and post workout meals is a fail-safe general guideline (1) to increase protein synthesis and reduce muscle protein breakdown. These meals should be consumed within 3-6 hours of each other (higher end of the scale if pre-workout meal is large) (1).

A pre-workout meal should be consumed between 1-2 hours before training. If the pre-workout meal is consumed 3+ hours before training, 25g+ of protein should be consumed immediately before training if possible.

If you are training following an overnight fast, a meal of protein and carbohydrates should be consumed post-workout.

A post-workout meal can be consumed between the time-frame of immediately following exercise up to the top end of the 3-6 hour separation range without a likely difference in anabolic (muscle building) response.

So is pre & post workout nutrition really necessary? Well it depends. It may have benefits in some circumstances, but it certainly isn’t REQUIRED.

5. Fluids

Fluids are important for survival and general health, but can also have a pretty significant effect on your strength training.

So what are we talking about here? Fluids, include plain water, as well as water derived from drinks and foods. That includes your large soda you got from McDonald’s (lucky for you).

Dehydration has been shown to significantly impair resistance exercise performance (6) .

Australia & New Zealand Recommendations (7):

• Men: 3.4L/day
• Women: 2.8L/day

These recommendations will obviously vary depending on amount of exercise and training you do since you will induce a greater amount of breathing and sweating.

An easy way to tell if your dehydrated is to look for urine which isn’t clear, however this is just a general guide and isn’t always accurate as urine colouration can be affected by a variety of things (even by the foods you eat).

6. Fibre and Micro-nutrients

An often neglected area of nutrition is fibre and Micro-nutrient intake.

Fibre

The main role of fibre is to keep the digestive system healthy. Fibre has also been shown to benefit diabetes, blood cholesterol levels and weight control.

Australia & New Zealand Recommendations (7):

• Men 30g/day, or ~38g/day to reduce chronic disease risk
• Women 25g/day, or ~28g/day to reduce chronic disease risk
• OR 10-15g per 1000kcal eaten

Increasing dietary fibre is linked with lower rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers.

Source of fibre include: wholegrain foods, fruits and vegetables.

Like protein, high fibre intakes can assist with satiety making it more difficult to overeat, so can be extremely useful when attempting to lose fat.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, in the situation where appetite is a barrier to weight gain, an amount of low fibre low satiety value foods should be eaten in order to ensure total energy intake targets are hit. i.e. it is OK, and even a good idea in some circumstances, to eat your favourite “unhealthy” foods in order to hit your caloric and macronutrient targets, so long as you are not ignoring the importance of fibre and micronutrients (as discussed below). No, eating ice cream, lollies, or chips will not have a negative effect on your performance or body composition goals, so long as you are still achieving daily energy intake, macro & micro-nutrient goals!

Micro-nutrients

Micro-nutrients are vitamins and minerals you get from the foods you eat. Some food are more micro-nutrient dense than others, like fruits and vegetables.

Micro-nutrients give you many benefits depending on the vitamin or mineral, but to keep it simple, will maintain your overall health.

A diet aimed at maintaining optimal health and therefore performance should incorporate fruits and vegetables as well as a suitable intake of wholegrain foods within your energy goals.

An example of micro-nutrient importance: a low calcium intake can cause bone density to be lost, particularly when the diet is high in protein such as the diets of strength athletes. (3)

Summary

So hopefully, with these 6 important nutrition tips, you are now convinced that it’s possible (and pretty easy) to gain muscle & strength without growing a big gut. It’s not about nit-picking at little details in your diet, it’s about having a holistic view point and understanding what’s most important. Be a new age strength athlete, and optimise you nutrition using science for the best results possible!

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References

• (1) Aragon, A. A., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2013). Nutrient timing revisited: is there a post-exercise anabolic window. J Int Soc Sports Nutr, 10(1), 5.
• (2) Beals, K. A., & Mitchell, A. (2013). Recent Recommendations and Current Controversies in Sport Nutrition. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 1559827613513410.
• (3) Dawson-Hughes, B. (2003). Interaction of dietary calcium and protein in bone health in humans. The Journal of nutrition, 133(3), 852S-854S.
• (4) Helms, E. R., Aragon, A. A., & Fitschen, P. J. (2014). Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 11(1), 20.
• (5) Helms, E. R., Zinn, C., Rowlands, D. S., & Brown, S. R. (2013). A Systematic Review of Dietary Protein During Caloric Restriction in Resistance Trained Lean Athletes: A Case for Higher Intakes. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism.
• (6) Judelson, D. A., Maresh, C. M., Farrell, M. J., Yamamoto, L. M., Armstrong, L. E., Kraemer, W. J., … &Anderson, J. M. (2007). Effect of hydration state on strength, power, and resistance exercise performance. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 39(10), 1817.
• (7) Ministry of Health. (2005). Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand. Canberra, Australia: NHMRC, Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Health.
• (8) Murphy, C. H., Hector, A. J., & Phillips, S. M. (2014). Considerations for protein intake in managing weight loss in athletes. European journal of sport science, (ahead-of- print), 1-8.
• (9) Slater, G., & Phillips, S. M. (2011). Nutrition guidelines for strength sports: sprinting, weightlifting, throwing events, and bodybuilding. Journal of sports sciences, 29(sup1), S67-S77.
• (10) Tipton, K. D. (2011). Efficacy and consequences of very-high-protein diets for athletes and exercisers. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 70(02), 205-214.
• (11) Turocy, P. S., DePalma, B. F., Horswill, C. A., Laquale, K. M., Martin, T. J., Perry, A. C., … & Utter, A. C. (2011). National athletic trainers’ association position statement: safe weight loss and maintenance practices in sport and exercise. Journal of athletic training, 46(3), 322-336.
• (12) Volek, J. S., Forsythe, C. E., & Kraemer, W. J. (2006). Nutritional aspects of women strength athletes. British journal of sports medicine, 40(9), 742-748.
• (13) Zourdos, M. C. (2012). Physiological responses to two different models of daily undulating periodization in trained powerlifters.