Photo © By U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class William R. Goodwin.

I think we can all agree on one thing: being sick sucks.

Personally, I hate getting a cold (and not just a couple sniffles with a cough, I’m talking about sinuses all jacked up, you can’t hear out of both ears, and you’re lucky to go 10 minutes without coughing or sneezing… and don’t forget your eyes watering and nose running like a faucet!).

I was recently asked how to deal with getting a cold while training and making sure you keep on your diet. My initial response was: listen to your body, rest, drink plenty of water, take Emergen-C^®, and continue eating your meals as best as you can. A few days later, what happens? I get sick. Awesome.

I woke up on Tuesday morning with a scratchy throat and didn’t think anything of it. I dragged my butt to the gym and put myself through a pretty intense leg workout followed by some light cardio. I went home, enjoyed my daily breakfast (oatmeal, blueberries, egg whites, and coffee), and drove myself to work. As my day progressed, I felt my throat getting sorer. You’ve got to be kidding me?

So, my water-pounding and green tea-chugging day began. By the end of it, I guzzled nearly two gallons of water and at least four cups of green tea. Despite having no appetite, I still ate the meals I packed – chicken with green beans, protein shake with rice cakes and peanut butter, and fat-free cottage cheese. By the time I left work, I needed some soup! My throat needed it! I was wondering what type I’d get and I really was in no mood to spend a ton of time figuring out which would be best for my diet.

To my surprise, I stumbled upon Progresso’s Light Chicken Vegetable Rotini. In one serving, it had:

• 70 calories
• 15 calories from fat
• 1.5g fat
• 10g carbs
• 1g dietary fiber
• 2g sugar
• 5g protein

And there were two servings in the can. I looked over the ingredients and realized I could pronounce everything on there and was familiar with it all, too. WOW! Can this be? I purchased it and took it home and ate the entire can (of course, after emptying the contents in a microwaveable-safe bowl and heating it up) – all 140 calories, 3g fat, 20g carbs, 2g dietary fiber, 4g sugar, and 10g protein of it! Because, for me, it wasn’t enough protein, I decided to cook myself a couple of egg whites, which brought me up to 20g of protein and only an extra 50 calories, which I could definitely spare for that meal – still less than 200 calories!

Thankfully I already worked out in the morning so I just planted my mouth-breathing self on the couch next to a box of tissues and watched Lifetime movies.

Day two was the most brutal day. I called in to work (not a bad thing, per say!) and took myself to the doctor where she prescribed me with some antibiotics and sent me on my way. I’m not gonna lie, I was definitely dressed in my workout attire and was thisclose to going to the gym, but then I thought of all the innocent, defenseless people working out who weren’t sick. If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people bringing themselves to work or the gym while they are sick and hacking up a lung and sneezing every two seconds. I certainly did not want to be that person so I parked it on the couch for the remainder of the day and got two naps out of it!

All in all, when you’re sick listen to your body! If you do not feel well enough to go to the gym, don’t go. Or, if you’re contagious, don’t go! Some people might say sweating it out is good for you and while I don’t necessarily have an opinion on that, I’d just much rather take a day to rest and come back with more strength and a better mentality to have a kick-ass workout!

I personally believe the best way to get over being sick is to try your best to stick to your regular schedule. I continued eating the same way, but I did increase my fluids, which is what I needed anyway. Obviously, I skipped a day in the gym and I’m glad I did because I know my body thanked me. My first workout back in the gym, I didn’t kill myself because I knew I still wasn’t 100 percent. Instead, I did the routine I planned, but just did it lighter than normal. I did sit in the sauna for a while, and maybe it’s a mental thing, but I felt a lot better after!

What are some ways that help you get through being sick? Share them with me in the comment engine below!

Happy training!

Photo © Thomas Rosenau

Photo © Magen Petit

Confused as to what to eat after your workout? Simply put: carbs and protein.

You should try your best to make sure you’re getting this meal in immediately after your workout. The maximum length of time I’d go is an hour, but ideally within 30 minutes of completing a workout. Personally, I eat this meal as I’m leaving the gym, but then again, I always have food with me. Can’t go around starving! That would do nothing for my muscles or my metabolism!

What Kind of Protein?

The best source of protein for your body after a grueling working is a whey protein powder. I mix Gaspari Nutrition’s Probiotic Myofusion with water in my BlenderBottle®.

Liquid meals digest quicker than a solid food like chicken or tuna, and the whey protein powder is the fastest digesting form of protein out there. In the end, your muscles will be happier and thank you.

What Kind of Carbs?

First, you should know that not all carbs are bad, especially after working out. After your workout, carbs will help your body restore your glycogen levels that were depleted. Eating carbs will help build any muscle tissue that has been broken down.

Another thing to note: “good carbs” aka complex carbs (oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potatoes) contain fiber and other nutrients that slow down digestion. After working out, you want something that will digest quickly. Simple carbs do this, which means foods like white potatoes, white rice, or white bread are great choices for a carb source after your workout.

Of course, it’s even better if you can get it in a liquid form! The abovementioned will definitely do the trick, but if you want something that’s fast-acting, then I’d suggest dextrose. Dextrose is a type of sugar that is usually found in sports drinks.

Yes, you can actually have sugar, but in your post workout meal, which is when your body can handle this! My choice of dextrose, however, is not a sports drink. Instead, if you ever see me leaving the gym, you’ll notice I’m snacking on gummy bears. That’s where I get my dextrose. (The red ones are my favorite!)

About an hour-and-a-half after having my post workout meal, I’ll eat my next meal, which – for me – is usually my second-to-last or last meal before I head to bed.

Happy eating!

Through a lot more reading, research, and a bunch of trial and error, I ended up learning about and debunking a bunch of fitness myths, so I thought that I’d compile some big ones in this post.

Myth 1: Alcohol makes you fat

Photo © im.no.hero

This one is the most convenient myth that has been busted (at least for me), so I want to spend a little more time explaining this one.

On a regular basis, your body uses carbs in your blood stream for energy. Once you run out, your body will start oxidizing the fat cells for energy (ketogenic process – good!). At which point, if you were to consume carbs or protein, you will pause fat cells oxidization. The carbs you consume will go towards a glycogen store and once that store is full, any extra carbs will be turned into fat.

Once you consume alcohol (ethanol), it will get immediate priority over all other substrates. This means that all fat, carb, and protein oxidation will stop. You body will work to try to oxidize the alcohol first for energy. At this state, any dietary fats that get consumed will easily get converted to fat cells and any carbs you consume over your glycogen store will get converted to fat. What this also means is that if your macronutrient for your drinking day is almost purely protein and you keep pounding shots of tequila (not chugging beer or cocktails), then you will not gain that much fat at all.

Note: Beer has lots of carbs in addition to alcohol, but shots have almost zero carbs (0.5g-1g of carbs per shot).

Myth 2: Drinking water will help you lose weight.

Although replacing sugary beverages with water is a smart thing and will help with reducing your caloric intake, recent studies are starting to show that drinking water actually does not help you burn calories or suppress your appetite.

Myth 3: Eat smaller meals to keep your metabolism up

Photo © ulterior epicure

I used to eat small meals throughout the day. The only thing that ever helped me with was to learn how to portion control. I didn’t lose any extra weight by splitting up my 3 big meals into 6 small ones throughout the day.

“More importantly, studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging.”

source: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=879792

Myth 4: Eat more meals to keep you full all the time

More like, this will make me starve all the time. I’ve learned that a good amount of protein & fat keeps me full and satiated longer than back when I used to eat 6 small meals per day.

“Collectively, these data suggest that higher protein intake promotes satiety and challenge the concept that increasing the number of eating occasions enhances satiety in overweight and obese men.”

source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20339363

Myth 5: If you don’t eat constantly, your blood sugar level will drop causing you to not be able to think straight.

Photo ©: Joseph Stevenson

Personally I skip breakfast everyday and I am a full time software engineer. I notice no mental drawbacks in the morning.

“Cognitive performance, activity, sleep, and mood are not adversely affected in healthy humans by 2 d of calorie-deprivation when the subjects and investigators are unaware of the calorie content of the treatments.”

source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18779282

Myth 6: Eating right before you sleep will make you fat.

“It was really interesting to see that the monkeys who ate most of their food at night were no more likely to gain weight than monkeys who rarely ate at night…”

“This suggests that calories cause weight gain no matter when you eat them.”

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060202080832.htm

Myth 7: Skipping breakfast will plummet your metabolism and make you fat.

Photo © trawets1

I’m not saying that eating breakfast is bad for you. I’m just saying that it won’t help you lose weight. I skip breakfast everyday intentionally since it has helped me get lean. Here’s a study that shows that short-term fasting doesn’t lower your metabolism, but instead increases it.

Myth 8: Fasting will destroy your metabolism and make you lose muscle.

For long term fasting, this is true. But there has been no reliable study to prove this for short term fasting (i.e. 12-24 hours). Not to say that 24 hours is the cut-off time. This study found that the negative effects of fasting starts kicking in at about 60 hours (so you got plenty of buffer room).

Myth 9: After your workout, you have only one hour to replenish your body with fast nutrients.

This is a popular myth that needs to be debunked. According to this study by Tipton and colleagues, our body still responds to good nutrition even at 24 hours after your workout. Eat enough protein throughout the day.

Myth 10: Your body can only process 30g of protein per meal.

“Based on the available evidence, it’s false to assume that the body can only use a certain amount of protein per meal. Studies examining short-term effects have provided hints towards what might be an optimal protein dose for maximizing anabolism, but trials drawn out over longer periods haven’t supported this idea.”

source: http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/is-there-a-limit-to-how-much-protein-the-body-can-use-in-a-single-meal/

Myth 11: Eating saturated fat will destroy your health and increase your risks of cardiovascular disease

“A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD.”

source: http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract

Myth 12: Fructose is much worst than sucrose (sugar)

Photo © Uwe Hermann

I talked about this before in an earlier post: Sugar (Sucrose) Is More Similar to High Fructose Corn Syrup Than You Think

Myth 13: Cholesterol == BAD

“Our findings do not support the hypothesis that hypercholesterolemia or low HDL-C are important risk factors for all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease mortality, or hospitalization for myocardial infarction or unstable angina in this cohort of persons older than 70 years.”

source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7772105

Myth 14: High protein intake can harm your kidneys.

According to this study, you can intake up to 1.27g of protein per pound of body weight per day without any adverse effect on renel functions. Most athletes on a high protein diet usually consume about 1g of protein per pound of their body weight each day. Take that hippies.

Myth 15: Red meat causes cancer.

Photo © shaynabright

This myth started back in 1986 when a Japanese researcher discovered that feeding rats “heterocyclic amines” (the burnt part of overcooked meat) causes cancer growth in rats. Since then there has been many studies (like this one) trying to correlate red meat with cancer and failed to do so. There is even a study unlinking the consumption of a usual amount of heterocyclic amines with cancer. Don’t stop grilling and eat your meat people. It’s good for you.

Myth 16: Low/no carb diets are unhealthy.

“Even short-term consumption of a paleolithic type diet improves BP and glucose tolerance, decreases insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and improves lipid profiles without weight loss in healthy sedentary humans.”

source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19209185

Myth 17: Carbs are bad for you.

Carbs have been getting a bad rap lately, but carbs do have a place in helping you get in shape. Your body needs carbs for fast energy. Try lifting heavy weights or competing in any sports without eating carbs on that day. You will get destroyed. There is no way you can perform intense workouts without eating your carbs.

If your goal is to cut fat, you should be eating as much carbs as you can while not gaining fat.

Personally, I have a hard time cutting fat (my metabolism sucks), so I cut out the carbs completely during my non-workout days. Everybody is different though so experiment, monitor your carbs, and find what works for you.

Myth 18: Take Fish oil supplements to lose fat.

Photo © Ron Doke

Fish oil has many wonderful benefits, but it only marginally helps with fat loss.

“In the most recent fish oil + exercise study to date, Hill’s team examined the effect of fish oil supplementation … less than a pound more weight loss in the fish oil group in 12 weeks.”

source: http://alanaragon.com/fish-oil.html

Myth 19: Ephedrine is the most dangerous supplement. That’s why it was banned in the US.

Ephedrine stacked with caffeine is no more dangerous than any other fat burning supplement when used as directed. That said, if you are not reasonably healthy, you shouldn’t be taking any fat burners anyway since they can seriously harm you even at recommended dosages.

“In total, these suggest that herbal ephedra/caffeine herbal supplements, when used as directed by healthy overweight men and women in combination with healthy diet and exercise habits, may be beneficial for weight reduction without significantly increased risk of adverse events.”

source: http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v26/n5/full/0802023a.html

Myth 20: Creatine is bad for you and can permanently harm you.

“Creatine is a naturally occurring compound, made up of three amino acids called Glycine, Methionine, and Arginine. It exists in meat (roughly 5g per kg of meat) and animal products as well. Supplementation with creatine (in the form of monohydrate) has not been shown to infer any harm to any healthy population.

Despite popular broscience, creatine will not (under healthy conditions) harm kidneys, the liver, the heart, the brain, and will not induce any significant hormonal changes that manifest themselves as behavior changes.”

source: http://examine.com/supplements/Creatine/

That’s it so far!

Giving credit where credit is due: I learned a lot of this stuff from leangains.com, alanaragon.com and lurking around on r/Fitness over the years (great resources to follow if you want to get in the best shape of your life). Please feel free to share in the comments section if you know of any other nutrition myths that you used to believe were true.

List of Fat Burning Foods

Have you ever heard of the quote, “An apple a day keep the doctor away.”? The apple does live up to the quote’s hype because it’s packed full of vitamin C and malic acid. Malic acid plays an important role in energy regulation, which means they enable your body to convert fat into energy more easily. In addition to helping your body burn fat, apples also have a lot of fiber and are water based so they keep you full longer. Try snacking on an apple and a stick of string cheese midway between breakfast and lunch to stay full and keep your body’s metabolism running.

Next up is berries. Almost all types of berries are packed with fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins essential for fat burning (and helping you stay young). Try substituting berries for healthy snacks instead of a candy bar or other sugary sweets. Berries are perfect additions to morning oatmeal or cereal, giving you a quick nutritionally balanced breakfast in a bowl.

Another big fat burner food is raw almonds. Raw almonds are a great source of magnesium, a key element that your body needs to regulate energy and fat burning hormones. You can crush raw almonds and sprinkle them on top of a cup of non-fat plain yogurt for an afternoon snack. You can also keep 5-10 raw almonds with you at all times and eat a few whenever you feel fatigue as they are an excellent source of energy. In addition to being a fat burner, raw almonds also contain protein to help build muscle, fiber to help keep you full, and vitamin E to help you stay healthy.

Eggs is an unexpected fat burning food. Eggs contain vitamin B12, a supplement for breaking down fat cells into energy. In addition to its fat burning capabilities, eggs are also full of protein and animo acids so they are sometimes used by fitness extremes to supplement recovery protein shakes. You can cook eggs with just about anything (eggs make everything taste good). If you are concerned about cholesterol, you can try just using more egg whites than yolk.

Yogurt, like any other non-fat dairy item will aid you in burning fat and keep you full longer. The three a day rule is good for getting rid of fat and keeping up on your calcium (for fighting bone loss). It is also great for your digestive system. When purchasing, buy non-fat, and try to avoid yogurt with added sweeteners.

Green leafy vegetables are technically not a food that burns fat, but they contain so little calories and so much fiber that your body ends up burning a energy digesting it. Besides salads there are many wonderful and delicious recipes you can make that include all kinds of leafy greens.

Final Words

A word of caution: always remember to eat in moderation. Although these are natural fat burning foods, they are still food. Consuming a large amount of these foods will pack more calories than your body need, and that can work against your fat-loss goal. Aside from that, eating healthy is easy when you know the direction to take. All of these foods are delicious and can be combined with other foods to liven up your menu (plus a lot of these foods are a part of my daily diet plan). For best results, you should combine fat burning meals with proper fat burning exercises, the working man’s weight loss tips, and supplements like the ECA stack. It’s not a diet but a new way of life.