NUTRITION RECEIPE FOR BUILDING MUSCLE INGREDIENTS 1. Start with breakfast Breakfast fuels the muscles and maintains them after sleeping for hours without nutrients. 2. After breakfast, time your meals and snacks every three hours (this means 5-6 meals/day) This provides nutrients throughout the day preventing your body from breaking down muscle tissue for energy sources. 3. Think total calories - Protein alone will not put on muscle Protein fills of your stomach quickly causing you to be full but it's lower in calories compared to carbohydrates. 4. Your post workout shake is necessary for building and repairing muscle 5. Hydrate with water to break down food and promote digestion Water also helps circulate nutrients throughout your body. If you are trying to gain weight, add in liquid calories to each meal and snack: drink 100% fruit juice, chocolate milk or shakes. 6. Snack before bed Your body's own natural human growth hormone peaks during this time. To maximize muscle building, take in a big snack full of carbohydrates, proteins and healthy fat like a sandwich, a protein shake with fruit, a breakfast sandwich, rice bowl, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cereal or chocolate milk.... 7. Consume food containing muscle building elements: leucine, glutamine and creatine Leucine is the only dietary amino acid that has the capacity to stimulate muscle growth. Foods containing leucine include: beef, beans, nuts, fish, milk. Glutamine is the key to building muscle and keeping muscle during intense training. Glutamine containing dilute foods include: beef, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, dairy products, wheat, cabbage, beets, beans, spinach. Creatine occurs naturally in the body and helps to supply quick explosive energy to the muscle cells. Improving agility and speed can in turn increase muscle for those movements. Steak is a great source of creatine, containing close to 1 gram. PEAK PERFORMANCE TIPS Do You Need Some Nutrition Tips to Get Back on Track? Check out the "9 Rules to Live By” If you can follow these 9 rules each day, you will be on your way to optimizing your nutrition and your performance. These are easy steps to being on top of your nutritional game. Each of these topics will be explored with their own article in the months to come. 1. COME BACK TO EARTH!!! Try to choose the least processed forms of carbohydrates. If you give your body efficient fuel, it will perform better. Fruits, veggies, and whole grains (whole wheat bread, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta) will give you more stable energy levels than more processed foods like chips, soda, white bread, and candy. 2. Eat BREAKFAST every day! The longer you wait to eat breakfast, the longer you will be running in a low gear! Eating breakfast jump starts your energy levels and your metabolism. 3. Eat smaller portions more often, spread evenly across the day. No excuses --- you should be eating 5-8 meals/day! You should be combining protein, carbs, and healthy fats at each of your meals! Just think 3 for 3; The 3 nutrients every three hours. If you stay fueled all through the day, you will have better performance, improved concentration and prevent extreme hunger – which will help keep you on track with healthy choices. 4. Stay HYDRATED!! Dehydration = Decreased Performance! Drink at least ½ your body weight in ounces of water per day. Make sure to think before you drink! 5. Include a LEAN PROTEIN source with each meal. When choosing your lean protein sources, just think “the less legs the better!” Fish have no legs and are a lean source of protein. Chickens and turkeys have 2 legs and are great sources of protein if you take off their skin and don’t fry them. Finally, when choosing any products that come from cows and pigs (animals with 4 legs) you need to be more selective. Choose lean red meats, low-fat dairy and lean pork products. 6. SUPPLEMENT WISELY. Add a multivitamin and fish oil supplement daily. A general multi-vitamin is a good way make to make sure you are getting all the nutrients you need. Food first, supplements second, but if your diet is not consistently getting you all of your needs---take the multi-vitamin. Our diets are typically low in essential fats. A fish oil supplement providing 1-3 grams of EPA/DHA will help you to meet your daily needs. 7. Eat Fruits or Vegetables with each meal! Fruits and vegetables provide you with natures forms of anti-oxidants, vitamins, and minerals. 8. Drink a mixture of carbohydrate and protein immediately after your workout. Recovery is one of the limiting factors of performance. If you get a combination of carbs and protein immediately after a game or workout, you get a jump start on repairing your muscles and refueling your body. Try a recovery shake or bar for optimized nutrition and convenience. 9. Last, but not least --- Get some rest. The body recovers and repairs when it is sleeping. Try to get 8 hours of sleep per night. Those who do not get enough rest often get injured and sick more often than those who are adequately rested. PEAK PERFORMANCE TIPS PEAK PERFORMANCE CAN BE HEAVILY COMPROMISED BY A LACK OF SLEEP The Basics Just before you fall asleep, beta brain waves (the type of brain waves that occur when you are awake) are replaced by alpha waves. Alpha waves indicate a state of being awake yet deeply relaxed. Once you have been in this state for between 5-20 minutes, the mind and body will be ready for the first stage of sleep. Stage One: This stage can last between 10 seconds and 10 minutes and is a light sleep. Breathing becomes shallow and your muscles rapidly begin to relax (sometimes giving you a sense of falling, which can result in a physical reflex such as kicking out with your legs). Stage Two: This stage lasts between 10-20 minutes and experts believe that it marks the beginning of actual sleep, as most people are virtually blind and deaf to most external stimuli. Stage Three and Stage Four: You now start to enter the deepest part of your sleep and this is as close as humans get to becoming a hibernating bear or hedgehog! Experts have found that the body’s recovery processes peak during these stages, metabolic activity is at its lowest and the hormonal system increases the release of growth hormone. After about 30-40 minutes at stage four you will retrace stages three and two, but instead of returning to stage one you will move into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Rapid Eye Movement (REM): A lot happens during REM sleep. Blood flow, pulse, breathing, temperature and blood pressure all rise and your eyes move rapidly as if scanning the environment (fortunately your eyelids remain closed, as it would look a little strange if your eyes were wide open). During this stage dreams often occur, beta brain waves reappear (reflecting an active brain) but the body remains motionless due to the motor cortex blocking neurological activity at the brain stem. This is a very useful mechanism as it prevents us from acting out our dreams. The cycle of sleep stages is repeated between 4-6 times a night. As the cycles are repeated, the duration of stages three and four decreases while REM increases. PEAK PERFORMANCE TIPS WHAT IT MEANS FOR ATHLETES Cardiovascular performance A consistent lack of sleep has been shown to reduce cardiovascular performance by 11%. So how much sleep do you have to miss before this begins to happen? Studies have shown that 30- 36 hours of sleep deprivation can result in a loss of performance. If an athlete needs eight hours’ sleep yet only gets six, he/she will accumulate enough sleep debt in 15 days to significantly reduce their cardiovascular performance. Think about an athlete cramming for exams late into the night and getting up for an early morning training session. In just over two weeks his/her athletic performance could be impaired. Information processing During sleep our brain has a chance to sort, prioritize and file all the information we have taken in during the day. Mental functioning decreases nearly twice as rapidly as physical performance, so your athlete may feel physically fit but chances are he/she can’t recall the tactical information you gave them yesterday during practice, and they will struggle to make effective decisions during a match or event. Emotional stability Even minimal levels of sleep loss result in an increased perception of effort. Your athlete will feel more fatigued, his/her mood will have dropped and clearly they will not be in the type of mental state needed for a top performance. What can be done? It is important to establish a consistent sleep pattern. Changing your schedule for more than two days or sleeping more than an hour longer on weekends disrupts your body’s biological clock. If you want to perform when it matters you can’t afford to have your performance hampered by lack of sleep. A good starting point is to remember the four simple rules for a good night’s sleep; quiet, dark, cool and comfortable. HEALTHY EATING FOR CHAMPIONS 10 Basic guidelines for your nutritional needs in reaching optimal performance. Following these guidelines will allow great muscle-building and fat-burning results from your training, and you will enjoy a higher level of energy throughout the day. Tip 1: Eat six meals a day Active people should eat frequently (about every three hours) to accelerate metabolism and maintain steady energy levels throughout the day.