GYM101- Intro to working out. Part 7: Diet- proteins

First thing I guess I need to mention here, the biggest myth surrounding diet required to cut or burn fat:

Eating far less than what you usually eat would not help you lose fat.  Eating a lot more than what you normally eat would not give you muscle. The quality of the food is really important
If you want muscle, you need to eat a lot of proteins. If you are on a high-protein diet, you need to workout in the gym to make your body use those proteins. Excess proteins in your diet can give you stones in the kidneys.


That was only a word of caution. In India, you can't just eat loads of protein. Our common foods don't have a lot of protein, so you don't need to be scared.

I guess most of you know how a camel can survive in a desert. It's body knows the water supply is limited, hence whenever it finds water, it stores it up and uses it efficiently. Your brain controls the hormone system that guides how the fat/protein/carbohydrates in your body have to be used. You keep eating regularly, your body knows you're going to get your next meal pretty soon. If you do not eat regularly, or if you eat very less, you're body isn't really happy with it. First thing it does is it stores a lot of food as fat, so that if you don't get a meal when your glucose is used up, the fat may be burnt. Second, your metabolism- energy creation from food and the use of this energy, gets slowed down since you don't have enough supplies to go fast- YOUR BODY KNOWS IT ALL.

When people lose weight by eating less, they're losing proteins (hence muscle) and bone mass (and fat to a little extent) and are also slowing down their metabolism rates. This is not good for health or for losing weight. The first thing you want to do to lose fat is to increase your metabolic rates so that you keep using up a lot of food energy and you also convert fat into blood glucose at a higher rate. The reason why some people are really lean(/thin) despite eating a lot is their metabolic rates are high- this is a genetic thing. But you can control it. If you hit the gym and do some nice heavy workouts, you increase your metabolic rates.
Increasing metabolic rates help in losing fat, but only to some extent. This works only on newbies whose metabolism is slow. But for guys who have been working out for a long time and who have a fast metabolism, the only way to lose fat is by cardio and not through drugs or diet pills or crappy products or sauna belts and baths, and definitely not by not eating anything.

The best way to lose fat is to control your diet and do cardio. How to do effective aerobic exercise, I've already mentioned in a previous post. Here I'll tell about the diet.

When you are cutting(i.e. losing fat), you need to eat less than you do normally. But that doesn't mean half of what you eat. Say you consume 3000 calories of energy per day, reduce it to 2,700 or 2,600- that's all, not 1500 or 1000.
Some people want instant fat loss. If you're losing fat at a rate higher than half kg per week, you're doing some serious damage to your muscles and bones. An obese guy or a guy with too much of fat may lose at the rate of even 1.5kg per week. But guys who are not too fat cannot lose more than half kg per week. Do Not lose fat very quickly. What you want to do is increase the amount of proteins and reduce the overall consumption- hence still not allowing the muscles to break down, but forcing the body to use its fat reserves.

A diet that has 25% proteins for beginners is a good thing. That is, if your food has 100g carbohydrates, 40g fat, then you need about 45g of protein. While this is one way to monitor your diet, another way is to go by your body weight. For a healthy non-athletic individual, the protein intake must be about 1.5g per kg of body weight. i.e., if your body weight is 70kg, and you don't play any sport and are not very active, you need about 105g of protein per day. For athletic people, 2g of protein per kg of body weight is required, i.e. 140g per day for a 70kg guy. For body builders and weightlifters who are trying to gain weight (i.e. muscle), you need about 2.5g of protein per kg of body weight, making it 175g for the same 70kg guy.

To go by percentages is better than to go by grams of protein per kg of body weight. 15% of proteins in the entire diet(mostly proteins+carbohydrates+fat, all foods have a lot of water, don't add that) is decent for an average guy. For bodybuilders and weightlifters, 25% is good, 30% even better if you're planning to bulk. 20% is a minimum.

Some basic protein sources:
Note: This is about only proteins. There are a lot of other minerals and vitamins the body needs. Things like fruits and milk don't have great protein content, but must be included in your diet.

1. Eggs
The best source is the egg white. An average egg weighs about 35g, and the egg white can provide you 3-3.5g of pure protein. The egg yolk(yellow) contains about 3g of protein, but has a lot of cholesterol in it. 1 egg yolk a day may not do a lot of harm though. Considering all the vitamins present in the yolk, it's not really bad if you restrict it to 1 egg yolk a day. But egg whites, you can eat even 8-10 a day. Don't eat raw eggs. Boil them.

2. Meat
It is known to everyone that meat has a lot of proteins. I personally cannot afford chicken/fish/mutton everyday. So to put it in my diet is out of the question. Different kinds of meat have different amounts of protein. If you're rich enough, go for it. But anyways, it's always good to stay a veggie, especially when we're talking about diet, not partying. Why kill a poor animal or bird to put on a 100g of muscle?

3. Soya chunks/ Meal maker
Some people call it soya beans too, though it's not the right name. Soya chunks, made out of the thing left after soya oil is extracted, have a lot of protein- about 2/3rds of their weight. 500g of soya chunks have about 330g of protein. Some say it has estrogen( a female hormone) in it which is not good for weightlifters. Scientific study shows no such effects. The plant hormone is different from the estrogen present in women. This said, never take too much of anything. Soya chunks being very cheap, people may depend on them completely.

4. Milk
Though famous to be having a lot of protein, it has low protein content. 100g of milk has only 3g of protein. There are significant amounts of fat. If you can go on eggs and soya chunks, it's good. For non-weightlifters, milk is pretty good, but for weightlifters who want to control their fat, take the first two. Milk is not a good source for protein, but for all the vitamins and the calcium in it, milk is a compulsory food item to be included in your diet.

5. Roti or pulka
Heard from a lot of people that rotis and pulkas have a lot of proteins. Though I'm not sure about the exact content, I'd prefer them to rice.

6. Rice
I've looked up in wikipedia and found that 100g of rice has about 7g of protein- more than protein content in milk. While this is true, rice has a lot of carbs and fat. In a country where rice is a staple food, it's good to know the amount of protein you're getting from it.

7. Fruits
Most fruits are poor in protein content. Fruits are for health, not muscle. Fruits, by definition, have lots of sugars, i.e. carbohydrates. They are very rich in vitamins and minerals and these are necessary to maintain your metabolism and help in recovery from injury and muscle tear. You cannot lose fat or gain muscle by going a fruit diet. You need proteins. Same applies to vegetables. Not a lot of vegetables are really rich in proteins. They're for carbs and vitamins.

8. Boost, complan, horlicks, protinex,etc....
None of them have a real high amount of protein. protinex has some, but not concentrated, it's mixed with carbs and fat and vitamins. If you want a proper diet, I suggest go on eggs and milk and soy and rice, and occassionally, if your sentiments permit, on meat.

Having outlined the basic sources of food, we'll talk about quantity. If you're just an average guy, eating average quantities of food, not just thulping whatever you can, you can go by the "grams of protein per kg of bodyweight" thingy. But if you're a bodybuilder or a weightlifter or an athlete cutting fat, or gaining mass, you need to go by percentages.
Keep a journal, write down about everything you eat- the amount of proteins, carbohydrates and fat. 25-30% protein, 45-50% carbohydrates and 25-30% fat is pretty good.


I haven't talked anything about supplements. This is for two reasons
1. The body absorbs most amounts of protein from natural sources than from supplements. Egg proteins are the proteins most absorbed by the body.
2. They're too expensive. A normal whey protein costs around 4,000 for 5 pounds or so, and it lasts for 2-3 weeks. So you're spending more than Rs.1,000 per week on protein powder. Spend it on eggs and you have a lot of proteins.
In developed countries, especially in the west, protein powder is compulsory for weightlifters. In India though, I don't see a lot of people consuming this. I have never had any protein powder yet- reason being I'm not rich enough to afford it. Maybe when I get a nice job and have a huge pay, I'll try them out :D . Indian food has a lot of stuff already mixed-rice, veggies, dal, spices, etc.... Other countries have specific foods- butter, bread, oats, corn, etc... and their consumption is very specific. Hence, protein powders are quite natural.

One supplement that is recommended is vitamins. Multi-vitamin tablets every once in a while is good for weightlifters, especially if you're working out hard. Revital is one famous tablet. For all athletes, when training at their peak, multi-vitamin tablets are must- they increase your ability to recover from fatigue and injuries and maintain metabolic rates.




I'll end this with a note on steroids. 
Steroids are like hormones, or things that stimulate release of hormones. They increase the activity of your muscles. Testosterone is a male hormone that is responsible for a lot of muscular activity. Drug freaks take testosterone- it increases your endurance. You can workout for a long time and you can go heavy than normal. But the effect of this on your natural systems is really bad- in the long run, your natural testosterone production tends to go down as you depend more and more on artificial sources. End result- you don't do good in bed. Your muscles get weak, your voice sounds like a lady's. There are "some" female atheletes who take testosterone in order to work harder- they end up looking/sounding like guys.

I don't want to talk too much about them, just stay natural and you'll be happy you did. All the supplements you should ever need are multi-vitamin tablets, that too when you're going too damn heavy.

Just a small note- If any of you know watch WWE, you must be knowing Chris Benoit, the short muscular guy. He was a drug freak, used to live on steroids. He died with mental disorder- killed himsielf, his kid and his wife. DO NOT GO FOR DRUGS. (No offence intended against Benoit's fans, just some facts. If you don't believe me, search in Wikipedia. The drugs are the reason why WWE stopped using his name after he died)

http://www.newsteroid.com/blog/?tag=boy-bodybuilders

From a comment made by a teammate, Sandeep Gautam (a.k.a Moot)

"Short note on steroids-
All they'll do is push your body further from what you were genetically designed.....It came to me as a surprise/shock what a huge number of models and local athletes take'em....but then again there are natural guys...roids supress natural hormone production...i.e. you'll end up loosing most of the muscle you gained after quiting the juice.....and to make matters worse you won't be able to build back up even to your natural limits since your systems are permanently hampered......so take'em only if you plan to live on'em for the rest of your life...and can cope with the side effects including...acnes, GH gut(your stomach, lungs and stuff are also muscle, they will respond to 'roids the same way muscles do...), baldness, rage, man-boobs(aromatization of roids is highly possible, roids->aromatize->estrogen)....so make your decisions carefully people...!!!"