Fitness Nutrition

Eating The Right Food For A Ripped,Leaner Body

There is nutrition and then there is fitness nutrition, and understanding the difference can help you achieve and maintain your peak fitness goals.

Every muscle in our body relies on us to provide the right kind of fuel, or nutrients, necessary for the rebuilding and growth processes. It becomes even more critical when high intensity exercise enters the equation.

Fitness nutrition is the type of nutrients that you consume to help you achieve your fitness goals, to assist your body in the muscle building processes, to help you properly recover from your workouts, particularly the intense ones ,provides you with the fuel necessary to successfully complete your workouts, helps your body function at its peak.

Nutrition is often mentioned as afterthought on those TV infomercial workout plans and sometimes is even completely left out. So, just mentioning the fact that we are what we eat, can bring some funny looks and can make some quit before they even start to work on their fitness goals. But the fact is, without the right nutritional plan your hard work at the gym alone is not going to provide the muscle definition and the ripped look that you seek.

Follow these tips designed to help you with your fitness nutrition plan:

1.Don't skip any meals
Eating 3 full meals with healthy snacks in between will help maintain a good supply of energy and a healthy weight. Skipping meals will get you hungry and will force you to make unhealthy eating decisions. A sandwich made with natural peanut butter and sugar free jelly on whole grain bread is a much healthier choice than a fast food burger.Always carry a protein bar or a bag of almonds just in case.

2.Learn about how to prepare foods
Instead of deep frying, try grilling, stir frying, microwaving, baking, and even boiling. Learn how to use fresh or even dried herbs and spices to add flavor to your food. Before eating any type of meat, be sure to trim the fat and skin off of it.

3.Avoid excess sugar
Foods that contain sugar are a source of empty calories that doesn’t contain any vitamins or minerals. If you got to have sugary drinks, don’t over do it - limit yourself to 1 a day.

4.Remember those MRP’s
Meal Replacement Powders or MRP's,is an idea made popular by Bill Phillips, during his famous Body For Life contests at EAS. The genius behind this concept lies in the fact that MRP’s are designed to provide the right type and amount of nutrients (protein, carbs, minerals, etc…) necessary to help you achieve your fitness goals. They can take the place of a meal, although more balanced, and the convenience of a powder in a packet makes it easier to stick to your fitness nutrition plan.

5.Read them labels
For some reason, some of this info is not very user friendly, so here’s what you need to look at:

• Serving Size
  This size is based on the amount people eat. Similar items will have similar serving sizes, making it easier to compare 2 foods of the same type.
  
• % Daily Value
  An indication of how food will fit in a 2,000 calorie diet. This will help you understand if the food has a lot, or very little of the important nutrients.
  
• The middle section
  The nutrients found listed in the middle section are the ones that are most important. This information can help you to calculate your daily limit of fat, fiber, sodium, and other nutrients.
  
• Vitamins & minerals
  The percent daily value found here is the same as the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance for vitamins and minerals.

Keep these tried and true
Handy canned tuna fish, spinach, beans, berries and chicken breasts, among other, have been used for years by bodybuilders and fitness experts as part of their fitness nutrition because they are proven to work and are easily found in any grocery store.

Don’t believe the hype
TV infomercials and so called gurus, are everywhere promoting every new gadget that comes out, but if exercise was all that was required to get ripped and get those abs that we all want, then power lifters would be the leanest athletes on earth. Don’t starve yourself, just eat right.

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