A protein base can be anything that is mostly protein (usually, about 20g protein and less than 100 kcal per 100g -
read labels), like:
- Fish (tuna canned in water, or salmon, are favorites, but most fish is pretty good. Fatty fish is perfect!)
- Poultry (frozen skinless boneless fat free chicken breast, turkey breast, some deli)
- Lean red meat (steak can be a good choice)
- Fat free low sugar dairy (no-fat cheese, cottage cheese, cottage/quark cheese, protein powder - not some magical drug, it?s basically dry skim sugar free milk)
- Egg whites (1 yolk for taste)
Variety can't hurt with protein sources, so eat poultry one day and fish the next day if you like.
If you?re overweight/wanting to lose fat, try to make meals that have about 10g protein per 100 kcal, or better. If however you can allow more calories because you are trying to build muscle, consider:
- Fatty meats (Thighs instead of breasts, non-lean cuts of steak, etc)
- Plenty of whole eggs (No, the yolks aren't bad)
- Tofu
- Most dairy (especially cheese, plain yoghurt, cottage cheese, and whole milk)
If you get a few less than (lb*grams/2*kg*grams), that won?t kill you; but getting more than that number is only going to help.
Many diets will deal with percentages/?macronutrient ratios?.
[31] Your body doesn't care about ratios, it cares how much protein you are getting irrespectively of total calories.
[32] [33]
Eat more vegetables.
The government recommends you to eat 5 servings of them per day, and I?d say that?s a good start. This is why you want to eat more vegetables:
- Like protein, for its low calories, it fills you up so you?re less hungry.[34] [35]
- It protects you against pretty much every disease you can think of.[36] [37]
- They are rich in almost every essential micronutrient you are not already getting from your protein food.
- It'll prevent you from hating having to go to the toilet after we?ve just put you on this high protein diet.[38]
Losing fat vs. gaining muscle is less about what you eat, and more about how much you eat.
[39] [40] [41] [42]
Eat the right amount of calories.
No, you can?t do both at the same time - at least not unless you?re a total beginner (for a short while), or on certain drugs, or willing to wait a decade to see significant changes. The body just does not do that. Various hormones (especially insulin) and pathways (especially mTor
[51]) position your body either in a systemically anabolic
[52][53] [54] or catabolic
[55] mode. All you can do is try to make the best lean to fat mass ratio of the changes you?re inducing. How? As shown above - first of all, by eating a lot of protein. Secondly by exercising, which you will see in the next chapter.
Gaining muscle (aka Bulking).
Yeah, we?ve heard all your "I eat a lot and I?m still skinny!? stories. In fact, I?ve told that story myself, before I actually sat down and learned what eating a lot REALLY meant. I recommend counting calories, at least for a while.
If you want to gain weight, go for (16-18*[your bodyweight in pounds]) calories per day, every day, for many, many weeks, and months (i.e. say you're 150lbs, you eat 16-18*150, so 2400-2700 kcal per day). You want to gain about 4lbs per month. More and you?re just getting extra fat, less and you?re not building muscle fast enough; so adjust calories accordingly, upwards to ensure growth, or downwards to prevent excessive fat gains. Yes, you?re gonna build some fat; that?s the way things are. Yes, you will probably have to eat way more than you are comfortable with. Deal with it.
Losing fat (aka Cutting).
Again, keep protein high to spare lean body mass, but you want to reduce your carbs and fats. Fat has a very specific role in the body: make up for the deficit between the energy you use for moving around and general metabolism (yes, sleeping and even browsing 4chan burn calories), and the energy you get from the food you eat if the latter is less than the former. So you want to eat less energy so the body has to access it?s energy storage: bodyfat. No, there is NO safe way for surgery to target specific fat deposits; you have to lose fat all over.
To lose fat, eat 10-12*[current bodyweight in lbs] kcal per day (say you're 200lbs; you eat 2000-2400 kcal/day). Adjust this number while you lose weight. Yes, you're going to lose some muscle; that's the way things are. Yes, you will still need to lift weights 3x per week whilst cutting. Yes, you will probably have to eat way less than you are comfortable with. Deal with it. To maintain a bodyweight, try to eat about 14-15*[current bodyweight in lbs] kcal per day.
[56] [57] [58]
If you are not gaining/losing/maintaining weight on these calories, you are most likely counting wrong. Alternatively, you might be one of the very few rare exceptions. Either way, simply adjust the number like the next step.
Cutting OR bulking, weigh yourself each fortnight to adjust your calories to your new bodyweight. You should be shooting for around 1lb weight loss/gain per week. Much more than that and you're putting on too much fat, much less and you're losing too much muscle.
Many people use a calorie calculator for this. I use
Cronometer, others use
Fitday. A very useful website that allows you to get the nutrition of foods is
WolframAlpha. (i.e. if you wanted to find the nutritional content of 1cup of cottage cheese, just type "
1cup cottage cheese" and it will generate your results)
If you don't understand how to read the nutrition label, read
this.
http://4chanfit.wikia.com/wiki/Harsh's_Worksheet_(WIP)
Of course, I'm particularly interested in the anti-oxidants in it.
