Posts Tagged ‘matt lovell blog’

Fat Loss Made Easy (Part 2)

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

Grains and glycemic load 

Eat high GI carbohydrates, including grains only if you’ve exercised. Eat low GI carbs and keep grains to a minimum the rest of the time.

Grains, particularly wheat, can make getting lean difficult due to additional detrimental effects associated with intolerances. Wheat can lead to water retention and digestive bloating and sluggish digestion. It’s not uncommon to eat a wheat based cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner – and even some biscuits in between. Keep wheat and other grain intake to times when you’ve trained or to fuel-intensive training. It’s worth taking a look at your overall wheat burden.

Eat slowly

Ok, your eating is spot on, you eat good quality and adequate protein, loads of vegetables and essential fats and your frequency of feeding and hydration is perfect. What’s the problem?

You eat too quickly and as a result you eat too much. This is very common among larger athletes, particularly those in the strength or power dominated events, and can thwart an otherwise sound nutrition and training plan.

Even if you are eating all the right ratio of low GL macronutrients, if you eat too much you’ll still get a rise in insulin and store the excess as fat. To change this try to:

  • Put less food on your plate.
  • Chew food properly.  Don’t put another forkful in until you’ve finished the first one.
  • Put your fork down between each mouthful; this is hard but begins the process of slowing down eating.
  • Try not to eat when doing something else like watching T.V; you’ll eat more and won’t be conscious of what you are eating.
  • Plan meals to be sociable; taking time to have family all present at the table in the evening and discussing the day is helpful for relationships and it’ll be good for your body composition too.
  • Stop eating once you are no longer hungry, and stop eating if you get more thirsty than hungry.
  • If you find this really difficult, then you can drip feed your calories before the meal (while cooking) through eating raw veggies and/or starting your meals with soup.

These strategies take the edge off of hunger and result in fewer calories being consumed in the main meal.

Flex

Yes flex as often as possible. Flexing your nutrition to fit your training is crucial to maintaining performance and staying lean.

In simple terms you eat according to what you are going to do in the next 3 hours or what you have just done. Many athletes eat the same day in day out, and they recover the same for all sessions – this approach is flawed as some days they will over recover and some days they won’t eat enough to recover. This is very true of the transition from pre-season to in season training when appetite remains but training volume drops off. It’s also particularly true on rest days, where many athletes fail to keep to regular meals and can quite often under eat at these times.

  • Eat more following intensive training session and less following less intensive training sessions.

For guidelines on amount of macronutrient to eat please see the flex nutrition plan later in part II of this article.

Keep protein intake consistent, but not consistently high

Most athletes don’t eat enough protein regularly enough. Protein will help to preserve your lean mass whilst cutting calories and it keeps you full so you are less likely to over eat. It is also the most thermogenic of all the macronutrients. However many athletes eat too much protein all of the time, which does two things:

  1. It can provide additional and unnecessary calories from saturated fat
  2. It means you need to keep eating a high amount to sustain muscle mass as the more you eat, the higher the rate of protein breakdown enzymes

Better to eat higher amounts of protein when your muscles need then most and then drip feed the protein through at other times. So on days when you are training at high intensity and involved in breaking down lots of muscle tissue eat more. On days when you train less or do not have the same recovery requirement eat a lower amount. It’s also a good idea to go on a low protein phase from time to time to reset your catabolic enzyme level.

See if you are suffering from syndrome X

Metabolic syndrome or syndrome X is the name given to the collection of symptoms associated with insulin resistance and poor carbohydrate metabolism.

In simple terms, the fatter you are the more insulin resistance your cells will exhibit.

Higher levels of insulin resistance mean more insulin is secreted to get the glucose into your cells, but high insulin levels also pre-dispose our bodies to gain fat. To make matters worse, insulin resistance tends to occur in stages, first the liver becomes resistant, then the muscle cells and finally when you are really, really fat, your fat cells start to become resistant.

If your body fat is higher than 15-16% for men and 25-26% for women you will be at the beginning stages of syndrome X. As such you need to eat carefully to control blood sugar levels.

Symptoms of poor blood sugar regulation can include;

  • Fatigue
  • Irritable or shaky when hungry
  • Rapid mood swings
  • Sleeping problems
  • Poor concentration
  • Forgetfulness
  • Excessive sweating
  • Stubborn body fat which does not seem to shift no matter how restrictive you are with your diet
  • Tiredness after meals containing even small amounts of grains or high GI carbs
  • Drowsy, tired or hungry during the day

See if you are deficient or require supplemental support

There are large numbers of people in the western world who are deficient in various vitamin and minerals. Athletes should be less likely to be deficient as they should eat more food because of higher activity levels, and better quality foods due to higher levels of nutritional understanding. In practice this tends not to happen for 2 reasons:

  1. Many athletes eat like the general public, they may eat more but the quality of the food is poor
  2. Many athletes under eat according to their activity levels, which compounds the problem

For fat loss you need to consider the following areas of deficiency:

An imbalance in omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids will contribute to insulin resistance as well as a host of negative health implications. If you cook with vegetable oil (olive oil is fine) and don’t eat oily fish or pumpkin, linseed, hemp or walnuts – there is a likelihood of deficiency. Blood tests are available for those of you who want to have a more precise look at the levels of essential fats in their cells.

Other important nutrients for blood sugar regulation include chromium, zinc and magnesium to mention a few. Low levels of these minerals will make it more difficult for the body to regulate sugar consumption and all refined foods are low in these minerals.

There have been many studies showing most athletes to be deficient in these minerals. Athletes should actively increase foods linked to these minerals (see sheet) athletes who under eat or who have had a poor eating habit for some time should consider supplementation with a good quality multi vitamin, or mineral complex. Many athletes report beneficial effects from taking a ZMA formula.

More specific formulas aimed at blood sugar regulation are available; ask your nutritionist or sports Doctor for more information.

Matt

Adaptogens and their role in combating fatigue

Monday, September 19th, 2011

In recent years there has been growing interest in identifying natural medicines and plant extracts that can be used to improve athletic performance and/or body composition in humans

Adaptogens are herb products that have been derived from plants.

A recent review of the Effects of Adaptogens on the Central Nervous System found that adaptogens have exhibited neuroprotective, anti-fatigue, antidepressive, anti anxiety, improved memory and CNS stimulating activity.

In addition, a number of clinical trials demonstrated that adaptogens exert an anti-fatigue effect that also increases mental work capacity against a background of stress and fatigue, particularly in tolerance to mental exhaustion and enhanced attention. In particular Rhodiola was shown to help with physical mental and stress induced fatigue and depression.

Matt

10 Things You Can Do To Positively Improve Your Health

Monday, September 12th, 2011

1.Liked the dancing one, a good tune always puts you in a good mood.

2.Hanging from a door way chinning bar stretches the spine and helps the body release happy hormones as well as strengthening the grip – start for short bursts of 10 seconds and hang around for longer “once you get the hang of it”.

3.Drink Chinese green tea, its powerful antioxidants help protect the body and it contains natural substances which assist relaxation without making you drowsy

4.An apple a day may actually help keep the doctor away. Apples contain quercetin a powerful protective nutrient also abundant in onions, but don’t peel it, the antioxidants are in the skin – just wash and shine it first.

5.9 a day – is how many pieces of vegetable and fruit the American government want you to eat each day, covering 5 colour groups!  Make this easy by adding berries to your breakfast cereal, have salad with lunch, vegetables for dinner and fruit as snacks.

6.Try to think of other thing to do rather than go to the pub and get merry, good fun activities are 10 pin bowling, paint balling, table top football and playing pool.  Key thing here is to be creative and mix recreations with activity – whatever you do chose things which are fun.

7.Smile more, and look up; laughter supports the immune system – joke books are one way to get started and looking up actually improves the mood, even if it feels like sometimes you are in the gutter remember to look at the stars.

8.Powerful protein, to prevent feeling tired and sluggish; take a look at your diet – if all you see is carbohydrates balance it up with some good quality protein; meat, chicken, fish, eggs or beans and pulses – you’ll feel more alive and active

9.Increase your overall calories spend, walk instead of getting the bus, cycle instead of driving, take the stairs instead of the lift; if that drives you mad start by just walking down the stairs not up.

10.Leave the clean plate club, it’s not the war any more – eat till you are full and leave what’s on the plate.  Eat slowly and savour the taste of each mouthful, try putting your fork down between bites on occasion, make time for conversation whilst eating and make time to have proper meal with your family or loved ones.

Matt

If you’ve hit the booze – perhaps it’s time to hit the fish-oils!

Monday, September 5th, 2011

Ok, we know that alcoholism is far from an ideal nutritional strategy… but what exactly is excess booze doing to our body? Apart from the obvious liver damage, and excessive addition of empty-calories, this study found that certain vitamins and minerals are lacking from the diet of heavy drinkers. Comparing 48 men  who included both alcoholics and healthy teetotallers with a good diet, alcoholic subjects were found to have a lower muscle-mass (but well-maintained body fa!), with deficiencies in magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin B12.

Alcoholics also showed increased levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and and markers of inflammation and oxidative stress!

Whether drinking stops people eating appropriately, or whether the booze actively contributes to deficiency, eating to reduce inflammation and to increase micronutrient levels is a MUST if you’ve been hitting the drink excessively.

Obviously the most important thing is to cut down, clean up and improve your diet!

Matt

Fish Oils – Reducing cholesterol

Friday, August 26th, 2011

 Fish oils give building blocks that help make up all of our cells, while these good-fats also helkp improve the way fats are transported around the body. This can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and help some of us lose body-fat.

This double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving was carried out on 229 obese patients who’d had their stomachs stapled. They had very high triglyceride levels (circulating fats in the blood), and supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acid EPA at 4 g or or 2g per day, was found to be associated with a significant reduction in triglycerides.

The authors also noted an improvement in “other lipid parameters” (although unspecified!), “without significantly increasing the LDL (bad!) cholesterol levels”.

So eating a little good fat, may help you lose fat! It may smell a little fishy, but it’s true!

Elite Level Nutrition

Sunday, August 21st, 2011

Elite level nutrition is aimed at an individuals unique genetic and physical demands and of their position and sport

The goal is to provide optimal nutrient status across all nutrients each day

Diets are designed based on evolutionary perspective of human development

Diet are designed to allow a minimum impact from man made chemicals both your ingestion and then later through minimizing the impact these anti-nutrients have on the system through optimal nutrition

Involved re-writing the food pyramid which is responsible for the majority of obesity and related disease in this country as well as many a fat athlete

Involves education of athletes on carbohydrate consciousness, which main stream sports nutrition and the medical community are only just picking up on

This is not Atkins, but it is certainly not 8g of CHO per kg body weight – this would mean a 100kg rugby player would be eating 53 slices of bread per day!

COMMUNITY LEVEL NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT (and elite level too)

Back to basic approach; follow the 10 principles of sound sports nutrition based diets;

These are recommendations based on an active lifestyle, if you are not active then get active!

BACK TO BASICS

Golden Rules to be Practiced 80-90% of the time and never forgotten;

HYDRATION
1. Drink enough water / green tea / hydration drinks, never get thirsty!

BLOOD SUGAR BALANCE
2. Eat Frequently, eat every 2-3 hours no matter what, unless you are sleeping

RECOVERY AND VITALITY
3. Eat Protein every time you eat

PROTECTION FROM POLLUTION
4. Eat vegetables or fruit every time you eat but eat more veggies than fruit

ENERGY AND DIGESTION
5. Eat starchy carbs every time you eat but eat more around time of the day when you are more active (breakfast and lunch) and less or none when you are less active

RECUPERATION AND REPLENISHMENT
6. Recover aggressively and appropriately after every session

BALANCE BLOOD SUGAR AS NATURE INTENDED
7. Eat whole-foods, low GI all the time except post-training when high GI foods are better for speedy recovery
OPTIMAL CELLUALR FUNCTION AND HEALTH
8. Eat fat, but eat the right kind of fat – from oily fish, nuts and seeds, olive oil and omega eggs

AVOID THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC
9. Avoid ‘empty’ foods which contain calories but no goodness; doughnuts are a good example of these types of food

WE ALL HAVE TO LIVE A LITTLE
10. Remember to enjoy your foods and practice the 80:20 rule or 90:10; this means of 42 weekly meals and snacks, 4 can be whatever you want if you are being strict 90% of the time and 8 can be naughty if you are being strict 80% of the time

Matt

Fat Loss Made Easy (Part 1)

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

 Proven strategies for effective and long term body fat reduction

General Tips for fat loss for athletes;

In an earlier article on carbohydrates and diet we looked at keeping a diary as a base line measurement.

Adjustments are better made from a point of knowledge or awareness; examples of a diet diary are included later in this article.

Nip and tuck;

Once you have quantified your daily intake, simply ‘nip and tuck’

This is a basic approach which always works, it requires little skill just a small amount of will power.

  • It goes like this, if you are eating 4 slices of toast at breakfast – eat 3.
  • 1 baked potato at lunch eat a ½ instead.
  • Sugar in your tea, switch to no sugar or use a low calories sweetener.
  • Tuck the fat;
  • Look through your diet and cut down or reduce all sources of saturated fat;
  • Use less butter or a benecol reduced fat spread.
  • Use less cheese, trim the rind on animal fat, eat less red meat, & more fish.

Beware though low fat products as these tend always to be higher in sugar; 99% fat free = 99% sugar.

When nipping and tucking do not let your daily protein intake drop and in meals where there is no protein, add some.

Train Hard – Train Smart;

Timing your training to maximise fat burning is easy, simply train when your blood sugar and insulin levels are low. These are lowest generally when you first wake up as this is the longest period the body goes without food during the 24 hour feeding cycle. This will encourage more calories to be burnt from fat, and also promote favourable hormonal release if you train at the right intensity (above LT threshold for more than 10 minutes).

Use sports drinks instinctively;

Routine and unmeasured intake of sports drinks can add a significant amount of high GI carbs to the diet. If you want to stay lean and improve your body composition you should look at the amount of these drinks that you are consuming. For training that is aimed at fat burning don’t consume these until after the session, stick to an electrolyte drink instead.

When training for maximum performance – you need these drinks, without them performance will suffer. Generally I suggest using the sugary drinks after 45 minutes into a session to sustain effort and performance.

If absolute performance is not an issue and maximising the growth hormone and fat-burning effects of the session is, then leave these drinks until afterwards.

Fruit Intake;

Fruits and vegetables are good for you; but fruits contain lots of sugar and many people take the 5 servings of fruit and vegetable a day to mean 5 pieces of fruit. It’s portable and sweet tasting and convenient, but it may be hampering your ability to lose body fat if you are over doing it.

To maximise health benefits and enjoy fruits aim for 9 servings of fruit and vegetable each day, but try to keep to 3 fruits and 6 vegetables. As far as I’m concerned fruit is an important part of a healthy diet, but perhaps not as important as vegetables, hence I always recommend vegetables and fruit as opposed to the other way around.

The Government recommendations of 5 pieces a day should be 6 veggies and 1-3 fruits depending on activity levels and the time of year – it’s more common to eat more fruit in the summer and autumn for instance.

Remember that these recommendations are based on body composition management, so those without body fat problems can usually bend the rule a little but the underlying philosophies stay the same.

Fruit as it was traditionally eaten (autumn in this country) would have been gorged upon throughout the harvest supplying useful energy to work the fields but also building up body fat reserves for the difficult winters – it really was a feast-famine cycle for most people.

Fructose, the most commonly occurring sugar in fruit, is preferentially turned to body fat in the presence of normal carbohydrate metabolism – in English this means if blood sugar levels are normal i.e. you’ve just eaten, then much of that glucose and fructose will turn to body fat.

Bad idea then to eat fruit salad following spaghetti bolognaise! Much better is to eat fruit on it’s own or better still with protein containing foods nuts, seeds, yoghurt or cottage cheese, or eat it earlier in the day or following exercise.

Fructose will replenish liver glycogen quickly so it’s very, very good for athlete or those doing multiple exercise sessions or any type of manual job.

Matt Lovell

Meals Examples

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Below are some example meals for aspiring rugby players who are looking at muscle building, amounts and recipes are not included, for a full list of recipes please email matt@performandfunction.co.uk.

You’ll have to use your own preferences and cooking skills to find your way around these suggestions but it give you a picture of the type of things to choose at various times of the day.

MEAL SUGGESTION 1 SUGGESTION 2 SUGGESTION 3
Breakfast Omelette; using omega eggs, with onions peppers and tuna Porridge / Muesli with why protein mixed into milk* Smoothie; using yoghurt, fruit, oats or another soluble fibre
Mid Morning / snack 1

Pot of cottage cheese and an apple

Handful of pumpkinseeds and a kiwi fruit Packet of sliced cold cooked meats bag of salad
Lunch

Salad Nicoise & mixed bean salad Eggs on rye toast

With rocket

Granary protein filled sandwich with a piece of fruit
Mid afternoon / snack 2

Protein shake or protein bar with a piece of fruit

Raw veggies dipped into humus Hard boiled eggs dipped into sesame salt
Post Workout

Carbo / Protein based recovery drink**

Flavoured Milk drink

Protein bar

Ready to drink protein can**
Supper

Chicken Stir Fry

Extra veggies no noodles or rice

Beef casserole &

Tomato and onion salad

Grilled Salmon &

Steamed Green Beans

Snack 3

Slow release protein shake

Pot of Cottage cheese Extra piece of salmon

*You may wish to choose non bovine sources of milk; oat milk, rice milk or goats milk are all good

**There are many recovery drinks on the market – choose one which you enjoy the taste of and swap varieties from time to time.

Energy Enhancing Nutrition

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

This is the first part of a series of articles designed to help you with some nutrition concepts and keep your performance and health on track!

Feeding Opportunities;

It’s easy to eat without thinking and we often do so. However each time you eat you should view this as a feeding opportunity. The meal you choose to have and the food you add to your plate will directly affect your cells and the rate they recover and express themselves. In plain English this means a meal will either;

  • Make you fatter than you already are and lower you energy
  • Keep you about the same as you are and possibly still lower your energy
  • Recover your muscles and keep the fat burning environment ticking over and increase your energy

 Sometimes you can eat a meal which will be spot on but if you top it off with a pudding – the resulting insulin release will ruin the desired effect.

The point is a meal is an opportunity to improve yourself and your performance – take it!

Suggested ratios of food are included on sheets at the end of this document.

Remember that getting it right 90% of the time is about right which leaves 4 ‘off’ meals each week.

EAT THE CORRECT RATIOS TO KEEP YOUR ENERGY HIGH AND KEEP YOUR BODY FATS LOW

Enzymes;

“Enzyme preservation is the secret to health.” Enzymes are the spark plugs that make biochemical engines in every one of our cells fire properly. They spark every significant process that goes on in our bodies: digestion, nerve impulses, detoxification, the workings of DNA and RNA, repairing and healing, thinking and remembering, and, among others, the making of all hormones.

Enzyme storage is exhaustible

One troubling fact about enzymes is that they are exhaustible. Eating “dead,” rather than “live” foods contributes most to enzyme bankruptcy. Exposed to light, air and extreme heat, highly-processed foods, for example, lose most of their enzymes. This forces the body to compensate for this shortage by making enzymes. However, without sufficient, high-quality raw materials, it can’t make enough enzymes, and we go nutritionally bankrupt. Therefore, it is important for us to eat live, fresh, nutrient-dense, enzyme-rich foods daily.

EAT FRESH FOODS WHEN EVER THEY ARE AVAILABLE; ALL THESE HELP WITH ENZYME MAINTENANCE!

  • SALADS
  • FRUITS
  • BERRIES
  • GREEN EDGE II and
  • FRESH JUICES USING THE JUICER

Matt

Blood sugar control 2- so why do I eat then?

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

PART 2 BLOOD SUGAR CONTROL – SO WHAT DO I EAT THEN?

CARBOHYDRATE CONSIDERATIONS

Disclaimer;

The information in these articles is designed for educational purposes only and is not intended to serve as medical advice. The information provided on this site should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease. It is not a substitute for professional care. If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, you should consult your health care provider.

Good and bad foodsRugby - Good and Bad Foods

When discussing food, how often do we say these are “good for you” or “bad for you,” or we say this food is “better than that one.” In fact there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” foods there are just some foods which are better to some at some times and others which are better at other times.

We should never feel that any food is banned and be aware that food is there as part of a fulfilled and balanced life, after all we don’t eat 25g of protein – or just protein, what we eat is a piece of chicken or fish.

To make matters more confusing some foods begin their life being good for you “go to work on an egg” then they become bad for you (the dietary cholesterol increases blood cholesterol and cardio disease risk factors myth).  Finally we are told eggs are fine and omega eggs are more than fine, but for how long?

That being said it’s hard not to fall into this trap of labeling things and we do know that some foods will have effects in the body which over time or when consumed in excess can have what we might call bad or negative effects. So if there is mention to a food being good or better for you this will normally mean that it’s a more appropriate choice of food at that time, or it’s just got more goodness in it!

Take flakes or corn for instance, a refined fast release high carbohydrate cereal with loads of added sodium.  A nightmare for breakfast – in my opinion, but what a great snack for post workout recovery and electrolyte replacement!? With some protein of course…

The trick in all of this confusion is to find out what works for you, what suits your particular genetic make up and lifestyle and favorably affects your health and body composition. And that knowledge is a long journey of discovery which we will start with a discussion around carbohydrates.

In part 1 of the blood sugar control diet we looked at the way carbohydrate is metabolized and the effect this has on body composition and blood sugar control.

In part 2, we’ll go on to discuss the types of carbohydrate that work best at particular times of the day, and useful ratios and tips which you can employ to adjust your own diet.

To begin with you’ve got to know where you are at. You need to establish what your reason for changing the way you eat might be.  It might be to improve your general sense of well-being, health and energy levels. Or, is it to stop gaining body fat, to gain muscle or perhaps both?  The good news is that all of these are achievable through good nutritional practices, but only when you know where you’re at.

In order to affect change you must have a starting point, that starting point is your diet and exercise habits diary – if you haven’t got one then stop reading and begin recording what you’ve eaten and what exercise and training you’ve done for at least a week.

You’ll also need to be aware of one other thing; have you been gaining or losing weight over the last 3-6 months? Maybe you’ve stayed the same?  Maybe you’ve been monitoring you body composition so you know exactly what’s been happening.

If you’ve been getting fatter; your eating habits will need adjusting. If you’ve failed to gain muscle at the rate you’d like, your eating habits will need adjusting. Dietary adjustment need to be gradual to be effective and sustainable.

KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING

shutterstock_3597780

SUSTAINABILITY

The ‘secret’ for successful dietary change and body composition management is sustainability and part of sustainable change is gradual adjustment.  For this reason I’m going to suggest and show examples of how individuals have gradually swapped and added bits to their diets which over 2-3 weeks has resulted in improved energy levels and body composition without having had a revolution.

One thing which is for sure most of you should end up eating more not less food and you’ll end up losing fat as a result! So don’t give up reading the article yet ….


Principle 1 – Never skip breakfast;

Traditionally breakfast is associated with starchy carbohydrates; cereals, breads, croissants, jam and so on. First of all you need to forget about this, why not eat your left over supper for breakfast?

If you’ve been paying attention this is far more likely to get you off to a good start to the day than the classic protein light, wheat-based sugary carbohydrate nightmare which most of us travel to work on – no wonder we get tired and grouchy and reach for the chocolate biscuits mid-morning!

So breakfast suggestion number one is to eat what you’ve cooked the night before.

As we talked about before, mixed meals require protein and fibre as pre-requisites, so switching from white bread (low fiber high glycemic) to whole-grain or wholemeal is a step in the right direction. As is switching form all types of refined and sugary breakfast cereals towards, unrefined whole grain based cereals.

Note there are loads of whole grain cereals which are better than sugar coated corn flakes, but some of these are still refined.  This basically means the manufacturer has taken the grain, ground it down, reprocessed it and made it into little shapes and then packaged it up again. Processing essentially does part of the digestive process for us as well as robbing many of the vitamins and minerals from the grain in its raw state.

Don’t get me wrong these are still heaps better than double sugar / choc cluster cereal, but they are no where near as good as less refined grains like the ones you find in muesli complexes and whole oats.

Breakfast suggestion number two is to eat jumbo porridge oats as porridge or as part of a muesli complex.

If toast is your thing, and there’s no way you’ll give it up, switch breads to those mentioned above and chose the ones with added linseeds, soya and things like that for additional goodness and texture.

Adding an omega egg to this is better still, eating rye bread or gluten free to avoid the allergy potential of wheat might be better than that still.

Eggs indeed lend themselves to a variety of perfect breakfasts, scrambled with smoked salmon as a treat, or just scrambled when you are too busy to poach or make an omelette.

Omelettes have the added benefit of being vehicles for the most neglected carbohydrate group at breakfast; the vegetable.


Principle 2 – eat vegetables at every meal, including snacks.

Why the vegetables you ask?  Well cancer.  Eating less than 5 servings of vegetables and fruit (more on fruit later) can significantly increase your risk factors for developing cancer. And guess what ¾ of us eat less than 5 pieces a day.  Eating more than 5 also reduces your risk of heart disease and stroke, and well – they taste nice!

Check out these links if this interests you:-

http://www.5aday.nhs.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4649508.stm

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=23913

So breakfast suggestion number three is a vegetable-based omelette.

The cool thing about the disease protective components of veggies and fruit is that it’s measured, by something called the ORAC scale; this is the measure of how much free-radical quenching ability the food has.

Free radicals are molecules with unpaired electron’s in their outer shell.  If you remember back to basic chemistry these guys are desperate to ‘pair up’ with another electron to stop their infinite spinning into eternity (you can hardly blame them) trouble is they’ll steal from healthy molecules, making them unstable.

If they steal from healthy body cells the body will shut these down and self destruct its own cells in a vain attempt to prevent further damage.  Often the body is so good at this that it will also destroy other healthy cells around itself. (One way to imagine this might be the overzealous home defense person who landmines the front garden to such an extent that the first burglar to approach blows the whole house apart!).

Free radicals occur in pollutants, and they are also generated through exercise! One reason why excess cardio, and inadequate antioxidant consumption can accelerate the aging process.

Top-Scoring Fruits & Vegetables
ORAC units per 100 grams (about 3 ½ ounces)
Fruits Vegetables
Prunes 5770 Kale 1770
Raisins 2830 Spinach 1260
Blueberries 2400 Brussels sprouts 980
Blackberries 2036 Alfalfa sprouts 930
Strawberries 1540 Broccoli flowers 890
Raspberries 1220 Beets 840
Plums 949 Red bell pepper 710
Oranges 750 Onion 450
Red grapes 739 Corn 400
Cherries 670 Aubergine 390
Kiwi fruit 602 Grapefruit, pink 483

The list is getting bigger all the time with recent research showing cloves and their oil as well as thyme and cinnamon as scoring very highly. Oh but be careful with clove oil, it’s not generally used for eating neat. Adding clove powder to cooking or using loads of Chinese five spice is a good idea though, as is cooking meats (hams especially) with cloves.

For another useful list go to http://www.mendosa.com/diabetes_update_73.htm, which is always a good read, and it’s and worth subscribing to mendosa’s diabetes newsletter.

Generally if you eat the recommended five a day you’ll consume around 1500 orac points. Eeating more concentrated sources like blueberries will give you a substantial boost – reaching 5000-6000 easily.

For athletes I’d suggest a minimum of 5k of oracs each day and more, up to double that on recovery days.

The great thing about oracs is they occur in tasty foods like berries and herbs, but also in high concentrations in dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is also an excellent functional food with implications and benefits for athletes who are border line over-trained or training.

If you are watching your body fats you’ll need to choose sources of these foods which don’t come with a load of sugar – natural or otherwise attached to them. In this instance the green leafy sources are the best – a large serving of spinach will double antioxidant capacity in the blood shortly after eating it, contains virtually no carbohydrates and a massive dose of folic acid amongst its other trace minerals and nutrients.

When distinguishing between the groups of carbohydrates, the most useful marker is the energy density. Starchy carbohydrates contain the most energy per weight, and if refined have the worst effect on blood sugar.  These include all root vegetables and grains like wheat or rice.

The fibrous carbohydrates are those which grown above the ground, these tend to have lots of valuable nutrients and health benefits and are also the lowest energy density per weight. You can eat loads of these and not gain fat. For these guys, the ones which lie on the ground such as aubergines and corgettes tend to be starchier than those which have to maintain a structure, such as broccoli and asparagus.

Starch proteins are beans and pulses. These contain a reasonable amount of energy, substantial amounts of fibre and protein and have low glycemic indexes and loads. They are also good sources of vegetarian protein and have favourable effects on gut health.  If you cook them with baking soda (1 teaspoon per 400g) you wont burn the house down with methane production either!

As we are interested in staying lean and muscular and performing to our maximum potential it makes sense to eat more energy at times when we’ll need it and more energy at times we need to replace it.

Eating more energy at times when we don’t need it, like right before bed, will just mean we store it as fat. Most of us need most of our energy earlier in the day, so eating unrefined starchy carbohydrates at breakfast seems sensible. Eating loads of these at night might not be so wise, unless we’ve trained beforehand and need the starchy carbs for recovery of muscle glycogen.

So, in summary;

There are no good and bad foods it’s just the timing and frequency of these foods which make them better or worse for you.

Although it’s good to know your way around macronutrients, it is also important to remember that we eat nice balanced, ‘mixed’ meals not grams of this and grams of that. So knowing what different types of foods do for you is ‘practically’ essential to success.

Knowing where you are and where you want to go are the first things you should do before embarking on any changes. Set your goals and use a diet diary.

Gradual changes = sustainable changes and sustainability is the key to any successful change to the way you eat.

Breakfast builds champions and porridge and eggs are breakfasts of champions.

Overcooking whenever you cook saves time and makes success in your goals more likely. Use your left-overs to add variety to breakfasts the following day.

Eating for performance involves eating ‘clean’ and cleaning up you diet means identifying and reducing all refined carbohydrates, apart from immediately before and after training sessions.

When you make your carbohydrate choices remember the ORAC score. These foods have a health benefit above and beyond their calorie level and basic metabolic effects in the body. Dark chocolate is one example of a functional food.

Understanding the energy density of carbohydrates enables you to make the right choices to maximize performance. Simply put, eat more energy dense carbohydrates at times when you are more physically active and less when you are less active.

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