Macrobolic’s BodyBlog

Reuters Health

Monday, April 14, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids who eat better perform better in school, a new study in Nova Scotia fifth-graders confirms.

Students who ate an adequate amount of fruit, vegetables, protein, fiber and other components of a healthy diet were significantly less likely to fail a literacy test, Dr. Paul J. Veugelers of the University of Alberta in Edmonton and colleagues found.

While a healthy diet is generally assumed to be important for good school performance, there has actually been little research on this topic, Veugelers and his colleagues note. To investigate, they looked at 4,589 fifth-graders participating in the Children’s Lifestyle and School-performance Study, 875 (19.1 percent) of whom had failed an elementary literacy assessment.

The better a student’s eating habits based on several measures of diet quality, including adequacy and variety, the less likely he or she was to have failed the test, the researchers found, even after they adjusted the data for the effects of parental income and education, school, and sex. Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, and getting fewer calories from fat, was also associated with a lower risk of failing the test.

To date, Veugelers and his team say, most research on diet and school performance has focused on the importance of eating breakfast, as well as the ill effects of hunger and malnutrition.

“This study extends current knowledge in this area by demonstrating the independent importance of overall diet quality to academic performance,” the researchers conclude.

“The consistency of this association across various indicators of diet quality gives emphasis to the importance of children’s nutrition not only at breakfast but throughout the day.”

SOURCE: Journal of School Health, April 2008.

I forgot to mention my diet. So like I said in the Supplementation area, whole food meals are not as easy for me since I will be carrying around a cooler at work AND school. So meal replacements become a must for me. However, I’ve always done well with meal replacements, so it’s no biggie to me.

Here is the meal plan (this may change due to scheduling conflicts):

Meal 1-2 scoops Real Gains (I’m using chocolate right now)
*Workout*
Post Workout Shake
Meal 2-Oatmeal, natural pb, glass of milk
Meal 3-2 scoops Real Gains, 1 piece of fruit
Meal 4-Chicken, Rice and Veggies
Meal 5-2 scoops Real Gains, 1 piece of fruit
Meal 6-Beef, tomato sauce, corn, other veggies if I feel like it
Meal 7-Casein/Whey Protein mixture

All in all, minus the post workout shake, this leaves me at around 2170 kcal per day with a macronutrient breakdown of:

(19%) Fat: 46g
(44%)Carbs: 239g
Fiber: 26g
(37%)Protein: 200g

I just finished my RecoverX post workout shake (with 1/8 cup of oats), so I will now be switching to 2 scoops of a mixed protein powder, 8 oz milk, and 1/8 cup of oats.
This will reduce workout day total calories by 102 kcal, 41 grams of carbohydrates, fat intake will be the same, and I will be adding 14 grams of protein. This should keep insulin response PWO to a minimum which is something I’ve read about doing during a cut. We’ll see how this goes.

I am hoping that the reduced calories, and the reduced amount of carbohydrates will assist me in accelerating my fat loss. To date, I have lost very little weight, even though the bf% is going down, it is EXTREMEMLY slow, so we’ll see how it goes.

So today I figured out why the fat loss has seemingly stalled.

I miscalculated my caloric needs. I’ve been eating 2400 at this point when I really need to be down to ~2035. I was WAY off.

So I am immediately cutting the carbs down (which is around 30g or so) and taking out the protein bar. Oi!

I wish I would have caught this sooner, but at least it was now and not near the end of my cut. This will hopefully remedy a few things

I wanted to recalculate my macros to make sure that I am getting what I think I am.  I was almost spot on with the fat and protein content, but my carbs were 50 grams off (too low)!  I will be adding a protein bar into the mix for the rest of this week and next. It has 16g protein, 34g carbs, and 7g fat for a total of 260 calories.  This will make my total caloric intake closer to what it should be.  Then in the 3rd phase of my dieting I’ll just drop the protein bar and that’s all I’ll have to do! Yeah!

So at yoga about 4 weeks ago, I decided that I had to much bf% and so I decided to put my lifting goals on hold (this is also good as my shoulder is still acting up from time to time) and lose the fat.

At work, some co-workers and I decided to have a little contest with a $10 buy-in, and whoever lost the most bodyfat % in 3 months would win.

Here is the 1st phase’s workout routine (I have 3 phases that I will go through, although the weight workouts will look very, very similar in phases 1 and 3).

Sunday: Rest day
Monday: Weights/cardio
Tuesday: Weights/cardio
Wednesday: Yoga
Thursday: Weights/cardio
Friday: Weights/cardio
Saturday: Yoga

I will be rotating through 3 different workouts, so the 1st and 2nd week will look like this:

Sunday: Off
Monday: #1
Tuesday: #2
Wednesday: Yoga
Thursday: #3
Friday: #1
Saturday: Yoga
Sunday: Off
Monday: #2
Tuesday: #3
Wednesday: Yoga
Thursday: #1
Friday: #2
Saturday: Yoga

Etc…..

There are 20 total sets if you don’t count the drop sets as actual sets.

Only 13 total sets here (excluding drop sets) but being legs, the workouts are just as, if not more, strenuous.

Again, another 20 sets if excluding drop sets as actual sets. So there you have it!

Cardio will be done in the mornings, Monday-Friday.

Starting in week 4, I will also be doing cardio right after my workouts as well.

I am slowly going to increase cardio time over the 12 week cut and max out at 40 minutes total.

No cardio will be done on Saturday or Sunday.

Yoga will be done on Wednesday and Saturday. The Wednesday session will be done in the afternoon (and so cardio will be done in the morning) and the Saturday session will be done in the morning.

For the past 3 weeks I have been tapering my calories down as to not shock my system.

I will be eating 6 times a day. I will gradually work my way down to 2000 calories a day. Here is what it will look like

Weeks 1-3:
Calories: 2600
Carbs: 315g
Protein: 200g
Fat: 60g

Weeks 4-6:
Calories: 2400
Carbs: 265g
Protein: 200g
Fat: 60g

Weeks 7-9:
Calories: 2200
Carbs: 215g
Protein: 200g
Fat: 60g

Weeks 10-12:
Calories: 2000
Carbs: 165g
Protein: 200g
Fat: 60g

I know that weeks 1-3 look like a lot of carbs for a cut, but those weeks will really be part of my recomp and I will still be on lower calories than usual, so I should start to lose some weight.

So this is the plan on paper right now. But it may change depending on fat loss and (heaven forbid) muscle loss.

So there you have it!

(You can see what supps I will be taking on my bodyspace page. I am in the process of updating that as we speak)

I hope to be down to 185lbs but at less than 10% bodyfat at the end of the 3 month process. Wish me luck!

After speaking with a couple Gaspari reps, I have decided that I really needed to up my calories to gain some quality weight. Here it is:

Day Meals

Meal 1- Oatmeal, 1 tbsp natural peanut butter, 12 oz milk, 2 scoops Up Your Mass.

Macros: 83g Carbs (50%), 43g Protein (26%), 18.5g Fat (24%)=670.5 calories

Meal 2- 4 scoops Up Your Mass, 4 oz milk

Macros: 65g Carbs (46%), 50g Protein (35%), 12g Fat (19%) =568 calories

Meal 3- Turkey Sandwich (4oz Lean Turkey, 1/2 tomatoe, apple, whole wheat bread) 8oz milk

Macros: 70.5g Carbs (55%), 44g Protein (34%), 6.5g Fat (11%)=516.5 calories

Meal 4- Steak Pita (4oz lean beef, 1/8 cup salsa, 1/2 tomatoe, lettuce, garlic, onion, whole wheat pita, 1oz cheese), 8oz milk

Macros: 31.5g Carbs (24%), 47g Protein (36%), 23.5g Fat (40%)=525.5 calories

Meal 5- 4oz Chicken, 1/2 cup potatoe, 1 cup mixed vegetables

Macros: 61g Carbs (54%), 44g Protein (39%), 3g Fat (7%)=447 calories

Total for Day Meals:

311g Carbs (45%), 228g Protein (33%), 63.5g Fat (22%) =2727.5 calories

Nighttime Protein Shake

Meal 6- 2 scoops Probolic SR protein

Macros: 6g Carbs (9%), 40g Protein (62%), 8g Fat (29%) =256 calories

Total calories in the day:
317g Carbs, 268g Protein, 71.5g Fat = 2983.5 calories

This is much closer to my goal of 3000 calories a day. This does not include my post workout shake on workout days for an extra 60g Carbs, 40g Protein, and 4g Fat. That takes my total calories for the day to 3419.5 calories. I think that this diet looks much better. I will be eating every 3 hours with my last meal at 10pm.

My diet consists of both whole food meals and meal replacements.

Meal 1- Oatmeal (high protein), an apple, and glass of milk/ or /on cheat days I am going to have some cereal with 8oz milk

Meal 2- MHP Up Your Mass meal replacement (3 scoops)

Meal 3- Steak Pita Pocket as found in Macrobolic Nutrition. It has a whole wheat pita, beef, cheese, onion, peppers, and salsa. It is really good.

Meal 4- Up You Mass meal replacement (3 scoops)

Meal 5- Chicken Parm Pasta (also found in Macrobolic Nutrition). It has chicken, whole wheat noodles, cheese, and tomatoes.

Meal 6- Probolic SR protein shake (2 scoops) mixed in 10oz 1% milk

The macros come up to:

261g Carbs (42%), 224g Protein (36%), 59g Fat (22%) Total cal: 2471

On weight workout days I also take a PWO shake, RecoverX, which adds another 60g carbs, 40g protein, and 4 grams of fat. On those days, the macros change to:

321g Carbs (44%), 264g Protein (36%), 63g Fat (20%) Total cal: 2907

This is very close to the calories that I should be taking, as my bodyfat is high, but I still want to bulk (this time much cleaner though!)