Thread: The Food and Muscle Connection

[size=large]The Food and Muscle Connection [/size]

How you eat profoundly affects your training, your physique and your health.

Originally featured in: Men's Fitness January 2002


Every time you take a bite, you are doing something to burn fat and build muscle, or burn muscle and build fat. It may sound melodramatic, but it’s true, so significant is the impact of nutrition on your physique and overall health. If you learn how to eat right and defend yourself from nutritional saboteurs, you can double the benefits of your training, crafting that body you want in half the time. However, you may be unaware of some lesser-known but vital nutrition precepts.

You need more than protein to put on muscle
There’s no getting away from it. Even if you care only about your biceps—and spare no thoughts to such trivialities as health and longevity—vegetables are still an absolute necessity, for several reasons.

“Vegetables provide carbohydrates, which not only give you energy but when combined with water provide a fullness to your muscles,” says Jim Warren, president and chief executive officer of the supplement company TeamPro2. Warren has trained hundreds of athletes, from bodybuilders to pro football players to triathletes. “And vegetable carbs take longer to convert to sugar than do starchy carbs [e.g., pasta and rice]. This allows a greater amount of fats to bind with fiber and be transported out of your system, rather than being stored.”

Fiber isn’t just for your grandparents; it’s crucial for anyone looking to make gains in the gym. “The fiber in vegetables helps keep food moving through your digestive tract, eliminating toxins from your system and allowing you to recover more quickly from your workouts,” Warren says. “Better recovery leads to more muscle growth. You can get fiber from other sources, like oatmeal and brown rice, but vegetables are both low in calories and high in fiber.”

If the energy and fiber don’t convince you to put more produce on your plate, try this: Vegetables are a rich source of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, which give plants their colors, flavors and aromas and act as antioxidants, helping to reduce your risk of cancer and heart disease. Warren recommends eating plenty of cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, turnips and kale, which are high in antioxidants.

For you vegephobes, try to eat a variety of fruits every day, which are higher in sugar but are still a good way to get nutrients and fiber. Also, vegetable juice, while not as good a source of fiber as vegetables, is another alternative. Because your body isn’t accustomed to the equivalent of eight to 10 vegetables (or fruits) at a time, drink vegetable juice, as well as fruit juice, in moderation (the ones with pulp are better), and dilute slightly with water. Although not as good as a natural source, a fiber supplement and a multipack of vitamins and minerals can also be taken to supplement the nutrients lacking from your diet.

Drinking beer will NOT make you fat
Okay, we lied. Drinking a beer now and then will not make you fat, but swilling a six-pack nightly will qualify you for work as Marlon Brando’s stunt double.

Let’s do the math: On average, a 12-ounce beer contains between 150 and 200 calories. Even if you’re knocking back only two a night, that’s approximately 4,400 calories per month. It takes 3,500 calories to make a pound of fat, so it’s easy to see how those seemingly harmless hops can add girth to your midsection. Still, fingering beer as the lone culprit is a mistake.

“Having a beer might not be a problem, but are you going to eat a salad or vegetables with beer?” asks Julie Feldman, M.P.H., C.P.T., R.D., and owner of Creative Nutrition & Wellness. “Or are you going to eat pretzels, chips, nuts and other salty things? These are the things that usually go along with beer and add a ton of carbs, sugar, and fat calories. And that all goes straight to storage in your fat cells.”

Alongside white bread, sugar and candy, beer belongs in the “empty calorie” category. Meaning you’re consuming calories, but ones that don’t supply any essential vitamins or minerals. Sure, beer contains carbs, which, most of the time, can give your energy levels a boost. But it’s highly unlikely—not to mention highly inadvisable—that you’re going to hit the treadmill after popping a few drinks. It’s also possible that downing a couple of 12-ouncers a night can deprive your body of other necessary nutrients.

“Alcohol has a certain way of curbing someone’s appetite,” Feldman says. “If you’re drinking a couple of beers, that’s probably going to end up replacing nutrient-dense foods and minerals that your muscles need in order to recover, and it could lead to a higher lactic acid buildup and more muscle soreness the next day.”

Don’t forget to knock back a glass of water for each beer you drink, since alcohol can dehydrate you. Overall, though, beer isn’t such a bad thing, providing you drink in moderation.

“If someone’s content with their body weight and they’re just working out for general health and wellness, and they want to have a couple of beers every now and then, it’s not really a problem,” Feldman says. “Just think about the beer as taking the place of your starch at that meal, especially at night.”

Pork is no longer the enemy
Too many people think meat, and its presumed saturated-fat content, is the enemy of a fit body. One meat in particular that has been vilified over the rest is pork. While sausage, bacon and fried pork chops are to be avoided like a doctor with thick fingers, pork doesn’t have to be written off altogether.

Through advances in breeding techniques, farmers have developed a product so lean its fat content is close to that of a skinless chicken breast. According to the National Pork Board, some cuts of pork have 31 percent less fat than they had just 20 years ago, and are loaded with essential protein, iron, B vitamins and minerals.

The tenderloin is the leanest cut of pork, with only four grams of fat per three ounces; by comparison, a skinless chicken breast has three grams of fat per three ounces. If you’ve grown tired of chicken, you can easily afford the extra nine calories of a pork tenderloin. What it costs you in fat it will make up for in change of pace—and you can burn the excess off walking two flights of stairs. Just make sure you cook the meat in a healthful fashion, such as grilling, broiling or stir-frying.

Great info!! Glad to see some positive info on pork. I grew up raising hogs and have always spoke highly of it. There's a reason why it's called 'the other white meat'.