I cannot begin to express how important it is to measure food out. Maybe it’s the scientist in me, maybe it’s the geek, I don’t know. However, if your serious about getting nutrition in check, then I whole heartily believe that you must approach your nutrition with a rock solid plan.

Now if your looking to just drop a few pounds or try to muscle up, then I don’t always believe you have to follow any strict nutritional plan. However, if your looking to push your body to the extreme. If you strive to optimize your body’s ability to achieve muscle mass or lose rapid amounts of fat, then I feel a food scale is absolutely necessary.

I’m not a guy who counts every single calorie that I eat throughout the day. That’s just not my style. I however know how many calories I consume on training and non training days because I know my macronutrient breakdown. I also know what meals I intend on eating depending on the hour of the day. This comes with a proper planning and tailoring your nutrition to fit your fitness or performance goals.

I’ve always recommended going out to a local store and picking up a quality food scale. Nutrition is equally as important as the weight room and as the practice field. Nutrition can make or break you. If your doing everything right in the weight room, pushing heavy weight, progressive overload, proper recovery, proper nutrition, etc; you’ll obtain the results you want.

The best part about measuring your food is that numbers don’t lie. We’ve all been there at some point. It’s 8:00pm, your stressed, and your staring down the meal you need eat next, and you think “I’ve worked hard, maybe I’ll pour a few more “XYZ” on my plate because, I deserve it”. With a food scale, this never occurs. Sure maybe the thought of it crosses your mind, but once you have a habit to measure out your food, there is no excuses, no chance of doubt, and no measure of error in portion control.

There are a lot of foods out there on the market that are extremely deceptive. I say meaning that what you may THINK is 1 oz, is probably more like 2 to 3 oz when you don’t measure it. It’s so easy to fall into the pitfall of dieting and cutting calories only to spin your wheels in frustration because your not making progress. If this sounds familiar than you may want to take a long, hard look at what your doing and what your eating.

Here is my list of extremely deceptive foods that are an absolutely must for measuring out before consuming. Again, this is just my list. You may consume these without measuring them but if you feel like weight loss or gain is stalling, you might want to look what your putting on your plate.

1. Cereal
2. Peanut Butter
3. Ketchup
4. Salad Dressing
5. Coffee Creamers
6. Chips/Grains/Etc
7. Nuts

The Root Hog Sled - A Beast

I had a great workout today. Went into the gym and did a few movements that I haven’t done in quite awhile. The first being a seated leg curl using the Keiser Functional Trainer and a Valslide. That really hit the hamstrings great. I rest-paused all the reps and aimed to get 30 total across 3 attempts a leg. I fell a bit short, somewhere between 20-25 reps for each leg. This will allow me to attempt the same weight next time in aims of increasing repetitions. Remember, progression is key! If your using the same weight or getting the same amount of repetitions – that is not progression, that’s stagnation.

I then ended up doing some single leg stepup’s onto a high plyometric box. Ended up using 160lbs and scratched out around 6 reps per each leg, and then I dropped to 120lbs and aimed to get 20 each leg, but I actually only got around 9 each. I fell quite short and will drop the weight significantly next time around. I was just eye balling the weight since I haven’t done these movements since I started the “Shred Down”.

My last movement was a calf raise utilizing a leg press machine. I only aim for 12 repetitions for this movement but it’s really the TUT (Time Under Tension) that gets this workout. I perform a 1 sec concentric, a 5 second eccentric, and a 15 second stretch at the bottom of the movement with my foot in dorsiflexion. After 4 minutes (12 repetitions), your calves will be on fire.

It's a love/hate relationship

Finally, to finish the session with the cardiovascular component, I wanted to do something a bit different than my LSD (Long Slow Distance) runs lasting an hour. I set a goal to do 30 minutes of what I coined “Prowler Cardio”.

I set my watch to 30 seconds of “work time” and 15 seconds of “rest time”. I actually only loaded the horns with 45lb plates on each (totaling 90lbs) and it still is one hell of a workout. Truth me honest, I didn’t just do prowler the whole time, as I am fortunate to have a bunch of other tools at my reach.

I also ended up using the new sled, The Root Hog for a variety of pushes, pulls, and drags. I would alternate between either the prowler, or the root hog, or a kettlebell swing. None of this work was intended to “build muscle”, rather it was simply used in order for me to increase my heart rate, and keep me moving. It was one hell of a workout, let me tell you.

Cereal - The Whole Reason I Train

In the end, I reached 30 minutes of hard interval cardio and got to walk out the gym beat up from all the pushing, pulling, lifting, and swinging. If your looking to mix up your workout, start thinking about how you can use the weights around you (in a cardiovascular fashion). Don’t be so constraint to just running, or biking for your cardio. There is plenty of things a person could do to gain anaerobic/aerobic fitness. Sprinting, Hill Running, Tossing heavy objects. Who knows – Be Creative!

Lastly, a perfect post workout nutritional meal. 40 grams of whey isolate and 93 grams (75 grams of carbohydrates) of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I end up mixing my protein with water. I know a lot of people who complain about that and say water + protein is disgusting, but I’ve never drank my protein shakes with milk so I’m not missing out on anything. Until next time people!!

I’ve been getting hit with some questions via e-mail asking me about my nutrition. If you’ve read my blog well enough and know me personally, then you are probably aware of my weekly refeed meals with higher GI sugary carbohydrates. While  others might sit there and be envious of a stack of 10 waffles dripping with syrup, it would be unfair if you never knew the the flip side. The flip side of my nutrition?

I routinely cook up vegetables so I can garnish the chicken or eggs I eat frequently throughout the day.

6 out of 7 days I am operating within 100% of compliance of my meals, target macronutrients intake, frequency and hydration. I end up eating 7 meals a day, measuring every single thing I eat, and doing endless amounts of food preparation. That might be too much for some but to tell you the truth, I love every minute of it all. I love preparing the food I’m to eat for the day, I look cooking and I love taking care of numero uno.

I end up weighing out every single thing I eat. Serving sizes are too hard to guess and having a scale is the only valid way of measuring serving sizes

I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the things I’ve been eating and doing around the house. Some of the pictures might be of food preparation or of randomness. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy some of the comments, pictures, or glimpses into what I do, and how I do.

Chicken & Vegetables

If you ever purchased a new powerlifting belt, you know that the thing is stiffer than a board. What you need to do for a few days is break the sucker in by bending it frequently in both directions. This is what I'm doing here.

This is one of my favorite meals. This is some Krusteez Waffle Mix I cooked up. Whats great about this is that it's low fat and high GI Carb (Perfect for a Skipload). While you may think that there is fat in the butter, rest assure that IT ISN'T BUTTER. That my friend, is Low-Fat Cake Batter Ice Cream. Nothing sounds better than Waffles Soaked in Syrup w/ Ice Cream on Top.

Well, apparently I did well enough in Graduate school to pass. Actually, I did phenomenal in graduate school – not to toot my own horn, but I’m just saying. Now that this chapter is finished, I am with a bit of free time to catch up on a few things. As you may or may not know, I have a wedding that we’re planning in July. I also have the process of finding a new strength & conditioning position across the US. Overall, I’m glad that I finished school and earned my Masters. It’s been a fun and great experience; I learned a ton – both in the class room and in the applied setting.

I don’t however want to take an entire blog post to write about Graduate school. I, however, would like to encourage anybody who is hesitant about it, – SIMPLY DO IT! I’m telling you, the two years time that it may take to complete is completely worth it. It all pays off in the end. I’ll now get off my soap box. Rather, I want to talk about some random stuff throughout my days – now that I have an opportunity to write a bit more frequently.

I am jonesing off some new coffee that I’ve been drinking lately. Dunkin Donuts “Turbo”. Let me tell you, if you haven’t tried their coffee, pick up a bag of their ground beans at your local grocery store. Literally, after a cup or two of their Turbo flavor, I’m ready to hit the treadmill, road or gym; hell… Maybe all three. There is actually quite a few research studies that have covered the effects of coffee before cardio in regards to weight loss.

I wanted to take a moment out of my post workout nutrition meal to educate you guys/gals on something that I’ve been doing lately. I will make no lie about it, there are particular reasons why I work out. One of those reasons, is my Cinnamon Toast Crunch and protein. I know there are drinks on the market that combine the exact ratios of protein to carbohydrates for “optimal” recovery… But I can tell you that those mass produced drinks taste nothing compared to the taste of both C.T.C., and my childhood. I have a deep love for cinnamon toast crunch and for me to indulge on cereal and protein right after a workout, and supply my body with carbohydrates and protein… I’m in heaven. For those of you who are hesitate, I swear it’s tasty. I use your run of the mill chocolate whey protein powder combined with water (as I’m not a fan of milk), and good old fashion CTC. I’ve done this will all sorts of kids cereals like Cookie Crisps, Chocolate Pebbles, etc. It’s good, trust me.

This picture represents, why I work out. You know I’m just kidding. Everybody wants to get bigger, stronger and faster in the gym. But don’t kid yourself, nutrition is absolutely vital for proper recovery. I end up eating this immediately after my workout w/ anywhere of 50g – 75g of carbohydrates. An hour after that meal I end up eating another meal with less carbohydrates but a similar amount of protein. This is my post workout strategy. If you have an opinions or want to share your methods, feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear how you guys are recovering immediately following your workouts.

“You don’t realize how important Family/Peer support is until you don’t have it.”

It's important to get everyone on the same page to support your goals.

Just a short blurb for today discussing how important a support structure is for your weight loss nutritional goals. Dieting and weight loss is hard enough to do alone but it becomes even more of a difficult task when you don’t have somebody supporting or believing in you along the way. It requires a lot of determination and sacrifice to make smart nutritional choices. if you surround yourself with people who share a similar vision and goal as you, it makes the process all the easier.

But just as a good support team can help lift you, a negative team can easily bring you down. If your surrounded with individuals, family members, spouses, etc. that encourage you to stray from your diet, drink alcohol, go out to eat often, and pressure/guilt you into decisions… Your in for a lot of work. That doesn’t mean that your dietary goals cannot be accomplished, trust me, they can. All it means is that you have to have crystal clear goals and vision in order to obtain your results. Don’t let others stand in your way and stop you from what YOU want. The moment you do your live in world of resentment.