But how much is too much? Nutritionist John Berardi says that, “For an average person, any meal over 750kcal (not including pre- and post-workout nutrition) results in fat storage”. I don’t agree completely, as for an athlete it would vary greatly and would also depend on the ratio of fats, proteins and carbohydrates in the meal. A high protein meal may not get readily converted to fats as a high carb meal. However, when an average person eats 500+ calories from a candy snack bar, it is going to lead to fat gain. What’s worse, while we know how to stop it, we are still helpless.

Tips to deal with binge eating

Here are some simple tips to help you overcome the damage of binge eating:-

1. Treadmill counters are misleading

Many people I know compare the calories they burn on a treadmill or cross trainer with the calories they consumed in their meals. This is not a sound strategy. Firstly, on a treadmill, the calories shown include your BMR [the calories you burn at rest]. Say your body burns 2400kcal/day i.e. 100 kcal/hr. These calories are burnt by your body just to maintain your normal body functions. So if you run for an hour on the treadmill, the treadmill will show that you have burnt around 500kcal. But this 500kcal is including your BMR [basal metabolic rate]. So actual calories burnt would be 500 – 100 = 400kcal. Now a kilo of fat has around 7000kcal. At this rate, you need to run for over 17 days at the same intensity every day to burn just a kilo of fat—that too if your intake of calories is equal to your calorie output. This is why weight training and HIIT [high intensity interval training] are the best forms of exercises to target fat loss.

2. Make use of your “anabolic window”

After a hard and intense workout session, your metabolism sky rockets. Your body is like a furnace ready to burn whatever you put in it. This furnace is at its hottest for 45 minutes post workout, also called the “anabolic window”. When you know you are going to a party or will be gorging on foods that are likely to be unhealthy and high in sugar and full of empty calories, then working out before that meal is the best way to offset the negative effects of that meal. Though the 45 min window is the optimal time, the furnace is hot enough to burn your cheat foods even three hours after of your workout.

If for whatever reasons it is not possible to workout before you eat this meal then another way is to increase your exercise volume and intensity for a week before and after the binge day. Now the exercise I am talking about are intense weight training sessions and HIIT workouts, not leisurely strolls on the treadmill or pleasant rides on the cross trainer.

3. Eat before bingeing

It happens with all of us sometimes where we eat something just before our meals and then don’t feel hungry enough to have our main meal. This is a simple trick that dieticians refer to as the “Second Meal Effect”. Having something just before the main meal or an hour or so before it, would suppress hunger which automatically make you eat less of your cheat meal. The best bet is a big salad plate or a high protein, low glycaemic index food an hour before the main binge meal.

4. Cleanse after indulging

If you have eaten more than you should have and now need to detox, here’s an excellent way to do it. At night before sleep take two tablespoon of isabgol or Psyllium seed husks with three glasses of water. In the morning, have three glasses of water again as soon as you wake up. After you have emptied your bowels, add two capful of bitter gourd [karela] and gooseberry [amla] juice, each in less than half a glass of water and drink it. This will help stabilise your insulin levels and also provide you with powerful antioxidants. Thereafter, have a cup of green tea with lemon or 500mg vitamin C. Work out hard and eat clean that day and the next.

Remember, these techniques only help overcome the side effects of occasional binge eating. Do not make this a regular way of life.

The post Help!! I just had a week of binge eating appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Five Golden Rules of Workout

1. Don’t overdo it

If you have been working hard at the gym with little success, yet you persist in pushing your body week after week, an injury is just waiting to happen. If you have learned how to put in maximum effort, then you should also learn the art of “backing off”. According to the iron guru Vince Gironda, “Over enthusiasm is the most dangerous virtue of an athlete.” Avoid overtraining, you should listen to your body and give it the time it needs for optimum rest.

2. Consistency is the key

I have met parents who tell me that they are sending their children to the gym because it’s summer holiday time and they need to be kept busy. But for the rest of the year, these kids are inactive as they just study, eat and sleep. Now will you expect your kid to do well in their exams if they study for just one month in a year? Same is the case with physical training. Just like other fields, physical training requires consistency. Likewise, all those would-be brides and grooms who think a 30 day package at a slimming centre is all they need to lose weight permanently, are deluding themselves. You can’t have breaks throughout the year and see progress, you have to train consistently.

3. Progressive overload

The primary principle of exercise physiology is progressive overload. If you embark on a journey of strength training and fitness, you should be improving consistently both in terms of muscle strength and endurance, depending on your goals. This can be in various ways such as increasing the number of reps or the amount of weight lifted or cutting down on rest between sets.

Related » The correct way to warm-up

4. Form comes first

Lifting weights is important, but lifting heavy barbells with poor form is equally dangerous. You do lifting exercises to improve your strength, not to impress the girl on the treadmill. In a gym, you will find two types of people—those who give no attention to their form and those who pay too much attention to it. For example, their form in some movements such as the deadlift is so poor that an injury is just bound to happen. On the other extreme, isolation movements like barbell drag curls are done with such strict form that people are stuck lifting the same weight for months, as they aren’t ready to compromise on form. I am not telling you to let your form deteriorate, but just to loosen up a little in the event that you are not improving. Loosening up your technique doesn’t mean using excessive momentum though. What you could do is in every four sets of barbell curls, try one or two sets of cheat curls and see if that makes any difference to how much you can lift.

5. Focus on the basics

Today, the market is flooded with new techniques and products which claim to make you leaner, more muscular and more athletic. Most of these claims are not only false but may even affect your performance negatively. Combining exercises from different sports like Crossfit does nothing to improve your performance but only brings you a step closer to injury. A traditional Crossfit workout combines Olympic lifts with plyometrics in a single session, a recipe for disaster. Any exercise can improve your heart rate and burn calories, but they may do nothing to improve your performance and could, in fact, impede it. So focus on the basics. If you want to develop strength in legs, first learn to squat before doing anything else. If you want strength in the upper body, first learn how to do bench press, parallel bar dips, pull-ups and rows before moving on to the more fancy stuff.

So the next time you are working out, keep these five golden rules in mind to ensure optimum results.

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Nutrient timing

Timing of a meal can play a major role in your struggle with weight or health problems. Our ancestors followed the nutrient timing principle without actually being conscious about it. Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced world, we either completely skip eating breakfast or we chomp down whatever we can lay our hands on in the morning’s rush. Some people “brunch” instead of eating a proper breakfast. However, doing so is detrimental to your health. Let’s look at the ideal timing for each meal.

Breakfast

Ideally, you should have your first meal between 60 – 90 minutes after you wake up. Try not to eat almost immediately after waking up. Save the first hour to do your morning chores, some exercise or pranayama. It is important to fuel your body correctly at breakfast, because your body has been starved of essential micronutrients since the previous night’s meal. If there is too long a gap between waking up and having your first meal, i.e. more than 90 minutes, then your body will begin breaking down your muscles for energy.

Lunch

Generally, there is a substantial gap between breakfast and lunch, and this usually leads to hunger and cravings. You can eat a healthy, nutrient-rich, low-carbohydrate snack in between the meals to keep your body going. Ideally, you should have your lunch between 12:30 – 2:30pm. However, a slight delay is acceptable if you adjust your day accordingly.

Pre and post-workout

Depending on the type of workout you do, you need a protein and carbohydrate-rich snack at least 30 – 45 minutes before you exercise. This is especially necessary if the gap between your lunch and workout is greater than 120 minutes. Your post-workout meal is just as important. Unfortunately, most of us tend to neglect this important nutrient timing. The body is most receptive to nutrient absorption up to 45 minutes after a workout.

Dinner

Being the final meal of your day, dinner needs to be light and taken at the right time. Eating a heavy meal just before hitting the bed can adversely affect your health. A gap of at least three hours between dinner and sleep is best.

To satisfy any hunger craving between your breakfast and lunch, you need to have a high protein and fibre-rich snack

Nutrient intake

Knowing what kind of nutrient to eat for breakfast, lunch, pre/post workout and dinner is vital. This second guideline is essential to extract maximum health benefits from our diets. Although my recommendations are based on traditional Indian cuisine, the rule can be applied to cuisines of other regions as well.

The first thing you need to do when you get up in the morning is not have a cup of tea/coffee or some fruit, as is generally advised. Instead, drink some water. Squeeze some lemon juice in the water to make it alkaline. About 90 minutes after you wake up, you can have herbal or non-herbal tea or black coffee with some lemon, or a vitamin C tablet. The antioxidants from both will be absorbed maximum on an empty stomach.

Breakfast

In your first meal, having a fruit or any other food with a high glycaemic index is not a great idea since your body is deprived of carbohydrates after a night’s sleep [especially if you are off carbohydrates during dinner]. Therefore, any form of simple, high GI carbohydrates will spike your blood sugar levels. This will, in turn, raise your body’s insulin levels, sending a message of starvation to your brain. As a result, your body will store the carbohydrates as fats, instead of using it for energy. Contrarily, a sharp rise in blood sugar levels, caused by high GI foods, will lead to an equally sharp crash in the blood sugar levels, making you feel hungry soon after your meal.

An ideal breakfast must contain proteins, in addition to low GI carbohydrates like oats, multigrain breads and poha

Research has shown that having a high-protein breakfast is ideal, as it not only helps curb the sharp rise in blood sugar, but also keeps you satiated for long. This prevents you from getting food cravings and hunger pangs. Therefore, an ideal breakfast must contain proteins, like eggs, cottage cheese, or milk, in addition to low GI carbohydrate sources like oats, multigrain breads and poha. Add some nuts to it and you will have one of the healthiest breakfast options available.

Lunch

To satisfy any hunger craving between your breakfast and lunch, you need to have a high protein and fibre-rich snack. Opt for a bowl of salad made from sprouts with some vegetables, chicken or cottage cheese. Alternatively, you can have a multigrain-bread sandwich with chicken or paneer and some vegetables.

For lunch, you can eat simple home-cooked food, like rotis, vegetable, rice with dal, with a side of salad. Additionally, have a bowl of curd or a glass of buttermilk.

What you eat at night can greatly influence your health

Pre and post-workout

As stated earlier, your pre and post-workout meals are important. For the pre-workout snack, you can eat to suit the kind of exercise you would be performing. If the session involves weight-training or HIIT [high intensity interval training], then a fruit with black coffee and a vitamin C tablet are all you need.

For a post-workout meal, you can supplement your training with a liquid protein and carbohydrate diet. Ideally, you can have whey protein in water.

Dinner

It is important to keep your dinner simple yet nutritious. Avoid having carbohydrate-rich foods. Instead, include proteins like chicken or fish, salads or soups in your dinner. What you eat at night can greatly influence your health.

While these suggestions can be adopted by anyone, the results can differ from person to person. Regardless, following these guidelines will make you see and feel a profound difference in your body within a very short span of time. These suggestions are not some type of fad but a healthy way of eating for life.

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Nutrient timing

This is an important concept that is neglected by most people with health or weight issues. It is not only important ‘how much’ and ‘what’ to eat, but also what to eat ‘when’. Our grandparents followed the nutrient timing principle without ever being conscious of it. And we are aware of some basics too. For instance, we know that breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, but in today’s fast-paced world, we often eat anything we can lay our hands on in the morning or, worse, we skip breakfast. Then there is ‘brunch’—used as a style statement, but is actually one of the worst eating habits.

Ideally, you should be having your first meal within 60 – 90 minutes after you wake up. In the first one hour, make sure you get maximum healthy antioxidants [They are best absorbed on an empty stomach]. Because you have been starving your body of macro nutrients such as carbohydrates since the previous night’s dinner, you need to fuel your body properly in the morning. Too long a gap between waking up and breakfast will lead your body to catabolise or break down your muscles for energy.

Likewise, if the gap between breakfast and lunch is a long one, it will lead to cravings. To keep them at bay, you need to have a healthy, high-protein, low-glycaemic index, low-carbohydrate, optimum-fat and fibre-rich snack. If that seems like too many variables to take care of, don’t worry. A small bowl of sprouts with veggies and chicken/cottage cheese or a whole grain sandwich with vegetables and chicken/cottage cheese is all you need.

The best time to have your lunch is between 12:30pm and 2:30pm, but you can have it later if you adjust your day accordingly.

If you work out, you need a protein and carbohydrate-rich meal at least 30 to 45 minutes before your session. After your workout, there is period of 45 minutes called the anabolic window in which the body is most receptive to nutrient absorption. A liquid protein and carbohydrate meal, for e.g. whey protein in water is the best thing to have in that window. When it comes to dinner, keep it light and try to have a gap of at least three hours between dinner and bedtime.

Nutrient intake

We discussed the optimal times for nutrient intake. Now let us look at what foods we should be eating at those times. Once you get up in the morning, the first thing you need is not tea or fruits, as some dieticians believe, but water. And, not water with lemon or honey added, but plain water. Once you’re done washing up in the morning, have green/white/black tea or black coffee with lemon or a vitamin C tablet. The antioxidants from both will be fully absorbed on an empty stomach.

As part of your first meal, having a fruit isn’t a great idea. For that matter, any form of high-GI [glycaemic index] food isn’t good to eat first thing in the morning as your body is deprived of carbohydrates after a night’s sleep. So any form of simple carbohydrates will spike your blood sugar levels, raising your insulin levels in turn, mistakenly signalling to the brain that you’re starving, so the carbohydrates consumed then will be stored as fat instead of being used for energy. The sharp rise in blood sugar will also later lead to a crash at an equally fast rate making you feel hungry and give you cravings soon after you’ve had your meal.

A good breakfast should comprise of high protein as research has shown that proteins in a meal not only curb the sharp rise in blood sugar but also keeps you satiated for longer, thus preventing food cravings and hunger pangs. A low GI carbohydrate source such as oats, multi-grain breads and poha [flattened rice] along with protein-rich foods such as eggs, cottage cheese and milk are the best option. Add some nuts to it and you have one of the healthiest breakfasts possible.

As mentioned earlier, you can have sprouts or a multi-grain sandwich as a snack between breakfast and lunch. For lunch, have a home-cooked meal and make a habit of eating a bowl of curd or drinking a glass of buttermilk along with it. Before your workout, if you’re doing a session of weight-training or HIIT [high intensity interval training], then a fruit with black coffee and a vitamin C tablet is all you need. For dinner, avoid carbs and have lots of proteins, salads and soups.

These suggestions are for an average person and your mileage may vary. But when you follow them, you will see and feel a profound difference in your body within a very short span of time. These are not faddish recommendations but is solid advice that can be the basis of healthy eating for life.

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Even then, in most parts of the world, this liquid byproduct of cheese was considered useless and was dumped in lakes and seas after the cheese was separated.

It was only in the early 1990s that Dan Duchaine, also known as the ‘steroid guru’, began extracting pure whey by removing fats, lactose and ash, and made it the phenomenon it is now.

The age old tussle of which protein is better: Vegetarian or non-vegetarian

Typically, the Indian diet is deficient in protein and rich in carbohydrates—one of the main reasons that our country is at the centre of the global diabetic epidemic.

But the bright side of the story is that it does not matter whether you are a pure vegetarian, a lacto-vegetarian, a lacto-ovo vegetarian or a non-vegetarian, you can still get the protein you need from your regular diet without the use of supplements. The pertinent question is whether you are eating the amount and quality of food that gives you your daily intake of protein.

There could be various reasons why you may not be able to have sufficient protein and this is where supplements help. Also, remember that whichever way you measure the quality, animal protein is far better than protein from plant sources. That is why vegetarians have to do a lot of mix-and-match with their ingredients to make sure that they get all the required amino acids.

What’s so special about whey?

Whey protein is a very high quality protein derived from cow’s milk. You may wonder why you shouldn’t just have whole milk instead! The reason is that milk has numerous other components like lactose [sugar] and fat. So whey gives you the benefits of protein without the other ingredients present in milk.

Milk contains two types of proteins—Casein and Whey. Casein forms 80 per cent of milk while whey is only 20 per cent. Whey is derived from the liquid which comes out during the production of cheese. So once cheese is made and the fat is removed, whey is extracted for use.

Whey is presently the highest-quality protein available in the market. It has an extremely high amino acid profile [amino acids are building blocks of protein] and is easily digested by lactose-intolerant individuals too.

The benefits of whey

1. It increases the natural glutathione levels in the body. For those of you who don’t know, glutathione is one of the most powerful antioxidants and is produced in the body naturally as an enzyme.
2. It is one of the best supplements that can be used in recovery.
3. It is known to balance blood sugar levels, thus reducing craving for food and assisting in fat loss.
4. The biological value is the measure of how efficiently a protein source is absorbed in the body. Egg protein is said to have the best biological value in natural foods with a value of 100. But whey protein is said to have a value as high as 170.
5. Whey protein is a thermogenic fuel i.e. its storage and digestion in the body requires the body to spend large amount of energy, thus increasing calories burnt.

Which whey protein to choose?

If you set out to buy a protein supplement, it can be very intimidating especially if you’re not prepared for the wide range of options you’ll meet at the store. One has a choice of egg, soy, casein, pea, beef, and whey proteins to buy from. What adds to the confusion is that each of the above has various types. Here’s some help with the homework.

Whey is simply the best form of protein available in the market and it is available as three types:

• Whey concentrate – These are generally the cheapest. They contain 70 – 80 per cent protein with 5 per cent lactose. The rest is fat. The problem with concentrate is that it may be unacceptable to people who are extremely lactose intolerant.
• Whey isolate – These are over 90 per cent protein. These are purer and costlier than whey concentrate. Lactose intolerant people are generally comfortable with isolates.
• Whey hydrolysates – This is the costliest and purest form of whey available and is over 95 per cent protein. It is used in baby milk for infants who are highly lactose-intolerant and is also used by people who are undergoing digestive surgery.

There is no doubt about it, by using whey, you’ll soon be on your way to a fitter and healthier body.

This was first published in the August 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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