Below you will find a list of foods that are commonly used within my healthy diet plan, obviously stella artois and brandy are not included! For more detailed information click on the food you are interested in.
Index
Sweet Potato
The Sweet Potato is historically entwined with bodybuilding for two reasons. One, despite it's sweet flavour, it's actually a slow digesting carb that won't spike insulin levels, which
would cause some of those carbs to be stored as fat. And two, it's a dry source of slow carbs, which is essential in the days before a contest when you're trying to drop as much
water as possible.
There are other reasons to eat sweet potatoes, however, and one is because the orange flesh signals the presence of cartenoids, the natural pigments responsible for the colours of fruits
and vegetables. Sweet potatoes have been found to contain the highest level of cartenoids in the vegetable kingdom, and that's good because cartenoids enhance muscle cell recovery after workouts and
according to a study in the British Journal of Nutrition, even fight viruses such as the common cold.
excerpted from Muscle & Fitness www.muscleandfitness.com
Eggs
Keep eggs a part of your morning routine if possible, but make them better by adding fast-digesting carbs, which will bring your overnight catabolism to a crashing halt and also refill your muscle glycogen levels. Rich in vitamins and minerals, egg protein is extremely valuable resource in the bodybuilder's diet, but possesses fat, so consume a limited amount of egg yolks and focus on the egg whites.
excerpted from Muscle & Fitness www.muscleandfitness.com
Porridge
Bodybuilders, who have long eaten porridge for breakfast, lunch, dinner and / or a night-time snack because it's the ultimate slow-burning carb, now appreciate it for its health benefits. Meanwhile, the rest of the population, who have been cajoled into eating porridge for its ability to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, are finding that slow-digesting carbs are also intrumental in helping them lose weight. Researchers know why: in a study published in the British Journal of Nutritional in 2005, athletes who ate slow carbs as breakfast and lunch experienced lower insulin levels and increased fat-burning during the day. In subsequent studies, those who ate slow-digesting carbs in the morning burned more fat during exercise.
excerpted from Muscle & Fitness www.muscleandfitness.com
Chicken Breast
Perhaps no single food is more evocative of a bodybuilder's lifestyle than the chicken breast. Loaded with protein and low in fat,it's just about the perfect food for those who want to gain muscle mass. But you can make it better by having broccoli with it. A study conducted at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich found that when eaten together, selenium (a trace mineral in chicken) and sulphoraphane (a phytochemical in broccoli) are up to 13 times more powerful in fighting cancer than when eaten alone.
excerpted from Muscle & Fitness www.muscleandfitness.com
Cottage Cheese
Cottage Cheese makes the list of bodybuilding staples because of one thing, and one thing alone: it's packed with casein. Basically, it's the best possible food you can eat at night, and there aren't mony of those. Casein is the slow-digesting protein in dairy products, and the reason it's so key for late-night snacking is that - unless your're an insomniac - you don't eat when your're sleeping. That means your muscles go hungry, and your body could be shutling away its precious amino acids to be used for other things. Preventing that is as simple as eating 225g of cottage cheese right before you hit the hay.
excerpted from Muscle & Fitness www.muscleandfitness.com
Tuna
The main food needed for building new muscle tissue is protein. Tuna is a high protein food that many bodybuilders recommend.
A typical can of tuna contains plenty of good quality
protein but only trace amounts of carbohydrate and fat. Compared to other sources of protein tuna is inexpensive and represents tremendous value for money. Tuna can be consumed in
salads, sandwiches or in baked potatoes.
excerpted from www.ezinearticles.com
Broccoli
Eating your broccoli is a good idea. This hearty, tasty vegetable is rich in dozens of nutrients. In fact, it packs the most nutritional punch of any vegetable. Broccoli's noteworthy
nutrients include vitamin C, vitamin A (mostly as beta-carotene), folic acid, calcium, and fiber. While the calcium content of one serving doesn't equal that of a glass of milk,
broccoli is an important calcium source for those who don't consume dairy products. Calcium does more than build strong bones. Research shows that this mineral may play a role in
the control of high blood pressure, and it may work to prevent colon cancer.
Broccoli has about 30 micrograms of chromium per 1 1/2 cups (chopped). Chromium is an essential trace mineral that the body needs to metabolize carbohydrates, fats and proteins;
it also helps control blood-sugar levels by enhancing insulin's effects at the cellular level in muscles. This means muscles can absorb more glucose and creatine (which both rely on
insulin for uptake by muscle cells). It also means that this anabolic hormone can better stimulate muscle growth. About an hour after a postworkout protein shake, eat a whole-food protein
and carb meal that includes broccoli to enhance muscle glycogen loading, creatine uptake and muscle growth.
excerpted from www.howstuffworks.com & Weider Publications 2006
