You can be skinny and strong if you only eat enough carbohydrates to metabolize your protein, and make sure you get enough potassium to metabolize the carbohydrates.
Your body needs carbohydrates to metabolize protein. So, don’t cut out too many carbohydrates or you can’t grow muscle.
Some people get skinny by cutting carbohydrates. Other people get skinny by exercise. But, to get skinny, only one thing matters: burn more calories than you eat.
If you lift weights to grow muscle, then carbohydrates for building muscle are already burned, just while you rest.
Calories come from carbohydrates or from fat. Use the carbohydrates for protein. Count the calories from fat for energy to exercise.
Some people will mix bananas with oat meal and peanut butter as a super food when they will exercise all day long. That gives them nutrition, protein, calories, and carbohydrates. But, only do this if you will burn 1,000 calories or more in your exercise. Or, you could just eat pizza the night before.
Tuna fish is a miracle meat. It is lean and nutritious.
Tuna fish has lots of potassium, melatonin, and taurine.
Potassium helps your body use sugar.
Melatonin helps your body sleep.
Taurine helps your body burn fat.
All meats have these three, but tuna fish has almost double.
We need more potassium than sodium; some people say two or three times as much.
Careful, tuna fish in the can also have lots of sodium. You can’t rely on tuna alone fish for your potassium.
Most fruit has potassium, but pomegranate has almost three times as much.
You also need electrolytes: calcium, magnesium, and zinc. These will keep your muscles working.
Avocados have omega 3 oil. Coconut has omega 6 oil. Olive oil has omega 9 oil.
If you work at a desk, you need three things keep your mind focused and working: omega oils, minerals, and mushrooms.
Traditional Chinese medicine uses a lot of mushrooms. It has been around for thousands of years.
Some good medicine mushrooms are: chaga, lion’s mane, reishi, turkey tail, shiitake, cordyceps, and maitake. They help your brain calm down and focus.
Some people also use sugar to focus on work, but don’t overdue the calories or you’ll get fat.
Your diet is whatever you eat. “Being on a diet” means that you watch what you eat. A “weight loss diet” is a special diet that helps you lose weight.
If you are on a liquid diet, only drinking juice and milk, you can lose about 6 pounds of fat per week. Some call that a “juice fast”. A “water fast”, drinking only water and no food, can be unhealthy if you do it for a long time because your body needs nutrients. Juice and milk can provide nutrients.
In the three days of any weight loss diet you will be very hungry. Your body may even metabolize some muscle. After about three days, your body will understand what you are doing and start to burn fat instead of muscle. So, in those first three days, it might be wise to eat some lean protein food.
“Lean” food is “low fat” food. But, often times the words “low fat” mean the same idea as “reduced fat”, that fat was removed. “Lean meat” already has low fat, not reduced fat. That’s why some people say “lean”, just to be clear.
If you want to be healthy, learn to cook well and learn some measurements and some math.
Many things can be measured in tablespoons, pints, and ounces.
- A pint is 2 cups
- A pint is one pound
- A pound is 16 ounces
- (A quarter pound of meat is 4 ounces)
- (A pint is 16 ounces)
- One pint is about 454-473 grams (depending on what it is)
- One tablespoon is usually 15 grams
How many calories does exercise burn? It is difficult to say because so much depends on your size, weight, muscle mass, body fat, your BMI (body-mass index), and other things. But, here is a good place to start:
- 1 pound of fat is about 3,000 calories
- 1 mile burns 100 calories (running or walking)
- 15 minutes boxing a punching bag burns 100 calories
- 100 situps burns 15 calories
- 100 pushups burns 15 calories
- 100 jumprope skips burns 15 calories
- 10 sets of 10 reps burns about the same calories as the weight in pounds
- 15 pound dumbell curls (each arm) is 30 pounds total; burns 30 calories
- 120 pound bench press burns 120 calories
- 150 pound squat burns 150 calories
- 25 pound shoulder lifts or press (probably 15-20 per set) is at a strange angle, probably still burns 25 calories
Most muscles want 10 sets of 10 reps on the same day, but shoulders want 15-20 reps per set. Shoulders and biceps want lots of exercise, more than chest, back, or legs.
Biceps and shoulders are about half the total weight as legs, back or chest. So, you can do them twice as much.
So, on any one day, do only one:
- Chest
- Back
- Legs
Do arms and shoulders two days a week, on the same day together:
- Biceps/triceps
- Shoulders
Abdominal exercises are often called “core”.
Many people exercise core every day.
You can also do some pushups, pullups, wrist squeezes, and light shoulder lifts almost every day. This will tell your muscles that you plan to use them, then they will be hard and it will burn up body fat around them. This is a good way to develop “muscle tone”, not just strength, speed, or balance.
Some people say that we can’t reduce fat in specific parts of your body. But, your muscles will burn fat that is closer by.
If you want to burn belly fat, you must exercise your belly. If you want to burn fat on your lower back, you must exercise your lower back.
Weight loss dieting just isn’t enough to eliminate all body fat. It can reduce a lot of body fat, but some fat can only go away by exercising the muscles nearby.
A beautiful, handsome body has two things: tone muscle and low body fat. Big muscles are a different idea than “good looking” muscles.
For a great, happy, good-looking body, do some exercises almost every day with almost every muscle, at least a little bit.
Many people think, “I use my legs every day, so I don’t need to exercise legs.” But, this causes two problems:
- Super skinny legs with big, strong arms makes you look like you don’t understand exercise.
- Leg strength is not about size, but range of motion. Doing squats will exercise the small ends at the top and bottom of your leg muscles. Without that extra range, you can’t jump high or run fast, and you can easily injure knees or hips in sports or on long hikes.
Squats are a miracle exercise. They will strengthen many parts of your legs, front and back side, top and bottom! Also don’t forget calf lifts.
The best way to make calf muscles stronger is to go hiking or walking with a heavy back back. Fat people often have strong calf muscles. If were fat when you were younger, that is a special advantage you will always have over people who were skinny all their lives.
Your muscles train for either speed and mobility or else for strength. You should train for both, but you can’t do both every day.
Squatting, pressing, rowing, and lifting can help grow strength. Without strength, your can’t hit hard, start fast, or jump high.
Sprinting, jumping, throwing, swinging, climbing, punching, and kicking can help train for speed. Without speed, your muscles are useless; you might as well be a big muscle statue.
Walking, jogging, cycling, skating, boarding, and swimming help endurance and balance. They exercise your entire body. Don’t do these when you need to rest from strength weight training. These are good warm ups or for all day when you don’t lift weights.
Train speed, balance-endurance, and strength, but when your muscles aren’t tired. Run and punch a bag, but not every day. Don’t punch after arm days. Don’t run after leg days.
Learn about “prehab” workouts. These are rehabilitaion exercises, but you do them to prevent getting injured.
You must exercise your three rotator cuffs in your shoulders. These are very low weight exercises that help you balance heavier weights. Many body builders permanently injure their shoulders because they don’t do prehab with their shoulders.
Also, you must watch your form. Extend weights all the way. Rotate the weights with your writs at times. Stand and hold arms and weights at the right angle—to make sure you gain exercise and to avoid injury. You should ask a trainer to watch you and teach this before doing it on your own.
You need protein and carbohydrates, otherwise you can’t build muscle.
There are a few different types of protein: whey protein (from dairy), plant protein (from soy or beans), natural protein (from milk, meat, or eggs), and protein isolate (very clean, pure, and tasteless protein, usually from whey).
Protein isolate has very little milk left in it. So, it may be safe for someone who is lactose intolerant, but you should double check first.
Protein isolate and egg whites are probably the most pure form of protein.
- Your body uses 10 grams of carbohydrates to metabolize 9 grams of protein.
- Your body uses 11 milligrams of potassium to metabolize 10 grams of carbohydrates.
- If you weigh 50 kilograms, you need 50 grams of protein to maintain your muscle mass.
- If you weigh 50 kilograms, that’s 110 pounds. So you can eat as much as 110 grams of protein to grow your muscles, but that’s only if you exercise your muscles a lot.
It is difficult to say how many calories and protein are in food because so much can change. But, there are some good ideas to start guessing…
- One bagel has about 50 grams of carbohydrates.
- One half pint (1 cup) of rice has about 45 grams of carbohydrates.
- One half pint (1 cup) of pasta has about 40 grams of carbohydrates.
- One half pint (1 cup) of chopped fruit has about 15 grams of carbohydrates.
- One half pint (1 cup) of chopped vegetables has about 10 grams of carbohydrates.
Many things have about 15 grams of protein:
- One chicken leg
- Half a large chicken breast
- 2-3 ounces of almost any meat or cheese
- One pint of milk or soy milk
- Two hot dogs
- One jumbo egg
One egg yolk has 100 calories. The egg yolk is very healthy, but you really only need one each day. The egg yolk has “high density cholesterol”, which doctors say can clean out the unhealthy “low density cholesterol”.
From a book called The Simple Heart Cure, we learn that high cholesterol comes from inflammation in the blood vessels, not only from eating cholesterol. This inflammation comes from too much white sugar, white flour, and alcohol.
Your dogs also need egg yolks because dog food doesn’t have enough fresh food. Eat one egg yolk every day, then share the others with your dogs. They will he healthier, happier, and will shed less hair in your house.
Your dog can also go running with you. This can help both of you to be happier and healthier.
None of these ideas are for certain. A doctor may tell you that you can’t do some of these things. These are just good ideas to think about. But, you must learn to exercise with a professional to watch you, otherwise you can do something wrong that you don’t know, then hurt yourself.