If you are reading this, they you have probably already made the choice to COMMIT to GET FIT. While I applaud you for your efforts, I also want to make sure that you are fully aware that there are 3 major tenants of any type of Fitness and Health lifestyle, to include muscle building and/or weight loss..
Fitness: You must have a good fitness/workout plan that challenges you, keeps you motivated, and will work within your busy schedule.
Nutrition and Supplementation: You will hear all the fitness gurus tell you this. Having a good workout plan is not enough, not even close. With all your blood, sweet and tears, you will see minimal results without a good nutrition plan. In fact, many believe that of the 3 major tenants, results are 80% achieved by proper nutrition and supplementation.
Sleep: Making sure that you get enough sleep is often overlooked. Recent research has shown that sleep plays an important role in weight management. People who sleep enough have lower BMI indexes than people who don’t. The data also suggests that sleep deprivation can cause weight gain
For now, we are going to focus on Nutrition and Supplementation.
Lets face it, fitness and nutrition are not mutually exclusive. Look at it this way, nutrition is like the fuel that powers a car. If you don’t have the right type of fuel, the car will not be able to function. Simple concept, right? The human body functions in the same way. A lack of fuel–or eating non-nutritious foods–can impede physical performance. And the only way to ensure we have the proper amount, and balance, of food (fuel), we must tracks it. This is not different that watching the fuel gauge on your car. When you start to get low, you fill it up…with the right type of fuel, of course.
Well, just as your gas gauge is your tool to monitor your fuel level in your car, we need some type of gauge or tool, to help us gauge the amount of food we put in our body's. Now, unless you are a scientifically biomechanically engineered man or women, you don’t have a gauge implanted someone on your body.
Thankfully, we have technology to take care of this for us.
There are many internet sites and phone applications that help us in this area. For quite some time, I used a handy phone app called Tap-and-Track. It was very easy to use, counted all my calories, let me know my balances, my ratios (Protein/Fat/Carbs) and has a database of over 500,000 items. I loved it, and used it daily. That is, until my Coach turned me on to a phenomenal app called MyFitnessPal. This one, my friends, is a game changer, and the ultimate tool for success with ANY workout or weight loss program. Oh, I forgot to mention, the membership is FREE!
MyFitnessPal is an AWESOME tool to track your calories and ratios and help you achieve you fitness goals and/or weight loss goals.
With MyfitnessPal, you can track what you eat with just a few clicks. Just use it anywhere you have an internet connection (the phone app is AWESOME), and track what you eat from home, the office, the park, your child’s game or wherever. With its database of over 2,513,000 items, no other application comes close. You can also add your own food and recipes and store them in your database, which makes it easy to pull them up next time.
It is fully customizable too as it lets you can change your ratio settings. For example, if you are working out with P90X, you will probably be starting out in Phase 1, the Fat Shredder phase which has a Protein/Carb/Fat ratio of 50/30/20 respectively. Then, when you switch to Phase 2, the Energy Booster phase, your ratios will change to 40/40/20, and then Phase 3, the Endurance Maximizer phase, you will switch to 20/60/20. All of these changes are important to follow as the program progresses, and it’s a snap to do with MyFitnessPal. Just go to the setting section (on the internet, not the phone app), and customize your ratios, save, and your done.
The MyFitnessTool Pie Chart is a priceless tool that gives you a quick visualization of where you stand at any given time.
Oh, and before I forget, the phone app has a great visual feature that makes things even easier to follow. There, you can display a Pie Chart of your ratio’s, so you know at a seconds glance where you are and what type of adjustments you will need to make at your next meal or snack. For example, after dinner, when I find out my ratios are 47/28/25, then I know I need to have a high protein, moderate carb and low fat shake a hour or two before dinner.
To help keep yourself in check, don’t forget these calories per gram guidelines.
- Protein: 4 calories per gram
- Carbohydrates: 4 calories per gram
- Fat: 9 calories per gram.
That’s it in a nutshell, but if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask…I love talking about this stuff.
For more Health and Fitness information, to include P90X and other home fitness programs, visit our website, TeamGetFit.com. You can also find us at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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