| Q&As: Ask the Nutritionist (Blast from the past: before June 2005) If you have a question on supplement, nutrition or training to ask, email to questions@ultimatesg.com |
| Q) I am quite lean at the moment and trying to build some quality muscles, what should I take, gainers or protein powders? A) Gainers that contain about 2g of carbohydrates to 1g of protein is best for you. Remember protein consumed by itself in a meal will not work properly. You will need carbohydrates to secrete insulin so that protein can be transported into the muscles. Yet too much carbohydrates feeding and not used will cause the accumulation of body fat. Once enough carbohydrates get deposited into the muscles, meaning the glycogen storage is full, body fat synthesis will begin. This is why 2:1 carb to protein ratio is rather ideal, they provide the right amount of carb to increase mass without going overboard with carb. Q) I read that athletes can get all the protein we need from food? If so, why do we still need protein supplement? A) Frankly speaking, the protein needs for drug-free bodybuilders are not all that high. 1.6 to 1.8g of protein daily per kg body weight is sufficient. The protein sources should come from a variety of whole food like lean meat (both red and white), eggs, soya bean products (not too much), dairy food etc. Many bodybuilders choose to consume protein supplements because they are very convenient bodybuilding "fast food", that are very high quality protein. Whey has exceptional amino acids profile. Micellar casein is a exceptional functional protein. It forms a curd in the stomach to "sustain release" protein into the bloodstream for up to 7 hours. Excellent for pre-bed time and when one cannot take another meal within the next 4-5 hours. Q) Should I mix my Whey in hot water or cold water? A) If you mixed your Whey in hot water, you will reduce its biological value by denaturing it. Just used room temperature water to mix it and add ice if you like it cold. Q) Does bodybuilding accelerate hair loss? A) To a certain extent yes. Proper weight training will accelerate testosterone level. With that more testosterone will be converted to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT will cause the hair follicles to shrink and become smaller. The hair shaft will thus become thinner and thinner. Q) How should I eat and train to loss body fat? A) You will need to eat 6 small meals daily to loss body fat. Eating 6 times daily will increase your metabolic rate by inducing more thermogenesis. Aside from that increase your fibre intake (fruits and vegetables), reduce your fat intake to less than 50g daily. Continue to weight train 3-5 times a week to retain your lean body mass and speed up your metabolic rate.. Add multi vitamins and omega 3 supplements to guard against deficiencies. Q) What are Pro hormones? Are they safe? How effective are they? A) Pro hormones are steroids that are usually 1-2 chemical steps away from being converted to their most potent form. Oral pro hormones are not likely to be the most effective because a large percentage, as much as 80% are destroyed by the liver before absorption. In the process, liver cells are damaged. I do not encourage the usage of pro hormones because of this reason. They are not likely to be very effective because they will only elevated testosterone (or a related) level for short intervals. Q) What do you think of Atkin's diet on losing weight? A) Any diet that is restrictive on calories will be effective for losing weight. But cutting out almost all the carbohydrates will be very detrimental to the muscle building process and good health. In modern bodybuilding, "zero" carbo diet is out, low calories diet with protein intake of up to 2.5g protein per kg body weight per day are almost always used, they are way more effective to get "ripped" while retaining muscles. Q) Will I loss significant muscles to get ripped? A) Unfortunately that's the case for natural bodybuilders. When you body lose body fat, together with it will be the losing of muscle mass. It is quite common to lose about 5kg in the process of getting ripped. This is why most bodybuilder try to gain about 5-10kg over the "contest" weight before they start their cutting up process. Q) What are your favourite sources of carbohydrates asides from those supplement you promote? A) Bananas, oats, weetbix, whole grain bread, pasta, fruit juices. Q) How nasty is carbohydrates? Why are fitness people avoiding carbo like plague? A) Carbohydrate is the #1 energy source to get you through your workouts. Your body is only capable of using fat as fuel during very low intensity exercise. Most active people probably need 300-400g of carbo daily to give them enough energy to get through their workouts and daily activities. It must be due to those high protein diet fad that misguided people to think that carbo is a sin. The truth is fat is worse than carbo as it requires no conversion to be stored in the body as fat. Low carb diet also have an effect on the brain to make the person feel more agitated. To sum up, carbo is not bad, inactivity is bad. Without enough carbo, a person cannot even get through their workouts properly. Q) I am looking for quality protein food, what do you think are the best? A) My personal favourites canned tuna packed in water (I wash with water to reduce the sodium), whole eggs (I sometimes take them raw), yogurt (blueberries one is my favourite), minced beef, chicken and other lean cuts aside from my favourite protein powders. Q) What do you think of herbal supplements? Can bodybuilders benefit from them? A) In Western science, the best herbal products are standardised. Scientists try to find certain markers in a herb to ensure the herb is potent enough. For example Milk Thistle, is standardised to 80% Silymarin. From there studies are conducted to determine the effective dosage. It is useful for bodybuilders to for example take a cycle of herbal for about 4 weeks to tonify their livers using standardised Milk Thistle as some of them are on prolonged very high protein diet (some on steroids for long period can be worse) that can be tough for their livers. Some people may find a cycle of St John Wort help them to get through more stressful period. Q) What is your favourite brand now?? A) This will be revealed in a few months. Q) Are gainers bad? Many people said they are. A) Gainers is really NOT a word that I will recommend supplements manufacturers to put on their product labels. There are too much bad impressions that all gainers are bad. Those manufacturers that started making gainers with lots of carbo (anything more than 2g carbo to 1g protein ratio to me is kind of high). Some put a shovel in the bucket of high carb gainer to gauge serving size. All these nonsense will need to be dumped in order to resurrect the name of gainers. This is because most consumers are not very active besides doing their routine workouts. Excessive carbo has the tendency to be stored as bodyfat. But people do need carbo to blast through their workouts. If you don't believe me, try taking 2 scoops of Gainer Matrix 1/2 hour before training when you have not been eating properly the whole day before training. You will find that the carbo in Gainer Matrix give you so much more energy to blast through your workout. On another bad eating day, try taking Whey powder, the protein in it is fine but they are a poor fuel. Try that, and tell me about your energy level later. Q) What's you advice on a healthy bodybuilding diet? A) I recommend a balanced diet aside from smart supplementation. One should include at least 2 serves of brightly coloured fruits, 2 serves of dark green vegetables (Broccoli is excellent). On top of that aim for 1.6 to 1.8g of protein per kg body weight daily. As for carbo depending on your exercise intensity and duration go for 300-400g daily. Avoid excessive fat and add a pharmaceutical grade fish oil to your diet. Q) I want to lose body fat, what do you recommend? A) You will need to reduce your food and fat intake gradually. Include plenty of high fibre food in your diet. Food like fruits (fresh and dried), fibrous vege, whole grain and low fat protein should form the bulk of your diet. Do intense 1-1.5 hours weight training session to build up and maintain lean body mass to increase your metabolic rate. Try to increase to 4 sessions a week. As long as glycogen store in muscles is not full tank, the fat synthesis in the body cannot begin! Remember the training sessions need to be intense enough meaning with short rest between sets. Remember that the drop in calories and fat in your diet need to be gradual, or you will feel uncomfortable. Also take 1.6 to 1.8g of protein per kg body weight daily (up to 2.5g per kg body weight daily on certain days) to maintain positive nitrogen balance. Q) Why do we need to supplement Omega 3? Is it possible to obtain enough omega 3 from our diet for optimal health? A) Omega 3 are "phrased" out of our food supply because they are very unstable when processed as oil. They turned rancid easily when exposed to oxygen and heat. Unfortunately, human has evolved from a diet high in Omega 3. The most important Omega 3, DHA played an important role in the brain development, its sub clinical deficiency is linked to depression, it also help to reduce blood ressure/improve blood circulation and reduce inflammation. The only way to obtain enough quality Omega 3 in our diet is to include a pharmaceutical fish oil in our diet. They are the purest supplying the most potent forms of Omega 3 that are beneficial for optimum functioning of our body. Q) Is multi vitamins heaty? Why is my urine bright yellow after taking multi vitamins? What multi vitamin formula do you recommend? A) All high potency multivitamin formula always contains high amount of Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), which is luminous yellow in colour. Vitamin B2 is water soluble and excess is passed out in the urine 2-3 hours after ingestion giving urine a luminous yellow colour. I do not think having yellow urine mean you are"heaty". When it come to multivitamin, I recommend those with a balanced amount of vitamin and minerals. A formula that is high in Beta Carotene, Vitamin C, E, Folic acid and Zinc are best for bodybuilders and general health. Try to avoid those high in chelated minerals as I have personally find those to be very "heaty". Q) What does Caffeine pills do? Can I just drink coffee? A) Caffeine reduce water retention, increase metabolic rate and mental alertness.They are such effective performance enhancers that Olympic games keep its usage under strict guidelines. Many bodybuilders used Caffeine pills right before training if they feel mentally tired. Caffeine pills have helped many bodybuilders get a better workout when they need the extra pep. One caffeine pill contains roughly twice the amount of Caffeine in a cup of strong Coffee. They are a much more economical and convenient way to get a dose of Caffeine Coffee Caffeine pills can also be used to increase the fat burning process in the body by taking it twice a day, two day on-one day off. Personally I think if Caffeine is used smartly, it is an affordable natural but very potent fat burner and mental booster. Q) Is instant noodle a bad bodybuilding food? A) Instant noodle can be a decent and convenient carbo source. The only problem is that it is very high in Sodium. Sodium cause water retention and hair loss (in my opinion). Just avoid drinking the soup and you will avoid up to 80-90% of the Sodium. If you take dry instant noodle, just add 1/4 pack of the seasoning powder to the noodle to cut out 75% of the sodium. Q) What are Trans fat? Should I avoid them in my diet? A) Trans fat is a very unnatural fat made by bubbling hydrogen into polyunsaturated fat.The result is a fat that is more solid at room temperature for making certain food products. Trans fat has a particularly undesirable effect on blood cholesterol, raising the LDL (the bad) and lowering HDL (the good). Trans fat also competes for absorption with Essential Fatty Acids to reduce their absorption further. It make sense to avoid Trans fat in our diet whenever possible. Q) How can I get my diet analysed? A) One way is to duplicate an exact portion of everything you eat and send it to a lab for analysis. Another easier way is to do a 24hr recall for 3 days. The foods and portion obtained from the recall administered by a Nutritionist/Dietitian are keyed into a dietary program to determine the nutrients intake for the day. We do offer this service here for $60 per consultation. Q) How do I cook Chicken Breast to make it more tasty, I take them twice a day? I got sick of eating Chicken Breast twice a day. A) There are many other good source of protein besides chicken breast. Try canned tuna, milk and eggs, lean red meat, tofu/soy milk (less often) and of course protein powder. It is a good idea to rotate your protein sources. As for chicken breast, you can add a variety of natural seasoning to make them taste more delicious like lemon juice, curry powder etc. Be careful with the sauce though, they are usually high in sodium and fat. Q) What type of bread is the healthiest? A) I recommend whole meal bread that contains whole grain, and has a lower sodium level. White bread is not something I will recommend. They are so refined that nutrients like iron and certain B vitamins have to be added back (food industry use the term "enrich") to make them nutritionally acceptable. I personally like and use a type of Gardenia whole bread. This is so far the healthiest commercial version I can find in the Singapore market. Another type I sometime eat is sweet bread because they have no added salt. Q) I eat out a lot, is it really possible to eat healthily at hawker centre? A) That will be a challenge but possible within certain limits. It is possible to eat relatively low fat but to eat low sodium will be very difficult. Hawkers tend to add lots of salt and MSG to make their food appealing to the taste buds. For low fat, try the soup dishes and ask the hawkers not to put additional oil. Food like fish soup with plain rice, noodle soup without additional oil are example. When eating dishes like chicken rice, take out the skin and ask for no additional oil to be added. Avoid all the fried stuff. Q) What do you think of Creatine Malate? A) Joining Creatine to a Malic Acid will not do anything to improve Creatine absorption or its benefits in the muscles in whatever way. Stay away from this stuff, it costs many times more than Creatine Monohydrate and do not work many times better. In fact, there is no research I know of to have even tested Creatine Malate on improving human performance. Stick to a quality Creatine Monohydrate with the Creapure logo! A Q) Should I avoid soy protein since they contain plant estrogen? A) Estrogen have the effect of increasing water retention, increase body fat accumulation and thus it is not like by bodybuilders. Soy is a common ingredient in Asian food culture. It will be hard to avoid soy totally, or we may like certain food that contains soy protein. My advice is just don't use soy as a major protein source. I personally do not like soy protein in my supplements. Q) What do you think of low fat peanut butter? Are they healthier? A) They will not taste as smooth as the regular version due to the lower fat content. If there is still significant fat content, I will watch out for the trans fat. Just don't take peanut butter too often, the trans fat in them is not healthy (much worse than saturated fat). They are structurally unnatural fat that will give problems to your body. |
Above (Product X): Whey not
instanised properly. Float on top
after being added.
instanised properly. Float on top
after being added.
Above (Product X): After stirring
for 30 seconds vigorously in
125mL of room temperature
water. Lots of undissolved
clumps and globs....
for 30 seconds vigorously in
125mL of room temperature
water. Lots of undissolved
clumps and globs....
Compare this with
Below: ISS
Research....
Complete Whey
Below: ISS
Research....
Complete Whey
Above (ISS Research Complete
Whey): After stirring for just 5-10
seconds vigorously in 125mL of
room temperature water. No
clumps, no globs, completely
dissolved! Super smooth! Full
details below.
Whey): After stirring for just 5-10
seconds vigorously in 125mL of
room temperature water. No
clumps, no globs, completely
dissolved! Super smooth! Full
details below.
No Trans Fat!
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