edouble
31st March 2005, 01:00 AM
Leaning Out For The Mixed Martial Artist (Part 1)
by Jason Manwell
For full article please, click here. (http://www.ironlife.com/mag/issue10/learning.shtml)
Wether you’re a professional fighter or simply someone who trains three or four days a week at your local BJJ or Judo club, I’m sure there comes certain times when you want to hack some fat off your body to make weight for a fight, become healthier, or simply become lighter so you can move faster and be more agile. Well whatever the case may be, I’m sure this article will help you achieve it.
Now a lot of people who read this will probably say “This is nothing new, I already knew all this, it’s just basic common knowledge”. To them I say you are absolutely right! It is basic, because it is the basics that work! What the great secret is in fat loss, muscle gain, strength gain, whatever, it is that you must learn the basics and practice them consistently, simple as that.
When it comes to dropping weight, (and by weight I mean dropping body fat, because it does no good to lose muscle mass for the sake of becoming lighter) there are two components you have to work with, training and nutrition. Because I want to give equal attention on each, I will make this article into two sections. The first installment will be the nutrition section, and the second will be covering the training aspect. I hope you really enjoy it and learn a thing or two. Here we go...
http://www.ironlife.com/mag/issue2/images/n.jpg
Section 1: Proper Nutrition
When it comes to eating right to lose body fat there are no secrets. All you have to do is eat clean healthy foods at regular intervals through the day, and you have to burn more calories than you consume. Now generally I am not a big fan or calorie or gram counting, but when it comes to getting serious to peak for a fight or make a weigh in, then I think you definitely have to take some extra measures. You don’t have to go crazy about calorie counting or immaculate meal timing, but you have to be pretty precise with it. What I am going to do is give you a simple formula for figuring out how many calories, grams of protein, fat and carbs you need to et to lose fat, and then I am going to give a recommended food list and a sample diet that I would use to lose weight. Now like I said before, don’t shoot me because you have been around nutrition and training concepts for a few years and this stuff seems elementary to you, because to a lot of people who have been brainwashed by fad diets and infomercials, this will be a breath of fresh air.
For figuring out your caloric needs and how many grams of the three macronutrients you need each day, one of (if not the) best methods is the Katch-McArdle formula. All you have to do is know what your lean bodyweight is in lbs (Lean bodyweight = your fat free mass, IE. If you’re 200 lbs and 15% body fat then your lean bodyweight is 170 lbs, etc.) And plug your number into the formula.
I will give a specific example to make it easier. I’ll use the 200 pounder @ 15% BF who wants to get to 10% body fat and 190 lbs.
So it would go like this...
Our male weighs 200 lbs @ 15% BF (170 lbs lean body mass)
Take 170 lbs and turn it into Kilograms (170 divided by 2.2 = 77kg’s)
370 + (21.6 x 77 kg’s) = 2033
So our 2033 is this guy’s basal metabolic rate. Basal metabolic rate by the way is how many calories your body needs each day to perform tasks such as breathing, digesting food, creating new body tissues, etc...What we have to do next is determine the total daily energy expenditure, then we can figure out how many calories to drop each day to lose body fat.
So all we do to figure out the TDEE is take the basal metabolic rate and multiply it by an activity multiplier. Below is the Activity multiplier chart provided by Katch-McArdle...
Sedentary = BMR x 1.2 (Little exercise, desk job, etc.)
Light Active = BMR x 1.375 (workout 3-4 x a week)
Mod. Active = BMR x 1.55 (Moderate exercise & sports 3-5 x a week)
Very Active = BMR x 1.725 (Hard training & sports 6-7 x a week)
Extremely Active = BMR x 1.9 (Manual labor job, hard training & sports 6-7 x a week, etc..)
Let’s say our guy works a regular job, hit’s the weights 2-3 x a week and trains at his local club a few times a week. I would give him an activity multiplier of 1.55. So we take his BMR = 2033 x 1.55 = 3151 calories. This is how many calories he needs to eat to maintain his weight with his current lifestyle. To lose 1 lb a week he needs to drop 500 calories. To lose 2 lbs a week he theoretically needs to drop 1000, but I don’t like that big of drop so what he should do is subtract 500 calories a week (= 1 lb loss) from food, and up his activity level to where he burns an extra 500 calories a day from something as simple as a 1 hour walk, etc.
As you can see, if he followed my recommendations he would lose 2 lbs a week and it would take him 5 weeks to lose 10 lbs and get to 10% body fat. It’s really not that complicated. The next thing he has to focus on is how to break up his calories. I recommend getting 55% calories from carbs, 30% from protein and 15% from fat. So his daily nutrition breakdown would look something like this.
2651 x .55 = 1458 / 4 = 365 grams of carbs
2651 x .30 = 795 / 4 = 199 grams of protein
2651 x .15 = 397 / 9 = 44 grams of fat
* Carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram, fat has 9
http://www.ironlife.com/mag/issue14/images/leaning1.jpg
What he would have to do next is spread out those numbers into 5-6 meals a day, with a meal coming approx every 2-3 hours. As for what foods to eat, the following list is by no means complete, but should give you a good idea as to what foods you should be filling your plate with.
Lean Protein: Egg whites, fish (water packed tuna, halibut, salmon, pickerel, etc.), lean steak such as sirloin, round steak, flank, etc. White meat turkey, white meat chicken, skim milk, low-fat cheese, low-fat yogurt, whey protein powder, lean pork, etc.
Complex carbs: yams, oatmeal, whole grain breads and pastas, brown rice, barley, fruits, vegetables, etc.
It is also a wise idea to add some healthy fat to your diet as well. Weather it’s a tablespoon of flax oil in your protein shake, some natural peanut butter on toast or if you take an EFA supplement like fish oil caps, try to get a few servings a day. You should also drink 2-4 liters of water a day to help eliminate toxins, keep your muscles full, keep your energy levels high, etc.
To make it as easy as possible for you to design your own diet what I would like to do is give an example day of our 200 lb guy, this way you will be able to actually see how all this food is broken down. Now I warn you, it will take some planning and preparing to eat like this. You might have to buy some Tupperware containers to carry your food with you so you can get your 5-6 meals in, and you might have to set aside a few hours a week to do some bulk cooking, but there is always sacrifices you have to make when trying to achieve something worthwhile.
So here is our 200 lb example guy who is 15% body fat looking to get to 10% in 5 weeks while maintaining his muscle, strength and energy. Again, this is just an example; you have to tailor your diet to YOU. Don’t eat foods you don’t like, figure out how much protein, carbs, fat you need, your time issues and schedule, etc.
Example Daily Diet
Meal #1 @ 6am “Breakfast”
-4 egg white omelette with green peppers, mushrooms, assorted veggies and lean ham thrown in
-2 slices of grain toast with 2 tbs becel margarine
-Piece of fresh fruit
-2 cups of skim milk
-Multi-Vitamin / Mineral tablet
Meal #2 @ 9am “Morning meal”
-Meal replacement drink such as Myoplex or Mesotech in 2 cups of skim milk with 1 tbs of flax oil thrown in
-1 Banana
Meal #3 @ 11am “Lunch”
-Grilled chicken breast
-1 cup of steam brown rice
-Mixed side salad with light dressing
-Bottle of water
Meal #4 @ 2pm “Afternoon Meal”
-Lean grilled steak such as flank
-Baked potato with sea salt
-Green beans
-Glass of sugar-free Kool-Aid
Meal #5 @ 5pm “Dinner”
-Turkey sandwich on grain bread with light mayo and veggies
- Piece of fruit
-Bottle of water
Meal #6 @ 8pm “Night Meal”
-Meal Replacement
*Depending on the size of the portions the above menu should range around 200 grams of protein, 50 grams of fat and 360 grams of carbs, which is what our hypothetical guy needs
Now like I said earlier, with this much focus on food it becomes imperative that you plan your meals and will probably have to bring a cooler with you. It shouldn’t be a problem for you guys though, I’m not talking to lowlifes who have no dedication to training or improving themselves, I’m talking to guys who train to fight and have a lot of discipline and desire. I hope I have provided a bit of good information that you can use right away and that you have learned something, and even for the guy’s who “already know this stuff”, sometimes we need to be reminded because of all the info we read we often get paralyse from analysis and need to be brought back to the basics.
In the next section I will cover the training styles and techniques we will use to lose fat and get in top shape.
by Jason Manwell
For full article please, click here. (http://www.ironlife.com/mag/issue10/learning.shtml)
Wether you’re a professional fighter or simply someone who trains three or four days a week at your local BJJ or Judo club, I’m sure there comes certain times when you want to hack some fat off your body to make weight for a fight, become healthier, or simply become lighter so you can move faster and be more agile. Well whatever the case may be, I’m sure this article will help you achieve it.
Now a lot of people who read this will probably say “This is nothing new, I already knew all this, it’s just basic common knowledge”. To them I say you are absolutely right! It is basic, because it is the basics that work! What the great secret is in fat loss, muscle gain, strength gain, whatever, it is that you must learn the basics and practice them consistently, simple as that.
When it comes to dropping weight, (and by weight I mean dropping body fat, because it does no good to lose muscle mass for the sake of becoming lighter) there are two components you have to work with, training and nutrition. Because I want to give equal attention on each, I will make this article into two sections. The first installment will be the nutrition section, and the second will be covering the training aspect. I hope you really enjoy it and learn a thing or two. Here we go...
http://www.ironlife.com/mag/issue2/images/n.jpg
Section 1: Proper Nutrition
When it comes to eating right to lose body fat there are no secrets. All you have to do is eat clean healthy foods at regular intervals through the day, and you have to burn more calories than you consume. Now generally I am not a big fan or calorie or gram counting, but when it comes to getting serious to peak for a fight or make a weigh in, then I think you definitely have to take some extra measures. You don’t have to go crazy about calorie counting or immaculate meal timing, but you have to be pretty precise with it. What I am going to do is give you a simple formula for figuring out how many calories, grams of protein, fat and carbs you need to et to lose fat, and then I am going to give a recommended food list and a sample diet that I would use to lose weight. Now like I said before, don’t shoot me because you have been around nutrition and training concepts for a few years and this stuff seems elementary to you, because to a lot of people who have been brainwashed by fad diets and infomercials, this will be a breath of fresh air.
For figuring out your caloric needs and how many grams of the three macronutrients you need each day, one of (if not the) best methods is the Katch-McArdle formula. All you have to do is know what your lean bodyweight is in lbs (Lean bodyweight = your fat free mass, IE. If you’re 200 lbs and 15% body fat then your lean bodyweight is 170 lbs, etc.) And plug your number into the formula.
I will give a specific example to make it easier. I’ll use the 200 pounder @ 15% BF who wants to get to 10% body fat and 190 lbs.
So it would go like this...
Our male weighs 200 lbs @ 15% BF (170 lbs lean body mass)
Take 170 lbs and turn it into Kilograms (170 divided by 2.2 = 77kg’s)
370 + (21.6 x 77 kg’s) = 2033
So our 2033 is this guy’s basal metabolic rate. Basal metabolic rate by the way is how many calories your body needs each day to perform tasks such as breathing, digesting food, creating new body tissues, etc...What we have to do next is determine the total daily energy expenditure, then we can figure out how many calories to drop each day to lose body fat.
So all we do to figure out the TDEE is take the basal metabolic rate and multiply it by an activity multiplier. Below is the Activity multiplier chart provided by Katch-McArdle...
Sedentary = BMR x 1.2 (Little exercise, desk job, etc.)
Light Active = BMR x 1.375 (workout 3-4 x a week)
Mod. Active = BMR x 1.55 (Moderate exercise & sports 3-5 x a week)
Very Active = BMR x 1.725 (Hard training & sports 6-7 x a week)
Extremely Active = BMR x 1.9 (Manual labor job, hard training & sports 6-7 x a week, etc..)
Let’s say our guy works a regular job, hit’s the weights 2-3 x a week and trains at his local club a few times a week. I would give him an activity multiplier of 1.55. So we take his BMR = 2033 x 1.55 = 3151 calories. This is how many calories he needs to eat to maintain his weight with his current lifestyle. To lose 1 lb a week he needs to drop 500 calories. To lose 2 lbs a week he theoretically needs to drop 1000, but I don’t like that big of drop so what he should do is subtract 500 calories a week (= 1 lb loss) from food, and up his activity level to where he burns an extra 500 calories a day from something as simple as a 1 hour walk, etc.
As you can see, if he followed my recommendations he would lose 2 lbs a week and it would take him 5 weeks to lose 10 lbs and get to 10% body fat. It’s really not that complicated. The next thing he has to focus on is how to break up his calories. I recommend getting 55% calories from carbs, 30% from protein and 15% from fat. So his daily nutrition breakdown would look something like this.
2651 x .55 = 1458 / 4 = 365 grams of carbs
2651 x .30 = 795 / 4 = 199 grams of protein
2651 x .15 = 397 / 9 = 44 grams of fat
* Carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram, fat has 9
http://www.ironlife.com/mag/issue14/images/leaning1.jpg
What he would have to do next is spread out those numbers into 5-6 meals a day, with a meal coming approx every 2-3 hours. As for what foods to eat, the following list is by no means complete, but should give you a good idea as to what foods you should be filling your plate with.
Lean Protein: Egg whites, fish (water packed tuna, halibut, salmon, pickerel, etc.), lean steak such as sirloin, round steak, flank, etc. White meat turkey, white meat chicken, skim milk, low-fat cheese, low-fat yogurt, whey protein powder, lean pork, etc.
Complex carbs: yams, oatmeal, whole grain breads and pastas, brown rice, barley, fruits, vegetables, etc.
It is also a wise idea to add some healthy fat to your diet as well. Weather it’s a tablespoon of flax oil in your protein shake, some natural peanut butter on toast or if you take an EFA supplement like fish oil caps, try to get a few servings a day. You should also drink 2-4 liters of water a day to help eliminate toxins, keep your muscles full, keep your energy levels high, etc.
To make it as easy as possible for you to design your own diet what I would like to do is give an example day of our 200 lb guy, this way you will be able to actually see how all this food is broken down. Now I warn you, it will take some planning and preparing to eat like this. You might have to buy some Tupperware containers to carry your food with you so you can get your 5-6 meals in, and you might have to set aside a few hours a week to do some bulk cooking, but there is always sacrifices you have to make when trying to achieve something worthwhile.
So here is our 200 lb example guy who is 15% body fat looking to get to 10% in 5 weeks while maintaining his muscle, strength and energy. Again, this is just an example; you have to tailor your diet to YOU. Don’t eat foods you don’t like, figure out how much protein, carbs, fat you need, your time issues and schedule, etc.
Example Daily Diet
Meal #1 @ 6am “Breakfast”
-4 egg white omelette with green peppers, mushrooms, assorted veggies and lean ham thrown in
-2 slices of grain toast with 2 tbs becel margarine
-Piece of fresh fruit
-2 cups of skim milk
-Multi-Vitamin / Mineral tablet
Meal #2 @ 9am “Morning meal”
-Meal replacement drink such as Myoplex or Mesotech in 2 cups of skim milk with 1 tbs of flax oil thrown in
-1 Banana
Meal #3 @ 11am “Lunch”
-Grilled chicken breast
-1 cup of steam brown rice
-Mixed side salad with light dressing
-Bottle of water
Meal #4 @ 2pm “Afternoon Meal”
-Lean grilled steak such as flank
-Baked potato with sea salt
-Green beans
-Glass of sugar-free Kool-Aid
Meal #5 @ 5pm “Dinner”
-Turkey sandwich on grain bread with light mayo and veggies
- Piece of fruit
-Bottle of water
Meal #6 @ 8pm “Night Meal”
-Meal Replacement
*Depending on the size of the portions the above menu should range around 200 grams of protein, 50 grams of fat and 360 grams of carbs, which is what our hypothetical guy needs
Now like I said earlier, with this much focus on food it becomes imperative that you plan your meals and will probably have to bring a cooler with you. It shouldn’t be a problem for you guys though, I’m not talking to lowlifes who have no dedication to training or improving themselves, I’m talking to guys who train to fight and have a lot of discipline and desire. I hope I have provided a bit of good information that you can use right away and that you have learned something, and even for the guy’s who “already know this stuff”, sometimes we need to be reminded because of all the info we read we often get paralyse from analysis and need to be brought back to the basics.
In the next section I will cover the training styles and techniques we will use to lose fat and get in top shape.