VIDEO: Protein Supplements are a WASTE of Money!

Women's Health: Keys to a Sexy Booty, Thighs, and Hips - Part III

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Nutrition is essential to accomplishing any fitness goal that you set for yourself. You can workout as much as you want, but if you don't give your body the proper fuel, you will have very little success. In this part of my Keys to a Sexy Booty, Hips, and Thighs series, I am going to give you some tips on what you need to put into your body to tone your ass up... pun intended.

First and foremost, you are going to have to burn more calories than you take in. It is physically impossible to lose weight if you don't do this. I recommend downloading the My Fitness Pal app on your tablet or smart phone to help you track your calorie intake and to get some great fitness tips as well. Now, if you're already skinny and are looking to just put on muscle to achieve a more shapely figure, you're going to want to take in more calories than you burn. In doing this, you will gain weight. As long as you follow a good workout routine, you will gain mass in all the right places as you burn fat and increase muscle. I can give you a perfect one for just $5/week...email me directly at strengthbymatt@gmail.com if you're interested. The next part of this series will cover workout principles to guide you as you work to achieve a better looking booty, thighs, and hips.

Second tip has to do with carb intake. YOU NEED TO EAT CARBS! Carbohydrates are your body's primary source of energy. If you don't eat carbs, you're muscles will not have the proper fuel to work which means the quality of your workouts will suffe, which means you wont burn as many calories. Carbs are not fattening. What you cook carbs in and what you put on carbs is what make them fattening. Use olive oil instead of butter on your bread and use tomato sauce instead of alfredo sauce on your spaghetti. Also, make sure your getting high quality carbs from sources like whole wheat bread as opposed to white bread or brown rice as opposed to white rice. And the best source of carbs if you're trying to lose weight: vegetables! Stay away from excessive amounts of fruit though if you want to cut down on fats. Fruits are high in sugar so despite they're high vitamin concentrations, your body will turn that sugar into fat just as easy as it would the powdered sugar on top of a funnel cake.

Eat lean meats for protein sources. Fish is a great source of a low fat protein. So is chicken in most cases. When buying steak make sure to get lean cuts. And try out turkey burgers as opposed to hamburgers. Other great sources of protein include yogurt, milk, egg whites, beans, nuts, and peanut butter sandwiches. You're going to want to eat 0.7g of protein per pound of bodyweight. So for a 120lb woman, this is 84g of protein daily. Watch my YouTube video for even more information on protein!

Meal timing is also going to be crucial for toning up your ass, hips and thighs. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. I'll write a whole post on this topic in the near future, but let me repeat that thought... breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Do not skip this meal! Oatmeal with fruit mixed in, yogurt with granola, whole wheat cereal (especially FiberOne or Frosted Mini-Wheats), or a whole grain bagel with peanut butter are great, healthy, satiating choices. For lunch break it into two meals, preferably at 10am (more accurately referred to as a mid-morning snack) and 2pm. To give you an idea of the size of these lunches, a peanut butter sandwich and a banana counts as as a meal. Dinner, then should be eaten around 6 or 7pm with a small snack in between to prevent you from over indulging in this late evening meal when you don't have much time fterwards to burn off any of the calories that you take in. For those visual folks out there, your meal schedule should look like this:

6am: Breakfast
10am: First Lunch/mid-morning snack
2pm: Second Lunch
4pm: Healthy Snack
6pm: Dinner
*Note: If you're hungry before bed, grab yourself a bowl of whole wheat cereal or some yogurt. You'll sleep better!

Amino Acids... Explained!!

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A pretty hot topic in the fitness world right now is the importance of amino acids in building muscle. We covered this topic pretty extensively in my Nutrition class and I've done a lot of independent research on it, so I'm going to break it down for you in an easy to follow manner. This should save you the trouble of going all over the internet looking for answers...

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and protein is the main component of muscle (next to water, of course). There are 21 amino acids and they are broken down into 2 groups: essential and non-essential. In all, there are 9 essential amino acids and 12 non-essential amino acids. Essential amino acids are named as such because your body cannot create these amino acids on its own which means it is essential for them to be included in your diet. Without both essential and non-essential amino acids, your body will not be able to synthesize protein, which means less gains from the weight room... which means severe depression and an overwhelming sense of failure. Just kidding... but seriously.

So where can you get your hands on these amino acids? The best source is through animal protein because animal protein contains all 9 essential amino acids. That is why we call animal protein "complete" protein sources. Examples are beef, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. If you want to get big... eat animals.

Plant protein is called "incomplete" protein because, you guessed it, it does not contain all 9 essential amino acids. People on a plant based diet (vegetarians and vegans) must be sure to mix and match their sources of protein to ensure they are getting all their amino acids. This means eating different kinds of beans, nuts, and grains, and varied colors of vegetables. Scientists and nutritionists are not sure which plants contain which types of amino acids, but it has been proven that if you just eat a variety of plant based protein sources you will get all 9 essential amino acids from your diet. Which means that even on a vegetarian diet, you can still see big gains.

I do NOT recommend it, but a third source of amino acids is through BCAA supplements. These are expensive! but have been proven to work (I just read a double blind, placebo controlled government study that showed positive results from BCAA supplements). However, long term ingestion of BCAA supplements could result in dependency... which means your body could slowly lose the ability to process amino acids from natural sources (plants and animals). And, as with ALL supplements nowadays, YOU HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING ALL OF THE INGREDIENTS THAT THE MANUFACTURER PUT IN THE PRODUCT. For more info on the dangers of supplements, read my post on pre-workout supplements. Again, BCAA supplements work, but are NOT necessary if you follow a proper diet.

Protein powders also claim to have amino acids in them. This is probably true, especially for Whey protein powders since Whey is made from milk, but again, not necessary if you follow a proper diet. If for some dumb ass reason your main source of protein is protein powder, I do recommend buying a powder that contains essential amino acids, or BCAAs. Before you buy your next jug of powder though, watch my YouTube video on Protein Powders (and subscribe to my channel!) to find out why this is a bonehead decision.

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Protein Supplements: a Complete WASTE of Money

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Before I dive into why protein supplements are a waste of money, I’m going to explain a couple of things first. Your body draws energy from 3 sources:

1.       Primary source is carbs (stored in your body as glycogen)

2.       Next is Fat (stored in your body as glycerol)

3.       Last is Protein (you only use protein for energy in extreme situations such as running marathons)

During weight lifting your body rapidly burns through its glycogen stores.

Also during weight lifting, you create tiny tears or abrasions in your muscles that require protein to repair. During this process, you build muscle.

So, after a good weight lifting session you need 2 thing:

1.       Carbs to restore your depleted glycogen stores and

2.       Protein to repair and build your muscles.

After a workout, your glycogen and protein synthesis levels are spiked. Therefore, you must take in protein following your exercise session.

How much protein do you need though to satisfy this peaked level of protein synthesis? Ask most muscle heads at the gym and they will tell you to take in as much as possible as soon as possible. I’ve heard guys swearing that if you don’t take in half your body weight in grams of protein within 10 minutes of working out, you might as well have not lifted at all.

This is totally false!!! Studies have shown that the human body only needs 10-20g of protein to satisfy its peaked protein synthesis levels after a lift. That’s all… 10-20g within 45 minutes of finishing your workout.

What’s the best/cheapest way to get this protein in your system? A simple glass of chocolate milk. That’s all. Protein supplements are completely unnecessary and a huge waste of money. Other good sources are yogurt with some granola mixed in, a peanut butter and banana sandwich, or a bowl of oatmeal.

Alright so there you have it… Don’t fall for the advertisements and the advice of the huge guys at the gym…they’re huge not because they waste money on protein supplements, they’re huge from genetics and hard work along with the large amount of carbs and calories they’re most likely eating throughout the day. Listen to the science and save a shit ton of money. 10-20g of protein is all you need.

 I’ll talk about restoring your glycogen stores (which might be even more important than taking in protein after a workout!) in a future post.

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