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"Total Body Transformation: Part 2 - Nutrition"

By James Cipriani

In part 1 we touched on how to train to stimulate the most lean muscle tissue, boost your metabolism, and get a jumpstart on your total body transformation. If you just follow the workout guidelines, you will have a good solid start to a leaner, more muscular, and stronger physique. But your game plan is incomplete.

You need to know how to eat for a total body transformation. If your nutrition isn't in order, you will hardly maximize your results. When it comes to your transformation success, the way you eat is just as important as the way you train. And when I refer to nutrition, I don't just mean taking the latest hyped up supplement. Just like training, you must feed your body intelligently and consistently.

Eating To Maximize Your Total Body Transformation?

To understand how to eat, you need to understand the five major nutritional elements that are significant in building muscle and minimizing fat: calories, protein, carbohydrates, fats, and water. How you structure the intake of these five elements will dictate the success you have in your body transfromation efforts. Let's take a closer look at each one.

Calories:
To put this simply, calories are your fuel. They are derived from three sources - - protein (4 calories per gram), carbohydrates (4 calories per gram), and fats (9 calories per gram). These are also known as your macronutrients. Everyone has their own metabolic individuality which allows them to burn a specific amount of calories in a day just to survive. This is your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR. Activity level, amount of lean muscle stimulated, nutrient partitioning agents of food, and thermal effects of supplements are just some of the variables that will affect the amount of calories you can burn.

Protein:
Next to water, protein is the single most abundant nutrient in you body. Delivering a constant supply of protein throughout the day is essential for lean body mass and your total body transformation. Unlike carbohydrates and fats, your body does not have a protein reserve that it can draw from whenever needed. Some of you may not realize how other macronutrients differ. Let me explain. We store fat in the form of adipose tissue and carbohydrates in the form of muscle glycogen...we do not store protein. If a steady supply of protein is not consumed daily, the body will steal it whenever needed. Guess where this needed protein gets stripped from? Lean Body Mass... A.k.a. muscle breakdown! Hardly what we are after.

Protein is not just needed for muscle growth and repair but also for blood, hormones, enzyme production, and immune system function. A steady intake of protein is essential for virtually all growth in your body just to survive. We are continually regenerating cells in bones, muscle, and skin, etc. In fact, about every 4 months our bodies consist of newly regenerated cells.

Multiply that by the fact that our total body transformation training increases the demand for protein and you can see why this macronutrient is so important to your success. To maximize your results, you need protein available at ALL times. This will mean feeding yourself every three hours with some sort of whole food (chicken breast, round steak, fish, eggs, egg whites, nonfat and low-fat milk products) and/or supplement (whey protein isolate, meal replacement shakes).

Carbohydrates: Here is THEE most misused macronutrient in the bunch (it is the most abused as well as the most neglected, depending on your which diet guru you follow). Carbohydrates are sugar. That?s it. I know you may be saying, "Come on Jim, now your nuts (or raisins to stay with the carbohydrate theme)!" But if you know your digestion, then you know that the end product of all carbohydrates is glucose? What is glucose? You guessed it - a sugar. The main uses for carbohydrates are muscle fuel and brain function.

Most people tend to think of carbohydrates in terms of simple and complex. To get the most out of your bodybuilding nutrition, I urge you to start thinking in terms of Glycemic Index. G.I. is a reference number assigned to foods in accordance to the speed of their digestion and absorption. The higher the G.I. number, the faster the absorption process will be. With the exception of the immediate couple of hours post workout, you should make all of your other carbohydrate choices relatively low in G.I. (60 or less) if you are really going to succeed at a total body transformation. Carbohydrates with a G.I. of 80 or more are actually preferable in that anabolic window after your workouts. We explore that more deeply in Part 3.

Fats:
Fats are vital in many of your body's functions. The problem is they add up so fast calorically (9 calories per gram) that you must moderate your intake to avoid getting a little on the chunky side. Also, not all fats are created equally. You should stay away (or at least seriously limit) saturated fats and trans fatty acids. But, you DO want to include a daily intake of linoleic and linolenic acids. Make sure you are getting enough of the "good" fats by eating fish (salmon), using certain oils (flaxseed, safflower), and/or supplementing with CLA/Fish Oils.

Water:
We are all one third water! Your muscles are about 70% water! Do I need to say more? Water is vital in regulating body temperature, utilizing water soluble vitamins, flushing toxins, digestion, nutrient transport, and nutrient absorption...to just name a few. The best part - water is non-caloric. So drink it and drink a lot of it.

The Jim Cipriani Approach To Macronutrient Intake

Now that you have a basic understanding of your essential nutrients, let's calculate how much of each you will need to maximize your results. The basis of the following has a lot of science and research behind it, but mostly it comes from the trial, error, and success of not only myself but the hundreds of one-on-one and online personal training clients that I have helped transform.

How Many Calories?
Like I said before, everybody has their own BMR and activity level. But, for a total body transformation, a good place to start would be taking your bodyweight and multiplying it by 12. This will work for about 80% of you. Some of you will need to add or subtract in accordance to your body's response. After 3-4 weeks, you will have your caloric range dialed in.

How Much Protein?

Back in 1974 Dr. Gontzea at the Institute of Medicine in Bucharest demonstrated that 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (twice the Recommended Daily Allowance-RDA) was INSUFFICIENT to prevent muscle loss (negative nitrogen balance) in athletes. This was confirmed by a series of studies published in the mid 1980s by Peter Lemon and colleagues at Kent State University. They showed most athletes require at least 2 times the RDA for protein to remain in positive nitrogen balance and prevent muscle loss. And that was to just prevent muscle loss.

To promote lean body mass and strength performance they showed it would take even more than that. In recent years studies with both strength and endurance athletes have clearly shown that exercise increases the need for protein and specific amino acids. Studies have also shown that the anabolic effects of intense training are increased by a high protein diet.

How much more protein? Start with 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. Now, again, everyone has their own metabolic individuality. Some will need more to maintain lean body mass. Very few of you will need less, though. Alternatively, instead of fixating a number to your bodyweight for protein, a better measure would be to take up to 50% of your total caloric intake in protein. This will be more moldable to individual purposes, yet still fit into our scientifically proven parameters.

How Much In The Form Of Carbohydrates?

As far as carbs are concerned, we want to provide enough to fuel daily activity, our workouts, and other body functions without excess to be converted to bodyfat. My simple recommendation is carbohydrates should make up about 35-40% of your total caloric intake.

And Fats?

When following a diet high in lean proteins and moderate in carbohydrates, your fat will naturally get taken care of. So, there is really no need for calculation. You still want to make sure you are taking in a steady supply of the "good" fats daily. I strongly recommend that you have a tablespoon of flaxseed and/or olive oil a day along with 4 capsules of Omega Fish Oils. If you weigh over 170lbs., take 6 capsules of Fish Oils a day. This will meet all of your essential fatty acid needs.

Note: When making food choices, it would be a good idea to get your hands on The Nutrition Almanac or some other similar book. It is essential to learn the macronutrient breakdown of different foods in order for you to make the most of your nutritional plan. And lastly - read labels!

How Much Water? I have already emphasized the importance of water. Drink at least one gallon of water a day. One ounce per pound of bodyweight would be even better.

Example Let's look at some numbers in a calculation recap for a 200lb. bodybuilder with a moderate to high BMR.

Calories: 200lb. x 12 = 2400 calories a day.
Protein: 2400 calories x .50 = 1200 calories of protein per day/4 calories per gram = 300 grams of Protein per day.
Carbohydrates: 2400 calories x .35 = 840 calories of carbohydrates per day/4 calories per gram = 210 grams of carbohydrates per day.
Fat: 2400 calories x .15 = 360 calories of fat per day/9 calories per gram = @ 40 grams of fat per day.
Fats Included: 1 tbsp. each of flaxseed oil and/or olive oil, 4-6 caps of Fish Oils/day.

You can calculate your own baseline diet by substituting your bodyweight for the 200lbs. in the above example. Once you have attained your starting caloric range, divide it into 6-8 meals and spread them out across the day. Just make sure you are eating every 2 - 3 hours.

Sample Eating Plan

For example sake, I am including what my structured diet plan that fits into my metabolic individuality. Whether I am in a muscle building or fat shedding mode of by personal total body transformation program, my macronutrient ratios stay the same. The only thing I change is my calories.

Times and Meals

6 A.M.: 1 cup of fat free cottage cheese, 1 serving of oatmeal, and 1 cup of blueberries
9 A.M.: 2 scoops of protein powder mixed in water, 1 banana
12 noon: 6-8 oz. of chicken breast, 1 sweet potato, 2 cups asparagus
3 P.M.(pre-workout): 1 scoops of whey protein isolate with 2 scoops of carbohydrate powder (mixture of simple carbs and maltodextrin)
6 P.M. (post-workout): 2 scoops of whey protein isolate and 1 scoop of glucose based creatine powder, 1-2 bananas
8 P.M.: 4-8 oz. of eye round steak, 1 cup of steamed carrots, 1 cup of broccoli
Between 10 and 11 P.M.: 1-2 scoops of protein powder mixed in water, 1 cup of blackberries

Now you have a starting plan to provide you with a steady supply of body transforming protein and fat-shedding insulin level maintenance. Remember, if you don't train right, you won't stimulate your lean muscle tissue and if you don't eat right, you won't stimulate your metabolism. You need both to train, recover, and transform. In part 3, we will get into supplements and a discussion about our post workout anabolic window.

About the Author:

James Cipriani is a certified personal trainer located in Danbury, CT. He is a featured writer for many fitness websites and magazines. His website is http://www.jimcipriani.com. Log on now! Filled with articles, e-books, it is your guide towards health and fitness RESULTS! While you are there, subscribe to one of the internet's Most Popular Bodybuilding and Fitness Newsletters - Jim Cipriani's Cutting Edge Fitness Chronicle. It's FREE. Each monthly issue is crammed with training tips, nutrition articles, supplement reports, exclusive discounts, and much more.