Confessions Toward Getting Bigger

I've been wanting to write more opinionated, personal articles for quite some time.  Sure I love bringing you guys all sorts of healthy foods to try out, but rambling off nutrition facts gets old after a while.  So I'll bring this post to the other side of the blogging spectrum and give you an inside look on some of the struggles I've had with dieting, weight goals, and how they affect the big picture.  Sit back and grab a bowl of air popped popcorn, this is about to get deep.

So as you may or may not know, I'm a weightlifter.  No, that's not what you think, I don't just go to the gym and lift weights like everyone else, trying to target specific muscles and get the "big guns."  A weightlifter is technically someone who lifts weight in the Olympic style, focusing on two main lifts, the clean and jerk, and the snatch.  I won't go nuts trying to explain those two lifts, look them up on youtube if you're curious.  Let me just tell you that they're far different and far more total body intensive than your traditional bicep curl.  Anyway, being a competitive weightlifter means I'm in the gym 9 times a week, squatting, snatching, cleaning, and jerking as much weight as possible for high volume.  Because this sport is judged solely on how much weight is lifted successfully, I need as much muscle as possible packed into as little space as possible.  I need dense, explosive, muscle tissue that's very flexible and ready to work at a moment's notice.  Sounds easy to get, right? Just load up the steaks on the grill, mix a few protein shakes, and train hard as hell.

But there's a catch.

This sport is also judged in weight classes.  What this means is that everyone who competes falls into a class depending on their body weight, which more accurately pits athletes against each other and can really determine who is stronger, has better technique, or in general a better combination of both.  It wouldn't really be fair to pit the scrawny, short, 63 kg dude against Mr. big and brutish weighing in at 150 kg, would it?  This means weightlifters, while being able to eat a LOT depending on their training, need to watch their diet and make sure it's the most effective combination of foods that will give them both enough energy to complete workouts, and enough excess calories to rebuild torn muscle fiber.  Diet is extremely important in Olympic weightlifting.

And there's one more catch too.  Every lifter has an optimal weight to lift at, usually based on their height and build.  To lift optimally at a body weight of 77 kg, you should be about 5'7".  And here's where my struggle comes in.  I'm 5'11", which means I should weight around 200-230 lbs to lift at my optimal capacity.  I currently weight 162 lbs, which puts me in the lower end of the 77 kg class.  I knew I needed to gain weight, and believe me, my coach has been yelling that fact in my face for the longest time.

Maybe you're thinking "so what the heck are you waiting for!?! You get to EAT A LOT OF FOOD!  NICE!!!!"  But not so fast.  I'm not too keen to get big and fat quickly, as I considered myself pretty fit and trim at 158-160 lbs.  I had visible abs, pretty decent build, and felt good.  Purposely trying to gain weight, no matter how cleanly, might mean I need to sacrifice a good looking build for the sake of added muscle.  This, to me, was a little bit depressing (and honestly, it still is.)  Sure, putting on weight by eating a lot of clean food and training your butt off ensures that MOST of the weight you put on will be muscle, especially if you're not in a huge caloric excess.  But there's absolutely zero percent chance of gaining weight and having it be 100% muscle.  In fact, no matter how clean you do it, the percentage usually isn't even close to that number.  And purposely putting on fat, to me, didn't sound like fun.

But I changed my diet anyway.  I added about 500 calories more initially, and when I plateaued around 161 for a week or two, I added a couple hundred more.  I eat all the clean food I can, and don't pay attention to calories quite as much as I used to when I was merely trying to maintain my weight.  Roughly I'm around 3200-3300 calories a day now, but when I get up to above 170 lbs, I'm sure this figure will have to increase by another 20% at least.  My training is hard enough that I need to eat a LOT of food to maintain my weight.  And, resembling more the ectomorph build, I have a pretty fast metabolism as it is.

Honestly, while I love food like no one else, it makes my heart sink a little to know that I have to keep shoveling in the food to the point where I force my body to gain weight one way or another.  I don't like seeing the little bits of fat showing up around my midsection (though at this point they're very very small, and I doubt anyone would really notice), but I do like looking in the mirror and seeing a more full, muscular, stronger me.  So how do I get through it?  How do I keep a positive spin on the weight gain process?

Well, firstly, the way you look can depend a lot on the clothes you wear, the amount of water you're retaining, and the mirror you're looking in, not to mention a million other variables.  What I know in my head is that when I see myself in my dorm room mirror, and I think quietly that I look big enough as it is, and maybe I should stop trying to gain, I remind myself that this view is skewed.  I'm close to the mirror, and have my own mental image of myself that warps reality a bit.  Anyone around me would tell me I look like a rail.  I know that.  I don't look big to others, and therefore I tell myself I shouldn't look big to my own eyes either.  I only weigh 162 for goodness sake.  162 lbs ISN'T big, especially if you're 5'11".

I also keep looking at pictures of my weightlifting idols.  Klokov, Chigishev, Ilin, Dolega, all 105 kg or 105+kg lifters.  They are huge, with ginormous amounts of USEFUL muscle.  I tell myself I need to look and perform like them, and I won't stop training or eating until I do.  I tell myself every bite and every squat will bring me one step closer to glory, and when I achieve that, I won't look half bad regardless.  How could I?  Tons of healthy food, tons of exercise, what could go wrong?  So what if my abs aren't quite visible.  When I throw 230 kg over my head, I don't think anyone will care, and I don't think I will either.

Dmitry Klokov, probably my favorite lifter (my height too)

Evgeny Chigishev, the pure essence of POWER

So my friends, if you're on a journey to get bigger, and are second guessing the weight gain, remember to take a deep breath, realize that abs aren't all that matters in the world, and grab a sweet potato.  Train hard, eat big, get strong, grab glory.  I won't stop until I do...that's for sure.

The Light Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving break was, to say the least, incredible.  The food was out of this world, as usual, and completely home cooked by my grandmother.  I'm guessing many of you had similar situations at your own homes, complete with delicious turkey and yummy stuffing and mashed potatoes to go along with it all.  And how could I forget the cranberry sauce?  And the pumpkin pie?  Yes, the delicious food was plentiful, as it should be on Thanksgiving day.

And I'm guessing some of you may feel pretty guilty after Thanksgiving, having gorged yourself as is custom on that holiday.  Maybe the diet went out the window, but got thrown a little too far.  Maybe a lot of you are upset you ate too much, and feel like you can't control yourself on days like these, where the whole family sits down and chows down.  How can one avoid overeating on such an important, enormous, delicious meal?  With Christmas right around the corner, and more fantastic holiday dinners, I think a few tips about controlling appetite are in order.  Fear not, eating in moderation is quite easy, even on the holidays!

First of all, don't stress about one night of rather large eating.  It happens to the best of us, and if you can hop right back on your diet the day afterwards, you'll be absolutely fine and see no difference in your results.  Sometimes it's just better to wake up the next day and forget it even happened.  A week from now that meal won't have even mattered.  Enjoy special dinners like Thanksgiving, don't be afraid of them.  

That being said, if you'd still like to make sure you don't go on an all out binge, here are a few tips that I PERSONALLY followed on Thanksgiving day in an attempt to enjoy the food, but in a healthy moderation:

Eat a light (but filling) breakfast and lunch:  Choose foods that have high nutrient content, but are relatively low calorie.  For breakfast I had a bowl of total cereal and a large pear, both foods that are extremely filling but very low calorie when they're not overdone.  For lunch, I had 8 shrimp (about 80 calories), raw broccoli and carrots, and some plain packaged salmon.  All in all it was less than a 500 calorie meal, but very filling.  

Keep snacking light to stay full:  I had several snacks throughout the day, including a few clementines (between 20-40 calories a piece) and another package of salmon (90 calories).  I also had some raw snap peas every now and then, as well as a few roasted chickpeas.  It's all about subduing your appetite without adding on too many calories.  DON'T STARVE YOURSELF TO SAVE CALORIES.  You'll only be hungrier by the time dinner comes around, and will almost certainly end up eating more.  

Drink LOTS of water:  I had at least a full glass of water with every meal and snack, which helped to keep me full.  But the real power of water comes in right before Thanksgiving dinner itself.  If you want to take a LOT of the hungry edge off, have 1-3 full glasses of water right before your dinner.  I had three, and my normally ravenous appetite was completely tamed. Because of this it was quite easy to enjoy the food in smaller quantities.  

Moderation at the table:  Like I've said before, enjoy IN MODERATION.  You can have a little bit of everything, but if you want to keep the calories low, don't take too much.  Take just a mouthful or two of things like stuffing and mashed potatoes, and if you want to load up on something make it the delicious steamed veggies.  Choose the whitest turkey meat you can find, and use just a dab of cranberry sauce.  If there are sweet potatoes served, choose those over mashed white potatoes.  Oh, and definitely try to avoid most of the sauces, like mounds of gravy and butter.  Those will just add a whole bunch of empty calories.

  

It's very possible to have a full plate without going crazy on the calories.  

Dessert:  This one's up to you.  I didn't have dessert, but I usually don't, so I'm very used to skipping it.  If you really want to taste that pumpkin or pecan pie, take half of a normal slice, and only go for the other half if you feel you REALLY need it.  Eat slowly, enjoy the rich flavor, don't hork it and go for more.  Make it a challenge to see how much you can enjoy a moderate portion of food.  If you finish it, distract yourself.  Talk with your family for a few minutes, have a sip of water, just wait.  I bet in a few minutes you won't even want more.  

There you have it, tips for Thanksgiving that can be applied to most any big holiday dinner.  Again, I can't stress enough that it's easy to enjoy such a delicious dinner WITHOUT going overboard.  Try it out, you'll be very proud of yourself if you can end up succeeding (and I know you can, these things aren't rocket science.)  

Happy Holidays, Keep those dinners rolling, and as always, good luck!

Transforming Taste Buds

If you're like a lot of people, I can talk about healthy foods all day and you'll still imagine a nasty taste in your head.  What's he talking about, tomatoes tasting good?  Butternut Squash being absolutely delectable?  Steamed broccoli and cauliflower hitting the spot?  It may be completely foreign to imagine such natural, raw, bland foods to taste so good.  You'd much rather stick with your heavily spiced up food with sugar and salt, because that actually tastes like something!  But I emplore you, give these more natural foods a chance.  I can 100% guarantee that through a little bit of practice, you can make those foods taste as good as I think they do.

So what are you doing wrong?  Nothing really, it's just the habits you've been supporting.  You may eat the processed  overly sweet stuff on a regular basis.  So guess what?  You've come to accept it as the norm.  If you think that chocolate cake tastes sweet, think of how it tastes to me, someone with a very low sugar diet.  Think of it like, albeit a little depressing, a drug addiction.  You've become addicted to food that packs an extremely powerful sodium, sugar, and fatty punch.  All three of those things taste great to you because your instinct is to consume things that your body can run on for long periods of time and give great energy (fat and sugar.)  Your body doesn't really know any better that that mayonnaise smothered quizno's sub is wayyy overkill.  Yup, it's an addiction of sorts, so like a powerful drug addiction, anything less potent won't get you that "high."

How can you break the addiction?  Well, like anything, it takes time.  First things first, DO NOT GO COLD TURKEY.  An extremely raw veggie, plain meat, clean diet will absolutely kill you if you try to switch all at once.  Your food won't taste like anything, and you'll give up in a couple days, maybe a couple weeks at most. Your taste buds are extremely adaptable, but only if you introduce new flavors slowly.  There's a reason why we learn to accept new tastes as we get older.  Children don't often like vegetables, but grow into the taste (or maybe they don't, as is the case with many adults I know.)  

In my personal opinion, there isn't much of an excuse not to like healthy food.  If you say it doesn't taste good, you usually either haven't given it enough of a chance, or haven't cooked it right.  Some foods may take 9 or more tries before you really start to appreciate them.  

Try these tips to slowly get yourself into eating healthier:

Mix veggies into food you already like:  Who doesn't like macaroni and cheese?  Or maybe a big heaping pot of beef stroganoff, or a plate of crispy nachos?  What these all represent are prime opportunities to start mixing vegetable flavors into already delicious foods.  Try some diced tomatoes on those nachos, or some broccoli in that cheesy mac and cheese.  Put some carrots or onions in that beef stroganoff.  Heck, if you're having a big ol' burger, put a couple more slices of tomato on it than you normally do, and maybe another piece of lettuce.  Slowly pull those natural tastes into your diet, just a little at a time.  Each time you do it, maybe take out a little of the main flavoring (and probably unhealthy) ingredient.  Add a little less salt in your food, put only a tiny skim of mayonnaise on that burger, use a little less cheese in that macaroni.  Try to emphasize the vegetable taste just a little more each time. 

Vegetable side dishes:  Don't do these plain at first, use some kind of a healthy additive.  Saute your veggies in a tasty oil, or spread a little salsa on them.  Sprinkle some cayenne pepper on them for quite a kick, or just regular black pepper might do as well.  Try to use frozen veggies, or the ones that steam in the bag.  Canned usually has a little too much sodium, and they don't taste as good anyway.  At first, steam your veggies pretty aggressively.  Make them soft, chew-able, so they melt in your mouth a little easier and don't fight back with a harsh crunch.  And try to put at least a few on your plate at every dinner.  You don't even have to eat them all.  If they're there, you're more likely to at least give them a shot.

Less sauce on the meat:  This one's pretty self explanatory.  If you put BBQ sauce on your chicken, next time you have the chicken make a conscious effort to maybe put about a third less sauce on the next time.  Then a little less the next time after that.  You don't ever have to completely get rid of it if you don't want to, but try to emphasize the flavors of the meat above the sauce.  Another good idea is to have sauce every other or every third time you have the meat, as a rare treat.  I bet this'll make it taste better anyway, and you won't take that BBQ sauce for granted.  

Cook meat with care:  If you're going to put less sauce on, you might as well try a little harder to cook that chicken so its as tender and delectable as possible.  Make your dinner meats taste great by themselves, and you'll be less likely to top them with all sorts of crazy, unhealthy toppings.

Replace your snacks:  I've mentioned this one a few times.  To help your taste buds to adjust a little quicker, try replacing your afternoon potato chips with a banana, or a bowl of strawberries, or an apple.  Fruit is sweet, so you'll still get that sweet tooth satisfied.  It's also more satiating, so you'll be less likely to eat as much.  Just replace one snack at a time.  Take it slow.

Drink the pure stuff:  There is a LOAD of sugar in most soda, and believe me a glass of mountain dew will NOT help break your sugar addiction.  I suggest drinking more water, or maybe a glass of milk, or 100% juice.  Try your best to get those soft drinks out of your diet though.  Soda doesn't help anything, of that I can assure you.  If you're dying for a sugary drink, try a zero calorie drink sweetener.  

To close this article, I'm going to say this one more time.  To break a processed food/sugar addiction, you need to do it gradually.  If you do, your taste buds WILL adapt.  Give them time, and don't give up.  The younger you are, the faster it will happen.  Set goals for yourself.  Try a few more veggies every meal.  A little less ketchup, a few less potato chips, maybe fruit for dessert a few nights a week.  MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!!

Don't give up, you will adjust, and you'll be incredibly grateful that you did.  It's fun to watch someone wince as you munch on a tomato in absolute and genuine happiness.  Good Luck!

Eating Clean: Where to start?

Ok, so now you know a little bit about what comprises a clean diet.  And maybe you're thinking that a few of the foods I mentioned don't actually sound so bad.  In fact maybe, just maybe you might be able to incorporate a few of those foods into your daily diet, perhaps substituting some of the processed junk that you always feel guilty about eating.

What you've just stumbled upon is the start to a clean diet.  And it's exactly the first step I suggest you take, if you're looking to get into a more healthy mindset.  Take it slowly at first.  Replace a few foods, incorporate some vegetables here, a fruit there (maybe instead of those oreos), and a bowl of oatmeal instead of that breakfast burrito.  I'll say it again.  TAKE....IT...SLOW.  

Why is this so important?

First of all, if you've been running on microwave dinners and chips-ahoy for a while, it's unlikely that you'll find vegetables too appealing, nor will you be too keen on the idea of replacing your brownie dessert with a banana.  Your body has become somewhat addicted to high sugar, high fat, processed food.  It's not an uncommon thing, so don't feel bad.  Breaking an addiction TAKES TIME.  I used to be that guy, who ate half a pan of brownies for breakfast, a jar of cookies for lunch, and nearly a 1 pound burger for dinner.  Being a growing adolescent boy, miraculously I got away with it.  After realizing my absolutely horrendous diet, I began to make changes over the years, as I became more involved with weightlifting and fitness in general.  It took a lot of trial and error, and a ton of research.  Seriously, I spent hours on the computer learning every little nuance about nutrition.  I'm proud of my diet now, and guess what, I don't crave bad food anymore!  Am I perfect?  Absolutely not.  But I'm fine with skipping dessert, and I actually prefer the taste of most vegetables over any sort of cheese doodles or fig newtons.  

Weaning your body off processed food takes time, unfortunately.  You need to actively teach your body to enjoy the healthy stuff.  There are many tricks to doing this more effectively, and I'll go over those in coming posts.  Healthy food does not ever need to taste bad.  And if you prepare it right, I promise you it never will.  I'm not going to lie though, it won't be quite the same as that greasy burger.  But you learn to appreciate healthy food, and I promise that eventually you will crave the healthy stuff, not the chocolate cake.

Whatever you do, do NOT try to go cold turkey off of processed food.  This is the reason that an enormous amount of diet plans fail outright.  You are not able to kick the cravings for the processed stuff, and after a few weeks and barely any results, you throw that broccoli out the window and go back to your precious Tostitos.  I'll say it again, incorporate your new diet slowly.  This isn't a diet plan, it's a lifestyle change.  Learn to eat healthy now, and enjoy doing it for the rest of your life.

How clean you want your diet to ultimately be is up to you.  Many are content and see great results with a moderate level of clean eating, having a good few servings of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, good fats, good carbs, and other nutrients every day, complimented by a small dessert or a few potato chips.  These people usually try to incorporate a good amount of exercise into their lives as well, which I wholeheartedly suggest with every fiber of my being.  Some people go all out and try to make their diet as organic, natural, and lean as possible.  This is your choice.  See what works for you.  What are your goals?  Why are you deciding to do this?  What do you want to achieve?

And remember, you can always make adjustments.  This isn't a one shot deal.

It's not a hard thing to do.  My advice?  Start with breakfast.  That's easy right?  And I think you'll find a nice healthy morning snack should follow pretty effortlessly, then a chicken breast and some veggies for lunch don't sound too bad, and so on and so forth.  

Get out there and make the change.  Good luck!