Training Tips and Principles 

  Nutritional Tips

• If you are following a restricted calorie nutrition plan try drinking one glass of water before your meal and one glass of water after your meal to help give your stomach that "full" sensation after eating.

• To help eliminate cravings and unwanted snacking between planned meals, keep yourself busy by staying active, participating in a hobby, or visiting friends and family (providing they don't have a tendency to feed you!).

• To help make sure you do not go over your daily caloric intake, divide the total number of calories you require by the number of meals you plan to eat (for example a daily caloric total of 1500 calories divided by 3 meals is 500 calories per meal).  Then just keep track of how many calories you have per meal to stay within your daily range.

• To calculate what the percentage of fat is in any given food, add up the total number of grams of fat and then multiply the total number by 9.  Take this number and divide it by the total calories in the food and multiply the answer by 100.  (For example - 15 grams of fat in a candy bar, 15 x 9 = 135.   There is a total of 305 calories in the bar, 135 / 305 = .44, multiply by 100 and you get 44%.  The candy bar is 44% fat)

• If you are looking to lose body fat, do not eat for 1 - 3 hours after you exercise.  During this time period  your metabolism is still elevated from the exercise and is continueing to burn fat.  If you give your body food at this time, you body will burn the food for energy instead of your body fat.

• If you are looking to gain muscle mass try to have an overall balanced meal before your workout, a high protein meal with some carbohydrate after your workout and a high carbohydrate meal about 2 - 3  hours following your workout.  It takes about 2 hours for you to digest the protein meal which will mean you will have the amino acids in your blood for when protein synthesis begins to increase after about 3 - 4 hours later.  The high carbohydrate meal will increase insulin levels in your body aiding the transport of amino acids into your muscle at the same time when you need it most, at the beginning of protein synthesis.