on taking a little larger slice of carbs.
It’s easier to stay on your plan when you work this out a day in advance.
Allow for unforeseen situations. Since life has a tendency to interfere with your schedule — you can’t eat at the times you want, or the grocery store is out of your favorite protein — plan for such obstacles in advance.People who make the greatest progress almost always keep a meticulous training log. At first, you might think that it’s time consuming and not much fun, but after a couple of weeks, you will probably discover as others have that it’s invaluable for staying on course. It provides you with all the necessary tools to determine your maintenance needs and provides a clear picture of which direction you need to change, if at all. Use the sample logs in the back of this book or use the format to develop one of your own.Check regularly to see if your ratios still hold true today as they did two months ago. You might have gained some extra muscle mass over an eight-week period, so you need to factor in a little more protein, say 40 percent of the pie. Maybe you have been pushing yourself harder during sparring sessions and therefore you need more carbs, say a 50-percent slice. Count on your dietary needs changing occasionally.Vitamins and Minerals
Vitamins and minerals create healthy blood cells, maintain healthy skin, regulate your metabolism, ensure that your brain works, strengthen your teeth and bones, and many other valuable functions. Since they don’t make up an important part of your caloric intake, we won’t elaborate on them here but we will go into greater detail in Chapter 5 as to how much you need of each and their importance for martial artists. For now, know that they are critical for staying healthy as you work to lose, maintain or purposefully gain weight.
Determining the Calories Needed to Gain, Lose or Maintain
Here is a simple and effective method for calculating your daily caloric needs, one recommended by health and fitness writer, Dave Paicard, which he discusses in an article titled “Basic Strategies for Getting Lean” in Muscle & Fitness Online.9 It’s not absolutely precise (no system is) but considering all the variables, it’s pretty darn close and serves our purpose. We have tweaked it a little to make it applicable to martial artists. Check out these bullets and see where you are:
To lose fat, multiply your current bodyweight by 10 if you have a slow metabolism (meaning you gain weight easily), by 11 if you have a moderate metabolism and by 12 if you have a fast metabolism (meaning you can eat lots without putting on weight).If you incorporate weight training in your exercise program and you want to add muscle without body fat, or if you lift weights and want to lose some body fat, you need to multiply your body weight by 13 if you have a slow metabolism, by 14 if you have a moderate metabolism, or 15 if you have a fast one.If you are trying to add a few pounds, multiply your weight by 16 if you have a slow metabolism, by 17 for a moderate metabolism, or 18 for a fast metabolism.
Confused? Here it is at quick glance:
Fat loss formula: bodyweight (pounds) x M (metabolism) = total daily calories
Metabolism rate: 10 for slow, 11 for moderate, 12 for fast
Muscle gain without fat formula: bodyweight x M = total daily calories
Metabolism rate: 13 for slow, 14 for moderate, 15 for fast
Weight gain: bodyweight x M = total daily calories
Metabolism rate: 16 for slow, 17 for moderate, 18 for fast
Here is how it looks for a 130-pound female with a moderate metabolism. She is pumping iron to add muscle for greater kicking power and wants to lower her body fat at the same time.
130 x 14 = 1,820 calories per day
Here is how it looks for a 200-pound male with a fast metabolism wanting to add muscle without fat to increase his punching power.
200 x 15 = 3,000 calories per day
Note: To make this work accurately, you need to be honest about whether you have a slow, moderate, or fast metabolism. If you are like some people, you might think you have a slow metabolism because you think you gain weight easily, but you actually eat a lot of hidden calories that you aren’t taking into account. You do this by:
adding a little extra butter on your toasteating that last cookie so it doesn’t go to wastedrinking milk instead of water when you are thirstyeating what is left in the skillet instead of putting it into a refrigerator containereating just a little bowl of ice creamdrinking a second beer
In time, these not so innocent extras add up, and while you might not be aware you are eating them, they are definitely there, encircling your waistline and adding droop to your “buttline.” In the end (pun intended) you don’t have a slow metabolism at all.
We suggest that you do two things. First, get an opinion from your doctor as to what type of metabolism you have. Second, keep an accurate record of everything — everything — you eat in a week. That t-spoon of jam you snuck: write it down. You finished your kid’s fries: write it down. You ate a cookie you found on the street: write it down.
If your record keeping and your doctor indicate that you do indeed have a slow metabolism, then you need to calculate your calorie needs as such. However, if you determine that you have been taking in a lot of extra sneaky ones, you need to calculate using the moderate formula. You have to be honest here. It’s like Mrs. Beasley said in third grade: “If you cheat, you only cheat yourself.”
One Other Way Men and Women Are Different
Do men and women burn calories differently? Many women believe so, especially when they look at men who are the same age and body type as they are but the men seem to shed unwanted pounds faster and easier. Many female martial artists complain that it seems that all they have to do to put on unwanted weight is to slack off on their training a little, but the same doesn’t hold true for most men.
What is going on? The answer is simple: Men and women have different bodies. (Now, aren’t you glad you bought this book?)
The biggest difference, for our purposes here, has to do with muscles. In general, men have more muscle mass than women, and the person with more muscle mass burns more calories. Even when sitting still. This is because it takes calories to maintain the muscle.
When a man and woman of the same body type, age, weight and activity level eat too much at a fast food joint, the man usually stores less excess calories as fat than does the woman. And his larger muscle mass will burn off his excess calories faster.
Women think this is unfair and men think it’s just fine. But there is a silver lining for women. Generally speaking, their higher body fat percentage is considered, in most cultures, to be more attractive on them than the same percentage is on most men.10
Calculating Your Caloric Needs for Training
Use the following list to calculate the calories needed per hour for your particular martial arts style, and if you jog and lift weights, you can calculate those in, too. Don’t engrave the data presented in this chart on a stone tablet. It’s difficult at best to determine calorie expenditure because there are so many variables (no, those gauges on treadmills aren’t absolutely accurate, either). The
