health – Page 3 – Beary Strong

How To Quickstart Your Muscle Gain Journey

Let’s eat and grow! It’s so easy, isn’t it?

Building muscles is not a must and you don’t need to go all-out bodybuilding-style. However, having a decent amount of it comes with several benefits: not only a nice “toned” look but it makes a lot of chores and life in general easier (how does it feels to carry heavy bags after grocery shopping?). In addition it is one of the best anti-aging measures in general. If you take muscle gains beyond newbie gains it may come with some “difficulties”:

Tips For Nailing Your Vacation Nutrition

Helping you to enjoy your vacation to the fullest while staying on track with your diet.

For me traveling is one of the most exciting and important things to do. I love seeing new places, learning about new cultures and eating delicious food. But traveling can mess up your hard earned good nutrition habits: most of the time you can’t control what you get served, how it is cooked or if it has a decent amount of protein. Therefore I compiled some tips how to enjoy your vacation at the fullest and keep some of the healthy eating behaviors.

How To Quickstart A Successful Fat Loss Journey

A simple guide to fat loss.

Losing weight or more appropriately losing fat is a decision you should take from a positive emotional state: you want to do something for your health or you would like to have a less harder time playing with the kids or maybe shred down a bit after a long muscle gaining phase. Please don’t use weight loss as a punishment and seek professional help if you have a disordered eating history.

If you want to do it on your own, you may be overwhelmed about the information available: What diet should I follow? Is it bad to eat carbs in the evening? Do I have to do cardio? Or go daily to the gym? To be honest, it is much easier than you think. Create a calorie deficit. How? We help you with some tips.

Exercise Selection and Repetition Ranges

What exercises should you do and how many reps should you aim for?

Some of the most basic questions in training are: what exercise should I do? And for how many reps should I go? At first glance they have little in common, but if you take a closer look, they are tightly related to each other. What exercise do you choose, and does it even matter?

Sourdough Bread

…it’s easier than you think!

I love a nice loaf of bread, and I bet you do too. And my client Viola, who asked me for this recipe surely does so. Bread got a bad rep over the last decade, because it is easy to overconsume: good bread is really tasty, not very satieting and quitecalorie dense. But that’s not a problem if you are diligent with your tracking and if you have an overall healthy lifestyle with enough movement. People suffering from IBS sometimes react to several anti-nutrients found in higher dosage in wheat and other grains. Sourdough makes the bread more digestible and less prone to cause digestive issues because the microbiota “pre-digest” the anti-nutrients.

Caffeine: Tea Or Coffee For You?

Caffeine: the delicious drug.

As usual in the fitness industry you will find extreme opinions to pretty much everything and this is true for caffeine as well. From it’s poison to you can’t train without it, caffeine is a discussed substance. But it’s caffeine ok in a healthy lifestyle? And, most important, how much?

Protein and Aminoacids

Building blocks and sources of protein.

Everyone needs protein. Period. It is not just the big muscular gym guy, also you sitting in the chair diligently doing your job or you, running a half-marathon or you, playing football. Why? Because proteins are the brickstones of our body, they are the catalysators (= enzymes) of our metabolism and are also fuel. After water (70%), proteins (18%) are the second main component of human cells. That’s why it may be worth considering adding more protein to your daily food, especially if you are getting serious about living a more active and healthy lifestyle.

Fats: Because Nutbutter Is Happyness

Basic biochemistry and functions.

But wait, fat makes me fat, right?! Now you should already know the answer: it’s all about the calorie deficit at the end of the day and like carbs, fats are neither good nor bad. Nevertheless, fat is really energy dense: 10 gramms of fat (approx. a tea spoon) have huge 90 kcals. This means that, you should not indulge in those tasty “healthy” low-carb-paleo-keto-raw-gluten free-vegan nut bars if you are trying to lose body fat ;). So what’s the deal with fats, now? Let’s have a closer look through the biochemist’s goggles.

The Fate of Macronutrients

A very simplified version of metabolism

Did you already read my first post about macros? If not, please do! In this post I will give you a very simplified insight what happens to the macronutrients in the body. I think this is necessary because there is still a lot of quackery around, demonizing macronutrients (like carbs) for some reason. Having some tools to understand what is behind metabolism may help get immune to it. If you do not want to read the whole article, here the spoiler: no matter if you are eating low carb, low fat or whatsoever, if you are in a calorie surplus, the body will start to store fat. If you want to know the why, read further.