Cheat Meals and Soy?

This is not my favourite topic to be honest as I don’t really like telling players to eat bad food at all! But, quite a few players have asked me if you were to have a cheat meal then what would be the ideal meal or fast food outlet to enter. Well I decided I couldn’t name any fast food outlets so I have listed some golden rules when selecting cheat meals and then you can decide for yourselves with the relevant knowledge.

·      Eat your protein first. Interestingly, in Greek, protein means of first importance.

·       Must be at a table (at home or a restaurant), not in front of the TV. Decide with what you will cheat before hand and set it on the table in preparation. You will eat more in front of the TV

·       Once you leave the chair then no more cheating! This stops you cheating all day long.

·       As you get lower bodyfat levels/scores, the more carbohydrates you can eat. When you get to a low body fat( less than 9%),>

·       Try to move away from fast food chains being your cheats and make you choices a little more nutritious.

Nutrition before Early Morning Cardio

People often ask me what they should eat before cardio in early morning at say, 8a.m and the answer is simple really. The food you eat will not be fuelling your exercise during that session (unless you get up at 5-6a.m to eat it). The meal is just to make you feel comfortable whilst training as training whilst hungry is horrendous. However it’s important to know that when training that early your glycogen (energy) stores are extremely low due to you fasting all night and so you will be running on muscle protein stores or fats. After the session you will need to refuel even more so than normal to replace your losses from night-time and also the session you just completed. It is thus important that if your a professional athlete you don't move onto the next session without refueling.

This is very important otherwise you will find that you are weak in the gym afterwards and also you will, over time lose muscle bulk and potentially weaken your immune system. For me the best thing before the session is a protein shake with plenty of BCAA’s and also a small bowl of porridge to stop that feeling hungry.

Why Soy is not good for you

Many people think that soy milk and beans are great for you but in actual fact this is a myth according to the vast amount of research.  Dr Kaayla Daniel’s book, “The Whole Soy Story” explains this in more detail but here is a quick list of the reasons:

·       Toxicity – Soy is one of the most sprayed crops and so increases your toxic load when eaten.

·       Blocks Mineral Absorption – Soy contains high levels of phytates which inhibit the absorbtion of macro nutrients (calcium etc) and trace minerals (e.g: zinc). The good news is that meat is known to block phytates.

·       Linked to Attention Deficit Disorder – Soy based infant formulas are linked highly to ADD. They cointain 80 times more manganese than breast milk.

·       Increases in CV Load – Soybeans contain hemaglutinin which is known to make red blood cells aggregate and thus increases your cardiac load.

 “Too many people want to carry the stool when the piano needs moving”