What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com. So, when it comes to food choices,
I'm sure we all have our own preferences. However, today I'm going to show you five
foods you really need to make room for in your diet. We all should be eating these,
not just because they're good, healthy choices, but when it comes to the gym,
they're actually science proven to help you build muscle faster. And the best part
is finding a way to incorporate them into what you're already eating is super simple.
Kind of simple. All right, so,
it doesn't get any easier than this first food to start reaping
the benefits both in the gym and just in your overall health than the blueberry.
Now, look, we've got to get something straight right off the bat here. I'm not talking about
blueberry flavored anything or blueberries in it. So, anybody that likes those blueberry scones from
Starbucks, that doesn't count. Well, what we're talking about, though, is just eating pure,
fresh blueberries and that's going to be a theme throughout the entire video. Now, when it comes
to blueberries, I also sometimes hear, Well, they can make you fat there's a lot of sugar in them.
Guys, do me a favor, nobody ever got fat eating blueberries. There are 0.8 calories in each one of
these things. That means for 100 of them, you get about 80 calories, which is only 15 grams of sugar
and it's also not very high in the glycemic index, so it doesn't cause those blood sugar spikes.
Now, when it comes to the gym, there is actually a study performed on women
aged 25 to 40 who ate two cups of blueberries for six weeks. And what they found was an increase in
the number of human muscle progenitor cells, which are the cells that go on to produce
new muscle tissue. And they also saw a lower percentage of dead human muscle progenitor cells,
which indicated a resistance to oxidative stress. In other words, more resilience as they went
through their own workouts. So, what that means is faster muscle recovery in between workouts. And we
know that if you're going to train natural, faster muscle recovery is your number one
weapon for building new muscle throwing. Throw in the fact that these are also rich
in vitamin C and potassium and are a powerful anti-inflammatory and you can't go wrong with
adding blueberries to your diet, especially because it's so damn easy to do. And so,
there isn't a single one of us out here who hasn't probably been told since the age of
two that we should be eating more green vegetables and for good reason. However,
there's a specific type of green vegetables I want you to be focusing on, and they're the cruciferous
vegetables. And maybe the first thing that pops into your mind is broccoli or cauliflower. But did
you know, there's actually a lot more choices that will fit the bill here? We re talking about things
like cabbage or Brussels sprouts or bok choy or kale or one of my favorites, broccoli rabe.
All of these foods are rich in three important things, the first being phytonutrients, the second
being vitamin K and the third being something called sulforaphane. You see these foods when
eaten or cooked or chopped, will actually break down a substance called glucoraphanin and into
sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is actually being proven to be a very, very powerful antioxidant
and also anti-inflammatory. One of my favorites I always mention here on this channel, Rhonda
Patrick has talked a lot about these benefits. Now, maybe you're thinking to yourself,
but I don't really like any of those foods, even the other options you gave me, Jeff. Well,
you can still meet your needs by just having a salad with some arugula and radish in it. So,
there's no excuses here, there are a lot of food options. And when it comes to building muscle,
there's actually some exciting studies coming out that were done, albeit pig cells, and no,
we're not pigs, but we do have similar muscle cells. And they showed that by exposing these
human pig muscle cells to Sulforaphane, that they could actually deactivate something called
myostatin. And that's a type of protein that's actually responsible for putting the brakes on new
muscle growth. So, if mom's urgings weren't enough of a reason to put more of these on your plate,
hopefully now with greater options here, you've got greater reason to make sure you do.
Look, while green foods might get all the love. You also have to pay attention to the
orange foods because there's plenty to love about that. And no, Jesse, we're not talking
about these, they don't count. But what we are talking about is foods like cantaloupe,
pumpkin, squash, my favorite sweet potatoes, carrots, mangos and even oranges themselves.
And they all have carotenoids, and these are actually protect our health. They're what are
known as free radical scavengers. They go out and they get rid of the oxidation that can cause cell
breakdown in early aging. And they also help to protect things even like your own eyesight.
The fact is, guys, you need to get more of them in your diet. But how? Well, first of all,
unlike the blueberries, since there's a greater variety here of these foods, they're not all
the same in terms of their calorie impact. So, some a little bit more caloric like the sweet
potatoes or oranges and some a little bit on the lighter side, like cantaloupe and pumpkin. You've
just got to figure out where that fits in your diet. But you need to figure out some way to fit
some version of them into it. And when it comes to the body changing capabilities of these foods,
they actually did a study on competitive cyclists where they looked at a particular
flavonoid inside of oranges called 2S-Hesperidin, and they did it over the course of eight weeks.
They had 40 amateur cyclists divided into two groups, one that took it, 500 milligrams,
and the other one that did not. And they saw something pretty impressive
findings. The supplemental group showed a decrease in body fat percentage by 10.4%. Now, mind you,
that's not, let's say, from 20% down to 10%. That's a 10% drop from, let's say, 20. So 2%
loss in body fat, but it's still significant. They also found an increase in muscle mass,
percentage of 1% and total muscle mass of 1.7% with no changes in the placebo. And
the good news is you don't have to be an athlete to see these benefits. The fact is you just need
to figure out a way to start eating more of these orange foods. One little caution here, though.
If you eat too much of this, you can get something called carotenemia, which is when
you actually start to get like orange-colored hands. And I kind of mentioned how much I love
sweet potatoes and pumpkin. It's actually due to an increase in vitamin A. And if you see that,
all you have to do is just simply decrease your consumption. But I'll tell you this,
most people are not having a problem with too much of this, they're having too little.
So, if you watch my channel for any length of time or actually even watch my full day
of eating video, which I'll link for you at the end of this one. You ll notice
that there s one food, this next one here that I actually eat every single morning,
and it is ginger. And you might have been told a long time ago that if you had an upset stomach,
it's good to sort of ease nausea, but it goes way beyond that. It's a powerful anti-inflammatory
and in my world, it's one of the best ways to actually minimize the late onset muscle soreness
after a hard workout. And we all know that if you can't train because of muscle soreness or
can't give a good effort in the gym, then how are you going to make real gains? You need to be able
to control this. And there are studies that show that taking just two grams of it a day are enough
to decrease delayed onset muscle soreness by up to 25%, particularly helpful for those that
like to incorporate slow eccentric training into the workouts, which is one of the known
drivers of delayed onset muscle soreness. However, even if you never lifted a weight at all,
the anti-inflammatory benefits system wide are undeniable. Now how do you get it? It's actually
quite simple. You can either take the actual ginger root and powder it up and put it into
certain recipes, or you can drink ginger tea a couple of times a day. Or like I like to do,
I just take the pickled ginger, as you see here. I kind of throw it on my eggs.
Trust me, it's not gross. And all I need is about this much to meet my daily requirements.
The fact is, if I didn't think this food was that important, I would have actually made an
entire video dedicated to just it. I'll link that one for you at the end of this video as
well. But the point is, figure out a way to get ginger in your diet. Whether you eat it, drink
it or smash it. The key is, get more of it. And of course, when it comes to building muscle,
we have to talk about protein at some point, but not all protein is considered equal. And sure,
there's a lot of debate about how much protein you need, but I don't think we get enough lean
protein. What I mean by that is what is the protein in its natural state? We need to
start there. So, if you're talking about a steak, it's just a steak. And if you talk about chicken,
it's just the grilled chicken. If you're talking about fish, well, you know it's fish, you get the
idea here. And maybe even vegetarians, we re just talking about the lentils,
not the whole recipe. And I think that's where we maybe start to screw things up a little bit.
Look how you start to prepare your meal actually will determine whether or not you're on the right
path or not. So, like grilled citrus chicken is a good start because I don't think you're going
to go and then throw Alfredo sauce on top of it. Alfredo and citrus are not really a good mix. But
of course, in the process by making that right decision, you preserve the nutrient value of the
protein itself without kind of messing it up. In contrast, I could have chosen a chicken parmesan
and thought, well, I'm still getting my protein. But you're also getting the fried breadcrumbs,
the cheese, and probably a whole hell of a lot of pasta to go with it.
I guess all I'm asking you to do is take a simple step back and evaluate not just if you're eating
your protein, but how you're eating them because how you eat them matters. Introducing other things
that you don't need into your body at the same time that you're getting a protein is not the end
objective here. What is helpful is actually making the right choices. This is where something like a
protein powder comes in incredibly helpful and convenient because it strips out all the things
that you don't need. Our RX PRO30G supplement, brand new actually, available over at atleanx.com
is a high quality, protein 30 grams per serving with 28 servings per bag.
Cheap plug aside guys, remember the old saying you are what you eat, it's actually very true.
If you want to be a better version of yourself, you've got to eat better food.
And these are five powerful foods that are very easy to implement into your diet right
now and are going to benefit you I guarantee. If you're looking for a step-by-step meal plan guys,
we have them over at athleanx.com. If you found the video helpful,
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so you never miss a new video when we put one out. All right guys, see you soon.