No carbs, low carbs, simple carbs, complex carbs: Is your carb confusion holding back
your gains in the gym?
I am gong to bet that it is and I am going to show you how to reverse that today.
[Music Intro]
Hey guys, Jeff Cavaliere AthleanX.com not in the gym today but in the kitchen because
we want to address something very important.
I feel that it is something that is-we call it carb confusion around here-is one of the
most confusing topics when it comes to building muscle
Probably one of the ones that people are getting wrong when it comes to nutrition.
That is: avoiding carbohydrates.
It has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves.
It is one of the cardinal sins.
It is one of the things that we avoid in the Athlean-X, X-factor training meal plans.
We dont' make that mistake because I want to show you why carbohydrates are so important
in one of the meals that we have in the X-factor meal plans.
This that you are seeing is a typical sized meal for me.
Now one of the things we DON'T steer you towards is appropriate portion size.
Because for someone like me at 170 lbs, you know, I am going to have a lot of different
need and requirement than a guy who is 220 lbs.
But the foods that we eat are going to be importantly the same.
We need to get the right types of foods in our body.
When I say carbohydrates I am not just talking about any carbohydrates; I am talking about
the right complex carbohydrates.
We all know that carbohydrates establish blood sugar levels OK?
More importantly than that we want to maintain them throughtout the day so we can have consistent
energy.
But we also want to maintain our storage of muscle glycogen, OK?
It is just a storage form of our carbohydrates, of our glucose that gets into our muscle cells.
It allows us to be fuller, it provides more energy for the workouts,but generally it is
the fuel for our body OK?.
I always say that cars can not run without gasoline: our bodies can not run efficiently-EFFICIENTLY-
without carbohydrates.
Because we know if you have a diet full of fats, which is the Atkins diet approach in
removing the carbohydrates, you are going to produce something called ketones which
are not as nearly effective at producing energy.
It is going to wind up leaving you drained.
More importantly it is not a long-term solution and it is going to wind up costing you when
you get to the gym.
So one more time I am going to look at this plate-dissect it--and I am going to show you
what a typical X-factor meal plan meal consists of.
We have chicken and we have protein.
So if you look at it right here we have got hummus on top, I would say incidental fat.
We always want to have healthy fats on top of what we have; a protein constituent at
every single meal.
We have our fibrous carbohydrates, in this case it is edamame, right?
You get it when you go out for Sushi, great stuff, just soybeans.
You can have anything here: broccoli, spinach, whatever you want for your crunchy, leafy
vegetable piece here that basically takes up a third of the plate.
we are not avoiding carbohydrates: sweet potatoes here, cous-cous, all part of the X-factor
meal plan.
The key here is, they make up pretty much half my plate, alright?
You don't want to avoid them for the reasons that I just told you.
If you are I can guarantee you that you are going to look flat, your muscles are not going
to be as strong as they need to be when it is showtime.
If you are an athlete or you are not, show-time can just be going to the gym.
The point of the matter here is: stop avoiding carbohydrates.
I call it again carb confusion; it is time to end that carb confusion.
Make sure that a healthy form of starchy carbohydrate is part of every single one of your meals,
as is a fibrous carbohydrate, as is a protein source with some health fat.
Guys, it is time to get your meal plans back on track.
It is also time to be realistic about what you eat.
Don't fall for the idea that you have to have restrictive calorie diets, that you have to
eat the same amount as another guy.
You all are different but you need to have the same components in your program to make
up something that you can actually follow.
That is what this is about: no measuring, no calorie counting, none of that stuff.
I think that as guys we don't really like spending our time doing that anyway, alright?
Guys if you haven't already, head to AthleanX.com, grab your own X-factor meal plan with the
Athlean-X training program.
Grab it, 90 days, lay it out completely before you.
You can swap meals in and out; it is that flexible.
We will be back here next week, back in the gym.
Hopefully I will eat my carbs all week, be strong and ready to go to bring another great
workout for you in just 7 days from now.
I will see you guys then.