Product Review - Myprotein My Noodles

Hey Guys,

Today I am reviewing Myprotein My Rice

Myprotein My Rice are a zero carb, zero sugar and nearly zero calorie rice substitute.

Here is what Myprotein had to say about them,

My Rice is perfect for anyone looking to keep their carbohydrate intake low. Unlike normal pasta, My Rice contains zero sugar and less than 0.1g of fat. At only 7 calories per serving they are a great addition for anyone looking to lose weight. Furthermore, My Rice is made from Konjac, a water soluble fibre scientifically proven to reduce body weight. A My Rice serving also provides 3.5g of quality fibre. My Rice is a brilliant addition for anyone who is looking to lose weight, without having to drastically alter their eating habits.


Here is the nutritional information,

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

		Per 100g
Energy		30 kJ/7 kcal
Fat		0.1 g
	of which saturates	0.1 g
Carbohydrate		0.1 g
	of which sugars	0.1 g
Fibre		3.5 g
Protein		0.1 g
Salt		0.1 g

And here are the ingredients,

Water, Konjac flour (3.6%), firming agent: E526

So what do I think about them?

Well recently I reviewed the Myprotein My Noodles and my view of the rice is exactly the same. I love them. They are great to add volume to meals, keep calories low but still feel as though you are having rice. These are a great addition to any fat loss plan for those that are really missing carbs!

My Rice is available HERE for only £5.79 for 6 servings

Stay healthy,

Mike

Product Review - MyProtein My Noodles

Hey Guys,

Today I am reviewing MyProtein My Noodles.

MyProtein My Noodles are a no sugar, no carb, no fat, calorie free (well nearly) noodle substitute. Here is what Myprotein had to say about them,

Product Overview

Mynoodles are perfect for anyone looking to keep their carbohydrate intake low. Unlike normal noodles, Mynoodles contain zero sugar and less than 0.1g of fat. At only 7 calories per serving they are a great addition for anyone looking to lose weight. Furthermore, Mynoodles are made from Konjac, a water soluble fibre scientifically proven to reduce body weight. A Mynoodles serving also provides 3.5g of quality fibre. Mynoodles are a brilliant addition for anyone who is looking to lose weight, without having to drastically alter their eating habits.

Sounds nearly to good to be true!

Let's have a look at the Nutrition values,

		Per 100g
Energy		30 kJ/7 kcal
Fat		0.1 g
	of which saturates	0.1 g
Carbohydrate		0.1 g
	of which sugars	0.1 g
Fibre		3.5 g
Protein		0.1 g
Salt		0.1 g

And the ingredients,

Water, Konjac flour (3.6%), firming agent: E526

So what's the verdict?

Well I love them. they are easy to make, taste great and are unbelievably versatile. They add volume to meals and you genuinely feel like you are eating noodles even though you aren't. The only slightly bad thing about them is that they have a slight fishy smell when you take them out of the packet. however when you have rinsed them off and cooked them there is no taste of the smell. these are perfect for anyone dieting or anyone who is on a low carb plan that misses the texture of carbs in their meals.

You can get the MyProtein My Noodles for just £5.79 (clients get discount) by clicking HERE

Stay healthy,

Mike

Great Article on Keto Diets and Building muscle

Hey Guys,

Here is a great article on muscle and strength gains while on a ketogenic diet.

While I don't think that insanely low carb diets are great for athletes, there are still a lot of people who like to use this approach.

While low carb is a greater tool for fat loss, what happens when you want to gain some muscle or some strength?

How does low carb effect hormones, energy, sleep, recovery?

This article takes a great, in depth look into what you need to know!

Thanks for reading,

Stay healthy,

Mike

Getting a bit too serious.

Healthy eating is always a little tricky.

I'm not going to go into details of cravings, energy and what foods do what. I'm talking about the ever moving goal posts of what is healthy for you and what isn't.

Every week people are rabbiting on about the next super food while telling everyone that yesterdays super food is going to kill you.

99% of the time it is never these extremes and it is most probably somewhere in the middle. What we need to do, as people that care about our long term health, is look at the big picture, try things out and take what people say with a grain of salt (that includes me).

What you often find (especially in nutrition) is that people go wild over a particular food or method then label everything else as the devil.

It's simply not that black and white.

HERE is an interesting article on the topic.

Stay Healthy,

Mike

Great article on weight cutting.

Hey Guys,

Here is a great article on weight Cutting for combat sports from client Rosi Sexton.

Well worth a read, especially if you are a woman in combat sports!

You can find it HERE

Stay healthy,

Mike

Great article on Weight Cutting.

Hey Guys,

Following the trend of sharing good information from other sources, here is a great article on cutting weight from YourMMA.

Weight cutting is a very hot topic at all times in combat sports (see what I did there...). I only ever weight cut a few clients and it is always on a day before weight in. Either way, this article will give you some tips and ideas on your next cut (please speak to a Doctor and your coach before trying anything).

You can find the article HERE

Stay Healthy,

Mike

Great Video for weight class Athletes

Hey Guys,

Today I want to share with you a great video by Layne Norton on weight loss and body fat.

It's a great video that talks about how severe diets can actually make you gain more fat and make you fatter later in life.

He covers some great points early in the video on studies done on weight class athletes and the detrimental effects that constantly dieting can have.

As regular readers will know, I am quite vocal on what weight you should be if you compete often or want to be dominant in a certain weight class (read one of my rants HERE).

If you diet often (or are dieting right now), then please take a look at the vid.

You can watch it HERE

Stay Healthy,

Mike

A bit about my current diet.

Hey Guys,

One of the questions I get asked quite a bit is what does my own nutrition looks like?

People assume that, because I do this for a living, my diet must be perfect and the holy grail for anyone wanting to sort out their own nutrition.

This isn't the case at all.

While it is true that I have a very good idea on what works for me when I am trying to accomplish certain things (lose a bit of fat, gain some muscle), I am often trying out different things in the hopes of expanding my tool box to help my clients. Because of this I don't post my diet much as I would just get asked questions like,

• Why is he eating cereal?
• Why isn't he eating any protein?
• Why so much fibre?
• Why does he cheat and then fast?

Plus a whole load of other things. The simple is answer is that I like to experiment on myself to find solutions to problems. Some of them work well (adding LISS in for fighters), some of them bad (drinking just protein shakes for a month).

However even with all of that in mind, here is what my diet looks like at the moment. Bare in mind that this is for me, and doesn't remotely look like what many of my clients are doing. Everyone is different and has different needs and solutions.

These meals are generally dated 3 hours apart with either of the workout nutritions added depending on when I train.

Meal 1  

4 whole eggs, handful of mixed peppers, handful of onions, 1 tomato, 1 tbsp grass fed butter (to cook with), 34g whey protein, 5g added fibre, 1 probiotic, 1 multi vit, 2 fish oil

Meal 2 

100g chicken breast, large green salad, 20 almonds, 2 fish oil

Meal 3 

100g chicken breast, large green salad, 20 almonds, 2 fish oil

Meal 4

100g chicken breast, 100g steak, large portion of green veg

Meal 5

100g chicken breast, 60g natural peanut butter, lots of celery, 2 fish oil, 3 ZMA

Workout Nutrition

Biotest Indigo 3G taken 30 mins prior to workout, 6 caps

Weights

15 mins before - 30g (65g on Deadlift and squat days) Biotest Plazma

During - 30g Biotest MAG 10

NoGi/BJJ

30g MAG 10 during.

That's it really. As you can see I don't really eat that much at the moment and I'm using high protein, high fat, low carb. This is working great for my recovery and sleep at the moment and I'm going to continue with this but add in a few more calories as the weeks go on.

Got any questions? Please post them below or contact me via the SITE

pPlease feel free to post any questions in a constructive way. Want to be a dick about what I'm doing in an unconstructive way? I'll remove your posts.

Stay healthy,

Mike

Interview - Physique Prep Coach Shelby Starnes

Hey Guys,

Today I am Talking to Shelby Starnes.

Shelby is a Bodybuilding prep coach based over in the USA.

I have been lucky enough to talk to Shelby before (you can find that HERE) and review his latest eBook The Healthy Body Builder which you can find HERE.

Shelby is a great guy with a fantastic reputation of getting his clients in shape with great condition. 

Here is what he had to say!

Hi Shelby,

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

1    Since we last talked you achieved one of your goals of obtaining a pro card. Has your out look to your training and nutrition altered at all?

I’m constantly striving to improve my methods, but I’m getting close to my personal “ceiling effect” in terms of how much better my physique can get. It took me 7 years at the national level to finally turn pro, and that was at a Master’s show. I’ll be 37 this year and the gains have certainly slowed down – every year they get a little slower, even with improved diet and training methods. At this point I’m just looking for ways to improve my longevity in the sport so I can stay healthy and continue competing for another handful of years. This involves stuff like smarter training methodologies, less fluctuation in body weight during the year, and keeping a close eye on health markers on a regular basis.

My focus now is more on being a coach than a competitor.

2.     With you recent eBook The Healthy Body Builder, you cover some off these methods extensively (especially in regards to health). What specific ones have you found that work best for you personally and what would you recommend to people in Europe and the UK that don't have easy access to blood tests on a regular basis, regular health check etc?

Blood pressure is the most important to keep an eye on. It’s a smart move to get your own blood pressure monitor so you can check it regularly. Make sure you get a large cuff one if you’re carrying much muscle – a cuff that’s too tight will give an incorrect reading. After blood pressure, the big ones to pay attention to are lipids, liver and kidney values, and RBCs. I would recommend figuring out a way to get these checked at least twice a year. C-reactive protein is another cool one I like to get, it’s an indicator of inflammation levels in the body.

3.     One of Clients Jamie Pinder recently took to the Olympia stage and looked phenomenal. Many female competitors have a hard time getting really lean and losing the last bit of fat on the glutes and quads. Any tips for the people out there?

Thanks for the compliment! Jamie is one of the hardest working clients I have and I was very happy with the look she achieved this year. She isn’t a naturally lean person so to get that look took a ton of dedication and sacrifice, for an extended period of time. One method that works extremely well for helping females get lean is high intensity interval cardio. I often have Jamie do 15 to 18 minutes of high intensity sprint intervals, directly followed by 20 to 30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio.  This is a great way to etch in detail, assuming diet and other factors are in line.

4.     You’re known as a coach that doesn’t use fancy diets or techniques to get people into shape, but rather as a man who relies on solid principles to achieve the best conditioning possible. How (if at all) has this changed over the years? Are they things that you have abandoned or revised?

Any good coach is constantly learning and revising their methods to help their clients and athletes achieve their best. All the time I’m adding new tools to my toolbox, by way of new training methods and exercises (thanks John Meadows), nutrition science advances, new supplements, etc.  I haven’t abandoned any methods, but I’m always adding new ones to my toolbox.

With that said though, the biggest factor in progress will always be hard, intelligent work. We always want to make the most of our efforts though: science and experience help accomplish that.

5.     In your opinion, what are the biggest changes you have seen in regard to the science of nutrition, have had the biggest impact in the last 5 years on health and all round performance?

Definitely the advances in peri-workout nutrition. Improved nutrient timing is helping tons of people have better workouts and recover from them more quickly

6.     Cardio is a funny subject in the industry. Some say that LISS is a waste of time and cardio needs to be short and fast, while other think that LISS is a great way to increase calorific expenditure while not taxing recovery. As athletes (especially fighters) schedules are already pretty damn full, adding extra cardio can be a pain on the time wallet not to mention further taxing the system. How do you go about setting cardio up for clients with varying schedules?

For those with a busy schedule, HIIT cardio is definitely the way to go.  I wouldn’t go nuts with it though – 3 to 4 sessions per week would be a max. Additional calories could be pulled from the diet, if needed.

7.     While it is highly individual, do you add cardio in at the beginning with the majority of clients?

If they are overweight and looking for fast results, cardio is usually part of the initial plan. If they are getting ready for a competition and are relatively lean to begin with, I wait to add cardio until it’s needed. I especially wait if we have a long time line to play with (i.e. a contest that’s 20 weeks away, versus 8 weeks away).

8.     I have found that having some clients do low impact cardio has a real positive effect on their results, especially when it comes to metabolism etc. Do you think that cardio is beneficial for most people even if they aren't looking for a massive calorie burn? 

Its health benefits cannot be denied.  If you’re looking to gain as much muscle as possible in the shortest time frame possible though, cardio should probably be limited. That’s not necessarily the healthiest approach though.

9.     Micronutrients are often something that fighters over look during their diet prep, especially towards the end, and many suffer for it. Is there anything that you like to add to your clients nutrition plans to cover the bases or do you focus on it right through the prep?

I recommend using a variety of whole food sources, and when dieting “hardcore” (hypocaloric for an extended period of time), a fruit and veggie supplement (like Biotest Superfoods) is probably a wise addition, as well as a multi-vitamin / multi-mineral. Those that really want to know if their bases are covered should look into micronutrient testing (http://www.spectracell.com/patients/patient-micronutrient-testing/) 

10. As a man who has not only tried just about every supplement out there, plus advised people from average Joe's right up to Olympians, are they any brands out there that you recommend? Obviously supplements are just that, but everyone knows some brands present a more honest opinion of what people can achieve and what they products actually provide.

I’m sponsored by 360CUT nutrition, and also Truenutrition.  I wouldn’t be associated with either of these companies if I didn’t believe their products are what they say they are, and provide a good bang for your buck. Others I use are NOW brand (mainly for health related stuff) and Puritans Pride.

Thanks for your time Shelby!

You can find Shelby and contact him through his site HERE

Stay Healthy,

Mike

Unorthodox Superfoods for BJJ

Hey Guys,

Here is an article that I wrote for the last issue of JiuJitsu Style Magazine. Make sure to have a nip over and look at my online articles for them (plus loads of great BJJ content). Also check out the latest issue, its got a great article on protein in there...

Here is the article,

Unknown Superfoods for BJJ

Food is good.

Whether you want to call it nutrition, a diet, fuel or some munch, we all love to eat a bit of food. And why wouldn’t we? We all train hard, taking care of business on and off the mat, we deserve a bit of nice, tasty nourishment right?

However it doesn’t stop there, many of us look at our food to give us better results. Whether it be a leaner body, more muscle or recovering quicker from the beatings that are handed out in tough sparring, BJJ athletes are starting to realise that their food is important to their success on the mat.

Unlike many other sports, health is often one of the top priorities of the BJJ athlete. Because of this, the term ‘superfoods’ often comes up. So what is a ‘superfood’? Well a superfood is a certain type (or types) of food that can dramatically increase our health, recovery or aid in our physique goals.

Many people know of the standard superfoods, but if you don’t here is a brief list of commonly known ones,

·      Broccoli

·      Grass fed beef

·      Wild caught Alaskan Salmon

·      Avocado

·      Extra Virgin Olive Oil

·      Natural Raw Honey

·      Blueberries

·      Turkey

·      Quinoa

There are many more (a quick Google will give you hundreds of lists), but often there are many great and slightly unusual ones that are left out from the list. With that in mind, here is a quick list of some of the lesser known, but amazing superfoods that you can add to your diet to help you stay healthy and recover quicker!

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is German for ‘sour cabbage’.

Sauerkraut is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented in lactic acid bacteria including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. While the fancy names aren’t that important, it is the fact that it has been fermented in them that is.

As it has been fermented in these bacteria it has an amazing ability to improve your digestion and gut health because of the enzymes that it contains. This simply means that you can absorb more of the nutrients that you take in rather than it simply passing through your system.

It’s  low in calories, fat and carbs making it great for cutting weight.

Its is also incredibly high in vitamins C, B and K. It is also a good source of dietary fibre, folate, iron, potassium, copper and manganese. To top it all off, because of the fermentation process, it is also even more bioavailable (you digest it better and absorb more nutrients) than actual cabbage!

Kimchi

Kimchi is another fermented food.

It is made in Korea and is often a mix of vegetables that can contain tomatoes, chilli and garlic. Kimchi is often made in jars and left to ferment underground.

Just like Sauerkraut, it is very high in live bacteria (specifically lactobacillus kimchii) that to can aid digestion immensely. Just one serving of the superfood provides a person with over 50% of the daily requirement of vitamin C and carotene.

It is also highly rich in vitamin A, thiamine (vitamin B1 to me and you), riboflavin (vitamin B2), Calcium and iron!

Green Coffee Beans

I love coffee, you love coffee, everyone loves coffee. However this isn’t that type of coffee. The coffee that you are thinking of is a dark bean where these are green.

Green Coffee beans have been directly linked to help aid in fat burning (less fat helps you fit into your true weight class for competition).

Even though the beans are high in anti oxidants, it is the chlorogenic acid content that has been linked to their ability to help aid fat loss. The thing to note here are that the beans must be green.

When they are roasted the chlorogenic acid is broken down and therefore not present in normal coffee.

There have been a few concerns lately of whether it’s ok to take Green Coffee extract rather than using the bean. In a study done by the University of Scranton, they found that there was no detriment to using an extract instead of the actual bean.

Turmeric

Turmeric comes from the root of the Curcuma longa plant and has a tough brown skin and a deep orange flesh. Turmeric has long been used as a powerful anti-inflammatory in both the Chinese and Indian systems of medicine. Turmeric was traditionally called "Indian saffron" because of its deep yellow-orange color and has been used throughout history as a condiment and healing remedy.

While turmeric is a fairly well known spice found in most curries and mustard, many people still don’t seem to be using it in their dishes.

Not only will the spice make your food taste great (who doesn’t love a good curry) but it will also aid in helping reduce inflammation in the body. You know all those acting joints you get when you have a hard spar or someone viciously strips your grips? That’s inflammation. Less of this is good right?

The reason that it does this is down to the yellow, orangey colour of the spice. It contains curcumin.  Curcumin has also been linked to helping suffers of cancer, bowel disease and fibrosis suffers.

Horse

Right don’t all jump down my throats and start sending me hate E Mails because you loved My Little Pony as a kid and how dare I recommend you eat such a majestic beast etc, etc.

If we put aside the fact that most of us have great memories of riding ponies at the beach as children, and the recent scandal of horsemeat in supermarkets (which was about honesty, not what we were eating) and take a second to look at the nutritional profile of horse verses beef for a second.

Per 100g

Calories

Horse – 175g

Beef – 273g

Overall fat content

Horse – 2g

Beef - 18g

Protein

Horse – 28g

Beef – 25g.

As you can see, horsemeat is lower in calories and fat but higher in protein! This is probably due the animals diet. While most cows are fed grain to help plump them up for slaughter and sale, horses are free to roam and eat grass pretty much exclusively. Horse also contains double the amount of iron of beef and vitamins B6 and B12.

Now I’m not saying that you should run out and bump off black beauty, but if you can find horsemeat in a reputable butchers that has been slaughtered humanely and is prepared correctly (not processed) then you may want to take a look.

This is just a small list of slightly unknown superfoods that can help you recover better from training, improve your health, and add some new tastes to your food.

As with all nutrition, making sure you have a correctly balanced diet that contains everything you need is of the upmost importance. Take a few mins to see what you’re actually putting in your mouth, you may realise you can get more out of cheaper, less known food!

Stay healthy,

Mike