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How Proper Calorie Fragmentation Improves Body Composition?
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How Proper Calorie Fragmentation Improves Body Composition?
By: Hristo Hristov
It is a well-established fact that calories control everyone's bodyweight. No matter how many meals a day you have, it is the calorie balance in the end of the day that matters. If you eat fewer calories than you are burning, you will lose weight. It won't matter if these calories come from chocolate, bagels, meat, eggs, fruit or whatever else.
Calories control bodyweight.
What about body composition? The two major components of body composition are lean body mass and fat mass. Suppose you just lost 10 pounds of bodyweight. Does it matter how many of those 10 pounds were fat and how many muscle? Sure, it DOES matter. While calorie balance controls bodyweight, other important factors influence the proportions of fat and muscle that you gain or lose! These factors may improve or make worse the way you look naked.
One of those factors is calorie distribution (or calorie fragmentation). Bodybuilders, as the group of people most concerned with their body composition, have been spreading their calorie intake into smaller and more frequent meals for decades. Originally they believed that doing so "raises one's metabolism". Science has never proved this belief. Recent findings reveal that there is no metabolic advantage of eating smaller and more frequent meals.
However recent research has uncovered that spreading your calorie intake into smaller and more frequent meals improves body composition! More calories end up building muscles, and less calories go to your fat deposits. The calorie balance equation still rules, but more calories end up building muscles! That, my friend, means that you will look better!
The most promising research comes from the labs of Georgia State University. Dr. Dan Benardot and colleagues developed a sophisticated computer program that analyzes a person's within-day calorie balance. They named the program - computerized time-line energy assessment (CTLEA). The research team tracked the calorie feeding patterns of 42 gymnasts and 20 runners. The trial found that the athletes with the largest and most frequent energy deficits were the fattest! On the other hand, the athletes with the smallest and least frequent energy deficits were the leanest. The results were equally supportive for both aerobic (runners) and anaerobic (gymnast) athletes.
This research is absolutely fascinating. It irrefutably proves that eating smaller and more frequent meals leads to more muscle and less fat. Whether you are on a 1200 or 4000 calorie diet, it does make sense to spread these calories into more meals. The research suggests that for maximum muscle, we must minimize (if not eliminate) time frames of the day where our calorie balance falls below minus 300 calories.
The most frequent times, a person fails to feed his or her body sufficient calories to keep a (-300;+300) balance are: sleeping and training.
Remember these 4 rules of good calorie distribution
- Eat before bed.
- Eat your breakfast.
- Eat before exercise.
- Eat after exercise.
About the Author
Hristo Hristov owns X3MSoftware, a company specializing in developing diet and fitness tracking software. Hristo has a degree in Computer Science and passion for strength training. Hristo has designed and written Fitness Assistant, X3MSoftware's leading software product. Download your demo at http://www.x3msoftware.com
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How to Benefit from the Mind-Body Connection
(excerpt)
You are about to gain insight into the
mind-body connection. The number of
people who truly understand these principles on our
planet are relatively few.
There is an undeniable connection between our minds and
bodies, you can learn
to use this fact to your benefit.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of "Love, Medicine and
Miracles" was once a
distraught cancer surgeon until he
began to understand the greater principles
of the mind-
body connection. He felt dragged down by the artificial
barriers
that existed between patient and doctor, and the
helplessness he often felt as
a result of his inability
to effectively serve those patients. Eventually, those
barriers
were disintegrated by Dr. Siegel's recognition
and growing understanding of the
mind-body connection and
how it could serve his patients and himself.
Dr. Siegel, or Bernie as he began to have his patients
refer to him, had some
startling realizations as a cancer surgeon. He found that
there were actually
quite a few people in the world that successfully beat
the statistics on cancer
survival. He began to recognize that a patient's ability
to defeat something as
serious as cancer had to do with the patient's mind and
attitude about their
disease.
If you would like to see the rest of
this article, please go here:
http://www.tobeinformed.com/repository/mind-body.html
copyright 2004 - David Snape
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Copyright 2002-2005 by David Snape
David Snape
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