Freshers Fat: Part 2
If you missed part one, you can read it here
This tip may seem extreme to those of you who are new to the training world but, trust me, it works. Its really very simple, in order to offset the extra calories from the alcohol (it has 7 calories per gram) you’re going to eat differently during the day. This will involve discipline but it will also prevent a beer belly, so suck it up. During the day you main food source will be protein and little else.
There is a simple explanation for this. When you drink the alcohol is converted to acetate, this is toxic, so your body does all it can to metabolise it. This means your body also stops processing other nutrients. Now, it’s very difficult for alcohol to be stored directly as fat but it does allow excess dietary fat or carbohydrate to become body-fat.
Therefore, the approach is to eat very little dietary fat (<40g), this will be directly deposited in fat cells. Carbohydrate is less if a concern as it requires a very wasteful process to become fat in the body (De Novo Lipogenesis), so you can have some carbohydrate during the day (<150g) but it would be best to limit sources to vegetables or fruit
Finally, protein. You can eat this to your heart’s content. Protein is an extremely poor pre-cursor for fat gain, not to mention due to the high metabolic cost of digestion, many of the ingested calories are expended as heat. Protein also trumps the other two macros for satiety – leaving you full and no longer craving a pre-drinking snack. This means grilled chicken breasts, lean beef burgers, protein shakes and most low-fat dairy, the key is to avoid foods with a high fat content (read the labels if your not sure). I appreciate this may seem extreme so below is a sample menu of how I would suggest you approach the day:
Breakfast: None – large black coffee + green tea.
Lunch: large amount of grilled chicken, grilled peppers, fajita seasoning, mix in low-fat cottage cheese/cream cheese.
Dinner: Lean Steak/burgers with low fat cheddar on top served with salad.
Snacks: Protein shakes, low fat cheese + apple, cottage cheese.
Try to stop eating 2-3 hours before you plan to start drinking. Equally, if you really want to avoid weight gain drink only spirits all night (vodka shots work well), I like ordering 2 vodka shots and a pint of water, you’ll enjoy the night and avoid the hangover.
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Very similar to Martin’s approach:http://www.leangains.com/2010/07/truth-about-alcohol-fat-loss-and-muscle.html
Good to see great minds think alike!
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