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I’ve been waiting on this my whole life,
These gains are keepin’ me up at night… aight?
– Kanye (probably)
If you wish, you can grab the N.W.A. Newsletter Playlist on Spotify here, all of the songs that have been featured in the newsletter are on the playlist.
Happy Friday, Coach J here from Anyman Fitness – and welcome to the latest edition of The N.W.A. Newsletter.
Each Friday’s N.W.A. Newsletter will have 3 parts:
- A Nutritional Tip to help make your diet healthier and easier to stick to.
- A Workout Tip to help make your training sessions more effective and fun.
- An Attitude/Mindset tip to help you strengthen your greatest asset – your mental toughness.
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I will also give you my single favorite piece of social media content from AF over the past week and link to it on either Instagram or Twitter.
Without any further ado… let’s get started, shall we?
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N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week
There’s a myth in the world of fitness I wish would die a fiery death.
It’s the myth that your body has an upper threshold to how much protein it can “use” in one sitting.
The myth is the human body can only use 30 grams of protein at at a time; anything over 30 grams of protein is excreted out in your urine.
This myth has been around for over 25 years. Those of us in the nutrition space know how silly it is, but it’s crazy how frequently you see people spout that information as gospel online.
So where did that myth come from?
In 1997, there was a study that looked at the absorption rates of various kinds of protein, specifically whey protein and casein protein.
Both whey and casein are byproducts of dairy. Whey is found in milk, and casein is found in cottage cheese.
For some reason, this made all kinds of mainstream publications scream out “the body can only use 30 grams of protein at one time!
For years, this caused bodybuilders to put a protein shake by their bed and set their alarms for 3 am so they don’t lose their gains… how silly..
Why was THAT their main takeaway? How did they look at protein absorption rates and decide that meant the body would waste anything over 30 grams of protein at once?
Who knows… but it was 100% fake news…
Think about this from an evolutionary standpoint.
You’re a caveman and you haven’t eaten in 3 days.
You go out hunting and luckily, you kill a wooly mammoth.
Hey, you’d better only eat 4 ounces of meat at once, or else you’re wasting your protein! You need to evenly space out your wooly mammoth meat or you’re going to starve!
Bullocks.
Now, if your goal is to maximize protein synthesis… that’s another story.
Protein synthesis means “the protein you eat is being turned into muscle” – it also assumes you’re lifting hard, consistently, on a progressive overload strength training program.
If that’s the case, and you want to maximize your muscle growth, you will want aminos and protein in your bloodstream at all times.
It’s best to eat 3 or 4 evenly spaced meals with at least 40 grams of protein per day.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will do it (probably), but if you want to be extra careful, go for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snack before bed.
But either way, you don’t “waste” any protein over 30 grams.
Get your protein in by any means necessary; trust me, your body will put it ALL to good use.
To read more about protein, here’s a super informative link from Examine.com – the internet’s best unbiased scientific nutritional information.
N.W.A. Workout Tip Of The Week
Fat loss is difficult, but frankly, building muscle is much harder.
In reality, to lose fat, here’s what you need to do: Be in a consistent calorie deficit over time.
That’s pretty much it.
We can argue about the best ways to do it, as there are smart ways (high protein, moderate carbs/fats) and there are stupid ways (juice cleanses and eating nothing but meat).
But the truth is still there, staring us in the face.
Get into a calorie deficit, and you will lose fat, period.
Building muscle on the other hand, requires you to do a LOT of things right…
You need to:
- Be rock solid consistent in the weight room
- Use progressive overload and get stronger every session
- Rest, recover, and hydrate properly
- Sleep as much as possible
- Slowly gain weight over time
- Eat enough protein daily
- Eat nutritious foods that aid in the muscle building process
Also, the rates of muscle building are much slower than the rates of fat loss.
You can lose up to 2% of your bodyweight safely without risking any muscle loss.
Which means, someone who weighs 200 pounds can lose up to 4 pounds of body fat each week safely (I wouldn’t suggest it, though, that would equate to a HUGE daily calorie deficit and it would be unsustainable over time).
Building muscle, on the other hand, is a slow and arduous process.
Gaining 1-2 pounds of muscle per MONTH is an excellent rate of progress for anyone.
If you have a few years of training under your belt, you’re probably looking at 3-5 pounds of muscle growth per year, honestly…
But building muscle is a noble cause.
Muscle builds your metabolism, protects you from falls and injury, gives you a higher quality of life, promotes longevity, reduces all cause mortality, and it looks great when your shirt is off (very important!).
And there’s some good news about building muscle… it’s pretty darn difficult to build it, but after you do build it, it’s pretty darn easy to maintain it.
It might take training 4-5 days per week like an animal to build muscle.
But just 2-3 days per week for 30-40 minutes per session is all that’s needed to maintain your muscle once it’s there.
Building muscle is what it’s all about – it should be your reason for training.
It’s arguably the #1 thing you can do for your long term health and vitality.
And it’s definitely the #1 thing you can do to look better naked.
Guys and gals alike need to be striving to build as much muscle as possible.
You’ll be glad you did when you’re 70 and still healthy and robust, instead of shaky and frail.
Looking for training programs and nutrition done for you?
Our community will give you all that and then some, just take a look at the hundreds of people we’ve helped.
You can get your 1st month of Full Access: Anyman Fitness for just 20 bucks at this link.
N.W.A. Mindset Tip Of The Week
Last week, my 10 year old Ava had a basketball game on Sunday.
She had just started a new league, and they had only had 1 practice so far.
It was time for their first game.
And out of nowhere, after I told her to get ready, she started crying and screaming, “I don’t want to go, nobody likes me, and I hate this league!”
I was so confused… I had been at her last practice in its entirety.
I didn’t see any evidence that any of the girls didn’t like Ava.
Everyone seemed perfectly cordial; but it was practice #1 and most of the girls didn’t know each other very well.
A few girls on the team had played together before, though, so to be fair, there was a small group of girls who were chatting with each other.
But that was to be expected if they knew each other… it’s not like they were purposely excluding Ava or anything…
I had a little talk with Ava and reassured her it was the first practice and she would make some friends soon enough.
Ava makes friends everywhere she goes; she’s very social and has no issues in that department.
But she can be pretty sensitive (as evidenced by her being so upset).
I told her I understood how she felt.
I’ve been to plenty of basketball camps as a kid where I didn’t know a soul, so I know how that can make you feel.
I told her it would get better, she just needed to keep going and keep her head up.
She finally got into the car (thank God) and we headed out to the game.
A few minutes into the before-game practice, during a rebounding drill, Ava grabbed an offensive rebound, and sank a put back bucket.
It was truly a great play, and the coaches came over and high fived her, and the entire team actually started clapping, believe it or not.
Ava had a smile on her face 5 miles wide; as a parent, it was so cool to see.
On the way home, her entire demeanor had changed.
She was happy and smiling.
I asked her if she felt better and she said she did, and she was looking forward to the rest of the season.
Crisis diverted… gold star for parenting over here (LOL)…
So, where’s your mindset lesson here?
It’s simply this… when you “fight” against doing something in your head, the perception is always worse than reality.
Back in the day, I used to loathe going to the gym.
I would sit at home, thinking, “Oh man I hate going to the gym, I’m going to have to get sweaty, and push hard, and it’s going to hurt, and I don’t want to be there, and I’d rather be sitting on the couch, and…”
Sound familiar?
But the funny thing is once I got off my arse and started taking action, it really wasn’t that bad.
It was just that I had built it up so much in my head, it was causing anxiety.
One of my favorite quotes is from Ed Latimore, who famously said, “The heaviest weight you’ll ever lift is the gym door.”
I love that quote.
And it’s very true.
The next time your lizard brain tries to tell you to skip a session, make a pact with yourself.
Go work out for 5 minutes.
If you want to leave after 5 minutes, okay, no worries, head on home.
But chances are, once you have momentum, you’ll stay longer than 5 minutes, and get a great workout in.
Now, if I could only get Ava to work on her post up moves… maybe I can squeeze a college scholarship out of her… 😉
Looking for motivation and killer results?
You can check out our testimonials page here to see what kind of results you can expect from our program.
And you can get your 1st month of Full Access: Anyman Fitness for just 20 bucks at this link.
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Nutrition advice on the internet be like:
“Don’t eat any carbs, because carbs are like sugar and sugar causes cancer, and don’t eat any meat because meat is protein and protein damages your kidneys, and don’t eat any fat because fat will clog your arteries and make you have a heart attack and don’t eat any plants because fiber isn’t essential are you stupid, and don’t eat any fruit ‘cuz fruit is sugar and did you read the first part of this, and don’t eat any processed meat ‘cuz it’s going to blow out your colon and give you even MORE cancer and don’t eat any dairy because humans are the first species to drink the milk of OTHER animals how dumb are you, and don’t eat any seed oils I mean it’s called RAPESEED oil and I’m pretty sure rape is bad namsayin, so basically you can’t eat anything, but then don’t do that either because if you don’t eat enough you’ll go into starvation mode and your metabolism will shut down and you’ll just get fat.
Got it?
I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Anyman Fitness N.W.A. Newsletter.
I’ll be back next week.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Best,
Coach J
Anyman Fitness
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