Dieting through a training camp – Part 1

Dieting through a training camp – Part 1

Most amateur and professional boxers will have some time off between fights and once a date is agreed for their next fight they will increase their training and start their diet to make weight (heavyweights obviously excluded from this), this is the period they refer to as their training camp.

What I’m going to discuss here are some key diet and supplementation points to consider for the fighter who has to make weight, the what’s and what not’s to stress over, I’ll even brush on the dreaded but now almost essential dehydration process. Hopefully you’ll pick up some key points, which you can apply to your own training and nutrition plans. My experience comes from the boxers and MMA fighters I have worked with and all of my work is backed by science, something that should not be ignored in exchange for fad diets or self-proclaimed guru’s new methods. If the scientifically backed methods don’t work for you then it’s not the science, its’ most definitely you. Crash diets suck big time, don’t get in the viscous cycle of that being your only option to make weight. Oh and don’t bitch and moan about having to diet, if you hate it that much fight at your natural weight.

As a performance athlete making weight you really must do all you can to protect your metabolism, there’s no doubt as bodyweight and fat stores drop the so will your metabolic rate, however you need to protect it and make sure it is not magnified. This is your key tool to making weight the easy way. Crash dieting and bingeing after a fight are a sure fire way to metabolic damage, now the science is not vast on this area (check out the seminal Minnesota Semi-Starvation Study for good info on metabolic rate decreases) my experience with athletes is that every time you binge and add fat it becomes harder to shift that fat each fight, compounded by alcohol and age. I’ve worked with many fighters who through a combination of steady state cv, low calories and then bingeing after a fight just find it harder each time to make weight and the calories have to go lower for longer. Soon enough you’re left with nowhere to go and end up living on barely any food and using stimulants to get through training sessions, that is not a good place for increasing performance coming in to a fight. what’s really happening in this situation is your testosterone levels, nervous system output and thyroid drop through the floor and yet cortisol levels sky rocket, this is a bad environment for performance, recovery and fat loss, albeit somewhat inevitable when you do this, limiting it is key.

I have seen fighters eating sub 500kcals for 2 full weeks prior to the weigh in, this is a crucial time and using stimulants to carry you through training brings about the other real issue of adrenal fatigue. So at all costs protect your metabolism, to do this you need to be sensible and here are the techniques I use with clients who have suffered with this:

·      If you have a lot of weight to drop then drop it at the start of training camp, don’t leave it until 4 weeks out where you have to starve yourself

·      Don’t binge after a fight if you’ve starved yourself, your body is not a position to handle a huge influx of calories from sugar and processed foods you will have been craving

·      Increase your carb intake after fights slowly 25g increments per week

·      Don’t stop training after a fight, you may want a break but you cant eat all you want and not train, you’ll just get fat quickly, so just keep in your s&c sessions and your hiit conditioning work if you wish to cut back

·      Start your dieting early, get the bulk of the weight off quickly and then slowly eat and train your way in to your weight

·      Keep protein high. Protein has been shown to help increase metabolic rate.

·      Don’t steady state cardio as your calorie burner – not only will those long runs damage your knees and joints but too much of such activity has been shown to slow metabolic rate, I hear of current world champions going for a steady run to burn off the calories every night. We’ve all seen the overweight guys walking for an hour on the treadmill in the gym, saying he’s burnt 1000kcals off at a steady pace barely breaking a sweat, the fact is he’s not and he’s still overweight

·      Finally don’t worry, permanently screwing your metabolism up is pretty much impossible, what’s important is making the changes to make things easier so you can concentrate on your performance rather than constantly worrying about making weight, stress is not good for your metabolism either.

You’ll notice that I advise to strip weight quickly at the beginning of a training camp, the reason for this is two-fold: firstly it will leave you to concentrate on what should be the most important factor which is your performance as the fight gets closer, secondly, dragging a heavy body around the treadmill is hard work, you need to increase your power: weight, this is basically the speed at which you can move with keeping your heart rate in the 90%+ zone, the higher the speed the better, after all speed is a key performance component for fighter. If you’re trundling round the treadmill at 14kph at over 90% hr you need to increase this and you will see a marked improvement in your performance in the ring, which is ultimately what you want.

The single best way to do this at the beginning of a camp is a ketogenic diet. This is a far from ideal style of dieting for performance athletes, although recent research out of Italy showed performance not to be affected on a 1 month ketogenic diet it is in my experience not optimal long term for an athlete. Although carbohydrates are not actually an essential macronutrient they are essential for fuelling and recovering from gruelling twice a day workouts, however a ketogenic diet alongside a steady increase in training intensity will drop the weight off you quickly, most of which will be water/glycogen to start with but there will be some fat loss too, this method allows you to bring carbohydrates back in around training to fuel and recover from workouts quickly as well as being closer to your fighting or pre dehydration weight. 3-4 weeks should be the longest timeframe to use a ketogenic diet, if you’re doing longer than this then you’ll notice your performance either dropping or plateauing. You may also start to feel like you are overtraining as by this time your training intensity should be peaking. This is the exact tactic I have used many time with fighters, the fact they’re eased back in to training allows for this type of harsh diet.

To be continued, hopefully/obviously...

Chia Seed dessert

While away on training camp with Kell Brook the diet focus is always on performance food and weight loss, however that doesn't mean it has to be boring and bland. I'm always looking for ways to make the meals interesting and full of flavour and yet keep them within the macronutrient requirements for the day as well as sticking to the key diet principles of lean and clean.

I have over 8000 recipes on my pc, some days i simply sit when i have an hour looking for recipes with key foods and add them to my folders so i always have options and recipes to try out when my diet gets a little boring. When it comes to dieting myself i miss dessert, i have a sweet tooth which i can ignore but i don't feel like i should, therefore i look for healthy alternatives and with this Chia Seed recipe i definitely found one!

Chia Seeds are a great food and very versatile, some of the benefits include:

• high omega 3 content 
• good protein content with19 essential amino acids
• high in fibre
• good source of calcium and iron
• low in carbohydrates

Now the protein and omega 3 content can be debated as the absorption of these may not be great compared to say oily fish for omega 3 or chicken for protein but the important point is they're a seed and their content is a bonus to what is already a very healthy product.

As mentioned they're also very versatile, for this recipe you leave them to soak as the seeds form in to a gelatinous mix.

Chia Seed dessert:

2tbspn chia seeds

1/3 can of coconut milk

1teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon honey

Method:

Add all ingredients into a bowl and mix together, leave in fridge for at least 30 minutes and then split in to 4 servings.

Here's the macro breakdown for 4 servings:

Calories: 352kclas

Protein: 4g

Carbohydrates: 26g

Fat: 27g

I added a tablespoon of blueberry quark too as i needed to use it up, got to say this was a great dessert enjoyed by Kell, Dave Hembrough and myself!

Here's a photo i took of mine!

I will be adding fruit such as blueberries and cherries next time i make this.

As always any thoughts you have on this let me know!

David

Book review - Mike Dolce 'Living Lean'

Book review – The Dolce diet – Living Lean

Mike Dolce is arguably the go to guy when it comes to nutrition and making weight for mma fighters and as I have worked with quite a few mma fighters in prep for their fights I admired how he had positioned himself and his client base. However what put me off buying the book was what I’d read on forums about it, that it was nothing of note and that many of Dolce’s claims in the book about what he’d achieved were actually massively overblown and it was mainly an ego flexing book and not a worthy nutrition book. Still, following Dolce on twitter and Facebook I thought while away on a training camp I’d be able to sit down and give it a good read (it took me a mere 2 hours!) and for only £6.23 on Kindle I chanced it wouldn’t be a great loss and I’d maybe pick a few nuggets of advice I could use or try myself, after all I’d read 3 weeks to shredded and liked some of the principles such as mindfully goal setting and writing goals down to encourage progress, both of which are good tools everyone dieting can utilise to good effect.

First of all it should be made clear that this book is not specifically aimed at fighters at all, if anything it is merely a book for the average person to who needs a nudge in the right direction or needs some fresh diet ideas to kick processed foods out of their diet and just wants to lose weight, nothing wrong with that right? Well it wouldn’t make a good book review if I wasn’t slightly honest about just how I felt about it, would it.

So the book starts with Mike Dolce’s life story, from his childhood and how he was inspired by the magazines featuring arnie, frank zane et al and his family’s poor health to hit the gym. It’s here that the tone is set, Mike Dolce reminds me of the kid who wanted to be liked by everyone, some things may have happened but all stories you take with a rock of salt because nobody is that awesome, but this book is about ‘Living Lean’ right so let’s not dwell on my opinion of the author too much.

The book’s first 6 chapters are all about Dolce, I’ll save you the time of reading them, he’s fricken awesome bro….  as he’d have you believe. As the book gets to the real important bits of educating you on diet and helping you plan meals around your daily activities, the paragraphs and chapters become smaller and the content a little less catchy. All of a sudden it seems Mike Dolce ran out of things to say.

The diet principles Dolce preaches are great though, however they are nothing more than Paleo principles and we all know that cutting out processed foods is a very positive step to losing weight and you must be creative with food if you’re to ‘live lean’ as boredom easily overrides good health in nutrition these days, hence we reach for a high fat/high sugar snack all too often. Eating clean is a huge part of controlling calories BUT Dolce like many others states calories don’t count. This is where it becomes obvious this book is not aimed at anyone competing in sports at all, calories really do count if you’ve got to make a specific weight (that’s for another article though). Switching from eating what is now a standard diet for most people to the principles Dolce instils will help you lose weight, it will make you feel better physically and mentally too because you’ll be taking control back of your diet and eating much better foods. But that’s a no brainer surely, this is nothing new. Stop eating crap and prepare your meals, cook them yourself and eat a wide variety and you will function better than if you ate highly processed foods.

The meal plans outlined in the book are scarce, there’s just the 1. So that’s one meal plan for every person reading it, the same meal plan for those 100lbs overweight and the one’s 10lbs overweight. That ignores so many variables you need to consider when dieting, added to the fact he gives you no inclination on how to manipulate these factors and again it shows the real information needed is a little light. It’s the same with the recipes, although it’s now apparent why this is so as Dolce has released a new book titled ‘Living Lean – Cookbook’ with all of his recipes in them, which you're expected to buy, the recipes however will be easy to find on the many Paleo blogs.

So on to the training section, which is quite comprehensive, however for anyone that trains skip to the dumbbell deadlift photo demonstration for a quick look at what’s in store!

The routine’s look simple enough, there’s reference to an mma HIIT training sessions which must have been thrown in there to add some credibility. It doesn’t though. The training plans are nothing new, easy to follow and will get results to a certain extent as most readers will be sedentary and any sort of training os better than no training, just ask the P90X fans about that. in Living Lean however there’s no overall training plan or advice on how to structure your week. There’s also zero mention of pre or post workout nutrition which I find really odd considering the proven scientific research out there on these hotly debated areas of performance nutrition and Dolce’s positioning in MMA.

So there you have it, my view on Mike Dolce’s Living Lean book. There are some great principles for the average person in there but that’s it, there’s not much you can actually take from the book. Eat healthy non-processed foods and get creative in the kitchen, that’s about it.

The rest is about Mike himself, who obviously likes himself and is proud of what he’s done, maybe if he didn’t choose this path he would be selling second hand cars, that’s the impression I get of him.

I would recommend ‘The Paleo diet for athletes: a nutritional formula for peak athletic performance’ for fighters or athletes who are looking to drop weight and get in shape. This is a much better resource than the dolce diet.

For anyone else looking to eat well based on the same principles as Mike Dolce then look no further than the 1000’s of blogs out there on the Paleo principles of eating.  Rob Wolff would be a great start point.

As always I welcome your comments.

Next up will be The Renegade Diet by Jason Ferruggia 

Make yourself a winner - As featured in Alpha Fit issue 4

There is nothing particularly different about the kind of nutrition you need to become a super athlete. It’s just a case of having the willpower and following David Stache’s four golden rules.

I am often asked what the differences are between the diets I write for elite athlete clients and those of the average gym user wanting to perform or look better. The truth is the same foods work for both – there are no secret foods that elite athletes are eating, nor are there any supplements they have access to that your average gym user cannot get access to. However there are differences between elite and non-elite that I see too often when it comes to nutrition. Here is an overview of those differences.

1. Consistency is the key
This is the number one difference and without doubt the biggest issue when it comes to diet. Eating consistently well brings results – there is no doubt about that. Sticking to a diet requires willpower, but when that diet brings you results that earn you a living, the willpower struggle diminishes. If your salary depended on eating the right foods and sticking to a diet, I’m sure you would.

2. Understand how food works
Either the athlete or their nutritionist they work with will have a good understanding of why they are eating specific foods, why their meal timings are set out as they are and what the implications are of straying from the diet. I’m not saying you have to have a qualification in nutrition, but an understanding of at least what foods are needed and when will improve your performance. [Keeping up with AlphaFit should be a good way to start if you are not sure – Ed.]

3. Plan, plan, plan
Lack of planning: After consistency this is the biggest issue I see for results not coming quick enough. If you don’t plan your foods out and take the time you will stray from your diet. As a good friend Chris Evers – one of the most committed gym members I have – commented: “The engagement with food and the time and the effort you have to put in has to go up if you are to be the best you can be.” To really be the best you have to live the life in the kitchen too.

4. Don’t forget about micronutrients
So often I see how yoing guys are using a protein powder, creatine and a pre-workout formula but completely ignore micronutrients either from their diet or from supplements. At the very least you should use a multivitamin. Other micronutrients such as zinc and Vitamin D are excellent for both body composition and sports performance, yet these are often ignored too. Contrast this with the elite and they will at the very least be covering all bases either through food or supplementation. I recently ran my own mini-research in to zinc deficiency of 37 males who bought a tub of protein. Some 28 were deficient in zinc, yet only four bought zinc supplements. Begs the question: why did they bother with any supplements?

There’s nothing radical there. All these are just behaviours which elite athletes adhere to and that is what sets them apart in terms of their diet from the average gym user.
So what does it take to be the best? Well, apart from genetics and great skill, the importance of nutrition is not to be underestimated. If you’re not planning out your diet then you won’t ever be the best you can be as you will never see where you could improve. This is integral to constant progress.
So try and implement the above key differences for three months and you will be surprised how much progress you will make.
Follow David on Twitter @totalbd or on his website www.totalbodydevelopment.co.uk.

5 Week weight loss programme - Free trial

I have put together a 5 week weight loss programme that i am looking to run with a small group of up to 8 people. I will be running this from the end of January. This will be a free programme in exchange for a few things from particiapnts to help me measure the success for the future promotion of the programme.

I have put this together using my experience of working with over 200 clients ranging from regular gym users who want to lose weight and also the higher end techniques of working with elite athletes who have to make weight. You will in effect a personalised diet and training routine to follow for FREE!

if this is something that interest you then click on the send me a message to my Facebook account. Facebook Profile