THE FIT GIRL'S GUIDE TO PROTEIN

It’s a no-brainer that protein helps you stay lean and strong, but maybe you’re unsure exactly just how much you should be getting to reach your current fitness goals. Your gym buf boyfriend recommends one thing, but your nutritionist says another, and that article you just read online tells you something else altogether. We’ve got the real scoop on protein, including why you need it, the best types to choose, and the amount you should consume to look and feel your best.

Building Block Basics

Protein’s main function is to build and repair the body’s tissues, including muscles, plus synthesize hormones  and enzymes. Since protein is constantly being broken down, it’s vital to consume this all-important macronutrient at every meal, and especially after strenuous workouts. Protein is made up of two groups of 20 amino acids, including both essential (your body doesn’t make them, so you can get them only from what you eat) and non-essential (your body synthesizes from other compounds such as fats and carbohydrates) aminos. They can be further broken into two classes, complete and incomplete. A complete protein has the full essential amino acid profile in the correct ratios; an incomplete protein lacks one or more essential amino acids.

How much protein do I really need?

The RDA suggests 0.83 grams of protein per kilogram of  body weight for the average woman (about 53g for a 140-pound woman). But a bodybuilder or active recreational athlete needs a bit more—between 1 and 2 grams per kilogram of body weight, according to the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). For an active woman who weighs 140 pounds, that’s about 64–127 grams daily.

Does it matter when I eat it?

Since your body is always repairing and building tissue, you need to constantly replace your protein stores. Otherwise, you’ll start to break down protein from muscle to make glucose for fuel. Aim to consume 4 to 5 ounces (or 25–30 grams) of protein every 2.5–3.5 hours (about five to six times a day). Great sources include eggs, milk, meat, fish, poultry, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, quinoa, amaranth, bulgur,  tofu, and combinations like beans or lentils and rice (which together make complete proteins). A balanced lunch might be 4 ounces of grilled chicken over salad with a rainbow of fresh vegetables; an energizing afternoon snack might include 6 ounces of Greek yogurt or ¾ cup of low-fat cottage cheese with some nuts and fresh berries.

Is it possible to get too much protein?

Yes. Your body can absorb only about 30 grams of protein (4–5 ounces) at a time, so if you take in more than that, you’ll store the excess as fat.

Following a high-protein diet (one where protein makes up more than 40% of your daily total caloric intake) can also put a strain on the kidneys, which have to work harder to remove the by-products of protein digestion. For every gram of protein consumed above 2 grams per day, about 1–1.5 milligrams of calcium is also excreted, which leads to loss of bone density. Aim for macronutrient ratios of no more than 40% protein, 30–35% carbs, and 25–30% fats.

Can protein help me lose weight?

Yes. Higher-protein foods require more work as your body breaks them down to use for fuel, so you’ll naturally burn more calories to digest them. Plus, high-protein foods help you feel fuller longer, so you’re less likely to snack or overeat. Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition also shows that higher protein intake (about 30–40% of the diet) helps to boost levels of the hormone leptin (the so-called satiety hormone), while reducing levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin, helping you stay satisfied after meals or snacks.

What if I don’t get enough protein?

Your body uses its own muscle stores for fuel when there’s a lack of protein. That’s especially bad when trying to build lean muscle. To get the gains you want at the gym (and recovering post-workout), consume either complete amino acids (like dairy or meat) or a combination of incomplete (such as rice and beans) at every meal and snack.

BLAST FAT AND BUILD MUSCLE

To achieve your better-body goals, pair key ingredients that ramp up fat burn while staving off hunger pains 

Reducing body fat requires not just cutting calories; you have to burn stored fat instead of muscle tissue, too. Our bodies like to hold on to fat, saving it up as insurance against potential starvation.

But supplements can help coax your body into withdrawing from this savings account instead, sparing muscle and extending the time your meals keep you feeling full.

And, as anyone who’s dieted knows, other concerns also arise when you cut calories: You have less energy to perform your workouts and often feel depleted (not to mention cranky).

Outsmart your hunger, boost energy, and ramp up fat burn with a few key ingredients.

1. Burn Through Your Fat Stores

Often, you need to turn to supplemental support to encourage your body to release more stored  fat when you’re in a calorie deficit.

The fruit Garcinia mangostana contains hydroxy citric acid (HCA), which  spurs the release of body fat from storage to help fuel workouts.

Raspberry ketones also encourage your  body to release stored  fat, and support a higher metabolism so you burn even more fat.

And carnitine helps carry body fat released from storage into the mitochondria of cells, where it can then be burned as energy to fuel workouts.

Together, these supplements unpack fat, boost the calories you burn, and allow you to use released body fat  as energy during  intense training.

2. Diet Without Hunger

When you’re cutting calories, you may make it through your workouts without giving in to your cravings, but by day’s end, your willpower is at its lowest and you’re more likely to go off course.

Garcinia cambogia (the better-known cousin of Garcinia mangostana) helps to suppress appe-tite, so you’re not suffering from hunger pains throughout the day.

Satiereal saffron extract showed a decrease in snacking, reduced calorie intake, and increased satiety when subjects supplemented it for eight weeks.

L-Tyrosine, an amino acid, enhances mood, energy, and fat-loss. Together, these three can help reduce appetite so you succeed on your calorie-reduction plan.

3. Knock Out Fat Loss

Slim Science Thermogenic and Slim Science Appetite Suppressant were created with these key ingredients to help you ramp up your fat burn without falling prey to cravings.

The Thermogenic supplement features Garcinia mangostana, carnitine, and raspberry ketones, plus
vitamins B and C, to  help you burn fat over muscle. The Appetite Suppressant is formulated with Garcinia cambogia as part of its Super CitriMax blend, plus Satiereal saffron extract, tyrosine, and other ingredients.

Stack them before each meal, taking three one-capsule dosages each day.

THE SANE WAY TO EAT

You've heard that old dieting adage "a calorie is a calorie." You've probably also heard "all foods are fine in moderation," But the truth is, putting 2,000 calories of low-quality food into our metabolic system will have a radically different effect on our weight than ingesting the sanne quantity of high-quality calories, And manyhighly processed foods can set us up for trouble even in moderation.The quality of calories isdetermined by four factors: satiety, aggression, nutrition, and efficiency. A "SANE" approach to eating considers them all.

Satiety refers to how quickly calories satisfy our appetites and hunger. Most of us can easily consume copious amounts of beer and pizza, but if we tried to eat the same amount of calories in another form — say, five cans of tuna or 30 cups of broccoli — we'd be uncomfortably full. That's satiety in action.

Aggression refers to how likely calories are to be stored as body fat. To keep calories from being shuttled into our fat cells, we don't need to worry about eating less food. We just need to eat less aggressive food.

Body-fat storage is triggered as a response to eating food that causes us to have more glucose in our bloodstream than we can use at one time.

The more aggressive calories are, the faster they increase the levels of blood glucose and the more likely that our bodies will lock up that glucose as stored fat.

Nutrition refers to how many macro- and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, es¬ sential amino acids, essential fatty acids, phytonutrients) your calories provide.

Fewer nutrients per calorie (as found in most starches, sweets and fast foods) means low nutrition quality.

Lots of nutrients per calorie (as found in nonstarchy vegetables, high-quality proteins, low-sugar fruits, and nuts and seeds) means high nutrition quality.

Effficiency is how easily calories are converted into body fat The more inefficiently calories are stored as body fat, the better.

Fiber, for example, is not digested and therefore can never be stored as body fat, The body tries to digest fiber, but after burning a bunch of calories trying to break down and absorb fiber, it gives up and passes it through the digestive system.

Refined sugars and starches are quite efficiently converted to body fat, while protein is very inefficiently converted. Fats are easily converted but many have other redeeming "SANE" charactehstics that make them desirable.

The more "SANE" foods we eat, the simpler it becomes to achieve and maintain our ideal weight.

The more "inSANE" foods we eat, the more our metabolism is disrupted, and the more inclined we are to overeat.

Foods with a low SANEity rating provide few nutrients and are easily converted into body fat. They trigger the release of body-fat-storing hormones, and they raise our set-point weight.

Here's a look at my SANEity ratings and serving recommendations for various foods.

A BETTER WAY TO EXERCISE

"Take the stairs. Walk 10,000 steps a day. Go for a long bike ride," For general health, this is all fine advice. But, if you want to achieve long-term fat loss, you have to exercise in a way that activates your hormones.

The key is increasing exercise resistance — versus duration or frequency. You can do this with targeted resistance training requiring no more than 10 minutes, two times a week.

I recommend a high-intensity-interval-trainlng (HIIT) program that includes "eccentric" muscle contractions. It works your muscles so deeply that you will be sore for two to three days afterward.

Concentric weight-lifting moves (where the muscle contracts) tend to get the most attention, but research shows that lowering weights (the eccentric action where the muscle extends) enables us to generate more force and activate more of our fat-burning muscle fibers.

That's why all my favorite exercises involve eccentric moves — leg presses, seated rows, chest presses, and overhead shoulder presses.

My own weekly exercise routine consists of doing just one intensive set of eccentric exercises for my legs, back, chest, shoulders, and abdominals. I then do about 15 minutes of yoga-inspired stretching.

I'm all for moving your body however else you like — walking, hiking, dancing, biking. Just don't rely on those activities to help you burn fat.

Conventional cardio builds aerobic conditioning but doesn't work well for long- term fat loss because it does not engage the hormone-shifting muscle fibers that help to regulate whole-body metabolism.

CALORIE MYTHS VS. SMARTER SCIENCE

So how do outdated theories of calorie counting stack up against a more science-based philosophy of sustainable weight loss? Here's a quick overview.

While the old-fashioned "eat less, exercise more" approach can work, it doesn't work for many. Studies show that, 95 percent of the time, counting calories does not keep fat off over the long term. A better approach is to focus on higher-quality calories or eating what I call a "SANE" diet.

A 2006 study of 63 men and women ages 20 to 60 at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., compared a group of subjects following a traditional calorie-counting "eat less, exercise more" program (we'll call them the Conventional Group) with a group of subjects who observed a simpler "eat more, exercise less" program (we'll call them the SANE Group).

The Conventional Group ate a typical Western diet while doing traditional aerobic exercise for 40 minutes daily, six days per week.

The SANE Group ate a higher-protein, lower-carbohydrate diet while exercising only 50 percent as much, but with higher-quality workouts focused on high-intensity cardio and resistance training.

Overall, the Conventional Group ate fewer calories and exercised 13 hours more than the SANE Group, And yet, at the end of the 12-week study, the researchers found that the SANE Group's results exceeded the Conventional Group's in all ways:

■ The SANE Group had a 21 percent decrease in body fat and 16 percent decrease in belly fat. The Conventional Group had a 10 and 8 percent decrease, respectively,
■ The SANE Group posted a 9 percent increase in lean muscle, versus a 4 percent decrease for the Ccnventioral Group.
■ The SANE Group showed a 21 percent decrease in LDL (bad) cholesterol compared with a 9 percent decrease for the Conventional Group.

Given how poorly conventional calorie-focused strategies perform, it's astonishing how many weight-loss programs continue to recommend them.

21 RULES FOR EATING CLEAN

Here is a quick reminder of the 21 most powerful rules for eating clean.

1.- Keep Your Food Real What goes in your mouth has to be whole, unprocessed, nutrient-dense, properl sourced and properly prepared foods, An apple is an apple. It looks like real food. Fill your cart with produce, some of it with the dirt still on.

2.- Eat More Not Less Skipping meals depresses your metabolism. Eating more frequently helps moderate blood sugar levels. The result is you tend not to binge or overeat.

3.- Eat Like a Baby Babies eat every two to three hours; you should too. This powers up your metabolism, keeps blood sugar levels in check and helps prevent overeating.

4.- Break the Fast Never skip breakfast. This meal is an opportunity to nourish yourself properly after several hours of not eating and sets the metabolic machinery in motion for fat burning for the day to come.

5.- Plan Your Meals Think eating clean takes too much time? Planning is the answer. Use the Eat-Clean Diet Companion to help you organize meals for the day and for the week.

6.- Smaller Portions, Smaller Pants Too much of a good thing is still too much of a good thing. Use your hands as a guide to keep portions in check. (Guide: one serving of lean protein = 4 ounces or the palm of your hand; one serving of complex carbs = one cupped hand; one of serving fat = size of your thumb).

7.- Chew! Loads of us gobble, Hoover or inhale our food. Slow it down. Try chewing each mouthful 25 times.

8.- Treats Are Not Cheats Making eating clean your lifestyle is a powerful choice for better health. It is not a prison sentence. Eat a treat now and then, but reserve it for special occasions, not every day.

9.- Give Yourself Permission To Change Look at that @#$% photo and say, "OK, I ate myself overweight, but those days are over!" Accept that truth and give yourself permission to make better food choices.

10.- Can't Read It? Don't Eat It If it's got a label, chances are that food is processed and contains ingredients you can't read or spell, and look like they are from a chemistry experiment — leave it on the shelf.

11.- Be Fooled and Good Sense Is Overruled Be on high alert when a glitzy "food" label claims "sugar-free," "new and improved," "low calorie" or "diet" and other such nonsense. These words generally mean more hidden sugar and unwanted chemicals, thus more weight. Clean eaters are not so easily fooled! Reach for nutrient-dense, properly prepared ,.. well, you know the drill, see rule No. 1.

12.- Carbohydrate Addiction Yep! We may just be drunk on simple carbs. Stick to complex carbs including vegetables, especially greens, fruits, legumes and whole grains like brown rice and quinoa (a pseudo-grain).

13.- On-the-Go Eating This spells preparedness and helps you skip fast-food oopsies. Pack a cooler with 1/2 baked sweet potato + 2 tablespoons salsa + 1 hard-boiled egg; or 1 apple + handful (12) raw, unsalted almonds; or 1/2 cup dry oats + 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed + one scoop Sun Warrior Protein Powder + 1/2 chopped apple.

14.- Get Moving! We are meant to move. You can eat clean, but you still have to make yourself move. Aim to sweat for at least 30 minutes four to five days per week. Your body will improve, but even better, so will your mood.

15.- Strike Sugar! It's white, powdery, gives you a high and then you want more. You're addicted. And I'm not talking about cocainct, I'm talking about sugar — and it's everywhere. Removing this ingredient from your diet yields the most significant rewards and overall change.

16.- Alcohol: The Other Legal Drug People are always surprised to learn that alcohol is also sugar. Alcohol addiction is similar to sugar addiction. Keep alcohol consumption to a minimum? especially if you are trying to quit. Save it for special occasions only.

17.- LP + CC Always pair lean protein with complex carbs and a bit of fat for best metabolic effect. Women tend to eat less protein than men, but it needs to appear ateverymeal.

18.- Fat Is Fantastic Fat is not the anti-food. We need it to be optimally healthy and human, and in many traditional societies people ate predom¬ inantly fat, not carbs. Don't fear fat. Eat at least 3 tablespoons of good-quality fats in the form of coconut oil (yes, it is saturated but excellent for health).

19.- Leon Greens Eat more greens, My breakfast these days consists of 2 cups steamed mixed greens cooked in coconut oil and topped with two sunny- side-up eggs (wholeeggs!).

20.- Wetter Water North America's No. 1 nutritional deficiency is water — even though we seem to drink more of it, we are in fact dehydrated thanks to diuretic beverages including coffee, tea, soda, sports drinks and more. Here's your Wetter Water recipe fix: Place juice of 1/2 lemon and a pinch of unrefined sea salt into 8 ounces of water. Now you have an electrolyte-rich glass of water that will hydrate you properly.

21.- Smart Salt Use imrefined sea salt only. Regular table salt has been stripped of all that is good using chemicals and bleach. It even contains sugar, Unrefined sea salt contains 92 trace minerals and elements ideal for human health. Choose sea salt every time.

MUMMY BODY WORKOUT

The best way to get your children started with a fitness routine is getting them involved in physical activity as soon as your doc gives the green light. These exercises can be performed by anyone, but consider variations if your baby is too young or too old.