What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com.
So, when it comes to food choices, I'm sure we all have our own preferences.
However, today I'm going to show you five foods you really need to make room for in
your diet. We all should be eating these, not just because they're good, healthy
choices, but when it comes to the gym, they're actually science proven to help
you build muscle faster. And the best part is finding a way to incorporate them into
what you're already eating is super simple. Kind of simple.
All right, so, it doesn't get any easier than
this first food to start reaping the benefits both in the gym and just in
your overall health than the blueberry. Now, look, we've got to get something straight
right off the bat here. I'm not talking about blueberry flavored anything or blueberries in it.
So, anybody that likes those blueberry scones from Starbucks, that doesn't count. Well, what we're
talking about, though, is just eating pure, fresh blueberries and that's going to be a theme
throughout the entire video. Now, when it comes to blueberries, I also sometimes hear, Well, they
can make you fat there's a lot of sugar in them. Guys, do me a favor, nobody ever got fat eating
blueberries. There are 0.8 calories in each one of these things. That means for 100 of them, you get
about 80 calories, which is only 15 grams of sugar and it's also not very high in the glycemic index,
so it doesn't cause those blood sugar spikes.
Now, when it comes to the gym, there
is actually a study performed on women aged 25 to 40 who ate two cups of blueberries for
six weeks.
And what they found was an increase in the number of human muscle progenitor cells,
which are the cells that go on to produce new muscle tissue. And they also saw a lower
percentage of dead human muscle progenitor cells, which indicated a resistance to oxidative stress.
In other words, more resilience as they went through their own workouts. So, what that means is
faster muscle recovery in between workouts. And we know that if you're going to train natural,
faster muscle recovery is your number one weapon for building new muscle throwing.
Throw in the fact that these are also rich in vitamin C and potassium and are a powerful
anti-inflammatory and you can't go wrong with adding blueberries to your diet, especially
because it's so damn easy to do.
And so, there isn't a single one of us out here who
hasn't probably been told since the age of two that we should be eating more green
vegetables and for good reason. However, there's a specific type of green vegetables I want
you to be focusing on, and they're the cruciferous vegetables. And maybe the first thing that pops
into your mind is broccoli or cauliflower. But did you know, there's actually a lot more choices that
will fit the bill here? We re talking about things like cabbage or Brussels sprouts or bok choy or
kale or one of my favorites, broccoli rabe.
All of these foods are rich in three important
things, the first being phytonutrients, the second being vitamin K and the third being something
called sulforaphane. You see these foods when eaten or cooked or chopped, will actually break
down a substance called glucoraphanin and into sulforaphane.
Sulforaphane is actually being
proven to be a very, very powerful antioxidant and also anti-inflammatory. One of my favorites
I always mention here on this channel, Rhonda Patrick has talked a lot about these benefits.
Now, maybe you're thinking to yourself, but I don't really like any of those foods,
even the other options you gave me, Jeff. Well, you can still meet your needs by just having a
salad with some arugula and radish in it. So, there's no excuses here, there are a lot of food
options. And when it comes to building muscle, there's actually some exciting studies coming
out that were done, albeit pig cells, and no, we're not pigs, but we do have similar muscle
cells.
And they showed that by exposing these human pig muscle cells to Sulforaphane, that
they could actually deactivate something called myostatin. And that's a type of protein that's
actually responsible for putting the brakes on new muscle growth. So, if mom's urgings weren't enough
of a reason to put more of these on your plate, hopefully now with greater options here, you've
got greater reason to make sure you do.
Look, while green foods might get all the
love. You also have to pay attention to the orange foods because there's plenty to love
about that. And no, Jesse, we're not talking about these, they don't count. But what we
are talking about is foods like cantaloupe, pumpkin, squash, my favorite sweet potatoes,
carrots, mangos and even oranges themselves. And they all have carotenoids, and these are
actually protect our health. They're what are known as free radical scavengers. They go out and
they get rid of the oxidation that can cause cell breakdown in early aging. And they also help to
protect things even like your own eyesight.
The fact is, guys, you need to get more of
them in your diet. But how? Well, first of all, unlike the blueberries, since there's a greater
variety here of these foods, they're not all the same in terms of their calorie impact. So,
some a little bit more caloric like the sweet potatoes or oranges and some a little bit on the
lighter side, like cantaloupe and pumpkin. You've just got to figure out where that fits in your
diet. But you need to figure out some way to fit some version of them into it. And when it comes
to the body changing capabilities of these foods, they actually did a study on competitive
cyclists where they looked at a particular flavonoid inside of oranges called 2S-Hesperidin,
and they did it over the course of eight weeks. They had 40 amateur cyclists divided into
two groups, one that took it, 500 milligrams, and the other one that did not.
And they saw something pretty impressive findings. The supplemental group showed a decrease
in body fat percentage by 10.4%. Now, mind you, that's not, let's say, from 20% down to 10%.
That's a 10% drop from, let's say, 20. So 2% loss in body fat, but it's still significant.
They also found an increase in muscle mass, percentage of 1% and total muscle mass of
1.7% with no changes in the placebo.
And the good news is you don't have to be an athlete
to see these benefits. The fact is you just need to figure out a way to start eating more of these
orange foods. One little caution here, though.
If you eat too much of this, you can get
something called carotenemia, which is when you actually start to get like orange-colored
hands. And I kind of mentioned how much I love sweet potatoes and pumpkin. It's actually due to
an increase in vitamin A.
And if you see that, all you have to do is just simply decrease
your consumption. But I'll tell you this, most people are not having a problem with too
much of this, they're having too little.
So, if you watch my channel for any length
of time or actually even watch my full day of eating video, which I'll link for you
at the end of this one. You ll notice that there s one food, this next one here
that I actually eat every single morning, and it is ginger.
And you might have been told a
long time ago that if you had an upset stomach, it's good to sort of ease nausea, but it goes way
beyond that. It's a powerful anti-inflammatory and in my world, it's one of the best ways to
actually minimize the late onset muscle soreness after a hard workout. And we all know that if
you can't train because of muscle soreness or can't give a good effort in the gym, then how are
you going to make real gains? You need to be able to control this. And there are studies that show
that taking just two grams of it a day are enough to decrease delayed onset muscle soreness by
up to 25%, particularly helpful for those that like to incorporate slow eccentric training
into the workouts, which is one of the known drivers of delayed onset muscle soreness.
However, even if you never lifted a weight at all, the anti-inflammatory benefits system wide are
undeniable. Now how do you get it? It's actually quite simple. You can either take the actual
ginger root and powder it up and put it into certain recipes, or you can drink ginger tea
a couple of times a day. Or like I like to do, I just take the pickled ginger, as you
see here. I kind of throw it on my eggs. Trust me, it's not gross. And all I need is about
this much to meet my daily requirements.
The fact is, if I didn't think this food was
that important, I would have actually made an entire video dedicated to just it. I'll link
that one for you at the end of this video as well.
But the point is, figure out a way to get
ginger in your diet. Whether you eat it, drink it or smash it. The key is, get more of it.
And of course, when it comes to building muscle, we have to talk about protein at some point, but
not all protein is considered equal. And sure, there's a lot of debate about how much protein
you need, but I don't think we get enough lean protein. What I mean by that is what is the
protein in its natural state? We need to start there. So, if you're talking about a steak,
it's just a steak. And if you talk about chicken, it's just the grilled chicken. If you're talking
about fish, well, you know it's fish, you get the idea here. And maybe even vegetarians,
we re just talking about the lentils, not the whole recipe. And I think that's where we
maybe start to screw things up a little bit.
Look how you start to prepare your meal actually
will determine whether or not you're on the right path or not.
So, like grilled citrus chicken is
a good start because I don't think you're going to go and then throw Alfredo sauce on top of it.
Alfredo and citrus are not really a good mix. But of course, in the process by making that right
decision, you preserve the nutrient value of the protein itself without kind of messing it up. In
contrast, I could have chosen a chicken parmesan and thought, well, I'm still getting my protein.
But you're also getting the fried breadcrumbs, the cheese, and probably a whole hell
of a lot of pasta to go with it.
I guess all I'm asking you to do is take a simple
step back and evaluate not just if you're eating your protein, but how you're eating them because
how you eat them matters.
Introducing other things that you don't need into your body at the same
time that you're getting a protein is not the end objective here. What is helpful is actually making
the right choices. This is where something like a protein powder comes in incredibly helpful and
convenient because it strips out all the things that you don't need. Our RX PRO30G supplement,
brand new actually, available over at atleanx.com is a high quality, protein 30 grams per
serving with 28 servings per bag.
Cheap plug aside guys, remember the old saying
you are what you eat, it's actually very true. If you want to be a better version of
yourself, you've got to eat better food. And these are five powerful foods that are
very easy to implement into your diet right now and are going to benefit you I guarantee.
If
you're looking for a step-by-step meal plan guys, we have them over at athleanx.com.
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