Nutrition Tips

Our nutrition tips page offers a step-by-step guide so that you can build lean muscle and lose fat effectively. Our tips are based on proven techniques and are easy to follow. We also suggest effective supplements to use with your specific diet.

Bulking Diet

Not many people want to put on weight for the hell of it; they want to put on muscle without fat. A common misconception is that you have to gorge yourself on food and eat until you pass out. This is not true, if you want to build muscle you need to do two things: train hard at least 3 times a week, and eat a calorie surplus. However the surplus in calories you need to eat is only about 500Kcal more than you consume in the day.

Therefore you must:

Work out your total caloric intake for the day using our body mass calculations.

Add 500Kcal to that figure to gain a 500Kcal surplus. Enough to build musle without putting on excess fat.

Eat Regularly

Eat 5 – 6 times a day. This is a must; eating regularly keeps the body in an active state and continually feeds your muscles with the nutrients they need to grow. You need to keep your body in an anabolic state and the only way to do this is to eat every 3 hours. If you don’t eat for 4 or 5 hours your body starts shutting down its feeding processes and starts becoming catabolic, in other words getting energy from its own stores resources, it is impossible for your body to build muscle at this point. Breakfast should be your biggest meal, followed by your post-workout meal and the rest of your calories should be evenly divided. Contrary to popular belief, eating late a night will not make you fat. In fact it is very important to eat at night as the body will be fasting during sleep.

Although if you really want add as much muscle mass as possible your last meal should not be made smaller as the body will be fasting for 8 hours when we are asleep, therefore you need to feed your body with nutrients before bed.

Protein Intake

You must eat protein with every meal from sources such as fish, chicken, lean beef, or a shake. to achieve a positive nitrogen balance you must eat protein regularly throughout the day. You can even eat small amounts in between meals to keep feeding your body. Make sure you take in high quality protein directly after you workout; a shake is best as whey protein digests very quickly.

Carbohydrate Intake

Carbohydrates are the body’s main and preferred energy source and when you workout you expend a lot of energy. You must replace the energy lost during your workout, but not only that, to build muscle you need an energy surplus and the body prefers carbohydrates. It is as simple as that. Your body can only process so much protein at once, the human body is not designed to get energy from protein and it can put excess strain on the liver. Therefore intake of complex carbohydrates is of great importance. Sources include oats, wholegrain pasta, wholegrain bread, and brown rice. The benefits of complex carbohydrates include slow release energy that fuels muscle building for a long time and enough energy stores so that you can overload next time you go to the gym. Eat simple carbohydrates directly after your workout - this will spike insulin levels which is vital and they digest faster, sources of carbohydrate with no fibre include white rice, potatoes and supplements such as maltodextrin or dextrose, even better is dextrose mixed with creatine, taking this after your workout will flood your muscles with quality nutrients for growth.

If you want to add muscle mass eat complex carbohydrates and protein with your last meal such as brown rice and whey protein. Eating carbohydrate before bed will have protein sparing effects (i.e. the carbohydrate will fuel your energy stores leaving any protein in the body to repair muscle tissue).

Fat Intake

Fat is a very important, sometimes overlooked part of a healthy diet. Your body needs a good proportion of its calories to come from these goods fats, such as almonds, oily fish and essential fatty acid supplements. Fat helps thousands of processes in the body and is essential for everyone, especially when training. Make sure not to eat any fat with your post-workout meal - fat slows digestion.

Fruit & Vegetables

Fruit and vegetable should be included with some of your meals. You don’t have to go overboard and start drinking smoothies and eating soups all the time, but getting vitamins and minerals from natural sources in invariably better then taking a supplement.

On a bulking diet we recommend a nutrient ratio of:
50% - 60% Carbohydrate
20% - 30% Protein
20% Fat (from healthy sources)

Body Types

Our body type, also known as a somatotype will determine how easily we gain lean muscle and how much fat we put on during a bulk.

Mesomorph: High muscle, low fat

Ectomorph: low muscle, low fat

Endomorph: High fat, usually low to medium muscle

Mesomorph: should adopt a surplus of 500Kcal

Ectomorph: if you aren’t gaining weight, raise you calories, but not drastically – see where your level is, anything up to 600Kcal - 800Kcal over maintenance may be needed to add weight.

Endomorph: Focus on weight training and keep a close eye on calories, you may want to lose fat before bulking. After that bulk slowly, at 200Kcal – 300Kcal above maintenance.

Supplementation

Must haves

Protein shakes  are customary for most people that train, protein is essential when exercising.

Weight gainers are great for post workout, they pump you full of carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, minerals and some include creatine, glutamine etc.

Creatine is a fantastic supplement that is a real help when bulking or cutting and is highly recommended at Hart Nutrition. It helps you lift more weight for more reps and build lean muscle. Take before and after your workout.

Good buys

Glutamine/Amino Acids: are very effective supplement in their own right, but more effective when cutting as opposed to bulking as you should be eating enough protein to fuel muscle repair. If you have the budget it won’t be money down the drain.

Natural Anabolic/Testosterone support: as long as you consume enough protein these can be very effective in building muscle quickly. They work by increasing protein synthesis and repairing muscle faster. They can be a real aid if you have hit a plateau.

Nitric Oxide: can really bring out definition when your body fat percentage is slightly higher and also shuttles nutrients to your muscles. When bulking and nutrients are high nitric oxide can cut down recovery times and be effective in making the most out of the nutrients you eat.

Vitamins/minerals: We would recommend you to get as much of these as you can from your natural diet, but sometimes this is impossible, especially with some vitamins such as iron, zinc. Training saps vitamins from your body especially the B vitamins and it is always prudent to supplement vitamins if you feel like you aren’t getting enough.

If you would like any more information about a bulking diet please email us at info@hartnutrition.co.uk

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Cutting Diet

Everyone finds dieting hard; it requires will power and dedication, but the formula for weight loss if very simple. You must consume fewer calories than you use, or have a calorie deficit. However not eating all day, or severely cutting your calories down, eating only protein eating one type of food, eating only smoothies and soup – the list goes on is the wrong way to diet.

The following is a list of proven scientific techniques that should be followed if you want to lose fat and keep it off. Notice that the word ‘fat’ is used not ‘weight’, many so-called diets can make you lose ’weight’ which is not healthy or sustainable.

To gain an aesthetically pleasing physique you must lose fat but not weight. This is particularly relevant for women, although most women do not want to look muscular, they must realise that a normal amount of muscle mass is needed and losing ‘weight’ may still not provide the physique they desire. Also the more muscle mass you have, the easier it is to burn fat because muscle fibre takes a lot of calories just to keep at a stable level.

Firstly a calorie deficit must be achieved. Attain your calorie expenditure for the day using our body mass calculations.

Then take off anywhere from 200Kcal – 400Kcal depending on the rate you want to lose fat. Do not take off any more than this; dieting too quickly can burn muscle mass and take away from your desired physique.

Eat Regularly

Eat 5 – 6 times a day. This is a must; eating regularly keeps the body in an active state and continually feeds your body with nutrients. Eating regularly also keeps your metabolism in a continually active state so your body is always processing food and nutrients. This is beneficial because your body is never shutting down its operations, therefore burning calories all through the day. Eating regularly also stops the body from gaining too much energy from its own sources (obviously that’s what we want when we diet), but we want the body to burn fat, not muscle. Make breakfast your biggest meal; this kick-starts your body’s metabolism and starts the fat burning process.

Meal Times

Breakfast should be consumed as soon as you wake. Then split calories between your meals evenly throughout the day. At night you may want to lower your meal calories as your metabolism slows down, it may convert calories from a meal into fat, rather than using it for energy therefore add the calories elsewhere.

Protein Intake

Protein intake should be slightly raised when dieting as your body is in a calorie deficit and breaking down muscle fibre when trying to fuel itself. Slightly increasing protein intake will mean that your body has enough to repair and keep the its muscle fibres. The other reason that protein intake is increased is that carbohydrate intake is slightly lowered. This is because you want your body to delve into its fat stores to gain energy (so that fat is burned off) so carbohydrates are not at such a premium. Obviously when dieting you workouts will be structured completely differently and overload is not possible.

Carbohydrate Intake

Carbohydrate intake is still very important, after all it is the body’s preferred source of energy, and although you are dieting, you aren’t starving yourself; you need energy. The idea of dieting is to do it slowly but surely, making sure you don’t pass out through lack of nutrients. As always make sure your carbohydrates come from complex sources such as wholegrain bread, rice, wholegrain pasta and porridge. The benefit of this is that they will fill you up, stop hunger pains and fuel your body for longer.

Fat Intake

Just because you want to lose fat doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat a healthy amount. Good fats are a vital part of a healthy diet and are especially needed when dieting; they aid hundreds of processes in the body. Make sure fat comes from healthy sources such as oily fish, almonds, and supplements.

Fruit and vegetables

As always fruit and vegetables are an important part of a well balanced diet especially when dieting, as nutrients are much needed by the body. They can also be a nice change from eating complex carbohydrates. Although fruit gives you simple carbohydrates never think that they are bad for you, fruit is great pre or post workout for an energy boost.

When dieting we recommend a nutrient ratio of
40% Carbohydrate
40% Protein
20% Fat

Supplementation

Must haves

Protein: shakes are a great way to add much needed protein to your diet when it is needed most. They also are a very lean source of protein and are low in calories.

Creatine: is as important when cutting as when bulking. Creatine gives you extra muscle energy in the gym, which is very important when energy is lower. Not only that but creatine draws water into cells and makes sure they get as much of the nutrients in your body as they can.

Glutamine/Amino acids: are invaluable when dieting as they have anti-catabolic properties meaning they prevent the breakdown of muscle tissue.

Fat Loss: although not completely necessary fat loss products do work when your diet is right, and can really speed up the fat loss process. The benefit of these products is that they stimulate the body to burn more calories, and in the process give you a huge energy boost to hit the gym hard to burn even more.

Good buys

Nitric Oxide: is great for men who want to really pump out their muscles when fat is low. Nitric oxide will bring out every striatation and make you look more ripped. It will also help in the gym to pump out a few more reps when energy is low.

Vitamin/mineral supplements such as Animal Pak give your body what it needs to function properly, which is especially needed when dieting as you aren’t giving you body quite enough of what it needs.

If you would like any more information about a cutting diet please email us at info@hartnutrition.co.uk