Is Soda Good For Bulking Up?
Many of my clients start out just wanting to get fit and end up wanting to develop that beach body everyone envies. It’s all part of feeling good about yourself when you start to see results. I’ve heard some crazy ideas about what to eat when bulking up, which even extend to some fallacies about using snack foods to help put on weight or soda. Everyone has different builds and metabolisms, but one thing is certain, if you’re human, your body is constantly changing with every change you make and year you add. My advice to those who want more bulk, “Remember, what you do today will affect your tomorrow.”
Soda seems a harmless way to add calories to add bulk, but what kind of bulk?
Whether it’s that box of Oreos, the Big Mac and fries or a simple can of soda, it has lots of calories you might think will add weight, but at what price? Sure, you’ll add weight, but most probably it will be fat and you’ll have to lose it later. So what is the point of doing it at all when you can eat clean and gain more muscle than fat. Consider options like peanut butter instead of soda. Make a smoothie. The point is to gain muscle, not just to gain weight and get big. You don’t need a gym to do the latter.
Soft drinks have added sugar and negative side effects.
There’s a lot of health hazards linked to soft drinks. The amount of sugar it contains should be the first red flag to signal you to eliminate it from your diet. The sodium benzoate in can cause reactions that include eczema and asthma and the phosphoric acid can lead to kidney problems and the leaching of calcium from bones. It’s been proven that both the sugar and acids dissolve tooth enamel, while other studies show the effects of the high-fructose corn syrup on the body. It increases the risk of heart disease and spikes insulin levels. Why would you choose soda for bulking when there are other healthier options?
During the bulking phase, you’ll consume more calories, but what you consume makes a difference in the cutting phase.
Competitive bodybuilders and those that want that beach body, aim to increase muscle mass, so they enter the bulking phase, but that extra fat has to be removed during the cutting phase. In both stages, a blend of carbs, fat and protein are necessary. Consuming 30-35% of your calories from protein, 55-60% from carbs and the balance from fat is approximately the proportion. Eating healthy foods is important no matter what phase you’re in if you want to have a better, healthier body. Avoiding added sugar is part of that, just like avoiding deep-fried food and alcohol is. Soda contains added sugar, including sports drinks.
- If your plan was to drink soft drinks during the bulking phase and then switch to diet soft drinks during the cutting phase, think again. Recent studies show even soft drinks add visceral fat—belly fat.
- Add whey protein to smoothies and a banana. The whey protein will provide the protein to build and repair muscles, while the banana adds calories.
- You need healthy sources of protein to build and preserve muscles, such as fish, chicken, lean beef or turkey. Carbs keep your workout going and help decrease the breakdown of muscles. Choose fruit, rice and vegetables. Healthy fat, like in avocados and nuts help create hormones—like testosterone–to build muscle tissue.
- While bulking up starts in the kitchen, what you do in the gym gets you the final results. Work with your trainer on a program that will help you build muscles.
For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health & Fitness
I hear all sorts of buzz about different types of diets at Habitat Health and Fitness in Winter Haven, FL. One of the more popular ones is the Paleolithic Diet. It’s a diet that would have us eat like our cavemen ancestors in the Paleolithic Era. That era was before man learned to farm, and is thought to be a more natural match genetically than today’s diet.
Clients in Lakeland, Florida say that road trips often throw off their healthy eating and exercise program. There are several ways to combat that problem. For exercise, stop every hour or two and simply walk or even do simple exercises. Plan the trip ahead to make stops at places that offer healthy food and take healthy snacks for the car. In fact, you might even map out a grocery or farmer’s market along the way. Preparing ahead of time is important. Snacks can help prevent you from overeating and making desperation stops at fast food chains.
Will you get faster results if you workout every day? It all depends on what you consider a workout. If you’re lifting weights every day, STOP! You’ll actually be losing ground rather than gaining it. When you lift weights or do strength building exercises, it makes micro tears in the muscle that need time to heal. When they heal, they get bigger and stronger. If you don’t give that time to heal, which means you won’t get stronger and often go backward, getting weaker in the process.
People who come to Habitat Fit in Lakeland, Florida, know the importance of regular exercise. It’s a keystone to fitness, right along with a healthy diet. It isn’t healthy to workout hard once every month or so and remain inactive the rest of the time. For good health, any exercise, irregular or not, is better than doing nothing at all. However, to reach your fitness goal, you need consistency.
If you’ve made it your new goal to get fit, you probably want to find the best possible program to achieve that goal. Finding workouts for beginners can help solve that problem, but you still have to identify how much you should push yourself and how many repetitions to do. It’s one reason people love having the services of a personal trainer, to help them through that phase of exercise. However, if you’re working out on your own, don’t push yourself too much the first few days. Spend more time focusing on the right form than how much you can lift, how long you can workout and how many reps you can do. You’ll be glad you did.
If you expect your visit to the gym to be filled with gorgeous fit people all wearing the latest Spandex workout clothes and drinking exotic smoothies, you’ll really be surprised when you come to Habitat Health and Fitness. Some people avoid going to the gym because they think they have to dress and look a certain way. That’s just not true here. You do have to be dressed for comfort and movement, but there are no fashion police here. All our clients are focused on their fitness and dress comfortably and ready for action.
I love watching the people in the team and small group classes in Lakeland, Florida. While you’ll sometimes see a bit of dread on the participants faces when they have to start something new, most of the time you’ll find they enjoy themselves, even when the workout is hard. The people in the group classes and even those who come to me for personal training, find it’s more enjoyable when you’re working out with someone else. You might say working out with a partner or in a group will make you flex for fun, while you’re building endurance, flexibility and strength.
When I train clients in Lakeland, FL, I always tell them they should have goals set and when they reach them, enjoy all the benefits like a smaller clothing size or more energy. Sometimes, you need something in between to keep you or a way to reward yourself after a tough workout. One way is to avoid that problem by doing an activity you love. You can workout hard with weights one day and give yourself the reward of swimming as your next day’s workout. That’s not always possible, so finding a reward for those tough times is important.
I appreciate our faithful clients to come to Habitat Health and Fitness and put the design of their workout in our hands, going through each guide workout with intensity and passion. However, even the most committed client has occasions when they can’t make it to the gym and need no equipment workouts to fill in the gaps until they can. Here’s a few workouts that you can do in a hotel room or your living room, virtually anywhere you have privacy and time.