A common theme I keep trying to stress in this article series is to prioritize lean protein in your diet. It’s crucial for controlling hunger, building and maintaining muscle, and just general overall health.
Women in particular seem to be lacking in getting adequate protein throughout the day. It might be down to the stereotypes diet and workout culture have put in all our heads. When guys work out, they usually just try to bench press and curl as much as possible, and avoid all cardio. The “bro” culture pushes all the protein you can get, whey shakes and weight gainer, eating steaks 5 times a day.
Women tend to go the exact opposite and only do cardio and avoid weight training. That aerobic approach seems to push fruit smoothies, cereals, and caffeinated energy drinks. Neither one of those approaches are very effective. Muscles require carbs for fuel and energy, so just slamming shakes and steaks will leave you burned out and dead tired.
Avoiding protein and only doing cardio usually results in no body composition improvements, and without visible results, no one sticks to a program for long. A common statement that goes along with cardio only training is “I’m going to lose the fat first, and then I’ll work on building muscle” which is backwards to how your body works. It’s actually harder to build lean mass during or after cutting body fat. If you have body fat to lose, you are actually primed to gain the most amount of lean muscle while you have it, so take advantage of it while it’s there.
Muscle is like a heat sink on your body for glucose, and the more lean muscle you have, the more insulin sensitivity you are and that in turn makes it easier to maintain a healthy and strong body composition.
We’ve all heard of the term “vicious cycle”. Building lean muscle mass is the opposite of that. There’s only one way to build lean muscle mass, and that’s getting adequate protein, being in a slight calorie surplus (or having excess body fat to lose), and strength training. Crazy restrictive diets, pills, and all the other snake oil shortcuts will not get you there:
The long and short of it is you can’t complain about the results you aren’t seeing from the work you aren’t doing.
People tell me they can’t do strength training because they aren’t strong enough. They can’t do a push up or a pull up. That’s kind of the point. Unless you start doing those things, you never will be able to do those things. If you can’t do one standard push up, start with your knees on the ground. If that’s too much, just work on the lowering phase until you get strong enough to lift back up. If you can’t do a pull up, get a chair and use your leg to help you get up, and again, just work on the eccentric or lowering phase of the pull up. Just the eccentric phase of a movement can build base line strength and help you improve.
Limitations should not be excuses, just obstacles to overcome. Take this person, for example:
As you can see, she is doing one of the harder compound movements, the clean and jerk. What you may not have immediately noticed is that she is doing that with one arm. She has a strap connected to the bar on the arm that is amputated at the elbow.
This person is not using any limitations as an excuse. She is moving serious weight, building serious strength, and maintaining great body composition. So the next time you run through a list of excuses to not strength train, ask yourself just how real those excuses are at stopping you.
Weight training and getting strong should not be regulated to just the young “Bro” crowd. It’s for anyone that has a human body, no other criteria should come into play.
That all being said, protein needs to be on the menu. I usually focus on lean meats, but I know some of you out there may not be ready for that. The last time I ordered my pasture raised meats, the company had an offer for free chicken drumsticks, thighs, and wings, so I found myself with an opportunity to prepare the fattier dark meat that I normally do not cook. But hey, I’m not a Rockefeller over here, if I get free protein, it’s going to get eaten:
Instead of breading and deep frying as is usually the case, drumsticks and thighs are great when roasted in the oven, saving extra calories and simple carbs. I combined mine with purple sweet potatoes, chickpea gravy, and peas, making it a powerhouse meal for a weight training session.
This is an easy sheet pan roast that cooks quick and easy, so if you are looking for a way to get more protein and not spend a lot of time in the kitchen, this will do it.
Eat well, lift, and get strong. It makes everything else just a little bit easier.
Roast chicken dark meat:
Free range slow growth chicken drumsticks, thighs, wings (2 lbs or so)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp dried parsley, oregano, thyme, basil
Instructions:
Mix all the spices together in a bowl:
Place all the chicken in a large mixing bowl and work the skin loose from the meat. Toss the chicken with the olive oil and then the spices, being sure to work the spice under the skin to coat:
Place on a large baking sheet skin side down and roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. You can then flip and broil on high for 2 minutes if desired:
Chicken tenders also work well when roasted. Lower the temp to 400 degrees and roast 8 minutes per side on a cast iron grill:
If you are lucky enough to find purple sweet potatoes, dice and roast on a second sheet pan with the chicken:
Serve and enjoy:
See the list of all the Shirtless Chef recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.
