Consult a professional before embarking on any activity or lifestyle change. The author, publishers and distributors jointly or separately do not accept responsibility for any injury, damage or loss of anything, including, but not limited to life, person or property due to any advice from this book.
Copyright © 2004 by Kobus Huisamen. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Pictures by John Yoo.
To the trainers who made the most impact in my career: Steve Kalakoda, Henk Pelser and Ivan Hippolyte.
Fuel your body.
A bodybuilder once told me that training is 70% dieting. This is a sure indication of how we sometimes underestimate the value of correct eating.
In my case, I never seemed to be able to eat enough. When I train, eat and sleep well, my weight would easily go up to about 1 kilogram per week!
However, maintaining this is near impossible for me, since I’m juggling a sport career with a corporate career. Sitting in the office forces me to skip meals and big projects forces me to sleep less than I want to.
Most of us know that we need to eat well and most of us have an idea what to eat. But not all of us are sure and some are quite in the dark about it.
What your body needs
Here is the basic formula: 35-55-10.
This means that 35 % of your diet should consist of proteins, 55% of carbohydrates (carbs) and about 10% should consist of fat.
Without getting too scientific, here is an explanation:
Proteins
Proteins are the building blocks of your body. It builds and maintains the muscles and everything else. Power athletes, like fighters and weightlifters need to make sure that they get a higher intake of proteins than other athletes.
It is found in all kinds of meat (e.g. fish, beef, mutton, chicken) and dairy (e.g. milk, cheese) and in some processed foods like tofu.
Take in proteins just after training – preferably within 30 minutes, as the protein-synthesis is at a peak during this time. I also like to take it in just before I go to bed, so that my body can recover overnight.
Carbohydrates (carbs)
This is basically all the rest of the food and is the food group that gives you energy.
As an athlete, you’d want to take in high quality carbs. There are two types:
simple carbs and complex carbs. Simple carbs are easily broken down and is available for energy in a very short time after digesting it.
Complex carbs are found in pasta, brown rice, potatoes, etc. They give energy over a longer time. Any carbs that are not used for energy consumption are stored in the body as fat.
Simple carbs are found in foods that are more refined; like white bread, candy, etc. Their energy is available quickly. However, since their energy is available quickly, it is stored in the form of fat really quickly if it isn’t used soon enough.
When do you take it in? Well, before training and competing, I like to take very simple carbs, such as sugars, to fuel my body for competition. I usually take a big amount of glucose (which can be found in candies and honey and some energy drinks) about 60-90 minutes before I compete. It gives me quite a boost.
Fat
Fat is necessary for your body to provide heat, energy, insulation and also to help your body to take up certain vitamins. Some vitamins are fat-soluble (Vitamins A, D, E and K). Eat fat – but not too much. In fact, when you eat beef these days, there is plenty of fat integrated in the beef – so you can still cut the fat off the sides. You’re an athlete; so don’t eat more than 10% of your daily intake in the form of fat.
Others
Other food such as water, dietary fiber, minerals and vitamins, are all necessary for your health and your physical condition.
Drink a big amount of water daily. Most trainers prescribe about 4-5 liters on heavy training days and about a liter on other days.
As for vitamins and minerals, get your fruit and vegetables in and as for fiber, swap the white bread for some whole-grain and change your rice for some brown rice.
Of course you can take in some vitamin tablets, right? Well, yes and no. Synthetically manufactured vitamins can’t replace what your body needs. I’m no scientist, but I’ve done a reasonable amount of reading up on this and it seems that there is still a lot of uncertainty among scientists regarding synthetic vitamins.
The reason is that the vitamins found in natural form (such as in fruit) are molecules that are found with other molecules (as of yet, not really that well understood by science). These other molecules seem to be helping the vitamins work more effectively. Take an orange, for example. An orange is a complete package of vitamin C, its transporters into your system and its absorbers, etc. When we manufacture vitamins, we isolate just that molecule – thus loosing a lot of the benefits of the other molecules found in the natural form.
Supplements
Yes, with the stresses put on our bodies, we need a lot of everything (i.e. food) to help our bodies recover, grow and adjust. For this we need to eat a lot and often.
Most athletes and trainers agree that we should eat 5 – 7 meals a day. This is about every 3 hours! So do you cook or prepare food every three hours? Most probably not. So we take supplements. This makes sure that we get in enough of what our bodies need. We also take a meal replacement – like a protein shake – that is easier than to sit down and try to eat a kilogram of beef in one sitting.
Supplements are more convenient and fits our lifestyles better in the world of professional sports.
Think about what you’re going to do in the next few hours and when your next meal is. Prepare for that. You should eat to provide your body with the fuel necessary for the next few hours’ activities.
Measurement
When we talk about calories, we actually refer to kilo-calories (kcal). This is the unit in which energy is measured.
(If you work in kilojoules, then 4.1KJ = 1 kcal)
All forms of food have energy. We use this energy to build our bodies, use for training and even for our brain functions. However, there are different kinds of energy and to complicate matters more, energy can be transformed into another form, fairly easily.
However, for our purpose, we don’t need the details of that. All we need to know is how much of what kind of energy we need to take in according to the needs of our bodies.
Here are the basic measurements:
One gram of proteins = 4 kcal
One gram of carbs = 4 kcal
One gram of fat = 9 kcal
How much do we need to take in?
Well for strength athletes like us, we would need to take in about 1 gram of protein per pound of body-mass to maintain strength and being able to build some, too. Those who seriously want to build muscle mass quickly need to increase the intake and should take about 1.5 – 2 grams per pound of bodymass.
You must decide where you want to be; whether you are building or maintaining.
Using the basic formula of 1 gram per pound of body-mass, we can determine that a 100kg fighter would need to take in (1kg = 2.2 pounds) 220 grams of protein per day. Every day!
So if a 100kg fighter utilizes the basic formula of 35-55-10, then he should take in about:
220 grams of protein; 346 grams of carbs and 63 grams of fat every day, or at least average this daily over a week,
So how do you know the calories of the food you eat? Well, you can do three
things:
- Weigh the food, or estimate the weight. Then you know the calories for carbs, fat and proteins.
- Check the calorie index on the packaging.
- Get some food composition tables. These are available free online and some you can purchase.
Body fat index
The name is just what it says – the measurement of your body fat.
What are the benefits from measuring your body fat?
Well, you will know your body composition. You will know when you gain weight or loose weight, what you’ve actually gained or lost – fat or muscle.
Knowing your body fat is also a better indicator of your health than your weight alone.
Fighters (normally) don’t want too much fat, because it slows you down. You also don’t want too little to make your organs vulnerable to the shocks from kicks and punches and body-slams.
So how much body-fat should you have?
Well, in my opinion, I think as low as possible, but not lower than about 7.5%. This is low enough to ensure a fairly high-speed capability, but not too low to make you vulnerable.
So how do you measure body fat?
Well, any trainer at your local gym should be able to do it (if they can’t, then they’re definitely not qualified trainers).
However, if you can get hold of a caliper to measure skin-folds with then you can use that.
Figure 9: Measuring body fat – using the skin fold method.
I use the 6-measurement system. In this, you take 6 skin-fold measurements in the following areas:
On your back between your shoulder blade (subscapula) and spine
On your triceps (halfway between the shoulder and the elbow)
On your abs, next to your navel (umbilicus)
On your “love handle” just above the hipbone (supra ilias)
On the front of your thigh – about in the middle (quadriceps)
On the back of your calf – also about in the middle (gastronemicus)
(If you’re right-handed, then measure on the right side and vice versa)
Then you take the measurements (they’re in millimeters) and add them all up.
Then to measure your body fat, you take the total and use the following formula:
For men: total of measurements x 0.1051 + 2.585
For women: total of measurements x 0.1458 + 3.585
Example (male):
Measurements:
| Subscapula | 12 mm |
| Triceps | 7 mm |
| Suprailias | 6 mm |
| Umbilicus | 9 mm |
| Quadriceps | 12 mm |
| Gastronemicus | 8 mm |
| Total | 54 |
| Body fat | 8.3% |
The measurements of the athlete above are quite good. I think anything below 10% is good for a world-class fighter. However, if you’re a little higher, then don’t stress about it, just make sure that you manage your body fat as best you can.
However, if your body fat is over 20%, then you are too fat – no matter how good a fighter you are. Just think about it, if your body fat is over 20%, this means that 20% of your body is comprised of fat!
Increasing and decreasing mass
This is always a hot topic, but the principles are simple:
- If you want to lose fat, you should take in fewer calories than you expend.
- If you want to gain muscle, you should take in more calories than you
expend. - If you want to do both, you should cycle alternating periods of higher and
lower calorie intakes.
If you want to loose weight, there are many diets that work. Always embark on a program that burns your fat, and not your muscle.
I don’t have the need for diets (it’s tough enough for me to pick up weight as it is) but I’ve seen some great results in some of my friends.
Some of my friends (who were letting themselves slide) suddenly found themselves with a sky-high body fat index. They embarked on the Atkins diet. This diet advocates the consumption of proteins only.
I like this idea. It allows you to train and maintain your muscle mass. As fighters, they found it very effective and lost a ton of fat.
The Zigzag diet
Have you ever heard of the Zigzag diet? This is another brainchild of Dr. Hatfield. It can be used for both, gaining or loosing weight. This diet curbs the “starve effect”. This is when you go on a diet and your body thinks that it is starving. To protect itself and to provide for the short future, all energy consumed is stored as fat. This is why many dieters lose weight, while the body fat index may increase!
To embark on the Zigzag program, you’d need to know how many calories you consume.
If you want to gain muscle mass
Increase your daily calorie intake with about 2 calories per pound of body mass for 5 days of the week. For the other two days, keep the regular intake. This will balance the week’s added calories (and stored fat) with a greater need on those days to burn fat, for this new lifestyle.
Example:
If you weigh 80 kilograms (i.e. 176 pounds), you should increase your calories by calories per day for 5 days in the week, while keeping your normal intake for the other two days.
Let’s say the 80kg fighter adheres to the 35-55-10-distribution principle; he’ll consume the following calories per day.
80kg = 176 pounds
proteins = 176 grams (x 4 = 704 kcal)
carbs = 277 grams (x 4 = 1,108 kcal)
fat = 50 grams (x 9 = 450 kcal)
Total daily intake = 2,262 kcal
Increasing calories by 2 per pound of body mass = 2 x 176 = 352 kcal
Thus total calories per day (for 5 days of the week) should be 2,262 + 352 = 2,614 kcal per day.
For the other two days, it should remain at 2,262 kcal per day.
Spread the increase in calories evenly over all the meals of the day.
If you want to loose fat
One of my bodybuilding friends went on the Zigzag diet to prepare for Mr. Universe. He restricted his daily calorie intake, but for one day, he would completely pig out – eating anything he could, and as much as he could. His body fat dropped to about 3% during this!
Generally, the principle is just the opposite from gaining weight. Decrease your daily calorie intake by about 2 calories per pound of body weight, save for two days of the week, where it remains the same as before. This will make your body understand that it isn’t starving and won’t hold on to the fat reserves.
Example
Take the same 80 kilogram-person as in the example above (i.e. 176 pounds), you should decrease your calories by calories per day for 5 days in the week, while keeping your normal intake for the other two days.
Again, let’s say the 80kg fighter adheres to the 35-55-10-distribution principle; he’ll consume the following calories per day.
80kg = 176 pounds
proteins = 176 grams (x 4 = 704 kcal)
carbs = 277 grams (x 4 = 1,108 kcal)
fat = 50 grams (x 9 = 450 kcal)
Total daily intake = 2,262 kcal
Decreasing calories by 2 per pound of body mass = 2 x 176 = 352 kcal.
Thus total calories per day (for 5 days of the week) should be 2,262 – 352 = 1,910 kcal per day.
For the other two days, it should remain at 2,262 kcal per day.
Spread the decrease in calories evenly over all the meals of the day.
