From my occasional interest and pursuit of bodybuilding I’ve collected the following information about how to gain muscle mass. To build the muscles you need to do high resistance and low repetition count exercises, which basically means:

• Train each muscle group (for example biceps) once per week. Don’t do it more often as the muscles need time to recover and grow.
• Regardless whether you use machines or free weights, the resistance should be selected such that you can do no more than 3 series of 8 repetitions in each series. Some people recommend an even lower repetition count.
• Each repetition should be done very slowly, let’s say 10 seconds for the concentric movement (in which muscles get shorter) and 5 seconds for the eccentric movement (in which muscles are forced to elongate). The movement should be steady and controlled.
• Give yourself a couple of minutes of rest between the series.
• The last repetition in the 3rd series should trigger thoughts like “There’s no way I can do this even one more time even if someone puts a gun to my head and says ‘Do it again or I kill you’”. The muscles should hurt. No pain – no gain.

Progress:

• Each week you should be able to add a few extra kilos until you reach your physiological limit. So keep track of the weight used each week.

Diet and sleep:

• Very important is also the diet. You need high protein content. More than the usual 80-100 grams per day. Basically if you want extra kilos of muscles you have to get extra N times that of proteins in your food. So you probably have to at least double your daily protein intake. Make sure your kidneys are OK as they will have more work filtering your blood.
• During the exercise you’ll use lots of energy in a short time so you have to eat carbohydrates a few hours before. Something like pasta with tuna is good as it has carbohydrates and proteins. Avoid sugary foods as they lower testosterone levels and you need testosterone to gain muscles. There are other things to avoid like caffeinated drinks and fried foods, more about it here.
• Get enough sleep – during sleep is when the growth hormone is produced and you need it for the muscles to grow. That’s also when your imagination can roam free and show you in advance the benefits of your new improved body…

Safety advice:

• If it hurts anywhere else than the muscles you’re at the moment exercising, especially chest pain, stop immediately. I’m not counting the painful faces of other gym members…
• Remember to breath properly all the time when exercising otherwise you can get problems with high blood pressure.
• If you’re unsure about your health consult a doctor.
• If you’re unsure about your exercise program consult a professional trainer.
• If you’re unsure about your finances, go read some other blog…

That’s about it. Now go and move your butt.

Or … you could stay a bit longer and read a few more posts on olivetalks.com.

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• Are bananas worth the crisps (6)

Bananas are good for you. They have bla bla bla and you should eat them. Ok, but their taste… they are like too mushy and after you eat them you have this weird after taste… But they say they are good so a few years back I discovered a way that helped me not mind eating them so much: I eat them alongside crisps. Preferably wrinkled and salty crisps. A bite of a banana and a crisp, another bite of the banana and another crisp. The saltiness and taste of the crisps combine perfectly with the taste of bananas. They do!

So every time I buy a kilo of bananas I buy myself a big bag of crisps. And so I’ve been doing for the last few years. Then, two days ago, the question popped into my brain totally unexpectedly. Are bananas worth the crisps? Let me put it more clearly: is eating a handful of crisps, with all their “badness” ok as long as I eat a banana with all its “goodness”? If you are a mathematician like my sister or the guy in Numb3rs, you will have spotted an equation with two unknowns in the previous question. If you didn’t spot it, well, it just means you belong to the less geeky group of people that visit olivetalks. In any case, it will be clear for everybody that without knowing the extent of the “badness” of crisps or the “goodness” of bananas, we cannot solve the mystery of whether bananas are worth the crisps.

Why, oh why do we have to solve this mystery? Because now that I’ve wondered it I cannot continue eating crisps alongside my bananas without feeling that it might be actually worse than not eating bananas at all! So, go to the kitchen, grab a banana and a bag of crisps and let us eat, I mean analyze.

Wow! there is a banana page!! Check it out: banana.com! I like their banana favicon Anyway, according to that page and this other one, bananas have – depending on their size – between:

• 450 and 600 mg of potassium
• 80 and 140 calories
• 1 and 2 grams of proteins
• 3 and 4 grams of fiber
• 25 and 35 grams of carbohydrates
• 7 and 9 mg of calcium
• 40 mg magnesium (both pages state the same value)
• A bunch of vitamins, including A, B and C

All that in one banana.

On the other hand, 20 g of crisps, which is the amount think I eat per banana, have:

• 106 kcal
• 1.3 g proteins
• 9.8 g carbohydrates
• 6.8 g fat

As always, without a calibrated scale, measurements don’t really mean anything. So, the recommended daily allowances are about:

• potassium: 4700 mg
• calories: 2,200 – 2,500 kcal
• proteins: 50 g
• fiber: 25 g
• carbohydrates: 300 g
• calcium: 1000 mg
• magnesium: 400 mg
• fat: 70 g

Hmmmm… so… it should be ok? I remember something about the fat being the source of the problems if it was unsaturated… or something like that… Aha, check this page from Bupa on diet and nutrition: it basically says that if the fat is saturated, like it is usually in crisps, then it should be avoided. Oh dear… Ok, this is actually funny:

Coconut and olive oil are the only vegetable oils that are really safe, but butter and lamb fat, which are highly saturated, are generally very safe (except when the animals have been poisoned). Source: HEALL’s Community for Body Mind Soul Earth Well Being Resources

At least the animal part is funny . So basically, avoid foods cooked with oils other that olive oil. I know, I won’t avoid coconut oil.. if I ever see it. Jo, que rollo, I like my dose of crisps with the bananas. Bummer, what am I going to do?

I guess to start with, I should really stop eating these crisps. I mean, I did finish eating the banana 2 hours ago…

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