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Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
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Performance nutrition is important to an athlete for four reasons:
o You need proper fuel to sustain your performance out in the ring or on the mat.
o The correct fuel will also help you to build quality muscle and prevent injury.
o Eating correctly will minimize body fat levels, which will allow you to be faster and
improve your endurance.
o Following proper nutrition habits prevent future health risks, lengthen career, and
lead to increase self-esteem.
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“You can’t put on your tie before you put on your shirt.”
seen as simple before you look as it as complex.
TFW . Nutrition should be first
Six Pieces of Advise for the first month of training
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Make sure you drink plenty of water throughout the day. (Avoid soda and high-sugar
juices)
Eat 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day instead of 2-3 large ones.
Avoid products containing high amounts of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and fat.
Make sure that there is a balance of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in every meal that you
eat throughout the day.
Make sure that you have a high-quality post workout meal immediately following exercise
such as carb-protein shake.
Try to eat 1 hour before exercise or a training session.
Question to ask yourself.
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“What is more important to me? To be successful in the combat arena or to eat poorly?”
If you answer to be successful in the combat arena, then your decision has been made.
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
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Basic Physiology, The six building block of life:
o Water, Carbohydrate / Proteins / Fats / vitamins and Minerals
A basic understanding of the functions, sources, and appropriate amounts of these building
blocks is essential for optimal performance. Without this knowledge, there is no basis for
how you choose to eat.
Water
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The body is 70% percent water. Your muscles are 80 percent water. You can without food
for some time without dying, but only a few days without water. As an athlete you are
constantly losing water to the environment and it must be replaced. Being dehydrated 2-3
percent can produce adverse effects on performance.
Simple analogy is, picture a muscle cell of your body as a grape. Then picture a dehydrated
muscle cell as a raisin. Now ask yourself which one you would like to use when you are
staring your opponent across the ring.
Basic Physiology, The six building block of life:
o Water, Carbohydrate / Proteins / Fats / vitamins and Minerals
Carbohydrates
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Carbohydrates are one of the important energy sources for the body. Carbohydrates a also
the most abused food component in America and one of the biggest reason for obesity,
diabetes, and death in this country. Utilizing carbohydrates correctly is critical for
performance of a Combat Athlete.
The average American eats 145 pounds of sugar per year. This table sugar, or sucrose has
no nutritional value and is fattening up our country and causing today’s youth to develop
diabetes at an alarming rate.
Three types of carbohydrate: Simple Complex Best Choices . The difference between
simple and complex carbs that you need to know is that your body digest and handle them
differently. Simple carbohydrate such as fructose and sucrose are immediately processed
by the body; while the complex version such as starches and fiber take much more time.
Great choices of simple carbohydrate would be fruits and vegetables. Complex
carbohydrates take longer to process. Great choices of complex carbohydrate would be
oatmeal and potatoes. When you eating rice, pasta, and bread, please make the right
choice, eat the version that has color. A final note about hidden carbs that are not good for
you. Read the ingredients label on the many of the thing you eat regularly, if you see highfructose corn syrup as a major ingredient throw that food out. It is no good for you
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
Protein
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This is the building block all athletes want to jump to. Protein is the building block of
muscle, and it is essential for repair. Protein is something that should be eaten at every
meal in some portion. Great choices for protein are egg whites, chicken, fish, and lean
beef.
Your body can process only so much protein at one time (some sources say around 30-40
grams), and many athletes exceed that at a certain meal of the day, without the proper
balance of the other building blocks.
Fat
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Everyone thinks this is the enemy. Yes it is true, if you eat too much, you will get fat. What
everyone should remember, though, is that fat is essential in our diet for insulation, our
cell membranes, our nerve conduction, and it is important energy source, as well. Just as
the other building block, without fat, you are goind to die.
There are a number of fat out there, and some are essential for performance. Overall,
there are three types of fat. Saturated fat can be described as fats that are solid at room
temperature. The fat in steak or butter are excellent examples of a saturated fat. There are
also monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Some of them are good for you, and some
of them are cancer just waiting to happen. Numerous oils, such as olive oil, fish oils, canola
oil, peanut oil, etc. are examples of good types of fat. Many oils are healthy, and some are
good only for lubing your car. The process of hydrogenation converts fat into trans-fatty
acid. When you are look at the heart attack, stroke, and cancer rates jumping through the
roof in this country, these trans-fatty acids are a great suspect. Trans-fatty acid go into your
cell and change your DNA inside, because the body cannot assimilate fat. Then the
damage replicates. This replication is call cancer. You might as well dip your food in a vat
of poison.
The last piece to remember about fat is that it is not just what type of fat you eat, but how
much of it you eat. Fats are not always bad, too much of certain fats is. Try to select the
better fat and keep them to about 30 percent of your diet. Saturated should be less than 10
percent.
Vitamins and Minerals
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Vitamins and mineral are essential for growth, normal metabolism, and development of the
human body. They are regulators of certain metabolic processes of the body, and without
them, disease states will occur.
If you are eating properly, and your food is nutrient dense, adding vitamins and mineral to
your diet may not be necessary.
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
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Thermodynamics:
o If you could be car, what kind would you like to be? Most people say Ferrari or
Lamborghini, but neither of them is the fastest, most specialized car for
performance. I would like for you to think of a dragster. You know, one of those
cars with the giant big back tires, the engine that is just pouring out of the front of
the machine, and the spoiler that makes sure it keeps this beast from being
airborne. When you think of that car, you realize that not only does it need fuel,
but this fuel must be in the right amounts and have the right components, and it is
very different from what other car needs. This is the philosophy of performance
nutrition. You are a specialized athlete that needs the right amounts and
components of fuel for optimum performance. One of the simplest areas to start
with when describing how much to eat is thermodynamics. When describing
thermodynamics, is first to ask folks to simply picture a scale in their minds. One
side is calorie in, and the other for calorie out. Whichever side at the end of the day
is heavier will decide if you gain or lose weight. Quite simply, if you take in more
than you expend, you will gain weight. If you burn off more than you take in, you
will lose weight. Period. At this point you need to figure out how much calorie you
need daily to sustain weight and how much you need to lose or gain for the desired
weekly goal. This process will always be constantly modified to reach this goal. This
should lead you to understand that thermodynamics is about knowing how much
fuel to put into the machine every day.
Shopping for food:
o Just like throwing a great punch or executing a powerful throw, shopping for food is
like training. You need to have the right information, and once you do, make the
right moves. You may not know this, but right now there are marketing executive
out there thinking up ways for you poison yourself and limit your career. They are
paid big money to do this. You ask what do I mean by this. Well if you ever walk
down any of the aisle in your supermarket, they have surely gotten you. The
challenge is there for you to resist and instead make the right choices. It all starts
with “Shopping the Perimeter” . If you look at every supermarket, the meats, fruits,
vegetables, eggs are all on the perimeter of the store. All of the poison is located on
the inside of the perimeter. Think about it, the juice aisle, the soda isle, the cookie
aisle, the cereal aisle, the potato chip aisle, the frozen food aisle. You have seem
them, and the marketing slogans, colors, and commercials have gotten to you. You
need to be strong and resists. You will be armed with simple slogan for success: “If
you can’t hunt it down, fish it out of the sea, pick it off a tree, or dig it out of the
ground”, then do not eat it. Avoid canned , colored, processed, and synthetically
make junk at all costs. Your body is going to thank you for it with high energy
levels, faster recovery, and improved performance.
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
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Shopping for Supplement:
o One of the most important topics about nutrition that fighters want to understand is
supplements. The reason I think this is funny is that most of those athletes who are
interested in taking supplement have horrible diets! Remember “Don’t put on your
tie before you put on your shirt”. You must first fix your diet and then see what
you need to add. Look at the term “supplement” itself. It means something that
completes are make up for. With a proper diet, there are not going to be many
need things that need to be supplemented, and there are products out there that
plain just plain don’t work. It is a good idea to check with your health care
professional before taking any supplement.
o Whenever athletes are asked what is the most important meal of the day, most of
them automatically respond, “Breakfast”, I feel this is incorrect. The most
important meal to us is the postworkout meal. I like this meal to be in liquid form,
to be easily digested. After the workout, your body is in catabolism and starving for
carbohydrates and protein that it needs to recover and repair. This meal can start
the recovery process quicker and help ensure progress. It should be taken
immediately following the end of the workout. When most people think of shake,
they think of a protein shake. Protein is important to us at the postworkout meal,
but you cannot forget about the carbohydrates. It is been recommended there is a
4-5 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein in our postworkout shake. So, if the contains 20
grams of protein, the athlete will take in 80-100 grams of carbs afterward as well.
Simple carbs and whey of are best choices here. In addition, a good antioxidant
vitamin (for its ability to decrease the effects of free radical that are produced by
intense exercise), and possibly creatine or L-glutamine if you feel that is necessary
once you read the descriptions that follow. This meal is critical. You should then
eat again in about one hour.
o Question, what is the most important meal beside the postworkout meal? Most
athletes again answered, “Breakfast”. No, not yet. The preworkout meals come
next. What you ingest before the workout has a lot to do with how the workout will
go and the catabolism that takes place. Eat 1-2 hours before the workout, and then
have a small liquid mixed of 30 grams of carbs and 10 grams of protein
immediately before the workout. After this every meal is important to you as the
athlete.
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
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Shopping for Supplement con’t:
o A few other suggestions, First a good encapsulated multivitamin. The second
supplement is creatine. Researched is overwhelming in terms of improved
performance and recovery. Take 10 grams per day on training days and 5 grams on
nontraining days for as long as they are training for upcoming bouts. The Third
supplement is L-tyrosine. This is an essential amino acid that acts as a mild
stimulant during workouts. It is linked in the brain like serotonin. Experiment for
yourself, but many athletes have found around 3000 grams before workout
improves training. Finally, L-glutamine is another essential amino acid that is
recommended for athletes. This amino acid has been linked to recovery and
immune response in athletes. Take from 5-10 grams before training and bed on
training days.
Reading Labels:
o Another important skill for an athlete to have beside their specialized skill sets, is
how to read a food label. The government, which may not always steer you in the
right direction for what you eat, at least provides you with the ingredients and
makeup of the food that you are eating. Reading labels is essential in order for an
athlete to know how many calories he ingests in a day, as well as what the
composition of those calories are.
o Having stated the importance of reading labels, I will not state that if you are
reading a lot of labels, you may not be much of the right food. Last time I checked
there are no ingredient labels on an apple or chicken breast. Remember most of
the food you should be eating should follow the “If I can’t hunt it down, fish it out
of the sea, pick it off a tree, or dig it out of the ground….” rule. That being said,
and coming back to most people’s reality, you are going to eat things with labels on
them, so you should know what they mean.
o The first misleading thing to pay attention to is what is considered a serving size
according to the label. For instance, you may have a big bowl of cereal or drink a
32-ounce sports drink and think you took in only the number of calories listed on
the box. If the serving is 1 cup of cereal or 8 ounces of sports drink, you may have
just quadrupled the calories and everything else listed on the label, without being
aware of it.
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
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Shopping for Supplement con’t:
o After you know the serving size (and try to stick close to it), you can look at the total
number of calories and find out what portion of those calories are made up of
proteins, carbs, or fat. The way to figure this is out is to multiply the number of
grams of protein or carbs in the serving by 4 (calories) and the grams of fat by 9
(Calories). Then divide the total number of calories by the number to know the
percent of each. This breakdown of what you are eating will show how balanced
your food really is.
o The next thing that is important is not the amount of sprayed on vitamins the
product has (take your multi every day to be sure), but the ingredient list. The
ingredients are listed in order of the amount of each substance that is in the
product, from the most to the least. So, if your cereal’s first ingredient is corn and
the second is listed as high-fructose corn syrup, you can be pretty sure you should
throw out the cereal and eat the box; it’s healthier for you.
o Another important thing to do with the food label is to identify the amount of sugar
and sodium that is in your food. Processed foods are packed with sugar and salt.
Not only these two ingredients killers of performance, they also killers of people.
When you start to be aware of how much sugar and salt you are taking every day,
you will then have control.
o A final element that is recommended for athletes to note is the amount of fiber that
is in the food. There are two types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. All too often,
many athletes are not getting enough fiber. Being aware of this will help you get
closer on track. Try to get in about 25-30 grams of fiber in your diet per day. Great
choices here are dark leafy vegetables and whole grains.
o An important thing to note is that your performance is determine not solely by what
you eat, but when you eat. Make sure to follow the guidelines we discssued about
not only the types of food to ingest, but also the timing of those meals.
Foods to Avoid
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Processed and Refined carbohydrates
Processed and Packaged foods
Gluten and dairy products
Sugars / enriched flours / Non whole-grains
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
Hydrogenated fats / Saturated fats / Trans fat
Alcohol
Ingredients: BHT / BHA
Caffeine
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
Additional Advise
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Consume foods in their natural state or as close to natural as possible. Avoid processed foods.
The less chance that man has to process your food, the better off you will be. If possible, make
the transition to a primarily organic meal plan.
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Two excellent health food stores include Wild Oats (www.wildoats.com) and Whole Foods
Market (www.wholefoodsmarket.com). In addition, many large grocery stores are beginning to
offer more organic foods. They simply cannot overlook the increased awareness of many health
conscious consumers. Inquire about organic foods at your local grocery store.
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Consume a small meal every few hours (ex. Every 3 hours). By spreading intake throughout the
day, you will maintain a steady supply of energy, while helping to stabilize blood sugar. If blood
sugar levels remain steady, you will feel energized. You will also keep your metabolism working
throughout the day. Each small meal functions similarly to a log in a fireplace. The meal keeps
your metabolism burning throughout the day, just as the log keeps the fire burning in a
fireplace.
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Listen to your body. Your body will tell you when it needs food. You must also know when to
stop eating. The goal of a meal is not to stuff yourself full. The great Greek physician
Hippocrates’ once said, “If you still have slight sensation of hunger after a meal – you have eaten
well. If you feel full – you have poisoned yourself.”
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Always read food labels. Avoid products that contains hydrogenated oils, partially
hydrogenated oils, trans fat, and high fructose corn Syrup. You should also avoid items that are
loaded with chemical ingredients which are impossible to pronounce. Stick with natural food at
all times.
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If you must eat one of the following, choose real butter over margarine. Margarine is not a
healthy alternative to butter. Margarine is a laboratory developed product that does not belong
in the human body.
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Consume water as your primary beverage. Add freshly squeezed lemon or lime for flavor. Do
not consume soda; even diet soda should be avoided. I also recommend avoiding fruit juice.
Juice is high in sugar, and often comes from poor quality, highly processed fruits.
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Avoid all artificial and chemical sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners have been linked to
numerous illnesses. Sweeteners can be found in most low-calorie foods and drink (ex. Diet
soda). If you drink coffee, consume it without sweeteners. I also recommend viewing
Altaf Rahamatulla
Training For Warrior – Martin Rooney
Advise on Nutrition
www.aspartamesafety.com. For frightening information, regarding, one of the more common
and hazardous sweeteners, aspartame.
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Consume natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, beans and legumes, organic whole wheat
grains, organic brown rice, nuts (ex. walnuts, almonds, and pecans), chicken, eggs, dairy product
from organically-fed hens, and beef from grass-fed cattle.
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Natural foods such as fruits and vegetables, which are not organically, are still superior to
processed items such as granola bars and cereals. If you cannot eat organic, you should eat at
least natural.
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Shop the perimeter of your grocery store. You will find much healthier selections along the
perimeter. The junk is in the aisle.
Altaf Rahamatulla