Raw Dish!

Ask Matt Grace! Author of "A Way Out" and "Toned Arms in Ten Days", long term raw foodist Matthew Grace is a former Standout Amateur Boxer, Fitness Coach, and Wellness Expert. Matthew is the founder of the Coalition for Health Re-Education and regularly presents lectures and seminars on wellness, healing, and awareness of harmful and false information regarding health.

Dear Matthew:

I frequently hear people in raw food circles talk about eating or wanting to eat specific foods to build muscle. Is eating specific foods with the expectation that the food will build muscle mass ever warranted? Why or why not?

First things first: It doesn’t matter what food you eat if you’re not training there is NO food on the planet that will increase your muscle density on its own. That may sound obvious but I realize that there are many people looking for shortcuts. Witness the television advertisements these days; “8 minute abs,” “exercise in a bottle,” the “fat burning pill,” “electronic exercise while you sleep,” and of course “7 minute abs.” It is not hard to imagine that there are people who believe that eating a certain food will make your muscles grow just by ingesting it……… New Flash: It ain’t happenin.’

For twenty years I have been studying nutrition and since I could walk, I have been an athlete. As a small and skinny teenager I was desperate to build my body up and once I found weight training there was no looking back. I had no knowledge of nutrition other than the mechanical repetition of a “high protein” diet that was (and still is) espoused in the gyms, and for the first 7 years of my strength training I ate what everybody else ate. I also bought plenty of “weight gain” and “high protein” powders to assist my efforts at “getting big.”

Looking back it is safe to say that the only efforts that really made a difference were those spent grinding it out in the gym, day after day come rain or come shine…for years. I was eating a horrible diet but my muscles responded to an intense training regimen. Entering high school I was a scrawny five feet seven inches tall and weighed one hundred and five pounds. After four years of serious weight training, and poor eating, I graduated at six foot four one hundred and seventy five pounds. Without the training I imagine I would have weighed about one sixty.

What’s the point? Simply stated if you make your muscles do more than they are used to doing, they will grow, no matter what food you eat. Now back to the question.

Are there certain fruits, vegetables seeds or nuts that will give you an added advantage over others? That is a VERY tough question to answer and would take an unbiased and endless amount of research to come up with any definitive answer, as there are SO many factors involved. The answer is I don’t know. That being the case, there is some knowledge, evidence and experience to help shed some light on the subject.

First of all the idea that high protein foods build muscle better and faster than “carbohydrates” or raw fruits and vegetables is unproven and ridiculous. Anybody that is telling you to go heavy on the protein is selling you something, period. If you want some irrefutable evidence that a high protein diet is unnecessary to build muscle all we have to do is look to nature where the strongest and mightiest creatures on the planet are found. Does anybody question the force of a rhinoceros? How about an elephant? A horse or a giraffe? Let’s consider the pound for pound strongest species on the planet, the silver back gorilla, two hundred times stronger than the average human. All of the above animals have two things in common. They are extremely powerful and they eat nothing but plant life. No protein bars, protein shakes or high protein diets…..nothing but plant life.

By definition a protein is a chain link of amino acids. The best source of amino acids are raw fruits, vegetables seeds and nuts. Our bodies require bio-available amino acids to make protein. We don’t need to ingest complete proteins as the pitch-men and the ignorant insist. Human mother’s milk is about 3 percent protein, that’s it. Do you think nature has made a mistake and forgotten how important protein is, or do you think the protein salesmen have overstated it’s importance?

There are certain foods I prefer such as mangos, bananas, avocadoes, coconuts and oranges. I also enjoy a handful of macadamia nuts as well as pecans once in a while. These are simply my preferences and I don’t eat specific foods to help put on muscle. I wouldn’t know what to eat to gain some sort of muscle gaining advantage. However I will say this: When I eat any food there is an immediate sense of the quality of that particular mango or orange. It has to do with the taste, the look the aroma and the immediate satiation gained from the food I am eating. There is an indescribable and ineffable sense that prime quality foods emit. There is nothing like a great piece of fruit. I have had mangos that I swear must have been grown in heaven and it seems that I can literally feel the nutrients coarsing through my bloodstream and feeding my body. I can say the same for peaches, pears, bananas, apples, grapes, pineapple, durian, tomatoes etc. Is there a certain food to eat to pack on a little more muscle or is it the quality of the food we eat that makes the difference? I say it has to do with quality.

If you want to put on some weight you could also consider eating more frequently throughout your day. Instead of two big meals a day, you might try four average sized meals. The body is able to digest small meals easier than big ones. This has been helpful to me and my clients when trying to gain a little more mass.

One last thing……If you are not training correctly and don’t understand the principles of weight training ( workout programs, split routines, proper rest and sound form) you are going to have a much more difficult time trying to build your body. I am often astounded at the droves of people that walk in off the street and assume they know how to exercise. These same people that take tennis lessons, music lessons and skiing lessons assume for some strange reason that there really isn’t much to know about weight training. There is a glaring disregard for the art of exercise, and this is at the heart of most people’s disappointment with their results. Unfortunately as is true in most professions even the trainers are hacks. Many of them are dangerous to their clients and instead of encouraging people to train unknowingly do the opposite.

If you have a question for Matt, please email it with the subject listed "Ask Matt Grace" to Raw Dish! at livestephen@aol.com.

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Ask Matt Grace! Author of "A Way Out" and "Toned Arms in Ten Days", long term raw foodist Matthew Grace is a former Standout Amateur Boxer, Fitness Coach, and Wellness Expert. Matthew is the founder of the Coalition for Health Re-Education and regularly presents lectures and seminars on wellness, healing, and awareness of harmful and false information regarding health.

Dear Matt,

Sometimes I feel resistant to exercising; but usually, after I begin, I feel better and I feel glad that I didn’t skip it. I know part of health is rest. How can I determine when my body really needs to rest and is genuinely exhausted or when it needs to be worked out?

Matt Responds:

I hear three questions here. 1. What is this resistance? 2. How do I get out of it? 3. How do I know if my body really needs a rest?

This ‘resistance’ you refer to can have a variety of origins all resulting in an uncooperative, unwilling state. The law of inertia may have something to do with this phenomena as it does seem true that a body in motion is more apt to stay in motion and that a body that is not in motion requires a substantial force to get it in motion. Certainly, physical exhaustion could be a factor but it is rare (more about that later). So, although the sensation may feel like physical fatigue, there is a very good chance it is not. As is true in other parts of life, the way one thinks and feels plays an enormous role in the state experienced when planning to exercise. Things just do not happen without cause. A cake does not magically show up on the kitchen counter. There are a list of ingredients and a specific way of mixing these ingredients to create a certain result. The same is true for a person’s state at any given moment. Whether energized, lethargic, depressed or jubilant, mental, emotional and physical ingredients make up the recipe.

Typically, the lethargy or “resistance to exercising” you describe is the result of one or a combination of these three components. Whether you are aware of it or not, there are thoughts, feelings and physical postures that are creating a certain result (or state) in you right now. Likewise, when it’s 6pm, and you feel tired and drained at the end of your workday, and you are trying to decide whether to go home or workout, you want to train but you don’t want to over do it, the same is true. Fortunately, there are some questions you can ask yourself and actions you can take to ascertain an honest answer.

The first question is what is my goal? If you don’t have one get one, fast. Long term (for the year), mid-term (for the season) and short-term (this week) goals are a requisite if you wish to accomplish anything worthwhile. I’ll write more about this in coming articles.

The second question is where am I presently in relation to my goal; ahead of pace, on pace, or behind pace? With your goal in mind, you can begin to question if the thoughts you are thinking are taking you closer or farther away from your goals. You can remind yourself of the reasons you made this goal to begin with, usually this effort alone will often change your state.

You can also begin to make efforts to intentionally change your thoughts from “I really need to get something to eat,” “I don’t want to trek to the gym and have to change my clothes two more times,” “it’s raining and too cold to go out,” “I just don’t have time” and the all time classic “I’ll do it tomorrow,” to thoughts that will keep you on track.

Instead of thinking “man am I beat” why not start thinking “I know I could do at least half of my workout”? Work up to “I feel fantastic; I can’t wait to start training.” This might sound strange but if you really give it some genuine effort, you’ll be amazed at how it starts to alter your attitude. James Allen’s classic AS A MAN THINKETH is all about the seeds we plant in the garden of our minds, and the “crops” we reap.

One of the most effective things you can do to change your state is to change your breathing. A primary ingredient in any negative state is shallow breathing. Try taking some deep inhalations, through your nose. Fill up your lungs with air, preferably outside or by a window. Exhale emphatically through your mouth the first three or four breaths and imagine blowing out all tension and negativity. Then begin to exhale through the nose. Continue the deep breathing for at least five minutes and you will sense a transformation occurring.

Now get up and start moving around AS IF your body is just filled with the finest energy available. That’s right, just act. You might feel silly but so what? Check the expression on your face. LOOK UP. It is impossible to be in a negative state while doing so. (Try it if you don’t believe me!) Say your goal out loud and then say three reasons why you made your goal. If you do all this I promise you will see a dramatic transformation of states. Once you begin your workout, that weighted, “leaden” body begins a dramatic transformation, the breath begins to deepen and the blood begins to accelerate through the body. The muscles become filled with blood, that blood is increasingly oxygenated as the exercise continues, endorphins are released into the blood stream, and toxins that have been deposited in the tissues are stirred up and begin to be excreted through the pores of the skin. The mind starts to clear and if the exercise is intense enough all three ‘brains’ body, mind and heart are working together in unison and the troubles of your day are left far behind.

An ‘emotional funk’ can keep us stuck and keeps us from doing what is necessary, including working out. Feelings that cause depression such as anger, distrust, inferiority, loneliness, jealousy, bitterness etc, are powerful enough to cause grave illnesses and sickness and they are certainly strong enough to stop us from doing our workout. Learning to observe and look out for these thoughts and feelings will help you begin to free yourself from their reign of gloom.

Given the examples of what one can do when “psyched up” and how disabled one can be when depressed, I’d have to say emotions are THE most important factor in determining ones over all state. I have verified that no matter how exhausted the body may feel, once the workout begins everything changes, including your emotional state. There is a reason why certain therapists have their patients hit pillows. It is a way of excreting poisonous emotions that if left unexcreted leaves the patient emotionally stuck or paralyzed and an often times necessary practice to begin to think and feel clearly. Exercise can work the same way. Use the exercises above to help you.

And finally, YOU SHOULD NOT WORKOUT WHEN: You are seriously ill -- fever, headaches, upset stomach -- or you have physical injury that requires rest. This does not include muscle soreness caused by lactic acid buildup from a previous workout. Also, if you find that you’ve forced yourself to start your exercise and, after ten minutes, you feel worse, you need to stop. This is rare but it does happen, so listen to your body. Most of the time, as you say, you’ll be glad you trained and overcame the resistance.

If you have a question for Matt, please email it with the subject listed "Ask Matt Grace" to Raw Dish! at livestephen@aol.com.