LIFESTYLE

Rest

You need to ensure you get 8 hours of sleep a night at an absolute minimum. You should really be aiming for 10 hours. Nothing can substitute rest, and while stimulants like caffeine may be able to mentally substitute it, you’re missing out on adequate time in recovery. You can’t effectively recover while you’re awake, so don’t try to – get some sleep.

Alcohol

There are four pieces of this puzzle that will destroy your progress:

1. Dehydration – Alcohol leads to dehydration. Even though you’re consistently drinking liquid, you will be unknowingly sweating it out, and also urinating much more often. Dehydration will destroy your muscles, and hinder your recovery process.

2. Empty Carbs – Many alcoholic beverages contain ‘empty carbs’. These are carbs (generally sugar) that contain little to no nutritional value. On a night out you can have a massive intake of these, and most of which will convert to fat.

3. Lack of Sleep – On a night out drinking you’ll often go without sleep, and effectively take away your ability to recover.

4. Lack of Food – While out, you’ll be awake for upwards of 8 hours straight and not eating. Your body will be burning energy, but you won’t be adding anything in, so your body will feed off your muscles and start eating itself to survive.

Junk Food

 Junk Food is the devil. Many new guys will read the nutritional info of a burger and jump straight to the protein – and yes, it’ll have plenty of it. What they don’t realise is that the carbs in it have little nutrients, and all of the fat is bad fat.

The amount of saturated fat in a single meal of junk food is enough for a couple of days, and there is simply no way you can dispose of it. You’ll literally be working backwards if you continually eat junk food, regardless of how great your training regime is.

Skipping Meals

Try to avoid skipping meals at all costs. I know it can be hard with a busy work or social life, but any period between meals where one is skipped you will be lacking nutrients, and working backwards.

This can also cause dramas with your metabolism’s rhythm; so where possible, hit all of your meals on time. If you miss one, you can double up, but realise that a lot of the nutrients won’t be able to be absorbed.