Another diet plan for bodybuilders demonstrates how much bigger the portions are for men than for women, how much protein is necessary to send excess protein into the muscles and exactly how carbs are mismanaged which contributes to fat gain, but not apparently if you eat protein afterward. http://www.muscleandfitness.com/nutrition/gain-mass/build-muscle-stay-lean-meal-plan?page=3

I think this diet and the other one amply demonstrate how minor changes are to diet causing significant changes in body design based on results desired and a typical work-out. I think one thing to remember is that 5-10 grams of fats per day need to come directly from healthy sources, i.e. nuts, olive oil and fatty fish. How much you eat and what types of foods you eat are important, but extremely important to these people is when and what you eat, that you do not eat so many carbs on off-days and that you increase serving sizes for more strenuous days instead of number of times per day, and that you give your muscles what they want when they need it. For dancers, this is primarily earlier in the day, with maybe a little increase of each serving on days when you have more work, rehearsals or performances. Protein is used for recovery after class or performances (but not late) and especially in the morning when yesterdays store are depleted. Not consuming too many carbs, or carbs on days off, keeps body fat down until you can get back into the studio to work it off. Frequent meals provide aminos which are necessary for building lean muscle and prevents your body from using muscle fuel, and leads to lean muscle, and less fat. As carbs are critical to building muscle, a dancer who eats fewer carbs, but enough will build lean muscle if she eats the right proportions, and type, at the appropriate times in the day. Fewer fruits, grains, and sugars in the later part of the day will reduce fat levels as well.

Try to keep track of everything you eat normally for a week or two, so that you have a baseline for your caloric and food intake. Project onto this your schedule to see if your meal plan id like either one of these meal plans. Categorize your foods by writing next to each item what type of category it falls into, or if its a different one, like a candy bar, preserve, or to go food.Try to establish whether you control the process of food-making and content 100% of the time and if you do not, try to think about what is in it and whether eating that food again could pose a problem to you and undermine your success. it is nutritious? can you quantify that nutrition? As you see now how the balance of these ingredients is everything, how can you not eat in the dark? If you are eating packaged ice cream for instance, can you substitute that for one containing only certain ingredients, control what is in it, or try another kind, perhaps ices or sorbet? Dairy is not as bad for you as sugar because dairy contains protein, but does also contain sugar. This may be one reason, as stated above, that dancers fat content is so high. They are using the carbs and proteins and storing the sugars as fat. As fat cannot be used for energy because it doesn’t break down easily, the more fat you store, the less lean muscle you will display.

Lets discuss terms a little bit. What do you think a calorie is? It is a standard unit for measuring heat, the heat required to raise one gram of water 1 degree Celsius. (C).  A kilocalorie (kcal) is the amount of heat necessary to raise one kilogram (kg) of water 1 degree C. Calorie should actually read kilocalorie. Kcals are the measure of energy provided by food to fuel the body. Exercise or movement, even thinking, generates heat, and for every kcal you ingest you must generate enough heat to raise one kg of water by 1 degree C in order to consume the energy provided by the kcal. If you do not generate enough heat, the kcal is converted to fat. People who are said to have a fast metabolism are simply those whose bodies generate more heat. That is not outside heating or hefty bag pants-that is energy expended. How can a dancer generate more heat? The bodies biochemical processes can be regulated to control your body’s temperature and can be enhanced by nutrition and exercise to make it “hot.” Calories in do not necessarily equal calories out, but there are ways to increase your metabolism as there are foods that are easier to metabolize. It is more the quality of the food than the quantity of it that will comprise good nutrition. The nutrients in food have more to do with weight loss than the amount you consume (or calories). Nutrition involves dietary balance of protein, carbs, and fat, as well as vitamins and minerals.Dancers need to eat nutrient dense foods. Let’s look at fuel sources and exercise.

1) Harder is not necessarily better. All exercise uses energy sources in different ways. Weightlifting and dancing share some similarities as we have already seen. Weightlifting involves short bursts of very high energy. Allegro energy requirements are slightly longer but do not require the intensity of energy required by weightlifting. Running three miles burns the same number of calories as walking 5 miles, but a run is fueled by sugar stores (that get up and go) and walking is fueled by fat stores. Hence a run will tire you out, while a similar walk will burn fat and leave you feeling energized. Physiology is complicated. Phosphorus, glucose and fat are the main sources of energy in the body.  All energy in the body is supplied by the breakdown of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). So, all those energy sources can be converted into energy, but what the body chooses to use at any given time or store depends upon the level of energy expected to be expended.  So it uses it in tiers. Phosphorus is what the body chooses for immediate energy, like rolling over and turning off your alarm. The energy to lift something heavy is fueled by phosphorus which grabs a molecule of creatine to form an ATP molecule. It’s a one shot burst of energy but is consumed very quickly and will not sustain you for a longer period. Most of our energy comes from glucose for intermediate forms of energy although its preference depends on how long and how much energy are expended, like that long walk when you feel too tired to walk back home. You have used it up. Shorts periods of energy, such as an allegro, are fueled by a mechanism known as anaerobic glycosis. This means literally cutting off a unit of glycogen molecule (picture a string of pearls) and is metabolized without oxygen (anaerobic). In order to form this molecule as quickly as it needs to, it bypasses gathering the oxygen to make ATP, it makes lactic acid. After a class your muscles are filled with it. Glucose is also the energy choice for say long distance running. The fuel choice at this point is determined by how far you run, how hard and how what kind of shape you are already in.

In average condition the main tier will be aerobic glycolosis. The difference between anaerobic and aerobic is that in aerobic glycolosis oxygen is used as the key factor in maintaining and generating ATP rather than lactic acid. Aerobic glycolosis is slower and predominates when the intensity of the exercise is not great. Glucose is the fuel for both, but it is used differently depending on the physics of the movement and condition of the athlete. Finally, fat is used as a source of fuel in a process called aerobic lipolysis. Fat is big and difficult to break down, so the factors that determine whether fat is used are 1) energy demand, 2) duration, 3) condition of the person, and 4) nutritional status. If the demand is too great the body will use aerobic glycosis. Low to moderate intensity exercise would burn fat. You can tell by how fast your heart beats during and after the exercise. Duration is important because a body takes a while to use fat, just like when you are heating a pan to melt butter. If the exercise stops too soon the fat will not melt. Usually it takes up to 30  minutes for the body to begin to metabolize fat. This is called endurance exercise. If you are well-conditioned, your body burns fat more readily than if you are not.  However, a well-conditioned dancer is not the same as a well-conditioned runner. Nutrition here means when and what you ate. if you consume food that is mostly glucose (carbs) less than an hour before exercising, your body will use that glucose as its fuel source rather than begin to use its fat stores. You will still burn calories from the food you ate, but your body will not use the fat until the recently supplied energy stores are depleted. It really is a matter of tiers and conditions which vary. Even at rest, you are producing energy by aerobic glycolysis and aerobic lipolysis.

Protein is not used as a direct fuel source and it does not provide energy to any extent. It is used to build and maintain muscle or rebuild muscle and bone. It is the gyst of these ideas that is important, not the details, so don’t get bogged down, just try to understand. Dance activity does not promote fat loss because most of the energy required for it comes from anaerobic glycolysis and not aerobic lipolysis. Fortunately there is a solution. Choosing the right kind of cross-training and diet can lead to the achievement of a lithe sylph.