5 Foods EVERYONE Should Have in Their Diet!
Did you know that there are 5 foods that everyone should have in their diet? In this video, I am going to discuss what those 5 foods are and their health benefits. Not only that, but I will also explain how they relate to growing muscle too. That being said, let me break down these foods for you.
What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx. com. So, when it comes to food choices, I’m sure we all have our own preferences. However, today I’m going to show you five foods you really need to make room for in your diet. We all should be eating these, not just because they’re good, healthy choices, but when it comes to the gym, they’re actually science proven to help you build muscle faster.
And the best part is finding a way to incorporate them into what you’re already eating is super simple.
Kind of simple. All right, so, it doesn’t get any easier than this first food to start reaping the benefits both in the gym and just in your overall health than the blueberry.
Now, look, we’ve got to get something straight right off the bat here. I’m not talking about blueberry flavored anything or blueberries in it. So, anybody that likes those blueberry scones from Starbucks, that doesn’t count. Well, what we’re talking about, though, is just eating pure, fresh blueberries and that’s going to be a theme throughout the entire video. Now, when it comes to blueberries, I also sometimes hear, Well, they can make you fat there’s a lot of sugar in them.
Guys, do me a favor, nobody ever got fat eating blueberries. There are 0. 8 calories in each one of these things. That means for 100 of them, you get about 80 calories, which is only 15 grams of sugar and it’s also not very high in the glycemic index, so it doesn’t cause those blood sugar spikes. Now, when it comes to the gym, there is actually a study performed on women aged 25 to 40 who ate two cups of blueberries for six weeks.
And what they found was an increase in the number of human muscle progenitor cells, which are the cells that go on to produce new muscle tissue. And they also saw a lower percentage of dead human muscle progenitor cells, which indicated a resistance to oxidative stress. In other words, more resilience as they went through their own workouts. So, what that means is faster muscle recovery in between workouts. And we know that if you’re going to train natural, faster muscle recovery is your number one weapon for building new muscle throwing.
Throw in the fact that these are also rich in vitamin C and potassium and are a powerful anti-inflammatory and you can’t go wrong with adding blueberries to your diet, especially because it’s so damn easy to do. And so, there isn’t a single one of us out here who hasn’t probably been told since the age of two that we should be eating more green vegetables and for good reason. However, there’s a specific type of green vegetables I want you to be focusing on, and they’re the cruciferous vegetables. And maybe the first thing that pops into your mind is broccoli or cauliflower. But did you know, there’s actually a lot more choices that will fit the bill here?
We re talking about things like cabbage or Brussels sprouts or bok choy or kale or one of my favorites, broccoli rabe. All of these foods are rich in three important things, the first being phytonutrients, the second being vitamin K and the third being something called sulforaphane. You see these foods when eaten or cooked or chopped, will actually break down a substance called glucoraphanin and into sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is actually being proven to be a very, very powerful antioxidant and also anti-inflammatory. One of my favorites I always mention here on this channel, Rhonda Patrick has talked a lot about these benefits.
Now, maybe you’re thinking to yourself, but I don’t really like any of those foods, even the other options you gave me, Jeff. Well, you can still meet your needs by just having a salad with some arugula and radish in it. So, there’s no excuses here, there are a lot of food options. And when it comes to building muscle, there’s actually some exciting studies coming out that were done, albeit pig cells, and no, we’re not pigs, but we do have similar muscle cells. And they showed that by exposing these human pig muscle cells to Sulforaphane, that they could actually deactivate something called myostatin.
And that’s a type of protein that’s actually responsible for putting the brakes on new muscle growth. So, if mom’s urgings weren’t enough of a reason to put more of these on your plate, hopefully now with greater options here, you’ve got greater reason to make sure you do. Look, while green foods might get all the love. You also have to pay attention to the orange foods because there’s plenty to love about that. And no, Jesse, we’re not talking about these, they don’t count.
But what we are talking about is foods like cantaloupe, pumpkin, squash, my favorite sweet potatoes, carrots, mangos and even oranges themselves. And they all have carotenoids, and these are actually protect our health. They’re what are known as free radical scavengers. They go out and they get rid of the oxidation that can cause cell breakdown in early aging. And they also help to protect things even like your own eyesight.
The fact is, guys, you need to get more of them in your diet. But how? Well, first of all, unlike the blueberries, since there’s a greater variety here of these foods, they’re not all the same in terms of their calorie impact. So, some a little bit more caloric like the sweet potatoes or oranges and some a little bit on the lighter side, like cantaloupe and pumpkin. You’ve just got to figure out where that fits in your diet.
But you need to figure out some way to fit some version of them into it. And when it comes to the body changing capabilities of these foods, they actually did a study on competitive cyclists where they looked at a particular flavonoid inside of oranges called 2S-Hesperidin, and they did it over the course of eight weeks. They had 40 amateur cyclists divided into two groups, one that took it, 500 milligrams, and the other one that did not. And they saw something pretty impressive findings. The supplemental group showed a decrease in body fat percentage by 10.
4%. Now, mind you, that’s not, let’s say, from 20% down to 10%. That’s a 10% drop from, let’s say, 20. So 2% loss in body fat, but it’s still significant. They also found an increase in muscle mass, percentage of 1% and total muscle mass of 1.
7% with no changes in the placebo. And the good news is you don’t have to be an athlete to see these benefits. The fact is you just need to figure out a way to start eating more of these orange foods. One little caution here, though. If you eat too much of this, you can get something called carotenemia, which is when you actually start to get like orange-colored hands.
And I kind of mentioned how much I love sweet potatoes and pumpkin. It’s actually due to an increase in vitamin A. And if you see that, all you have to do is just simply decrease your consumption. But I’ll tell you this, most people are not having a problem with too much of this, they’re having too little. So, if you watch my channel for any length of time or actually even watch my full day of eating video, which I’ll link for you at the end of this one.
You ll notice that there s one food, this next one here that I actually eat every single morning, and it is ginger. And you might have been told a long time ago that if you had an upset stomach, it’s good to sort of ease nausea, but it goes way beyond that. It’s a powerful anti-inflammatory and in my world, it’s one of the best ways to actually minimize the late onset muscle soreness after a hard workout. And we all know that if you can’t train because of muscle soreness or can’t give a good effort in the gym, then how are you going to