I’m sure you’ve already heard all about the amazing health benefits of antioxidant-rich foods in your diet. These free radical-fighting antioxidants not only help you look and feel younger by slowing down the aging process, but they also help prevent cancer, heart disease, and many other degenerative diseases. But that is not all. Antioxidants also help you recover better from exercise … and that means more muscle and less fat on your body in the long run!
The role antioxidants play in helping you recover from exercise is by inhibiting free radicals produced during exercise. Every time you exercise, your body produces free radicals that damage muscle tissue. Having an adequate supply of antioxidants about an hour before your workout can greatly reduce the muscle damage caused by free radicals and therefore improve your muscle recovery from exercise.
Some of the most potent sources of whole food antioxidants are berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries), cherries, acai fruit, various teas (green tea, oolong tea, white tea, black tea, and red tea, also known as rooibos). tea), nuts, seeds, red and black beans, purple potatoes, grapes, red wine, cinnamon, and dark chocolate or cocoa. Don’t be fooled by all the intense marketing of expensive antioxidant supplement pills … remember, whole foods are always better for you (and cheaper) than a pill.
My favorite antioxidant-loaded pre-workout snack is whole grain toast with almond butter, a small amount of blackberry jam, and topped with a pile of fresh blueberries or sliced strawberries. I wash it down with a glass of iced green tea or rooibos tea sweetened with just a little bit (about a teaspoon) of raw honey. This is literally a fivefold hit of powerful antioxidants! Almond butter, blackberry, blueberries, raw honey, and green tea or rooibos are loaded with different varieties of antioxidants that protect muscles and promote youth. I put this snack down about an hour before my workout. Try it for yourself, or get creative and make your own antioxidant-rich pre-workout snack to suit your taste.
Remember, your body is continually bombarded every day by free radicals (which create oxidative stress) from exercise, air pollution, smoke, sun exposure, junk food, exposure to chemicals, etc. To get the full benefits of antioxidants, try to make sure every meal and snack you eat has at least one or two antioxidant-rich food sources. This will provide you with a continuous supply of antioxidants every day to prevent free radical damage that you are constantly exposed to.
Antioxidants are just one piece of the puzzle of a healthy diet that will give you the lean, muscular, youthful, and disease-free body that everyone desires. To discover the secrets behind all the other pieces of the diet puzzle that create a lean body (macronutrient profile, glycemic response, hormonal response, glycogen storage, muscle protein synthesis, the role of leptin, the process of insulin, etc.), visit http://truthaboutabs.com