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The liver is the largest glandular organ in the body and it helps purify toxins and harmful substances from the body. The liver secretes bile, a chemical that digests fats. Bile’s salts break up fat into smaller pieces so it can be absorbed more easily in the small intestine.

In addition to producing bile, the liver:

• Detoxifies the blood to remove harmful substances such as alcohol and drugs
• Stores some vitamins and iron
• Stores the sugar glucose
• Converts stored sugar to functional sugar when the body’s sugar (glucose) levels fall below normal
• Breaks down hemoglobin as well as insulin and other hormones
• Converts ammonia to urea, which is vital in metabolism
• Destroys old red blood cells (called RBC’s)

TOP 5 AYURVEDIC HERBS FOR LIVER HEALTH

Though liver is such an important organ, but it is subject a lot of abuse from factors such as environmental toxins, pain killer abuse.  If you are overweight, drink heavily, suffer from diabetes or have high levels of triglycerides, you are putting your liver health at risk.

MILK THISTLE

Milk thistle is the best herb for a healthy liver. It has been used for thousands of years to support liver health. It contains the flavonoid silymarin, which is thought to be responsible for many of its beneficial effects, including liver protection and antioxidant, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory properties.

Silymarin, its active component, is actually a group of compounds (silibinin, silidianin, and silicristin), which work together to provide multiple health benefits.

HOW DOES SILYMARIN PROTECT YOUR LIVER? 

Silymarin prevents tissue scarring, and it’s thought to act as as a “toxin blockade agent” by inhibiting the binding of toxins to liver cell membrane receptors.

Not only is silymarin used to treat alcoholic liver disease, acute and chronic viral hepatitis, and toxin-induced liver diseases, but in experimental studies, this powerful compound has been shown to reduce liver injury caused by a number of drugs and environmental toxins.

Silymarin is a good herb for treating fatty liver. Fatty liver is a result of a buildup of fat in liver cells. Usually, obesity causes fatty liver, but it may result from diabetes or high serum triglycerides as well as alcohol abuse, rapid weight loss, and malnutrition.

Long-term use of steroids can also cause fatty liver.

BHRINGRAJ

Bhringraj, botanical name Eclipta Alba is an important Ayurveda herb. it is widely used in hair fall treatment, liver disorders, skin diseases etc. This herb supports healthy liver, as it protects the liver from toxic substances and is used in the treatment of hepatic disorders.

BHUMYAMLAKI

Bhumyamlaki (Phyllanthus niruri) is a well-known hepatoprotective herb provided by nature. Bitter in taste and with cooling, soothing and cleansing properties, it acts to cleanse, detoxify and strengthen the liver.

Bhumyamalaki also supports healthy functioning of the gallbladder and promotes healthy skin.  Bhumyamlaki pacifies pitta and kapha dosha, acts as a diuretic, protects the liver, detoxifies liver toxins and improves metabolism.

SHARPUNKHA

Sharpunkha is a well-known Ayurvedic herb, which is used in the treatment of liver cirrhosis. This herb is very beneficial to maintain the healthy hemoglobin levels in body. In Ayurveda sarapunkha has been identified as the fruitful herb for liver health. Besides this herb is good for digestive system and also helps to manage the digestive disorders.

  CHICORY

Chicory root has a long history of providing support to liver problems. Ancient Romans used the herb to help cleanse the blood. Egyptians were known to consume chicory root in large amounts to help purify the liver and the blood. In addition to its beneficial antioxidant effect, chicory root provides functional support to the liver.

Incorporate these herbs in your diet, so that your liver remains healthy. You also need to make a few changes in your lifestyle, like stress less, reduce your alcohol intake, exercise more and get at least 7-8 hours of shut-eye. Drink pure, filtered water and freshly cooked food. Your liver works quite hard and you must take good care of it to stay healthy. 

A stack is a common term in a bodybuilder’s vocabulary and it refers to using more than one supplement to speed up the fulfilment of the bodybuilder’s fitness goal.  A bodybuilder might be bulking in his off-season, with an agenda to increase his strength and size. There would be someone who is keen to lower his fat percentage before a contest and an athlete who wants to break his previous record and set a new one, and the supplement stack is going to make it easier for them to achieve their goal.

If you have ever wondered, supplement effective, then you might not have used in the right way. A supplement stack is designed in such a way that it makes available more nutrients to the muscles so that the fitness enthusiast does not have a hard time meeting his fitness goal.

WHAT IS A SUPPLEMENT STACK

The bodybuilding stacks work on the principle of synergy. They include a group of supplements that work together to improve energy, endurance, muscle size and workout intensity. Supplement stacks are to be taken before a workout, intra-workout and post workout.

HOW TO STACK YOUR SUPPLEMENTS

Keep it simple and sweet. Choose effective supplements, but with one ingredient and not having a mix of ingredients because you do not want to overdose on your supplements, and most importantly, your stack will be decided by your fitness goal and vary accordingly.

BEST SUPPLEMENT STACK FOR BULKING

The stack for mass gain needs to put you in a calorie surplus condition and will have a mass gainer for sure in it.  

1. Weight Gainers or Mass Gainers

When the fitness enthusiast needs to increase his muscle mass, he also needs to put on weight. Additional muscles are not built-in air, they need the right fuel and for human beings, the fuel is provided in the form of calories or the right foods.  However, the challenge is that the people who need extra calories, also found it more difficult to eat it, for reasons such as, hectic lifestyle and weak digestion.

2. Whey Protein

Your whey protein will allow it to recover quickly after a workout so that you suffer from fewer occasions of downtime and are able to hit the gym the next day.

3. Creatine

If you wish to build muscles, you need to exercise more intensely and break your previous personal record.  Your skeletal muscle tissues contain 95% of creatine. When you start supplementing creatine, it tops up phosphocreatine PCr stores, which allows you to have a longer and larger work volume. It helps you get one more rep.

4. Glutamine

Glutamine is an amino acid and you get in your diet when you eat protein. Glutamine helps remove waste products, like ammonia from the bloodstream.  According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, “People who regularly stress their bodies with heavy or prolonged exercise may deplete their glutamine stores.”

A workout stresses your muscles causing muscle damage. As the body repairs the damage, your muscles grow stronger and bit larger, anticipating future stress, but the process can take days of rest to repair that damage, which means you can work out only once or twice a week, and it quite hard to progress with this frequency. A supplement like glutamine will speed up the recovery process and allow you to work out more frequently.

BEST SUPPLEMENT STACK FOR WEIGHT LOSS

Along with whey protein, which you will have after a workout, your supplement stack to get ripped will include a fat burner and branched-chain amino acids.

1. Fat Burner

Fat burners can help enhance fat loss. They contain thermogenic ingredients, such as green tea, garcinia cambogia and grape fruit extract, which make them an effective weight loss supplement. These natural extracts raise your body’s metabolism, control junk food cravings and help burn stubborn belly fat.

2. Branched Chain Amino Acids

When you are trying to burn fat, your calorie intake is lower than it should be. However, hard you try to hold on to the muscle mass, dieting by nature is catabolic, which makes BCAA an effective supplement for dieters, especially bodybuilding competitors who take their physiques to the lean extreme.

Branched Chain Amino Acids, particularly leucine stimulates protein synthesis. BCAAs also reduce the rate of protein breakdown by maintaining muscle mass on a calorie-controlled diet. According to a study published in March 2011 issue of the “Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness” branched-chain amino can increase your exercise capacity and increase the use of fat for energy.

Protein is one of the most common among a gym-newbie, gym-regular, workout-holic, and athlete to get his best fitness and muscle building. If someone wants the best result, he will definitely put his best effort under the best nourishment. Then whey protein isolate comes into the picture as the best protein supplement for supporting your unadulterated muscle gain. 

For those who have doubts in mind about choosing the perfect protein and why they should choose whey isolate over whey protein or any other proteins, we have put together the protein yardsticks, on which they could examine the purity standard of their protein. Read through and decide for yourself if whey protein isolate supplement is for you or not.

Top 3 Benefits of Whey Protein Isolate

Whey protein isolate is purer than whey protein concentrate because it undergoes a process called Cross-Flow Micro-filtration.

• Reduces Inflammation: Inflammation is an indicator of the body that somewhere, something is wrong. Actually inflammation for the short term is quite beneficial.
• Weight Loss: To lose weight you need to burn more calories than you intake. Carbs are the biggest source of calories in our body that have a major place in our daily diet schedule.
• Muscle Growth: Many athletes use whey protein isolate for muscle growth as it is a rich source of high-quality protein. That supports amino acids in protein synthesis so that you will get the bigger muscles.

WHY WHEY PROTEIN? WHY NOT OTHER PROTEINS?

A protein is a protein, argues the gym novice. Why should I drink the protein powder and why not food will be good enough? All proteins are not equal! Such as vegetarian foods lack essential amino acids. Moreover, for experienced bodybuilders, protein needs to go up.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics reports that the bodybuilders require 1.4g to 1.7g of protein per kg of body weight to build the muscle mass.

Now, your protein-rich foods, serving essential amino acids are also rich in calories. Well, mostly!

On the Biological Value Scale, whey protein isolate is more efficient in using the protein source. The higher the biological value, more amino acids are being retained by the body from that protein source.

Difference Whey Protein Isolate vs Whey Protein Concentrate?

Though isolate is made after taking away the nutrients from whey concentrate on getting the purest form of protein. The benefits of whey protein isolate would be definitely less than whey concentrate. But in certain fitness goals, Isolate proves more beneficial than Concentrate or any other proteins. Here are some points that create the difference between Isolate and Concentrate.

5 Reasons To Choose Whey Protein Isolate

Choosing the best whey protein Isolate should not only be inspired by the decision of your friend, gym buddy or colleague if you wish to maximize your muscle-building goal. You need to make an informed decision and choose only the best whey protein or Isolate for yourself.  Shortchanging on your fuel will stunt your muscle growth and compromise the intensity of your sets and reps.

The Reasons Why you Should Choose Isolate are:

1. Nutrients in a scoop of Whey Protein Isolate: Whey Protein, Carbs, Fats, Flavours, Others (Digestive Enzymes Multivitamins)
2. Higher Percentage of Protein: Whey Protein Concentrate has approximately 30 to 80% protein and Whey Protein Isolate contains a higher percentage of whey protein. Whey Protein Concentrate is the basic whey and is meant for people who just want to add a shot of protein in their menu to fulfil protein shortage, but if you want more from your whey protein, you need to look beyond concentrate and pick Isolate, the purer form of protein.
3. Best For Lactose Intolerant: Whey protein isolate undergoes a process called Cross-Flow Micro-filtration. This separates the protein from fat, cholesterol and lactose,  meaning you get a purer protein as the end product.
4. Need Not To Count Calories anymore: If you are conscious about your calorie-intake, whey protein isolate is the way to go, as it has fewer calories than whey protein concentrate. This makes whey protein isolate, an ideal protein for bodybuilders who are on a cutting spree or are prepping for a contest.
5. For Faster Results: As whey isolate contains only protein, it is faster to get absorbed than whey protein. If it is taken as a post-workout supplement, it is going to give faster results by fastening the muscle recovery process. So, get the stronger muscles with better bulk with Isolate. 

Conclusion:

Make an informed decision when you are looking for your favourite whey protein. Choose MuscleBlaze Whey Gold, the purest protein for fitness enthusiasts, who will settle for nothing but the most premium whey protein. Each scoop of  MuscleBlaze Whey Gold has 25g protein, 10.9g Essential Amino Acids and 4.09g Glutamic Acid that will make all the difference in your muscle-building goals.

Whey Protein is an indispensable part of modern bodybuilding workouts. Some fitness trainers refer to supplementation as the pillar of staunch bodybuilding. With new health and sports supplements coming out on shelves every other day, it has become quite a challenge to pick what is best for you. There is a plethora of fitness activities, sports, and goals which require a totally different set of diet and supplements to follow. The major ingredient to get you the results whether you are trying to gain weight or lose fat is Protein.

Protein as a supplement could be derived from various sources including plants like soy and pea, or dairy products like Whey and Casein. Whey Protein is the king in the kingdom of bodybuilding supplements as it provides with plenty of protein for new muscle synthesis and muscle recovery. Whey Protein is a byproduct which is obtained during the curdling of milk to form cheese or other milk solids, especially the milk of ruminants.

Whey Protein is a byproduct which is obtained by various procedures to bifurcate whey protein and casein from milk (dairy). Whey Protein is further classified into three major forms including:

1. Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC): It is obtained by putting Whey under ultrafiltration and diafiltrating process. This might contain a notable amount of nutrients other than protein including fats and lactose. It is also the slowest digesting Whey Protein.
2. Whey Protein Isolate (WPI): When WPC is further purified to remove nutrients other than protein, we get WPI. It is purer than WPC and provides more dose of protein per serving. It is approx. 90% protein by weight.
3. Whey Protein Hydrolysate (WPH): It is obtained when WPI is further hydrolyzed to simply the complex amino acid chains into simpler ones. This form of whey protein is easier to digest and is transported from gut to muscles quicker than the other two forms of Whey Protein. Though this might taste bitter, it is an indication of availability of pure protein in each serving.

Every goal needs a different set of nutrition and you don’t need to burn a hole in your pocket every time. Know your protein better and keep rocking with your goals! Give a quick but careful look to the following table to know what you need.

Now that you know what are three main types of Whey Proteins composed of, you can pick only the one that will help you achieve your goals without making your pockets lighter. 

Work smarter, not harder is the rule everywhere and bodybuilding is no exception. Make the most of your workout time by recruiting the power of foods for your muscle gain. Know the fundamental rules of a bodybuilding diet:

1. Eat frequently
2. Focus on proteins for lean muscle
3. What should be the source of proteins
4. Include carbohydrates in your meal plan
5. Make friends with fats
6. Go for whey

As a bodybuilder, you must have heard that your muscles grow outside the kitchen. Learn how to eat like a bodybuilder by recruiting the power of foods for gigantic muscle gains. Know the essentials of a muscle-building meal plan and supersize your muscle gains by knowing what to eat and become a smart bodybuilder. In case you are wondering what is the difference between an average and a smart bodybuilder? The answer is that the former relies on the trusted route of crunches, lifts, protein shakes and reps but the latter goes beyond the norm. The smart bodybuilder is aware of the power of foods and recruits them intelligently to pack on unadulterated muscle. If you wish to move to the other side, you need to know the rules of a bodybuilding diet plan for mass gains and follow those rules religiously. 

1.        EAT FREQUENTLY

The bodybuilding diet plan for beginners revolves around getting in a calorie surplus situation. No wonder, as a muscle seeker, you must have heard the need to eat more, if you wish to bulk. Though it is true, yet bulking does not give you the license to gorge on foods whenever you want to. You have to work on getting in a small ‘calorie surplus’ to supply your body with essential proteins to synthesize muscle and minimize fat storage. This small surplus will be 10 percent over and above your calorie needs. A mini-meal consisting of high-quality protein, fats and fiber should be enough to provide a marginal increase over your every day calorie needs. However, if you train ferociously, the marginal calorie increase will just not sustain your muscle gains. Therefore, you need to eat more often probably 7-8 meals in a day to build those muscles. If you are having a hard time getting in all the calories from foods, MuscleBlaze Mass Gainer XXL is for you. It is powered with premium proteins and complex carbs, so that you can get high-quality nutrition along with measured calories.  Not only a mass gainer takes care of the calorie needs, but it is also easy to include in a meal plan and provides ample nutrients.

​2.      FOCUS ON PROTEINS FOR LEAN MUSCLE

Proteins constitute almost one-fourth of your muscle fibers. The rest is composed of water and glycogen, (the longer-chain version of glucose). Though there is a general consensus on the role and need of protein to trigger muscle mass growth, still when it comes to practice you tend to fail because measuring protein is by no means an easy task. Moreover, what works for sedentary folks will not for someone like you who lives by the reps. The standard guidelines provided by American Dietetic Association recommends 0.36g per pound (0.453grams) of body weight. For an 180 pound male (81kg) this would amount to 65 grams of body weight which is a bare minimum.

For active individuals, the recommendation changes and the National Strength and Conditioning Association recommends 0.4 to 0.6 g per pound of bodyweight with as much as 0.8 g for a competitive athlete. This may get complicated in the real life.

The simplest way to remember your protein intake is to find out your body weight in pounds and consume equivalent protein in grams.

3.      FIGURE OUT THE SOURCE OF PROTEIN FOR BULKIER MUSCLES

Equally important is the source of protein. The rule of thumb is that if it doesn’t run, swim or fly, it is not a source of complete protein. Vegetarian foods provide incomplete protein. This implies that such foods don’t provide all the essential amino acids required by the body. Proteins from flesh foods have a higher biological value (BV) which means they are more readily absorbed by the body for cellular repair and muscle growth. To give a perspective, eggs have a BV of 100 per cent, beef is 80 and beans are less than 50. However, vegetarian foods also provide enough high-quality proteins, if you know the right foods. 

4.    INCLUDE CARBOHYDRATES IN YOUR MEAL PLAN

While you just can’t discount carbohydrates, in your meal plan you need to emphasize on complex carbohydrates. Unlike simple carbohydrates they don’t swell your energy levels quickly, rather provide a steady and sustained trickle of energy to fulfill your daily needs. Therefore, your insulin levels don’t go through the roof and your body is less likely to store fat.

Almost half of your daily calorie needs should come from carbohydrates. With 4 kcal per gram, carbohydrates such as cereals, fruits and vegetables are dense sources of vitamins and minerals. Moreover, carbohydrates pump the muscles with glycogen that acts as fuel during workouts and also makes these muscles look fuller and firmer. While you can’t go wrong with complex carbohydrates, you can safely have quick-acting carbohydrates after intense workouts to replenish your energy levels. Mornings are best suited for carbohydrates like fruits to break the fasted state of the body. You can also have carbohydrates before workouts.

5.   MAKE FRIENDS WITH FATS

If you are keen to accelerate your muscle gains, you need to make friends with fats. For strange reasons, fat has earned a negative reputation, but the fact remains that the good fats are required to build muscle, lower diet-induced depression, and repair exercise-related inflammation. Many would not know that saturated dietary fats found in organic eggs, milk, butter along with mono and polyunsaturated fats help boost your testosterone levels, the primary male hormone that beyond defining male sexuality goes on to add muscle mass to your physique.   A study published in the “Journal of Applied Physiology” confirms the association between monounsaturated and saturated fats and testosterone levels.

6.     GO FOR WHEY

In “The Abs Diet Eat Right Every Time Guide”, author David Zinczenko says, whey contains the highest amount of protein you can get with the fewest amount of calories. With the protein digestibility score of 100 percent, whey provides a constant supply of amino acids in your bloodstream and reduces your craving for junk foods. While whey is an anytime drink, it’s kind of mandatory post-workout to rush the amino acids to the distraught muscle fibers. Keep your MuscleBlaze Whey Protein close when you work out to yield maximum benefit from your exercise. 

Moreover, water recommendation goes up to 3.5 to 7 liters in men and women who train fiercely. Watery beverages, pre-workout drinks like BCAAs, milk and fruits will all add up to your water requirement. Also, remember to eat clean, sleep well and train like there is no tomorrow to meet your bodybuilding goals.