Curtis Matthews

Protein is the what your body needs to grow muscles. Without the right amount of protein your body will cannibalize your muscle tissue for a energy source.

I realized eating a big steak for dinner wasn’t enough protein in a day to maximize my muscle growth from the workouts I am doing. My body seems stuck in a rut.

I read in a article published in a Max Muscle magazine that for my body weight of 200lbs I need 160 grams or protein a day or if I split that into 4 meals 40 grams a meal, 5 meals 32 grams a meal. My concern was where to get that amount of protein from without having to eat 5 steaks a day. So today I Google protein sources and it came up with this chart.

The Protein Content of Common Foods

The best way to get the protein your body needs is from food.  Once you have determined how much protein your body needs, it’s time to determine the best food sources. 

Plant-Based Sources

Protein Content (g)

Tempeh (4 oz.)

17-21

Tofu, firm (½ cup)

10

Soy milk, plain (8 oz.)

10

Soybeans, black, cooked (½  cup)

14

Soybeans, green, cooked (½  cup)

11

Peanut butter, chunky (2 TBSP)

8

Kidney beans, cooked (½  cup)

8

Black beans, cooked (½ cup)

8

Chick-peas, cooked (½ cup)

8

Hummus (¼ cup)

5

Refried beans, cooked (½ cup)

8

Pinto beans, cooked (½ cup)

7

Lima beans, cooked (½ cup)

5

Peanuts (½ cup)

19

Almonds (½ cup)

15

Pine Nuts (½ cup)

15

Cashews (½ cup)

10

Sunflower Seeds (½ cup)

13

Walnuts (½ cup)

10

Flax Seeds, ground (2 TBSP)

4

Wheat Germ (2 TBSP)

4

Whole Wheat bread (1 oz. Slice)

3

Oatmeal, instant, cooked (1 cup)

6

Broccoli (1 cup)

5

Corn (1 cup)

5

Rice, white (1 cup)

2.5

Rice, brown (1 cup)

4.5

Pasta, cooked (1 cup)

6.5

 

Animal-Based Sources

Protein Content (g)

Chicken, boneless, cooked (3 oz.)

27

Turkey, roasted (3 oz.)

25

Ground Turkey, cooked (3 oz.)

23

Roast Beef, lean, cooked (3 oz.)

24

Ground Beef, lean, cooked (3 oz.)

24

Beef Sirloin, cooked (3 oz.)

24

Pork, roast, trimmed (3 oz.)

25

Ham, cooked (3 oz.)

21

Tuna, canned in water (3 oz.)

23

Tuna, fresh, cooked (3 oz.)

26

Yogurt, low-fat, plain (8 oz.)

12

Frozen Yogurt (½ cup)

2.5

Milk (8 oz.)

8

Cheese (1 oz.)

7

Cream Cheese (2 TBSP)

4

Egg (1 medium)

6

Egg White (1)

3.5

Egg Substitute (¼ cup)

6

Cottage Cheese ( ½ cup)

14

Cod, cooked (3 oz.)

20

Salmon (3 oz.)

22

Shrimp, boiled (3 oz.)

21

Lobster, baked or broiled (3 oz.)

17

Ice Milk, soft-serve (1 cup)

10

Sources:  Health Canada, Nutrient Value of Some Common Foods (1999);  Tufts University School of Medicine; Harvard University; USDA National Nutrient Data Bank

This holiday season has been bad for my workouts and we won’t go into my diet. I have not trained regularly or hard in weeks. My Blog show my slackness because I usually update this Blog while doing cardio after my weight training.

I will use this time to reflect and rest my body and joints. My knees and forearms have been sore for over 3 months now. I must have ripped something in my forearms and its hard for me to grip things or hold on to the dumbbells. My knees are stressed from the heavy weights I use or old age. My training has to be adjusted for my continued progress without injuring myself anymore. I don’t see myself progressing in my endeavor.

I think for the next week I will do a new workout routine. The exercises are broken up into groups and done without rest between sets. I will do one set of the first exercise in the group then moving immediately to the next exercise in that group. I will do 3 sets of each exercise in each group. The whole workout should not go beyond 45 minutes or I am moving to slow between exercises. I will do this workout until the beginning of January and evaluate my progress and my body before training heavy again. I also will be drastically changing my diet in the new year so to lose my holiday fat.

Extended PHA training

Group 1
Leg press, seated dumbbell press, crunches, pull downs

Group 2
Curls, leg lifts, press downs, seated calf presses

Group 3
Leg extensions, cable rows, leg curls, peck dec

Group 4
Incline dumbbell presses, calf raises, dumbbell shrugs, hyper extensions

The last two days I switch my at&t phone to a Blackberry 8900 from the Apple iPhone. I was bored and I am still waiting for Blackberry to send me my free Blackberry 9700.

What I did after downloading Blackberry app world was download Pandora first, my favorite application for any device. Next I downloaded Bolt mobile web browser and the I looked for a Blogging application. My emails came in perfectly after I changed the device in the Blackberry web client.

The first night I took the Blackberry 8900 to the gym, I wanted to listen to Pandora while I worked out, like I always did with my Blackberry Bold 9000. The Blackberry 9000 is 3G and the Blackberry 8900 is only EDGE and Pandora on a 8900 sucks. The EDGE network is way to slow for Pandora. I use in my house with wifi and that works a lot better but the Pandora application sticks while on the EDGE network to unacceptable waiting times. I have gone 5 or more minutes waiting time and 30 seconds to a minute between songs becomes the norm.

The Bolt browser had a new software update 1.6 that released recently and I wanted to try it on the 8900. The first improvement that I appreciated the most was the password saving option. The browser worked perfectly and I was working on at&ts EDGE network not the 3G that I am used too on the Bold.
I did use the 8900 without a sim card so I could test Pandora and Bolt exclusively on wifi. They both worked perfectly with no difficulty.

This draft is a mishmosh of different days of just editing this post on the fly from the Blackberry 8900 with the Bolt Browser. This last paragraph is being done with the Apple iPhone 3G and the WordPress application.

Sitting here waiting in Coral Gables for my riding buddies to show up. We were all to meet at 8:45 in this location and then ride together to Miami Beach for the Loose Cannons Poker Run.
I got here a little early and decided to start writing out this post for my Blog. The thing I wanted to test the most is the writing capabilities and easy of writing in the notes section of the iPhone and copy it later in my Blog as a post.
It was 8:46pm when my friend Andy called me back, I had left a message that I was waiting at Naveed’s home. He told me they were already there and I must be at the wrong corner. He rode around to find me an realized I was 20 feet away but we did not notice each other.
Our group consisted of one girl and eight guys ride a mixture of road bikes with gears, fixed gears and a mountain bike that I was riding. The ride to South Beach was not bad, the wind crossing the Venita

Causeway was a little ruff for me. I was not in great bike riding shape.
When we got to the bike shop on the beach there was about 60 bikers already waiting. The turn was good, South Beach was hosting the Art Basel weekend and Lance Armstrong is a sponsor.
I had a good time and a good workout this night. I should have won the Poker Run but at the end people were cheating and adding fake initials on the playing cards. The organizer initiated the playing cards to eliminate cheating but at the last stop they forgot to initial the cards.

Today marks the beginning of a nearly week-long celebration of bicycles.

Thursday 12/3 is a Loose Cannons in poker run format that starts at Keirin on the Beach, includes stops to pick up playing cards at four bars, and then finishes at The News to compare card hands. The person with the strongest (or most marvelous) hand wins. This event is less of a race and more of a opportunity for hooting and hollering.

Friday 12/4 marks the opening of a Lance Armstrong-themed exhibition at a Gallery. And then Bicycle Film Festival starts on 12/10.

But first things first. Let’s demonstrate our poker prowess by meeting at Andalusia & Galiano at 8:45pm on Thursday 12/3, then riding out to the race start. I have not ridden in months and it is very windy today but my friends promised not leave me behind.

Yesterday I went fishing with some friends. I woke up at 3:30am to be at my friends house at 4:30am so we would be at the fishing spot at 5:30pm. Well I got to my friend’s house at 4:40am and the other guy did not get to the house until 5:30am so we started out late already. We then all drove in two cars to the bait shop which was on the way to our fishing spot but when we got to the bait shop it was closed and would not opened until 7:00am. Damian was going by the hours for the weekends and this bait shop opens at 5am on weekends. We then Google other bait shops and decided to go to Crook and Crook on US1 as that would bring us closer to our destination. When we got to Hook and Crook they also opened at 7:00am but i remembered around the corner was a breakfast place Coral Bagels. We all had a great breakfast each for $4 so that ended up as a bonus point for me, I have eaten at Coral Bagels many times before and had to convince these guys against Burger King to eat there. I ended up a hero of food establishments after they tasted and experienced the service at Coral Bagels.
We eventually went back to Crook and Crook after breakfast and brought live shrimp, chum and I think mackerel for bait. I also purchased a $20 fishing rod since I did not have one and they guys did not have an extra rod they only had what they called a Cuban fishing wheel with a glove.
The drive to the Matheson Hammocks Park did put us in some school zones and some morning traffic but it was not bad at all and I got to check out South Miami and 57 Ave.

When we got to the park it was $5 per car to get into the park. I was glad that we were some of the only people at the park at that time. We turned at the first point that said fishing and away we went. We put the chum in the water then we set up or rods with hooks, weights and bait, a learning experience for me. The rest is self explanatory as you can see with the pictures below. I caught the biggest fish this day out of a total of 3 fish caught that day.
Damian caught the first fish that he is holding up in the picture below and I got the fish on the grass pictured, they say it’s the big fish is a Jack. We moved to many different spots but was not successful. The marina fishing was not allowed as we found out later. I did not mind the low fish count and next time we will get bait the night before. We all enjoyed the couple of hours fishing, and relaxing this day in Miami at Matheson Hammocks Park.