11 December 2024
In the 9th episode of “On Protein”, we are visited by a well-known TV personality – Emanuel Iwuji. With his extensive experience in the culinary world and as a personal trainer, he tells us many interesting and useful things about healthy eating.
What is the basis of healthy eating?
How do you lose weight by eating pizza?
Do you count calories?
You can see all this and much more on our YouTube channel “On Protein” or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
I mainly take antioxidants with the food I eat. Apart from that, I also take garlic in capsules. It’s strange that most people avoid it because of the aroma, but it is also sold odorless. Garlic helps with a lot of things – besides being an antioxidant, it is also an immunostimulant, it helps with testosterone levels, blood pressure. With the heavy training that I used to do 2/3 times a day in preparation for a competition, I often had high blood pressure and garlic helps me a lot. Nettle also has a lot of beneficial effects. Parsley is a super, super strong testosterone booster, by the way, I don’t know if you know.
I mainly add them to my clients’ menus and to mine for anti-inflammatory processes, for better absorption, for better bioflora. When higher levels of proteins are consumed, for example, antioxidants provide balance so that they are absorbed better.
I am a person who is constantly trying to create something, who is constantly oriented towards doing things that help people. I have participated in many broadcasts, shows and all possible morning blocks, etc. In general, I am involved in healthy eating. I have been a coach for 12 years, and I have been a professional athlete for 10 years. I stopped competing because it became very difficult to be competitive on the international stage with a healthy lifestyle.
I’ve been doing sports since I was very young. At first I was playing football. Honestly, I was very good, but then my mother decided that I couldn’t continue playing football because I wasn’t going to school. Back then, it was such a time that it took me a lot of time to get to training and I had to choose between football or school. Somehow, sports have always been a part of my life, ever since I was little. I started training in a gym because I was very thin and I was very ashamed of it. I trained very early in the morning so that no one could see me and I could train in peace. I didn’t know what I was doing at all! I did 10 sets of each exercise. At one point, I started gaining weight after a few injuries, of course. Then I started different courses, training at the National Sports Academy and little by little I started working with people, seeing that they were also satisfied and really getting some results. The biggest moment of change in my training life was with competitions, because then you push your body to the max. You don’t eat anything, you just train and sleep. At that moment I saw most clearly how each and every thing affects my body. That’s when I learned the most about fitness.
And as for healthy eating – I’ve been cooking since I was a child. Because I have 3 sisters and my mother was totally tired of cooking and told me to figure out what to eat myself. And I’m 12/13 years old and I don’t know what’s going on, back then there were no phones like now – you open them and see. You learn through trial and error that you can’t eat the same thing over and over.
Honestly, Master Chef was a very strong experience for me, by the way, because back then it was still about cooking. The first 1/2 weeks I cut my fingers. I had a master class, I will never forget it, then I probably lost 5 kg. I ran so much, so much… In 40 minutes I did 30 sprints. This show is a really big challenge, it made me believe in the fact that I can cook. I went there with the idea of cooking something diet and seeing how I would perform on such a show, and it turned out that I made it to the end. My participation gave me self-confidence, gave me a different perspective on food, because there is much more attention to detail there.
The idea came about during competitions, because usually at the competitions we went to, there was no food provided. Then I thought – “Can’t I just get food that just lasts longer?” And that’s actually what we did at MyMeal – after cooking, we leave the food in a temperature-controlled chamber to cool down and then vacuum seal it. This way, the oxygen is extracted from the plate and it lasts longer. We don’t flatten it all the way, but we put in a completely harmless gas so that it can look good and at the same time last longer. This allows us to deliver food to people only twice a week, and they have meals for the whole week. This way, they pay less money for delivery, and we know exactly how much food to cook, so that we don’t have a mess and can provide better quality products.
If you stop sports, everything ends! Regardless of whether I eat healthy or not. I can’t stop that.
My motivation is that I literally eat these things. When you use what you do, you know what you offer and believe in it, and things work out for you. It’s like leading training and not training. The things I offer are the result of a lot of tests and my knowledge over the years.
Well, to be honest, I don’t count calories for myself, because I just spend a lot and with the muscles I’ve gained, I notice that it’s not so fatal not to count calories. The average person who is now starting to train should certainly count and know how many calories they take. It’s not difficult, you just need to consult a nutritionist or trainer and have them tell you approximately what calorie intake you should have and what kind of exercise is good to do. It’s not just what you eat that matters, but also how you consume it, because frying can double the calories in a single meal.
In reality, all of these conditions or diets are sometimes necessary, but for certain conditions. They are not recommended for the normal person, who is average. I am not very FOR such diets. We are on this Earth and we are what we are because we are very adaptable. The human body adapts to many things and that is why we have survived for so many years. Accordingly, when we introduce such an extreme diet as raw food or keto, no matter what, the body has a hard time adapting to it.
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Remember – a body is built all year round and maintained, both in the gym and in the kitchen.