Exercise and Diet for Fat Loss.

Last week I briefly touched on the subject of diet being a prerequisite for fat loss, and the fact that exercise alone won’t do much for taking inches off of your waist. Yet my little rant didn’t do the subject justice, and I feel that there are some folks that may benefit from a more detailed analysis of diet vs. exercise for fat loss.

I think most anyone who’s struggled with weight loss has at one point or another come to the conclusion that if they just work out regularly, they can eat whatever they want and not gain any weight, or even lose weight in the process. This may be true for some genetically gifted individuals (I can think of at least 2 that I know personally) but it tends to be the exception and not the rule. I know that if I don't watch what I eat, it doesn't matter how much I exercise, the fat stays put. 

Making the fat go away generally comes from your energy balance. Your body uses ‘X’ amount of calories in a given day (I’ll tell you how to determine your own ballpark number here in a moment). If you take in fewer calories than you expend, your body must draw from its stores to fuel itself. If you take in more calories than you expend, your body will store them in fat cells. This is why people cutting weight will limit their caloric intake, while people looking to put on a lot of muscle are increasing it.

Where people start to have trouble is in determining the amount of energy their body expends on a daily basis, which is understandable because everyone has a different rate of expenditure and varying activity levels. Without going into too much detail, multiplying your body weight by about 14 for women, and about 16 for men will give you a number to work with. This isn’t going to be your exact number, but it will get you in the general area.

If you lead a very sedentary life, you will probably have to use a lower number to get a closer match. Someone who is on their feet all day at an active job can comfortably use the BW x 16 guideline to get a figure on about where they are. On the other hand, if you sit in front of the computer all day, or behind the wheel of a car, you may have to drop the number to as low as BW x 8 to make up for your lowered energy expenditure.

A difficult thing to work through is getting a decent mark on what your activity levels are. Some people think they’re doing a lot more than they are which can mess them up at first and actually cause weight gain. I’ll use myself as an example.

I’m fairly active, but let’s say hypothetically that every day I start feeling really tired in the afternoon so I feel like I’m expending more energy than I actually am. I’ll say my weight (200) x my perceived energy marker (16) and I’ll find that I have to eat about 3200 calories a day to maintain my current weight. Knowing myself in real life, I understand that eating 3200 calories a day would make me gain a lot of weight. So my actual marker is probably closer to the 12-14 range. This would drop my maintenance rate to around about 2400-2800 calories a day.

Now, to get an idea of how many calories you have to consume to lose fat, subtract anywhere from 10 to 25% from your maintenance number to determine a healthy amount of deficit. That would make my weight loss range be between 1400 and 2400 calories. Obviously the larger the deficit, the faster the weight loss, and generally, the more fat you have to lose, the faster it will come off at first, slowing down as you lean out.

So, following this guideline, if energy in is less than energy out you should be able to achieve varying degrees of fat loss. For some people, however, this isn’t the case. I believe that calories have context, and the way that different food types effect the body can change the results of your diet. I’m going to get back to this in a moment, but first I want to look at the energy balance equation from an exercise standpoint.

Now the above calculation of 14-16 calories per lb of body weight isn’t just an arbitrary number, it’s determined by a range of different variables that must be taken into account, such as resting metabolic rate (RMR) which is calculated by your age, weight, and height. There’s also the thermic effect of activity (TEA), which is the increased expenditure when the body starts to increase levels of activity. There’s the thermic effect of food (TEF) which is the body expending energy to digest and make use of the nutrients you’ve consumed, and there’s the NEAT or non exercise activity thermogenesis, which is the energy expended by the body performing basic functions, like thinking.

TEA and the NEAT are tricky because these results vary widely from person to person and even from day to day. A person who is active all day will obviously be expending more energy than someone laying in bed, but using average exercise amounts, the total outcome only really equates to an extra 3-5 calories burnt per lb of body weight. For a 200 lb man, exercising heavily for about an hour a day can burn an extra 600-1000 calories.

1000 calories sounds like a great loss to most people, but when you step back and realize how easy it is to eat 1000 calories in a meal, you can see how it’s possible to throw dirt back in the hole you’ve been digging. At McDonalds, an angus mushroom and swiss burger, with a regular fry and a medium coke is 1360 calories. I could polish that meal off in five minutes, and maybe still be hungry enough to eat an apple pie afterwards. 

The point is that if you’re going to the gym, but aren’t watching what’s going down your gullet, you are running the risk of delaying your efforts at best, and actually wasting your efforts at worst. It’s sad that people pay gym fees and put so much physical exertion into looking and feeling better, but they don’t commit to properly fueling themselves, which causes them to fail.

While food amounts are important, the types of food you eat are just as much so. Basing the majority of your diet on grains, dairies, and sugars can cause insidious weight gain, even if you think you’re exercising enough and eating the right amounts. I’ll devote a more detailed article to the topic, but if you’re not seeing results, cut out all sugar from your diet. That means bread, pasta, corn, rice, table sugar, excess fruit, and excess dairy. These will all have negative effects on the results if not kept under close tabs. 

Update

A lot has happened since my last post.

I got a little bit injured, a lotta bit sick, and lost all interest in training. In all honesty it was the last thing I wanted to do period. My diet suffered, my energy levels slumped, and it all kind of created a vicious cycle of unhealthy action.

But, like always, I learned a bunch and I'm back.

I want to take some time to address a few issues that I have been noticing with folks.

1) Most weight loss products are bullshit.
 People are generally pretty lazy when it comes to their fitness (which is understandable; it can be frustrating) and they would love to be able to take a pill or powder and make all the fat go away, lean mass accumulate, and energy flow like a river. But this isn't the case, nor will it ever be.

Knowledge is the first step in obtaining your fitness goals. What food is good for you? How much do YOU need to function? What forms of exercise will give you the body or abilities you desire? How does your diet effect the exercise you're doing?

This is where specificity is important because there are tons of information floating around out there from many different sources. Some advice on fitness may come from someone who is knowledgeable in endurance activities, and maybe this advice is solid and correct for obtaining endurance related goals, but it won't help someone looking to do strength training. In the same regards, dieting advice for a person bulking will not be best for a person looking to burn a lot of fat.

So you have to be specific in what you want to obtain, then make it your business to learn the ins and outs of reaching that goal. Then, once you have the knowledge, you have to apply it and be consistent with it. That's the formula for success: Vision + Knowledge + Application Over Time - Bullshit Excuses = Success

2) You can't out-train a bad diet. 

How long does it take you to burn 100 calories on a treadmill? Well I guarantee you that you can consume those 100 calories in less than 10 seconds with the right food source. I was looking at the calorie info for a dark chocolate bar today, half the bar was 1 serving which equaled 210 calories and 21g carbohydrates. Less than half a handful of food took up 10% of my daily caloric goal.

The takeaway message is it doesn't matter how much you work out, if you don't have your diet in check, you won't do much about those love handles.

3) You don't know everything about health and nutrition. 


I don't know nearly everything about health and nutrition and I make it my business to study and test as much as I can. I do know that what advice I give has worked for me, and probably a lot of other people since a large majority of it is backed up by sensible science. I only bring this up because I still get people who hear what I say, nod and smile, and then proceed to regurgitate conventional mistakes and fallacies that have been drilled into their psyche for probably more than a decade. Many times the people doing the regurgitating seem more than happy to believe the false information even though it's never worked for them in the past. Chalking their failure up to age and genetics.

It's sad that people are so used to being told what to believe that they begin to trust secondhand musings over firsthand experience. If you are eating high carb - low fat foods, and are not losing any weight, it's not because you're genetically predisposed to being fat, it's probably because your diet isn't geared for fat loss.

Anyway... Like I said before, I fell off the wagon for a bit, but now I'm back on and beginning to remember why this lifestyle is so lovely. But just as an added insurance. I've created a little challenge for myself that should be fun and interesting.

I want to be at 10% body fat.
I want to bench press 260 lbs
I want to squat 300
I want to deadlift 350
I want to do chin ups with 60lbs around my waist.

And I wont shave my beard until I reach those goals.  HOO-RAH!

Study Review: High carb vs. high protein vs. high fat diet.

I found an interesting study today that got me thinking about a few issues. The study tested the effects of high carb, protein, or fat diets effect on insulin resistant, obese women. To those who are fond of conventional diet wisdom, the results may come as a surprise.

The study found that a diet high in protein may be the best way to fight off type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease when compared to high fat or high carb diets. Not only did the high protein/fat diet reduce insulin sensitivity better than the high carb diet, it also was more effective in the parameters of weight loss, waist circumference, and triglycerides. Low density lipoprotein cholesterol decreased in the HP and HC diet but fluctuated up and down in the HF diet.

Anyone who follows paleo/primal dieting is probably saying to themselves "well duh."

But I feel we should look a little closer to figure out why the results came about they way they did.

Participants were prescribed their diets based on macronutrient composition rather than total energy intake. This makes it possible that the carbohydrate diet, being less satiating, encouraged over-feeding among it's participants. As many people know, all digested carbohydrates (glucose, or blood sugar) that do not get stored as glycogen in the muscles, liver, and brain, get stored as fat by insulin. That is why a diet high in grains and sugars makes losing weight difficult for the average Joe. Glycogen stores are fuel tanks for short or intense activity. Lifting heavy weights (2-3 sets of 5-6 rep max weight per 3-4 exercises) depletes glycogen stores, so does sprinting. Therefore, if your activity levels range from sedentary to moderate, chances are you don't need too many carbs day to day.

This may not be the whole picture though. There's the thermic effect of food (or TEF) that you might take into consideration.

To put it briefly, your body doesn't magically make your food disappear. It takes energy to digest and process the nutrients to make them available to your body. This is the thermic effect.  Each macronutrient has a different thermic effect however; dietary fat, for instance, is easy to digest whereas protein is much more difficult. This means that for every gram of protein you eat, you ingest four calories, yet you burn about .8 calories in the digestion of said gram of protein, this gives your protein (which is highly satiating) a total calorie balance of about 3.2 kcal per gram.

So let's re-cap. Essentially, protein is the most filling macro and has the least calories per gram. Also, it has the greatest effect on insulin resistance out of the three macros. It's effect on all parameters were positive and it has none of the unfortunate side-effects of high carbohydrate consumption.

Now one might look closely at the text and see that the high carbohydrate diet was also high in fiber. Fiber is great for satiety and it takes more energy to burn through than regular carbs alone. This could be a great argument against my hypothesis that the HC practitioners were possibly more prone to over-eating. However,  this only solidifies the idea that carbohydrates should be limited because if all grounds are made equal between them and the HP diet in terms of TEF or satiety, there's still something amiss because the results show a great difference between the two macros in terms of protecting against T2D and cardiovascular disease.

I'll go more into this in another post.

About a month and a half of work: A progress report.

The holidays are something else aren't they? So many family gatherings centered around eating, adverse weather conditions making it difficult to get outside and play, and lots of stress to top it all off. It's no wonder getting in shape is a very common new years resolution.

I don't know the exact date... but somewhere in October I decided to switch from paleo to the ID-GAS diet (aka, the I-Don't-Give-A-Shit diet)

I had several birthdays to attend in October, plus Halloween parties, then November was ripe with birthdays/Thanksgiving, then there's about 3 birthdays in December and Christmas, then New years... Three months of not caring what or how much I put in my body was probably the worst mistake I could've made in regards to keeping fit, but at the time I didn't have any strategy for being able to have a social life and keeping in shape. Do you know how much it sucks to be at the party with all your best friends eating, drinking, and having a great time and every time someone goes to give you a drink or food you have to say "Sorry, I'm on a diet." Then to have to explain the diet because your drunk friends are very curious as to what diet is more important than hanging out and having a good night.

Needless to say it's a hassle and it's emotionally damaging. I hated having to do it, so I didn't. I just enjoyed my life and my friends and let the weight pile on.

I don't have an exact weight here because my scale has been lying to me. I'm probably between 200-210 here though. This picture was taken on the 10th of December.

Keep in mind, this is still 30-40 lbs lighter than I was at age 17, so I guess I'm comparatively trim, but it's nowhere near where I want to be. 

January 2nd I went strict paleo again. I didn't do it on the 1st because we spent the holiday with friends up in B-ham and we hit up a bomb Thai restaurant new years day and I wasn't going to skimp on the jasmine rice with panang curry. 

So 8 days later, I took another progress picture just because I happened to be looking at the first one on that day, and that's what spawned this 1 month progress picture program.

Here's a side by side comparison one month in. 

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Not great, but like I said, I'd only been back on a decent diet for about a week, so I wasn't expecting much. There's a little bit of stomach shrinkage (I think) and my man boobs are receding slightly. Strangely enough, on the day the second picture was taken I was learning about my new program and this picture is a marker for where I was before I started following a LeanGains approach. 

Now, LeanGains is awesome. I really dig it, but to be honest, I fucked it up quite a bit for the first 2 weeks, and even some in the 3rd week. It's somewhat complicated when you get down to the specifics of calorie cycling and macronutrient composition. Since the numbers will vary from person to person, there's no way for the owner of the site to give someone guided advice outside of consultations and coaching, which at this point is impossible because LeanGains is attracting a huge following. A book is in the works that details more specific information, but until then we are left to scan the archives looking for data relating to our questions, which I've found to be really fun. His site is packed with awesome information.

So my current photo is with one month on a trial and error version of the LeanGains program. I like to wonder how much better my physique would have looked if I had known all that I know now on January 11th... but that's pointless, haha. Here's a picture I took of myself today, February 10th 2011.

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Here's the wild thing about my progress so far: My weight has been really stable, fluctuating between 195 and 200... but that's usually dependent on whether or not I've eaten or drank. I seem to be attaining near perfect body recomposition. You can see some evident bulking in the shoulders and a little in the biceps. My chest is thinning out along with my ribs and stomach. The real great part is the increase in strength.

My bench weight has increased 30 lbs

Deadlifts have increased 60lbs

Squats increased 60 lbs

I've began adding weights to my chin ups and dips.  

Leg press has gone up 135lbs

Dumbell Press has gone up 30lbs

Granted, I'm sure part of this success has to do with the neuromuscular system getting back on track, but I've been steadily adding at least 2.5 to 5lbs to my lifts each week. 

What you can't see with these pictures is my leg and back definition which is coming in quite nicely. I guess a side view wouldn't hurt to show exactly how far my stomach has retracted inwards, but I don't really care to make this a "Look at every part of my body" progress post... so I wont. 

Another great thing is that since I've been following LeanGains, I've been able to go out for drinks on the weekend, Sara and I bought a tub of low fat ice cream that we chowed down on, and my meals are absolutely enormous. So it's great having a program that allows flexibility, like I mentioned in an earlier post. 

So go to www.LeanGains.com and learn what you can. If you have questions for me, I may or may be able to relate some of my ever expanding experience to help you out. Though a lot of it is trial and error in the beginning. To sum it up, it's an amazing system that combines the use of intermittent fasting, calorie cycling, macronutrient cycling, and strength training. It also has great guides for cheat days and alcohol consumption. So check it out. 

click to enlarge

Preservatives and their effect on your immune system.

This post is a request from my sister who wanted to know about the effects of preservatives on the human body. I suspect this may be an ongoing topic due to the fact that I'm not an expert on the subject, therefore I will present information as I come across it.Today, while scanning PubMed, I came across a study that sheds some light on the adverse effects of two common food preservatives.

Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Benzoate are found in many many things. SB can be found in soda, jams, salad dressings, silver polish, and shampoo. PB is commonly found in fruit juices, pickles, and is what creates the whistle in bottle rockets. This leads me to question it's health benefits greatly.

The study went about testing their effects on lymphocytes which are very important to your body. These lymphocytes act as fighters against a wide range of sicknesses. They are actually incredibly interesting things that you should read about here. But to make it brief, lymphocytes come as either natural killer cells, T cells, or B cells. Each of which has a specific job when it comes to destroying viruses or pathogens that invade your body.

Just to put into perspective how important these cells are to your body, consider that when a person contracts HIV, the virus targets T Cells in their body. Each individual T Cell is paired with one B Cell and each team is present in the body for the sole purpose of eradicating a single illness or virus.  The destruction of the T cells leads to AIDS which makes their body unable to protect itself. So these cells are the reason that you and I are able to live illness free lives.

So what did they find?

The study introduced varying amounts of PB and SB to peripheral lymphocytes and tested their chromosomal aberrations, sister chromatid exchange, and micronuclei. In nearly all cases the CA, SCE, and MN increased when compared to controls. They also tested the DNA damage from both preservatives and found that SB did far more damage than PB. As the study states: "The present results indicate that SB and PB are clastogenic, mutagenic and cytotoxic to human lymphocytes in vitro."


In short, these two preservatives weaken your immune system, leaving you more susceptible to illness. 


I would see this as a great reason to cut out sweets from your diet. Not only does the SB and PB have debilitating effects on your immune system, but the sugar in the products inhibits immune function for hours after ingestion. 


Do yourself a favor and loose the processed junk food. You'll thank yourself later. 

New program thoughts..

There's few things out there as satisfying as a huge meal full of protein. I think it speaks to the inner animal in us to tear into a steak or gnaw on chicken bones. I've been on an extremely high protein diet (well... comparatively to my old diet) and it's been wonderful.

It's all part of the new program that I've been tinkering around with in the dark recesses of my little apartment. This program is turning out to be the shit. I'll get my pictures posted on the 10th (and explain why the 10th is special) that show the differences it's had in shaping my physique. It seems to fill in a few holes that were becoming evident in my paleo lifestyle.

Don't mistake my words though. I will always highly advocate the paleo/primal diet and I will always tout the benefits of natural living, it's insanely effective and important to me. In fact the program I'm playing around with works really well with the paleo diet. But here's the thing... when I began the paleo diet and for about 6 months afterwards I was a fucking snob.

Seriously.

I remember going to a birthday party and feeling twinges of judgement on the people stuffing their faces with cake and soda, thinking "Fools! Why do you do such damage to your health!?" I had all the vigilant zeal of a young missionary in a foreign land, and for a while I felt good about it. Let a few months pass and enough social events slide through your fingers though, and a recipe for disaster awaits you.

I would end up breaking hard. One night after a long flawless streak of several months, I went to a dance that PLU was holding. Low and behold, every snack at the party was grain based: cookies, brownies, chex mix, turkey wraps, pretzels... it was horrible. My mind snapped and I ended up binging on the stuff. The sad part is that the entire night was ruined for me, first because I didn't want to be put in the position where I might compromise my diet, and secondly because I failed so badly when temptation arose. The saddest part is that I was letting my diet get in the way of living my life. I went off of it for a few months to go out and have fun with friends and of course I took that too far too and ended up going back to strict paleo.

So paleo is great and it works, but when the price you pay is your social life, it gets to the point where you start to resent your newfound lifestyle. "Why do I have to suffer to be healthy?"

My new program fixes that. I'm gaining a ton of muscle, burning fat, and I am not afraid to go out for beer on a Saturday night, or to have a bowl of ice cream on a Wednesday afternoon. I am now in a position to where I can have my health and enjoy it too.

When I post my progress pics, I'll also post a few of the basics of the system I follow. I'll also post a link to the webpage where you can go to learn more and hopefully try it out yourself. You won't be disappointed.

Barefoot/Minimalist VS Shoes

So you may or may not have read my personal story as to why I'm so big on barefoot/minimalist (b/m) running. In that post I promised this post, which is geared towards showing you the pros and cons of b/m vs shod running. So I'll begin with a figure.

16 million people every year are injured running. This is pretty astounding because running, for the most part, seems pretty laid back. You head out and cruise around town or through a forest or chill on a treadmill for a while, you stop, then go on with the rest of your day. It's not like you're playing a game of pickup tackle football, or organizing underground cage fights right? So why so many injuries?

For a long time, people just brushed it off by saying that running is bad for your body. It was a risky exercise that shouldn't be over done and was better off being left out if you wanted to keep your knees till you got old. If you look closely, this could be right. I mean running is a high impact activity. Every time you place your foot on the ground, it's stopping. It generates an impact strike that must be absorbed by your heel, ankle, shin, knee, hip, lower back, upper back, chest, shoulders and neck. So you are basically striking the bottom of your foot repeatedly with a hammer. So the action is the problem. Or so most podiatrists and shoe companies would have you believe. If it were the act of running that were the problem, then they would be able to justify 200 dollar shoes, orthotics, and every other bogus technology that they push on people who just want to be able to go for a jog without burning platars fasciitis or achilles tendonitis flaring up on them.

Fortunately for us, the action is not the problem. It's the technique. Here's a little test you can do to determine whether or not you can run with natural technique. First of all, stand up and make sure there's plenty of space around you and above you. Now jog in place for ten seconds. Now do a vertical jump into the air and land on both feet. Then answer these questions:

1) While jogging in place, did you land on your heel?
2) When you jumped, did you land heel first?

I would be willing to be that the answer to both of those questions is no. Why? Well that's obvious, if you jog in place on your heels, it would A) look weird, B) feel completely unnatural, and C) probably hurt your knees a little bit. Same with the jump.

You see, our forefoot is incredibly flexible and the tissue that connects it to the rest of your leg is springy. This makes your forefoot (or midfoot) the perfect shock absorber for all of the impact that's created by running with conventional, heel striking, technique. If you don't believe me (for some reason) here's a video for you to check out.

This video explains a lot of what I was going to write, so I won't bore you with repetition. I will however address a few things the video doesn't explain. For instance if the heel strike is bad, then what's the problem with shoes? Don't they charge so much money in part because they reduce impact? 

I assume if the shoes actually reduced impact then maybe they would be worth the money, but they don't reduce impact, they reduce pain. I don't have the source and I'm feeling a bit too lazy to go upstairs to find the book, but in Born to Run Chris McDougall tells of a study pertaining to runners injuries and shoe costs. The study determined that the higher the cost of the shoe, the higher the rate of injuries occurred. The fact is the impact remains the same, and the course of the impact remains the same. The heel is jarred to a stop and the rest of the body takes the beating, you just don't feel it because you're stepping on a marshmallow. This makes sense because pain is your bodies way of telling you to stop doing something, or change something because damage is being caused. If you can imagine running barefoot on your heels for more than a couple of meters without pain, then you obviously haven't tried doing it. The first couple of barefoot blocks I ran were a mix of complete concentration followed by brief pain as I lost concentration and reverted back to my old running form, followed by concentration again (which always brought comfort). 

Rather than writing and detailing how to run barefoot, I'll let this video by Erwan LeCorre do it for me.

I'm sure I'll add more to this topic later, but for now I'll finish up with Robs list of Pros and Cons

Barefoot

Pros

-Reduced risk of injury

-Easier to run due to natural running technique

-Strengthens foot and ankle muscles

-Encouragess mindfulness in running and attention to surroundings

-It's free!

Cons

-Takes foot conditioning to be able to run long distances without blisters

-May limit your options as to where you can run

-People will look at you weird

Minimalist (Vibram Five Fingers/Luna Sandals/etc...)

Pros

-Offers foot flexibility and technique with the added protection of a thin rubber or leather material

-Relies on natural running technique rather than power running technique 

-Strengthens foot and ankle structure

-Encourages mindfulness and attention to surroundings

-Can be as cheap as a pair of flip flops tied to the foot with a shoelace (what I use :D)

Cons

-Some people still might look at you weird.

-May be somewhat cold running in winter/fall

Conventional Running Shoes

Pros

-Socially acceptable

-Comfy on the bottoms of your feet

-warm for running during cold seasons

Cons

-Greatly increases your chance of injury (to any lower body joint or lower back) by promoting poor technique

-Weakens the foot due to built in support and lack of flexibility. 

-Can be insanely expensive

-Relies mainly upon power running (Build stronger legs to push harder and faster, long stride with heel strike) 

That being said, with the correct pair of conventional running shoes, it is possible to emulate natural running technique. It's far more difficult, but possible. A big problem however is the shoe itself restricts the mobility of your foot which is a very dynamic and flexible structure. Think of when you put your arm in a cast, the muscles around it weaken due to inactivity. I say go barefoot or minimalist and allow your foot to flex and grasp and bound as it is designed to. 

I'll probably write more on the subject at a later time, but for now, I'm off. 

-Rob  

My Barefoot Story

This is a primer post that is brought up by a good friend of mine who was curious as to the pros and cons of barefoot running versus shod running. My next post will cover this and more, but I wanted to first relate the story as to why I'm a big advocate of barefoot/minimalist running.

 This topic is dear to my heart because I used to absolutely loathe running. Sweet lord have mercy did I hate it. I vividly remember running the mile in 6th grade gym class. The track was your standard 1/4 mile dirt track and in the field, just inside the bend on the far side of the track there was a giant tree. This tree was home base for me and several other kids who would pause (or rather stop completely for 1-2 mins at a time) and catch our breaths out of sight from the gym teachers. Of course they knew what we were doing and they only let us think we were smooth, but that's beside the point.

I honestly tried my hardest to run. I was fat and I did want to lose weight, but I would get 3/4 of the way around one lap and my body would be in chaos. My breathing was erratic, my feet, ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders hurt. My diaphragm felt like it was bathing in liquid hot magma, and the girls were laughing at the chubby kid having a heart attack... so my introduction to running for health wasn't of the pleasant variety.

My mile was about 14 minutes.

This hate for jogging continued all the way up to adulthood. In the gym I'd use the elliptical rather than the treadmill, I would never jog or run for more than a mile on my own (with the exception of 9th grade gym, detailed below), though it wasn't as torturous as before, it still took a ton of effort and usually left me incapacitated for the next day or two. This was killer on my confidence because I thought I was just completely out of shape and that I would have to work even harder to become a not so decent runner.

When I discovered MovNat and Erwan LeCorre's praise of barefoot running, it prompted me to check out the book "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall and that's where I really began to have my eyes opened. I read, studied technique, and eventually got up the courage to try it myself.

 I would run from Sara's house to a gamefarm park (about 1 mile) and see how it worked out for me. Keep in mind the furthest I'd ever ran was 4 miles and that was in 9th grade gym class. We worked up to it for about 2 months and it still took me almost an hour to complete. On this cloudy day, on the first real run that I had undertaken in about a year, I set out to accomplish 1 mile and ended up running 4 with absolutely no effort. It was as easy as if I had been a natural runner my whole life. Granted, I blistered the shit out of the bottoms of my feet because I didn't heed the "ease into it one block at a time" guideline, but hey, it was thrilling. I can handle a little bit of foot pain.

Now I was extremely excited, but the skeptic in me was nagging at me for the entire duration of my foots healing process. I was asking myself "What if it's only because I'm a lot healthier now?" I mean me at 21 is not the same as me at 13, 15, or even 20... so what if? Well I let my feet heal and threw on some running shoes to test myself out shod. By 1 3/4 miles I was done. My shins felt like they had been hit with hammers, my heart was hammering in my ears, and my knees were beginning to hurt. This was 2 weeks after the 4 mile run.

I was sold.

But why is running barefoot/minimalist better? You have to check out the next post here. Or read Chris McDougals book, but this will be quicker. (Read his book anyway. It's great.)

-Rob

The magic of water

Today I want to go over some of the health benefits of our good ol' friend H20. For being such a simple and easy to come by tool, it often amazes me to see what people drink on a daily basis. Regardless of marketing hype that boosts energy and sports drinks to be for bad ass elite athletes who sweat glowing gatorade (haven't figured that one out yet), Water remains the ultimate drink for those who are truly hardcore. I don't know how many little kids (and even adults) I've met who say they hate water. Why? Because it's not flavored like marshmallows and kool-aid? Go sit and color in your book. 

Water may not be as pleasing to the sugar buzzed palate of todays average american, but the whole host of benefits that it offers makes it vital to your health and well being, especially if you're dieting because water assists in fat metabolism by keeping the kidneys clean of crud. When the kidneys get gunked up, it passes some of its work load on to the liver which is an organ in your body that helps to burn off stored fat. When the liver has to do it's job and then some, it fails to reach it's full potential, throwing a wrench in your weight loss plans. 

Besides that, water keeps you hydrated and purifies your body by washing out toxins and waste particles. You can think of it like a housekeeper, you mess up your hotel room and use up the soap, then the little lady who doesn't speak much English comes through and takes out your trash, fixes your sheets, and sprays some air freshener. Only this little foreign lady also helps your body absorb vitamins and nutrients more effectively and lubricates your joints, which is always a good deal. 

Though it may sound weird, water intake reduces water retention. Do you look a little thick and bloated at times? It may be because your body is retaining water sources in your skin due to insufficient hydration. If you drink adequate amounts (5-8 glasses a day) then your body has no need to store extra water and you will notice less puff (let me know if I'm getting too scientific for you.)

And of course, water is inexpensive (unless you are at the movie theater). Yeah the economy is rough, so why are you spending extra money on red bull, mountain dew, or gatorade? 

Down 2-4 glasses with each meal starting today and enjoy your newfound status as a bad ass. 

Quick Fix: Omelets!

Omelets are a go-to food for me. They are high in protein and fat and you can customize them as much as you want. I don't know how many times I've used dinner leftovers in my omelets, but it's always turned out well. Here's a few tips to make your omelets pop.

1) Use the entire egg: Many health enthusiasts treat egg yolks as though they were made of hemlock and cyanide. The truth is that the egg yolk is the most nutritious (not to mention delicious) part of the egg. I can hear your questions thorough the computer though; "What about cholesterol and the increased chance of heart disease!?" Well a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health in 1999 states that no correlation could be found between egg consumption and heart disease. It even ended up touting the eggs ability to stave off heart attack, blood clots, and stroke. 


2) Cook it in whole real butter. This also adds a level of flavor and fat to the dish, increasing satiety and overall pleasure. Be sure not to use a "spread" or margarine, these use partially hydrogenated oils as a base which are not conducive with a healthy body. Ultimately don't use vegetable oil or canola oil either. If you are going for an oil to cook with, Extra Virgin Olive Oil is your cheapest and easiest bet. Though, hemp, coconut, and avocado oils are among other acceptable variants. Of course, if you don't have any of this, you can always use bacon fat :)

3) Load it up. The great thing about omelets is the fact that they are so versatile. You can fill them with crisp vegetables, succulent steak, hearty chicken, every seasoning you can think of, hell even fish might be decent in an omelet (though I have to admit I've never tried it.) The more meat and veggies you put into it, the more nutrition you're giving yourself, the fuller you'll feel, and the more energy you'll have to tackle your day with.

4) Dinner Omelet! If you're in a rush for dinner the omelet is great for several reasons. 1) it's delicious. 2) it's fast. 3) it's healthy, and 4) It digests slowly. If you have a good sized omelet before bed, it will leave you full all night and through till your next meal. I regularly have an omelet (or something with the same nutritional profile) at dinner (around 7) and I won't eat again until around noon the next day; completely free of hunger.

Here's an example of how to make one:

Start with your innards. Here I use bacon, zucchini, and onion :) let them get cooked all the way through before you add your egg. 

Here I beat 3 eggs with some sour cream. Yeah sour cream isn't strictly paleo, but that's what the 80/20 rule is for right? The sour cream fluffs up the eggs and gives them a bit of flavor.

 Pour it on and let the bottom cook up, use a spatula to push the cooked borders in towards the center as to allow the center egg to make direct contact with the pans surface. 

Once the eggs are set up, use your spatula to run around the edge and free any stuck spots. If you must, pour a little bit of EVOO around the border and let it spread across the bottom. This will allow the eggs to freely slide about the pan. 

When I take pictures of every process, I tend to let the eggs burn... :( But no matter. Once the bottom is solid, flip the whole thing like a pancake. 

Add your filling. On this day it was cheese, more often than not it's either avocado or salsa however. Maybe chili if I've got some leftover. 

Let half of your omelet slide off on to the plate, fill it with anything else you may want in there, then use the pan to flip the other half over the top. It should end up looking somewhat like the bottom picture.

Put on your toppings (Pictured, sour cream, tapatio, sharp cheddar) and side dishes (satsuma oranges)

And there you have it: A quick, easy, nutritious meal that will give you steady energy and a very wide array of possible nutrients. I'm going to go make one right now :)

-Rob

Paleo/Primal/Evolutionary/Caveman: What's in it for you? (Part 1)

When I first started to play around with the paleo diet, I looked at it as exactly that: a diet. To me this meant it was a restriction of certain food types with the goal of lowering my body fat percentage. Though this is one feature of eating paleo, it is by and far not the only feature, and to see it only in that light would be a great misunderstanding of what the diet truly does. Yes you will lose weight, probably effortlessly; and that will be wonderful, but you'll get more in return than just a thinner waist and lower fat count.

The paleo diet is also great for energy, which is funny because everyone believes that if they kick grains from their diet that suddenly they won't have any energy because they believe they need their carbs. Well here's the thing, you do need carbs to fill your glycogen stores, but once they are filled all the extra glucose in your system will be stored as fat. And here's another thing, there are more than enough carbohydrates in fruits and vegetables to sustain you and your glycogen stores. There are folks out there maintaining 8% or less body fat working out heavily 3 days a week, depleting their glycogen stores on a regular basis who never touch grains. So if you're an average person, you probably don't need as many carbs as you think in the first place.

So it fills your glycogen stores, limits the amount of fat you have to carry around, and gives your body an extra  boost of nutrients because you are eating food that is natural and healthy for you. I plan on doing a post about phytates and how they harm the human body, but the skinny is they're anti nutrients that cause a whole host of problems for people who digest them on a regular basis. Like I said though, more on that later.

The paleo diet boosts your immunity. Did you know that sugar inhibits your immune system? It does so well in fact that one teaspoon can shut down your IS for approximately 6 hours. It's no wonder kids get sick so often. How often do you get sick? It may be related to your sugar consumption, so when you take on the paleo diet, not only are you fortifying your body with vitamins and minerals from your natural foods, you're allowing your immune system to function properly without being hampered by regular blasts of sugar. And guess what also counts as sugar? Carbohydrates. Art DeVany, father of the Evolutionary Fitness movement, once said "Eating a plate of pasta is like eating a plate of sugar." And he wasn't exaggerating. Glucose (blood sugar) comes from carbohydrates and must be dealt with via insulin. This is also why excess fruit sugar (fructose) can be counter productive to your fat loss goals.

Paleo protects your bones better than milk. Did you know that Harvard did a study of 80,000 nurses over 20 years and found that those who drank 1-3 glasses of milk a day actually suffered more from osteoporosis than those who drank none. Once again this study flies in the face of conventional wisdom because from the time we're little kids we're told that milk makes your bones strong and healthy because of it's high amount of calcium right? Well here's the thing. The milk you find on the shelves at your local albertsons is not actually milk. In fact some professionals feel it shouldn't be classified as a food. After all the chemical changes that milk is made to go through (to increase shelf life of course) it is but a mere shadow of it's former healthy self. I have another post in the works on this subject, so keep a look out for it. For now, back to the bones. Bones require more than just calcium in order to be healthy and strong. They require Zinc, Magnesium, iron, and daily Vitamin D along with calcium. Also, seeing that bones are kind of like muscles in that stress causes them to strengthen over time, regular weight training goes a long way to increase their sturdiness.

The reduction of grains alone helps in your battle for bone health because grains contain Phytates. Phytates are the salts of Phytic Acid which scavenge Zinc, Magnesium, Iron, and Calcium in the body. This not only compromises the health of your bones, but it can lead to mineral and nutrient deficiencies as well. But where do you get the minerals and nutrients for bone health in the first place?

Now Vitamin D comes in plenty of foods but the best source is direct sunlight. 15 minutes a day if possible. If that's not possible due to schedule or weather, then a daily Vitamin D supplement will do wonders. Sara and I just got a great buy one get one free deal at albertsons for about 5 bucks.You can also get magnesium and zinc supplements, but they're present in delicious healthy foods like nuts, seeds, leafy greens, and artichokes. Leafy greens are also incredibly rich in calcium.

Bone health is also largely dependent on your bodies acid/base levels, which paleo regulates naturally. But more on that in part 2.

The paleo diet promotes higher activity levels. Many of us are slaves to our jobs, the T.V., the internet, movies, napping, or anything that involves long periods of little-no motion. The problem with this is that our bodies literally are created to move. The lack of movement causes our muscles to degenerate, joints to stiffen, posture to suffer, and also makes it hard to appreciate life. The great thing about having more energy via a healthy natural diet, is that now you can spend more time doing things you love to do. When you lose 20-50 lbs, you can run more, play more, have more fun and be more active as a result. This frees you from the idea that in order to get healthy you have to have access to a gym and a detailed workout program written up by a beefcake personal trainer. NO! To be healthy, you have to live healthy. That means eat what your body is designed to eat, and move like your body is designed to move. It's really that simple. If you sit or lay down too long, you get sick and weak, if you eat crap you get sick and weak. If you eat and live correctly, you get healthy and strong and life becomes something more than just the day to day grind.

More later

-Rob

Grains: a link and a my take on the topic.

Probably the biggest topic of the paleo diet is the nixing of grains. So many people are hooked on their bagels and cake (or at least their whole wheat toast and pasta) to the point where if you suggest taking it all away they become aggravated. Well the topic has been written about and gone over more times than I can count, so rather than take the time to write down every reason you should not eat them, I'll give you this link which explains it well enough.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/

But why do I believe in what the link above says? Well let's look at the period of time about 3 months before I went paleo, to about a month after I went paleo. During this time, I was working as a package handler for UPS which is probably the most physically strenuous job I've ever had. I was up at about 2:30 a.m. At work at 4 ish, and done by 9. But for the entire 5 hour shift I was moving packages that sometimes weighed around 120lbs, running back and forth between 3-5 trucks, and putting up with the deplorable air conditions (you ever blow your nose and only black snot comes out? That's what you get at UPS.)

So needless to say my energy expenditure was really high. Usually I'd wake up, curse my life, eat a bowl of cereal, and head out. On this program, I have enough energy to get in the car (carpool ftw) and stay awake till we hit the freeway, then I would usually pass out and drag ass for the rest of the morning. During this time, my weight stayed constant. I wasn't losing (strangely enough to me at the time) and I wasn't gaining. It stayed this way for months, usually having a break once every two weeks because I would get sick.

I found the paleo diet and my breakfasts shifted from 1 or 2 bowls of cereal to 2 egg omelets with bacon or sausage (or both) and spinach or mushroom (or both) and a small salad. My energy went through the roof. All of a sudden I was awake and alert the entire ride to work, shifts started to breeze by, I wasn't sick as often, and life seemed a whole lot better. I wondered why there was such a drastic change, it must have been the caloric intake I guessed. But looking at a 2 cup bowl of cereal with 1 cup of 2% milk, the calories came out to a little less than 500. Yet a 2 egg omelet with 1 strip of bacon and 1 cup of salad equaled out to around 3-400 calories depending on the amount of cheese or dressing I put on the salad. So what was the difference?

I'm sure it was a combination of the insulin spike that came with my morning rush of carb heavy grains (followed by the signature energy crash), and the fact that grains come with anti-nutrients which make it hard for your body to absorb any of the beneficial nutrients that might exist in the grain itself. So for the next 5 hours of digestion, my body was going hungry comparatively to the omelet  which gave me it's full nutritional value, without an insulin spike and energy crash.

Another funny thing is between then and now, I've gone off my diet 2-3 times, each time I have eaten grains I experienced energy drops, pimples start to pop up, I gain weight, and my stomach goes through digestive problems. All of which go away as soon as I cut them out again.

Try it out for yourself and see how much better you feel without them, you might be amazed.


-Rob

My note to the readers.

I’ve come to find that most everyone I talk to believes that they know what consists of a healthy diet. Yet most people I talk to also find themselves unhappy with their physique, being sick often, lacking energy, having skin problems, digestive problems, inflammation, etc… All of which are red flags that your diet may be in need of some scrutiny, even though you may think it’s pretty decent.

 I guess that a big part of the problem stems from the fact that at an early age we are made to believe that some foods are healthy when they are not, and that some foods are unhealthy when in fact they are good for us. I hate this for so many reasons, but possibly the biggest reason would be the fact that it makes attaining good health more difficult than it needs to be. I don’t know how many years I wasted on stressing over 6 small meals a day, never skipping my breakfast of oatmeal or whole grain cereal, trying to keep my diet low in fat and high in carbs, worrying about whether I should have a meal right before I worked out, right after, or even during the workout. I had unanswered questions like “What kind of protein shake will give me the best results?”, “Should I be taking these supplements they advertise in this bodybuilding magazine?”, and of course, “Why am I still fat?”

I nearly got to the point where I was just going to chalk it up to genetics like I was destined to be fat and probably would end up a diabetic. Luckily I didn’t .

If there’s anything I want you to take away from what I write here, it’s the idea that you have to educate yourself; learn what you can and put it to the test. Find out what works best for you and what doesn’t. If you're fat and unhappy, you probably need to try something new to change that. 

Most of what I write will be my personal experiences backed up by actual studies and evidence, so I have faith in the information that I present to you. I'm currently testing 2 new ideas and 1 new training routine that you won't hear the details of until I've learned how they work on me. So if I write something here, that means I've put myself through the paces and seen results, negative or positive. I'd like you to try the same because in the end, we will only get better by breaking through barriers and exploring new frontiers. As Bruce Lee once said: "Running water never grows stale." 

.

-Rob

An introduction

"Civilize the mind, but make savage the body." -Chairman Mao

Regardless of your opinions on the Chinese communist leader who said the above quote, you can probably agree that these principles are pretty sound ones. An intelligent and adaptable mind united with a strong and healthy body can be a powerful combination which could help to reap benefits in all aspects of ones life. 

In todays day and age, however, there are a lot of forces working against you and your personal quest to civilize your mind while making savage your body. In fact, today, I would go as far as to say it's impossible to do the latter without the former. I feel that in order to reach your true physical and mental potential, you have to follow a process of trial and error; something I've been doing since middle school in an attempt to lose weight.

I've tried a lot of different approaches and methods, most of which fell short of, or even went in the opposite direction of my goals. I remember being 12 or 13, kids in my class called me "Pigbert" all day, I ran home and sealed up my room, put on all the heavy clothes and coats I had, turned on my heater and lava lamp and did jumping jacks to try and sweat out my fat. 

When I turned 15 I weighed 208 lbs. By the time I was 16 years old I weighed in at 245 lbs, had horrible skin (dry and flaky, lots of acne) and absolutely no energy. At this point I had tried feebly to lose weight by walking (jogging was too difficult) or doing martial arts. Though, with no structured regimen and a poor diet , I eventually gave up, only to try again after a few weeks or months.

This process was very mentally and emotionally destructive. My confidence was shot, I didn't have a lot of friends, and I ate. A lot.

Finally I stumbled across a website that helped me get my diet somewhat better. I stopped drinking soda, eating fast food and candy, and increased my overall activity level. I dropped down to 220, then 210, and finally stopped making any progress at about 205. My weight would stay there for nearly 3 years, fluctuating between 210 and 195ish, but never any more.

Every few months I would go on fitness binges. Sometimes I would just increase my activity levels substantially, sometimes I would simply read and study, but my diet stayed pretty much the same since I thought that what I was eating was healthy. I would consume tons of whole wheat cereal and oatmeal, plates of whole wheat pasta, lots and lots of fruit, Salads with a lot of dressing... I was simply following what conventional wisdom touted as being a healthy diet.

So my problem must have been exercising. 

I studied and became a personal trainer, certified under NASM, still my weight wouldn't budge. It didn't help that every time I would go to work out at the gym I worked at my manager would hound me about walking the floor and getting clients and increasing my sales. Usually I would get a half hour on the elliptical, a couple of sets of squats, and finally break to go talk to potential clients. It eventually got to the point where I didn't come to work out anymore.

As fate would have it, my answers wouldn't come from a 600 dollar text book and shiny certificate. What began to open my eyes was the April 2009 issue of Men's Health magazine, in which Erwan LeCorre and MovNat were featured. I loved the article. I read it over and over, visited the website, watched the videos, and friended Erwan on Facebook/Twitter. He mentioned that he followed the paleo diet and my journey through evolutionary lifestyle began. Since then, I've learned a lot and have been finding out what works best for my body. I've dropped my weight to the low 180's and am increasing my strength almost every week.

With this blog, I hope to track my further progress and also help you, the readers, to find your own way down a path to optimal health and wellness.

Here's to the new year, let's make it our year.

-Rob