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. 

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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.