Nutrition

Have you ever wished there were just a simple, cut and dried set of rules you could follow to simplify eating? Well, guess what - now there is. The new book from Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, is called Food Rules and is just that - a set of rules to follow for good healthy eating. For those of you looking for straightforward guidelines, this is a great book to get you started. For those of you who've already consumed tons of nutrition books, consider this -- I bought three copies of Food Rules the other day so I could send them out to family members. I find friends and family can get easily overwhelmed with different news reports, different doctors, and opinions coming at them left and right. Food Rules spells it out nice and easy by answering three questions -- 1. What should I eat? 2. What kind of food should I eat? and 3. How should I eat? 

Check it out and pick one up for a family member - it's a quick read that could change someone's quality of life.

Design your own custom energy bar perfectly tailored to your personal taste and nutritional needs. 

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How would you feel if you had to pay $8.50 a gallon for gasoline?
Then why on Earth would you pay that much for water and high-fructose corn syrup?

Read the rest of the article about the rising price of Coke.

Fructose: Going To Waist? Part 1 of 2

Fructose is not the best choice for bodybuilders trying to get very lean because it can too readily be converted to body fat. When humans consume excess fructose, it is more likely to go toward the production of fatty acids and cholesterol than toward the production of glucose to fuel your muscles. You might as well beg your body to make fat.

Fructose is a simple sugar found in many foods, including corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn-syrup solids, fruit sugar, honey and table sugar. It is nearly twice as sweet as sucrose, so smaller amounts achieve the same amount of sweetness, and it is generally inexpensive. For these reasons, fructose is included in many refined foods and supplements. It's also found in fruit, but fruit offers benefits such as fiber without providing a large quantity of fructose. So, as a bodybuilder, you can consume fruit (one or two servings) on a daily basis without worrying about the negative effects of fructose. Fruit juices, however, are a different story - they don't have the fiber that slows down the digestion/absorption of whole fruit.

More refined forms of fructose should be avoided by bodybuilders. As fructose enters the body, the liver acts like a big sponge, sucking it up. If you have been eating well and have met your body's energy needs, your liver is full and doesn't need additional glycogen. Therefore, any extra foods consumed - especially those high in fructose - encourage the fat production process. Basically, as your fructose intake increases, so does fat production.

Race day is less than 48 hours away - what are you planning to do about hydration and nutrition for the race?  Do you need to speak to one of the coaches about what to do in regards to these things?  We are available and hope you do take advantage of this opportunity - if you are unsure what to do, please pick up the phone and call one of us.

I am including a link to TriMax Fitness - Max is a CFE coach on the east coast and i love what he has to say about nutrition and hydration, he hits it right on the button, so please have a read through both on his site.
 
“Failing to hydrate properly is a major cause of more DNFs, race failures and underperforming days than you may imagine.”

 
http://gotrimax.com/TriMaxHydration.htm
 
“Most of us should be replenishing about 250-400 calories per hour'

 
http://gotrimax.com/TriMaxRaceDayNutrition.htm
 
We will send out another email in regards to logistics, so please stay tuned - you all are going to rock the race on sunday!!!

Fish oils may support athletic performance in a number of ways. Studies show the EFA's in fish oil decrease muscle breakdown, increase muscle growth, reduce the time it takes muscles to recover after exercise, aid in the transfer of oxygen from the lungs to the bloodstream, and enhance a wide range of metabolic and hormonal functions.

In addition, studies have drawn a close correlation between diets low in omega-3's and decreased testosterone production. For example, one study found that individuals with a 36% dietary fat intake compared to individuals with a 7% fat intake had an average of 22% higher testosterone levels. Continue reading...

The San Diego Farm Bureau has a list of CSAs with links to their websites so you can see pricing, pick-up times and pick-up locations.

Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, writes a great blog about Food Politics & Nutrition. Last week she wrote about the effects of too much salt:

The British Medical Journal has a new meta-analysis of 13 studies of the health effects of high salt intake. Its conclusion:

High salt intake is associated with significantly increased risk of stroke and total cardiovascular disease. Because of imprecision in measurement of salt intake, these effect sizes are likely to be underestimated. These results support the role of a substantial population reduction in salt intake for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

In commentary, the authors insist that regulation is needed. The effects of salt are large:

a 5 g reduction in salt intake at the population is associated with a 23 per cent difference in stroke rates, and a 17 per cent difference in total cardiovascular disease….eating less salt could avert 1.25 million deaths from stroke and almost 3m deaths from cardiovascular disease – and these projections are…conservative because of imprecision in assessing salt intake.

Why regulation? Because nearly 80% of salt enters the diet through processed and pre-prepared foods. The rest is about equally divided between naturally occurring salt in foods and salt added at the table. To reduce salt, food manufacturers and restaurants need to cut down, and all of them have to do it.

This is because the taste for salt depends on how much is eaten. On a low salt diet, even lightly salted foods taste salty. But if you are used to eating a lot of salt, it takes even more to taste salty. So the object needs to be to reduce salt in the diet across the board.

I’m hearing a lot these days about how federal agencies are getting interested in the salt issue. Stay tuned on this one.

And have a safe, healthy, delicious, and lightly salted thanksgiving!

An excerpt from Ben Balzer, a family physician in Australia, about some "eats" and "don't eats" of the Paleolithic Diet. His article is an excellent introduction to the Paleo Diet, and I'm posting it just in time for Thanksgiving...

Eat none of the following:

• Grains- including bread, pasta, noodles
• Beans- including string beans, kidney beans, lentils, peanuts, snow-peas and peas
• Potatoes
• Dairy products
• Sugar
• Salt

Eat the following:

• Meat, chicken and fish
• Eggs
• Fruit
• Vegetables (especially root vegetables, but definitely not including potatoes or sweet potatoes)
• Nuts, eg. walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia, almond. Do not eat peanuts (a bean) or cashews (a family of their own)
• Berries- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.

Try to increase your intake of:

• Root vegetables- carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, Swedes
• Organ meats- liver and kidneys (I accept that many people find these unpalatable and won’t eat them)

Read the full Introduction to the Paleolithic Diet.

Need more paleo reading for the holiday? Go to www.paleodiet.com for a plethora of articles about Paleo.

Still not satisfied? Go to www.thepaleodiet.com

You can also check out the books on Amazon, click the phots for links.

Here's a podcast of Robb Wolf fielding some questions about the Paleo Diet. This is a good primer and his website is an excellent resource for athletes getting started on paleo.

Robb Wolf's The Paleolithic Solution