UK National Diet Nutrition Survey: Still a little misguided?

The stats are out for the first of the yearly rolling reviews of the nutrition picture in the UK and it makes interesting if slightly depressing reading. Yes, we are tending to better diet but there’s still a long way to go with the populous still consuming too much in the way of salt, sugar and too little vegetable matter, fibre and omega 3 containing foods. You can read about it HERE at the Food Standards Agency website.

If you follow the link you’ll see that they have kindly given bullet points of the main findings, starting off with this little beauty:

“The key findings of the survey are:

• People are eating less saturated fat, trans fat and added sugar than they were 10 years ago, when the survey was last carried out.”

Yes, saturated fat, the perennial pariah…

The problems with gathering large quantities of dietary data are well known but surely, if we do nothing more than build public health advice on dogma rather than up-to-date, credible science, we’re just going to perpetuate the issues of poor health related to diet?

The saturated fat issue is a classic example, highlighted by the FSA and then jumped upon by the British Heart foundation, Mubeen Bhutta the policy manager there stating:

“While it’s encouraging that the amount of saturated fat people are eating has reduced, it is still too high and exceeds recommendations.”

Yet very little mention is made of research seeming to demonstrate that saturated fat intake is a red herring. For example this newest paper in the growing body of evidence HERE at the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition the conclusion from the abstract summing it up with a punchy line :

“there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD”

This from a meta analysis including over 340000 participants. Now, epidemiological data is never clear cut and meta analysis can be skewed , but surely cause for concern? Surely something to discuss? Remember focusing on a non issue potentially draws focus off the real issue.

Two problems: Reductionism and saving face

There’s two main problems here, the first is Of course that reductionism doesn’t seem to be helping us too much when it comes to the study of diet related disease.

Clearly much more work needs to be undertaken to build up a better picture of causes of cardiovascular disease, however in my opinio broadening our focus and looking at the issues associated with the sat fat intake needs to happen. Indeed this is happening in research circles, but an acknowledgment of these issues to be forthcoming from the health bodies advising us, ASAP.

Of course these people aren’t suffering from some form of mass delusion and the second real issue is this: how do you change public advice when it has been so vehemently swung in one direction?

How slowly do you have to change in order to retain some sort of image of authority and thus respect from those you seek to advise? A myopic focus on one nutrient may be ineffective, even foolish. However continuing to focus on, and basing health advice around  out of date research and conclusions is criminal no?

I’d better file this one under ‘Rants’

New years resolutions rethink:

Successful goal setting

Every week I see people in clinic with goals. Some may not know they have goals, others have definite goals but they may be the wrong ones for that moment. I often spend a lot of time with people focusing on their aspirations and plans and sorting through what they want to achieve, the motivations for these aims and how they fit into the big health and lifestyle picture.

A goal is the picture you have in your head of where you want to be. Taking them from merely thoughts and notions and making them reality means first defining them in a few ways, giving them the qualities they require to be of use to you. This means asking a few questions and giving your goals some important characteristics; transforming them from just hope and dreams on a piece of paper into a lynchpin of long term success:

Are they pointless?

Giving up crisps and cakes for January may be a healthy gesture, but what in the great scheme of things is this going to accomplish other than a) making you want crisps and cakes a LOT more and b) using up all that willpower that could be better spent.

If however, it changes a behaviour long term i.e. eating a lot less snacks foods then it has been beneficial but ask yourself, is it really going to achieve this?

Are they the right ones?

It’s a simple question, I know, but a very important one and the one that most people gloss over. Should you really be focusing on this? Is this going to play the main role in the big picture? Is there some more rewarding AND important aspect that you could be considering?

All these questions need careful level-headed consideration. You only have some much time so focus on the things that matter.

Are they attainable?

If your goal just isn’t one you can reach then you’re going to have to make peace with that idea. Note I didn’t say ‘get a realistic goal’ – there is something to be said for ’shooting for the stars and getting the moon’. For example you could think one of two ways:

Un-attainable: ‘I will loose 50lb or (3.5 stone) by Easter’

Un-attainable but constructive: ‘I will endeavor to loose 50lb by Easter using only safe methods. If I don’t get there then, so be it, but I will try.’

Be ambitious but be constructive and safe.

Are they attainable AND realistic?

Getting to the Olympics is not a reasonable goal for most people. Of course if it were the Olympics wouldn’t be worth watching, however some goals that on first inspection seem to be reasonable may not be realistic. The problem often isn’t the task itself but the other resources like time or mental bandwidth they take to achieve. Sometimes you have to temper your, quite doable goal because of your circumstances. You see, whilst most people could learn to sail, not many live by the sea and can afford a boat.

Are they well defined?

Goals are all very well but they should be a bulls-eye you can aim at not an ill-defined cloud you can only shoot in the general direction of. Please give yourself something to aim at. What exactly do I mean?

An example of an ill defined task: ‘I’m going to loose some weight’

Well defined task: ‘I will loose 10lb of body fat’

Get specific and then you can make yourself properly accountable.

Is there accountability?

Making a resolution is one thing but telling others so that they may mark your work, means that you’re accountable. The fear of failure just got more serious but it is a tool that you can use for your own gain. A little fear and trepidation can be a real motivating force for when the process gets tough or just plain boring.

Tell loved ones, tell colleagues (actually very useful), and write your goals down somewhere public or semi-public, like I have at the end of this post.

Are they measurable and testable?

Of course with any project you’ll want to know where you are and how far you have to go. Having a measurable and testable goal is obviously intimately connected with a defined goal but there is a subtle difference. Being able to track progress along the way will aid motivation and lend a little perspective to your goals, because getting the work done and getting it done in a reasonable time are two different things.

Is there a time frame?

Put yourself under a little pressure, it helps. Just enough though, not too much. Without a defined time frame the project can rumble on and on which is not very satisfying and may mean more work and guilt, in the long term. Compare for example the following goals:

By June 2010 I will loose 30lb

I will loose 30lb

Which one of those goals is going to keep you motivated? Which is going to mean a greater level of accountability and fear of failure? Loosing 30lb of fat is still a worthwhile task but if it takes you 10 years then health wise you’re going to get a lot less out of the process.

Do you have a plan for when you reach your goal?

Seems silly, but having a plan for after your plan is a good idea. Too many people clean up their diet, loose the fat and then go back to their old ways.

A very useful trick is to plan a project which will feed into and upon the first. If your original plan was to loose some body fat, the second could be some form of athletic endeavor or vice versa. Changing the task dramatically keeps the mind engaged, but making it a connected activity builds upon the habits and success already in place, solidifying them.

Bottom line

Define a realistic goal, plan and then get it out of the way in a timely fashion and then reap the rewards by focusing on an exciting goal you couldn’t have even dreamed of before.

In PART II I’ll go over the steps for putting this goal making into action.

Food pyramids can be a useful tool for both advising people on what they should eat and also to represent what people actually ARE eating. Here’s some from around the world…

This is the bog standard food pyramid (source USDA).

I’m sure most of you are familiar with this. It’s the old USDA food pyramid giving the weightings of the foods to be consumed in the day based upon number of portions.

However it was felt that is needed to be redrawn to emphasize variety in food as well as throwing some emphasis on exercise as part of the picture. All very commendable but as far as I am concerned it’s neither use nor ornament.

Why?

Because you usually get this:

The new USDA ‘Food Triangley Thingamebob’

But to make any sense out of it at all you need the notes:

The USDA ‘Bit That Makes The Triangley Thing ame Make Sense’

Which of course you rarely see added, ah and another thing…. TOO MANY WORDS PEOPLE! A tool has to be right for the job, this is not right for public education. If you like a read you can see more detail HERE.

So these two are graphic representations of what the health profession think we should be eating (though of course not everyone agrees…)

(from the paleo diet newsletter)

So if this is what we should be eating what are other healthier people eating? What other examples are there from around the world and what can they teach us? Healthier peoples include:

The Mediterraneans

Sound east Asians

The Japanese

Graphically very Japan I think you’ll agree. This is an education tool common in Japanese schools though thoughtfully someone has shown what a government sponsored food pyramid might look like

(Both from iamaviking.com lots of good beer info there if you’re into that)

Here’s an interesting representation of a healthful south American diet

Latin dietary pyramid

The enlightened folks of the Ivy League came up with this one

Harvard food pyramid (source: wikipedia)

So lots of fruit and veg, whole grains etc would seem to be the way forward for health, or would it…..?

Pyramids the dieticians hate

Like every set of rules though there are examples that don;t seem to fit the mold. If I asked you to name a population famed for the low incidence of heart disease then you might mention the Inuit of northern Canada. Heart disease rates are going up now they have started to adopt a western diet, the only problem as far as standard dietary advice goes is their traditional diet looked a little like this

The Inuit food Igloo (from second-opinions.co.uk)

Keep eating that low fat diet people!

What is odd about this of course is

1. the huge amount of fat

2. tiny amount of vegetable matter ( < 10% with ~0% wholegrains)

3. the near absence of cardiovascular disease in traditional populations

This traditional diet moves us into the realm of Paleo Eating. In a nut shell eating as close a diet as possible to those of our forefathers long before the (first) agricultural revolution transformed our meal times.

The Paleo pyramids

Paleo people are a proactive bunch and never shy about coming forward with pyramids of their own. No one seems to mention that there were as many paleo diets as there were places to live on the globe. Anyway, here’s one meant to ape the old USDA standard format:

Basically very very little in the way of grains or dairy as these are foods consumed mostly post agricultural revolution. This is another nice example with some helpful advice included for making this a little more practical:

Too much veg for you? Too busy chucking spears at wilder-beast to worry about plants? No worries, here’s a more meat heavy representation, remember these go by servings so actual volumes may be different:

I quite like this one from a blog post HERE

….. yes, you’ll have to replace the joy of spaghetti with the joy of sex.

Of course we all know a vegetarian or even a vegan:

Vegan Pyramid

And of course there are many more too choose from in the diet industry many of which of course have their own food pyramids, from A-Z, here’s an example from the nice folks at Atkins.

Or The Zone, which helpfully reminds us that water is also important

(not an official Zone graphic by the way!)

My take?

I waver somewhere between The Zone in terms of amounts of foods and Paleo in terms of food choices however everyone has their on needs and of course exercise is important:

The CrossFit pyramid

Of course groups and belief systems have their own guides as well. Here’s one from the nice metempyrions.

Metempyrion pyramids

‘Who or what is a ‘Metempyrion’!?’ I hear your cry. More info HERE don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now as we know not all diets and not all peoples are healthy. The USDA food pyramid is what the US government would like it’s population to eat sadly for many it is closer to this:

The real food pyramid?

(source: curioussigns.blogspot.com )

Except on Saturdays of course when something like the following is more appropriate:

The Game Day Pyramid (source: www.wizznutzz.com )

Of course you’re wondering, ‘what does my paranoia about the sometimes questionable food industry practices in the developing economic superpowers mean for the graphic representation of the foods I eat’?

Glad you asked.

Paranoia pyramid

…or what about the zombies? No one should be left out

OK I’ll stop now.

"January, sick and tired, you've been hanging on me
You make me sad with your eyes
You're telling me lies"

Last night I was having dinner with a mate of mine, he was telling me about the great advice his wife received from a colleague at work, it was this: any time you eat something naughty (a doughnut, in this case) just have a glass of water after and it cancels all the badness out.

Great. That’s me out of a job then. Nutrition problems solved.

Or maybe not.

This got me thinking about all the bad advice you get and further to my 10 fat loss tips post yesterday, here’s 10 tips I have found around the web that you would be a fool to follow…..

1. Drink 5 liters or more of water each day – this helps flush your body of fat.

WHAT THE F…?!

Hear me now: This. Is. A. Lie.

Hydration is of course important but 1) too much water is not good for you and 2) no,  it won’t flush out the fat from your body. It simply won’t.

2. Just eat fruit for fat loss

Right, this and any extreme diet is not going to work. Sorry. Yes, you may loose some weight but no, you won’t keep it off and in the long run these crash, fad or extreme diets don’t work. You end up fatter than when you started.

3. Skip the weight training, it will bulk you up and when you stop it will turn to fat.

Ladies: you won’t get huge weight training, you will speed up your metabolic rate, using up more calories and potentially burning a lot more fat, you will also improve many many facets of your health. Gents: just lift, it’s good for you but remember to squat – ladies don’t like the lightbulb look.

Oh and the biochemical pathway from muscle protein to fat only really works on paper, it won’t turn to fat.

4. Decrease your fat intake – try for no more than 20 grams per day.

Oh please! ‘The 1970’s are on the phone, they want their dietary recommendations back’ Fat doesn’t make you fat, eating the wrong things makes you fat. Fats are very important for health but concentrate on your whole diet and getting plenty of omega three fats and monounsaturated fats.

5. Concentrate on long steady cardio

Exercise, any exercise will help burn calories but long easy cycles or walks are an incredibly round about way to lose fat, they simply aren’t effective given the time they consume. Weight training, intervals etc. are all very effective for fat loss.

6. Consume lots of whole grain based foods

This – like the ‘reduce the fat’ tip – is a little out-dated and also ignores the whole diet. Too much of any calorie containing food will lead to you gaining weight.

7. Don’t eat that late night snack – Try not to eat for at least 2 hours before going to bed.

Unless it effects your sleep then it really doesn’t matter. You MAY want to reduce or eliminate the carbohydrate content of late night meals due to the changes in insulin sensitivity through the day but veggies, lean meats and a little healthy fat is still on the menu if you wish.

8. Listen to your body – your body will tell you when it is full, hungry, stressed, tired. Learn the signs and obey what your body is telling you.

Unfortunately, though this sounds nice in a -  spiritual/natural/primal/fill in the blank – type way, the effect of food processing (e.g. loss of fibre) and also modern life with all the stress and time issues that go with it means that our bodies either don’t or can’t send us the correct signals, or if they do we don’t listen. Cut the stress (exercise, meditate, draw up a to-do list and sleep) and eat the right foods (whole foods rich in nutrients and fibre) and then you might be getting closer.

9. Do 1000 sit-ups every day for that 6 pack

No, this isn’t going to a) give you a 6-pack and b) make you slimmer. It might damage your back, it certainly will be a waste of time. Fat loss is a whole body issue: diet, exercise, lifestyle.

10. Cleanse and detoxify. ‘Rid your body of harmful toxins and chemicals, while allowing it to function normally with this detox kit, only £29.99′.

Do I even have to talk about this? Your liver and kidneys have evolved over millions of years to handle this job. They are much much more effective than any detox kits or detox diet products humans can come up with. Oh, the hubris…

Anyway, support their proper function by ensuring your health and make their life a little easier by not ‘toxing up’ in the first place. How? The answer to both parts is the same: eat whole foods, drink water, exercise and relax.

There you have it, tips to ignore and the reasons why. Remember there’s a lot of so-called experts on the web trying to push their view but take it with a pinch of salt and always look for reasons behind the information.

My 10 top tips for fat loss

It’s that time of year again. Oh yes,  New Year’s resolutions.

Too much turkey? Feeling guilty about all that Christmas cheer/beer? Feeling the need for renewal and refocusing of goals?

It seems everyone is looking at how to shift a few pounds and make themselves feel a little better after the over indulgence of the holidays. And of course around now there’s a plethora of ‘top tips’ floating around the web giving you suggestions for ways to loose fat, but often they’re not much more useful than ‘cut the carbs’. So what counts? Let’s get to the bottom of the top tips.

Here’s the point: focus on WHYs and HOWs, not WHATs

Your health, fitness and body shape is the expression of your behaviours and actions and what they do to your body over the months and years. You have to change WHY you’re doing things, not just WHAT you’re doing otherwise you’ll fail in the end. Many ‘top tips’ don’t recognise this.

So in my years as a nutritionist, what do I think are the 10 ten tips? As I say it’s about actions, behaviours and habits.

Actions

1. Figure out why you’ve been slacking on the health and fitness front.

2. Write down goals and a defined plan and tell people about them.

3. Focus on the kitchen: clear the junk foods out of your house, go food shopping & refill your kitchen with the right foods.

4. Get some Tupperwear for lunches and storing healthy foods.

5. Think HARD about how you will make the changes practical and ensure consistency.

Behaviours

6. Explore your options diet wise at work and in restaurants – stay on plan.

7. Keep exercise fresh and effective. Explore new workouts and read up about performance.

Habits

8. Exercise daily.

9. Don’t skip meals.

10. Not finding excuses, stay on track: look to fill you plate first with fibrous veg and lean protein no matter where you’re eating.

So there you have it. This isn’t of course it, but these are the most important tips. There are some others I’ll throw in that you may find useful…..

Honorable mentions: OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS

Earn your starch

The white stuff on your plate is invariably starch and/or sugar. Generally this is low on vitamins and minerals and high in carbohydrate with little fibre. These foods (pasta, potato etc.) are often touted as health food “They’re low fat!”, but you must EARN these foods with extra activity.

Don’t put off change

Do something now, today. It doesn’t matter if it is buying some healthy food for dinner or going for a run but realise that you have to…

Focus on food

It has been shown again and again that it is your diet that makes the real difference when it comes to taking the fat off your frame and keeping it off.

A weeks worth of nutrition news collected and collated for your delectation…

You have it easy.

Me?

I’m a nutritionist.

I sit in front of people answering random questions on all facets of diet, nutrition and health. What’s more I’m a Registered Nutritionist, so I can’t just make shit up when answering these questions.

It’s interesting, it’s fun, I love it. However in order to do my job I have to keep up with all the developments in the field, both important and unimportant, that’’s no small job.  I paddle furiously just to keep my head above the sea of new nutrition information produced each week. Here’s a small selection of nutrition news stories from the last 7 days!

Happy reading.

Western diets turning on fat genes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091130121433.htm

The way your genetic information is expressed by your body is the foundation of your health effective homeostasis – the regulation of your bodily systems. a picture is emerging of the effect food can have on how that information is controlled.

Soft drinks raise your risk of diabetes?

http://www.healthscout.com/news/1/633607/main.html

As opposed to chronic health problems (like type 2 diabetes) it seems that issues can arise connected with transient health conditions like gestational diabetes.

Trans fats, not good for the ladies either

http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/12/02/eline/links/20091202elin006.html
We know fats can effect health, we know that women have some protective mechanisms (associated with differences in hormonal profile), however transfats are most often bad news and this is just as true for ladies and well as gents

Prince Charles Sticks up for herbal medicine

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8388985.stm

Long time devotee of alternative medicine speaks out about the growing onus on regulation and control of herbal supplements and treatments.

Trying to ban diet drug

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5B23RE20091203

More problems with ‘miracle diet pills’. Yet again another reason to concentrate on whole diet not trick and cheats

Kids underestimate their weight

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5B14P420091202

If you don’t think you’re overweight then you aren’t likely to do anything about getting fitter are you? Kids body image is become (more?) skewed it needs.

Ginko may help peripheral circulation

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5AT41P20091130

Ginko is popular with many for the potential benefits on circulation boosting some facets of brain health. In Europe it is an accepted therapeutic and used by doctors to treat patients with memory issues. The effect on peripheral circulation is there but doesn’t seem to carry over into ‘heart health’

Protein and calorie restriction

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091202131622.htm

Low calorie intake diets have their advantages an disadvantages but WHAT you eat, not just HOW MUCH you eat, is an issue. Another small nail in the coffin of high carb diets?…

Protein can aid recovery, better body shape and support muscle mass but how much do you eat?

If you’re worried about strength, athletic performance and body shape you have probably thought about your protein intake at some point. There’s a lot of info out there and a lot of opinion – most of it revolving around the issue of muscle mass. So how much protein do you need?

When you ask this question you’re really asking

• How much should you eat? And,
• How much protein can you eat in a sitting?

Reasons to eat more protein: It’s more than just about your muscles you know!

“Question: I’ve read that you don’t need any more than 20g of quality protein in a sitting to get maximum stimulation of muscle protein synthesis, so I shouldn’t bother with any more, no?”

When you eat quality protein the concentrations of amino acids in the blood rise. This rise, if big enough can stimulate the body to lay down more protein in the form of muscle tissue. We like this. A lot. However, recently studies have shown that protein synthesis plateaus out at about 20-25g of protein in a sitting. With many nutrition protocols and professionals advising you to eat maybe double or more per sitting, why would you consider eating any more?

1) It gives you calories whilst displacing others

Think about someone eating 5 meals a day at 25g of protein:

25 – number of grams of protein per sitting

5 meals a day

4  – number of kcals per gram of protein

25 x 5 x 4 (kcals/g) = 500 kcals (per day from protein)

If you train you may well be eating well over the usual 2000-2500 kcal recommendations. So where are the rest of you calories coming from? Fats and carbohydrates.

500 kcals from daily protein intake

3800 total daily calories for hard training

3800 – 500 = 3300 kcal (from fats and carbs)

this equals 536g of carbohydrates and 128g of fats

(using a 65/35 ratio of carbohydrate to fat)

That’s a lot of carbohydrate and fat and for most people will be an issue over time both body composition and health wise.  Protein also has a few very useful properties that fat and carbs don’t. To wheel out the old quote again

A calorie is not a calorie!

2) Increased satiety from meals

Your body has mechanisms to regulate your food intake and it’s well demonstrated that an increase in protein (at the expense of other macronutrients) has a real effect upon total energy intake, for example in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition we find the paper by Weigle et al, where an increase in protein intake (from15% to 30% of energy intake) with a simultaneous reduction in fat (from 35% to 20%, carb intake unchanged), produced a sustained decrease in calorie intake and significant weight loss .

3) Insulin versus glucagon

We all know the issues associated with chronically elevated insulin levels from large amounts of carbohydrates (see calcs above!), well, glucagon is the antagonist to this. It helps lower insulin levels and does a other metabolic tricks that support health and good body comp.

4) Lower GI/II of your meals

Depending upon the protein source, it can slow down the transit of the other contents of the meal through the gut. Here we’re talking about the carbohydrate. It effectively lowers the Glycemic Index of your meal – again, good for all the same reasons as switching from high to low GI carbs are.

5) The thermic effect of protein

Your resting metabolic rate, the calories you burn at rest, increases in the hours after you eat. This is because you burn energy digesting and assimilating the macronutrients you eat; but not all macros are the same in this respect. The following is the % of the cals you eat that are expended

Protein = 20-30%

Carbohydrate = 5-10%

Fat = 0-5%

In effect it is a small part of the picture, maybe roughly 4-12%, but it helps, and of course with higher protein diets this effect would be towards the high end.

6) Accessory nutrient and specific amino acids

Obviously we’re talking about protein but you get (hopefully most of) your protein from whole foods. Examples of these are leans meats and oily fish – in these we find micronutrients: important vitamins and minerals and fats/lipids: omega 3 fatty acids and others like CLA.

We’re also understanding more and more about the almost pharmacological effect of some amino acids like leucine and phenylalanine.

7) Nitrogen balance

If you have a decent amount of protein entering the body then the metabolic machinery is more able to utilise the protein and aid recovery. Indeed this can lead to a ‘positive nitrogen balance’ where more nitrogen (the marker from protein) is going in than going out – this gives strong clues to an net anabolic environment in the body – i.e. muscle and recovery.

7) Protein turnover

Connected with the nitrogen balance, the chemical building blocks of your body are turned over, being processed out and replaced from many of the structures of your cells. If you eat more protein you stimulate the breakdown of the protein in your muscle, but you also stimulate synthesis as well – this means more new muscle tissue and great opportunity for growth.

9) other benefits….

I’m not glossing over these I just thought I may be boring you by now… they include the stimulation of IGF-1 (the anabolic hormone) production, supporting of immune system competence, reduction in fatty acid synthesis. There’s more which I am sure I have forgotten at this point

…so why does this all matter?

These factors all add up, increasing the protein in diets based on already healthy choices has been shown to

• Aid lean body composition
• Increase fat and ‘weight’ loss
• Increase HDL levels in the blood, the ‘good’ cholesterol
• Decrease triglycerides and LDL levels – two strong correlates (the 1^st especially) to cardiovascular health.

So a leaner, healthier body. Good. But how much can you eat per sitting?

Maximum protein absorption per sitting

Anyone who has spent more than a little time frequenting interweb chat rooms and forums dedicated to strength sports and bodybuilding has seen the age old question:

“How much protein can I absorb in one sitting? The [supplement tub/guy at GNC/PT] says

it’s about 30g, is this true?”

As Christian Thibaudeau puts it, it’s more complex than the 30g watermark. The two main factors involved are what you’re eating and how your gut is working.

1. What you’re eating

The type of protein you are using

The slower digesting your protein is then the more chance your body has to ‘capture’ those amino acids and then do something useful with them. Meat and casein proteins are a good example of these.

The meal you eat

Both fibre and fat will slow digestive processes and in the same way give your body a little more time to work on the protein you’ve eaten.

2. Your ability to deal with it

Everyone has different levels of gut health. The gut is an incredibly complex bit of kit. There’s dozens of hormones and billions of neurons associated with it’s function not to mention all the many strains of bacteria, delicate epithelium cells etc etc. The healthier the gut, the better it can work.

So how much protein in one sitting? How long is a piece of string?

The bottom line

Adding together the factors of why protein is useful and also the capacity to digest and absorb, leads to a wide range of recommendations, especially when talking about people with different body composition, body shape histories and goals…

• For men: 35-65g per sitting
• For women: 25-40g per sitting
• Eating this with whole foods in each of the 4-6 meals in the day.

Just make sure you chose as good a source of protein as possible; lean, grass fed, organic…. these are all words you should be looking out for…

FOOTNOTE: My girlfriend just pointed out ‘but what about veggies?’. Well the same rules apply as always: you have to push those concentrated sources of protein. See the vegan shopping list and the flexitarian experiment posts for more ideas on how to do this.

Increasing quality and duration for better health and recovery.

...like a baby

Whilst it’s hard to put a finger on the actualities of sleep, everyone knows when they haven’t had enough. So what you do you do to increase quality and duration aiding both mental and physical processes?

When sleeping, the body goes through processes that help you deal with stress, both physical and mental. Information is processed, a hormonal milieu is produced – including growth hormone and testosterone.

Sleep has been shown to have an effect upon short term markers of health like ability to mentally focus, coordination, reaction times, as well as longer term effects such as body composition, glucose metabolism and of course the ultimate – life expectancy itself.

What s sleep and how does it work?

Sleep is akin to a reboot and defrag that you might use on your laptop. It is partway between clear out & indexing, mixed with a physical overhaul. The brains ‘programming’ takes it thought a series of cycles whilst sleeping, indeed it has been suggested that it is not duration that counts, but rather the number of cycles you go through.

One Sleep Cycle can be broken down into:

Stage 1. Brain activity decreases, body relaxes (initial cycle).

Stage 2. Short bursts of brain activity.

Stage 3. Now in a state of ‘deep sleep’, slow brainwave activity.

Stage 4. Further slowing of brain activity.

stage 5. REM Sleep. The famous Rapid Eye Movement stage. Increased brain activity muscles ’switched off’. ‘Dreaming’ stage.

This cycle then repeats maybe 4-6 times in an 8 hour sleep period

So, deep restful sleep is what you need but how much?

Sleep quality versus quantity

Sleep needs are dictated by a variety of factors, your genetic make up can determine your needs, with multiple versions of genes (alleles) having been found. Everyone has heard of the person that can survive on 4 hours a night, this is thought to be largely genetic, however, these people are the small minority. For most of us 7-8 hours is needed but with the emphasis on 8 hours, so shoot for more than 8 hours – life will get in the way after all.

Any less than 6 hours on a regular basis will effect your performance. Stress from work, play or training can also increase needs. Although some forms of stress make for deeper sleep, physical stress like exercise generally, others will disturb it.

Of course, if it is just the cycles that count then the above still holds; some need less cycles than others and some factors can affect your cycle needs. Either way quality is an issue, if the sleep is of low quality the number or duration of cycles may be affected

The trick is to use a few simple hacks to increase the chances of deep restful sleep of the right duration. What should you do then to make sure you’re getting enough? Lets look at the environment and the behaviours that can set you up for a good kip.

ENVIRONMENTAL

The bedroom:

This is the crux of the matter, your sleeping enviroment sets the stage for sleep success

Comfortable: the bed’s mattress duvet and pillows should all be clean and fit for purpose. Studies clearly show that when your sleeping partner stirs of fidgets then usually so will you soon after so get as big a bed as possible. Pillows should be replaced every few years at the outside.

Cool: the air temperature should be a few degrees cooler than you would have your lounge and the room should have ventilation.

Dark: sleep cycles are dictated to a large extent by light so make sure you allow for deep sleep by shutting out as much light as possible. Also dimming the lights in the hours running up to bed will help trigger the chemical machinery responsible for sleep.

Quiet: this one is obvious. Environmental stimuli will disturb sleep so take a good look at this! White noise generators exist that help by generating a wide spectrum of noise, covering all sorts of extraneous noise, which your mind then ‘tunes’ out.

TV in your bedroom?

Also get rid of the TV, research clearly demonstrates a link between having a TV in the bedroom and decreased sleep duration. Also couples who kept the TV out of the room had sex more often.

• Leave the TV in the lounge

Lamps and lighting

Lamps like ‘bodyclock’ type lamps can help “dial in” circadian rhythms aiding both sleep and waking. The more natural fading of light can form part of a pre-bed routine as well as aiding getting up in the morning

• If lighting is an issue explore bodyclock lamps like THIS

it may be ugly but it works

Nocturnal wanderings

If you do need to get up in the night for any reason then don’t turn on the light unless you really have to. Turning on the light disturbs the internal mechanisms and can cause changes in hormonal balance.

BEHAVIOURAL

Training: working out will help sleep quality but try not to train too close to bedtime.

• leave at least 3 hours between the end of your session and bed. Yoga or meditation may help at the end of a session.

Pre bed routine: many who have trouble sleeping find boring repetitive and undemanding chores can help dropping off. Doing the same things each time cues the subconscious that sleep is imminent

• fold clothes and pack food for the next day.

Reading & TV: this can also be part of a pre bed routine. Reading is a more calming activity with TV, stimulating activity in many more parts of the brain. Of course lying in bed reading is going to help calm mind and body as well.

• Pre bed TV sucks for sleep, read for 5-10 mins instead.

Worrying about work: of course for many their job or career is a source of stress which can have the mind whirring away. Make sure you get down on a piece of paper your MIT’s: Most Important Tasks you need to do for the next day. Writing a list helps put you at ease and allows you to relax safe in the knowledge that you won’t forget anything.

• Task lists clear the head, try them before you get near to bed time.

Awake with ideas: connected with writing is a list is a trick entrepreneurs frequently use, this is keeping a notebook on the bedside table. If you get the spark of inspiration jot it down in the dark and go back to sleep.

Eating before bed

Eating before bed is fine, it just depends upon what you eat and your constitution. Large amounts of liquid and/or salt may mean night time trips to the bathroom. Large amounts of fibrous carbs or foods like cheese may sit on the stomach.

• Choose protein and a little fibre and oil
• Avoid caffeine, obviously
• Start cutting back on water about 3 hours before bed and
  
• Reduce salt intake in evenings

Hopefully some or all of these will help you. In a future post I go through some other tricks and also supplements that may aid sleep.

photo by peasap

]]> http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?feed=rss2&p=308 0 http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?p=239 http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?p=239#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:06:34 +0000 Drew Price http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?p=239

A good warm up stands between you and much safer, much more effective training. But what does one look like?

..no…not like this

In part one I went over the components of an elite warm up but off the  back of that I was asked  for a sample warm up – here’s what I often give out to strength athletes it is good for bodybuilers of most people weight training.

Fist raise body temperature

This aids oxygenation, mobility of muscle tissue and joints and generally prepares the body for work

• 5 mins incline walking or light, flat jog
• 5 mins ergo/rowing machine
• if you have it you can push a sled as well for 3 sets of 50 feet with 30 second rests

Second is tissue quality

Foam rolling the hot spots or problem areas on the body, this will ‘free up’ the muscle to fire more efficiently which means more work and more work = a better body:

• IT band
• Hip flexors
• Hamstrings
• Calves
• Pec
• Upper back (also thoracic extensions)
• Lats

Roll back and forth working out from the direction of the core to the extremity, work until there is a marked reduction in pain/feedback from tight muscles

Mobility

Stretching’s poor cousin this will actually do a lot more for the day-to-day ‘usefulness’ of your joints, work to the more extreme ranges of motion you can safely get and work the capacity for safe movement back into the joint

• Deep air (unloaded) squats, feet pointed out at 45 degrees 6 reps (wiggle side to side a little at the bottom)
• Thoracic mobility with foam roller
• Overhead squats
• Hanging from a pull up bar (stretches out the lat/shoulder girdle and may ‘open the spine’ a little allowing easier transfer of nervous impulses – if you believe that, not sure I do!)
• Ankle swings (leaning with hands on a wall do side to side swings of leg in front of you keeping the other foot flat on the floor, this opens out that ankle)

Muscle activation

A muscle can be strong but if it not firing at the right time or intensity (relative to other muscles in the region of the body being trained) then it’s all for nothing. Activating a muscle increases strength and stability meaning better safer training. Here we focus on the muscles that take a beating from modern life:

• Wall slides
• Scapular push ups
• Glute bridge
• Cobras

Getting HEAVY

You’re now ready to get into the serious training although you have already done more for you body than you know (most problems physios see are caused by problems the above corrects). The aim now is to ramp up the nervous system so it can best fire the high threshold motor units that are useful for shifting weight, you have two choices

Olympic lifts: a rep scheme with increasing loads and decreasing reps for the snatch and clean & jerk are great nervous system activators – you can’t help but move the weight fast.

• 5,3,2,1,1,1 hang power snatch

Core lift fast: using a combo of practice movements and fast movements as the weight escalates, take for example the squat:

• 12 reps very light (empty bar) medium fast, but strict with form -  get a feel of the movement
• 3 reps 30% 1RM medium fast
• 3 reps 40% 1RM medium fast
• 3 reps 50% 1RM fast
• 3 reps 60% 1RM fast
• 3 reps 65% 1RM fast

….you’re now more ready than you ever have been to get into your training session!

What about lighter or conditioning sessions?

This warm up works for conditioning sessions, in fact the above can be used as a great stand alone recovery session on it’s own a couple of times a week as it will:

• Increase mobility
• Lead to better tissue quality (and the strength increases to go with it)
• Help to improve posture
• Increase the delivery of nutrients to joints and muscle tissue

]]> http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?feed=rss2&p=239 0 http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?p=206 http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?p=206#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:01:25 +0000 Drew Price http://drewprice.co.uk/blog/?p=206 A seriously effective warm-up can transform your training. Are you guilty of skipping over this important part of training?

Question: when was the last time you read a sample workout routine or article that included a detailed warm up? Last month? Last year? Never?

Your warm up prepares you for the training or competitive session ahead, it’s a soup of ingredients aimed at preparing the muscular, nervous and cardiovascular systems for action allowing them to function at a higher level. A good warm up makes a training session not only safer but more effective. So why don’t more people write about it?

Whilst plenty of column inches taken up discussing different training sessions, training cycles, periodisation etc the warm-up is generally skipped over.  Think about it though, it’s the thing that ties all your training sessions together, it includes the movements and drills you will practice most often through the year!

So what ingredients should you include and in what order?

1. Raise core temperature: this can mean five minutes on a exercise bike, but I prefer the trainee to use a brisk walk to the gym and fast change in the changing room instead. This saves time and is actually much better movement pattern wise.
2. Work range of motion: Range of motion drills are like dynamic stretches. Examples of this include lunges and squats, just body weight, for the hips and legs. Shoulder rolls, full range of motion girly press ups, and shoulder dislocates (with the towel or pole or bar) the shoulders and cat stretches down on all fours for the spine.
3. Activate muscles: As we age, some muscles actually partially switch off even though we continue to train. This means that we have to spend a bit more time activating these muscles. Of course the muscles of the upper back, such as the lower traps, we all need to activate a little bit more (especially if we have an office job). Things such as wall slides and a few cable rows to the chin can help with this. The glutes are a particular muscle group that tend to switch off as we age, so activating these using single leg deadlifts or glute bridges can help. Another very effective way to activate the glutes (and improve your squat and deadlift numbers) is by standing with 1 foot on a weight plate resting on the floor. Keeping the leg straight you hold your pelvis up by squeezing the same glute as the foot standing on the weight plate.
4. Practice lift: We’re already familiar with practicing the lift before going into the work sets. You can also practice a lift that you’re not very good at, using a very light weight such as an empty bar, for example working the rear chain component of the squat by doing light weighted box squats.
5. Ramp up the nervous system: you have a few choices here, you can either:

• Train your movement of choice in explosive fashion working up in weight and reps for example if you’re going to squat, then work the squat on a light weight but completing the reps in an explosive fashion until you reach your training weight. This is very good in the bodybuilder context.
• The Olympic lifts or associated drills: nothing will ramp up your nervous system more than cleans and jerks, snatches or associated exercises like hang clean pulls
• Plyometrics can also be useful: jumps, rebounds,  push-ups with chest slap etc. A word of warning though it can get pretty fatiguing in a short time.

Depending on your goals you might also want to use a little  foam rolling or ballistic stretching but these two techniques  may or may not be right for you in the warm up context

Sample warm up to follow in part 2