Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The meat controversy

These days there is a lot of controversy about whether or not meat is good for us. There are countless studies that have come out saying that meat is bad for us and that we should limit the amount that we eat especially red meat. So is meat really bad for us?

That depends on what kind of meat you are eating. If you eating commercially raised meats and processed meats then those meats are probably not good for you because they are full of toxins, antibiotics, hormones, nitrates, and who knows what. However, if you are eating properly raised meats such as wild game, wild caught seafood, free range poultry, and grass fed beef then I would say that meat is extremely healthy for you.

The issue is not whether or not meat is good or bad for us. The issue is the quality of the meats we are eating. If you are eating high quality meats then you are reducing your exposure to a lot of toxins and hormonal disruptors. Just remember that meat is not bad for you, it is the toxins in the meat that are bad for you. The reason why meat has gotten such a bad reputation in the studies lately is that the meat people are eating in the studies is not the high quality meat that we are talking about. I have yet to see a study that has people eating only naturally raised meats. There is a big difference between eating commercially raised bacon and a buffalo steak. High quality meats may be more expensive but I do feel that they are well worth the extra money.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Getting the fat off of certain areas

The other day I was driving into my neighborhood and as I came over the top of the hill that crosses into my neighborhood there was a woman who was running up the hill sideways. I have seen this woman running through the neighborhood several times over the last couple of months but she still looks the same. I know what she was doing running up the hill sideways. She was trying to work the muscles in her hips in order to get the fat off of that area. Many times clients ask me what the best exercises are to lose weight in certain areas and my answer is always the same. NUTRITION. If you want to get the fat off your belly tighten up your nutrition. If you want to tighten up the back of your arms or your legs the answer is nutrition. There are exercises that work certain areas better than others but these exercises are not going to burn the fat in these areas they are just going to build the muscles. Targeting where you lose fat is all about controlling hormones and the mother of all hormones is insulin. Insulin regulates all other hormones in the body and it is the hormone that you can control the easiest with proper nutrition. If you want to control insulin you need to eat adequate amounts of protein and vegetables and limit your fruit, starches, sugars, and other refined carbs.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The importance of rotating your foods

Most people don't take me very seriously when I tell them that it is important to rotate your foods. I see it all the time, everyone eats the same 10 foods over and over again. The truth though is if you have a lot of stress in your life, are sleeping poorly, eat a lot of processed foods, or drink a lot of caffeine then you are producing a lot of cortisol. How do you know if you have an issue with cortisol. Look down at your stomach and if there is more fat there than you would like, then this topic probably applies to you.

Cortisol punches small holes in the lining of your digestive system. This process leads to food intolerances and the more often you eat a food the more likely you are to develop an intolerance to the food. For example, most everyone that I see only eats chicken, beef, and some occasional pork or seafood. Many people only eat chicken. These same people usually only eat one or two types of vegetables so there is not much variety in their nutrition. It is very important to rotate your foods and eat as many types of meats, veggies, fruit, and nuts as possible. This will make you much less likely to develop these food intolerances.

So what happens when you eat a food that you are intolerant to. You will secrete cortisol in response to the food and this starts the viscious cycle over again since the cortisol will punch more holes in the lining of your digestive system. The other side effect of this process is that cortisol in excess will make you insulin resistant, this insulin resistance will raise cortisol again, throw off the balance of sex hormones in the body, and ramp down thyroid production. This is a viscious cycle that can be taken care of by removing foods that you are intolerant to. One of the easiest ways to limit your exposure to these foods is by eating different types of meat and veggies. For example if you always eat chicken and beef you might try to eat more turkey, buffalo, lamb, and salmon. If you always eat broccoli then try switching to asparagus, cucumbers, celery, etc.

Another easy way to identify food intolerances is to do an elimination diet for 3 weeks. By doing this you should eliminate all wheat, dairy, sugar, corn, soy, eggs, caffeine, tomatoes, peppers, and citrus fruits. These are the most common food intolerances. After 3 weeks of the diet you can introduce one of these foods and see how you feel. For example, you may try a piece of toast and see how you feel. If you don't feel as well after eating the toast then you are intolerant to wheat. In a study that I found recently the average weight loss in 12 weeks on an elimination diet was 35LBS. This is pretty impressive weight loss considering there were no other guidelines given other than to avoid these foods.

Friday, June 5, 2009

What to eat on the road

Yesterday was a travel day for me and there are a lot of you who always ask what to eat when you are traveling, so I thought I would share some of the strategies that I use when traveling. I had a layover in the Charlotte airport for a little over an hour so this gave me some time to sit down and have dinner. Most of the restaurants in the airport do not have exactly what I am looking for listed on the menu but most of the time if you ask they will make what you want. So yesterday I found a Mexican restaurant and ordered a salad with a double portion of grilled chicken and a side of avocado. I topped the salad with salsa. This was very good and very filling. If there are times when I cannot find a restaurant that serves healthy food then I will just skip the meal. I think that it is actually better not to eat than to eat junk.

When I arrived at my hotel the first thing I did was go to the grocery store. When you are traveling the best thing I can tell you to do is to go the grocery store and stock up on good food so that you have it around especially for breakfast. So what did I buy at the grocery store? The grocery store had a bistro area where the meats were already cooked(this is great for traveling). I bought some roasted turkey, grilled salmon, carrots, celery, and almonds. These are all foods that do not require any preparation or cooking. So for breakfast this morning instead of eating a continental breakfast I ate turkey and almonds.

Traveling is usually a challenge for most people when it comes to sticking to their nutrition and fitness. The key to meeting this challenge is having strategies in place to keep you on track. Strategies such as going to the grocery store, always getting a hotel room that has a refigerator, ordering an extra portion at dinner to have for breakfast(instead of the continental breakfast), finding a local gym, having bodyweight workouts that you can do in your hotel room, and sprinting(sprinting is great for reducing body fat and building muscle and can be done anywhere).

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

What about dairy?

When I go over nutrition with clients one of the most common questions I get is regarding dairy. Typically, I do not recommend that clients consume a lot of dairy. There are several reasons why dairy should be limited especially if you are trying to get leaner. First of all, dairy can be a bit confusing when it comes to the insulin levels that result from consuming things like milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese. For example, yogurt has a glycemic index in the 30's which is fairly low since it is based on a scale from 0-100. The glycemic index measures how much a food raises your blood sugar. This is a a good index to familiarize yourself with but it does not tell the whole story.

If we simply looked at the glycemic index of common dairy foods such as milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese we would conclude that it would not negatively impact on insulin. However, there is another index called the insulin index which measures how much insulin you produce in response to foods. This scale is also from 0-100. On this scale many dairy foods are actually over 100. For example, plain yogurt is about 110, which is the same as sugar and white bread. Keep in mind this is for plain unsweetened yogurt not the sugary yogurts that most people eat.
So keep in mind when choosing your protein sources, that dairy foods will produce much more insulin than meat or eggs.

Another reason why dairy should be limited is because there are proteins in dairy that closely mimic the proteins found in the human body. These proteins can trigger a number of autoimmune conditions such as asthma, allergies, arthritis, psoriasis, etc. Dairy consumption is also linked to acne. I have found that for many people simply removing dairy relieves their allergies pretty quickly.

So is there any dairy that is acceptable? I would say that if you are going to have any dairy that the best choices would be the full fat options such as heavy cream, butter, and hard cheeses. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when consuming these products though. Since these products do contain a lot of fat they can be filled with toxins. When I talk about toxins with most people they completely disregard this topic and think it does not matter but I can tell you that reducing your toxic load makes a huge difference in a fat loss or muscle building program because toxins can disrupt hormones. Just keep in mind that the average person today encouters about 500 different toxins per day. Fat is where toxins are stored so it is important to choose cream, butter, and cheese from organic sources. If you consume butter from a cow that was fed antibiotics and sawdust you are also consuming those things. If you can find dairy from grass fed cows it is even better because the quality of the fats will be better and there will probably be a much lower level of toxins in the food. One special note about cheese is that cheese is one of the most common food intolerances(food intolerances will stimulate a release of cortisol in response to the food). For this reason many people would also get better results if they eliminated cheese as well.

What about my bones? This is usually the next question that comes up. Will your bones become brittle if you reduce your dairy consumption. Consider the fact that in the U.S. we consume more dairy than any other country in the world and we also have the highest incidence of osteoporosis. Calcium is not the whole story when it comes to building bones. Magnesium and vitamin D are just as important for building bones as calcium and people today are much more likely to be deficient in these two nutrients than calcium. The other factor that most people don't consider when thinking about bone health is stress. If you have high stress levels then you are going to release large amounts of cortisol and cortisol breaks bones down. In Chinese medicine the health of your bones is related to the health of your kidneys(which is the same meridian line that produces cortisol). So I would say the best thing you can do for your bones is to relax and get a good nights sleep. For those that are still worried about getting enough calcium I would say that you can get plently of calcium from things like leafy greens and salmon, and the calcium in these foods is actually much more absorbable(without the insulin load).