"0g Fat", but more sugar in 1 cup than a Snickers bar!

Next time you’re at the grocery store, remember than food advertizing is no different than for cars, hair products, diet pills, etc. Someone is making money, and they are willing to use a grain of truth to claim bigger benefits!

“But as sales soar, federal regulators worry that some packaged foods that scream healthy on their labels are in fact no healthier than many ordinary brands. Federal Trade Commission officials have been cracking down on products that, in their view, make dubious or exaggerated claims. Overwhelmed regulators concede that they are struggling to police this booming market, despite recent settlements with makers of brands like Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and Dannon’s Activia, which the authorities say oversold their health benefits.”

via Foods With Health Benefits, or So They Say – NYTimes.com.

The site is geared toward bodybuilding men, so bear with the macho commentary (“Celine Dion”, etc.). But the stuff about food and insulin is appropriate for everyone, so give it a read!

My Prowler in Watertown. (Straps from Home Depot!)

I finally got my Prowler weight sled in the mail! I had been considering it for months, and a change in my training venue (i.e. the old gym closed) spurred me on to just go ahead and do it. And I am so glad that I did. For those of you who don’t know, the Prowler is a metal sled that allows you to stack weight plates on it. You can then push or pull it across the ground. It takes strength and cardiovascular endurance. It’s a heck of a full body workout! This morning I took her out for a ride in a public park right here in Watertown.

It was about 25 degrees, and the field was covered in semi-solid snow. This made dragging the sled quite the challenge: sometimes I’d hit slick ice and it would be easy. Then I’d hit slush and the sled would sink a few inches and I’d get buried. Other times I’d step forward and suddenly find myself a foot deep. But I found that the air, the sunlight, and the lack of  “gym atmosphere” kept me energized, and I’ve felt great all day since.

I did a series of pulls and pushes, and then proceeded to pull the sled the entire length of the field (about 100 yards or more) and then drag it all the way back. Going away from my water bottle and the car, I was leaning back; on the way back towards the car, I was leaning forwards, holding the straps in front of me. The second time back, I was getting some serious frozen lungs. But it’s amazing how much incentive there is to finish when (a) the only water is at the finish line and (b) I’m the only one out there, so nobody else is going to bring it back to the car for me!

I had 150 lbs. on there today. I can definitely do a lot more for the short pulls and the long drags. For pressing and forward dragging it was a challenging starting number.

I will definitely be taking some clients out there soon.

I do not have to tell you that skinless, non-fried chicken, broccoli and brown rice is considered “healthy”. But I know that figuring out if you are eating enough (or too little) of these foods is not always as clear. This is where the measuring comes in.

First and foremost, you should find either a specialist in physique nutrition or a well-known (and generally accepted) online formula, such as the Harris-Benedict.  Will this online formula be the answer to your calorie needs? Probably not. But it is a reasonable starting point from which you can adjust accordingly to personalize your plan.

Wherever you get your calorie numbers from, you will need to find a reliable way to track your daily intake. This is the point at which many people fall off the wagon. Here are the different ways people tend to approach calorie watching:

• “Intensive counting”: Every food is measured in a spoon or cup, or weighed on a food scale.  Scraping off of the top layer of food to bring the measurement within the plan is a common action. PROS: The person gets an excellent sense of what they are eating and a basis for educated estimations in the future. Results tend to be excellent. CONS: Much of the day is dominated by counting, measuring and worrying. Sustaining this level of calorie counting may become obsessive and a point of great stress. RECOMMENDATION: Use this method for the first 2 weeks of a new eating plan. You will know that you are on the right track and you will be able to make informed decisions when you are socializing or just not in the mood to measure.

• “50/50 counting“: Any food that comes with a serving size written on the box or package is recorded. Anything else, like meats, vegetables, potatoes and cheese are guesstimated. PROS: The stressful meticulousness of the “Intensive counting” is vastly reduced, and a fairly decent calorie count can be expected. CONS: If you have never accurately measured meats or grains before, I can guarantee that your guesstimations will be off.  RECOMMENDATION: Fall back to this method after the 2 weeks of Intensive counting. That will turn your “guesstimations” into “educated guesses”, and bring your totals much closer to the real numbers.

• “Packaged only”: Unless it comes in pre-arranged sizes (individual yogurts, frozen foods, etc.), all amounts are guesses. PROS: Not a whole lot. At least you are thinking about what you are eating. CONS: First, a healthy diet shouldn’t include that many pre-packaged foods. Secondly, guesstimating all the rest is going to leave you way off the mark. RECOMMENDATION: Only do this method once you have accurately measured your foods and gotten results for a while.

• “Eating better“: Simply eliminating foods that you know are packed with calories or are unhealthy. Generally adding in some vegetables or fruits. PROS: Depending on how bad your diet was to begin with, this could produce excellent results right away. The contrast of substituting vegetables for french fries will show up on the scale fairly quickly. CONS: Unless you have more than 50 lbs. to lose, this method has diminishing returns. At some point you are going to have to at least get a sense of the amounts that you are eating. RECOMMENDATION: If your eating habits are really bad and you have quite a lot of weight to lose, this is often a good starting point. For anyone who eats relatively healthy already, more specific changes are required.

In the end, of course, every individual must choose the method that best fits their lifestyle. Careful measuring and weighing may not be a viable option for the middle of the week. Sometimes even measuring for one day (like a Sunday) will give you a little bit of knowledge to apply to the decisions you will make the rest of the week. Bulk preparation also goes a long way to eliminate time constraints. If you cook all of your chicken for the week on Sunday, freeze half of it (defrost it Wednesday night), then you take the stress and the inconvenience out of eating well at work. Most importantly, though, is to simply have a plan of some sort. A plan that is reasonable, measurable and sustainable.

Fitness Tip #9

Fitness Tip #10 – Whether your goal is losing fat, gaining muscle or improving performance, proper recovery is paramount for success: get enough sleep, eat enough protein, vegetables and/or fruits, and drink plenty of water! These factors can make or break the results of your hard workouts.

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When you save your fast-paced exercise for the end of a workout, you glean several benefits. First, you allow your body to literally warm up. You also have more energy and concentration for the exercises at the beginning that are tough for you to execute properly. For movements like a deadlift, which puts incredible amounts of stress on the body and requires excellent form to avoid injury, you want focus, steady rythmn and relatively low reps. After you have warmed up, woken up your muscles and joints, and done the heavy, focus-demanding exercises, then your body will be prepared to blast out some fast paced, heart-rate raising movements.  When you have completed those, you’ll be glad you don’t have to do any more exercise that day!

You’ve heard it before: get enough sleep, drink water, eat your veggies. But it goes farther than general health. It is also connected to results. Your body will only reluctantly and slowly change for the better if it is missing decent amounts of any one of these factors. A dehydrated, sleep deprived or nutrient deprived body will simply not have the proper ingredients to consistently and efficiently improve the fat-to-muscle ratio. It isn’t a gym-rat myth; it’s science!

Don't fall for their marketing schtick!

Fitness Tip #7 – If you often feel sluggish or have trouble concentrating, or if you have something more serious like depression, get yourself to a gym! Despite what Planet Fitness* would have you think, lifting weights can actually improve brain function.

Fitness Tip #8 – Classic exercises like squats, pushups, lunges and chinups are the way to go for good results. All of the interesting machinery and gadgetry you’ll find in the fancier gyms and clubs can serve a purpose, but they can’t trump the big, basic movements.

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When you lift weights, you are actually improving the efficiency of your nervous system. Every time you lift a weight, there must be a message sent from the muscle to the brain and back to elicit a response. If this is repeated many times, your brain actually gets more efficient at doing other things, like concentrating and recalling memories. No, it won’t cure ADD or Alzheimer’s, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that some doctors recommend exercise as part of the treatment. Note that I am talking about lifting weights, which necessitates fast muscle contraction. Doing long, slow exercise on something like an elliptical does not elicit the same neurological response.

If you were to only do bodyweight versions of squats, reverse lunges, pushups and chinups, you could be very fit and maintain some decent strength. Add weights to those exercises and you can get very, very strong. These exercises hit all of the joints and the surrounding muscles, while also challenging “core” muscles. So to make the best use of your time in the gym, skip the weight machines and ignore the people dancing around on BOSU balls.

* Planet fitness has a growing marketing campaign portraying muscular weight lifters as inherently stupid. Essentially they are playing to the fears of “regular” people. Well, great for them if they make money from it. However,  I know a good handful of very strong, muscular guys who have Masters degrees and PhD’s. And although they are significantly larger than I am, I have been in their presence many times and never been eaten.

Trust me, if you are a smart male, adding 30 pounds of muscle to your frame wouldn’t make you stupid. Rather, you’d then be a smart, strong person. They aren’t mutually exclusive. The same goes for women. Adding 6-7 pounds of muscle and dropping the equivalent in fat will make you stronger, better defined and yes, still feminine and smart (unless you aren’t smart to begin with)!

Fitness Tip #1 - When it comes to weight loss or muscle gain, the number of times per week you exercise is just as important as how hard you workout.

Fitness Tip #2 – Having someone else with you while you workout is an amazingly effective tool for success. (And it’s not just because you are “more likely to go if you have someone waiting for you”.)

Working out really hard once or twice a week and then doing nothing on the other five/six days has limited value. Putting in a rigorous (not eye-popping, but of moderately high intensity) workout, of about 30-40 minutes, five days a week will go a long way.

During a workout, having someone to egg you on, push you, have fun with, spot you, and keep a helpful eye out for technical form issues (“Hey, I don’t know if you can feel it, but your back is rounding over when you do that”, etc.) is immeasurably beneficial. If you want a professional guide, personal trainers can be helpful. But even if it is just a friend that you can count on, fulfilling your New Year’s resolutions will go a whole lot smoother!

The committee, made up of expert doctors and research specialists, says that most people , “have adequate amounts of vitamin D in their blood supplied by their diets and natural sources like sunshine”.

However, a past article (2008) printed by the NY Times indicated that “People in the northern two-thirds of the country make little or no vitamin D in winter”.  That would include me and all of my clients here in the Boston area.

Of course, the main concern of this latest committee is that doctors have been recommending what they see as potentially useless (or harmful; they don’t know) amounts of supplementation, very often 1000 or 2000 I.U. Pills as high as 5000 I.U. can be purchased at supplement stores. That is more than eight times the committee’s recommended minimum for “optimal health”, and exceeds their “Upper Limit” (which is 4000 I.U.).

I have a few issues with their recommendation of 600 I.U. (and no supplementation).

• First, as I stated above, my clients and I live in a population that gets basically no Vitamin D from the sun from December to April.

• Second, people who exercise vigorously often require more than the “daily minimum value” that the average population needs.

• Generalizing that most people get what they need from their food is not a safe bet. Despite the regularity of “fortified” foods, I have run across many clients who come to me with a shockingly bad diet. With a lack of sunlight and a bad diet, there is a decent chance they could be deficient in Vitamin D. It would take many months of a significantly changed diet to build up Vitamin D levels in the blood. Supplementation quickens this development.

• One of the reasons that doctors in the past couple of years have been diagnosing people as “deficient”  is that their standards for what is necessary are higher than this committee’s. I’d love to know why some doctors came to a different conclusion than this committee.

• There seems to be little talk of physical size differences. Does a 250 lbs person need the same 600 I.U. as a 110 lbs person?

On the flip side, I think it is very important to remember these points:

• Vitamin D is a “fat soluble” vitamin. These vitamins (also including A,E and K) remain in the body for much longer than B’s and C, so they do not need to be replenished as often (unless someone is deficient, in which case, at first, they would need larger amounts for a month or two).

• Toxicity is always a concern with fat soluble vitamins. An excess of B vitamins is usually cleared out in the urine. Vitamins A,D,E and K are not cleared out and can cause internal damage. That said, toxicity levels for D are usually listed as 30,000 I.U. and up. That would mean that if you have been taking 2000 I.U. or 5000 I.U. for the past couple of years (as has been the trend), you are far from at risk for severe effects. Still, little is known about the effect of taking medium-high doses (2000-10,000 I.U.) over a 5+ year length of time. Those effects might be more subtle, so best to stop while you are ahead.

Vitamin D Toxicity at WebMD

The Truth about Vitamin D Toxicity

Vitamin D Toxicity info on Wikipedia

• It is quite obvious that doctors and researchers still have a long way to go before they get a full grasp of our Vitamin D needs.  When in doubt, play it safe.

In closing, I would still recommend some Vitamin D supplementation to people in the Boston area. However, I’d also recommend these things:

• Get a blood test for Vitamin D.

• If you supplement, take a pill of 400 I.U. (that is the common amount in an average multivitamin) to a max of 1000 I.U. Taking 1000 I.U., combined with a good amount from your diet, will still come nowhere near the 4000 I.U. ceiling proposed by the committee.

• If you already have high-powered pills (more than 1000 I.U.) take them less frequently until they are gone. Think twice a week.

• Make a point of including some natural food sources of Vitamin D in your diet:  fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel), mushrooms and whole eggs (the nutrients are in the yolk) are some of the best. Lots of milk and some orange juice is also fortified with D.

I’ll keep an eye out and update again if/when they come to a firmer conclusion on what we should (and shouldn’t) be doing with Vitamin D!

Here are some other articles on Vitamin D:

Vitamin D, Miracle Drug: is it Science or Just Talk?

Vitamin D Shows Heart Benefits in Study

Vitamin D on Wikipedia