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A Few Points About Protein

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At some time in your life you’ve probably heard that protein is important to eat. But most times the advice ends there. To ensure adequate protein consumption it might help to understand a few reasons why and possibly what type of protein is best.

More accurately it’s the amino acids…

All cellular and tissue repair in your body is dependant on proteins derived from amino acid synthesis. Amino acids are found in food and synthesized from within your body. We know of 20 amino acids all playing various roles in protein synthesis, 9 of these amino acids are considered essential amino acids (EAAs) while the other known 11 are non-essential amino acids (NEAAs). Although when certain diseases or health states are present, many NEAAs become essential. And since you actually never know or schedule those events, non-essential is a bit of a misnomer.

The amount and type of each amino acid requirement vary greatly. Certain types have a 10x greater demand than others. The amount and type of amino acids occurring in different foods also vary. And since all lifestyle factors play a role in each individuals requirements, it’s important to vary your protein sources and consume adequate amounts to ensure a good supply across the range of amino acids.

The focus is on protein consumption but only because protein gives the body the amino acids that it really needs. Amino acids do not occur in isolation. When you travel into nature to look for amino acids, the best source of EAAs all have either a mother or a face of their own. All plant based proteins are missing EAA for humans. This is not a slight on plant protein, just a natural occurring condition. Animal protein wins in quality, density, bio-availability and ability to sustain life without supplementation.

Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

TEF represents the energy demand from the food eaten to be digested. A specific effort is required of your body to digest, absorb and metabolize food. That effort isn’t the same for all foods. Of the three macronutrients Fat, Carbohydrates and Protein, protein has the greatest TEF.

  • Fat: 0-3% TEF
  • Carbohydrates: 5-10% TEF
  • Protein: 20-30% TEF (winner! winner!)

Average TEF for a healthy adult eating a standard omnivorous meal is around 10% of caloric intake.  But many variables play a factor in this; lean body mass, meal size and composition, temperature, mood, quality of chewing, digestive enzyme state, etc.

A larger meal takes longer to digest, therefore has a greater TEF. The more lean mass you carry, the more your body spends time processing food to extract nutrients. And the meal composition matters as macronutrients have different TEFs.

There are many variables determining the TEF, and trying to calculate it exactly isn’t the point. The  point is protein leverages the laws of thermodynamics in your favor when it comes to positive contribution to health, wellness and appetite control.

Satiety

Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. The reason why isn’t exactly clear, but we do know that hormonal activity elicited from eating protein has huge impacts on our health.

Far beyond caloric intake, food sends chemical messages to your cells about the state of the environment. Messages like, is there sufficient nourishment to support life? Is there sufficient nourishment to thrive? Is this place safe and secure. Are threats around trying to harm me. What season is it? And many other things we don’t fully understand.

When our meals contain high quality, bioavailable protein our EAA requirements are more likely to be met. Additionally, the vast majority of our vitamin and mineral requirements are met. These factors plus many others contribute to healthy hormonal production, produce signals that reduce your hunger cravings and leave you feeling satisfied that you’ve eaten enough, and informs your brain sufficient nourishment is available. You eat less often and avoid “hangry” feelings.

Recycle, reuse and reduce waste

Within your DNA are blueprints to over 25,000 protein-based compounds that are essential to functional life. Protein’s importance is paramount, said simply, if you don’t eat protein, you die. If you eat too little protein for an extended period of time, you will survive but show signs of weakness, impaired immune system function, lethargy, bone loss, hormonal imbalances and a host of all kinds of less-than-desirable things.

You want to fill your amino acid pool or “protein bank account” to the brim and keep it maintained. It doesn’t need to be full to the brim constantly, but a positive balance is the goal. A nice ebb and flow seems to be the way to go. Fill it up by maximizing lean muscle mass and eating proper amounts. And run it down a bit by overnight fasting or periodically skipping a few meals.

As your body uses amino acids, it withdraws from it’s account to cover the bill so to speak. The account gets replenished by both the protein you eat (feeding) and recycling and restructuring existing proteins in the body (during fasting). Your body is constantly breaking down damaged and old cells, recycling and rebuilding the structures as needed. It’s a constant protein turnover. This is an amazingly efficient system that keeps the body regenerated with new healthy cells. Out with the old and in with the new!

The only ESSENTIAL macronutrient

I’m talking about fats, carbohydrates and protein.

Putting things together and viewing through a pragmatic prizm…your body needs

  • Two (2) essential fatty acids (EFAs)
  • Only ~ 130g glucose for your brain
  • A large amount of EAA’s
  • Varying amounts of EAA’s
  • Varying kinds of EAA’s

Only two fatty acids cannot be synthesized in the body making those two essential to consume (EFAs). You need fat for healthy hormonal activity and transportation of certain vitamins and minerals. The amount required of these fats is very low and the proliferation of them in our food sources very high. This makes it very difficult to create a deficiency of fatty acids.

It’s true that your brain has a glucose requirement. This does not mean you need to consume glucose as is so commonly mis-interpreted. The daily requirement of about 130g is easily produced by a healthy functioning liver via gluconeogenesis. An additional benefit of protein!

And finally, with all of the body’s many functions dependant upon protein, it’s easy to make the case that protein is the only essential macronutrient.

References available upon request.

Monday, June 10, 2019

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4 Things that may be disrupting your hormones

  • Not eating enough

“Eat less, move more…” “It’s all about energy balance…” It’s very common that overweight clients or clients wanting to lose weight are under-eating.  This is typical because we’ve all read in a magazine, been taught in school, or just think with very simple logic opposed to understanding biochemistry that it’s calories in, calories out for the best results.  After years of under nourishing, your metabolism “down regulates” to conserve nutrients and prepares for the long haul of lacking nutrition. This process is all controlled by your hormones and leads to weight gain and any number of additional long term health challenges.

  • Lack of sleep

This is a big hormone disruptor.  Sleep is the opportunity to heal, boost immunity, recover, rebuild, detox your brain, store memories, and who knows what else we haven’t figured out yet.  Our culture and modern environment fails to place importance on the value of sleep. We are creatures of the sun and a healthy hormonal profile follows a circadian rhythm with the sun and moon.  Laying in bed doesn’t count as sleeping. 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep is what counts. Each time you wake at night and flip on a light, the “hormonal” sleep timer starts back to zero.

  • Blood sugar mis-management

When blood sugar is not managed properly with nutrition, organs must produce hormones to correct unhealthy (ie. dangerous) situations in an effort to save the organism (you). These amazing abilities work great in short term and “once in a while” situations seem to be harmless.  But the daily, weekly, yearly ongoing habits destroy peoples’ health. Further exacerbating the hormonal disruption is a “snowballing” effect between blood sugar swings > (lead to) poor sleeping > poor nutrition cravings > hormonal disruption from overcorrection > poor sleeping > blood sugar swings > etc. etc. It’s a vicious circle many folks are stuck in.

  • Poor emunctuary function

An excessive toxic load and absorbing exogenous hormones from the environment wrecks havoc on maintaining a healthy hormonal balance.  Our bodies absorb massive quantities of environmental toxins everyday. Toxins from our foods, the air we breathe, skin “care” products, indoor lighting, carpet, beds, plastic bottles, negative thoughts, bad relationships…the list is long.  It’s essential to support our detoxification (emunctory) pathways to allow us to off-load burdensome and harmful toxins. Exercise (breathing/sweating), meditation, limiting exposure to chemicals, dry skin brushing, clean water, healthy bowel movements, a smile, chewing nutrient dense foods, smelling your food while it cooks  are all important practices to support proper hormonal balance.

Monday, November 19, 2018

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High Definition Holiday Health Tips
9 Simple strategies to navigate the holiday party season while
maintaining health.

1.Be the Host
When you’re the host, you have control of the nourishment. You will be doing all your guests a favor by not contributing to the health hit they may be exposed to at their other parties.

Choose grain, dairy and legume free recipes and if you don’t mention it, nobody will likely notice. Build meals around a solid protein or two and have lots of fun veggie dishes to back fill folks’ plates.

2. Bring nourishment with you
Easy travel stuff:
● Deli meat tray
● Shrimp (wrapped in bacon)
● Bacon anything
● Olives (wrapped in bacon)
● Spiced (not sugared) nuts
● Stuffed mushrooms (with bacon?)
● Veggie platter

3. Fill up before you go
Showing up hungry is an easy way to overwhelm willpower when staring at a table of pies, cakes, cookies, candies and creams.

Eating beforehand may lower your stress levels, help curb some cravings and reduce the space inside your stomach. You’ll likely reduce your exposure to gluten and other anti-nutrients while still enjoying the company of your peers.

4. Politely say no thank you
Don’t be afraid to make up an awesome story about training for the World Championships of hot air balloon racing or something.

A little light hearted humor may help to defer your cousin’s insistence that you eat a piece of ments-meat pie or that strange holiday haystack candy stuff. WTH is that stuff?

5. Start your day like a boss  
Eat a high quality protein packed breakfast such as steak and eggs or bacon and some leafy green veggies to begin your day with good blood sugar management and satiating foods.

Also some good quality movement or exercise early in the day can assist with a positive mood and insulin sensitivity for the day.

6. Eat all the protein
When it’s time to eat, focus on protein first. I’m talking about the meat. Don’t short change yourself here. Get some!

Protein is the most satiating macronutrient and may decrease your desire to overeat the mysterious super-sweet cranberry slurry. (I’ve eaten real cranberries and they aren’t sweet. Just sayin…)

7. Adulting the beverages
It’s the holiday’s and family is around, taking the edge off may be necessary to enjoy Uncle
Tony. I get it.

So bring sparkling water and limes for your mixer to avoid syrups. Choose high quality beer or wine and really enjoy it so you don’t need to hammer down a 6 pack.

One or two will do just fine of the good stuff. Dry Farm Wines is the choice to have ready to open.

8. Go for a brisk walk
Go for an after meal walk. Known as passeggiata in Italy.

Encourage the kids to come with you and trek around the neighborhood to help control the after-meal blood glucose levels. Get outside for some midday sunshine as an extra bonus.

9. Enjoy the journey
Have a plan but be open to changing the plan along the way. It’s the holiday season and time for laughs, love and thanks. Enjoy your time as it is limited.

Be aware that our modern environment is not designed for health, happiness and optimization and most folks are unaware of this. Spread the positivity of health and fitnessas part of your lifestyle.

Your journey is unique, and that’s awesome!

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

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Is alcohol affecting my health?

Trade offs of consuming alcohol

The evening “unwinder”.  A wine glass that holds the entire bottle.  A few beers out in the garage or around the fire.  Very quickly, the alcohol adds up. This may or may not be a problem.  Can drinking hinder or harm your health and fitness? Should you quit drinking to improve your health? Or change your body composition?  Wait, don’t the headlines say that alcohol is good for you?

Let’s explore it.

Personally, I’ve never needed to quit drinking.  My consumption is low by most accounts, 2-3 drinks per month.  But many folks fall into the “moderate” or “heavy” zone often by accident.

Adult beverages (and their effects) can add up quickly. Maybe a beer after a crappy day at work, Friday night happy hour,  a celebration or holiday over the weekend. A little something to take the edge off and next thing you know, quite a few drinks are consumed.

A brief overview of alcohol metabolism may help. Ethanol is the form or alcohol fit for human consumption. Ethanol is toxic as it produces substantial oxidative stress and provokes an inflammatory response damaging and dysregulating neurons.  Your body metabolizes ethanol into acetaldehyde (which happens to be more toxic than ethanol) so a second metabolic process converts acetaldehyde to acetate which is less toxic. So yes, alcohol is a poison that our body must convert to less-harmful substances for us to enjoy the good buzz.  This conversion is very technical and quite the burden for our physiology to handle.

If we view ourselves as healthy, fit, active, young or “on vacation” alcohol is easy to justify.  We exercise, we eat good food, we have a coach and are working on ourselves. Maybe we tell ourselves we’ve “earned” it.

But let’s ponder for a moment…is denial more than a river in Egypt?  Lite beer isn’t a better choice and resveratrol in wine won’t save your heart.

No I don’t tell my clients not to drink.  First, most of them are adults and deserve the respect to make their own decisions.  I like to review the truths and help my clients align their values and priorities with their goals.  This empowers them to make their own informed choices and feel good about those decisions.

Alcohol will absolutely affect your health, but how much and for better or worse is less clear.  And like most things, it depends, as it is individual to each person. Yes there are studies indicating moderate alcohol intake is associated with lower risk of diabetes, gallstones, and heart disease.  BUT it’s important to note that if you don’t already drink, health experts agree and recommend that you don’t start.

If you are pregnant or breastfeeding a child, it’s recommended you don’t consume alcohol. You don’t see alcohol sitting next to the MyPlate.gov recommendations.  All these statements seem to infer that alcohol may not be associated with eliciting optimum human health.

Most research on alcohol and health effects are large epidemiological studies.  This type of research never proves anything and is straight up terrible science only showing correlations not causations.  Physiological effects caused by alcohol varies from person to person. And what is “moderate” consumption anyway?

The definition of moderate alcohol intake from the US DGAC (United States Dietary Guidelines Committee) means simply “average”.  For women, up to seven drinks per week and no more than 3 drinks on a single day. For men, the numbers are 14 drinks per week and no more than 4 drinks on a single day.  But those numbers don’t account for individual differences such as body size, metabolism, genetics, allergies, family history, sleep status, or any number of factors that will alter the effects of alcohol on you. Both short term and long term.

And because nobody pours their wine into a measuring cup, tallys their weekly drink total, or adjusts their tally to account for the high ABV craft beer, it’s widely accepted that folks often drastically underestimate their alcohol consumption. So yeah, there may be a problem since heavy drinking raises the risk of health problems.

The biochemistry is less important than the core concepts:

We have to change/convert alcohol to tolerate it
Dose matters
Our ability to process alcohol depends on many factors, such as:
Natural individual genetic tolerance
Ethnicity
Body size
Sex
Individual enzymatic properties

So what’s the sweet spot?  Again, it’s completely individual.  But I really like Robb Wolf’s recommendation of “just enough to optimize your love life, but not so much to negatively affect your health.”  The guidelines are experts’ best guess at the amount of alcohol that can be consumed with statistically minimal risk.  It doesn’t mean drinking is risk free.  But drinking can be fun.

Here in our society we often separate physical well-being from our emotional state when really, quality of life, enjoyment and social connections are all important part of the health equation.  So it’s very important to enjoy ourselves and if it takes a drink to loosen up or take the edge off, cool, there are some undeniable potential benefits:

Pleasure
Leisure
Creativity
Social connection

If you choose to drink, drink because you genuinely enjoy the experience.  Drink if it truly adds value and pleasure to your life.  This is opposed to drinking because you’re stressed, it’s a habit, other people are drinking, or you heard it was “good for you”.

Drinking alcohol is about tradeoffs.  Choosing to improve your physical performance might mean saying no drinking at Sunday BBQ’s.  Choosing to improve sleep, mental focus, or mood might mean saying no to wine with dinner. Choosing to improve body composition might mean saying no to the post bike ride pale ale.  Choosing to improve your health might mean saying no to all alcohol for a period of time allowing the body to heal. Choosing to drink once in awhile might help avoid stress triggers (or human stressors).  Maybe you become more aware and drink slower or more mindfully and choose to reduce your total consumption.

Observe your drinking habits and track your consumption for a couple weeks. Review the trends and asses the results.  Decide whether your actions align and support your goals.

Observe your habits
Notice how you feel PHYSICALLY the next day or two after drinking
Notice how you feel EMOTIONALLY the next day or two after drinking

Do you see any bothersome patterns or practices?  This is great information to empower you to make choices that support long-term progress.  Maybe delay your next drink for a short time, say 10 minutes and see if you still want it. Find ways to change any patterns that lead you toward the bar or beer coolers in the store.  Savor your drink. Exchange quantity for quality and only drink the good stuff.

References
Obad A, et al. Alcohol-Mediated Organ Damages: Heart and Brain . Front Pharmacol. (2018)

Schroeder DJ, Collins WE. Effects of congener and noncongener alcoholic beverages on a clinical ataxia test battery . Aviat Space Environ Med. (1979)

Thompson T, et al. Analgesic Effects of Alcohol: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Experimental Studies in Healthy Participants . J Pain. (2017)

Armstrong LE, et al. Mild dehydration affects mood in healthy young women . J Nutr. (2012)

Ganio MS, et al. Mild dehydration impairs cognitive performance and mood of men . Br J Nutr. (2011)

van Schrojenstein Lantman M, et al. Total sleep time, alcohol consumption, and the duration and severity of alcohol hangover . Nat Sci Sleep. (2017)

Ebrahim IO, et al. Alcohol and sleep I: effects on normal sleep . Alcohol Clin Exp Res. (2013)

Cederbaum AI. Alcohol metabolism . Clin Liver Dis. (2012)

Jones AW, Jönsson KA, Kechagias S. Effect of high-fat, high-protein, and high-carbohydrate meals on the pharmacokinetics of a small dose of ethanol . Br J Clin Pharmacol. (1997)

Monday, March 19, 2018

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Who Are You…At Your Center? 

We are systematically reprogrammed to expect more and more from ourselves. Bombarded by social media of “success” from “influencers.” We’re being brain washed into behavior that puts our eyes back on social media, notifications, and the “virtual world.” The unfortunate part of this psychological attack is that it’s working. It has affected all of our lives. 

We see too many people who think they “should” live a certain way. When we ask them why they want to live that way, they often don’t know. They’ve gotten lost in the media stranglehold. They don’t know who THEY are. They haven’t developed the skills to filter influencers and learn your true reason for being. 

It’s time you take control of your life. You shouldn’t have to be something you’re not. You shouldn’t have to demand things you don’t care about. And, you shouldn’t have to live a life that doesn’t fulfill you. When you break the chains and get to the other side, life brightens forever. 

In the fitness world, this challenge gets exposed in how people train. Many people train with somebody else’s hopes and dreams attached to each workout. It’s not until they learn what drives them internally that they remove pressure from their fitness and start loving how fitness can improve their lives.  

Do you train to help guide your kids to enjoy their own dreams? Awesome – enjoy your journey for how it empowers you to guide your kids consistently. 

Do you train to achieve success at work? Excellent – enjoy your journey for what advantages it gives you in your career. 

Do you train because you love to progress your fitness? Wonderful, enjoy your journey of physical challenge day in and day out. 

Train for YOU. Live for what you value. Improve because it inspires you. That’s where life-long progress and happiness emerge. There is no amount of physical challenge that will overcome an inspired life!
 

 

Monday, March 5, 2018

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To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. – Robert Prusig 

For so many of us, we don’t necessarily love the start or the finish; we love the journey that life provides us. We love to progress and grow throughout our entire lives. It doesn’t matter what area of life we’re talking about, we love the hard work, the breakthroughs, the successes, and even the setbacks.  The world tries to “sell” us on quick fixes and band aids to bring us “pleasure” but we believe that it’s a life well-lived that leads to “happiness”. This is what leads to growth as a person, to becoming a better you. 

It’s reassuring to know we aren’t alone. We surround ourselves with people who love progressing as much as we do. The general exercise community has not connected the experience in the gym with experience outside of the gym. We recognize the power fitness has in how we experience progress forever. We allow ourselves to love the journey!  

It’s imperative for your time in the gym to connect to your priorities outside of the gym. It’s when you use fitness to enhance your Life that you’re able to live life more fully.   

If you’re ready to love the journey.  If you’re ready to be surrounded by others loving their journey.  If you’re ready for enduring fulfillment and progress towards a better you.  

High Definition Fitness has a coach ready for you. 

 

 

Monday, February 19, 2018

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Nutrition:  A K.I.S.S approach (Keep It Super Simple ) 

Technology and social media seem to be speeding up the world, but this “mass connectivity” often causes considerable confusion as we are served more and more cheap information with less and less context.  All from so-called “experts.”  

Nutrition falls squarely into this category of confusion. Macros this, calories that, detox piss, juice cleanse fat, keto now, fasting later: what in the world are you supposed to do to get healthy, lean out, and have energy? If you just read internet articles (ironic, I know), you will be met with thousands of complex answers. DON’T FALL VICTIM TO COMPLEXITY FOR COMPLEXITY’S SAKE. 

Nutrition must start SIMPLE! 

You need to meet yourself where YOU are, today. Consider these simple fixes first and foremost before anything else: 

  • Are you chewing each bite of food 32 times? It may sound ridiculous, but this will allow your body to absorb more of your food’s nutrients. 
  • Are you eating vegetables multiple times per day? 
  • Are you eating 10 varieties of vegetables throughout the week? 
  • Are you drinking ½ of your bodyweight, in ounces, of clean, clear water each day (as a minimum)? 
  • Are you consuming a consistent, quality amount of biologically available protein? 
  • Are you mixing up your foods so that you don’t eat exactly the same thing each day? 

If you are missing one of these things, put that in place today and your health will move in an improving direction. Once you’ve got that dialed in, add another from the list. Nutrition isn’t a “figure out the fastest option” game. It’s a game of consistency, cleanliness, quality and above all – simplicity. 

Take a few moments and ask yourself, “Where am I, today?” We are confident that a few simple tweaks will benefit you and make a large difference in the medium and long-term journey towards improved health and fitness.  

And, if you’re still in doubt, remember these practices have a zero risk of negative side effects.   

Try them out, you only risk improvement!  

Monday February 5, 2018

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Fitness Is More Than Sweat 

Fitness is in the eyes of the beholder. What that means is your experience and expectations with fitness may be different than everybody else’s. But what is consistent across the board is that people pursue fitness for a reason. When you clearly understand your reason, you will find great enjoyment and progress in your health and fitness for the long-run! 

We’ve had the privilege of working with many people who have gone from unhappy to happy with their fitness, and much of that change happened as they learned and recognized what they were getting from their weekly training. So, we ask you this…. 

Why are you training? How do you intend to grow because of fitness? How long will that last? What happens after that? 

It’s easy to say “I train to lose weight, look great, or get strong.” What about losing weight connects to you? Why is it important to you? What would change in your life if you lost weight? Be honest with yourself as you answer this. Many people start a workout program for surface reasons, but they never connect to why that surface reason means something important to their life away from the gym. 

Here are two examples: 

“Last weekend I went to Disneyland with my daughters and spent 12 hours walking around and going on rides.  It was wonderful!  We-had-a-blast!  I thought I’d never be able to do that again and my family was so happy for me.” –Melissa 

“My mother received a notice from the city of weed abatement required on her property or she’d was going to be fined.  My mother is older with poor health and unable to perform yard work and my brother is recovering from recent heart troubles.  She was worried and stressed about being fined but also didn’t have the money to hire a professional landscaping company.  I told her I’d take care of it and I raked and hoed her entire property all by myself.  I cleaned it all up and completely surprised myself, my mother and my brother.  It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment and I’m proud that I could do it! And I wasn’t even sore the next day!” – Jamie 

It’s when you connect to the underlying why behind your fitness regimen that you will find deep enjoyment in your journey. What does fitness allow you to do inside of the gym, but what does it allow you to do outside of the gym as well. Your values and priorities will shift over time; that’s part of life. But, fitness has the power to change and enhance your life for decades.  

What does your effort represent? Enjoy your journey.