| What kind of book do you WANT?! | 2 Days Post Completion
Okay, so here's the big question. There are literally TONS of books out there related to physique and nutrition. There is Body-for-LIFE. There is the Leanness Lifestyle. There is BodyRx. There is SugarBusters, the Schwarzbein Principle, Get Lean, Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, etc etc.
Now, what I'm asking is this: what are these missing? In other words, if you are constantly buying new books related to fitness and health, searching for something you haven't yet found, what is it? Is it something that you can find in different books, but just hasn't been combined into one single book before? Is it a specialized approach that no one has covered? Is it a simpler explanation of a concept, or a more scientific one? More illustrations? More examples? More inspirational stories rather than scientific concepts?
I'm really curious on this one. I have a lot of writing material and lot of things to pull together into a unified format, but before I endeavor to take on such a task, I'm not writing a book for me. It would be for you - the person who stands to benefit from it. So, if you could talk to any author of any fitness, nutrition, motivational, or other general health related book out there, what would you ask for?
posted by Jeremy on 6/25/2003 12:35:58 PM | | Cory - absolutely needed sups, Marie - soy | 2 Days Post Completion cont...
Cory - I think too many people underplay the value of vitamins and minerals. These, in my opinion, are critical for health and recovery. If you don't have a vitamin, mineral, and healthy fat plan, I'd say - don't even bother with creatine, glutamine, and the other perks. Why? Because those only take someone with the optimal environment, and then improve on it. If you are not in your optimal environment, then I don't see where they will influence you much.
Now, someone eating more fresh vegetables and fruits and whole grains and whole products is better off. But the majority of people engaging in physique transformation like to eat a huge amount of protein shakes, regular shakes, bars, and other "engineered foods" and thus don't get the natural, more readily absorbed nutrients that whole foods provide. High protein diets, and by high, I mean more than 1 g / kg of your body weight or 0.45 grams per pound - place more demand for certain nutrients.
Here are some reasons why supplementation with vitamins and minerals is crucial:
- Poor digestion - inefficient digestion and improper food combinations can limit uptake of minerals. For example, consuming foods high in one nutrient can diminish absorbtion of another (interestingly enough, nature usually compensates, i.e. if a certain food inhibits iron absorbtion, it also happens to contain higher amounts of iron!)
- Hot drinks - coffee, teas, etc - these irritate the stomach lining and can reduce absorption
- Alcohol - alcohol creates deficiencies
- Smoking - smoking also creates vitamin/mineral deficiencies (not that you smoke, but are you around people who do? Ever in restaurants with smoke present?)
- Cooking - cooking destroys a lot of nutrients that are sensitive to heat (which is most of them)
- Food processing - food processing strips out nutrients. The replacements are not as readily absorbed as the original.
- Antibiotics - these conflict with nutrient uptake by killing friendly bacteria in the gut, which are responsible for helping us absorb and digest certain foods!
- Food allergies - these place a strain on the immune system and create a higher demand for nutrients. If a food group is omitted due to one, then this also creates a gap in nutrition (i.e. not eating gluten or drinking dairy)
- Crop nutrient losses - make no mistake, soil is starved and crop yields much less nutrition now than ever before
- Stress - stress creates additional demands
- Lack of sunlight - contrary to popular belief, our bodies use sunlight to process more than just Vitamin D ... lack of sunshine creates deficiencies. Vitamin D is needed to metabolism calcium, so many people who seem to have calcium deficiencies may just have vitamin D deficiencies preventing them from metabolizing the calcium that they are taking in!
Those are just a few reasons. So, if I were to recommend a basic supplement regimen, absolutely necessary, it would be:
1 tbsp of flax oil or 1/4 cup of ground flaxseed per day
1000mg of cold water fish oil (cod, salmon, etc.) per day
1 multi-vitamin per day (may I recommend The Bridge by ISP Nutrition?)
1 multi-mineral (might I suggest TwinLabs Multi-Mineral?)
Acidophilus and Bifidium (bacteria tablets) - look for ones that have at least 1,000,000 active cultures per serving and take that serving every day
200 - 400 IU of Vitamin E
1 - 3 grams of Vitamin C
That would be my recommendation! Only after you have that in place would I consider moving onto other supplements. For example, creatine won't do squat for you unless you absolutely, 100 percent surely train to total muscular fatigue, i.e. not until it hurts to bad to lift more, but until you cannot move your body part no matter what. Why? Because creatine affects replenishment of energy in the cell. If you don't reach the point of muscular failure, the creatine in the cell is never depleted, so creatine doesn't add anything to the set! Very few people have I met can train through the pain to true failure.
The only other supps I really pay attention to are ECA stack (ephedrine/caffeine) for appetite suppression and thermogenic effects when trying to reach low single digits, glutamine for periods of extremely intense training, branched-chain amino acids after high intensity training, including cardio, liver tablets for quality B12 and certain amino acids naturally occuring in Argentenian beef liver, and ginseng as an adaptogenic compound during intense training.
Marie - I think soy is fine in moderation. I have an issue with it in shakes, etc ... I still can't for the life of me figure out why people don't just eat their food and insist on drinking it? On the run, bars with soy can be fine. Soy milk, etc is okay, too, but I think if you or your girl were to drink soy every day, it could cause problems. A fully developed woman shouldn't have issues but a growing woman can certainly be affected by the isoflavones in soy. Therefore, we try to rotate soy milk with almond milk and rice milk, etc in our house, and make sure it's not our primary source of protein. Soy foods often contain fermented soy which is far superior to other forms, because the fermentation process destroys the chemicals that are potentially harmful in developing children. Soy is a catch-22, like wine - a little red wine now and then is probably great for your health, especially with the anti-oxidants you receive, but too much is toxic. A little soy probably lowers cholesterol and prevents cancer, but too much might throw hormones out of whack and have the opposite effect!
Hope that helps clarify my opinions on these matters!
Jeremy
posted by Jeremy on 6/25/2003 12:14:11 PM | | Shouts and wat-nots | 2 Days Post Completion cont...
Whewwweee I hate them colds/sinus infections. I noticed that since I've changed my nutrition, the irony is that I've had a few more infections, but they've gone away more quickly. I'll take that over long, drawn out ones any day! Vitamin C really does seem to help, I jack the dose to 5 - 7 grams per day until the cold goes away. Of course, there are so many other variables such as the fact that I eat far more veggies and fruits and allow more recovery, that those may be affecting my recovery as well! I refuse to take medications. Unless I absolutely have to by doctor, no way. Not even Tylenol. I probably haven't had an over the counter or prescription drug in about 1 1/2 years with the exception of something I took to treat my skin and of course my supplements (as caffeine and ephedra are both drugs, even if I do take the herbal versions). For my cold, I found that even though I live with discomfort by not taking nasal decongestants, etc, I seem to recover much more quickly ... with the drugs, I seem to live in this fog where maybe I don't feel the sore throat or stuffy nose, but I feel hopped up and floating. I like just feeling the raw cold and letting it run it's coarse much better. I do take an herbal tea called "Herbal Tussin" that really helps with the sore throat. It's temporary but it's natural.
Leann - heart rate? Honestly? The highest you can safely get your heart rate will burn the most fat. Too much has been focused on the "target zone" for burning fat. The reality is, that zone is only DURING the exercise and doesn't take into account the full day. Let's compare:
I'm in the ZONE and my heart rate is 60 - 70 percent of my theoretical target (and that equation is very, very misleading anyway, but we'll get to that). In this mode, I'm in the "fat burning zone". This is what so many trainers say, stick with, dude, you'll burn more fat, my textbook says so, yada yada. Okay, great ... now, on the other hand, let's take someone who is doing 85% target heart rate. Now they are out of the zone. "Too intense, dude, you don't burn as much from fat." WOW ... let's REALLY look at this.
If my metabolism, including food and everything else, is 3000 calories a day, then at 3000 calories, I will maintain my weight. Okay, great. Now let's at 30 minutes of cardio.
First, let's add 30 minutes of moderate (in the zone) cardio. In this level, we burn on average 4.86 calories per minute. What's cool is that we're in the ZONE so we burn 50% of our calories from fat! So, let's break it down:
30 x 4.86 = 146 calories, and 50% = 73 from fat.
Now let's do that crazy approach with an 85% target heart rate. At this rate, we burn on average 6.86 calories per minute, but we "only" burn 40% of our calories from fat (bummer).
30 x 6.86 = 206 calories, and 40% = 82 from fat.
WHOAH! Check it out. In the same amount of time, even though I was not in the "fat burning zone", I still burnt more calories from fat doing the high intensity training. I also burned a total of 50 calories more, which means over a week I burn 350 calories extra! You can't even get that burn rate from an expensive thermogenic! What's more, this doesn't show the whole picture. Doing the low intensity cardio quickly brings my heart rate back to normal. Doing the high intensity, however, increases PEEE - post exercise energy expenditure - so my entire metabolism is raised over a 24 hour period. That means MORE fat!
So, in my opinion, the BEST way to burn fat is a combination of weight training and high intensity cardio. What's great about the high intensity cardio is that it promotes muscle mass as well. Low intensity cardio is like sending a mixed signal to your body - it's saying "I don't want to be fast and explosive, I want to be slow and repetitive". So your body builds more capillaries (tiny blood vessels) to shuttle more oxygen to the muscle, and increase mitochondria and myoglobin, which are both little parts of cells that help with aerobic exercise and energy production. But making room for all of that means less room to increase muscle size!
Now, there are times when adding more cardio is important, and low intensity is just fine. For example, if we look at Zach, he is on a low calorie, intense execise regimen. His body simply wouldn't handle doing high intensity sessions 5 days per day, 7 days a week ... he would overtrain, injure, etc. But he needs to burn extra calories to get ultra-lean. So the compromise is to have your CORE workout involve intense training, i.e. things that get your heart rate up, this is 20 - 45 minutes, 6 days a week. Above and beyond that, you'll want to switch to low intensity simply because of recovery ... if you go beyond the 20 - 45 minutes, 6 days protocol, you risk overtraining, so it's better to have any additional cardio (i.e. when you're doing 2 a day, for example) be lower intensity.
Finally, this is just the recommendation for maximum fat loss. If you have other goals - for example, if you want to run a marathon or other endurance event - then, hey, there's nothing WRONG with your body going through aerobic adaptations, or doing the longer, lower intensity. Just keep in mind that the fast, least expensive (time-wise) route is to get that heart rate UP.
Geneva - if it's any consolation, I'd rather go topless than in a bikini as well. There's something about those straps that just rub my skin something fierce!
Emma - yes, you make a great point. That's why I wanted the opportunity to come here and bost my blogs, even being as out of shape as I was when I started! It's gotta be the whole picture, not just the GOOD picture!
Chuck - you are a cardio animal.
Jennifer B - isn't green a beautiful color?!
I'm out!
posted by Jeremy on 6/25/2003 7:10:44 AM | | More shout-outs | 1 Day Post Completion
Heather - I love the Polar heart rate monitors, lots of options to choose from and they really are the gold standard by which most products are judged!
Buzz - a yellow? What's that?! LOL. Latte, good ole lattes. I love ém. Of course, we do "double-shot soy lattes" and I just count the calories. Oh, well, at least it was for a good cause. I have never heard about Arnold being on a dialysis machine ... not to question your father, but what's the source?
Chuck - great to hear about your first day, and I'd love to hear more about how you feel after a few weeks of your new experimentations!!!
Leann - I'm sorry, are we keeping you up? :) Glad to hear you got that workout through. Isn't it fun with little ones? I have a dear friend who is trying to get her health back. She has children spaced at 6, 2, and 3 1/2 years ... ouch!
Aeowyne - I dunno, I saw Bob in person and he might have had some better shots after Get Lean, but I'm not sure if the results are superior, he's just getting better at leaning down. Essentially, Get Lean is a great program, but I've seen success with any program that involves ramping down calories ... whether it is Get Lean and going from 2800 ... 2600 ... 2400 ... etc, or if it is Leanness Lifestyle with the zig-zag, or even if it is just eating whatever the heck you want and using DietPower to keep track. The thing I like most about Get Lean is the emphasis on carbs, so our friends like Pete get to keep their muscle mass (and pump) as they lean out!
Ed - harvest them dreams, they keep ya going. MY goal is to hike the Appalachian trail ... this is how I justify carrying my daughter all over the place and hiking with her, lol. I can't wait until I get closer to that goal ... gotta get in a financial spot where I can afford to take off the half-year that I'd need!
Zach - I was afraid you had TORN something, not that you were TORN between two choices! Whew! My personal experience is that the lower paced cardio is best when getting lean, although I've never been FREAKY lean like you. The high intensity always burns me out at low body fat, but walking fast on maximum incline always seems to get that last bit of fat off.
Me ... I'm out!
posted by Jeremy on 6/24/2003 12:06:41 PM | | RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!! | Week 13 of 12, Day 85 of 84
... oh, wait, nevermind.
I just saw a beastly picture of some large, superhuman creatures covered in muscle ... the only thing that would keep them from being mistaken for the Hulk is the fact that their skin is not green ... but, whew! (wiping the sweat from my brow) I know realize I know these guys (I know, the ladies are already probably coming up with their own play on words, like the Incredible Hunk or something like that)
But at any rate, I had to take the time to say
Kim - you look mah-velous, absolutely mahhhhhhvelous. Incredible ..... thanks for sharing.
Pete - OMG. You are one shredded mutha!!! You look FREAKY LEAN - wow. The most incredible part, in my opinion, is that you can take an obviously fit physique to begin with, and STILL bust out the mad transformation in the house, say it, I ain't lyin! KUDOS
Zach - Hulk. No more words. If you showed up at my door and said, "Time to squat" I'd turn it into a cardio session and run instead. LOL.
Everyone else - you are all doing a fantastic job. What a great community. Well, I doubt I'm going to be packing the major muscle like our boys Pete and Zach, but here is a big toast to my quest to join the ranks of FREAKY LEAN. Sixth week, my active rest - here is where the mind games kick in (when you're training, it's - oh no, don't overtrain, is this too much, too little) - but when you're resting it's "oh my gosh I haven't trained my bench press is going to drop 100 pounds, I won't be able to climb a flight of stairs and I'm going to gain 2" in my waist over the week." Fortunately, I have the ole DietPower to keep me in check. Right now it's budgeting 1620 which for me is like a free day ... lol, I'm used to low calorie days (Can you believe our boy Pete is leaning out at 2200, and Zach even higher? Muscle to the rescue) but I have the sincere feeling it's going to spiral down as the week progresses to hit my 194 (I'm at 196.5 because of all the damn salt I had over the weekend .. I was 195.5 going into this!).
Okay, I'm out!
posted by Jeremy on 6/23/2003 6:53:17 AM |
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