Category Archives: Diet
Is not eating until the afternoon bad?
I don’t do intermittent fasting every day, BUT I do think it is a very effective fat loss tool.
Of course, people thought I was crazy yesterday when I worked out in the afternoon without eating and didn’t eat till around dinner time.
One person even told me, “That it isn’t healthy.”
And yes, conventional wisdom tells you that you NEED to eat breakfast and not skip meals so not eating till dinner time does seem a bit crazy.
But is it?
In my opinion no, Intermittent Fasting (IF) isn’t crazy…especially if you aren’t eating a high carbohydrate diet and can be patient enough to get over the hunger pangs that occur when you first change your eating schedule.
If you are eating a high carbohydrate diet, then yes…it may seem like more of a challenge to get used to IF.
If you eat a high carb diet, you will experience more energy fluctuations throughout the day than someone on a lower carb, high fat and high protein diet. Your insulin will spike after each high carb meal, making you feel energized. Of course after the spike, your energy levels will dip, making you feel sluggish and tired.
When your energy levels dip, usually you feel hungry. This feeling of hungry caused by a high carb diet, and skipping those meals that your body feels it needs, does make doing IF more challenging and can make you feel light-headed at points.
Trust me…I’ve tried this and it wasn’t near as easy to get used to IF as it was with a high-fat, high-protein diet.
BUT if you do eat a lower carb diet that includes lots of fat and protein, you don’t have the constant energy dips and hunger pangs, which makes IF easier to do and an effective way to burn fat and gain muscle.
Just like calorie cycling and carb reloading (with potatoes and non grain carbs of course), doing IF every once in a while can keep your body guessing and stoke your metabolism.
Intermittent fasting can be challenging on either diet if you are used to eating at specific times of day. After a week or two of adjusting from your set meal times, you will feel like you have more consistent energy on IF.
Yesterday, I never felt hungry or like my energy was sagging. I got in a great workout too. All while on an empty stomach.
So tell me…how is that not healthy compared to a high carb diet with set meal times where you feel constantly hungry especially if you skip a meal?
If you need more convincing read this piece by an IF expert. Leangains wrote a great article debunking the Top Ten Fasting Myths.
Pre and Post-Workout Meals
How important is it to eat in a specific time frame before and after your workout? How important are the pre and post workout meals?
If you Google “pre and post workout meals” a bazillion different articles come up.
And most articles tell you when the best time to eat is and what ratio of carbs to protein you should consume.
What do I think about most of these pre and post workout meal articles?…
They aren’t worth paying attention to.
Are you a world-class athlete or a fitness model? Or are you just an average Joe/Jane trying to look your best, be healthy and reach personal fitness goals?
I would say most of us fall into the second category, which means that pre and post workout meals shouldn’t be our main concern. Having great nutrition overall and working out consistently should be our primary concerns.
Yes, eating the right things at the right times before and after your workout could help you, BUT they would only really make a significant difference if you are already near perfect. At least that is my opinion.
If you are trying to lose weight, I think it is more important to learn to eat when you are hungry than it is to try to force in extra calories around a workout because some article tells you that your muscles NEED the fuel at a specific time.
I know there are lots of people who would disagree with me – that think the proper pre and post-workout meals can make a huge impact on your progress…but they just aren’t correct…sorry.
Your muscles won’t disappear if you don’t drink that protein shake within an hour of working out. You really don’t NEED carbs or even food for that matter to be able to perform an intense workout. I’ve actually even found that when I perform fasted training, I get in my best workouts!
So then you may ask why there are so many articles about pre and post workout nutrition.
BECAUSE THERE IS A WHOLE INDUSTRY AROUND WORKOUT NUTRITION.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. People want to make pre and post workout meals a big deal because it helps them sell products!
Also, for bodybuilders and fitness models and figure competitors, pre and post workout meals ARE important. And a lot of the products were original created for those people.
Of course, now the industry has a great marketing tool…if you want to look like those people, you must consume our products around your workout.
What do you think? Do you worry about your pre and post workout meals? Or are you like me and just make sure that you eat the proper things throughout the day without worrying about the exact timing?
Like a kid in a candy store
Ryan and I feel like kids in a candy store when we go to Whole Foods.
Yep that's exactly how I look when I find something new!
We are always super excited to visit the meat counter and try any new grass-fed, free range meat that they have. We’ve gotten Oxtail, organ meet, pork butt, pork belly and so many other delicious grass-fed, naturally raised meats!
After hitting the meat counter, we sauntered down every aisle scanning for any new grass-fed, full fat, non-processed products that we could add to our diet.
We’ve found grass-fed butters, coconut butter (YUM!), full-fat kefir, pasture-raised organic heavy cream, pasture-raised eggs AND NOW…100% grass-fed whole milk yogurt!
The 100% grass-fed milk that we got is a product of Traders Point Creamery and it is absolutely delicious (not to mention like a bazillion times better for us than 99.9% of the milk that you find at the grocery store)!
Why is it soooooo much better you may ask?
BECAUSE it is 100% grass-fed, which means that it has 5 times…I repeat 5 times….more CLA than grain-fed milk.
And what is CLA?
CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) is a healthy fat that lowers cholesterol and lessens your risk for heart disease. It may also have anti-cancer properties and be helpful for weight management.
And where is CLA mainly found?
In meat and dairy products!!! And as Americangrassfedbeef.com states:
The CLA Bonus The meat and milk from grass-fed ruminants are the richest known source of another type of good fat called “conjugated linoleic acid” or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their milk and meat contain as much as five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets.12
CLA may be one of our most potent defenses against cancer.
In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA — a mere 0.1 percent of total calories —greatly reduced tumor growth.13 Researcher Tilak Dhiman from Utah State University estimates that you may be able to lower your risk of cancer simply by eating the following grass-fed products each day: one glass of whole milk, one ounce of cheese, and one serving of meat. You would have to eat five times that amount of grain-fed meat and dairy products to get the same level of protection.There is new evidence suggesting that CLA does reduce cancer risk in humans.
In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels of CLA. Switching from grain-fed to grass-fed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest risk category.14(Here are the studies the site cited.
12. Dhiman, T. R., G. R. Anand, et al. (1999). “Conjugated linoleic acid content of milk from cows fed different diets.” J Dairy Sci 82(10): 2146-56. Interestingly, when the pasture was machine-harvested and then fed to the animals as hay, the cows produced far less CLA than when they were grazing on that pasture, even though the hay was made from the very same grass. The fat that the animals use to produce CLA is oxidized during the wilting, drying process. For maximum CLA, animals need to be grazing living pasture.
13. Ip, C, J.A. Scimeca, et al. (1994) “Conjugated linoleic acid. A powerful anti-carcinogen from animal fat sources.” p. 1053. Cancer 74(3 suppl):1050-4.
14. Aro, A., S. Mannisto, I. Salminen, M. L. Ovaskainen, V. Kataja, and M. Uusitupa. “Inverse Association between Dietary and Serum Conjugated Linoleic Acid and Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women.” Nutr Cancer 38, no. 2 (2000): 151-7. )
If you want to find out more about CLA and how wonderful it is for you, check out this list of studies!
Uhm so yea…I guess I was a bit excited about our Whole Foods shop yesterday!
The P.I.N.K. Method
What does a workout and diet program need to make it big in the mainstream?
Apparently it needs to endorse lots of products and make it onto Dr. Phil. At least that’s all I could see that the P.I.N.K. method had going for it…(Oh and obviously a ton of money to spend on the packaging and marketing).
Oh and I guess it does need a whole lot of women who supposedly never liked working out, but managed to lose a ton of weight, endorsing it and saying it was the only program they could stick to. HA!
As far as I can see, the P.I.N.K. method (which stands for Power, Intensity, Nutrition and “Kardio”…yuck) is the same old crap just re-packaged with lots of pink. Light weights, “toning” exercises and cardio that looks like ever other workout tape for women is what you’ll get on their nicely packaged DVDs.
Along with the workouts, you’ll also get the same old nutritional information you find in every women’s fitness magazine, BUT they’ve made up catchy names for their dishes…like “Shred Soup” (which is essentially just a chicken broth, veggie soup) and some Pink Smoothie (I can’t remember the exact name, which is just a berry protein smoothie).
But hey…I mean don’t listen to me…Dr. Phil says it is a revolutionary new program. And with their Sketchers Shape Ups and Yoga pants that will burn more fat, it has to work right?
And if it doesn’t at least you got a free bracelet along with the DVDs…
P.S. I also love the lack of information on the P.I.N.K. method website. And I wish I could come up with some witty thing to say that P.I.N.K. stands for…Any ideas?
Man Bicep Principles
This post was inspired by Fit and Feminist. Caitlin wrote a post about 15 things she did to improve her health. When I started writing my list, I realized that everything on the list stemmed from 5 main principles. And these principles in my opinion are the foundation of developing a healthy lifestyle.
1. Question everything. Don’t blindly follow what others do. Study any diet or exercise program before you follow it. If you know the arguments for and against a program, you can really make an informed decision about whether or not you want to follow it. Questioning conventional wisdom about diet and exercise is what led me to Primal and heavy lifting/Crossfit – it led me to find a diet and exercise program that I think is IDEAL for me.
2. Experiment on yourself. Everyone is different. Just because it works for your friend, doesn’t mean it will work for you. You can’t know if something will work for you unless you give it a shot. The best way to create the perfect healthy lifestyle for yourself is by experimenting to find out what works! For example, the variation of Primal and heavy lifting that I do isn’t exactly the same thing that works for Ryan or Candy or Brian!
3. Lift heavy weights. I’m sorry. Cardio just doesn’t cut it ladies and gents. You need to lift heavy weights – you need muscle and strength to really be healthy (PLUS there are tons of benefits besides looking sexy that you get from lifting heavy weights…like increased bone density!)
4. Always challenge yourself. I don’t mean that you have to push yourself every workout, but don’t ever become complacent. Always set new goals to strive for. Don’t ever just get stuck doing the same thing over and over again. Always seek out new ways to challenge yourself. Try a new workout routine or a new sport. Try lifting heavier weights or a new form of cardio!
5. Focus on the big picture. This one has been the hardest thing for me to do. You can get so caught up in your day-to-day diet or even your weekly diet that you don’t realize all the progress that you’ve made over the past year. I know I’m guilty of occasionally getting stuck on daily fluctuations in weight or even weekly fluctuations in how much I can lift. Remember, the day-to-day stuff doesn’t matter that much as long as you remain committed to your health a majority of the time. One cheat day isn’t going to ruin your year even if it makes you gain weight the next day. One bad workout won’t set you back. Remember the 80/20 rule. If you work hard and commit to your diet and workout program 80% of the time, you WILL see results over time. Don’t stress over the few times you cheats or have a bad workout because they won’t matter. Just enjoy the adventure!
So those are the 5 main things I always keep in mind – those are the five main things I think everyone needs to live by if they want to lead a healthy happy life!
Family and Food
"Can I have a side of toast and butter but hold the toast?"
It’s always weird going on a vacation or going to visit family, where you aren’t totally in control of your eating. It’s especially interesting when your family doesn’t have exactly the same nutritional beliefs as you. (Not to mention it means lots of nutritional debates, which I will discuss in a later post).
For the Man Bicep Mom and my sister, oatmeal, toast, and carbs in general, are a usual part of breakfast.
For me..well I can’t remember the last time I had toast until today. And it is hard for me to just go with the flow after a day of indulgence…especially for something like toast haha.
BUT sometimes being around family means just going with the flow and knowing that you won’t be doing any damage you can’t correct right when you get back from vacation.
I mean I know I can just say no, but sometimes I think it just isn’t worth the effort (partly because it just makes things more complicated and we are all already indecisive and partly because of the debate and questions that will ensue…yes that is right sometimes, and only sometimes, do I avoid debate!)
Is it just me or does anyone else struggle with saying “no” and sticking to their diet when they are staying at their parents’ house? Do you find it easier to just go with the flow?
Thanksgiving – Diet or Indulge
I swear if you looked at top searches over the past week you would find something involving “Thanksgiving” and “diet.”
It seems like half of the United States population decides to freak out about their diet around Thanksgiving…not the 364 other days of the year…but on Thanksgiving…the one day they should, in my opinion, indulge.
And most of the tips that you will find are absolutely ridiculous:
- Drink water so that you feel fuller and don’t eat as much. (That has never ever worked for me..I always still eat as much but just feel way fuller at the end…like I’m going to explode…)
- Use a smaller plate (I’d love to see someone ask their host for a smaller plate…)
- Make sure to eat breakfast (If you’ve ever done IF, you will be better off fasting UNTIL the meal)
- Exercise on Thanksgiving (How about you exercise the other 364 days and take Thanksgiving off. That will probably help you burn more calories in the end than going for a long walk on Thanksgiving)
- Skip the dark meat (UHM HELLO!?! The dark meat is the best part! AND not bad if you eat Primal/Paleo.)
Ok so those tips are totally bogus. People waste a perfectly good holiday meal trying to stick to their diet by following those tips.
And I even tell most of my clients that if they like Thanksgiving food, this is one day they should indulge. I tell them they need to stick to their diet until the day of and go right back on afterwards, but for that one day, that is based around food and family, they can indulge.
I just think there can be too much stress and deprivation involved in trying to stick to a diet on Thanksgiving.
But not everyone agrees with me. And while I don’t believe in dieting on Thanksgiving (I DEFINITELY count it as a cheat meal!), Mark’s Daily Apple does give some good recommendations on how to prepare a Primal Thanksgiving or how to stick to Primal if you’re not cooking.
So if you think a cheat day will derail your progress or make it hard to get back on track, maybe following good (underlining good) tips like the ones on Mark’s Daily Apple will be the way to go.
For me though there is no question about whether or not I’m dieting or indulging. I’m always going to cheat on Thanksgiving. For me, it is absolutely worth it to eat pie, gravy, cranberries cooked with sugar and stuffing (I LOVE STUFFING).
What do you think? Is it worth it to indulge? Or do you stick to your diet?
Weekly Ramblings and wonderful links
Haha I guess "balanced" isn't the right word for the 80/20 rule...
- Did you know that stressed is desserts spelled backwards? I just saw this the other day and I LOVE THIS FACT!
- Here is a great article about the8 People Who Will Ruin Your Attempt to Lose Weight. Do you know any people like this? I definitely know people like this..they both sabotage your diet and their own!
- Also, I’ve been looking at some article about fitness trends for 2012…I was glad to see strength training on there! But sad to see that “training for obese youth” was also a trend. This needs to change! We need a Man Bicep class for kids (which will include lots of dodgeball and climbing in trees!). 🙂
- What truly is “functional fitness?” I see a lot of different workouts being called “functional” and some of them don’t seem like they are training your body to handle real-life situations AT ALL…
- I think this may be why our youth is fat. Pizza is NOT a vegetable!
- I’m definitely guilty of trying to convince people that my diet is the best BUT I try to do it by questioning them on why they do theirs not by raving about mine (unless they ask for details of course…or I’m posting to Man Bicep!).
- I am AWESOME! 🙂 I found this link on Fit and Feminist the other day (She beat me to posting the pizza is a vegetable link too!) 🙂 and I think it makes a great point. A lot of us don’t praise ourselves enough. SO start today by saying, “I’m AWESOME!
Is High Cholesterol the Problem?
If you dropped the bun that would be a healthy meal! 😉
My incredibly fit Man Bicep Mom has high cholesterol. Her doctor put her on a statin.
I have super high cholesterol. My doctor tried to put me on a statin at the age of 23. I refused. And I will keep refusing.
I don’t think cholesterol is the cause of the problem – inflammation is. I think red meat is great to eat. AND saturated fat? NO PROBLEM!
Of course, my doctor and even the Man Bicep Mom think that I’m crazy for thinking this, but I’m not. I think I’m avoiding the real problem – inflammation from carbs and vegetable oil.
Let’s look over a few facts and then I want you to decide…Am I crazy?
Where/when did this connection between cholesterol and heart disease begin?
- This connection was proposed in the 1850s by German pathologist Rudolf Virchow and it was called the lipid hypothesis. It proposed a connection between plasma cholesterol levels and the development of coronary heart disease. So saturated fat and cholesterol in the blood became known as major factors in causing cardiovascular disease.
- This lipid hypothesis began to receive greater attention in the middle of the 20th century when cardiovascular disease became a major cause of death in the Western world.
- In 1951, Duff and McMillian created the modern form of the lipid hypothesis.
- In 1953, Ancel Keys, one of the most well-known early modern proponents of the fact that saturated fats and cholesterol in the blood cause heart disease, wrote the book “Eat Well and Stay Well,” which helped the issue gain popular awareness.
- One of the major players in bringing cholesterol to the public’s awareness was Time magazine. Its piece on cholesterol in the March 26, 1984 issue was a devastating piece on both dietary cholesterol and dietary fat. Both – the article explained – were a main driving force behind the development of heart disease.
BUT is this lipid hypothesis correct?
- The lipid hypothesis was created based on OBSERVATIONAL data. BUT observational studies can’t necessarily show that correlation equals causation.
- There’s never been a single study that proves saturated fat causes heart disease.
- Dietary cholesterol has actually been proven to be pretty benign.
- The Framingham heart study showed NO CORRELATION between high cholesterol and heart disease. Below is an excerpt from the study.
In undertaking the diet study at Framingham the primary interest was, of course, in the relation of diet to the development of coronary heart disease (CHD). It was felt, however, that any such relationship would be an indirect one, diet influencing serum cholesterol level and serum cholesterol level influencing the risk of CHD. However, no relationship could be discerned within the study cohort between food intake and serum cholesterol level.
In the period between the taking of the diet interviews and the end of the 16-year follow-up, 47 cases of de novo CHD developed in the Diet Study group. The means for all the diet variables measured were practically the same for these cases as for the original cohort at risk. There is, in short, no suggestion of any relation between diet and the subsequent development of CHD in the study group…
With one exception there was no discernible association between reported diet intake and serum cholesterol level in the Framingham Diet Study Group. The one exception was a weak negative association between caloric intake and serum cholesterol level in men. [As to] coronary heart disease–was it related prospectively to diet.
No relationship was found! AND they tried VERY HARD to find one! The data showed NO correlation between diet and serum cholesterol and between diet and the incidence of coronary heart disease!
- Virtually every cell in the body has the ability to make cholesterol because cholesterol is so important to survival.
- As heart-disease rates were skyrocketing in the mid-1900s, consumption of animal fat was going down, not up. Consumption of vegetable oils, however, was going up dramatically.
- Half of all heart-attack victims have normal or low cholesterol. Autopsies performed on heart-attack victims routinely reveal plaque-filled arteries in people whose cholesterol was low.
- Asian Indians – half of whom are vegetarians – have one of the highest rates of heart disease in the entire world.
- From Good Calories, Bad Calories about the study that Time magazine used to PROVE how bad cholesterol is for you (actually what Gary Taubes shows us is that researchers MISUSED inconclusive data to PROVE what they WANTED):
In January 1984, the results of the trial (N.H.L.B.I. study) were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Cholesterol levels dropped by an average of 4 percent in the control group – those men taking a placebo. The levels dropped by 13 percent in the men taking cholestryramine. In the control group, 158 men suffered non-fatal heart attacks during the study and 38 men died from heart attacks. In the treatment group, 130 men suffered non-fatal heart attacks and only 30 died from them. All in all, 71 men had died in the control group and 68 in the treatment group. In other words, cholestryramine had improved by less than .2 percent the chance that any one of the men who took it would live through the next decade. To call these results “conclusive,” as the University of Chicago biostatistician Paul Meier remarked, would constitute “a substantial misuse of the term.” Nonetheless, these results were taken as sufficient by Rifkind, Steinberg and their colleagues [those who had been searching for ‘proof’ for decades that cholesterol causes heart disease] so they could state unconditionally that [Ancel] Keys had been right and that lowering cholesterol would save lives.
- Time Magazine also used Fred Shragai as an example of a man who now had to live without fear of a heart attack because he had switched to a low-fat diet and his cholesterol was down to 195. Of course, what the article doesn’t tell you is that Fred died of a heart attack two months later. Sounds like the low-fat diet and lower cholesterol really helped him…
- Same for Eisenhower…his cholesterol was only 164 when he suffered his first heart attack. AND what about Tim Russert? His cholesterol was only 105 (AND HE WAS TAKING A STATIN) when he died of a heart attack at 58.
- If you look at the anthropological evidence, the health of early humans took a turn for the worse when agriculture came along. Read the linked article by Michael R. Eades for more proof.
- Making fat and cholesterol the problem helps make companies money! Marking low-fat products as heart healthy makes the American Heart Association money! SO why wouldn’t they keep supporting a theory that makes them a profit? If it came out that animal fats were good for you, “heart healthy” veggie oils wouldn’t be making companies as much money!
- And Ancel Keys…he sounds like a vegetarian to me…which means of course he supports this theory! If fat is bad, people will abstain from fatty meats eat, in his opinion, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables! I thought this was also an interesting comparison between him and Jack Lalanne.
- Did I mention that making cholesterol and fat the problem makes people money? I mean statins make pharmaceutical companies MONEY! So of course they hope everyone believes the lipid hypothesis!
AH! Ok…that is all I have energy to rant about for now.
Here is one last article to look at if there isn’t enough proof here to convince you (and if this article doesn’t do it, take a look at the one in my post the other day that talks about how eating like a Caveman is good for you! OR just buy this book if you aren’t convinced – The Great Cholesterol Con.
And here is a good quote that I found during my research to leave you with…The Lipid Hypothesis (fat and cholesterol are the problem) is all one big lie that’s been repeated so often that we believe it!
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. – Goebbel
Love the Support
So yesterday I stumbled upon two different articles that support the Man Bicep beliefs.
This first article basically states that eating like a Caveman is good for you! THANK YOU!!! The diet can help you lose weight and improve your health – it can lower your blood pressure AND your cholesterol. Seems like carbs may be a bigger problem when it comes to high cholesterol than fat is!!
Of course, this article does recommend lean meats, which you may think is contrary to what I’ve said in the past, BUT I support eating “fatty” naturally raised meats such as grass-fed beef. Grass-fed beef, even the fatty cuts, is leaner than it’s grain-fed counterparts. So yea…eat “lean” aka grass-fed, naturally raised animals! 🙂
Second article that I LOVED is about NOT RUNNING! This is a post about weight training and dieting to lose weight/fat NOT running. I totally agree that cardio isn’t the best tool for weight loss and that there are actually a lot of negatives to chronic cardio.
So if you want to look super hot, stop the chronic cardio and start weight training! 🙂
Chalk up two more points for Man Bicep and 0 for Conventional Wisdom!
Man Bicep 