How much

Six healthy young men reported to the laboratory on 5 separate occasions to perform an intense bout of leg-based resistance exercise. After exercise, participants consumed, in a randomized order, drinks containing 0, 5, 10, 20, or 40g whole egg protein. Protein synthesis and whole-body leucine oxidation were measured over 4 h after exercise by a primed constant infusion of leucine.

APS increased in a dose-dependent manner and also reached a plateau at 20g ingested protein. Leucine oxidation was significantly increased after 20 and 40g protein were ingested.

Ingestion of 20 g intact protein is sufficient to maximally stimulate MPS and APS after resistance exercise. Phosphorylation of candidate signaling proteins was not enhanced with any dose of protein ingested, which suggested that the stimulation of MPS after resistance exercise may be related to amino acid availability. Finally, dietary protein consumed after exercise in excess of the rate at which it can be incorporated into tissue protein stimulates irreversible oxidation.

Source: Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin synthesis after resistance exercise in young men

and here’s another one

This study sought to compare changes in muscle protein synthesis and anabolic efficiency in response to a single moderate serving (113 g; 220 kcal; 30 g protein) or large serving (340 g; 660 kcal; 90 g protein) of 90% lean beef.

Mixed muscle fractional synthesis rate was calculated during a 3-hour postabsorptive period and for 5 hours after meal ingestion. A 113-g serving of lean beef increased muscle protein synthesis by approximately 50% in both young and older volunteers. Despite a threefold increase in protein and energy content, there was no further increase in protein synthesis after ingestion of 340 g lean beef in either age group. Ingestion of more than 30 g protein in a single meal does not further enhance the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis in young and elderly.

Source: A Moderate Serving of High-Quality Protein Maximally Stimulates Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis in Young and Elderly Subjects; Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 109, Issue 9, Pages 1582-1586

So according to the research above we are seeing that muscle protein synthesis maxes out after a meal at 20-30 grams and anything in over will actually not help stimulate more muscle protein synthesis, but rather just increase excess oxidation (burn for energy).

More Protein Does Not Mean More Muscle

While protein is of course essential to building up muscle, that doesn’t necessarily mean that just eating more and more guarantees bigger muscles. So how much do we really need in the first place? Well here’s some numbers for you:

• The RDA (recommended dietary allowance) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight of adults. Or I have also seen advised that women need at least 46 grams of protein per day, and men need at least 56 grams of protein per day (to avoid deficiency).

• NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association) recommends that for active people ,endurance and strength training, a higher intake is advised at around 0.4-0.6 per lb of bodyweight (and up to 0.8 for full time athletes).

*Note that most of these “body weights” for calculating protein are more based on “ideal” (or even “fat free”) weight.

These are interesting numbers and much lower than what you may hear out there. You can see that with more activity, then the recommended amount of protein will increase. What is also important to remember that the overall calorie intake is also increasing with activity level. So in essence, while the amount of protein may increase the % of protein per daily calories may actually be the same (or less). Just something to keep in mind, as calories also matter.

Intermittent Fasting and Protein Intake

Well if you look at the info above where only 20-30grams of protein are absorbed per meal, then what about many of us IF’ers who eat less number of but larger meals? Are we going to lose all our muscle when we fast and only eat 2-3x a day? Of course by now many who IF already know that is not true.

But it does call into question about “needing” 5-6 meals of 20-30grams of protein to maximize muscle protein synthesis. As much as every supplement company would love us all to believe that we need a 20gram whey protein shake every 2-3 hours (and fuel more supplement sales), in fact maybe the body works better when presented a randomized/stressed environment and not some set equally divided schedule day in and out.

Here’s a little outtake from Dr Eades on his blog comments (#2 to be precise) about protein turnover and IF that is very enlightening:

I don’t think IF would affect muscle mass much at all. If you go without food for a long period of time, say, several days, your metabolic system goes after your muscle mass to convert the protein stored there into the glucose you need to keep your blood glucose normal. This doesn’t happen in the short term. All the protein structures in the body draw from and add to the amino acid pool. When muscle breaks down the individual amino acids go into the pool from where they’re harvested by the system that converts them to glucose. When new muscle is made, the amino acids used to construct the muscle protein are drawn from the amino acid pool. One of the contributors to the AA pool is enzymes that are no longer needed and junk proteins that the body is cleansing from the cells. When one is fasting, one of the group of enzymes not really needed is the group of digestive enzymes that would otherwise be employed in digesting food. These enzymes break down and their amino acids enter the AA pool where the muscle can pick them up as needed. Also, during an IF, the body goes into ketosis. I posted a few months back on how ketosis stimulates the process of cellular cleansing by removing junk proteins from the cells. The amino acids from these proteins also enter the AA pool where they can be recycled by the muscle mass. So, even though new protein isn’t coming into the body minute by minute from the diet, there is plenty of substrate there in the AA pool to last until the next meal, which is, at most, only 24 hours away.

So by the looks of it, actually not eating all day long may help increase you ability to build more muscle on less dietary protein. By using IF and allowing the body to recycle old junk proteins (remember autophagy?) as well as enzymes, the demand for amino acids through diet could be less.

Protein Pulsing for Better Anabolic Responses?

Here’s another interesting outlook on how the body is actually able to use proteins in a larger meal vs several spread out ones.

After a controlled period, 15 elderly women (mean age: 68 y) were fed for 14 d either a pulse diet (n = 7), providing 80% of the daily protein intake at 1200, or a spread diet (n = 8), in which the same daily protein intake was spread over 4 meals. Both diets provided 1.7 g protein•kg fat-free mass (FFM). Protein accretion and daily protein turnover were determined by using the nitrogen balance method and the end product method (ammonia and urea) after an oral dose of glycine. Nitrogen balance was more positive with the pulse than with the spread diet. Protein turnover rates were also higher with the pulse than with the spread diet, mainly because of higher protein synthesis in the pulse group than in the spread group.

Source: Protein pulse feeding improves protein retention in elderly women; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 69, No. 6, 1202-1208, June 1999

My favorite big meal of protein usually involves lots of juicy steak....what's yours?

So in this group it seems that when eating a “protein pulsing” style of having 80% of daily protein in one meal (and 20% later on), it actually increased nitrogen balance, protein turnover and protein synthesis…when compared to the equally spread out diet. In short…they became more anabolically responsive (for the muscle building nerds).

But to be fair, the same study was done on younger (mid 20s) women too, and this time the results were even between the pulse and spread diet. While there was no increases in the nitrogen balance or protein turnover/synthesis for the younger group, there was also no disadvantage from the pulsing pattern.

Lesson to be learned, eating protein in a pulsing style/larger meal (although through the studies up top would go against it) does not decrease the anabolic factors associated with muscle gain. In fact, as we get older and our anabolic sensitivities/responses start to decline (all downhill from 30 after all!), it may be more vital to use such strategies to help keep us more responsive (as the study for protein pulsing was initially done to try and help elderly people from losing muscle with age).

But Post Workout Protein Makes More Muscle … Right?

While eating protein is part of the building blocks for making more muscle, it is important to know that your body works in the long term and not minute by minute. With that in mind, how about the importance of the post workout shake (as we hear that eating right after a workout increases protein synthesis)? But that “microscience” ignores the overall bigger picture on whole body recovery that has us building muscle long after the “post workout” window. Here’s a study to help show that point:

Twenty healthy men were studied in the evening after consuming a standardized diet throughout the day. Subjects participated in a 2-h exercise session during which beverages containing both carbohydrate and a protein hydrolysate (C+P) or water only (W) were ingested.

During exercise, whole-body and muscle protein synthesis rates increased by 29 and 48% with protein and carbohydrate coingestion.

During subsequent overnight recovery, whole-body protein synthesis was 19% greater in the C+P group than in the W group. However, mean muscle protein synthesis rates during 9 h of overnight recovery did not differ between groups.

We conclude that, even in a fed state, protein and carbohydrate supplementation stimulates muscle protein synthesis during exercise. Ingestion of protein with carbohydrate during and immediately after exercise improves whole-body protein synthesis but does not further augment muscle protein synthesis rates during 9 h of subsequent overnight recovery.
Source: Coingestion of Carbohydrate and Protein Hydrolysate Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis during Exercise in Young Men, with No Further Increase during Subsequent Overnight Recovery; Journal of Nutrition, doi:10.3945/jn.108.092924

Confused? Well I’m going to let my buddy Brad Pilon and author of the new ebook “How Much Protein” answer that one:

What you are looking at is two different measurements of protein synthesis in the human body. “Whole body protein synthesis” is a measurement of the protein synthesis happening in your entire body. This includes things like your liver, heart, lungs, brain GI Track and your muscles. This measurement does not tell you WHICH part of your body the protein synthesis is happening in, just that it is happening. “Muscle protein synthesis” is specifically measuring the amount of protein synthesis that is happening IN your skeletal muscle.

So from the example you posted above, it is obvious that the post workout protein shake increased whole body protein synthesis, but did not increase skeletal muscle protein synthesis. Most likely this means that the extra protein increased protein synthesis in your liver and gastrointestinal tract, but had no measurable effect on your muscles.

So if the point of taking protein before, during, and after your workouts is to build muscle, then the research you quotes seems to say that there would be no additional muscle building effect.

You can skip all the money you spend on protein shakes/powder and just eat enough protein with real foods, as you don't need as much as you think you do.

When you have the right kind of recovery and still eat enough during the day, it seems the “hype” about the post workout window goes away. Honestly unless you are a hard training athlete who needs immediate glycogen replenishment to train again the next day, trying to intake protein (with carbs) during or right after a workout is not necessary.

If people are going to insist on something around workouts, then I would say only a small intake of BCAAs PRE-workout would be most the average person would need. Whether you eat or not immediately after a workout can be up to you, but I wouldn’t base it on some extra muscle building theory.

Higher Protein and Weight Loss

The other part of the equation when it comes to why you eat protein, is about your goals and how many calories you are intaking. Many people use the higher protein intakes when they are looking to lean out and minimize muscle loss. Protein being a harder macronutrient to convert to fat (than carbs or fat), makes it an easy choice to eat more of while keeping carbs/fat low.

Protein will also help you to feel fuller and less likely to overeat on any other macronutrient (fat/carbs). So even if you are intaking more than enough protein to maintain muscle, you are really doing it from another strategy that may include just trying to avoid excess calories and lean out.

Wrapping Up

• The amount of protein that you REALLY need to build muscle is lower than you think, but you still have to get in enough calories from some place.

• Most people using higher protein based diets are usually trying to lose weight and maintain muscle (by limiting calories from excess fat and carbs). As remember, calories matter when you are trying to lose weight.

• If your intake of carbs or fats is higher, then your need for protein (as a calorie source only) decreases. Also diets higher in carbs/fats tend to have more nitrogen sparing effect. The issue being making sure you are eating healthy (especially carbs) and not overdo it, as it could easily be stored as fat. This is why many just go the higher protein way, because of an easier route for body composition and they say “well I have to eat something…mine as well be more meat!”.

• The more active you are, the more protein you probably should intake. Most average active people only need about 0.6g/lb of lean mass. On the high end I would say only need to go 0.8-1.0g, but that does not guarantee extra muscle especially when you can up calories from fat/carbs.

• Using IF (intermittent fasting) is not going to make your muscle waste away, but will in fact actually utilize more internal sources for AA (amino acids) such as unused enzymes and junk proteins.

• Skip the protein shakes and eat real foods….as the additional vitamins, minerals, and essential fats also play a role in building more muscle (and burning fat too)

• Unless you are needing immediate muscle glycogen replenishment for the next day of training (athletes), you don’t need that immediate post workout shake/meal.

• Bodybuilders telling you to eat 300+ grams protein a day and train 5x a week…..are only getting results due to the best genetics (much higher than average protein synthesis capabilities) the world has to offer…or a little help from anabolic hormones (steroids) to increase protein synthesis with that higher protein intake (and frequent workout schedule). The average person could not do much with that strategy (except just burnout).

• Seems that whether you eat in 2-3 bigger meals (and/or pulse 1 large meal), or 6 smaller meals…..it won’t matter for muscle building. In the long run, the results are the same as long as the total amount of protein is kept constant.

So there you go. Did it make you rethink how much protein you really need? I wish someone had this talk with me when I was around 16 because I could of saved $1000s over the next 10+ years from not buying all sorts of protein powders/shakes/bars. When it comes to muscle building, having enough protein matters of course….but the amount is smaller than most would think (especially when you can get enough calories in from carbs/fats and have adequate training + recovery).

More reading: If you want more studies to understand how much protein you really need, then I highly recommend Brad Pilon’s How Much Protein ebook, as it is one of the best straight forward and scientifically (and not bodybuilding hyped) based reads on protein out there.

Fitness Spotlight Cooking Video from Antonio Valladares on Vimeo.

For those wanting a run-down, here are the things that Donna threw into the marinade: Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, pepper, hot sauce, olive oil, cumin, garlic, oregano, cloves, and sea salt. Some other ideas she threw out were capers, coconut butter, tamari, fruit concentrates, and maple syrup. I probably missed a few, but you can see that the possibilities are endless.

Now let me tell you what I really like about this video. It’s all about the art of cooking, rather than the science. It’s how I cook in my own kitchen most of the time. I basically say, “Okay, so I have a chicken, now what?” and then I just start grabbing things I have around…spices, herbs, tamari, capers, olives, brown mustard, apple cider vinegar. You name it, it’s fair game. I basically create most of my meals on the fly and even when I have a recipe, I end up doctoring, adding a bit more garlic or throwing in some cumin, swapping one herb for another. You get the idea.

You can tell that she’s having a good time putting together what looks like a killer, delicious, and very healthy meal. Lots of herbs, spices, vegetables, pastured meat, butter…just loads of good stuff without making it difficult. Who said cooking is hard?

Of course, if you’re just getting started with cooking healthier, you might not be sure of what flavors go well together and playing with the “art” of cooking might not be the best way to start. That’s where the science comes in…let someone that’s done the experimenting show you a few things. From there, you can start playing, adding, substracting, and substituting. Or if you’re looking for some more ideas, be sure to check out Antonio’s cookbook, Healthy Urban Kitchen. It’s loaded with plenty of easy, awesome recipes like this one.

Win Rachael Ray Cookware

I’ve been working on this with Tyler at Cookware.com for about a month or so, trying to put together a giveaway for you all. So what we came up with was a set of casserole dishes for one lucky person from their Rachael Ray Cookware line.

This is a really nice 3-piece stoneware set and I’ll be honest, I’m rather jealous that I can’t have it. Stoneware is great for roasting and baking due to its even heat distribution.

So here’s what I need you to do…leave a comment (be sure to include your email address as that’s how the winner will be contacted) and give a brief run-down of one of your favorite recipes. It doesn’t have to be exact, just like Donna wasn’t exact. Just throw out some ideas for others to use when they get in the kitchen and want to do some playing around. The winner gets their pick of the available colors.

You have until Monday, November 9th at 8pm to get a comment in. Remember, leave your email address…no email address, no win.

So why not look at them all together and try to draw some common threads?

Vitamin And Mineral Deficiency Prevalence

For starters, there are thirteen known vitamins and untold numbers of minerals. The vitamins are classified as either fat-soluble - vitamins A, D, E, and K - or water-soluble - the B vitamins and vitamin C. A few major minerals are calcium, zinc, magnesium, copper, iron, and iodine. There are far too many trace minerals to list, however.

Unfortunately, I can’t find solid evidence on most of the vitamins and minerals about how many people are deficient. Here are the ones I was able to come up with from this site: [I was hoping to find some stuff on PubMed, but it doesn't seem many studies have been done, which makes sense in an industrialized nation where people are presumed to be well-nourished.]

Vitamin/Mineral Deficiency Prevalence

How Did We Get Here?

Depleted soils. Processed foods. Indoor living. Fear of the sun. Pretty much a complete rejection of the evolutionary lifestyle that sustained us for a couple million years. It all adds up to pretty high levels of vitamin and mineral deficiencies across the population. While most people aren’t deficient enough to get the overt symptoms, such as rickets or bleeding disorders, lots of us have less than recommended levels, which does have an effect over the course of a lifetime. Just look at all of the studies showing that low vitamin D levels, though high enough to stave off rickets, being tied to cancer, cognitive impairment, heart disease, and any number of other diseases.

I think there’s also one other culprit - low-fat diets. Low-fat diets tend to promote processed foods that are fortified with selected vitamins. But there’s one problem. No matter how many IU of vitamins A & D you cram into that skim milk (because skim is what’s always recommended), the body can’t absorb them without fat.

A Toxic Environment

So check out some of the stuff I came across about what specific types of pharmaceuticals do to vitamin and mineral status:

These drugs/substances lead to these specific nutrient deficiencies:
* Antibiotics - Vitamin A, B-12, C, E, K, Biotin, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium
* Chelators - Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc
* Anticonvulsants - Vitamin B-2, B-12, C, F, K, Folic Acid, Calcium, Magnesium
* Antidiabetics (Oral) - Vitamin B-2, B-12, C, D, Folic Acid
* Antihistamines - Vitamin C
* Aspirin - Calcium, Folic Acid, Iron, Potassium, C, B Complex

How many people are reaching for the antibiotics at every little illness? Now let’s look at the effects of deficiency of a few of these vitamins and minerals.

Zinc Deficiency

Zinc Deficiences A Global Concern

Other vitamins and nutrients may get more headlines, but experts say as many as two billion people around the world have diets deficient in zinc – and studies at Oregon State University and elsewhere are raising concerns about the health implications this holds for infectious disease, immune function, DNA damage and cancer.
….
Zinc is naturally found associated with proteins in such meats as beef and poultry, and in even higher levels in shellfish such as oysters. It’s available in plants but poorly absorbed from them, raising additional concerns for vegetarians.

The article also points out that even mild zinc deficiency is associated with higher levels of DNA damage. And of course, zinc is incredibly important for testosterone production and for releasing enzymes that inhibit testosterone conversion to estrogen.

Magnesium Deficiency

The Importance of Staving Off a Magnesium Deficiency

The latest government study shows a staggering 68% of Americans do not consume the recommended daily intake of magnesium.
….
The National Academy of Sciences has determined that most Americans are magnesium deficient, with men obtaining only about 80 percent of their daily needs with women fairing even worse obtaining about 70 percent of their needs.

But magnesium is only a big deal if you care about having strong teeth and bones, not cramping during your workouts, how effectively your heart pumps, and your blood pressure. Y’know, just a few somewhat important things like that.

Vitamin K Deficiency

New vitamin K analysis supports the triage theory - Modest vitamin/mineral deficiencies increase age-related disease

An important analysis conducted by Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute scientists suggests the importance of ensuring optimal dietary intakes of vitamin K to prevent age-related conditions such as bone fragility, arterial and kidney calcification, cardiovascular disease, and possibly cancer….
Average intakes of vitamin K in the United States and the United Kingdom are less even than currently recommended intakes, which are primarily based on levels to ensure adequate coagulation.

Unfortunately, that article recommends the typical plant vitamin K sources like spinach and Swiss chard, completely ignoring even better sources, namely animal foods. I pointed out in this fat-soluble vitamins series, that vitamin K2 is at least as important as K1 and showed some great sources like egg yolks, butter, ground beef, and liver.

I won’t run through all of the various effects of vitamin K since I’ve already done so in here. If you didn’t read that series the first time, you might want to check it out to learn more about the oh-so-important fat-soluble vitamins.

Vitamin D Deficiency

I think vitamin D is so important that I can’t really touch on it enough. And I know that I’ve written about it quite a few times. So if you want to know what vitamin D does and how having adequate levels affects you, check out these two articles:
Get Your Vitamin D Checked: Why And How?
Just How Important Is Vitamin D?

Also, one of my readers sent me this article written by his girlfriend (or fiancee or perhaps even wife) which goes a bit more in-depth than I’ve ever gone: Vitamin D Sources, Supplementation and Toxicity. Unfortunately I can’t recall who sent it to me, but thanks!

Check this out…from Ms. Perciavalle’s page:

Vitamin D deficiency is now considered to be a pandemic. Approximately 1 billion people worldwide have deficient levels of Vitamin D.

So while the media is concerned with a supposed H1N1 pandemic, one-sixth of the people in the world are deficient in vitamin D (and I’m betting a huge number that aren’t “deficient” are sub-optimal). Go check out those links to see all of the various effects of being deficient in D.

How To Resolve Vitamin And Mineral Deficiencies

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, just a high-level view at a few of the vitamin deficiencies that people don’t notice, but which cause numerous effects that are typically chalked up to “aging”. I strongly believe that most of these issues can be resolved pretty simply. And I don’t mean loading up on supplements.

Eat Real Food

For starters, we need to just Eat Real Food. No matter how fortified or enriched your packaged, processed foods are, they will never compare to real, unprocessed fruits, vegetables, and meats. So eat your grass-fed meats, poultry, eggs, and wild seafood. Load your plate up with vegetables and fruits. Snack on nuts. And ditch everything that says “Now With Added X”.

Your body needs plenty of healthy fats. Get rid of the highly processed polyunsaturated fats and go with stable fats like coconut oil and palm oil and the fat from grass-fed animals. These the healthy fats that your body craves and that retain all of their vitamins.

Eat Organic And Grass-Fed

Some studies say organic food has more nutrients than non-organic food. Other studies say it doesn’t. Regardless, I think organic is a better bet, if for no other reason than that the pesticides and fertilizers left on the food represent a toxic load for your body to deal with. I’d also imagine, though I’m guessing, that dealing with these toxins requires some level of vitamins and minerals, perhaps exacerbating nutrient deficiencies. Certain produce items have been shown to have higher pesticide contamination levels and should be your first choice for going organic.

I also found some interesting information showing that low vitamin A diets lead to increased intramuscular fat storage (i.e., marbling) in cows (I bet it does the same in humans…). You can bet feedlot farms are using that to their advantage to increase the grading of their meat, while decreasing the vitamin content of the actual meat. There’s yet another reason to eat grass-fed meats.

Should You Take Supplements?

Finally, I do take a few supplements in small amounts (and one in big amounts). I take zinc and magnesium due to my workout load, along with a large daily dose of vitamin D after testing very low, and I take a whole foods-based multivitamin as a cheap insurance policy. Other than that, nothing. I think loading up on vitamin C or E or whatever probably causes more issues than it cures since vitamins need to exist in ratios in the body, not just in mass quantities.

If you do think you need to shore up a few nutrient deficiencies, Vitamin Shoppe carries a wide range of supplements, including zinc, magnesium, and vitamin D. Just remember to look to real food first, supplements second.

What other ways do you see to shore up nutrient deficiencies?

We have been busy around here (and have many more things coming down the pipeline as well), so here’s just a quick recap of the new/coming soon updates at Fitness Spotlight. Also are some links to other articles (and videos) from around the web worth taking a look at.

News and Updates

• Yep…we are at it again. If you are on the main site you may notice a new look. We have taken your feedback and cleaned up to have the info you need with no clutter. Also you will notice down the bottom we will always be rotating in 4 random posts (every time you refresh or go to a new page) from all our past articles (as well you can browse by category in the footer). All the information you need at your fingertips!

• Fitness Spotlight is now officially on Facebook and you can become a fan! For more of our individual personal “wit and charm”, you are welcome to friend us on our personal Facebook accounts also (click here for Mike’s profile and click here for Scott’s profile).

• Want some free quick bodyweight based workouts 3x a week (no gym needed)? Then be sure to head over to BodyFitBurn and get them 3x a week. Now setup as a daily blog with RSS/Email (and soon on Facebook) feed options.

• Attention health and fitness bloggers, we want you to join our community (where we all work together). There is a big project on the horizon and want you to be a part of it. So make sure to join the “Blogger Revolution” community email list here and you will get more updates soon.

• If you are a trainer and/or are in the professional health and fitness business (bootcamps, massage therapists, etc), be sure to also join our professional community here (as we have a free new online directory coming very soon for you)

• Another quick reminder….Sunday Nov 1st is IF day to help spread awareness of IF (and the health and weight loss it can bring). You can get the FREE IF Life Revolution ebooks (3 total) at the IF Life.

Great Articles from Around the Web

• Here’s an interesting article about one anthropologist who claims modern man is a wimp

• Chris at Zen to Fitness gives 10 Tips for a better night’s sleep (as we know how important it is to our health)

• Dr Eades has a 2 part series on the question “are we meat eaters or vegetarians?”. Here is Part I and here is Part II.

• Like they say: “behind every great man is a greater woman!”, so meet Carrie “Mrs Grok” Sisson (the wife of Mark “Grok” Sisson from Marks Daily Apple) and see all her answers to many reader questions about food and fitness.

• The New York Times explores if we really need more exercise to be healthy. I think people need to drop the “exercise” and “cardio” words and just be “active in a lifestyle capacity”. Add in some resistance training here and there and then focus on what matters the most….what you eat! I like this quote from the article to point home why more exercise shouldn’t be the primary focus: “‘I have all my assistants running five miles a day, but they eat 10 miles a day.”

• Conditioning Research Chris has a great interview with the coauthor of a new book on HIT training (high intensity training).

• Vic has been putting on some muscle over at Gym Junkies and is sharing his top 10 muscle building foods he has been using.

• Leo over at Zen Habits is going to help unleash your inner child with this post.

Videos that are Important to Your Health

• This video on Yahoo News reports on how the FDA is now cracking down on all those misleading/false “health claims” made by food manufactures. Rule of thumb, if it needs a claim on the box to be “healthy”, you shouldn’t be eating it (as the best foods don’t need claims on them….like fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, etc). Don’t fall for misleading marketing claims…as “Real Food” doesn’t have labels or claims.

• Next video below (if having problems seeing, here is original on YouTube) is one on cholesterol and the ongoing myth about it in mainstream media that is fueled by a billion dollar “statin” market out there. You can also see more on debunking cholesterol and heart disease in this article on Chris Masterjohn’s site. Moral of the story: the real issue is oxidation of LDL particles (as well as the actual size of them) and other inflammatory markers, not just the total cholesterol number (that has doctors pushing statins on their patients like candy)

• Lastly is this great interview on CNN with Dr Andrew Weil on his thoughts about how we need to change the “health care mentality”. A little long (18min) but really excellent points he drives home.

Is this just part of a wake-up call on an evolutionary level?

Where did We go Wrong?

Today’s environment that we live in (including the foods that we eat) is far from the natural conditions that people lived in long ago. That is not to say we all need to move back into caves and hunt for food, but we should focus on the more important recent (esp the last hundred years) changes that are taking our health in the wrong direction.

Those big changes include:

• Rancid Fats/Oils/Trans Fats in Processed Foods
• Sugars/HFCS in Processed Foods (disaster for the liver)
• Lack of Daily Exercise/Activity/Movement
• Calorie Excess/Overload (processed foods high in calorie density)
• Hormones and Pesticides in Food (dairy and meat especially)
• Exposure to Environmental Chemicals (pollution, plastics, medications)
• Drugs (legal or illegal), Smoking, Alcohol abuse
• Lack of Essential Vitamins/Minerals (esp fat soluble) in diet
• High Stress Lifestyles/Lack of Sleep

While I am not going to ever point out just one thing to blame for our sad state of health today, they all play a part. We need to start looking at the damage being done on the body as a whole and how it effects us at the cellular level. Optimizing health at the cellular level is vital.

For example, what is cancer? Essentially it is a bunch of cells gone bad and destructive. If left unchecked it will continue to damage other cells and create more and more “cells gone bad”. Do this in your lung and you have lung cancer, in your brain and you have brain cancer, etc.

So in our modern goal of health awareness and reducing risks of disease, we should be looking to focus our efforts on maintaining health at the cellular level (which means creating less destruction and increasing repair/rebuilding).

The Only Known way to Live Longer/Healthier

Scientists have known for a long time that there is really only one proven way to increase the lifespan of animals in test conditions (as well as improve health in humans). This is what is known as Calorie Restriction (or CR). Here is an excerpt from a recent article in the New York Times on the calorie restriction experiment:

A curious aspect of the Calerie project, though, is that it is not meant to study weight loss or if one type of diet is better than another. Instead, Calerie is investigating how (and if) a spartan diet affects the aging process and its associated diseases. To the Calerie researchers, these are quite distinct. The aging process, which researchers sometimes call “primary” or “intrinsic” aging, refers to the damage that ordinarily accumulates in our cells as we grow older, a natural condition that seems to have limited the maximal lifespan of humans to 120 years. Diseases that accompany the aging process — often called “secondary aging” — are those afflictions increasingly prevalent in the elderly, like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

There seems little doubt that calorie restriction can have significant effects on secondary aging. A recent spate of papers in some of the world’s leading medical journals demonstrate that in small studies, human subjects following such diets experience astounding drops in cardiovascular risk factors; a forthcoming review on cancer risks in animals with such diets, moreover, suggests a stark correlation — fewer calories mean fewer tumors.

Fontana connected his point to his continuing observations of some Calorie Restriction Society members. “In terms of cardiovascular diseases — the No. 1 cause of death; 4 out of 10 people die of it in the U.S. and Europe — we know that they will not die of cardiovascular death,” Fontana said. His subjects have cholesterol around 160, blood pressure around 100 over 60, high HDL, low triglycerides and very low levels of inflammation. “So these people won’t develop these diseases,” he said. “And I think that’s an important finding. Because every day doctors are publishing hundreds of papers on circulation research and medications that are lowering blood pressure or cholesterol by a small bit. And here we have such a powerful intervention that is basically cleaning out the arteries.”

Calorie Restriction is a natural way in which the body can produce less damage and be more resistant to damage at the cellular level. All this leads to a healthier and longer life. Also it seems that there is another process going on that helps to repair the damage due to aging. This could hold the key to helping not only treat people with diseases, but also help people live longer (by slowing down the destructive aging process).

Cell Death and Recycling

More and more light is being put into how the cells can “recycle” their own damaged parts and create a new and healthy cell in the process. This is what is known as autophagy and could be one of the keys to living longer and healthier!

Here’s a good summary from the University of Florida Health news on UF scientists reveal how dietary restriction cleans cells:

During the aging process, free radicals . - highly reactive byproducts of our cells’ respiration - wreak havoc on our cellular machinery. Mitochondria, the tiny power plants that keep a cell functioning, are especially vulnerable to this type of damage. The effects can be disastrous - if malfunctioning mitochondria aren’t removed, they begin to spew out suicidal proteins that prompt the entire cell to die. Cell death, on a whole-body scale, is what aging is all about.

Fortunately, younger cells are adept at reducing, recycling and rebuilding. In this process, damaged mitochondria are quickly swallowed up and degraded. The broken down pieces are then recycled and used to build new mitochondria. However, older cells are less adept at this process, so damaged mitochondria tend to accumulate and contribute to aging.

“Cell survival is dependent upon the ability of the cell to reduce and recycle by a mechanism called autophagy,” said William Dunn Jr., Ph.D., a professor of anatomy and cell biology in UF’s College of Medicine and senior author of the study,

and more from this really good article in Scientific American on How Cells Clean House:

Mitochondria, for instance, are the organelles primarily responsible for generating energy within a cell, and they can send signals to other parts of the cell that initiate apoptosis, or cellular suicide.

Cells induce apoptosis for a variety of reasons, all more or less for the greater good of the organism. For example, the body continually generates more cells than it needs, and they must be eliminated. An aging cell that has ceased functioning efficiently may kill itself to make room for younger, more robust cells. A cell that switches from normal growth to cancerous proliferation can also be induced to commit suicide, making apoptosis one of the most important built-in barriers against cancer. Apoptosis depends on a complex series of cellular events, rigorously orchestrated by numerous protein signals, and so the death of the cell by apoptosis is considered to be a programmed event.

But a faulty mitochondrion can wreak havoc if it sets off apoptosis at the wrong time. Among the by-products of a functioning mitochondrion are reactive oxygen species (ROS)—oxygen ions and other oxygen-based molecular fragments. Working with such volatile chemicals often causes mitochondria to leak some of their contents, including the signaling proteins that initiate apoptosis. In other words, a minor flaw in a small part of the cell can lead, inadvertently, to the death of the entire cell. The accidental cellular demise of a few skin cells might not be a big deal, but such a loss of memory neurons in the brain would definitely spell trouble.

The escape of such large amounts of ROS poses a cancer threat, because ROS that reach the nucleus may induce malignant changes in genes. Once again, autophagy can come to the rescue, removing the dysfunctional mitochondria from the cell. Eileen White of Rutgers University believes that autophagy also mitigates genome damage in cancer cells, thereby helping to prevent new tumors from forming.

Most people take it for granted that many diseases become more frequent with age, including cancer and the degeneration of neurons. The reason, in part, may be a decline in the efficiency of auto­phagy. According to Ana Maria Cuervo of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the current thinking is that cellular systems, including autophagy, undergo a steady loss of function with age.

Recall that a restricted food supply—incipient starvation—speeds up autophagy.

The programmed cell death/self-suicide of a cell, otherwise known as apoptosis, is a good thing in some cases. While you don’t want all your cells to die off, you definitely don’t want the cancerous cells gone bad sticking around and creating more damage. It could be summed up that a defective apoptosis system is a big reason for the progression of cancerous cells in a body. If left unchecked, the cancerous cells spread and create more. A functioning apoptosis system would call for the cancerous cells to commit suicide and stop the progression.

So it seems that autophagy through various pathways can not only help stop new progression of cancerous cells, but may also help improve apotosis signaling through healthy mitochondria. Add this to a continual process of healthy cell repair and “going green” (recycling) at the cell level may be the real fountain of youth.

Understanding Aging to Reduce Diseases

Researchers are now currently looking for a pharmaceutical treatment to increase autophagy in healthy cells and apoptosis in cancerous ones (although more is not always better and with every treatment seems to come more negative side effects). By looking at the real source of the problem (aging), evolutionary solutions can be seen in helping people with diseases associated with it.

from this recent article in the Boston Globe on Age-old woes, New Tactic.

The drugs in Sirtris’s pipeline are aimed at treating two diseases associated with aging: type 2 diabetes and cancer. The drugs target sirtuins, the enzymes identified by Gaurente and others as regulating cell metabolism.

Much of the discussion at the Harvard lifespan conference centered on sirtuin modulators, which appear to provide the same benefits as calorie restriction (CR) - a practice enthusiasts believe will extend their life spans. Their faith is based on the results of studies with yeast, flies, and primates.

Resveratrol, found most abundantly in red wine and Japanese knotweed, is the best-known sirtuin modulator. Many scientists speculate that the resveratrol in red wine is behind the “French paradox,’’ the low incidence of heart disease in the French despite their love for fatty foods.

Message is Simple: Eat Less (and Eat Real Foods)

While researchers are trying to come up with patented pharmaceutical versions to enhance autophagy (and they will probably not be cheap either), we already have those systems built in if we send the right signals to help increase their function. Namely through a “restricted food supply”, like the “feast-famine” environments that our bodies were designed to survive.

While CR is certainly not the most realistic nor enjoyable solution for many, there is still many of the same benefits found with Intermittent Fasting (or IF). The benefits of IF is you can also maintain lean bodyweight (muscle) while burning fat and still enjoy eating. Plus, it is the cheapest way I know of that you can reduce your risks for degenerative diseases!

So while health care costs are going through the roof and medical treatments are too expensive for many to afford, maybe it is time we all start to realize the evolutionary plan for the body to help heal itself. It costs nothing more than just personal awareness into how you eat effects your own health. Eat less and eat more “real foods” is the best advice I think we all need to take to heart (and tell others to do as well). The bonus is if you eat mainly real foods anyways, that it is hard to actually overeat in the first place!

If you want to know more about IF, you can get the FREE IF Revolution ebooks here. Don’t forget to join us all on Nov 1st for “IF Day” to help spread awareness into how eating less (taking breaks) can help us to lose weight and just be healthy. Tell a friend/family member/coworker and help spread the awareness.

More related quotes and articles on Autophagy

Aging denotes a postmaturational deterioration of cells and organisms with the passage of time, an increased vulnerability to challenges and prevalence of age-associated diseases, and a decreased ability to survive. Causes of this deterioration may be found in an enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative damage and incomplete “housekeeping.” Caloric restriction is the most robust anti-aging intervention known so far. Similar beneficial effects on median and maximum life span were obtained by feeding animals a 40%-reduced diet or by every-other-day ad libitum feeding. In both instances, animals are forced to spend a great part of their time in a state of fasting and activated autophagy. …. Several pieces of evidence show that autophagy is involved in aging and is an essential part of the anti-aging mechanism of caloric restriction.

from role of autophagy in aging

As a consequence of the induction of autophagy during short periods of fasting, animals experience diurnal rhythms of autophagy in concert with their circadian cycle.

from Diurnal rhythms of autophagy

Overview of the importance of autophagy and diseases (which still shows there is much we don’t know as well)

Precise regulation of autophagy is necessary to maintain metabolic equilibrium, immune homeostasis, delineate cell fate and influence host cell responses to cytosolic pathogens. A growing number of studies have implicated that inactivation of autophagy-selective responses contributes to inflammatory disorders, neurodegeneration and cancer, but the precise steps at which disease-associated autophagy-related (ATG) genes affect autophagy pathways is unknown at present

and how some viruses actually attack (and inhibit) autophagy/apoptosis

Viral subversion and inhibition of host cell autophagy has been documented for several viruses. In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe,Gannagé et al. (2009) show that the influenza virus M2 integral membrane protein blocks autophagosome maturation, significantly affecting host cell apoptosis.

and Intermittent fasting alleviates neuropathic disease

Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A (CMT1A) neuropathies linked to the misexpression of peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22) are progressive demyelinating disorders of the peripheral nervous system. In this study we asked whether dietary restriction by intermittent fasting (IF) could alleviate the neuropathic phenotype in the Trembler J (TrJ) mouse model of CMT1A. Our results show that neuropathic mice kept on a five month long IF regimen had improved locomotor performance compared to ad libitum (AL) fed littermates. The functional benefits of this dietary intervention are associated with an increased expression of myelin proteins combined with a thicker myelin sheath, less redundant basal lamina, and a reduction in aberrant Schwann cell proliferation. These morphological improvements are accompanied by a decrease in PMP22 protein aggregates, and enhanced expression of cytosolic chaperones and constituents of the autophagy-lysosomal pathway.

• Resveratrol, Red Wine, Diabetes, Cancer and Longevity
• The Longevity Gene Sirt1 - CR, Fasting and Aging Diseases
• Weight training and Autophagy at Conditioning Research
• Cellular Autophagy from Artur De Vany
• Autophagy required for calorie restriction benefits? from Fight Aging
• How dietary restriction cleans cells from U of Fl
• How cells clean house from Scientific American (PDF)

Today, I want to touch on several related points, all going back to the main point of eating healthy, yet still being able to have a great social life and enjoy some of your “off limits” foods. So first I’m going to look at cheat meals and how to do them. Next, I’ll show you how I eat to not need to worry about scheduling cheat meals. Finally, I want to dig into the dietary OCD that too many people seem to have that keeps them from actually enjoying what they eat.

Cheat Meals

I’ll go ahead and tell you that I hate the term “cheat meal”. It implies that you’re doing something “bad” and since you’re being “bad,” you probably need to somehow punish yourself to make up for it. However, since it’s a common term, I’ll work with it. The way I see it, there are two basic ways to deal with cheat meals.

The First Way: Scheduled Cheat Meals

Some people go with the method of planning out their cheat meals. So every week or two, they’ll go out for pizza or beer and chicken wings or ice cream or whatever their particular poison happens to be. I think this is fine when you’re first starting out with shifting to a healthier way of eating because it gives you something to look forward to. It’s easier to stay on course during the week if you know that you can have whatever you’re craving on the weekends.

I also like this way in the beginning because the beginning is when the cravings hit the hardest. I think it helps people stay on course if they know they can give in a little once or twice a week.

But for a lifelong way of doing things, I think you should eventually move away from a strict eating schedule and go to a pattern of eating that lets you be flexible, eating right 90% of the time and still enjoying whatever life brings your way.

The Other Way: Flexible Eating - Eating In Chicago And Boston

Basically, I don’t schedule my cheat meals. I know that I’m going to go out to eat once or twice a week and it might entail some non-Paleo foods. And if I don’t go out to eat or if I go somewhere and end up eating Primally, then I just avoided cheating just because it was scheduled.

Vacation is one time when I know I’m not going to stick to 100% good eating. For one, there are too many good restaurants and two, without a kitchen in the room, it’s hard to stay strict. I look at vacation as a time to enjoy what other cities have to offer me.

For instance, I was in Chicago for a long weekend back in September. Here is a sampling of a few of my meals:

• Pizzeria Due: Real deep dish Chicago-style pizza and a couple beers
• Yolk: Omelet loaded with meat and cheese, side of fruit, pancakes with bananas and blackberries
• Goose Island Brewery: Pulled pork with rice, beans, and habanero-pineapple salsa. Two very strong and amazing beers.
• Rock’s in Lincoln Park (while watching Notre Dame lose to Michigan): Burger with pineapple, avocado, and teriyaki (and yes, I ate the bun) and sweet potato fries.
• The West Egg: Egg and chorizo scramble with sour cream and avocado, fried potatoes.

How exactly can I justify following a dinner of pizza and beer with a breakfast that includes pancakes and syrup, a couple more beers that night, a burger the next day (with a few more beers), and then fried potatoes with my final breakfast? Here is one tip I wish people would remember: it’s not the single data points, but the overall lifestyle that matters. I balanced my eating with 20-25 miles of walking over 4 days and only ate twice each day because I was busy seeing things and hanging out with friends, as well as not being exceptionally hungry due to eating big meals already, even if not completely “Primal”.

And I followed up my Chicago trip with a trip to Boston a couple weeks later. After the above list, you might be scared to see what I ate there. Here you go:

• Steak tips, eggs, and mustard-drenched potatoes
• Tons of baked, steamed, and boiled fresh seafood - lobster, mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops, salmon, tuna, scrod, and raw oysters
• Fish ‘n chips slathered in tartar sauce and malt vinegar and a Guinness at an Irish bar
• Cannolis from Mike’s Pastry
• Sufficient quantities of clam chowder

Feeling The Effects Of A Blow-out

And what were the after-effects of all of this? Nothing. No decrease in my performance. In fact, I came back and killed it in the gym and after the Chicago trip, I set a 1-mile PR (5:50). No increase in body fat. Nothing. So you see, you can “have your cake and eat it too,” so to speak. You can cut loose and enjoy some of the delicious foods available in other cities (or in your own) without worrying about whether every bite you take is Primal, Paleo, or Zone-conforming. As long as you keep your overall lifestyle healthy, you are free to go out and dig into some pancakes, pizza, and beer now and then.

I think a lot of people get way too worked up about “staying in the Zone” and “being Paleo” when they should really just focus on enjoying life. I know that the way I eat the other 90% of the time that I’m not vacationing allows me to cut loose and try some new things, have a few beers, eat pizza, and open my day with some of the best pancakes in Chicago with no concern of ill effects. In fact, I won’t even lie and say that I felt like crap from what I ate. I felt just fine.

Now I know that someone is misconstruing what I’m saying and probably thinking “How can he say that you should have a blow-out just because you’re on vacation?” Someone is probably also thinking that I’m casting aside my previous advice and saying that it’s okay to eat garbage because I didn’t see a performance decrease. Nope. Not at all. I know that if I did that all the time, I would feel it, I would see performance decreases and body fat increases.

The key here is that when I’m at home, my meals are as healthy as can be. I don’t make pancakes at home. I don’t make cannolis at home, nor would I go to a bakery in Louisville and get one because there are no “must eat cannolis” here. And I certainly don’t fry fish at home. It’s pretty much all meat and vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds…real food with some occasional sushi or Mexican food. And since I’m unfortunately not on vacation all that often, you can see how the percentages work out and why I don’t even have to give a second-thought to how I eat on vacation.

Is Your Diet Too Restrictive To Just Live?

I have actually seen people ask how they can eat Paleo or stay “in the Zone” at a baseball game. You can’t, short of smuggling your own food in. If you want to go to a baseball game and have a hot dog or nachos, do so. And deal with clean eating before and after. Or eat beforehand and just enjoy the company. Do you really want to count out 15 almonds when you should be just hanging out with your friends? Is that what life is about?

The ultimate goal should be that you are able to step off the wagon for a day or two, then jump right back on without punishing yourself or stressing out. If a friend drops in town and wants to go grab a drink, can you do that or is it not on your plan so you have to turn them down?

Dietary OCD: Orthorexia?

Okay, so it’s time for a quiz. When you looked at my vacation meals there, did you gasp that I ate pancakes or notice that even when I dug into a stack of refined flour and sugar, it came beside a plate full of meat, eggs, and fruit? Did you ask yourself, “how can he eat all those potatoes?” several times or did you notice that they all came with meat, eggs, and typically fruit or vegetables?

Don’t be obsessive-compulsive about your eating, my friends. I have literally seen questions like “do I need to count the carbs in two tablespoons of basil when calculating my Zone blocks?” Yes, you read that right. There are people that are concerned over the carb content of basil leaves. If basil leaves are wrecking your metabolism, you should probably see a doctor. I’m betting that an entire pound of basil leaves can contain no more than a few grams of carbs.

I’m reminded of people that argue over whether carrots or squash or bananas are “favorable” or “unfavorable”. Really? Our girl Melissa Urban derailed The Carrot Train To Crazytown a few months back and I couldn’t agree more. (It’s cool that you had better things to do than hang out when I was in Boston, Melissa. No, really…I’m only a little raw about it.)

Arguing about whether carrots, pineapple, sweet potatoes, and acorn squashes are “good” or “bad” is a serious Nuke The Fridge moment for anyone proposing healthy eating. It may be “healthy eating,” but it’s not a healthy relationship with food. Worrying about the carbs in your herbs and spices or whether something like a carrot or a squash, which I’m betting have not made anyone fat in the entire history of obesity, are good for you is taking navel gazing to a higher level.

It’s Really Not That Serious

So how you deal with cheat meals is up to you. I know that they’re going to happen, so I don’t go out of my way to schedule them. I eat clean 90% of the time so that the other 10% of the time, I can relax and do whatever. I can eat sushi without being concerned about the rice. I can dig into the chips and guacamole at a Mexican place before my plate-load of carnitas. I can have a drink or two while watching football with friends.

I don’t count blocks, calories, grams of carbs, or grams of fat. I simply eat real food most of the time and my performance and health are great. There’s really no reason to make eating such an obsessive-compulsive thing. I doubt the Okinawans, Inuit, or Kitavans ever measured a gram of their carbs or fat, yet they’re some of the healthiest cultures ever.

On the other hand, if I’m going to dig into something I wouldn’t normally eat, I go for the best of the best. I don’t eat pizza very often, but when I’m in Chicago, I’m going to get some good pizza since it’s pretty much the Pizza Mecca (sorry New Yorkers). You won’t find me at a pizza buffet eating a bunch of not very good pizza though. A Snickers bar does nothing for me, so I don’t eat them, but a nice fluffy stack of pancakes a few times a year sure hits the spot.

How do you handle cheat meals? Do you ever just cut loose and dig into something really processed and refined?

In recent months, we’ve brought you a couple of Nikki Young’s recipes: Fish And Vegetable Curry and Mince Kebabs with Satay Sauce. Today, we have a short interview with the author of The Paleo Cookbooks, along with another awesome recipe.

What is your health and fitness philosophy? What made you adopt a Paleo lifestyle?
I came across CrossFit, Ross Enamait and Zach Evan Esh sometime back in 2005 and really enjoyed their style of training and believed in the methods and concepts and have since incorporated that training style into my own programs. I have trained with isometric exercises before, but in further educating myself began to lean towards the effectiveness and benefits of functional movements and the health & weight loss benefits associated with high intensity training.

Incorporating this method of training didn’t go down to well with some of the other personal trainers in gyms I worked in. On one occasion, I was yelled at for about 10 minutes because I expressed my views about putting clients on a smith machine to do squats - that same trainer didn’t even say hi to me for the rest of my time working there. Haha!

I have always had an interest in nutrition, even more so now that I have educated myself on the importance of nutrition for good health. I first heard of the Paleo Diet when jumping on the CrossFit forums and I began following it almost straight away.

When you began cleaning up your eating, did you notice immediate performance improvements?
When I started following a paleo diet I also changed up my training, so I noticed the benefits of both the nutrition and the exercise simultaneously. Definitely during the first few months I felt fantastic, my energy had increased and I could feel my fitness improving dramatically. I put a lot of those improvements down to the way I was eating, as I never felt those kinds of improvements in my energy and training when previously following a fairly un-healthy diet and training hard.

Tell us a bit about your background…sports you play/played, how long you’ve been training, the various training programs you’ve used, etc
I’ve always enjoyed training and participating in sports. From a young age I was really good at swimming and had a keen interest in trying out every sport I could. In primary school I loved tennis and trained often, I won a few tournaments and began training with more advanced players but my interest sparked for soccer when I started high-school, so I joined a local club with a few friends. Around a year later I was selected to play State soccer.

I really enjoy mountain bike riding and ride regularly. My interest in conditioning and general fitness training came when I began researching more into the fitness industry and came across CrossFit and the trainers mentioned above. My fitness program changes depending on how I’m feeling and what I feel like doing, currently I’m training with Kettlebells and mountain bike riding - but next week I may just want to run, do max lifts or follow some CrossFit WOD’s.

How did you come to be a “Paleo Chef”? Have you always enjoyed cooking?
I have always enjoyed cooking, my parents and grandparents taught me how to cook at a young age and I thank them for that. I probably started cooking Paleo meals when my Mum found out she was allergic to many non-Paleo foods, including gluten (cutting out most grains) and dairy. I have always had an interest in nutrition and when I first came across the Paleo diet I could immediately see how it would support a healthy lifestyle. I then began to focus on cooking meals which where 100% Paleo friendly and altering meals to only contain Paleo ingredients - which didn’t always work out.

When educating my clients on the Paleo diet they would always say something like “but what can I eat if I can’t eat grains??”. So I started to put recipes together for my clients to help them with ideas - these recipes plus a bunch more have formed into the Paleo Cookbooks.

I’m a firm believer that eating right 90% of the time and enjoying yourself with some smart indulgences the other 10% of the time is the best way to put together a healthy life that still allows some leeway. How do you feel about this and what are your indulgences?
Most definitely. I feel if you tell yourself you “can’t” have something you will want it even more. So if you start following a paleo diet and tell yourself you will never again have a chocolate biscuit then you will probably crave them more then you ever have before. Sometimes cheating can make you realise how good you really feel when eating healthy, especially if you over-induldge.

My favorite non-paleo meal would definitely be a vegetarian laksa followed by chocolate. When you think about it, 10% of your diet doesn’t equate to that many cheat meals. If eating three meals a day with 10% leniency, then only around two-three meals out of twenty one will be cheat meals.

I’m going to put you on the spot here…how would you rank order the non-Paleo foods in terms of best to worst?
Anything that is highly processed and contains little to no nutritional value will jump straight to the top of the list as the worst foods: sweets, chips, desserts, breads, pasta and most supermarket milk that isn’t raw and is highly processed.

Canned vegetables are often not thought of as paleo due to the added preservatives, added sodium and the loss of nutritional intensity. I would put these around the middle of the rank for ‘non-paleo’ foods. If rinsed well they are better than not eating any vegetables at all. I would also put foods such as nut bars, or fruit and nut mixes which are around 70/30(ish) paleo /non-paleo ingredients around the middle of the rank. Nut bars for instance will contain lots of nuts but will also contain sugar and other ingredients to help bind and add additional flavour.

Probably at the bottom of the rank and the most acceptable would be foods which are controversial as being a paleo food or not. Sweet potato for instance isn’t 100% paleo due to needing to be cooked to be edible, however they still contain nutritional value even if the GI is quite high. Bacon is meat, yet will hold a lot of added sodium so is avoided by many ’strict’ paleo dieters. Goat’s cheese and goat’s milk is generally not as highly processed as other dairy sources, but I believe dairy can be beneficial to good health if the produce is from a healthy animal and not highly processed.

I would also mention the fermentation of non-paleo ingredients. Probiotics which are formed through the fermentation of some form of grain or soy will hold a lot of beneficial nutrition while the negative nutritional attributes are significantly reduced.

You’re short on time and need to get in a quick, but healthy meal. What’s your fall-back plan?
I would usually get some nuts. Just because they can be found almost anywhere. My first option would be some fruit but if that’s not available I will buy some nuts / nut bar and drink lots of water. I try not to put myself into a situation where I don’t have food on hand or access to something when it’s meal time.

What did you have for breakfast today?
I will pretty much always have 3 eggs for breakfast, supplemented with two JP+ vegetable capsules and three fish oil/CLO capsules. To break things up, I will sometimes have left over dinner for breakfast, which is usually something like chicken or mince patties with vegetables.

What’s your favorite recipe?
Hard question… I have a lot of favorite recipes, my main ones though would probably be: eggs with salt, fried dry, no oil (that’s not really a recipe… I think I just love eggs), chicken curries, bolognese (mince) and red cabbage salad.

And finally, do you have any quick tips for people wanting to lose weight or adopting a Paleo-style diet?
Probably the two most important factors when dedicating yourself to following a diet / exercise program is mental strength and education.

Following the paleo diet isn’t the hardest nutritional program you will ever follow, but if your mental determination to succeed drops then you will find yourself ‘cheating’ with bad foods early on as soon as you get a craving or fall into an emotional state. Even if it is one meal, it can ultimately make it harder to continue with the diet, especially if you feel you can’t even stick to it for a week.

Depending on your diet prior to deciding to go paleo, the first few weeks can be the toughest. If you can fight through the sugar cravings and plan your meals every day then you are going to do really well. After the first few weeks you will feel fantastic and eating high-sugar, low nutritional foods will make you feel horrible.

When it comes to education, the more you know about good nutrition, exercise and living a healthy lifestyle the easier it will be to achieve and maintain. Mainly because you actually know what you are doing and you can do it right.

I recommend reading books and articles recommended from a reputable person/source initially; only because there are thousands of books on nutrition out there which recommend eating a very un-healthy diet, i.e. the fruit diet. The worst thing you can do is educate yourself on eating a diet which is un-healthy and believing it because you don’t know any better.

There are so many good books out there which really make you think about how you are living your life. I would recommend anyone wanting to achieve optimal health to read the book ‘Never be Sick Again’ by Raymond Francis and Kester Cotton and also talking with people you trust in the industry to pass on some solid reading recommendations.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Nikki!

Pumpkin And Chicken Curry Recipe

Here’s a new recipe from Nikki, perfect for the fall weather that’s hitting many parts of the northern hemisphere. Try this Pumpkin And Chicken Curry and pass the recipe along to your friends and family. It’s good fall eatin’.

If you’re looking for new ideas in the kitchen, be sure to check out Nikki’s cookbook, The Paleo Cookbooks.

Oh and to all the ladies out there, don’t skip over this article…as these rules apply to you also for getting that sleek “toned” look you are going for (don’t worry about “bulking up”, it won’t happen)

The Secret To Get Bigger Muscles

I had a client I was consulting with recently who wanted to gain some more lean muscle (Yes I know all muscle is “lean”…but many “claim” to put on muscle, when it’s really more fat and water retention).

He worked out long and hard several times a week, did intervals after the workout and also other activity on the side trying to stay “fit”. But he wasn’t making any progress in putting on real muscle and leaning out at the same time.

I told him that the problem was “him”. He was getting in the way of “allowing” his body to build muscle and burn fat by not following the basic rules:

• Muscle Builds When You are NOT working out
• Workouts Break Down Muscle but Recovery Builds Them
• Hormones are Vital to Whether You Build (or Lose) Muscle
• Your Workouts and Recovery Should be Geared for Hormonal Responses

So instead of only trying to force down 5000 calories a day trying to gain muscle (and most people usually just end up fat and bulky looking), why not just do the simple things right in the first place?

Workout For The Right Reasons

We go workout to “hopefully” challenge our muscles to grow bigger. This involves enough stimulation through resistance/volume to signal muscle growth by the body. Included will be the signal of muscle building hormones such as Testosterone. We can also signal GH which is key in helping us recover and burn fat.

What happens when we overtrain? Well how about our Testosterone and GH levels can drop. How are we supposed to build muscle if those are in the gutter? Hit the weights some more? I think not.

"Stimulate and Don't Annihilate"...solid advice from a guy with plenty of muscle.

As seen in this past article, the study done on people using Testosterone and not working out, vs people working out and not using Testosterone…ended up with the people using Test with no workouts gaining MORE muscle than those just working out! So hormones make the difference!

Workouts should be geared to have enough stimulus for hormonal muscle growth, without going overboard and suppressing them. As said once by Mr Olympia Ronnie Coleman, “Stimulate and don’t annihilate” when you go workout. Seems like good advice to me.

You Build (Or Not) Muscle 24/7

So we have gone to the gym to use some weights, stimulated our muscles and now what? Well as soon as you leave the gym you are now in “recovery” mode. This is where the real magic happens for building muscle (or is supposed to).

What you do for the rest of the day, night and into tomorrow…will determine if you are really going to build muscle. Simple enough right?

So why do so many people go back to the gym, workout the same muscles, go do some other intense cardio workout all in the name of being “fit”? More is not better in this case and is probably the reason that so many fail to see any real results year after year.

My advice to any average client that comes to me wanting more muscle is usually these simple recommendations (because I know what 95%+ of people’s problem is)

• Eat enough foods (without going extreme to make you fat in the process)
• Lift only 3x a week (45min max)
  
• Buy an XBox, Relax, Sleep and Walk as your fastest Speed
  

Anything else is NOT allowed. Unless you are some professional athlete who needs to train or go to practice, stop doing the same things over and over again when they were not getting any results in the first place! Your idea of being “fit” is probably making you worse off.

Continuing down that same road is just what we call “insanity”…doing the same things and expecting different results.

Post Workout “Intense Cardio” May Be Killing Your Gains

The biggest mistake I see with anyone is the inability to “stop” doing more and more fitness. Cardio/jogging junkies, gym addicts and the likes. This is also the case with the cardio after a workout.

We have all seen the studies about intervals and how they increase fat burning (or really how they increase the “fat releasing” hormones such as GH). But slapping on a 30min interval session after 30-40 minutes of intense lifting is not going to work out.

That additional cardio is not going to give you a bigger GH boost (more than what you already got from in the initial workout if intense enough) and will just suppress Testosterone levels from the workout (who needs those to build muscle right? Ummm…You do!).

If you workout the “right” way in the first place…you will get enough GH and Test from the workout. With an elevated GH you now have your “fat releasing” hormones telling the fat cells to empty out. So you don’t need more sprints…you just need a slow and steady pace to burn a bit of extra fat (without compromising your Test or muscle building).

Keep Cortisol In Check

Cortisol…we all know this hormone. Many call it a “stress” hormone but it is really a blood sugar hormone at heart. It readies your body for “fight or flight” by accessing more glucose from your liver and other sources…like breaking down muscle for amino acids.

Which has more muscle mass and looks more ripped...a sprinter or distance runner?

This is not something we want elevated after a workout in which we have already broken down muscle and want to go into “repair mode”. So doing some intense cardio that the body will see as a stress and need for more blood sugar, is not a smart idea.

Compiling workouts and intense cardio back to back will only elevate your cortisol levels and lead to no real muscle gains in the long run.

Most that have a high cortisol lifestyle also tend to lose muscle, gain fat (skinny fat look), look more bloated (lack of definition) and have more fat in the stubborn areas such as the stomach and hips. I see this problem with many cardio/jogger addicts.

Compare that to sprinters who workout by doing intense sprints (short…like 60-100meters) with plenty of rest in between and lots of walking around (or other short sprint athletes like pole vaulters as seen up top). They don’t jog. They do short explosions to boost the right hormones and then don’t compromise them with additional stress. This is why when you look at most they are ripped and have more muscle than say your average distance runner.

Blow Out Your Adrenals And You Are Done!

Most people don’t realize the importance of the adrenal glands until they are fatigued and things start going wrong. The adrenals are where you produce cortisol. While cortisol is a natural hormone (as you need it to get your butt awake in the morning), it can also be abused. When cortisol is released too much and too often (excess stress such as intense exercise, mental stress, caffeine), you are going to start wearing out your adrenals.

Adrenals are also responsible for producing DHEA, a precursor to testosterone (and estrogen). So while you are running around at full tilt all the time, you are killing the organ that will help you build muscle.

Signs Of Adrenal Fatigue

Here are some warning signs that you may be on the road to bigger issues. Adrenal fatigue is just the first bad step…it can be turned around, or you can keep going down that road to full adrenal exhaustion…your choice.

• excessive fatigue and exhaustion
• non-refreshing sleep (you get sufficient hours of sleep, but wake fatigued)
• overwhelmed by or unable to cope with stressors
• feeling rundown or overwhelmed
• craving salty and sweet foods
• you feel most energetic in the evening
• a feeling of not being restored after a full night’s sleep or having sleep disturbances
• low stamina, slow to recover from exercise
• slow to recover from injury, illness or stress
• difficulty concentrating, brain fog
• poor digestion
• low immune function
• food or environmental allergies
• premenstrual syndrome or difficulties that develop during menopause
• consistent low blood pressure
• extreme sensitivity to cold

If any of this sounds familiar above…then it may be time to rethink your lifestyle approach to trying to be “fit”.

Slow And Steady Wins The Race…

Going “balls to the wall” will leave you burned out, overtrained, injured and probably gaining more fat if you give up altogether.

If you want success in the long run whether it be with gaining muscle or losing weight (or both at the same time) you need to take it slow and steady. This means smart workouts, plenty of recovery, proper eating, plenty of rest and a lifestyle activity level that won’t overstress your body.

This biggest mistake people make nowadays is doing too much. More is not going to be better, especially if you are doing it with too much intensity and too often. Your body just doesn’t work that way and your hormones won’t respond optimally.

So while you can still go for an occasional run or bike ride, go play some sports…in general, along with lifting/resistance training, the smartest thing you can do…is alot of walking. Not only will this keep your stress hormones down from exercise, but also from a mental level as well.

Nothing calms the soul like a slow walk outside in nature (leave the Ipod at home, unless you want to listen to some relaxing music). Walking will help the body heal, recover from exercise, burn extra fat (with elevated GH levels from working out), keep inflammation under control and lead to a long and healthy life.

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Most of you have heard the term “probiotics.” So today, let’s discuss them, specifically what they are, why you need them, and how to get probiotics from your food, as people have been doing for ages. I mean, really, we constantly say “eat some fermented foods,” but how hard is it to do that? Let me show you how easily you can do this in your own kitchen.

What Are Probiotics?

Here’s a term I know you’ve heard: antibiotics, those substances we use to kill off bacteria. Well, probiotics are basically the opposite of that. They are substances that promote bacterial growth. In the words of the WHO,

Probiotics are: “Live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”

To cut to the chase, they’re the bacteria that sit in your intestines. And there are lots and lots of these little buggers in your guts. In fact, there are far more of them than there are cells in your body, to the tune of 10 times as many.

Why Are Probiotics Beneficial?

Unfortunately, we’ve been conditioned to believe that bacteria are bad. From antibacterial soaps to doctors handing out antibiotics like they’re candy, we pretty much make sure as many bacteria as possible are wiped out. But that’s not a good thing. Sure, antibiotics are a necessity when the risk of infection is high, such as during surgery, and therefore have helped increase our life span markedly.

The reality is that we overuse antibiotics majorly. From antibacterial soaps to doctors passing out courses of antibiotics every time you step through the door with a sore throat (mostly so you’ll go away), it’s safe that most of us have pretty well taken care of all of the bacteria in our lives. But they don’t selectively kill off the bad bacteria. They are “anti” all bacteria and your intestines pay the price for our overuse.

Basically, the bacteria in your intestines handle a few minor jobs for you, such as:

• Digesting your food
• Fighting off pathogenic bacteria before they actually enter the body, i.e., front-line immune system defense
• Keeping things, umm…moving in the bathroom

Basically, these little guys in your guts are out there fighting for you and freeing up the nutrients you eat so your body can absorb them. Just minor things like that. Given their importance, it’s pretty obvious that you better be doing something to keep them happy.

What Foods Contain Probiotics?

Start with a load of vegetables or a beverage like milk and allow the bacteria to do what they do. Specifically, they ferment sugars and excrete lactic acid (and alcohol if using specific types of yeasts, as in brewing), which brings about several beneficial enhancements to food:

• enrichment of the diet through development of a diversity of flavors, aromas, and textures in food substrates.
• preservation of substantial amounts of food through lactic acid, alcohol, acetic acid and alkaline fermentations.
• biological enrichment of food substrates with protein, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, and vitamins.
• detoxification during food-fermentation processing.
• a decrease in cooking times and fuel requirements.
• produce important nutrients or eliminate antinutrients.
• can make dairy products tolerable for lactose-intolerant people.

There are numerous foods you can eat with probiotic properties. A few of the more common that you’ve probably heard of are:

• Sauerkraut
• Yogurt
• Kefir
• Kombucha
• Kimchi, pao cai, and other cultural forms of pickled vegetables

These foods and beverages are all so ridiculously simple to make that you’ll hopefully start including them in your diet and skip the store-bought versions, which are often pasteurized, which pretty much defeats the purpose since pasteurization kills off the bacteria.

As a final note, if you make these fermented foods at home, do not use metal containers for the fermentation as the acidity can leach materials from them.

How To Make Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is exceedingly easy to make. At it’s most basic, it’s just salted cabbage that’s left to ferment, though I usually add some other vegetables, like onions, radishes, or carrots; various herbs and spices, like basil, fennel, thyme, oregano, coriander, or dill; and sometimes even some apples. Kimchi and other fermented vegetables are made similarly and you can find recipes for them all over Google.

I’ve detailed one of my sauerkraut making adventures previously. I still use a similar process, though in much larger quantities, as I now have a huge glass jar with an opening about 9″ across that holds 4-6 heads of cabbage, depending on their size. As such, there is no need to use rolled cabbage leaves to hold the kraut under the brine. I just press a bowl or plate down in the middle to weight the kraut and push it down such that the brine level rises above the top.

It takes about an hour or two of work for me to cut up the cabbage, salt it down, and pack it into the jar, then it has to sit for a couple weeks. During this time, my work is minimal, basically just making sure that the cabbage stays pressed below the brine level. So let’s be conservative and say that it takes me 2 hours of work to yield about 3 months of sauerkraut. Not a bad return on your time investment, eh?

How To Make Kombucha

Kombucha is a fermented tea. Basically, you make a really sweet tea, then add it to a kombucha mother and let the magic begin. Here is how I do it using the recipe given to me by the guy that runs my co-op:

• Make a tea concentrate with a ratio of 2 cups water, 1 cup sugar, and 1 tbsp each of green and black tea. Don’t worry, the bacteria ferments the sugar.
• Bring it all to a boil, dissolve the sugar, then skim out the tea.
• Once the tea is cool, add 3/4 of a cup of this starter liquid and 3 1/4 cups of water to your fermentation jar.

The only real requirements for making kombucha are to have a large fermentation jar, such as a vodka infusion jar, a kombucha mother (or “mushroom” or “scoby” as some call them), and the above ingredients for making tea. But where to get a mother?

Well, you can find a friendly person that makes their own kombucha and get them to rip you off a piece and give you some of their kombucha as a starter. That’s how I scored mine. But if you either don’t know any friendly people or don’t know anyone that makes kombucha, you can make your own mother.

I will take some pictures the next time I mess with my kombucha and walk you through the process. Once again, this is a minimal time investment, perhaps 10 minutes to make the starter concentrate and 5 minutes every few days to decant some finished kombucha and fill the jar back up. Fifteen minutes per week and I have kombucha everyday.

How To Make Yogurt

Yogurt is one that I’ve never made and don’t consume because I don’t eat much in the way of dairy. However, it also appears to be pretty easy. You basically take milk, add a yogurt culture, and voila. There are a few more steps in there, such as heating and stirring, but for the most part, it’s a straight-forward process that you already have the tools for. Here is a set of instructions to make yogurt from pasteurized milk. As far as I know, making it from raw milk is a similar process.

How To Make Kefir

Kefir is another fermented dairy beverage that lots of people I know make at home. Take some milk, preferably raw, add some kefir “grains” (a combination of bacteria and yeasts), and then wait. One to two days later, you have kefir and it cost you nothing other than the price of the milk.

As with kombucha, the only real problem here is securing some kefir grains. A quick Google search, however, turned up numerous websites and mailing lists where you can find people that will ship them to you, some for free, some for cost. This website has a list of sites including two Yahoo! mailing lists that will probably be helpful.

Get Ye A Probiotic Supplement

This one is more of a back-up than a front-line defense. While I try to keep kombucha and sauerkraut on hand all the time, I also keep probiotic supplements in my fridge. If I wake up feeling a bit less than awesome (hard to believe, I know), I pop 3 or 4 probiotic pills and let them do their thing and usually I feel at least somewhat better soon after. It’s not foolproof, but it’s a good back-up plan to have.

I also take them with me on trips since I can’t really cart bottles of kombucha (unless I want to take a bunch of 3oz bottles in a plastic bag) or containers of sauerkraut onto a plane with me. I spent the weekend in Chicago and took probiotic pills with me instead. You can find lots of different kinds of probiotics at Vitamin Shoppe, if you want to have some to keep on hand.

Adverse Effects Of Probiotics

Probiotics actually have very few known side effects. Until today, the only known adverse effect of probiotic supplementation I’d heard of was “loose stools” (yeah, diarrhea) and that only came with extreme levels. Apparently, there are a few others, such as:

Hypothetically, it is possible that these “friendly” bacteria could overcolonize the colon in people with severely compromised immune systems. While this hypothetical risk has never been recorded in medical literature, people with weak immune systems are advised to consult a physician before taking probiotics.

Common side effects are generally mild and resolve themselves without treatment. As the body adjusts its floral balance, the person may experience gas, bloating, or general discomfort.
From eHow

Wild Fermentation By Sandor Katz

A couple years ago, I looked at my bookshelf and realized that I never got around to re-reading any of my books and sold them all. One of the few that I’ve actually purchased to keep since then is Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. This book covers fermentation of all kinds of fruits and vegetables, yogurt, cheese, real sourdough, and even a slight foray into honey wine (which I need to try!).

If you’re interested in getting into fermentation, it’s a good place to start, as Sandor has taken a lot of the trial and error out of the process. Though trial and error is a fun way to play too.

Have I missed any major sources of probiotics? Have you improved your health with any of the above foods (or a supplement)?

Are Running Injuries natural or just Man-Made?

Running is more popular than ever nowadays with 5-10ks/marathons happening all the time, not too mention how many recreational people go for a run before or after work (nothing like just getting outside and connecting with our primal self in nature!)

Does this really look like a natural way we were meant to run....with springs?

But what are we also seeing? Running injuries on the rise (especially knee pain)….so much that there is whole industry that just caters to those running injuries including 100s of special running shoes, all sorts of knee braces, expensive custom shoe inserts, and what seems to be an orthopedic surgeon on every corner.

Seriously, if running is naturally this destructive then why aren’t some other nations that spend their life running daily in wheelchairs for life?

Doctors and other people treating runners with injuries are quick to blame muscle imbalances, inflexibility issues, or even some “genetic” (the biggest cop out in modern medical treatment) disorder to your foot. While some of the issues may be true, the question becomes how do you fix or prevent them.

The biggest question however may just be what if our modern attempts at making a “better way to run” was in fact just taking us in the other direction? What if we are doing this to ourselves?

One Simple Solution…Barefoot Running

Maybe it’s time to just “forget everything we know”….maybe it’s time to realize what is really ruining running (by the author of Born to Run, seen in video below also)….maybe it’s time to wipe the slate clean and get back to basics.

I’d been plagued by running injuries my entire adult life. I’d seen the best sports-medicine physicians and podiatrists in the country, and they’d all prescribed the same fruitless formula of orthotics, ice, and injections. Nothing and no one could cure me. So a few years ago, I looked elsewhere: to a tiny tribe of super-athletes in Mexico, who taught me that it’s not running that’s dangerous — it’s running shoes.

Some researchers suggest that running shoes actually cause the very injuries they’re supposed to prevent. That idea has been out there for more than a decade, but it’s gaining force, thanks to the work of Daniel Lieberman, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University who’s been studying the biomechanics of the foot and the evolution of human running. Before the invention of the modern running shoe, runners couldn’t land on their heels — it was simply too painful. Doing so in today’s shoes leads to excessive foot rolling, known as overpronation.

“A lot of foot and knee injuries that are currently plaguing us are actually caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to overpronate, give us knee problems,” Lieberman said on Australian radio last year. “Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented by Nike, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet, and probably had much lower incidents of knee injuries.”

So how do the Tarahumara, running in shoes that barely qualify as shoes, do it? Three years ago, I trekked into the Copper Canyons of Mexico in search of the secret. And once I learned how to run barefoot-style — landing on the balls of the feet, while keeping my feet directly under my hips — like the Tarahumara, my ailments suddenly disappeared. Plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, sore knees — all gone.

from an article in the Wall Street journal comes this tidbit:

There isn’t a lot of scientific study on barefoot training. Research has shown that wearing shoes to exercise takes more energy, and that barefoot runners use about 4% less oxygen than shod runners. Other studies suggest barefoot athletes naturally compensate for the lack of cushioning and land more softly than runners in shoes, putting less shock and strain on the rest of the body. Barefoot runners also tend to land in the middle of their foot, which can improve running form and reduce injury.

One series of studies from Canadian researchers concluded that heavily cushioned shoes were more likely to cause injury than simpler shoes. They also concluded that more expensive athletic shoes accounted for twice as many injuries as cheaper shoes.

Wired has this story about some Nike researchers looking for a better running shoe….and make a startling discovery:

During the course of their conversations with athletes and coaches, some Nike designers ended up talking to Vin Lananna, who was then the track coach at Stanford University. While discussing the Stanford program and his success there (Lananna’s 2002 men’s track and field team won the school’s first NCAA outdoor title since 1934), Lananna mentioned the unusual training he did with his athletes: He had them run on grass without shoes.

“He said that it kept his athletes stronger and healthier, and prevented injuries,” recalls Tobie Hatfield, senior engineer for advanced products at the Nike Innovation Kitchen. “And since they were injured less, they could train more. He was sure this training was giving them an edge.”

Nike researchers brought in 10 men and 10 women to run barefoot on grass to see exactly how the body reacts without shoes on. They were videotaped with high-speed cameras to capture their movements, they had reflective markers attached to their joints to allow easy calculation of joint angles during their stride, and they even had wafer-thin pressure sensors attached to the bottoms of their feet to measure their impact with the earth.

At the end of the experiment, Nike had the most comprehensive picture of the biomechanics of barefoot running ever developed.

“There was a very unique pressure pattern that came from running on grass,” says Jeff Pisciotta, a senior researcher and biomechanist at Nike’s Sports Research Lab. “Everything was happening at the ankle and the foot, that’s where we saw the changes. There was a much greater range of motion at the ankle and foot as well. It was like an airplane coming in for a smooth landing — they were using the whole foot, very naturally.”

(Above is a video of barefoot running by Erwan Le Corre, who some have called one of the fittest men in the world…and the founder of MovNat. Now that looks like fun!)

Stiff Shoes = Weak Feet = Injuries = Pain

It all boils down to the simple equation that if you put your feet in a stiff shoe, you are not going to use all the muscles in your feet. What happens when you don’t use muscles? They get weak. Add an addition unnatural stride (heel striking) with weak feet and you create instability at the base of your body (your feet hitting the ground). That translates up your knees, legs, back and creates compensary movements (such as overpronation) and injuries.

Put your arm in a cast for a couple months…take it out…and does it have the same muscle mass as your other arm? Nope.

Now look at stiff running shoes (and inserts) as a cast for your foot….don’t expect your feet muscles to be well developed compared to using nothing at all. I learned this personally from over 30 years of playing ice hockey (very stiff skates), and the result was weak ankles and feet that I am improving daily now by wearing flexible sandals and running barefoot.

If your foundation (feet) is weak, don’t expect the rest of the house (body) to be too sturdy either!

Get out and Play Pain Free!

Some people want long drawn out explanations or a series of complicated and time consuming rehab exercises to do daily….when all they need is a simple solution.

You can start by:

• Walking more naturally/barefoot and then let your feet start adjusting to the movement. This can be done around the house or even walking around your backyard. You could also get rid of the stiff shoes and find more naturally flexible alternative (see below), even just switching to simple/flexible sandals to use daily.

• Then you can move to small barefoot/Vibram (see below) running sessions on grass at a local field/park/beach. Let the ground cushion your stride and let your natural built in running patterns emerge. Or just go out on your front yard and walk around barefoot…enjoy the movement and feeling of solid earth underneath your toes.

It is wise to start slow and not over do it. Remember that your foot muscles are probably very weak from neglect, and if you try to go run a 5k right away you may just be hobbling for the next week (muscle pain). Take it slow and progress with your running as you can, but I highly suggest to start with more walking first. Build up your strength and muscular endurance little bit at a time and you wont be so sore (like any workout for your muscles).

From there where and how often you run is up to you….but forget the complicated solutions that aren’t doing you any good (but fueling a huge industry built around them). Imagine how much money you can save if you never will need any special shoes, inserts, or treatment again! You don’t need to buy tons of books or attend expensive seminars to get back to your natural movement either….you just need to step outside and walk/run as you were meant to.

While I am not going to probably run 100% barefoot on a trail or down the street, I can get as close as possible by getting a pair of the Vibram Five Fingers. Or for those needing more “dressier” looking shoes there is the Vivo Barefoot series. Or if you are on a budget just get the “cheapest” and most flexible shoes you can find with little cushioning on the soles (remember those Chuck Taylors we all loved?).

UPDATE: Or make your own original Huarache Running Sandals.

So the next time you see someone “hobbling” down the road with fancy running shoes, specially made inserts, knee braces and a painful look on their face….do them a favor and tell them to throw their sneakers in the trash and get back to basics.