Sit back and get comfortable for a moment because I’m going to tell you a little story with a few words of wisdom mixed in. I say mixed in because I want you to read my post and not skim to the bottom for the quick answers. Don’t worry; it’ll be worth the read.

Once upon a time, I was in the gym and noticed this mother and son team working out with a type of raw energy I don’t typically see. They were doing total body workouts which I later learned is named the Spartacus workout. Now when I say total body workout, I’m not talking about a small amount of exercises that target the whole body. I’m talking about many exercises that target the individual parts that COMBINED target the total body. It’s a lot of work. Being a person that targets no more than three body parts in a session, I definitely noticed them.

Before I go any further, you are probably wondering who this mother/son combo is? You likely already know the mother as guest blogger KC. Her son is Christian Crowell, otherwise known as CC. That’s right…….KC and CC. Below is a picture of KC and CC to help give you a better visual as you’re reading this post.

Now back to my story…… Eventually I was able to meet KC and CC and I was able to learn their little energy secret. Are you ready for the first words of wisdom I had promised? Good, it’s chia seeds. I had written a post about my personal experience with chia seeds. If you haven’t read it, that’s a major shame. But no worries, you can still read about my chia seeds experience. While I had initially used chia seeds occasionally when needed, KC and CC had been using it daily as part of their regular routine. Both KC and CC are fanatic about chia seeds. Ahhhh…….now the mental picture was starting to form.

If that wasn’t enough, I found out another little energy secret. Here are the next words of wisdom: eating more raw foods. KC wrote a nice little post about the benefits of raw foods.  Check it out.

That’s it. This chia seeds/raw foods combo is what gives them their uniquely high energy levels. Their secrets are now revealed for you to use in your own little quest for energy. KC and CC motivated me to start eating chia seeds daily and I’m slowly beginning to eat more raw foods. I say slowly with the raw foods as it’s still a bit of an adjustment; I love my barbeque and especially my tri tip steaks and I don’t part too easily from these foods. But even with just the chia seeds and the occasional raw foods, I noticed a big difference in my energy levels. Am I at the point to rival the energy levels of KC and CC?  Hell no. But I’ve come a long way. You can too. Take the time and post a comment if you notice similar energy spikes from their little “not so secret” secrets.  Shhhhh……just remember you didn’t hear it from me.

Strength vs. stamina…..it sounds so simple doesn’t it? It’s just as easy for me to write it as it is for you to read it. But the truth is that it’s not that easy. In fact, it’s downright hard. I literally got my butt handed to me by KC when I made the mistake of thinking that strength and stamina were basically one of the same. If you have good strength, you also have decent stamina, right? Wrong!!!

I’ll start with strength. I consider myself pretty darn strong. On my heavy lifting days when I decide to use the cable weight machines, I not only lift the entire weight stack, but I have to place an additional weight plate around the pin that inserts into the weight stack. To accompany my strength, I also have pretty decent mass (214 pounds with around a 33/34 inch waist).

Now comes the stamina portion. Maybe you’ve seen people doing some stamina exercises. One stamina exercise I used to snicker at was watching people do walking lunges from one end of the gym to the other. For some reason, I always got the mental picture of a retarded duck trying to walk straight. I just realized that the word retarded may be politically incorrect. I doubt if I offended any “mentally challenged” ducks but I do apologize to those who may love such ducks.

Anyway, the day came where I was talked (coerced?) into trying such exercises. What’s the big deal, right? I have the strength and I have the size. I can surely walk like a retarded duck (again, my apologies) or any other exercise KC can fathom. WRONG! It is damn hard. I’ll be the first to say that it is much easier to hoist a heavy weight around than it is to do half the exercises KC had me try.

How did I ultimately do?  You guessed it……I sucked. While I look good and can lift heavy, I’m no match for this thing called muscle stamina. Strength and stamina are two completely different things. Muscle size and strength don’t do a whole lot to help your stamina, as I painfully found out. While I can’t quite say I have a newfound respect for the “duck walkers” in my gym, I can at least appreciate their efforts (BTW, I still snicker).

Will I do it again?  I’m sure at some point I likely will. Hopefully the second attempt will be the charm. I’m just not going to mention these stamina exercises to KC for a while with the hope she may forget! Hopefully KC isn’t reading this…..

For those of you who read my blog post, The “Special Post-Workout Drink”, you know I add ¼ cup sugar to my 30 gram protein drink after workouts in the gym to help increase size (if you haven’t read it, I’ll post the link at the end of this post). Well, I may have just been one-upped today by KC. She offered her own version of my post-workout drink to me which is very hard to deny. In fact, (gulp!) I may even have to admit she’s right.

Her tip: Add Goji berries in place of the sugar. Haven’t heard of Goji berries? Neither had I until KC told me about them. I was even able to try some of these berries today. They’re dried red berries with a nutty-ish flavor. Not too bad tasting. That would be good enough if I stopped right there…….it gets better. They’re full of antioxidants, high in protein (that is so cool), rich in omega-3 fatty acids, phytochemicals, and a lot more. I’ll include a link later which gives more info about these berries.

By substituting my beloved 1/4 cup sugar with 2 ounces of Goji berries, there would be a similar amount of total carbs (50 grams vs. 42 grams) to get that insulin spiking. But there would be a lot more extra benefits with those 2 ounces of Goji berries: 8 grams extra protein, 140% daily value of vitamin A, the omega 3’s, and on and on…

Yep, kinda hard to debate with KC over this one. Enjoy the credit KC, you bested my favorite post-workout drink!!

Here’s the link to my blog post The Special Post-Workout Drink

Here’s more info on Goji berries

Did you know you’re in luck today? That’s because what follows is the premiere post by guest blogger, KC. You’re in for a real treat!
 -Brian Heilweck

 
Who secretly has fantasized about being Superman or Wonder Woman?

Well, at 42 years old, I feel about as close to Wonder Woman as a mere mortal can get, due to changing to a “high-raw” diet. (Although if you saw Brian’s recent poll, he is trying to prove I am more like Selene from Underworld!). Regardless, whether Wonder Woman, or Selene, I can tell you that I didn’t always look this way, and I have the before and after pictures to prove it! So, let me explain a little more about the “high-raw” diet. A “high-raw” diet is around 75-80% raw food. Since increasing my raw food intake, I have experienced what raw foodists refer to as “euphoric bliss” and energy levels that are off the charts! As a matter of fact, it was my ability to do a lengthy “total-body” workout that caught Brian’s attention. I credited this to the elimination of high sugar, fat, and chemicals found in cooked and processed foods, and increased raw foods allowing my body to function on a level that increases fitness, flexibility, and sustained energy to push myself beyond what I could normally do.

Brian has asked that I do some “guest-blogging” every now and then to report my progress. I am happy to share my experience with the hopes that you too will experience similar results! Also, I will ask Brian to post before and after photos so you can see the difference in my appearance with your own eyes!

Until next time, stay motivated and stay raw!

A special thanks to Karena Crowell for introducing me to Chia seeds and giving me my first sample. In fact, I’m going to refer to Karena by her initials, KC (as in KeepEm Comin’ baby).

So, do you remember Chia Pets? You know “Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia”. Those little terra cotta animals that you would spread with seed paste in the hope that it would get green and grassy. Now imagine taking those same seeds and soaking them for 30 minutes and then swallowing them! Yep, those seeds are good for more than just animal figures. Here’s a quick video to really drive home the point.

 
Don’t those seeds look good? Now I know what you’re thinking. Why on earth would I ever put those seeds in my mouth? Because they are known for giving you a sense of wellbeing over time. Skeptical? So was I. That was until Karena “KC” Crowell gave me some seeds to try out. Forget the wellbeing “over time”. I was feeling good after the first time. And I’m not talking just a general uplift; I’m talking spunky. I’m talking about a type of spunkiness that can get you into trouble because you say something inappropriate and you just don’t care because you are feeling so spunky. Yes, that type of spunky!

Now the good news is that you don’t have to collect a lot of Chia Pets just to eat the seeds. You can buy the seeds separately. This is great because what would you ever do with all those naked seedless animals anyway? Just be sure to soak the seeds in a liquid first for about 30 minutes. I used water. They get a sort of strange chewy texture which reminded me of those little tapioca balls.

Now could it have been a type of placebo or sugar pill effect? Could my mind have played a trick on me? I suppose it’s a possibility, but I don’t care because I felt spunky and that’s good enough for me. In fact, I’m writing this blog post after taking about 1/2 tablespoon of Chia seeds. Ahh yes, spunkiness at its finest.

Give it a try. It’ll be in the health food section of your local store. If not, try those little independent health stores. If it’s not there either, head to your local Walmart and buy a case of Chia Pets. I’ll leave it up to you to find a good home for all those leftover seedless animals!

You’ve likely heard of melatonin as a sleep aid. But what is it and how does it work? Well, melatonin is already inside you, circulating around in your body and night. It’s a hormone that’s produced from a small pea-like (adrenal) gland deep in the center of your brain. Technically, melatonin is the result from the conversion of serotonin which comes from the pineal gland.

Okay, enough with the technicalities. Melatonin supplements only augment the amount of melatonin inside you. Because it is believed that less melatonin is produced as your body ages, taking additional melatonin supplements restores the amounts to youthful levels, back when the hormone was much more abundant.

Does it work? I personally tried it and it worked for a couple months of continual usage, but then I developed the dreaded tolerance and it didn’t work nearly as well. Increasing the dosage helped in the short-term but eventually the dreaded tolerance reared its ugly head again. Ultimately “cycling” the melatonin on a two day “on”, one day “off” pattern worked the best and avoided the tolerance issue.

Vivid crazy nightmares. That is one serious side effect that I experienced from taking melatonin. Very realistic, very gory dreams. The type of dreams that when you eventually do wake up, you shake your head a few times and say “holy shit!”

Melatonin works quite well, especially with regular cycling. Just repeat to yourself that you will not go looking for your lost cat in dark areas as you start to fall asleep with this stuff. Why do people do that anyway? Is the lost cat ever found??  Don’t get me wrong, I like my cat too…..but come on!!

I’m going to let you in on a secret ingredient I use when concocting my post-workout drink after a hard day in the gym. This is only for adding size and mass, so if your goal is definition or weight loss, you wouldn’t want to drink this. So what’s the secret ingredient…….table sugar. And plenty of it.

After an intense weightlifting workout, your body is going to need protein (ideally within about 15 minutes) to help your body recover and repair the exercise-induced “micro-tears” to your muscles. In case you’re wondering it is tears as in a piece of paper tearing, not like the tears you occasionally weep (although some workouts may literally bring tears to your eyes…but that’s another story).

Anyway, aim for about 30 grams of protein for your post-workout drink. I like to use a cup of nonfat milk (10 grams protein) and a scoop of chocolate whey protein powder (20 grams protein). Many people already do this, but here’s the kicker. Next I add just under a 1/4 cup sugar for my less intense workouts (hey, we can’t always hit a home run in the gym) and the FULL 1/4 cup sugar (that’s right, baby) for the days when I really nail it in the gym and I’m in my groove.

So why the sugar? One reason is that you want to immediately begin to replace the depleted glycogen stores within the muscles that you have just thrashed in the gym. The other reason is the insulin spike you’ll receive from all that sugar. Insulin shuttles nutrients into cells (in this case muscle cells) and because the only other nutrient in your post-workout drink is protein, all those amino acids are prime to be absorbed when your muscles need it the most. It’ll usually take a few weeks to a month for you to start noticing the results.

By the way, I don’t add any fat to the drink, such as using lowfat milk. I don’t need any fat being re-routed in my body from all the insulin. Dietary fat also lowers the peak of the insulin spike which partly defeats the purpose.

If you’re a diabetic or have any underlying health condition, check with your medical provider first. It’s a lot of sugar that you’ll be taking all at once and it can do damage to certain people with certain conditions.

I noticed great results from this drink and so have others I know. If you’re looking to build size and your health supports it, you may wanna give it a try. It can often be just the thing to push past those occasional growth plateaus.

Kidney Stones. If you’ve ever passed a large stone, you’d know. Some people have even likened the pain to childbirth. If you haven’t had any stones, consider yourself lucky! So, what can you do to help rid reoccurring stones or maybe even stop one from happening? Read on.

There are different types of kidney stones, but because about 8 out of 10 cases are calcium derived, I’m limiting this post to this type of stone. Calcium kidney stones, as the name implies, is formed from calcium – calcium oxalate to be exact. I’m telling you the exact type of calcium compound because it’ll play a part further on down in this post.

Calcium. Some people think that because a kidney stone consists of calcium that they should decrease their intake of calcium. The logic is that the less calcium there is in your body, the less chance that calcium stones will form. Don’t believe it. Consuming too little calcium will increase your chances of getting kidney stones. Here’s why.

Remember how I mentioned that kidney stones are made of calcium oxalate? If not, then you probably skipped ahead. Go back and read the second paragraph above; don’t worry, it’s short. It’s ultimately about the amounts of calcium and oxalate (also called oxalic acid) found in the foods you eat; too little of one or too much of the other can cause a calcium oxalate stone to form in the wrong place.

Calcium binds to oxalate (in a process called chelation) and forms calcium oxalate. The less calcium that is consumed, the less calcium is available in your body to bind to any oxalate you may have eaten. This is where the confusion often lies. Even though kidney stones are comprised of calcium oxalate, you want calcium to bind to the oxalate in your gut. If this didn’t happen, there would be more free unbound oxalate in your body.

This free unbound oxalate will pass easily into your bloodstream. And now that it’s in your bloodstream, it will have to pass through your kidneys to be excreted out in the urine. Therein lies the problem. In urine, calcium and oxalate have a much higher tendency to bind and form a stone (a process called precipitation). The only way this newly formed stone is now getting out of your body is through your small urethra, or in layman terms, the pee pee tube….OUCH! Childbirth revisited.

Now, what if much more calcium was consumed, especially in combination with an oxalate food? Glad you asked. The calcium would bind to the oxalate in the gut. This newly formed calcium oxalate compound is not absorbable and will not enter the bloodstream. It stays in the gut, which is exactly where you want it to be. It is excreted out in the stool and you’ll be none the wiser that it ever left your body.

So, now that you’re armed with this (hopefully) new knowledge, what should you do to help rid yourself of future kidney stones?

1. Consume your calcium! Ideally you want about 1,200 mg of calcium per day. This is the general recommended daily amount and not some exaggerated number.
2. Watch your intake of high oxalate foods. Don’t know which foods are high in oxalates? Check out this link of high oxalate foods. A word of warning though: chocolate is one of the foods high in oxalate. Hey, I never said it’s easy.
3. If you do consume a high oxalate food (such as that nice piece of chocolate), consume some calcium along with it so it will be more likely to bind in your gut and not your kidneys.

Is there anything I missed. If so, let me know.

You may have heard of tyramine. If not, I’ll describe it in a nutshell. It’s what developed (a monoamine for anyone interested) as the amino acid tyrosine is converted to adrenaline (or epinephrine). Now that you have an idea what it is, what exactly does it do to trigger migraines? It’s all about the constriction and dilation of blood vessels in the cranium. This constriction and dilation causes the throbbing headaches associated with migraines. At least that’s the theory.

So, what foods are high in tyramine? Glad you asked. Foods that are aged and/or preserved are high in tyramine and should be avoided. Here’s a general list of such foods:

• Nearly all cheeses (the exceptions being cottage cheese, ricotta, and queso fresco)
• Aged/fermented meats, such as sausage, bacon, hot dogs, ham, pepperoni, and corned beef.
• Overripe bananas.

By the way, note that last food item. You may have noticed our smoothie recipes for migraines at MedicalCookBooks.com include bananas. This was not a mistake. Regular unripe bananas are not high in tyramine. Even better, they’re a good source of magnesium (one medium banana has over 30 mg). Magnesium causes smooth muscles to expand which expands the blood vessels within the muscles. Expanded blood vessels decrease blood pressure, and this reduction of blood pressure within the cranium reduces the frequency and severity of migraine pain.

So…. getting back to tyramine. Does tyramine cause migraines? As a general rule, No. People who are hypersensitive to tyramine or experience physical reactions are the exceptions and would do well to avoid tyramine. Don’t know if you’re hypersensitive to tyramine? There’s an easy test. Eliminate foods high in tyramine and note any decrease in the frequency and/or intensity of your migraines. Here’s a link to a list of tyramine-containing foods. Reducing tyramine may indeed work, but this is the exception and not the rule. Migraines being caused by the constriction and dilation of cranial blood vessels? Sure, I’ll buy that. Migraines caused from an intermediate byproduct during the creation of adrenaline? Nope, I just don’t buy it. Migraines are caused by several (or many) suspects, and while tyramine is not completely innocent (again, it can cause migraines in select people), tyramine is not the big felon it is often portrayed to be.  

Is there something I’ve overlooked which further implicates tyramine?   Let me know.