As many of you know, I’m a huge advocate of reading (or learning) for at least an hour per day.  Since my beautiful daughter was born almost 8 weeks ago she and I have been putting in our time reading and watching some great stuff.

Outliers - By Malcolm Gladwell

This book provides a very insightful look at what makes people successful in their respective fields.  Despite what you might think about working hard, Gladwell suggests that this is only part of the equation.  Although I’m not 100% sold on every single assertion that was made, it certainly was enough to open my eyes to the possibility that there are other factors at play.

More importantly, Gladwell’s writing style is interesting and easy to read which is refreshing if you’re looking for something thought provoking, but not overly intense.  If this isn’t enough to convince you, consider that I’m now reading another Gladwell book called The Tipping Point and have his other books Blink and What the Dog Saw on my bookshelf already.

Fast Food Nation - By Eric Schlosser

Honestly, I could probably tell you all about this book and how it explains the production, flavoring, and marketing of your food, but it really wouldn’t do justice to the vast amount of information that is covered about the effects of corporate power on our food supply.

Consider that companies like Nestle make baby formula (Gerber), food (Cheerios, Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s), coffee (Nescafe), chocolate (Kit Kat, Smarties), and then when you get good and overweight they can sell you food replacements like Boost, Powerbar, Jenny Craig, and even the medically managed weight loss product called Optifast.  Need some water for that shake?  No worries, they sell that too.  Pure Life, Perrier, Vittel, and S.Pelligrino are all Nestle products.  And by the way, they are also feeding your pets.  Nestle makes Alpo, Friskies, and Fancy Feast.   Once they start making caskets they’ll have us covered from cradle to grave.

Imagine what would happen if the goverment tried to mandate changes to the foods we eat to make them healthier.  Imagine the power of corporations to resist.  Although the observations about Nestle are my own, I’m sure you get the idea.  Fast Food Nation is well worth the read.

Note that this book led me to investigate further the treatment of animals during the commercial production of the food we eat.  Check out the galleries on THIS SITE if you’re interested.  Consider this fair warning that the images there are graphic and disturbing.  They also are not intended to convey that I think all industry operates like this…but it certainly opens your eyes.

StrengthCoach.com

Recently I’ve spent a fair bit of time on Strength Coach.com and I really enjoy the content.  The weekly articles are great, but I have to admit that the forum is really where it is at.  

Unlike many other web forums that are chock-full of nonsense by written by any idiot with a keyboard, here you can often read and participate in discussions bright folks like Mike Boyle, Bret Contreras, Mike Robertson, Alwyn Cosgrove,  Nick Tumminello, Charlie Weingroff, and many others that I’m probably forgetting to name.

Personally, I’ve read some people’s responses in the advanced forum and had to look stuff up or ask questions just so I could understand what they’re talking about.  As a result I’ve learned a ton of new stuff in a short period of time.

I think this is an incredible resource and totally worth checking out.  It’ll cost you a buck to try it for 14 days and if you don’t like it you can bail.

Oh yeah…while I’m on the Mike Boyle front I should also mention that I just watched Functional Strength Coach Volume 3 and think this is a great resource for any up and coming coach.

Fat Is Not Your Fault

After interviewing Dr. Bryan Walsh a few weeks back I decided to check out his Fat is not Your Fault Program.  Frankly, I’ve grown a little tired of the overhyped rapid fat loss programs that are basically just some variation of a low carb diet which is why I think this program is so interesting.  Dr. Walsh not only emphasizes the importance of diet, exercise, and mindset, but he also identifies several other possible roadblocks to fat loss success that you’re not going to see in your typical fat loss program.

I’ve already read the manual and am currently about half way through watching the videos and am loving the information so far.  Never have I really given as much thought to adrenal health and gastrointestinal function as I have since seeing this product.  If you’re successfully navigating the fat loss world, I’m not sure you’re absolutely in need of this program, but if you or a client have ever had difficulty losing fat despite being totally on plan, this would be a worthwhile investment.  Personally, I’m thinking of making Dr. Walsh’s screening questionaire (which is included) as part of my battery of forms for my clients.

Z-Health R Phase Manual

At the persistent enouragement of Mike T Nelson I’m checking out the Z-Health system.  To be honest, I have yet to start reading/watching this, but it is next on my list so hopefully I’ll steal a few pearls of wisdom from this as well.

What great stuff are you reading right now?  What’s next on your reading list?  Drop me a comment and let me know.

A couple weeks back I came across Dr. Walsh’s article on TMuscle.com and absolutely loved it.  More and more these days I’m getting sick if the same old stuff and this was certainly something many people neglect.  So I decided to hit him up for an interview.  Being the nice guy he is, he agreed.  I hope you enjoy the info!

If you’re in a hurry, make sure to come back and check out the videos.  There is some great info there!

Dr Walsh, for those readers who don’t know who you are could you please introduce yourself and give us a little background?

Thanks, Mark.  I’m a Naturopathic Physician practicing in Maryland.  I was involved in the fitness industry for many years, but made the leap to become a physician and now specialize in a few things, most notably finding the underlying reasons people can’t lose weight.

One of my biggest frustrations is the misunderstanding that people have about health and more specifically, weight loss.  We’re told that all we need to do is diet and exercise, and weight loss should be easy.  But it’s not.  Thousands of people will tell you that from experience. 

The fundamental thing I try to teach people is, diet and exercise will only work to the degree that your physiology will allow them to.  Put another way, your body dictates how well diet and exercise works for you.  If your thyroid is sluggish, if your guts aren’t working,  if you have hormone imbalances or if you have adrenal issues, weight loss will be next to impossible.  Yet we are constantly fed the same line that all you need to do is diet more and exercise harder.  That simply isn’t true.

You recently wrote about the idea the too little hydrochloric acid in the stomach could lead to suboptimal digestion and a harder time improving our body composition.  After testing for this you also suggested that HCL supplementation might be necessary to increase these values back to normal.

Unfortunately, I’ve encountered a growing number of people who rely heavily on proton pump inhibitors to prevent HCL production due to severe heartburn when they’re not taking them.  Does reducing HCL with these medications prevent proper digestion and possibly affect their physiques?

I hate proton pump inhibitors.  They are making people worse, not better. 

Many people are put on them because of gastric reflux symptoms, otherwise known as heartburn.  But the truth is, it is very rare to find someone who has too much stomach acid.  In reality, it’s the opposite.  Most people do not have enough stomach acid.  But what happens is, the valve that goes from your esophagus to your stomach – called the esophageal sphincter – doesn’t work, so the little acid they do have goes up into the esophagus and creates a burning sensation that people usually fix with PPIs or antacids.  They are making themselves worse.

Hydrochloric acid is VERY important for our health.  One, it sterilizes our food to help kill any microbes we eat and prevents infection further down our GI tract.  Two, is starts the digestion of protein, which of course is required for a number of processes in our body.  Lastly, acid is responsible for triggering important digestive processes further down the tract, such as telling the pancreas to secrete digestive enzymes and the gall bladder to release bile. 

Without adequate amounts of stomach acid, we are more prone to gut infections and poor digestion.

Low stomach acid impacts so many systems in the body, it can indirectly impact one’s physique from many different levels – hormonal, digestive, improper anabolism or amino acid balance, cortisol, etc.

Many doctors state that once you’re on a proton pump inhibitor you’re on it for life.  Assuming they have tested negative for H Pylori bacteria, is there anything people can do so that they don’t have to continue taking these medications forever?

People should always be tested for H. Pylori infections if they have hyperacidity issues, or especially if they have a history of ulcers.  Your gut will never be healthy if you have an H. Pylori infection.  The urea breath test is the best test for that.

And to answer your question, people on a PPI are most certainly not on it for life.  I’ve helped many people get off of it, but it requires fixing whatever issues caused the hyperacidity symptoms in the first place.  You often have to supply the person with more acid and give nutrients to heal the stomach lining.

Should these people avoid HCL supplementation?

Not necessarily, but like I said, they need to fix whatever was causing the gastric reflux symptoms in the first place.

Assuming someone has a fairly solid diet and exercise regime, what other physiological factors can prevent someone from losing fat or gaining muscle at the ideal rate?  Can you elaborate on this?

This is too much to cover here and is why I created Fat Is Not Your Fault to teach people what can stop them from losing weight.

There are so many things that can do this.  Thyroid dysfunction is a big one and something most doctors don’t know much about.  Your thyroid is your metabolism gland and if there is a defect in that system, you will have a hard time losing weight.

Hormones can also wreak havoc on your body’s ability to lose weight.  We see a lot of people, both men and women, that have hormonal imbalances.  If your hormones are not working properly, you can pretty much forget about losing weight.

I mentioned gut health, but it can’t be overstated.  You are only as healthy as your digestive system.  Everything from infection, to food sensitivities, to inflammation, each of these things will cause systemic effects in your body that will make losing weight difficult.

One of the most common and basic things we find in people are blood sugar imbalances and adrenal dysfunction.  They usually go hand in hand.  On a fundamental level, if you have blood sugar and adrenal issues, nothing will work properly in your body.  It’s the number one problem we see in people, even supposedly “healthy” individuals who follow a great diet and exercise program.

Even neurotransmitters can impact weight loss both directly and indirectly.  Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers in your brain, such as serotonin and dopamine, that have intimate connections with hormones, the immune system and even thyroid physiology.  They also impact mood, motivation and cravings.  On a basic level, if someone has issues with neurotransmitter balance, they might not even have the willpower to diet and exercise, and can have pretty intense cravings for sugar and fat despite how hard they are working at being healthy.

It cannot be overstated – your body dictates how well diet and exercise will work for you.  If your physiology is off, so will be your weight loss efforts.

It seems that there has been a distinct rise in the number of cortisol products on the market.  How much of a role does stress really play in preventing fat loss and what can we do about it?

Cortisol can absolutely stop people from losing weight.  There are two problems with the products though.  One, they suck.  The research they site for rationale in using their product is valid, but the doses and potencies won’t do anything to lower cortisol.  They are totally a marketing ploy and a waste of people’s money.

The second issue is that they never address why cortisol was elevated in the first place.  It might have been a gut infection, food sensitivities, or a blood sugar issue, to name a few.  Even if these products did work, which they don’t, the second you go off of them your cortisol could go right back to where it was in the first place. 

And finally, if you could only do 5 tests that you think all trainees should do what would they be and why?

I don’t even think people need five.  By far the most important test someone can do is a good blood chemistry test.  By good, I mean with adequate markers to really see what is going on in the body.  Blood chemistries that most doctors run today are a waste of time because they only have a few markers on them. 

The second thing is – and this is too big of a topic to go into here – to have your blood chemistry read from an “optimal” or “functional” perspective.  The reference ranges people see on a lab are created using a sick population and are designed to look for pathology, not health.  If your results are within the reference range, it’s saying that you are as healthy as 95% of the people who go to the doctor, which are sick people!  That’s not health. 

The next most important test is a salivary adrenal hormone profile.  The adrenal glands are so important with a variety of systems in the body, if they aren’t working properly, nothing will. 

Other than that, tests should be run based on symptoms.  If someone has GI symptoms, you should get a good GI stool panel.  If someone has hormone issues, you should get a good salivary hormone profile.  If you have a lot of thyroid symptoms, you should get a good thyroid panel done.

Tests are great, but only after someone gets the basics done with a good blood chemistry and adrenal test. 

Thank you so much for taking the time out to do this interview.  Where can my readers learn more about you or your products?

They can learn more by going to fatisnotyourfault.com or www.drbryanpwalsh.com

Thoughts?  Comments?  Leave them below.

As many of you may know, I believe that reading for an hour per day is paramount if you hope to become a leader in any field.  Fitness and nutrition are no different.  Here are a few things to get you started for today.

Fasting for Fat Loss?

If you’ve ever heard that going without food for a long time results in some sort of “starvation response” or “severe muscle loss” you’re going to want to check out these pics on Martin Berkhan’s blog.  Definitely not what you’d expect to see of someone who fasts for up to 16 hours per day.

Martin is a huge source of knowledge when it comes to intermittent fasting and will be part of the free audio interview series coming soon.  Spend a little time on his blog and soak up some knowledge.

Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back?

In this New York Times article, Dr Stuart McGill discusses the transversus abdominis and core training in general.  Also included is a short video where recommended exercises are show.  Worth a quick read.  Oh yeah, Dr McGill is also part of the audio interview series.  Keep your eyes peeled.

Enjoy the reading and have a great week!

In my head I can often here my grad school statistics professor saying “68 percent of the population fall within one standard deviation from the mean”.  What this means, besides the fact that I’m a total geek, is that whenever there is an average response to something (such as a training program) this only applies directly to approximately 70% of the people you use it on.

That is not to say that it won’t work at all on the others, but that it has the greatest chance of success with the majority that fall closest to the average.  The further you are away from the average the less likely the plan is to work on you.

Of course, this assumes a normal bell curve and, without getting into too much statistics, I can tell you than not every physiological phenomenon occurs like that.  Sometimes the results are skewed more to one side or the other meaning that a lot more people or less people are responsive to a certain program.

And finally there are people that scientists like to call “outliers”.  You can see in the picture above that these are people who don’t fit the rest of the data.  They stand out by themselves and their results are not typical of the rest of people being tested.  These are the people that scientists like to remove from the data because they make statistical analysis more difficult.  However, these are the people who are more likely to respond to a specific plan that may not work for everyone else.  On the flip side, they are also less likely to respond to the program that does work for everyone else.

My main point here is that everyone in the fitness industry has their philosophy.  For nutrition some people like to tell you to eat for your blood type, others will tell you to eat based on your ethnic background, and some will tell you to eat based on your skin caliper measures.  Still, others will tell you just to eat the same thing as everyone else they train because they don’t know any other way.

High Suprailiac Skinfold - "Low carbs for you tubby!"

With training some people will design your program based on fiber type, others will base it on a Functional Movement Screen, Z Health, or other type screen.  And some will exclusively use kettlebells, strongman equipment, other implements in their program design.

As an intelligent trainee or coach I agree that it is important to have a base philosophy to work from.  This will provide a starting point for yourself or your clients.  However, even more important is not being too attached to your program or your ego to let it go when it possibly isn’t the best plan for up to 30% of the population.

No matter how much science you have backing up your program, it doesn’t mean squat if you’re not getting results.  Ultimately this leaves me with two take home points.

1.  Measure your progress.

If you’re not measuring your progress you don’t know if you’re moving forward, backwards, or staying the same.  Of course, this assumes that you already you have specific and measurable goals to work towards, but you already knew that because you’re too smart to be training with no goals…aren’t you?

2.  Use Results Based Programming

If you (or your clients) are not moving towards your goals then you need to revise your system.  You need to look at your previous measures of results to find out what brought the biggest gains.  This means looking back at your training and nutrition logs (you have these too right?) and seeing what worked.

*As a side note to trainers and coaches, this is also the point for you to evaluate YOUR system.  Have you been pursuing one system for a long time to the exclusion of all others.  Maybe it is time to look at something else for a while.  Don’t worry…your system will still be there when you get back.  The more resistant you are to this idea, the more you probably need to follow the advice.*

In the end, systems are great tools, but results are paramount.  Explore and read all you can about as many systems as you can and select the one the brings results for the specific person or situation.  Better yet, take elements of many systems and create your own.  No one system is perfect.  Except mine, of course.  Just kidding.

We’ve all been told that protein intake after exercise is important, but just how much is enough?   As it turns out, a definitive study was published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition with the answer to that exact question.

What’s even better is that I managed to snag Dan Moore, the lead author of the study and also an old school mate, to chat with us about some of the findings.

For those who need to check out the study for themselves, here’s the reference:

Moore DR, Robinson MJ, Fry JL, Tang JE, Glover EI, Wilkinson SB, Prior T, Tarnopolsky MA, Phillips SM.  Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin protein synthesis after resistance exercise in young men.  Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jan;89(1):161-8. 

In the meantime, let’s get down to the interview.

Hey Dan!  Long time no chat.  Obviously this new paper has shed some light on the amount of protein we really require after exercise.  Can you tell us a little bit about the study?

Sure Mark.  Thanks for taking an interest in our recent study. The reason for conducting the study was that most people know that lifting weights builds muscle and that eating some protein after exercise helps this process along; however, no study had ever really looked at how much protein we need to maximize muscle protein synthesis (which is essentially a marker of how much new protein is made) during recovery from exercise.

Therefore, we designed the study so that normal resistance trained young men performed five separate sessions of intense of lower body resistance exercise followed immediately by the ingestion of a drink containing 0, 5, 10, 20, or 40g of high quality egg protein to help stimulate muscle protein synthesis. However, because there is a limit to how quickly our bodies can make new protein, we also measured how much of the protein in the drink was converted to fuel and used as a source of energy (which is the main fate of excess dietary protein).
 

What we found was that as little as 5 g of dietary protein increased the rate of muscle protein synthesis showing that even small amounts of protein can help your muscle rebuild after exercise. However, 10 g of protein was slightly better than 5 g at making new muscle proteins. After eating 20 g of protein the muscle was making new proteins at a rate that was twice as great as when no protein was eaten, clearly showing that eating protein after exercise helps make new muscle proteins. However, we were intrigued to find out that even if the protein that was eaten after exercise was doubled from 20 to 40 g (which is the amount of protein commonly found in a single serving of most weight gain protein shakes) there was no additional increase in muscle protein synthesis showing that there is a limit as to how much protein your body can use to build new muscle.

In fact, we also saw that leucine oxidation (which is a marker of how much protein your body is using as energy) was markedly increased after ingestion of 20 and especially 40 g of protein. This suggests that the amount of protein in the recovery drink had saturated the body’s ability to make new protein and that it was now being converted to a source of fuel for the muscle and other organs of the body, which then makes the amino acids from the protein drinks unavailable for muscle rebuilding. Therefore, based on the findings from this study we suggested that the amount of dietary protein that maximizes muscle rebuilding yet minimizes the use of amino acids for fuel (what we defined as the “optimal” amount) is about 15-20g of high quality protein.

So basically what you’re saying is that we don’t need to consume any more than 15-20 grams of high quality protein to maximize protein synthesis after exercise?  That’s great info!  You could basically get that in a 500ml serving of milk!
 

What do you think about the addition of other macronutrients like carbohydrates to the 20 grams of protein?  Obviously you’re aware of the studies that suggest that carbs and protein together are better than protein alone post-exercise.  Would you be able to speculate whether this might work better or do you think that synthetic response might be totally maxed out with the 20 grams of protein?
 

Most studies that have included carbohydrates in the post-exercise nutrition have actually failed to detect an additional stimulation of protein synthesis relative to protein ingestion alone. These findings are consistent with the fact that the stimulation of protein synthesis is related almost entirely to the presence of amino acids, especially the essential amino acids (which are found in fairly large amounts in most high quality proteins).

However, there are some studies that suggest that carbohydrates may be slightly better than protein or amino acids at inhibiting muscle protein breakdown, which would function to increase the net protein balance of the muscle (protein synthesis minus protein breakdown) and could therefore translate into a slightly greater amount of total muscle proteins made after exercise.
 

What is clear about the role of carbohydrates in post-exercise nutrition is that they help replenish muscle glycogen stores, which is important for those individuals who have relatively long or intense training sessions or who train more than once per day. Therefore, from a practical standpoint it would be important for individuals to consume adequate carbohydrates to at least replenish the energy used during the training session.
 

Now this study was conducted when people were in a weight maintenance phase.  Some studies suggest that if people are in negative calorie balance they might require a slightly greater amount of protein to maintain muscle mass.  Do you think this would have any significant influence on the amount of protein required after exercise as well?
 

This is a good question. There is some evidence to suggest that increasing the amount of protein in the diet helps maintain muscle mass during a situation of negative energy balance when individuals are restricting calorie intake without exercise. However, we know that resistance exercise is inherently anabolic and improves the muscle’s ability to reutilize the amino acids that come from the breakdown of muscle proteins. Also, compared to individuals who don’t exercise, resistance exercise increases the muscle’s ability to use small amounts of amino acids from the diet to build muscle tissue. Collectively, this ultimately translates into a more efficient use of dietary protein with resistance exercise and would function to help maintain lean body mass during periods of reduced energy.
 

This situation may be altered slightly though if people are performing aerobic exercise during the period of negative energy as this form of exercise is not as anabolic as resistance exercise. There is some evidence showing that when individuals are in calorie deficit and performing endurance exercise that increasing the amount of protein in the diet helps reduce the loss of lean body mass.
 

Further work needs clearly needs to be done in this area, but from a practical standpoint people who are in negative energy balance and performing primarily aerobic exercise may need to eat an additional 5-10g of protein after exercise. However, if resistance exercise is included in the period of negative calorie balance then there is probably no need to consume large amounts of protein after exercise.
 

One quote from the study is going to piss off a lot of people and drive a lot of keyboard nutrition gurus absolutely nuts.  Frankly, I think it’s great.

“Our findings have implications for protein recommendations for resistance trained athletes in terms of the quantity of dietary protein that might maximize muscle growth. If we assume that a 20g protein dose maximally stimulates muscle protein synthesis after exercise and we know that resistance exercise enhances the synthesis of muscle protein for at least 24h, one could ask how many times in a day could someone consume such a dose to stimulate muscle anabolism that would ultimately translate into muscle growth?

Because muscle protein synthesis becomes refractory to persistent aminoacidemia [i.e., even if you infuse  protein into the muscle the synthetic response will drop off] and excess amino acids are lost to oxidation, we speculate that no more than 5–6 times daily could one ingest this amount (’20 g) of protein and expect muscle protein synthesis to be maximally stimulated. Protein consumption in excess of this rate or dose would ultimately lead to oxidative loss. In addition, given that the capacity to oxidize amino acids adapts to the diet and can actas a key regulator of protein stores, chronic protein consumption in excess of this rate or dose could actually lead to dampening of the protein synthetic response to suboptimal (ie,20 g) protein doses [i.e., getting less of a response from the same amount of protein].”

So you’re basically saying that somewhere from 100 - 120 grams of quality protein per day would be enough to maximize the protein synthetic response in a resistance trained male?
 

Yes. In the case of our ~85kg resistance trained males consuming 20g of protein 5-6 times per day (i.e. every 2-3h), this would translate into 100-120 g of protein over the course of a day or the equivalent of 1.2-1.4 g of protein per kg body mass per day. This level of dietary protein intake has been shown be sufficient to increase muscle strength and mass (which likely resulted from a maximized protein synthetic response) in young men. In addition, this level of protein intake and pattern of feeding would maximize the amount of dietary amino acids that would be used as substrates to build muscle protein rather than as a source of fuel (i.e. oxidized), which would increase the dietary efficiency of this relatively expensive macronutrient.

There is also considerable evidence showing that overall energy intake is more important than total protein intake for changes in lean body mass and strength. Therefore if the goal of training is to increase muscle mass, it is more important to ensure calorie intake is positive rather than to increase dietary protein intake.
 

And finally, based on your research experience do you have any parting recommendations with regards to post-workout supplementation to maximize muscle growth for the average lifter?
 

Consume 20g of protein and adequate energy immediately after exercise and roughly every 3h after that to maximize muscle protein synthesis and keep it elevated throughout the day. As a guideline, follow recommendations from the Canada Food Guide and eat a balanced diet containing a variety of different foods to ensure adequate vitamin and nutrient intake throughout the day. And above all, make sure you’re having fun!

Thanks Dan!  It’s been great talking with you.

No problem.

For those reading, thoughts, questions, and comments are welcomed below.