This is a clip of the movie Fat Head. It is an excellent rebuttal to the movie Super Size Me, which places a lot of the blame for the obesity epidemic on corporate America and McDonalds. As McDonalds may be a contributing factor, in my opinion, Thomas Naughton’s contention is that McDonalds does not force anyone to eat there.

He also addresses the Lipid Hypothesis, the role of insulin in obesity, and the calories in/calories out approach to weight loss. He too goes on a 28 day diet of mostly McDonalds (fast food in general) and ends up…well, I’ll let you watch the movie to see what happens. Wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for anyone.

Fat Head Movie

The truth about Agave!

Agave nectar has been sold to consumers as a ‘natural’, ‘healthy’ alternative to sugar. It is commercially produced from several varities of the Agave plant and is 1.4 – 1.6 times sweeter than sugar. Agave is marketed as a low-glycemic sweetener, meaning that it illicits a lower spike in blood sugar than other sweeteners. But does that make it better? Let’s look at the true compostion of agave nectar.

Agave nectar, like table sugar, is a mixture of fructose and glucose. Sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup have a fructose to glucose ratio of about 1:1. Agave, on the other hand, has a fructose to glucose ratio ranging between 7 and 9:1 making it considerably higher in fructose than glucose. What does that mean? Fructose has been shown to increase insulin resistance leading to fructose malabsorption, metabolic syndrome, an unfavorable blood lipid profile, diabetes, etc. So, more fructose, in a concentrated form, is NOT what anyone needs!

Agave nectar is like high fructose corn syrup on steroids – it’s got even more fructose. Another con to ingesting too much fructose is that unlike glucose, which can be metabolized by nearly every cell in the body, fructose can only be metabolized in the liver. This creates a high risk for the development of fatty liver disease (that’s not a good thing…).

The arguement will be that fructose is the sugar found in fruit, so if fructose is bad then fruit is bad. This is not the case. The concentration of fructose in fruit is much lower than that in sweeteners and fruit also delivers fiber, nutrients and water that the body needs.

That’s the not so ‘sweet’ truth about agave nectar.

I used to play follow-the-leader as a kid with neighborhood friends.  I was able to replicate a movement or patterns of movements with very little difficulty.  Sport and exercise is a version of follow-the-leader.  Most of us developed these skills by watching someone else.  By repetition, we began to specialize and develop very specific movement patterns to perform at a higher level of competition.  In order to perform a task, we must learn correct form and over time develop and refine it precisely and efficiently.  Efficiency in motion can only be done by making sure all the links in the movement pattern is working properly through the kinetic chain.  Kinetic chain is defined as a linked system of interdependent segments working together to produce a desired movement.  In human movement one segment cannot move without affecting another segment. It is like the childhood song says, “the leg bone is connected to the hip bone, and hip bone is connected to the back bone…”
There are three (3) major links in the kinetic chain; nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems.  The nervous system is the “communicator”.  It receives outside stimuli from visual, auditory, and tactile stimulus, processes the signals, and sends this information to the skeletal and muscular links in the chain.  The skeletal system is the framework for the body.  It provides shape and form to our bodies by providing a structure for our muscular system to attach and produce motion.
Body alignment and posture is essential in everything we do from walking upright to performing a series of explosive lifts.  If we have one weak link in our chain then we cannot maximize function to perform these tasks.  Over the last several weeks Crossfitters have listened intently to Jim Laird explain why it is important to attain and maintain adequate ankle flexibility when performing a proper squat. Now I would like to break it down a little further as it relates to the kinetic chain and the weakest link concept.

When squatting, it is important to make sure that our feet stay flat on the ground. If a lifter is beginning his/her decent with the weight and has gastroc/soleous (calf) tightness, he/she is unable to keep their feet flat on the ground.  This weak link sets off a series of adaptations that can lead to injury.  Decreased ankle flexibility elevates our heels off the ground when lowering the weight causing a transition of our body weight over our toes disrupting our stable base for movement and power.  Weight distribution over our toes activates our quads not our hamstrings.  Our center of gravity is then shifted anteriorly.  Because our body weight and center of gravity have moved anteriorly, we must then compensate by lowering our chest to maintain balance or equilibrium.  In this forward position, our low back must now do all the work, to both maintain the current position and perform the lift.  The increased load will lead to low back pain.  All this is a direct result of a weak link in the chain, ankle inflexibility.
Deficits in the kinetic chain can result from a variety of issues, such as, previous injury, genetics, and most commonly muscular imbalances.  An example of muscular imbalance within the kinetic chain is a weight lifter who has shoulder pain. Most weight lifters concentrate on the anterior muscles of the body, such as, pectoralis major and minor, upper trapezius, and biceps and do not devote a great deal of time on the posterior muscles of the shoulder and trunk.  This creates an imbalance between the anterior and posterior muscles of the trunk forcing them into a forward, more rounded posture.  This abnormal posture causes the scapula to move forward which increases the risk of injury to the labrum and rotator cuff.  Most people don’t understand the importance of strengthening the upper back and scapular muscles and how it relates to the shoulder.  The “ball and socket” joint we know as the shoulder is actually an extension of the scapula (shoulder blade).  So, where ever the shoulder blade goes so does the socket of the shoulder.  If the muscles that move or stabilize the scapula are weak then the scapula will be placed in an abnormal position, in turn, the “socket” of the shoulder will be out of its normal position forcing the muscles around the shoulder to work harder than necessary.

The shoulder joint will lead to a breakdown of the fibers of the rotator cuff resulting in injury.  There is an increased need for the muscles around the scapula to be strong in order to produce a stable base for the shoulder to work properly.
As mentioned earlier in the squatting example, it is important to maintain a stable base for movement.  The more stable the platform for movement the more mobility we can achieve.  Every movement we make starts from the ground up.  Should I want to raise my left arm to reach for a glass on the counter, what muscle in my body do you think fires first? Rotator cuff? Quadriceps?  No, it would be my opposite gastroc/soleous (calf) muscles.   Raising my left arm requires muscles to fire before arm movement can occur.  The forces generated in the lower body facilitate movement in my upper body.  This is the same for pitchers in baseball, if the lower body is weak (ankles, quads, hips) then the forces they are able to generate decrease.  The decrease in forces from their lower body must be recuperated somewhere else in the kinetic chain in order to maintain a 95 mph fast ball.  Most pitchers try to recoup the loss in forces by throwing harder with their upper body, lending itself to shoulder and elbow problems all because their lower body was not strong enough or flexible enough to generate the power needed to be funneled through their upper body.

Understanding that our bodies do not work as separate and equally dependent segments is critically important in improving performance.  But more importantly in improving performance is being able to identify a weak link in the chain.  A breakdown in the kinetic chain can manifest itself in several forms; fatigue, decrease in the amount of weight one has typically been able to lift, and pain or injury.  I feel that we are fortunate to have all the tools that CrossFit provides to assist us in identifying potential weak links.  Dr. Trevor Wilkes and I will be coming out to CrossFit the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every month to discuss questions you may have related to injury or performance.  We will place a topic of the month on the website and will check it daily for comments you may have that we can assist you with.

I read this article today, A More Fulfilling Life: Learning From Elite Athletes from the Huffington Post. It really made me think about when I used to work out at __________ (fill in the blank with any other gym that I’ve worked out at in the past: YMCA, Snap Fitness, Gold’s, Urban Active…yes, I’ve worked out at all of those places). There are so many people every day going into the gym they belong to, looking to just drop 10-20 pounds. They’ve been attempting this for the last year or so. Maybe they have dropped a considerable amount of weight but those last 10-20 just aren’t coming off. Possibly, that isn’t their goal. Some people are just looking to gain mass and put on a boatload of muscle and they’re crazy skinny.

Whatever your aim, the first thing to do is start with a goal. A true, measurable, realistic, time-sensitive goal. When I started working out again after gaining about 30 pounds a few years ago, my goal was to lose some weight. What they heck is “some weight?” If I said I wanted to lose 20 pounds of fat by 6 months from now, I would have been on the right track. Anyone can say they want to lose some weight. Have a place you want to go to before you head out on your way, if not you’re just wandering aimlessly and can lose sight of what you were trying to acheive in the first place.

Next, write that down. Commit to that goal by putting it on paper and hanging it on the fridge or your bathroom mirror. Put it next to your bed so every night you go to bed and every morning you wake up you are reminded of it. Put it in your car where your speedometer is so even when you’re driving you are cognizant of it.

Have a baseline. Write down where you are starting out. When you are plotting a course on google maps (or mapquest) you have a green marker (starting point) and a red marker (end point). It is always nice to see where you are starting from so that when you get to your destination you can say, “hey, I was there and now I’m all the way over here.”

Take in the scenery along the way. Take pictures of yourself every few months. Plot out your weight loss/gain so that you have photographic and numerical evidence that you are achieving what you are setting out to accomplish. Everyone needs to see progress or we just feel like a rat on a wheel. This simple task will keep you motivated for the duration.

Not working? If you have tried to achieve something in the past and it just doesn’t work, maybe you’re doing something wrong. Seek out someone that has been where you are trying to get to and ask them how they got there. For me, I tried and failed about 8 times over the course of 4 years to lose weight and successfully keep it off. It took only a couple of changes in my diet that got me going in the right direction in the end (Honestly, my wife told me continually over four years sort of what I had to do but I chose to ignore it until I found scientifically why it was so). This may be the same thing that’s going on with you. It’s not a bad thing to get outside help if you need it. Failure isn’t the worst possible outcome, it’s quitting that is the real bugger.

I guess that’s the beauty that is CrossFit Maximus. You have a whole community of people that range from elite level athletes to people that are just starting out and also everyone in between. Learn from them. There are a whole bunch of people to get ideas from because they have either been there are are trying to get there too. Use the resources in the gym. That is what sets CFM apart and makes it that much better than any where else. There are professionals that know how to get you to the goal you want to achieve. We know the mistakes that most people make and know what people should avoid doing so that they can take the easiest, most successful path to attaining whatever goals. That is not to say that this road won’t be difficult for you personally. There may be pain. Anything worth doing is going to be difficult. Embrace the pain. Share the pain…then have Kelli massage out the pain.

The take home: Want to achieve something? Set a goal, write it down, keep track along the way (listen to your wife…sometimes). Lost? Get some help, ask for direction, reassess and get on your way. Don’t give up, don’t quit! Embrace the pain.

Need help with your nutrition? Head to one of our nutrition seminars…need more help? Ask about one on one consultations with pharmacist Seth DePasquale.

Here is what Robb Wolf (robbwolf.com) has on this topic:

There are two things that need to be tackled here, the first is PWO food recommendations, the second is the strength issue.

PWO Meal

The idea of a PWO meal containing carbs (and protein) is to take advantage of a period of time in which the muscles are particularly insulin sensitiveve. We can fly nutrients into the muscle “under the radar” via a mechanism called “non insulin mediated glucose transport”. Amino acids are also taken in during this time and may play a synergistic role in both glycogen repletion but also decreasing inflammation that accompanies hard training. Said another way, you recover from exertion faster. So, what should ya eat? We actually want a starchy carb as our primary carb. Yams and sweet potatoes are great options as they are also highly nutritious. Fruit should be used sparingly in this meal if one is focused on optimized glycogen repletion as fructose refills liver glycogen first, and once liver glycogen is full we up-regulate the lipogenic activity of the liver and start down the road towards fat gain and insulin resistance.

I know James Fitzgerald (OPT) has used a mixture of mashed sweet potato and apple sauce for PWO meal…getting just a bit of hepatic (liver) glycogen repletion with the lions share going to the muscles. Sprinkle some cinnamon on top to enhance insulin sensitivity and you are set. Why do the mixture? Perhaps James will chime in on this but for me a simple answer would be palatability and taste. If you just received an ass-kicking, stuffing food down your pie-hole may not be that appealing. Something yummy could certainly make that easier.

Why not shakes? I’ve not found them to be superior to solid food, I have noticed they make people fat. A new paper just came out comparing milk & cereal (shitty food) to a PWO shake (also shitty food) and the milk+cereal beat the shake with regards to glycogen repletion. Go figure. I’d wager salmon and sweet potatoes would be even better…not likely to see that study!

The PWO window is most potent immediately after a WO and drops off to about 50% efficacy by 30 min, and pretty much back to baseline by an hour. If you train at night, just try to get that meal in immediately after training and keep an eye out for fat gain around the mid-section. If thyis happens, dial back your carbs.

Strength

There is a reality that getting really lean will decrease your absolute strength. We loose a bit of intramuscular fat that improves leverage and it just tends to take  a little off the top end of things like squats and DL’s. You can still have great absolute strength and your relative strength will greatly improve…but if you are leanign out you almost inevitabley will see those top-end numbers come dwon a bit as compared to running just a bit heavier. Also, I’m assuming you are ramped up to a 5x fat, athlete’s Zone diet.

So there you go!

I’m 41 and have dropped approximately 40 pounds in the last year and a half, but am struggling to drop that final 20-25. The question I’ve always struggled with is how many calories should I be eating per day in order to see that final weight loss? Should I focus on just total calories in or net calories in/out?

To answer your question about calories, I had my co-author of our upcoming book “Ultimate You” (Rodale, May 11, 2010), naturopathic doctor and fat loss specialist Brooke Kalanick, weigh in:

Simply focusing on calories in/calories out is never the answer– although in the end we have to burn more than we take in, in order to lose weight. That said, how we get there is not just simple math. First, know that all calories are not created equal. For example, a calorie from a carbohydrate sends a message of storage to your body via the hormone insulin. A calorie from protein for example sends a smaller message of storage, via insulin, and a big message of “burn more calories” to your body via glucagon.

The next mindset we have to change is from the idea of mere “weight loss” to “fat loss” — that’s what we’re really all after, right? To encourage fat loss – which will lean you up, show some nice definition and overall make you ‘smaller” without sacrificing lean muscle tissue (which is what burns your calories by the way, so hang on to it!) — you have to send the right messages to your body, through your hormones.

Ensure you diet is full of plant based veggie fiber – meaning at least one cup of non-starchy veggies at every meal (i.e. leafy greens, cucumber, asparagus, kale, mushrooms, broccoli, etc). Next, ensure you are eating a full size of protein at every meal and a smaller serving at every snack, try four ounces per meal and two ounces per snack to start. Have a bit of healthy fat at each meal, such as 1 tablespoon of olive oil, one-quarter cup nuts or half an avocado. Next, keep your carbs in check. If you have a lot of fat to lose stick to one-third cup, or four bites per meal, and skip at your snacks.

If you do not have as much fat to lose, you can play with half a cup or six bites of carbs per meal. Choose optimal carbs as often as you can, meaning non grain based, high fiber startches such as sweet potato, pumpkin, winter squashes or legumes. Other allowable choices include sprouted grain bread, oat brain or steel cut oats, or high fiber crackers such as WASA, GG Crispbread or FiberRich. If you are still not losing, cut the carb serving and from breakfast, add a bit more healthy fat to that meal and see how that goes.

This diet above will keep you sending less of a store fat message, and more of a fat burning one. Be sure to stick to your nutrition plan 90 percent of the time to lose weight, giving yourself one meal per week to indulge. In our upcoming book, “Ultimate You,” you’ll learn how to how to send these fat burning versus fat storing messages to your body and how to customize your diet as well as how to implement a wide variety of recovery techniques for easier and quicker fat loss.

As for your training program, I would say that you may want to consider cutting back on your training volume and perhaps only perform a Crossfit style workout three days a week. If you are performing total body resistance training five days a week (i.e. Cross Fit), you are not giving your body any time to recover. It is during the recovery process that your body’s musculoskeletal, nervous and hormonal systems are able to regenerate. Also, try adding in some recovery techniques such as massage therapy, foam rolling and/or sauna therapy to enhance this process.

-Joe Dowdell

Thatsfit.com

http://www.usnews.com/health/diet-fitness/fitness/articles/2010/04/05/exercise-helps-teens-overcome-obesity-gene.html

I came across this article while perusing through google news this evening and thought that it might be worth sharing with everyone. While most people may know that someone whose family has a predisposition to being addicted to say alcohol for instance, what does that family tend to do? Well, hopefully if they’re at all concerned about their health they avoid alcohol. What about someone that has an allergy to peanuts; what would they avoid? The answer is hopefully is fairly obvious. So when relating this to the disease of obesity and type 2 diabetes how is this any different?

What this comes down to is that everyone is genetically a little bit different from one another. Essentially, there are three types of people when it comes to what they can eat and how it will affect them. First, you have the person that is extremely sensitive to refined carbohydrates; these people would be terribly sensitive to the effects of insulin in that if they look at a carb they gain 10 pounds. These people probably make up about a quarter of the population.

Next, you have the person that is not very sensitive to insulin at all. These people tend to be able to eat whatever they want and don’t gain a pound. This portion of the population makes the other portion of the population want to beat them for having drawn the genetic winning lottery ticket. Well, honestly they can have other issues if they don’t eat correctly like high cholesterol levels and elevated blood pressure, the silent killers. These people make up another 25 percent of the population.

The third subset of people are the rest of the population that are in between these two groups and could really go either way, depending on what they eat and how they live. This is where most of the population falls. Unfortunately, most of the population is choosing to follow the “perfect storm” diet for metabolic disaster. A combination of eating highly refined carbohydrates (giant insulin spikes) and refined vegetable oils (Omega-6 Fatty Acids). This essentially puts almost everyone at risk of having the “genes” for becoming obese and unhealthy. Really, a lot of diseases are honestly preventable, that is if you avoid the behavior that forces our body to express those bad genes. In this case, for most people, it is avoiding highly processed foods.

To comment a little more on the article, where does exercise come into play? For the people that are already obese they have become resistant to the effects of insulin because they have way too much insulin being secreted into their bloodstream. This is due to a number of reasons but most notably the amount of refined carbs they are eating. Exercise for these people makes their muscles more sensitive to the effects of insulin and gets their body working like it should again. But there is also the diet. Exercise will only get you so far. You can’t have one without the other. It is not as simply a matter of exercising more and eating less.

I guess when it comes down to it, most people (75% or so) probably have this so called “obesity gene” really. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs when we are eating the wrong things, that’s what our body is trying to tell us. Don’t listen to me; listen to your body. Eat the right things that will keep you healthy. If we use our evolutionary history as a guide this would include a diet of mostly fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Eat plenty of protein as well; in the form of fish, lean meat (chicken and turkey), and eggs. Eat these things with every meal. For the most part (indulge maybe once a week) try to avoid things that don’t naturally occur in our environment; this includes but is not limited to: pizza, ice cream, cookies, soda, and sugar. This will allow virtually everyone on the planet to have the health they are genetically programmed to have.

Even the longest journey begins with a single step. But sometimes it’s the first step that’s the hardest to take. Need a little guidance or help along the way? Inquire about our one on one nutritional consultations with Pharmacist Seth DePasquale beginning in April. sethrx@crossfitmaximus.com