Archives II

I was sipping my morning coffee and glancing over my msn homepage when an article caught my attention: "Twelve Snacks You Think Are Healthy" by Sabrina Rogers. Most of the information in the article was at a duh! level - fat free doesn't mean its calorie free, watch the mayo intake in your tuna sandwitch, don't eat the movie popcorn, etc. But tip number seven caught me by surprise:

7. Protein bars
These were designed for hard-core athletes, so drop that bar if you're not one of them. Although they're not bad for you, they can contain up to 300 calories and more protein than you need in an entire day. Now is that really necessary?

The right choice: Before you work out, have a piece of whole-wheat toast with a tablespoon of peanut butter (180 calories) or a fat-free yogurt and half a banana (220 calories).

How many grams of protein can there be in a protein bar? 20? 30? Hussman recommends 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass per day. That means an average-built woman requires about 20-30 grams of protein per meal... so how can a protein bar have more protein than an adult requires in a whole day?

It made me wonder: have I been completely brain washed by the low carbohydrate cult? Am I risking the health of my kidneys while trying to build muscle and burn fat?

Conventional Nutrition Wisdom: Brittle Bones, Renal Failure & Other Doom

According to experts, high-protein diets can cause heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, and kidney stones.(1)

Most people on high-protein low-carbohydrate diets lose significant amounts of weight very quickly. However, much of this loss is nothing more than water. As the dieter eats more protein, her body accumulates more of the toxic byproducts of protein breakdown, namely uric acid and urea. The body tried to eliminate these two toxic by-products of protein metabolisis by releasing water in to the kidneys and urinary tract. The side effect of this diuretic effect is that along with uric acid and urea, the body releases essential minerals, including calcium, which can lead to osteoporosis. Studies show that for every additional gram of animal protein added to the diet, the body loses an average 1.75 milligrams of calcium in the urine. (1) As if that wasn't enough, an icrease in minerals deposited in the kidneys can cause painful kidney stones. (1)

Recent research indicates that high-protein diets can indeed be hard on the kidneys. Scientists at Harvard's Brigham and Womens Hospital report that women who already have mildly reduced kidney function can create further damage by increasing their intake of animal protein. (2) However, the study's results, which are published in the March 18 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, do not show any increased risk for women with normal kidney function. (3)

A study conducted by researchers from the Heart Institute of Spokane shows that amino acids can damage blood vessels in the kidney, which can lead to kidney hypertension and kidney disease. (4) The study, however, focused only on kidneys of diabetics. (5) Yet another study suggests that diabetics with renal problems should substitute soy protein for animal protein. (6)

The conclusion? People with kidney problems should not increase their protein intake. But what about the rest of us?

The Recommended Daily Allowance for adults is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (11). Therefore, the average 130-pound woman, Alice, needs about 47 grams of protein a day. This is easily fulfilled by 3 oz. of chicken (21 grams), a cup of milk (8 grams) and 2 cups of red beans and rice (27 grams).

Many sources agree that athletes can increase their protein intake to 1 gram (7) or 1.2 grams (10) per kilogram of body weight per day. So the same 130-pound athletic woman could up her intake to 59 or 71 grams per day. There are also those that recommend 1.6 or 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight for those who strength train and 1.2 to 1.6 grams for those who endurance train. That translates into 95 to 100 grams for Alice the Body Builder and 71 to 95 grams for Alice the Runner. (13)

As already mentioned, still others (8), including Hussman (9), recommend 1 gram of protein per one pound of lean body mass. Let's assume that Alice has about 20% body fat. That would mean that she requires about 104 grams of protein. At this point, Alice would scratch her head and wonder if someone has forgotten to convert pounds to kilograms along the way...

Balancing Nitrogen and Sanity

If all of that wasn't confusing enough, there is another factor to consider: nitrogen balance. The RDA standards for protein are meant to cover the nitrogen lost by excretion with nitrogen consumed in food (remember that nitrogen is a building block of protein, see Nutrition 101). (11) In a healthy adult, the amount of nitrogen lost (through urine, feces and sweat) must be equal to the amount consumed. Growing children, body builders and pregnant women have positive nitrogen balances because they are retaining more nitrogen than they are losing. Likewise, people on starvation diets or who are ill have negative nitrogen balances because they are losing more nitrogen than they are maintaining. (11) Most people can maintain a positive nitrogen equilibrium by consuming between 0.6 and 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. (10)

While some researchers have shown that an increase of about 1.7-1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight in addition to weight training can increase muscle mass, there is little evidence to suggest that consuming more than 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight will be beneficial. (12; 14) That means that consuming more than 118 grams of protein per day will not help Alice build more muscle.

Sufficiently confused yet? In his best-selling book Body for Life, Bill Phillips makes the following protein recommendation: eat six small meals a day each consisting of a portion of carbohydrate and a portion of protein. Bill defines a portion as the amount of food that is about the size of your clenched fist or palm. In the entire book, that is as precise as he gets. No grams, no kilograms of body weight, just the size of your hand.

So what can be learned from this dizzying search for nutritional consensus? First, different rules apply to Bob, Testosterone Magazine's most famous couch potato, than to Alice. This makes sense: if Alice trains according to a program similar to BFL, meaning that she performs three intense weight training workouts and three intensive cardio workouts a week, then she must increase her protein to maintain a positive nitrogen balance.

Second, attempting to make any sense of the sea of diet information out there is counter-productive. Paralysis by analysis, as Bill would say. There is no conclusive evidence to show that a protein bar will cause you to require a kidney transplant down the road (especially if you train your muscles to shreds three times a week). So go ahead, let go of your protein phobia and grab that Myoplex. Train like there's no tomorrow and your muscles will thank you.

"[The media] neglect to tell the rest of our youth (and everyone else for that matter) that these celebrities have these wonderful bodies becuase they have the time and money to afford their own personal trainer who works with them 8 hours a day! I don't know about you, but I can barely make ends meet trying to keep a roof over my head. I certainly don't have the time to pay a trainer to work with me 4-8 hours a day!"

"While we may have the ability to attain that level of fitness, who among us has the time to wrk out 3-4 hours a day, especially without someone who will help to beat the boredom that routine brings? Not only that, but howm many of us come home from working for 8 hours, commuting for 2, may or may not have had a restful night sleep and THEN deal with our children's, significant other's, and rest of the world's trivia AND prepare low fat, low cal APPEALING meals for our families and ourselves? How many of us then collapse (exhausted) in front of the boob tube and zone out? Say what you will, having someone ELSE design the routine for you and that keeps you company while you do, and later you get to sit down to an exquisite meal (that you didn't have to go the the grocery store to pick up, lug home, put away, and then prepare yourself) doesn't seem like such a hardship to me."

"Same is true of eating. When you are Cook and Bottle Washer, it's easy to choose a burger instead of a salad. But when the food is simply placed in front of you, then there's no choice, you eat the salad. That's why weight loss systems like Jenny Craig work - the dieter has few, if any, food choices IF you stick to the plan."

"If most people spent approx. 3 hrs at a time doing a fitness routine at least once a day, they would end up neglecting their spouses, children, friends, quite possibly their own jobs, etc."

Yatta, yatta, yatta. (In all fairness, there were posts that refuted the claim that a personal trainer is not crucial to weight loss but self-motivation is. Unfortunately, these messages were met with more exuses.)

When will people learn not to blame Britney Spears, Alan Greenspan and their own grandmother for the way they look? If you have love-handles and a beer gut, chances are it's your own damn fault. But it does feel better to blame it on stress at work, a pregnancy, or McDonald's inadequate notice of the lack of a Big Mac's nutritional value, doesn't it? (And by the way, how idiotic is it to claim that you thought fast food was healthy and that you didn't see those size 27W pants coming?)

Come on, let's be honest. You know very well that Madonna's personal trainer does not do her workouts for her and that there's no magic cure for the bulge. But think how much time you've wasted making excuses? Think how much better you'd look if every minute you complained about genetics or lack of money to hire a personal trainer you had spent running down your street or lifting paintcans or dumbbells in your garage. Think about all those real-life men and women who work full time jobs, cook, clean, raise children and still look fantastically fit.

Do you want to know what their secret is? Determination. They wake up an hour earlier, they turn down the office doughnuts, they take the time to learn how to properly nourish their bodies and how to work them in the most efficient way possible. They refuse to give in to excuses.


				*Climbing Kilimanjaro* *Archives II*



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		Every now and again you need to empty out the backpack and refill it with new material. This is where the older stories end up.



		Protein Phobia (June 2003) I was sipping my morning coffee and glancing over my msn homepage when an article caught my attention: "Twelve Snacks You Think Are Healthy" by Sabrina Rogers. Most of the information in the article was at a duh! level - fat free doesn't mean its calorie free, watch the mayo intake in your tuna sandwitch, don't eat the movie popcorn, etc. But tip number seven caught me by surprise: 7. Protein bars These were designed for hard-core athletes, so drop that bar if you're not one of them. Although they're not bad for you, they can contain up to 300 calories and more protein than you need in an entire day. Now is that really necessary? The right choice: Before you work out, have a piece of whole-wheat toast with a tablespoon of peanut butter (180 calories) or a fat-free yogurt and half a banana (220 calories). How many grams of protein can there be in a protein bar? 20? 30? Hussman recommends 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass per day. That means an average-built woman requires about 20-30 grams of protein per meal... so how can a protein bar have more protein than an adult requires in a whole day? It made me wonder: have I been completely brain washed by the low carbohydrate cult? Am I risking the health of my kidneys while trying to build muscle and burn fat? Conventional Nutrition Wisdom: Brittle Bones, Renal Failure & Other Doom According to experts, high-protein diets can cause heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, and kidney stones.(1) Most people on high-protein low-carbohydrate diets lose significant amounts of weight very quickly. However, much of this loss is nothing more than water. As the dieter eats more protein, her body accumulates more of the toxic byproducts of protein breakdown, namely uric acid and urea. The body tried to eliminate these two toxic by-products of protein metabolisis by releasing water in to the kidneys and urinary tract. The side effect of this diuretic effect is that along with uric acid and urea, the body releases essential minerals, including calcium, which can lead to osteoporosis. Studies show that for every additional gram of animal protein added to the diet, the body loses an average 1.75 milligrams of calcium in the urine. (1) As if that wasn't enough, an icrease in minerals deposited in the kidneys can cause painful kidney stones. (1) Recent research indicates that high-protein diets can indeed be hard on the kidneys. Scientists at Harvard's Brigham and Womens Hospital report that women who already have mildly reduced kidney function can create further damage by increasing their intake of animal protein. (2) However, the study's results, which are published in the March 18 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, do not show any increased risk for women with normal kidney function. (3) A study conducted by researchers from the Heart Institute of Spokane shows that amino acids can damage blood vessels in the kidney, which can lead to kidney hypertension and kidney disease. (4) The study, however, focused only on kidneys of diabetics. (5) Yet another study suggests that diabetics with renal problems should substitute soy protein for animal protein. (6) The conclusion? People with kidney problems should not increase their protein intake. But what about the rest of us? The Recommended Daily Allowance for adults is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (11). Therefore, the average 130-pound woman, Alice, needs about 47 grams of protein a day. This is easily fulfilled by 3 oz. of chicken (21 grams), a cup of milk (8 grams) and 2 cups of red beans and rice (27 grams). Many sources agree that athletes can increase their protein intake to 1 gram (7) or 1.2 grams (10) per kilogram of body weight per day. So the same 130-pound athletic woman could up her intake to 59 or 71 grams per day. There are also those that recommend 1.6 or 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight for those who strength train and 1.2 to 1.6 grams for those who endurance train. That translates into 95 to 100 grams for Alice the Body Builder and 71 to 95 grams for Alice the Runner. (13) As already mentioned, still others (8), including Hussman (9), recommend 1 gram of protein per one pound of lean body mass. Let's assume that Alice has about 20% body fat. That would mean that she requires about 104 grams of protein. At this point, Alice would scratch her head and wonder if someone has forgotten to convert pounds to kilograms along the way... Balancing Nitrogen and Sanity If all of that wasn't confusing enough, there is another factor to consider: nitrogen balance. The RDA standards for protein are meant to cover the nitrogen lost by excretion with nitrogen consumed in food (remember that nitrogen is a building block of protein, see Nutrition 101). (11) In a healthy adult, the amount of nitrogen lost (through urine, feces and sweat) must be equal to the amount consumed. Growing children, body builders and pregnant women have positive nitrogen balances because they are retaining more nitrogen than they are losing. Likewise, people on starvation diets or who are ill have negative nitrogen balances because they are losing more nitrogen than they are maintaining. (11) Most people can maintain a positive nitrogen equilibrium by consuming between 0.6 and 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. (10) While some researchers have shown that an increase of about 1.7-1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight in addition to weight training can increase muscle mass, there is little evidence to suggest that consuming more than 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight will be beneficial. (12; 14) That means that consuming more than 118 grams of protein per day will not help Alice build more muscle. Sufficiently confused yet? In his best-selling book Body for Life, Bill Phillips makes the following protein recommendation: eat six small meals a day each consisting of a portion of carbohydrate and a portion of protein. Bill defines a portion as the amount of food that is about the size of your clenched fist or palm. In the entire book, that is as precise as he gets. No grams, no kilograms of body weight, just the size of your hand. So what can be learned from this dizzying search for nutritional consensus? First, different rules apply to Bob, Testosterone Magazine's most famous couch potato, than to Alice. This makes sense: if Alice trains according to a program similar to BFL, meaning that she performs three intense weight training workouts and three intensive cardio workouts a week, then she must increase her protein to maintain a positive nitrogen balance. Second, attempting to make any sense of the sea of diet information out there is counter-productive. Paralysis by analysis, as Bill would say. There is no conclusive evidence to show that a protein bar will cause you to require a kidney transplant down the road (especially if you train your muscles to shreds three times a week). So go ahead, let go of your protein phobia and grab that Myoplex. Train like there's no tomorrow and your muscles will thank you. Sources: Gilbert, Monique N. "High Protein Diets - Are You Losing More Than Weight?" Womens Health Information. http://www.fwhc.org/health/high-protein-diet.htm "Too much protein may cause reduced kidney function" Harvard Gazette. http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/03.13/09-kidney.html http://www.annals.org/issues/v138n6/abs/200303180-00009.html Cooley, Megan. "Study links protein diet, kidney damage" Spokane Business Journal http://www.this.org/about/journal.html "Effects of Dietary Soy Protein on Renal Function." http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0887/1_18/76283918/p1/article.jhtml?term=protein+AND+kidney+failure Clark, Nancy. "Muscle Mix." http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0675/3_19/75085427/p1/article.jhtml?term=protein+AND+athlete Forney, Robert. "How Much Protein Do You Really Need?" http://www.youronlinefitness.com/Fitness_Articles/articles/March_2002_articles/how_much_protein_do_you_really_n.htm Hussman, John. http://www.hussman.org/fitness/ "Ask the Dietitian: Protein and Amino Acids" http://www.dietitian.com/protein.html Sizer Frances and Eleanor Whitney. Nutrition Concepts and Controversies, St. Paul, MN. West Publishing Company, 1994. Cattery, Lee Knight. "How Much Protein do Athletes Need?" http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/Protein.htm#PROTEIN%20AND%20ATHLETES http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/protein.htm Blame (June 2003) I am the first to admit that I suffer from a full-blown addiction to electronic discussion groups. Usually, I just scan the digests and hit delete. But once in a while, a thread catches my attention and I feel compelled to throw in my two cents. Last week, VH1 aired "Rock Bodies III," which featured, among others, LA's identical twin belly dancers, Neena & Veena. A two minute montage of the twins teaching class and talking about their dancing sparked a heated discussion on a prominent belly dance list about the Hollywood ideal of what a woman's body should look like. Women posted the following comments: "[The media] neglect to tell the rest of our youth (and everyone else for that matter) that these celebrities have these wonderful bodies becuase they have the time and money to afford their own personal trainer who works with them 8 hours a day! I don't know about you, but I can barely make ends meet trying to keep a roof over my head. I certainly don't have the time to pay a trainer to work with me 4-8 hours a day!" "While we may have the ability to attain that level of fitness, who among us has the time to wrk out 3-4 hours a day, especially without someone who will help to beat the boredom that routine brings? Not only that, but howm many of us come home from working for 8 hours, commuting for 2, may or may not have had a restful night sleep and THEN deal with our children's, significant other's, and rest of the world's trivia AND prepare low fat, low cal APPEALING meals for our families and ourselves? How many of us then collapse (exhausted) in front of the boob tube and zone out? Say what you will, having someone ELSE design the routine for you and that keeps you company while you do, and later you get to sit down to an exquisite meal (that you didn't have to go the the grocery store to pick up, lug home, put away, and then prepare yourself) doesn't seem like such a hardship to me." "Same is true of eating. When you are Cook and Bottle Washer, it's easy to choose a burger instead of a salad. But when the food is simply placed in front of you, then there's no choice, you eat the salad. That's why weight loss systems like Jenny Craig work - the dieter has few, if any, food choices IF you stick to the plan." "If most people spent approx. 3 hrs at a time doing a fitness routine at least once a day, they would end up neglecting their spouses, children, friends, quite possibly their own jobs, etc." Yatta, yatta, yatta. (In all fairness, there were posts that refuted the claim that a personal trainer is not crucial to weight loss but self-motivation is. Unfortunately, these messages were met with more exuses.) When will people learn not to blame Britney Spears, Alan Greenspan and their own grandmother for the way they look? If you have love-handles and a beer gut, chances are it's your own damn fault. But it does feel better to blame it on stress at work, a pregnancy, or McDonald's inadequate notice of the lack of a Big Mac's nutritional value, doesn't it? (And by the way, how idiotic is it to claim that you thought fast food was healthy and that you didn't see those size 27W pants coming?) Come on, let's be honest. You know very well that Madonna's personal trainer does not do her workouts for her and that there's no magic cure for the bulge. But think how much time you've wasted making excuses? Think how much better you'd look if every minute you complained about genetics or lack of money to hire a personal trainer you had spent running down your street or lifting paintcans or dumbbells in your garage. Think about all those real-life men and women who work full time jobs, cook, clean, raise children and still look fantastically fit. Do you want to know what their secret is? Determination. They wake up an hour earlier, they turn down the office doughnuts, they take the time to learn how to properly nourish their bodies and how to work them in the most efficient way possible. They refuse to give in to excuses. For more of the brutal truth see Testosterone Magazine's "Merry Christmas, Bob."