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From Apartment Therapy → Clash Course 101: How To Set a Mix-and-Match Table
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Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/
“You won’t believe #4!”
No, I’m totally messing with you, hahahaha. But there are 5 things I wanted to get straight in regards to the internet’s favorite (or favorite to bash) diet.
The Paleo Diet has taken the nutritional world by storm over the past few years, and there’s a lot of misinformation and outlandish claims being tossed around about it, both for and against.
Speaking of which, did you know the Paleo Diet actually cures, err, I mean causes all diseases?
Being the nice guy that I am, I figured I’d take today to set the record straight on a diet that has changed many lives and earned itself a steady stream of critics and detractors along the way.
Our “Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet” has been viewed 10 million times by now, and we’ve received thousands of emails with questions, comments, concerns, hopes, dreams, and success stories with regards to this crazy, not-so-crazy way of eating. If you haven’t read our ultimate guide, check it out, and then come back and catch these five things you should know about the Paleo Diet.
There are a lot of pseudo-science and arm-chair anthropologists out there running around telling us what early cavemen ate back in the day.
Based on cave drawings, fossilized remains, and conjecture from scientists and anthropologists, we have a decent idea of what Fred and Wilma Flintstone ate. However, we haven’t invented a time machine yet, and we honestly can’t say with 100% certainty what these hunter-gatherer types consumed tens of thousands of years ago.
We can safely assume they ate animals and whatever plants/fruits/nuts/seeds they could find, as domesticated farming hadn’t happened yet, and Cap’n Crunch and SpaghettiOs didn’t grow on trees.
So when you hear that the Paleo Diet tells us to “eat like a caveman ate,” that’s not supposed to be taken as 100% religious gospel or iron-clad fact. Instead, it’s intended to be a mental model to help us easily make food decisions without consulting a book, adding up points, counting calories, or tracking macros.
Since we can’t (and wouldn’t want to) eat exactly like them, the Paleo Diet refers to eating what you THINK a Caveman would have consumed.
When you are deciding what to buy at the supermarket or order while out on a business dinner, you can condense all the nutritional information you need to make an informed decision by remembering the basic Paleo Diet philosophy:
No counting calories or charts required. Eat the above listed things and skip everything else, and you’ll get 80% of the way there.
“But did some cavemen eat wheat, and what kind of rice? Pandemonium!”
It doesn’t f***ing matter! Eat less processed crap, more whole foods, and start following a method of eating that can actually help you succeed!
I hate the word “diet.” Almost as much as I hate the word “toned.” These words are like nails on a chalkboard for me, because they imply something that isn’t true!
When we say we’re ‘going on a diet’ it usually means “making some temporary changes to achieve a certain result before returning to normalcy.” You know what I mean. You do something until you get that bikini body you want, or so you lose a few pounds before your wedding, and then you can go back to normal.
Going on a that type of diet is a waste of time and energy in the long run. The Paleo Diet, when done properly, isn’t actually a diet.
It’s a permanent nutritional strategy and a “way of life.” I hate saying “way of life” too, because that makes me sound like a fad-chasing nerfherder, but bear with me.
The Paleo Diet is a strategy for making food decisions you keep with you – informed decisions as a result of how you live, forever.
Yes, there are things like Whole 30 where you go all in on a strict Paleo Diet lifestyle for 30 days. I have no problem with Whole 30 – team NF member Lauren and her wife just did it for 30 days and had tremendous success. After their 30 days were up, however, they identified permanent healthy changes they could make to their lifestyle, and stuck with it.
Now, compare this to what most people do on a diet: drastically change everything they eat for a certain amount of time, and then go back to the way things were (and usually gain everything back).
This is also why you’re doomed to stay fat unless you change your strategy, permanently.
“Never count calories and eat as much as you want!” these are often the two parts of the Paleo Diet that draw people in. We humans are lazy, and we like to eat.
Back in caveman times, we didn’t have access to food the way we have access to it now. When we had food present, we ate it. Because who knew when we’d be able to find or hunt the next meal?
Unfortunately, like a goldfish, put food in front of us and we’ll eat it well past the point of being full. Hence most of us being overweight as a society and half of us being obese.
So many people find the Paleo diet, read the “don’t count, eat whatever you want, lose weight” as the magic bullet that solves all of our problems. Our brains and our egos say “AMAZING! I eat as much as I want (gluttony FTW!), and still lose weight.”
Ultimately, we do have to factor in the law of thermodynamics and consume fewer calories than we burn every day if we want to lose weight.
The Paleo Diet works because when done properly, vegetables should make up most of your diet. And a plate full of vegetables will have significantly fewer calories and less sugar/carbs than a plate full of pasta/bread/processed foods, leaving you feeling fuller for longer. The same is true for a plate of vegetables having fewer calories generally than meat, fruit, and nuts. So, a handful of raisins (Hey! Paleo!) has 30 grams of sugar. A tiny amount of nuts can have 300+ calories. Conversely, an overflowing plate of broccoli only has 200 calories.
Fruit and nuts can be sugar bombs and calorie bombs in the Paleo world if you’re not careful.
So don’t take the “eat as much as you want” as gospel. Again, that’s more of a marketing tool to get people wrapped around the idea of eating the RIGHT kinds of food instead of trying to eat smaller portions of addictive and unhealthy foods. Which is VERY difficult if you’ve ever tried to eat one M&M, or half a serving of something totally delicious.
So eat mostly vegetables and some meat. Mix in some occasional fruit and nuts. (And please, don’t eat “Paleo cookies” or “Paleo muffins” by the truckful and assume you’re being healthy!) Keep it simple, but don’t fool yourself. And don’t forget, you’re the easiest person to fool!
We’ve noticed similar trends in the gluten-free world.
“Well my breakfast is ruined, so I’m gonna start the Paleo diet next week.”
“Shit. My only options are non-Paleo at this restaurant. Everything is ruined.”
“AH! I don’t know if I should eat this sweet potato or that chicken. Is the seasoning Paleo?”
The Paleo Diet is not all or nothing. There are 50 shades of Paleo, and it all counts. Every meal. Every calorie. Every decision. As we say, an adequate diet you stick with consistently is better than a perfect diet you abandon after a few weeks.
In fact, we believe that “Paleo-ish” is one of the best ways to adopt the diet.
Now, sure, if you have a lactose intolerance, tolerance to gluten, or something similar to Hashimoto’s disease, strict Paleo can make a lot of sense.
These are a few examples in which going strict Paleo can help you determine if you have any food allergies or physiological challenges with eating modern foods.
However, for most of us, the Paleo Diet just helps us eat less junk food, more vegetables, and consume fewer calories on average than we used to in the past. It helps us transform our relationship with food to be healthier and less of a roller coaster. Over the long term, this can result in a healthier lifestyle and smaller waistline.
So, consider going Paleo in one of many different ways:
Combined with your goals, your current weight, your genetic makeup, etc., you will have varying degrees of success depending on how “Paleo” you are.
That’s up for you to decide.
The Paleo Diet will not solve all your problems. It won’t give you big muscles and a small waist and six pack abs and clear up your skin and make you sleep better. It won’t make automatically make you the healthiest person on the planet. It won’t do your taxes or gain you entry to Hogwarts.
It COULD do some of those things.
But there’s no such thing as a quick fix. Any site that promises you life-changing results with minimal work in a short period of time is full of shit and hyping you into buying their product.
Looking for real long term success? Here’s the formula:
Informed food choices regularly + consistent exercise + time = win
It’s not rocket science. Whenever I meet people who have finally cracked the code and had permanent long-term weight loss, I jokingly ask them “let me guess, diet and exercise?”
And they chuckle and go “well yeah. But it was Paleo Diet and strength training” or “I walk every morning and cut out drinking” or something along those lines. And that’s awesome. At the end of the day, whatever mentally gets you to move more and consume less crappy foods, I’m all for it.
The Paleo Diet is a great mental model to help people get started making more informed and healthier food choices. Depending on just how unhealthy/overweight you are right now, switching to a Paleo Lifestyle could have DRASTIC results for you very quickly. It could also NOT work for you.
At the end of the day, the goal with Nerd Fitness is to help you get out of your own way, have a healthier relationship with food, and get excited about exercise. We know the Paleo Diet works for many people, and we love whatever gets you results.
If you’ve gone Paleo now or in the past, how did you do it? How far down the Paleo-ish line did you go?
Thinking about going Paleo? What comments or questions do you have?
-Steve
PS: Most people at NF are “Paleo-ish”, and its the nutritional strategy we recommend in our NF Academy – We’ve created a 10-level nutritional system that allows you to SLOWLY adjust your eating habits over months so that you finally find permanent success with your journey! Join 25,000 other members and start leveling up today 🙂
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During the winter holidays, I make plenty of pies so that everyone feels comfortable taking a big slab, but that means I have some leftovers. Transforming apple pie leftovers into a stuffed french toast isn’t difficult at all. Crush up the filling and crust, stuff it into a generous slice of brioche or challah, give it a quick pan-fry, and bake it to finish.
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One Thanksgiving, soon after I married, I brought my new husband to my grandmother’s house for the big holiday meal. Grandma Eve was in her 80s, and while she was never a gourmet, she’d always been an avid cook and genuinely enjoyed spending time in the kitchen.
One dish from that meal still stands out, all these years later. Not the turkey, the gravy, the creamy green beans. Not the cranberry sauce or Parker house rolls.
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Thanksgiving is a time where tradition typically reigns supreme, but you’ve got to shake things up every now and then, right? Say, for instance, if you’ve only ever had canned cranberry sauce on Turkey Day, you owe it to yourself to try the fresh, homemade version.
<p><a href=’http://www.thekitchn.com/skip-the-canned-stuff-and-make-your-own-cranberry-relish-238936′><strong>READ MORE »</strong></a></p>
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You’ve diligently worked your way through your Thanksgiving leftovers and now you’ve finally hit the end of the road — you just can’t take one more bite of stuffing anymore. We hear you. Soon December holidays will be rolling around and there will be more festive food to be had. So in the lull between lavish meals, we all need some lighter, brighter food in our lives. Here are 20 recipes that qualify.
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Mashed potatoes should be so good they don’t even need a drizzle of gravy. That means they need to be light and fluffy, creamy and rich, and decadently buttery. For so many of us, Thanksgiving just isn’t Thanksgiving without them.
So how do you master the mash? Here’s everything you need to know to achieve mashed potato greatness.
<p><a href=’http://www.thekitchn.com/mashed-potatoes-tips-from-the-kitchn-213331′><strong>READ MORE »</strong></a></p>
https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/
Branched-chained amino acids (or BCAAs) are a popular pre- and during-workout supplement. As a woman who wants to optimize her training and nutrition to be healthy and strong and look as good as she feels, BCAAs, like creatine, could be a beneficial addition to your nutrition strategy.
What are BCAAs and what do they do?
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and some amino acids (like the three in BCAA supplements: leucine, isoleucine, and valine) are considered essential because the body cannot make them. Therefore, they must be obtained from the foods we eat, through supplementation, or through a combination of both. High-protein foods such as meats, dairy and eggs are excellent dietary sources of BCAAs.
BCAAs are unique within the family of essential amino acids in that they themselves make up at least one-third of the amino acids found in lean muscle tissue.1 Within your muscle, they work together to help repair damaged muscle proteins, which is important in order to build and grow high quality muscle tissue, especially following exercise. Leucine itself is actually one of the main drivers of muscle protein synthesis.
The Modern Woman’s Guide to Strength Training helps you achieve maximum results, whether you’re new to strength training, or a veteran in the weight room.
They are also unique in their metabolism: unlike other amino acids, BCAAs are not metabolized to a large extent in the liver, like most amino acids are.2
Instead, they travel directly to skeletal muscle, where they are broken down to create acetyl-CoA (see image), turned into new proteins, or are used to make glucose (via gluconeogenesis) which can stabilize blood sugar levels.
Interestingly, during fasting or long periods of low blood glucose and insulin levels, leucine levels rise in the blood and muscle, while the capacity of muscle to use leucine to make energy increases concurrently (via the Citric Acid Cycle) .2 This means that when you go long periods of time between meals which can cause your blood glucose levels to fall (and insulin levels also decrease), or when you fast (which also results in low glucose and insulin), your body will use protein for energy and will take away the role leucine and the other BCAAs can play in building new muscle proteins. Note: remember this relationship between glucose, insulin, and leucine, because we are going to come back to it in a moment.
Why supplement with BCAAs?
The reason why BCAAs are a popular sport nutrition supplement in both, endurance and strength sports, is because research indicates that they can help you build more muscle following resistance exercise3, can help prevent fatigue during long-duration aerobic exercise4, and can reduce exercise-related muscle soreness.5
Most exercise and sports nutrition research is done with men, and the results are then assumed to be the same for women, which may not always be the case. Surprisingly, there are actually a few studies done with women to prove these points, and they do show that moderate BCAA supplementation can be beneficial.
First, researchers from Nagoya University in Japan studied 12 untrained women and had them perform a high-volume squat exercise protocol (7 sets of 20 reps with 30 seconds of rest between sets) with and without 100 mg/kg body weight (about 5.5 grams) BCAA in a 2:1:1 Leucine: Isoleucine: Valine ratio.5 Researchers followed the women’s reports of soreness and muscle force output for three days following these exercise sessions and found that those who had taken the BCAAs had significantly lower delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and a lesser decrease in force output from their leg muscles. These findings indicate that BCAAs may help you recover faster from exercise, have less soreness from new exercise, and maintain your strength from hard training sessions.
Second, a study recently published in the Journal of Dietary Supplements showed that BCAA supplementation given to a group of female rats (don’t ignore this just yet!) eating a high-fat diet with or without exercise was able to improve body composition over a period of 16 weeks. Those rats taking the supplement along with exercise and either a control diet or a high-fat diet both saw an increase in muscle mass and a decrease in fat mass.6 Indeed, many women who take BCAAs have also reported similar changes in their body composition.
Finally, a mixed-gender study of 218 men and women participating in a 30-kilometer cross country race or a marathon, showed that a dose of approximately seven grams (shorter race) and 16 grams (marathon) of BCAAs helped runners feel less mentally fatigued after the race, as assessed by the Stroop Color and Word Test (CWT) and improved performance during the marathon for the “slower” runners.7
Overall, there is indication that BCAA supplements for women can help reduce soreness, improve body composition with exercise, and reduce mental and physical fatigue.
Abby Smith-Ryan, PhD, an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Applied Physiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Department of Exercise and Sports Science, suggests that BCAAs are most beneficial for women during aerobic exercise to help reduce fatigue. In addition, BCAAs can help to minimize muscle loss while allowing body fat reduction for women with low calorie intake.
Too much of a good thing? BCAAs and Type 2 Diabetes
While all the information presented here so far might indicate that you stand to benefit from BCAA supplementation, before you run out to the store, or place an order online, there are some newer findings you should be aware of and take into consideration.
In researching for this article, I came across recent publications that have indicated a strong association between high BCAA intake, and high BCAA levels in the blood and type 2 diabetes.
Most recently, in a study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, researchers took data from the huge cohorts of people involved in the Nurses Health Study (NHS; women followed from 1980 to 2012), NHS II (women followed from 1991 to 2011); and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS; men followed from 1986 to 2010).8 Using advanced statistical analysis with detailed dietary records, they calculated the total intakes of BCAAs in each person and the correlations between BCAA intake and protein intake (because high animal protein intake is often associated with higher BCAA intake, so it had to be corrected for in the analyses)
The researchers observed consistent associations of long-term consumption of BCAAs with increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.
These associations were independent of traditional diabetes risk factors, including BMI, and were separate from total meat and protein intake.
These finding are similar to results from several recent studies in which high blood levels of BCAAs were associated with increased diabetes risk, impaired fasting glucose, and insulin resistance. The reason for this association is that high concentrations of BCAAs in the blood reflect an early disturbance of protein and amino acid metabolism in these disease states, which may worsen if BCAA intake remains high.9
Now, remember the discussion above where low glucose and insulin resulted in increased leucine in the blood and leucine use for glucose stabilization? Well, Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance are characterized by highs and lows of glucose and insulin in the blood. In the low times, leucine would be part of the solution for stabilizing blood glucose, and in high times, leucine would drop, except when normal protein metabolism is altered, like it is in these disease states. This would then lead to chronically elevated leucine and BCAA levels. And, as stated, if you supplement with BCAAs when you have this situation going on in your body, you are only going to make your health worse.
The good news is that if you improve your health by exercising regularly which increases muscle metabolism and fuel utilization, and eating better which naturally stabilizes your blood glucose and insulin levels and reduces body fat, you can lower your blood BCAA levels by increasing their metabolic breakdown and possibly concurrently reduce your risk of these diseases.10 Because of the possible association between high BCAA intake and development of type 2 diabetes it’s important to approach supplementation conservatively, particularly if you tend to have a high dietary protein intake.
Should you supplement with BCAAs?
This article has hopefully helped you better understand the potential benefits and risks of taking BCAAs so that you can make an informed decision to include them or not as part of your strength and fitness supplement strategy. The data available to date shows that a reasonable dose of 100 mg/kg of bodyweight per day before or during your workout should be enough to help build or maintain muscle, and reduce fatigue and muscle soreness (that’s about 5 to 8 grams, for weight ranging from 110 to 180 pounds, respectively). More than the recommended dosage could lead to negative consequences for your health. So, like most things, more of a good thing is not always better.
Note from GGS: As with any supplement, always read labels carefully, consult with a health care provider, and stop taking if you notice an abnormal or adverse reaction.
At Girls Gone Strong, we want you to feel confident knowing that what you’re doing to look good, feel good, and feel healthy and strong are not only based on tested, reliable, and safe information from trustworthy sources, but that it is also effective and efficient. That’s why we developed our flagship training system, The Modern Woman’s Guide To Strength Training.
With four different 16-week programs—that’s 64 weeks of training—you get over a year’s worth of workouts, including progressions to ensure that you continue making progress. You’ll also get a training manual, exercise glossary, progress tracker, a bonus conditioning manual, plus a video library with over 70 high-definition videos breaking down each exercise, step by step.
We believe fitness should enhance your life instead of become your life. If you exercise in a way that you actually enjoy, staying fit and strong won’t ever feel like a drag. You’ll look forward to it for years to come.
If you want an entire training system that will help you look and feel your best, The Modern Woman’s Guide to Strength Training is for you!
Click to learn more and get started today!
References:
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