Kevin’s Corner on Exercise and Nutrition

The question is are all Protein Powders all safe or do you you look at Protein Powders with the same critical eye as any other protein source. In other words, do you need to know how the source of the protein was produced / grown.

In my opinion, yes.  If the protein powder you are using in your shakes was derived from a cow that was not grown organically, you are basically injesting milk that may have been subjected to hormones, grain fed, and basically subjected to a lot more Omega 6 sources of food than you would want in a food source.

So, if you can find a basic protein powder that is organic, go with it. I was able to find organic protein powder from my local grocer in Issaquah, WA, PCC.If you really want to get a guaranteed source of chemical free, pesticide free and also grass fed source of whey protein powder get it from Dr. Mercola.  You can read the entire article here, but I will provide this excerpt;

” The milk used in Pro-Optimal Whey™ Protein Meal comes only from cows that graze on pesticide-free, chemical-free, natural grass pastures.

These cows are never subjected to chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, genetically modified organisms, hyper-immunizations, injected pathogens, or any bovine growth hormones – giving you peace of mind in addition to wellness.

Plus, these cows are not from factory farms that feed their cows grains. Grain-feeding can transform healthy milk proteins into allergens and carcinogens – which is caused by modern feeding methods that substitute high-protein, soy-based feeds for fresh green grass.

Grass fed cows’ milk has excellent levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is transferred to you in the whey powder. “

I read two really great books over the last couple of months, this is why I have been not blogging like I wanted to that drove me to write this post and to seriously question everything I eat and ask myself the critical question, am I following my own advice. This is now why, I have switched to organic whey protein and have ordered the protein powder from Dr. Mercola.  I have a very busy life and with all of the training I do, I don’t have the luxery of eating fresh meats and foods all of the time. The two books I will try to write about later. They are called “The Inflamation Cure” and “The Inflamation Syndrome”. Both phenomenol books and probably have moved me towards a better place from a health perspective than I have ever been. 

Thanks for reading,

Kevin

I have thought about this topic for a long time. Some say I have dwelled on it too much, but when you have had so many members taken out at an early age by High Cholesterol and Heart Disease or are currently suffering from the complications of cardiovascular disease, you tend to think about it a lot. My father died of a heart attack at the tender age of 61 after struggling with strokes and cardiovascular disease for over 10 years. His last stroke was a whopper. It was really hard to watch him struggle to communicate the way he used to. He had such a great sense of humor and a passion for living. My father was not very good about his diet or cigarette smoking, but I believe that if he really truly understood the options that he had to live a much, much longer life, I think he would have chosen differently.

Here is the list of my relatives who have either died or are suffering from the complications of cardiovascular disease. It is a rather long list, not sure how complete it is.

• Dad, strokes through 50 years. quadruple bypass surgery. 61.
• Uncle (Dad’s  side), quadruple bypass surgery. Overweight, Type II Diabetes.
• 2 Half Brothers and Cousins with Type II Diabetes.
• Grandfather (Mother’s side), died at age 63. Heart Attack. Started with hypertension in his 30’s and stroke in early 50’s. Started taking nitro glycerin in his late 50’s. Letter carrier for the USPS, so he was pretty active in his work. Wasn’t overweight and he was not a smoker.
• Grandmother (Mother’s side), died at age 73 heart attack. Heart Attack in her early 60’s after grandfather passed a way. She had two  bypass surgeries.
• Great Grandmother (Mother’s side), Died at age 66. Stroke and Heart Failure.
• Great Grandfather (Mother’s side), died at age 42. Heart Attack
• Uncle (Mother’s side). At the age of 43, had a heart attack. triple bypass surgery saved his life. He has struggled with this disease from this period on. He is now in his late 60’s.
• Uncle (Mother’s side). At the age of 50, suffered angina, had triple bypass surgery.
• Mother had 3 stints put in at 57 years old. She takes cholesterol medication and a blood thinner called Plavix. She also suffers from arthritis.

My doctor would say that because of this rather long list of family members suffering from or dying from cardiovascular disease, that I have a hereditary predisposition to cardiovascular disease.  Well, I can’t disagree that there is a preponderance of evidence stacked against me.  I also don’t disagree that genetics is key link here, but does that answer the burning question?

If Genetics is not the cause of High Cholesterol and Heart Disease, than what is the cause?

If you look at my families lifestyles and more particularly their diets, it isn’t any different that pretty much every person and family I have ever met. We all know that there is a huge epidemic of obesity in this country and we know that the typical American Diet is crap. So, why do only some people suffer from obesity and others get struck with a much more debilitating and life threatening disease like high cholesterol and heart disease? If heredity is such a large factor in this equation for accessing risk, why do a number of my family members not suffer from cardiovascular disease yet they shared the same lifestyles and diets?

Scientifically;

• We know that grains or other sources of Omega 6 are inflammatory.
• We also know that the bodies natural response to inflammation is the production of Cholesterol along with numerous other inflammation responses like CRP and IL-6.
• We also know that High Cholesterol is the leading factor in the beginnings of heart disease.

So, why doesn’t every American who partakes in the ritual of eating unhealthy foods and do not exercise or lead healthy lifestyles not all suffer from some form of cardiovascular disease?

It is my belief that allergies are the cause or at least another major underlying cause of cardiovascular disease particularly High Cholesterol and Heart Disease. Type II Diabetes and High Blood Pressure are different beasts which I will get into later, but they are both diseases or symptoms of an underlying inflammation response. I had suffered from High Blood Pressure, but have since gotten it under control.

We all know someone who suffer from Allergies;

• We know that in some people certain flowers or sources of pollen cause a dramatic histamine response
• Someone who is allergic to nuts can go into anaphylactic shock
• People who are allergic to poison ivy or other types of allergens will immediately get a severe skin rash

So, why shouldn’t we think about these cardiovascular diseases and treat them the same way we treat an allergy.

• Would you visit a rose garden if you were allergic to roses?
• Would you continue to eat nuts if you were allergic to them?
• You get my point.

Numerous books give extensive details on how to do elimination diets to isolate and identify types of food that you are allergic to.

I am following this protocol by being on the Paleo Diet and have been able to now determine that I am allergic to eggs. Whenever I eat a large portion of eggs or  a product that has egg in it, I have extremely sore legs within 24 hours. Whenever I get inflammation, it manifests itself in my leg muscles. Probably because I am a runner and have the most scar tissue in my legs.

I am currently reading two books, “The Inflammation Cure” and “The Inflammation Syndrome”. There is an amazing body of work in this field.

Have you ever heard the Analogy, “It’s like peeling an onion”?

In the tech field where I work, when we troubleshoot an issue a lot of times it is like peeling an onion. When you start to dissect the issue you continue to get to lower or more deeper underlying causes of a problem.

If you were to apply this analogy to heart disease what we are seeing today in the scientific community is  much like peeling an onion.

1. People were starting to die a lot more by what we understood as heart failure.
2. We then discovered that the hearts of the people dying were clogged up with plaque.
3. We then identified Cholesterol as the culprit for the clotting
4. In the technical field when we find something we call a workaround we usually implement if we cannot determine the underlying cause of a problem. So, if we can workaround a symptom that causes a larger problem we do it. This is what medical science is doing today. They are treating high cholesterol and the other factors like blocked arteries that are leading to death.
   1. Statins
   2. Open Heart bypass surgery
   3. Stints
   4. etc…
5. A majority of doctors have stopped there. They stopped peeling the onion.
6. Now we are starting to understand why people are getting high cholesterol and other cardiovascular diseases like Type II Diabetes and High Blood Pressure
7. We are finding that Inflammation is causing or is a major cause in a lot of these diseases.
8. So, we are now getting close to core of the onion or at least we hope we are. We are trying to answer this question now; Where does the inflammation come from and what are the other causes of cardiovascular disease?

If we can answer this question we will be that much closer to a cure for what is killing a majority of our population and our families.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

I will try to keep this one brief.

If you are like me and are struggling to kick this high cholesterol monster off your back, your choice is simple, not easy, but simple.

Kick the bad guy Omega 6 to the curb. Tell him to get off your plate and don’t let the door hit him in the back side on the way out.

So, let’s start with how to get rid of Omega 6.

Like I said in my earlier post:

Omega 3’s come from the leaf of a plant and Omega 6’s come from the seed of a plant. The plant that is in question and primarily our dietary source of Omega 6’s are Grain or Cereal Plants. Heck, our diet is about 70% of this stuff.

So, what is the seed of a plant?

Pretty simple question and logical… OK. Here is what I can name off the top of my head:

• Corn or Maize
• Wheat
• Rice
• Oats
• Barley
• Quinoa
• Buckwheat
• Rye

Wait a minute you say, how in the heck am I going to get rid of all that in my diet? Well, that is a good question. It is what the The Paleo Diet for Athletes recommends. But, aren’t these food sources a great source of vitamins and nutrients, you say. Well, yeah, but the negative effects of them especially if you suffer from high Cholesterol like me far outweigh their benefits. They are mainly Omega 6 and will cause inflamation and inflamation causes your body to produce more cholesterol, 90% of the cholesterol in your blood stream and liver is produced by you, not through dietary sources contrary to popular belief.

I did not say this was going to be easy. So, try not to think about it as saying good bye to some of your favorite breakfast cereals and breads, think about it as saying high to a lot of really great sources of vitamins and nutrients; Fruits, Vegetables, Some nuts like Walnuts and Macadamian and Oils like Flaxseed, Walnut, Avocado, Canola (not to be confused with Mazola (corn oil)), and Olive.

I am getting ahead of myself, OK, well I will repeat that last paragraph down below again, because that is some of what you need to do to get your Omega 3’s.

Meats, Meats, Meats and Fish

I wish this were easy, but like I said before it isn’t. Unless you know that the source of your meat was fed completely on grass and fed no grains, do not eat it! Because you are what you eat and if what you eat is something that ate grains, you are eating it too!  If your fish is farm raised, sorry, do not eat it! Fish that are farm raised are being adapted to digest grains. Can you believe it? They are selectively breeding fish to tolerate grains. What in the heck is going on?

That is it! Simple. Cut out your grains, non grass fed meats and farm raised fish.

So, let’s finish with how to get lot’s of Omega 3.

Great sources of Omega 3 in a pill are in my preferred order; Krill Oil, Flaxseed Oil, Fish Oil, You can get some great Krill Oil from Dr. Mercola. (Current guidelines are no more than 3 grams a day, but there is some dispute over this still. Isn’t there always?) Also, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, REFRIGERATE YOUR OMEGA 3 PILLS.

Fish are probably the single best source of of Omega 3. The most widely available source of Omega 3 in fish is cold water oily fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies and sardines.

Eggs produced by chickens that are fed grass and insects and not grains are also a great source of Omega 3.

From above, some nuts like Walnuts and Macadamian are pretty good sources of Omega 3. The ratios are not the best in any nuts beyond these two. I tend to eat a lot of Almond Butter, but I probably should follow my own advice on this one. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, REFRIGERATE YOUR NUTS! 

Oils like Flaxseed, Walnut, and Avocado are best for cold preperation like salads (You should not cook these oils as they will break down too easy) Canola (not to be confused with Mazola (corn oil)), and Olive are great for cooking as they have a good heat point and do not break down as fast under heat.

For further detailed information on Omega 3, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3

Thanks and I hope this was helpful. I know I learned a lot on this one.

Kevin

I will leave with one excerpt from Wikipedia on Omega 3 supplementation below. There are some people who should be very careful about taking any Omega 3 supplements and that is people with caridac risk.

[edit] Cardiac risk

Persons with congestive heart failure, chronic recurrent angina or evidence that their heart is receiving insufficient blood flow are advised to talk to their doctor before taking n−3 fatty acids. It may be prudent for such persons to avoid taking n−3 fatty acids or eating foods that contain them in substantial amounts.^[53]

In congestive heart failure, cells that are only barely receiving enough blood flow become electrically hyperexcitable. This, in turn, can lead to increased risk of irregular heartbeats, which, in turn, can cause sudden cardiac death. n−3 fatty acids seem to stabilize the rhythm of the heart by effectively preventing these hyperexcitable cells from functioning, thereby reducing the likelihood of irregular heartbeats and sudden cardiac death. For most people, this is obviously beneficial and would account for most of the large reduction in the likelihood of sudden cardiac death. Nevertheless, for people with congestive heart failure, the heart is barely pumping blood well enough to keep them alive. In these patients, n−3 fatty acids may eliminate enough of these few pumping cells that the heart would no longer be able to pump sufficient blood to live, causing an increased risk of cardiac death.^[53]

Are we so blind that we really just do not understand how ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY important it is to get good sources of Omega 3’s in our diet and how ABSO-EQUALLY-LUTELY it is to not just try, but to do everything in our power to cut wayyyyyyy back on Omega 6’s?

OK, I am sure a lot of you know what an Omega 3 fatty acid and an Omega 6 fatty acid are. No, not really? Well, maybe some of you do.

I know you have heard of or at least have probably seen the fancy cool term Omega 3 on some product you purchased lately at your local market.  “Great source of Omega 3″ in a pretty cool looking red heart.  Sucked you in to buying it without even knowing what it is and whether or not it is really good for you or not. That Red Heart Symbol on a package really compels people to buy.  Just because it is a good source of Omega 3, does it really mean that you are covered? What is the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 in that food item you just purchased? Chances are if it is a loaf of whole wheat bread, it is probably loaded with Omega 6’s and probably a paltry Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio of 10:1. I was buying Earth Balance Margarine thinking that it was great because it contained no hydrogenated fats. What I did not realize was that it was made mostly with corn oil, safflower oil and other very high sources of Omega 6 oils and a little bit of Olive Oil.  The ratio was 8:1. They have a new one out that they added Flaxseed Oil to and moved the ratio down to 4:1. It is certainly the best one I can find out there.

The recommended ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 is 1:1 or 2:1. 

Quick Definition: Hydrogenated Fats = the most deadly, should be outlawed, might as well be suicide in a jar, did you know that they take the peanut oil out of Jif and Skippy Peanut Butter and replace it with this sh_t?, Come on people, this stuff is bad.

So, back to Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s…

Each time I read a little more about Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s, I am just further convinced that we really are clueless to the benefits of Omega 3 and that the benefits of dramatically increasing our intake of Omega 3’s and at the same time clueless to why we should be focusing on the elimination or at least a drastic reduciton of Omega 6’s in our diet. Doing this could be the key to our long term health.

Omega 3 Versus Omega 6 Analogies/ Comparisons

Omega 3’s are like a cool running stream and Omega 6’s are like a hot fire.
Omega 3’s come from the leaf of a plant and Omega 6’s come from the seed of a plant.
Omega 3’s can suppress inflamation and Omega 6’s can cause inflamation.

Inflamation is the cause of high cholesterol.

I may not have mentioned in my earlier blog post that I firmly believe the Dr. Cass is right that the major underlying cause of High Cholesterol is inflamation. Your bodies natural response to inflamation is cholesterol. So, if eating a diet high in Omega 6 is your thing, don’t you think you should stop doing that to yourself and start focusing on eating sources of Omega 3?

I have mentioned The Paleo Diet for Athletes before and covered what it recommends in terms of eating healthy and getting good sources of Omega 3’s in your diet, but it did not prepare me for The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This is my new favorite book, I have even entertained selling my house and buying a farm, growing some grass and hearding the cattle, chickens, pigs and turkeys around and pulling off the grid.  I had no freaking clue how messed up our food system is today. I have been kidding myself with my protein choices. Yeah, I may have eliminated almost all grains from my diet to cut back on the Inflamatory Effect of grains, but I had not really considered how critical of an eye I need to have when choosing my source of protein.

Before reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma I thought I already understood what there was to know about Omega 3’s. Now, that I have read it, when it comes to eating healthy I have not even come close to getting Omega 3 into my diet and eliminating/reducing Omega 6’s.

Organic is a Big Joke when it comes to protein!

I was talking to my friend Aidan Delaney today and he is right. If you can’t find a animal based protein that you are sure is a great source of Omega 3 and very low in Omega 6, you may as well just not eat it and just go with something you know is high in Omega 3’s and low in Omega 6. FISH!!!!

The only other option for animal based protein that is a great source of Omega 3 and very low in Omega 6 is to find a farm like the one in The Omnivore’s Dilemma and buy your meat there.  So, unless, the “O” Organics Brand at Safeway is listening and decides to come clean and provide me with a grass fed piece of chicken or beef, I am going completely local and never coming back and of course I will finally bite the bullet and go find a good source for my fish in Seattle so I can stock my freezer. I always have like fish.

A word about Fish.

If it is Farm Raised, throw it back! I can’t believe these people are in business. They are poisoning our food sources, just like the people poisoning our chickens and cows by feeding them nothing but grains.

I will blog next with my recommendations for what you can do to get Omega 3’s back into your diet and how to eliminate Omega 6’s. 

Thanks for reading,

Kevin

Some of you may have gone over and read Dr. Mirkin from my pointers to his site. I recently sent him an email asking him to discuss more things that he has learned about Lp(a) on his site and shared my story of high levels of Lp(a). What he told me was very eye opening and came a little bit of relief, but before I got into the details….

A small bit of background on Dr. Mirkin before I share more. 

My grandfather was a competitive runner and competed locally and regionally and was friends with Dr. Mirkin. He called him Gabe. I When I was a kid and was suffering from an injury, my grandfather took me to see Dr. Mirkin.  I always remember our trip down to his office. It was a prett long drive to me because we had to drive from Baltimore down to Montgomery County just to the NW of Washington DC. I also knew Dr. Mirkin from a YMCA program in Baltimore called Run For Your Life (RFYL). My grandfather, John Anthony Beares, SR starting taking me and my sister there every Sunday when I was about 7 years old and we would run a one mile race. This is where I caught the running bug. So, in a way I have Dr. Mirkin to thank for contributing to my passion and love for exercise at such and early age. I ended up becoming a pretty competitive runner and would some times race the one mile and then the two mile race back to back when there was an opportunity to do that. Sometimes there was a large crowd so they would run the races seperately. I have fond memories of the time I spent there with my grandfather and his friends, I can still picture the neighborhood and the perople there. I remember going back there about 10 years ago on some weekday when I was in Baltimore for a business trip and I put on my running shoes and raced the old course for old time sake. It was pretty exilerating. I had more butterflies in my stomach then, than I have had in some of the bigger races I have competed in. Heck, I am feeling them right now as I am remembering this. :) Thanks again Dr. Mirkin for the memories, and your friendship over the years and Grandpop, if you are looking over my shoulder right now, know that I miss you and Dad more than words can describe.

OK, so onto the research. Apparently the normal levels of 0-30 being the healthy range may be off by a pretty large margin. Here is what Dr. Mirkin shared with me:

“The only drug treatment (For high Lp(a)) is niacin which is loaded with side  effects.  So the best way to combat Lp(a) is to do everything we know that prevents heart attacks.

The good news is that the most recent study covering 20,000 people showed that people with levels between 0-100 had the same risk for heart attacks and strokes as those with levels 100-200. That means that we have set the normal values too low. My guess is that you do not start to get into trouble until levels get above 125.  People with levels over 250 are at significant risk.”

This message reminded me again, that while you should definitely listen to your doctor’s advice, but you also should listen to your own concious and body and try not to get worked up too much over some of the guidelines out there on blood levels, especially in the cases of the new research. Heck, I just got an email from Dr. Mirkin that is making rethink what supplements I should take or be advising people to take. There is new research out that questions whether or not some supplements are healthy to take and possibly could put you at greater risk for disease than if you didn’t take them at all. I will share more on this later.

 If you are eating right (Yeah, so what does that mean?), exercising, keeping your body weight healthy, not smoking, getting enough sleep at night, limiting your alcohol consumption, and making changes to your lifestyle that eliminates stress than you are at least on a course to wellness. Even then you could still be at risk for disease.

I met someone today that looks like the picture of health and had a total cholesterol of almost 300! They just started taking Lipitor (only 10 mg). I asked her if she had made any modifications in her diet to see what effect that had on her cholesterol. She hadn’t. I told her to read my blog and maybe some of the advice that I have been able to put to words would give her some alternative ideas to taking the meds. I hated Lipitor. I about died on that stuff.

Catch you later.

Kevin

I mentioned earlier that you should get a test for LP(a) or “lipoprotein little a” if you have high cholesterol. I found out about 6 years ago that my LP(a) was really high. The range that they say it should be is between 0 and 30. Mine was 106. I have had it as high as 116 and as low as 82. 

So, why should you be concerned about this?  Current medical knowledge says that having high levels of this lipoprotein can increase your chance of coronary artery disease especially if you have high cholesterol.

From WebMD:
“LPa teams up with LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, making it more likely that LDL will become inserted in the walls of arteries, causing the plaque build-up that results in coronary artery disease (CAD). Because of this connection, women with higher blood levels of LDL are at the greatest risk of developing coronary artery disease. ”

I take issue with LDL called “bad” cholesterol. It isn’t really cholesterol at all. It is actually a protein. LDL’s essential role is to help deliver cholesterol to an injury in your body to help in the healing process. Same goes for HDL which is sometimes referred to as the “good” cholesterol. It is a protein as well and it’s essential role is to recycle your cholesterol by taking it back to your liver so that it can be re-used. Your body is an amazing machine and is very effecient.  I will go off on LDL and HDL later on.

So, I have always been worried about my LP(a) because it has been high and no matter what recommendations I have followed, I have been unable to lower this number. I have tried a diet low in fat, taken gumption (2-3000 mg) of Niaspan (Prescription, timed release Niacin), exercise my tail off, taken statins and controlled my weight and never even put a dent in this number.

So, then I do a bunch of things all at once and BAMMMM, my score is now 21. So, what specifically did I do to drop it to normal levels? I am not sure, but time will tell. Here is what I did:

1. I went on the Paleo Diet and followed it to the letter. Basically, I virtualy eliminated the following food groups; Grains (including simple sugars), Legumes, and Milk Products. (caveat is that I followed the Paleo Diet for Athletes where I am allowed simple sugars and other items for recovery from a workout)
2. I started a major supplement repetoire. Read the details in my previous blog post. What vitamins / supplements should you take?
3. I got off of my statin.  I had read somewhere out on the internet that the cause of high LP(a) is actually caused by the statin. I am not sure if it is an urban legend or what. I have been off of statins before, but had not tested my LP(a) while I was clean. So, I can neither confirm or deny this statement.

So, these are the three things that I did and obviously, for me, this worked.

When I saw my doctor, I felt like he should have paid me. All he did was grill me on what I did.

I will continue to monitor this along with my cholesterol for the rest of my life. I will also continue to get a stress test ekg to make sure my heart is still healthy. My goal is to always complete the test like I did the first time I did it.

Hope this is helpful for others who are suffering from high LP(a) and are worried about it. Contact me if you want me to talk further about this.

Thanks,

Kevin

Man, this is a complex, completely confusing, controversial, and diluted topic.  There are so many sides to this one that I do not think it can be measured in a three dimensional world. It is multi dimensional.

I will start off by saying that I think the best source for devising a good supplement program for yourself is with Dr Cass and Supplementing Your Prescription, regardless if you are on a prescription or not. This is a phenomenal read and the cornerstone of my nutrition plan. 

I am a big advocate for supplementing, even if you have a diet that is based in fruits, vegetables and whole foods that are supposed to be rich in vitamins and essential minerals. You would think that with a diet that makes others think you are the example of health you would not need to take a multivitamin or supplement with additional vitamins and essential minerals. However, there is more to eating well than simply eating great foods. Do you know the source of your food? Is it organic? Is it fresh? If it isn’t all of these things, how do you know that the soil that this food was grown in wasn’t enriched with petroleum based fertilizers and sprayed with petroleum based pesticides? I am reading a book called, The Omnivore’s Delemma right now and it has made me really think about where my food comes from.

So, onto my recommendations. I would recommend that you take at least the following supplements and seriously think about the source of your supplements. You get what you pay for in this category. Look for brands that carry certifications of their quality. Dr. Mercola has some really great guidance on what to look for in terms of certifications.

A good MultiVitamin
B complex with Niacin
Vitamin C - 2000 mg
Vitamin D - 1000 iu
Calcium Magnesium Zinc
Folic Acid or Folate
Omega - 3 Supplement - Krill Oil, Fish Oil, Flax Seed Oil
Vitamin E
Probiotic - Acidophilous

My personal belief is that supplements are an insurance policy. While I have heard a lot of arguments that you are wasting your money because any vitamin that you take too much of you ends up passing in your urine, I would rather be safe than sorry. 

I will follow up with more posts on each specific supplement and why I think each are important to your overall well being.

Thanks for reading,

Kevin

Since I know that Sean O’Driscoll is a die hard when it comes to Barbecue, I thought I would share one supremely important piece of advice.

If you are going to spend a lot of time and money on cooking your meat to make it the best cooked meal you have ever had, please spend as much time picking the best meat to cook on that awesome barbecue that you probably got from http://www.cookshack.com/

Make sure you beef, poultry, pork, lamb, venison, fish, etc… meets most of the below criteria;

• Wild caught, not farm raised fish
• Certified Organic
• Grass fed
• For Beef, NOT FED Corn, period. I don’t care if it is organic. Beef Cattle are not meant to eat corn, they are herbivores.
• No antibiotics
• Free roaming

If you get a choice piece of meat that met the above criteria, you pretty much are ensuring that the meet is going to be as high in Omega 3’s as it can be. Some types or cuts of meats are more supeior than others. Focusing on your Omega 3 versus Omega 6 intake is another one of the most important things you should think about when you choose your source of protein.

Take a look at the Paleo Diet for more guidance on the cuts that are the best.

It will do your heart and body well if you follow this advice.

Kevin

So, what is one of the most important factor’s that will either positively or negatively impact your health? This applies to normal sedintary folks as well as athletes.

Sleep!

From everything I have read, and trust me, I have read a lot about this topic over my adult life, if you don’t get at least 8 hours of sleep each night, you will diminish your health.

Cortisol is a biproduct of lack of sleep. Cortisol is the stress hormone. This little guy is a monster.

• It causes you to crave sugar and simple carbohydrates
• It causes you to store fat in your stomach
• It causes a rise in cholesterol
• It can negatively impact your blood pressurse
• Your ability to focus and think will be greatly dimished. This is a cumulative effect. The more days without sleep, the worse this effect can have
• And a number of other negative things that will set you down a path of sickness

Needless to say, you want to do what you can to avoid producting this response in your body. We already have a host of other factors in our very stressful lives to cause this little monster to show up in our systems like the stressful work environments, our hectic schedules, etc.  So, why add to it?

For athletes, sleep is even more important if you want to perform optimally. Have you thought about Growth Hormone? Not the stuff that Roger Clemens is being investigated for. I am talking about your own Growth Hormone. Do you know that when you sleep your body produces a boat load of this stuff? If you cut short your sleep you cut short the growth hormone production. Lance Armstrong and a lot of other professional and Olympic athletes game the system by actually sleeping twice in one day. They wake up, strap on a feed bag and go do a workout. Eat another meal and steal a couple of hours of sleep. Their bodies start producting growth hormone and then they wake up and rinse and repeat. So, in a sense, they are doubling the amount of growth hormone their bodies produce in a single day (not actually double, but you get my point) and enable themselves to do more exercise/work in a single day. Now this is not as easy for us mere mortals who have a day job and don’t have time to go grab a couple of winks in the middle of our day, but this makes it even more important for us to understand how important this one thing that we do for 1/3 of our lives is for us to be healthy.

The 4 Key things you should do after you do a bunch of hard work or exercise to promote an optimal recovery process;

1. Within 30 mins, replace the proteins your body consumed during your workout. For a 150 pound person, your body can consume up to 30 grams of protein after a hard workout.
2. Within 30 mins, replace carbohydrates. For a 150 pound person, about 450 carbohydrate calories are needed to start getting your muscle glycogen back to it’s pre workout levels.
3. Replace your electrolytes and fluids.
4. Get your 8 hours or more of sleep / turning on your Growth Hormone Factory

If you want your body to heal doing the above things will have the greatest effect with an emphasis on the sleep. Without the sleep component, forget about it. You will eventually get injured or start failing to improve or both. A number of my friends and fellow athletes that I have talked about this, have all echoed this conclusion. Joel Friel in The Triathlete’s Training Bible and also in The Paleo Diet for Athletes will tell you how important sleep is to recovery.

One of the best triathlon seasons I ever had was a year where I focused on getting close to 10 hours of sleep a night. When I stepped on the start line / beach to head out into the water it was like I had springs for legs. It was phenominal experience to have this feeling.

Don’t rob your health and set yourself up for failure. Get your rest.

Kevin

I want to thank Vlad Mazek and Andy Goodman for being so helpful in getting this blog and domain name setup for me.  Now, I have a real domain name and a genuinely awesome place to put down my thoughts.

I am hosting this blog from Own Web Now, check out their blog at http://www.ownwebnow.com/blog. Blogspot was a nice idea, but not really where I should be blogging.

I truly value the friendship that these two have shared with me. I promise I will do my best to not let you all down with this blog.

Thanks again,

Kevin