A couple days ago I was lucky enough to listen in on a conference call that Charles Staley did with Frank Zane. Frank is a class act and one of my favorite bodybuilders of all time. Here's a great video of classic frank.
There is a great Asian Market just down the street from where I live. I regularly go there to buy green tea (it is sooo much cheaper than at the regular grocery store) and moshi (rice and bean cakes that my wife enjoys). While I was there a couple days ago I decided to venture around and see what else I might like to buy.
I turned the corner came across pumpkin seeds coated in green tea. What a great idea! Okay, my first thought was "What the heck! Who thought that up?".
But it really is a great idea. You get the healthy fats and benefits of seeds plus the added boost of green tea. The above picture is the actual brand that I purchased. These green tea pumpkin seeds are a great snack and a nice change of pace from cashews, almonds, and walnuts.
Find a local Asian market in your area and try these out.
Dr. Mike (of Protein Power fame) had a great (and hilarious post today)
Check it out by clicking the link below.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=466
One of my favorite nutrition/food magazines is called Eating Well. This magazine is full of great nutritional information and killer meals. Below is a short article I just received in their eNewsletter about beta-glucan. Beta-glucan is a fiber found in oats. It is responsible for making your oatmeal really sticky and gooey. It also helps reduced the rate of the absorption of the carbohydrates when you eat oatmeal (which is a good thing). It is probably my favorite source/type of fiber but unfortunately you can't get it from a lot of foods. So eat your oats!
For a great oatmeal recipe check out this overnight oatmeal recipe.
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Love that creamy oatmeal, savor your mushroom-barley soup: these cold-weather comfort foods are full of beta-glucan. Beta-glucan may sound like something out of Star Trek, but it’s really the name of the soluble fiber that has earned oats and—more recently, barley—the right to bear a heart-health claim.
Heart healthy—how? Beta-glucan helps lower “bad” LDL cholesterol in two ways. “It forms a gel in the digestive tract that traps dietary cholesterol, making it less available for absorption, so some gets ushered out of the body as waste,” says Julie Jones, Ph.D., professor of nutrition and a fiber researcher at the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota. Also, as fiber moves farther along in the digestive process, “good” bacteria in the colon digest it, producing short-chain fatty acids that get reabsorbed into the bloodstream. These are then picked up by the liver where they “inhibit enzymes that synthesize blood cholesterol—much in the same way statin drugs do,” says Jones.
Stick-to-your-ribs factor: Oatmeal may indeed be a superiorly satisfying breakfast—because its beta-glucan (with other kinds of fiber and resistant starches) slows digestion, helping to regulate blood-sugar levels. A 2006 study in Diabetes Care found that beta-glucan improved glucose control in normal and overweight people.
Immunity enhancer? An Internet search on “beta-glucan” turns up loads of references to its cancer-fighting, immune-boosting benefits. Unfortunately, these claims aren’t yet supported by conclusive science. “Some animal studies and cell-culture data suggest a possible immune-system response in humans, but this is still very preliminary,” says Jones.
Daily dose: Currently, there isn’t an established recommended daily intake level for beta-glucan, but 1 cup of oatmeal and a side serving (3⁄4 cup cooked) of barley (see eatingwell.com for recipes) together supply 3 grams of beta-glucan, the daily intake that research has linked with cardiovascular benefits.
—Sylvia Geiger, M.S., R.D.
The new Max-Out Radio has been published. This episode features strength training expert Eric Cressey. Eric and I discuss several topics including the most common shoulder injury that he see with clients and how to fix it, how to plan your training cycles, his Ultimate Off-Season Manual and much more.
The show also includes a summary of recent weight loss news from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the top food trends for 2007 and how to apply them to your nutrition, and a great herbed salmon recipe.
Check it out at that Max-Out Nutrition & Fitness podcast page
I thought I'd re-enter the blogging world with what I consider a dynamite post. The supplement industry doesn't do itself any favors when it comes to increasing its credibility. There are some quality companies but others just bring them down....
There is nothing I hate more than outrageous claims and high price tags. This almost always equals disaster. Remember HMB? EAS use to sling that stuff at $60-$70 a pop if I remember correctly. It never panned out. Who is still using HMB today?
In the past I've been a huge critic of MuscleTech. I used to use MuscleTech products all the time - not anymore. It is more of a moral decision than anything else. I can't support their blatant dishonesty....okay maybe not dishonesty but their ability to grossly mislead their customers. Take NitroTech for example (I debunked this myth 6 years ago or so in my first ever newsletter). It contains creatine but they never told you this. They still run ads comparing it to regular whey protein! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that creatine+whey will beat plain whey when it comes to muscle growth and performance!
But let me get to their latest "creation". It contains ~1 gram of 2-(carbamimidoyl-methyl-amino)ethoxyphosphonic acid and 12-dithiolane-3-pentanoic acid.
These two compounds can actually "active dormant muscle fibers"!
That's incredible!
Does it sound too good to be true? Apparently this new ground breaking supplement has allowed Jay Cutler to build "a ton of extra muscle". They even have a medical doctor endorsing the product (someone please revoke this guy's licence to practice!)
Why am I being so cynical about this new amazing product?
1. It costs $79.95
2. 2-(carbamimidoyl-methyl-amino)ethoxyphosphonic acid and 12-dithiolane-3-pentanoic acid are basically the scientific names for a fancy form of creatine and alpha-lipoic acid.
Creatine and Alpha-lipoic acid! For 80 bucks!
Remember...if someone promises you easy fast results...they're next move it to reach for your wallet.
Eat Clean, Train Hard
Read this for more about Aplodan
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. My wife and I traveled up to Vermont to spend a week with my folks. Good times...unfortunately I had a Jan 1st deadline for an article to be published in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology so my leisure time wasn't as much as I hoped but getting the paper done was important.
I have a lot of exciting things planned for 2007 so check in often and subscribe to Max-Out Magazine to be the first to know about killer information and opportunities.
Blunt force trauma...what are your weight lifting session like???
I just had a new Q&A article published on Bodybuilding.com
Go check it out!
I just read a great post by Dr. Michael Eades, the author of Protein Power (a low carb classis and a great title). It is about the adaptations that occur in your body when you switch to a low carb diet.
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We’ve all had the experience. We go off our low-carb diet for a while, then decide to get serious and get back on the straight and narrow. We start counting every carb and being good as gold, and suddenly we’re fatigued. We find ourselves puffing and panting just walking out to the mailbox. Old time low-carbers know this will pass, but newbies aren’t so sure. No one told them about this, and all they can think of are all the horror stories they’ve been told about low-carb diets.
I’ve had countless people tell me of how they tried a low-carb diet once and got so tired they had to give it up. They then usually tell me that a low-carb diet just doesn’t work for their bodies. I tell them that if they’ll just hang in there a while, it will all get better, and, in fact, they will have more energy and less fatigue than before they started the diet.
There is an adaptation period that takes place when starting a low-carb diet. Someone who has been on a high-carb diet–the standard American diet, for example–has to metabolize a lot of sugar. All metabolic processes require enzymes to carry them out. Our DNA codes for these enzymes, but we don’t make them unless we need them. And when we do need them it takes a while for them to get brought up to the necessary levels. So, when we’re on a high-carb diet, we’ve got a lot of sugar-metabolizing enzymes kicking around, ready to metabolize sugar. All the sugar-metabolizing pathways are working efficiently.
Suddenly we switch to a low-carb diet. Now we don’t have much sugar to be metabolized–we’ve got fat instead. But our fat metabolizing pathways are kind of rusty. We’ve got plenty of sugar enzymes, but not enough fat enzymes. The body stays put for a bit to see what’s going to happen. Is this just a few hours without carbs or is it a real low-carb diet for sure? Once the body gets serious, signals go to the DNA, which starts coding for the fat-burning enzymes. They are soon made and start to work, and the fatigue goes away because the body can now efficiently metabolize fat, the main fuel on a low-carb diet.
Read the rest of his post here
I sometimes think of myself as a nutritional anomaly. See, in the world of nutrition in order to get a book published you need a gimmick. It doesn't even matter if the diet you prescribe sucks you just need a good gimmick. Don't believe me? What about the Flavor Point diet? 
Is this guy serious? We're fat because our brain is stimulated by too many flavors. Anyway...I don't have a gimmick. I'm not a low carb guy, high carb guy, high protein guy...I'm none of those, yet I'm all of them. I don't want to limit myself by proscribing to a particular dogma because most of them work. Do I eat low carb all the time? No. Some of the time? Yes. Sometimes I'll use simple sugars after my workouts and sometimes I'll just use protein and amino acids.
I personally like to periodize my nutrition like I do my training. Sometimes I'll train full body and sometimes I'll train like a bodybuilder with bodypart splits. This keeps it interesting. When you eat low carb you get to eat foods that you normally wouldn't eat as much of when your carb intake is higher (like whole eggs, cheese, maybe even...bacon..but not that much). When I eat higher carb I get to enjoy more whole grains, oatmeal (my favorite), sweet potatoes.
Have you been having trouble sticking to your nutritional plan lately? why don't you switch it up? Have you tried the Metabolic Diet? Give it a shot! Are you a low carb guy? Start having carbs post workout and in the 2 meals following your workout. You'll love the muscle pumps! Most of all don't be so dogmatic because in the end everything works...just don't try the Flavor Point Diet.
Here is an incredible sequence of various people doing squats. Squat til you drop! Have a great weekend.
I recently reviewed the fat burner by SAN called Tight. My next review will be of the ready to drink (RTD) fat burner Redline. The tagline for Redline products is "freeze and burn". I'm not actually sure what the "freezing" part is about but I'm sure the "burn" is inferring fat burning. Initially, I wasn't really impressed by the ingredients:
Caffeine Citrate
Caffeine Anhydrous
EvoburnTM (Pure Evodiamine)
N-acetyl-tyrosine
Yerbe Mate
Green Tea
5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan
CAMP (adenosine cyclic 3',5'-monophosphate)
Vinpocetine
Yohimbine HCL
It is a bunch of stimulants sort of like Tight, fat loss by brute force nothing really elegant. I thought that the addition of cAMP was rather interesting. cAMP is a second messenger that is responsible for many things, one of which is lypolysis (freeing stored body fat). But I highly doubt that ingesting cAMP is going to help that AT ALL. Plus it is probably in such small amount that it couldn't possibly do anything (Note: I'm researching an article on supplements that stimulate cAMP so look out for that).
I knew off the bat that this supplement would take away my appetite (and it did) as it has my friends yohimbine HCL and caffeine. Like a jerk I drank the whole 8oz bottle without taking the time to "determine my tolerance level". To make it even worse I took it at 4pm before I went for a jog. Well, I was up literally all night. Man was I wired! I just laid in bed staring at the ceiling for hours. I finally got 2 hours sleep but woke up extremely jacked up and not rested at all. I found I did best with the Redline if I only took 2-4oz.
In the end I only used 2 of the 4 Redline RTDs that came in the package because the taste was awful! It tasted like cough syrup!!! I gagged every time I drank it. Even if the drink was chilled it was nasty. VPX (the makers of Redline) need to go back to the drawing board in the flavor/taste department.
I'll be testing out a free sample of MuscleTech's naNOx9 tomorrow. Now MuscleTech says that "Within 9 seconds of taking naNOX9, rapid compound diffusion is initiated, setting the stage for the most extreme, skin-stretching muscle pumps you'll ever experience." I've never used a nitric oxide supplement before (because I think they are a waste of money) but I'll let you know how it works out.
Technorati Tags:fat loss, supplements, reviews
I've recently participated in a inpromptu questions and answer session online regardings fish oil supplementation. Here are some of the highlights:
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Mike R: I just glanced through Charles Polquin's new article and I noticed a misleading/incorrect statement that is important to note:
"4. Fish oils diminish C-reactive proteins..."
There is an epidemilogical study that shows that people that eat more fish have lower levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) HOWEVER data from randomized clinical trials (the "gold standard" of research) show that EPA/DHA have no effect on CRP (I wish it did). Alpha linolenic acid (ALA) as found in flax does have powerful CRP reducing effects.
IK: Charles mentions consuming 45 grams a day. He mentions 3 tablespoons a day, instead of the 45 capsules you'd have to take.
That's a LOT. Mike, what do you think about that?
Mike R: The problem here is the same problem that I mentioned in my 27 Nutrition Facts article on T-Nation
2. I hate it when people give fish oil recommendations and talk in terms of capsules or grams of fish oil. Talk in terms of EPA and DHA! Otherwise it just confuses people! There is no standard concentration of fish oil so saying that you take 3 one gram capsules means crap. EPA and DHA is what matters.
Charles didn't specify EPA/DHA and if you go to his website and look at the liquid fish oil he sells you can't see the nutritional facts to see how pure it is. I would assume (it is a pretty safe assumption) that Charles' fish oil is 30% pure and thus 45 grams of fish oil is only 13.5g EPA/DHA. Thus he is recommending 9-13.5 grams of EPA/DHA. This isn't that outrageous in that studies have found that 25-30g EPA/DHA is well tolerated without adverse bleeding effets. But as Canadian_Bacon has pointed out "results may vary". I wouldn't recommend that you follow Charles' recommendations using a 30% pure fish oil supplement as your exposure to potential toxins will be greatly increased. But if you choose a higher purity/potency product, increase you dosages in a stepwise manner over time, and spread your intake out across the day (I wouldn't consume more than 5 grams at a time) I'm sure you would see a benefit....to what extent I'm not sure because the most I've ever consumed was 7 grams EPa/DHA per day......
Oh yeah just a CYA...check with your doctor first.
IK: So Mike, when you say "purity", you mean the percentage of EPA/DHA per gram?
If that's the case, then mine is 50% pure. (Vitamin World's Super Omega-3)
I had a discussion with Alan the other week on this, and he was of the opinion that, like so many other products, more isn't always better, including fish oil.
What I take now is 6 pills = 3g epa/dha.
Obviously you don't know my specifics, but would you say that if I slowly ramped up to say 6g epa/dha, that I would feel noticeable differences? Would those be largely joint related? I know there are myriad benefits to the stuff, but what would be noticeable to me in the short run (over 4-6 month period)?
(I'm mainly just curious, but my asthma has been "less than under control" recently, and I'm curious as to how supplements might help.)
Mike R: A rough inference of purity is potency (% of EPA/DHA per gram). 50% is not bad.
I agree that more is not alway better, even with my most loved fish oil. But if you are increasing the amount for a specific reason (e.g. improve asthma) then it can be warrented. If I were you would I move up to six grams EPA/DHA to see if it improved my asthma, yes.
The data with EPA/DHA and asthma is far from conclusive but it is suggestive (wow that was a vague statement!). You would notice the difference much sooner than 4-6 months. Red Blood cell levels of EPA/DHA can equilbrate in as little as 4 weeks (4-6wks is the range found in the literature). So I would imagine that if you were going to see a difference then you would see it by then.
Keep a journal so monitor the status of your asthma (inhaler use, frequency of chest tightness, response to exercise, etc) as that will be the marker of improvement in this situation.
Again...check with your doctor
Branched Chain Amino Acids or BCAAs are one of the hottest supplements on the market. People always want to know:
"Do BCAA work?"
"When should I use BCAAs?"
"What BCAA should I buy?"
I've recently participated in a great discussion on BCAA, their effectiveness, and use. You can check it out (and you definately want to) over at the JP Fitness Forums.
Here's a GREAT video. Super inspirational...pass it on to a friend and have a great weekend.
Here's a great recipe for Garlic Dill Salmon that I found in the new Yahoo Food section. Just add some veggies and you'll be good to go!
Garlic-Dill Salmon
Serves: 4
Ingredients
1. 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2. 3/4 cup fresh orange juice
3. 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
4. 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
5. 4 (7 ounce) salmon fillets
Nutrition Info - 4 servings
Calories: 388 kcal
Carbohydrates: 5 g
Dietary Fiber: 0 g
Fat: 21 g
Protein: 40 g
Cooking Directions
1. In a medium baking dish, combine the garlic, orange juice, lemon juice and dill. Place the salmon, skin side up, in the marinade and refrigerate for up to 3 hours. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Discard half of the marinade and bake the fish in the remaining sauce until cooked through, about 15 minutes.
I've been doing Alwyn Cosgrove's Afterburn II Fat Loss Training program. It is pretty tough but I was able to make it through the first 4 weeks and I felt like I was hitting my groove. However, yesterday I had to change up the rep ranges in the complexes from 8 reps to 4 reps. This coincides with an increase in weight. That coupled with new exercises at lower rep ranges later in the workout (more heavier weight), plus intervals, and the introduction of these devilish things Alwyn calls finishers (we talked about those when Alwyn was on Max-Out Radio) left me EXTREMELY sore this morning when NPR (National Public Radio) woke me up at 6:00am.
With these adjustments in the program Alwyn as arranged for me to become reacquainted with every muscle fiber in my trapezius (he's a bad man).
In regards to fat loss the program is dynamite. My wife even made some comment last night about how I was getting "skinny". I proptly corrected her that the proper term was "lean" not "skinny" (she'll ruin my reputation tossing around the s-word like that!)
Have a great day,
MR
The past couple weeks resveratrol has been all over the news. It's popularity and the research that has been done on it makes me think if CLA. CLA? You may be thinking "But CLA is a fat and resveratrol is a phytochemical how are they similar? "
The thing is that a lot of the early work (research) on CLA was done in animals (mainly mice/rats). What we found out with more research is that CLA can turn a fat mouse into Mighty Mouse no problem but it doesn't do the same things in humans. I'm not knocking CLA because studies have shown that it can be an effective agent in the fight against body fat at about 3.5g/day but it hasn't worked in humans like it does in mice.
I wonder if resveratrol will be similar. Below is a quote from a recent NY Times article:
"Resveratrol has been shown, in mice, to double their endurance They also have a reduced heart rate and energy-charged muscles, just as trained athletes do, according to an article published online in Cell. “Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,” author Dr. Auwerx said in an interview.
If this would work in humans this would be incredible! Right? I'm not going to start celebrating quite yet. Plus another thing to mention is that the dosages of resveratrol that they are giving mice are HUGE compared to the average dose of a resveratrol supplement (for humans). In fact the only company that I've found whose product gives a large dose of resveratrol is Rez-V by Biotest. I would guess that if you are looking for the results that they are finding with mice that you would need to take large doses (like they do with mice) and not the small ones found in most supplements.
I'm intrigued by resveratrol. I'm going to start taking it myself. I figure the worst case scenario would be that my health greatly increases. We can sometimes get caught up in all the body composition / performance excitement that has been surrounding resveratrol but forget to realize that resveratrol have been shown to have great health benefits in HUMANS.
And if you're not into taking the supplement....have a glass of red wine. You'll get some resveratrol (not nearly as much as if you supplemented), you'll raise your HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol), but you'll temporally put a stop to fat burning (nobody said it was a perfect world).
Thanks to Aaron W for sending me the NY Times article.
Have a great day (and plan your meals!),
MR
The new Max-Out Radio has been released.
This episode contains an interview with Marty Gallagher. Marty is a world renown powerlifter and author. Listen to my interview with him along with a look at caffeine research, and how to cook oatmeal while you sleep at the Max-Out Radio Website.
