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Effects of Energy Drinks & Functional Foods - Fact or Fiction?

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/HRLgU)
The label reads "improves brain function."

I don't know if it is sleep deprivation causing a reduction in my brain function or the fact that I'm very trust, either way I reach into the cooler and grab a can of Brain TonIQ (pronounced tonic).

Image via Wikipedia

The newest energy drink in an ever growing class of $2 miracle in a can products promising increased energy, fat loss, and improved brain function. It is amazing to think that Red Bull used to be the only game in town and before that the only drink you could by which promised anything was Jolt Cola (and that just promised to have 2x the caffeine of Coke - which12 year old Mike Roussell thought was both a scary and cool proposition).

Now there is Red Bull, 5 Hour Energy, 6 Hour Power Energy (apparently the makers of 6 Hour Power Energy took the advice of Harland William's character in There's Something About Mary regarding 7 Minute Abs and applied it to energy drinks, Rock Star, Monster Energy, Full Throttle, Crunk, NOS, and my perennial favorite for long driving trips -the Spike Shooter. While many of the products that I just listed only promise an instant surge of energy, which is easily accomplished by stuffing the can full of sugar and caffeine, more and more products are being placed on store shelves, like Brain TonIQ, that seemingly promise a short term benefit that could only be accomplished via long term consumption.

The great promises of physiological superiority are not limited to the energy drink aisle of your local convenience store or super market. It is a growing trend in functional foods that people like us need to be aware of in order to prevent being sent to the poor house due to our quest for good health without even the consolation of better health (more on that in a minute).

Instant Benefit Through Chronic Use

One of the reasons that energy drinks like Red Bull are so popular is because you get an instant result.

Drink it, get energy.

You feel different after to drink it almost instantly. Due to the miracle of caffeine this is not the placebo effect, you actually have more energy. The problem for food and beverage companies arises when they try to develop products that cannot rely on the instant feedback that caffeine gives in order to convince you, the consumer, that the food or beverage is working.

So with the caffeine angle out the window, the next trick in the tool box is scientific research. Add a bunch of stuff to product that has been shown or theorized to have a benefit in a can or tub, sprinkle on the label some technical jargon, and you're good to go. With the ridiculous popularity of energy drinks Field of Dreams 'formulate it and they will drink' mantra actually works! But I want you to stop and think next time you go to shell out $2 in hopes of thinking more clearly.

Let's look at Brain TonIQ for a minute to illustrate my point. The tag line for this product is "Fuel Your Cranium. Get Thinking Again." So what is in this can that is going to make you start thinking more clearly?

• Sugar. Organic Agave Nectar to be exact.


• DMAE,


• Choline (a classic ingredient in 'brain' drinks),


• blue green algae,


• eleutherococcus extract (aka Siberian ginseng)


• rhodiola rosea

I'm not going to get into the details of the formulation, I just want to point out the flaw in our thinking as consumers. The though process we go through is this. I need to improve my brain function. Brain TonIQ says it will do this. It contains Ginseng and Rhodiola Rosea both should help with this. I'll drink it and be on point for my test/presentation/[insert reason for needing to think better].

The problem with this mentality/thought process is that things like Ginseng, Rhodioloa Rosea, or just about anything except caffeine don't work instantly and don't work after one dose and they may not even have enough of the active ingredient to make a difference.

Not to keeping going at the nice people that make Brain TonIQ (I just happen to have the can in front of me) but, there are 1.8 grams of the proprietary herbal blend with the ingredients that I listed above in each can. Studies looking at the effect of Siberian Ginseng use 1-3 gram per day for up to 12 weeks. So it is important to ask yourself, for any supplement you are taking,

'Is there enough active ingredient in here to make an impact?'

and

'How long do I need to take this to see the effects?'

Functional Foods - Looking Beyond Energy Drinks

As I alluded to this 'now contains [insert hot nutrient of the week]' phenomenon is running rampant in our supermarkets and the end result could be you just paying more but not getting any added benefit. Another example that we can look at is Benecol. Benecol is a butter substitute/margarine product that contains plant stanol esters. Plant stanols/sterols have been shown in several different clinical trials to reduce your cholesterol levels.

1 TBSP of Benecol contains 0.85 grams of stanols. You need at least 2 grams/ day of stanols to get a cholesterol lower effect. This means that you need to take 2-3 TBSP per day to reap the benefit of this product. The company behind Benecol clearly state this on their site but that is the kind of stuff we often ignore and chalk up to the company trying to make us consume more of their products ('rinse and repeat' anyone?).

The take home message here for this article is to not get sucked into purchases because of buzz words or 'Instant Benefit Despite Chronic Use Needed' promises. If you are going to go the route of using functional foods (which I do recommend as they can be beneficial), make sure that you know the usage needed to get the desired effect so that you aren't wasting your money.

I'd love to hear your thoughts?

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Overlooked Weight Loss Factors Pt 1: Eating with Others

(My Original Blog Post: http://nakednutritionnetwork.com/overlooked-weight-loss-factors-pt-1-eating-with-others/)
[caption id="attachment_2758" align="alignright" width="127" caption="One of the best books you'll read this year"][/caption]

There is always a lot of talk about diet and exercise when it comes to weight loss. Certain ratios of protein and carbohydrates seem to be important. Whether or not you need to be doing 4, 10, or 20 minute metabolic workouts is currently a much talked about topic. Last night I started re-reading Tom Venuto's "The Body Fat Solution" and the introduction got me thinking about the factors that are over looked in most weight loss programs. These overlooked areas (many of which Tom does an excellent job of covering in his book) are really the key to success.

As I have said before, losing weight is self isn't that hard. Keeping the weight you lost is difficult. What are the overlooked factors in both the areas of weight loss and weight maintenance that if you were to just pay a little bit of attention to could make all the difference? Over the next couple posts I'd like to explore some of theses with you to better your chances of permanent success and living a strong, fit, and healthy life.

Environment

I"m not talking about the feng shui of your dinner plate but factors that drive your eating environment. Researchers have identified 4 key factors in your eating environmental:

• Eating Atmospherics (Lighting, Noise & Music, etc)


• Eating Effort


• Eating with others


• Eating distractions.

For the most part I recommend that you do your best to control what you eat through proper planning and preparation which can take eating atmospheric influences such as "people will eat more in colder rooms and drink more in warmer rooms" (I didn't make that up) out of the equation as you just eat what you had planed regardless of the humidity level in the room.

But even with all the best planning in the world you can't (and wouldn't want to) eat alone; thus it is important to recognize the under the radar factors that come into play when eating with others. Combine this with the fact that a lot of eating in larger groups occurs at restaurants or parties where the food selection can be less than ideal and it is pretty easy to fall off the wagon.

Now, I don't have to work very hard to convince you that the presence of other people will influence both what and how much is eaten.  I'm sure you've had the experience where you were going to order one particular dish but the person you were with orders a different dish and you end up saying something like "oh, I'll have that to."

What I find really interesting is that research from Georgia State University shows that people can eat up to 33% more when eating with someone else compared to eating alone and that percentage increases as the size of the group increases. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, has also pointed out that the variance associated with how much is eaten in these group situations becomes smaller as the group get bigger; which basically means that people are more consistent about eating more food as the size of the group they are in gets bigger.

Here are some other stats from Dr. de Castro at Georgie State University. We eat more people close to use compared to just having random people around:

• Spouse - 22% more


• Family - 23% more


• Friend - 14% more

But we eat less around coworkers (16% less).

[caption id="attachment_2764" align="aligncenter" width="298" caption="Do you eat more with certain people?"][/caption]

While some may argue the exact percentages and statistics, go ahead as those don't matter as much to me. Look at the big picture. Are you unknowingly eating more around certain people? Are you unknowingly making different food choices when you eat with certain people. Just take a couple minutes today to think about this and apply it to your life. Recognizing these situations in your life and making sure that you don't succumb to under the radar influences will help you live a strong, fit, and healthy life while maintaining the body weight you want.

Ketogenic Diets - Effective, But Are They Healthy?

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/95TC3)
There has been a lot more QnA going on at the Naked Nutrition Facebook Page (If you haven't already, make sure to head over, click image below, and 'Like It') and so I'll start answering some of the questions in more depth here on the blog.

Today's question comes from Shawn and it is about the ketogenic diets and if they are healthy?

"I know that keto diets are effective for losing fat, but is it a healthy way of eating otherwise? After staying true to the WSFL diet for a while, I may have lost some weight, but I just don't feel like I'm giving my body what it needs to be healthy (specifically, enough vegetables; for one, I don't feel like I get enough dietary fiber on this diet, not to mention all the other good stuff veggies bring to the table). I'm completely off the starchy and grainy carbs, but do fibrous carbs actually prevent ketosis as well?"

Let me answer the second part of your question, then the first. The normal timeline of a ketogenic diet is a 2 week 'induction' followed by several phases (of in determinant length) with increased levels of carbohydrates. During the induction phase you would only take in <20g/d of carbohydrates. This is really the only time you would need to worry about monitoring whether or not you are in ketosis. You can monitor your ketotic status (I don't think ketotic is an actual word but you know what I mean) with Ketostix. During this time period you really do need to be careful about your carbohydrate intake and the ketostix are useful at monitoring your ketone production.

[caption id="attachment_2749" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ketostix Bayer Reagent Strips for Urinalysis"][/caption]

After the two week period you can increase your carbs up to 50g/d. These carbs should come mainly in the form of vegetables so you shouldn't feel like you are restricting you vegetable intake too much because 50 grams of carbs give you...

• 12.5 cups of broccoli florets or


• 7 cups of cooked spinach or


• 1 head of cabbage or


• 7 medium size red bell peppers or


• 8 cups of cherry tomatoes

So the answer to the second part of your questions is...No, you don't need to restrict your intake of fibrous carb because as you can see from the list above it would require a lot of fibrous carbs to top 50 grams/day. You don't need to worrying about monitoring urinary ketosis beyond the induction peroid anyway, just monitor your fat loss.

Now to transition to the first part of your question regarding getting ample antioxidant and 'goodies' from vegetables.  1 serving of broccoli is acutally only 1/2 a cup so if you ate only broccoli you would be getting 25 servings of vegetables per day (not that I'm recommending eating only broccoli - the math is just easy with that as an example). The current recommendations for vegetable intake is only 5 servings (2.5 cups) per day!

My clients and other people that use Naked Nutrition always eat way more fruits and vegetables than are currently recommended even when on lower carbohydrate diets. Also Dr. Jeff Volek anecdotally told me once that the people whom participate in the low carb diet studies he runs at the University of Connecticut always find themselves eating more vegetables on the low carb diets compared to their normal eating habits.

As you transition away from weight loss to a diet maintenance phase you will increase your carbohydrate intake even more. I recommend that you do this by adding more fruits and vegetables as well as fiber rich grains (for breakfast and following workouts per the 6th Pillar of Nutrition). For more specifics on this transition check out my chapter in the Warp Speed Fat Loss Nutrition Manual called "Life After Warp Speed Fat Loss."

Dead-On Weight Loss Advice From an Unusual Source

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/1D5aV)
The other day on some social networking site (Twitter, Facebook, I don't remember exactly) someone made a post.  It post was titled "The Public Humiliation Diet." I had to read it. How could you not?

So I clicked the link.Where does it take me?

Deadspin.com (not necessarily a site I would tell my mother to read)

I read on.

The article was by one of the sites editors, Drew Magary, who has lost 60lbs in the last 5 months. Here's brief excerpt that describes his story and rationale for his diet.

I've struggled with my weight for my entire life. I went to hospital fat camp in seventh grade. I have stretch marks all along my sides and gut (fire belly!). I spend the majority of my day thinking about food, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon, even now. I love eating and have a hard time controlling myself when presented with cakes and pies and bags of Doritos. Oh, Doritos. Oh God, how I adore you. You hear about alcoholics who can't stop drinking until they're blackout drunk. I'm that way with food. I can't stop eating until I'm blackout fat.

So I needed to set some ground rules for myself to lose weight, ground rules that I felt were reasonable to follow for the rest of my adult life.

Here are 2  key strategies that Drew used to lose 2.5 toddlers worth of weight from his midsection (with my comments).

4. I never ate after dinner. 6 p.m., to be precise, because I eat with my kids. That may not be realistic for you. But there are plenty of people out there who advocate not eating too much at night. For me, it used to be that dinner was the start of my nightly eating. There'd be dessert. Then the after-dessert dessert. Then a bowl of cereal. Then shots of ranch dressing...This rule...I really stuck to. The only times I ate dinner late were when I was out with friends or whatever and had no choice.

This is great. I've written before about not eating after a certain time at night, not because of some magical fat burning property but because of the exact reason that Drew illustrated above - post dinner snacking. Drew was able to identify that for him, a huge caloric load was being consumed after he ate dinner. A simple way to curb that was to allow no wiggle room and just make the 'rule' that he wasn't going to eat after dinner.

Oftentimes, identifying a particular bad habit and making a hard and fast 'life rule' to stop it is a great way to instantly change your behavior for the best.

10. I made sure everything I ate was AWESOME. If I'm only getting three legit meals a day, they better be good. So I made sure of that. Did you know two slices of bacon only have 70 calories? Combine that with a fried egg and you've got a breakfast of less than 200 calories, far less than a bowl of granola. So I went the bacon route. I also learned to braise short ribs,  make my own pulled pork, make Thai steak sauces, and all this other crazy stuff because I wanted to lose weight and still enjoy what I was eating. None of this grilled-chicken-breast-every-night crap that NFL players do. I still love food and I LIKE it that way. (Note: This is not an exact quote as I editted out the f-bombs)

Diet foods or the foods that you eat when on a diet do not often conjure up images that make your mouth water. For whatever reason many people feel that the only way to eat healthy is by consuming the same bland food day in and day out. It does not have to be that way. You just need to learn to eat less of certain things that you love (like Drew did with Bacon) and cook differently (also like Drew did with homemade BBQ sauce) so the food that you do eat fits in with your plan.

I personally love cheese. There is no way that I'm cutting cheese out of my diet, even if my calories are low because I'm dieting down. A year or so ago I was teaching a nutrition course and got into a conversation with the class about this exact topic. They were surprised that I didn't recommend you eat low fat cheese,instead just less full fat cheese. Let's be real here, low fat cheese is disgusting. Maybe (let me repeat...Maybe) I'll use a low fat shredded cheddar cheese in a recipe but as a general rule reduced fat cheeses taste like rubber.

Why would you want to eat that? Wouldn't you much rather eat 1/2 an oz of delicious full fat Vermont Cabot Cheddar Cheese than suffer through a full ounce of fat free Kraft Cheddar cheese?

Losing weight needs to involve a calorie deficit, which will require you to eat less calories. It does not require that you deprive yourself of food that tastes good.

Take a look at your diet. Are you suffering through any meals? How can you make them better?

Here is the link to the  original article (again, there is a bunch of 'colorful' language in the post so if that bothers you then I wouldn't recommend clicking the link).

Post a comment and let me know your favorite delicious diet food or recipe.