The Real Deal about Nutrient Losses!

Now, right off the bat let me say that nutrient losses are real; however, I believe that perspective gets lost in the discussion of these concepts

The Taoist saying, "My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon." is not only a testament to the human spirit of optimism, but it also illustrates a point about perspective, and how we can become fixated on an issue or concept (however minute in the overall scheme of things) and then be ignorant to the much bigger picture. I can't tell you how many times I've had "debates" with clients regarding nutrient loss phenomenon.

 

Although it's real, the overall significance of the effect of losing nutrients in many of the foods we consume is ridiculous to even contemplate, especially considering the abysmal state of food quality that most people who start to debate nutrient losses with me.  I would argue that the effect of food processing on carbohydrate availability is even more detrimental to human health and I will cover this in a future post; however for the purposes of our discussion today we will focus on the effects of food processing on nutrient content.  All of these concepts are reflected by food quality anyway.

The major processing techniques that can decrease nutrient content are:

1) Cooking (heating) foods - heating certain components of foods can destroy certain compounds that would otherwise have been nutritionally beneficial.

2) Freezing foods - reducing temperatures of some foods can destroy compounds that would otherwise have been nutritionally beneficial.

3) Drying foods - removing water can destroy and remove (especially water soluble) nutrient compounds.

4) GMO foods - forced genetic selection for specific character traits that either make for tastier crops or heartier crops pay no mind to nutritional content.  In fact a recent study revealed that GMO corn was "nutritionally dead" with 20 x less nutrition compared with non GMO corn.Additionally, GMO crops can contain components that irritate our guts or that can elicit an immune response, therefore driving up inflammation. 

The Big Picture

I hate the tendency that we have towards nutritionism.  This term, popularized by Michael Pollan, suggests that the only value that foods have is that endowed to them by the individual nutrients that science has identified. This is preposterous because it is shifts perspective to the one nutrient in question (on that given day) and completely ignores the whole food element that the nutrient was part of and how that might play a role in any perceived benefits. 

Food companies have certainly taken advantage of these concepts to tempt us with otherwise nutritionally void foods because they contain a few nutrients that are considered good for us.  Some examples include enriching flour with 13 essential vitamins and minerals (sound familiar), or fruit juice with calcium in it, etc... The challenge with all of this is that these foods are all extremely processed (in one way or another) and as a result are nutritionally empty foods.  They are yummy due to the concentrated sugars, etc... but have little in the way of nutritional content.  Furthermore, adding exciting individual nutrients that are good for us back into a nutritionally void food, does not make that food good for us in any way.  Seriously, let's take fruit or vegetable juices for example. If I take a fruit or vegetable that have health benefits, cook the hell out of them, therefore killing any potentially beneficial enzymes and then blend them into a drink, add some sugar or salt to improve the flavor and then add in some vitamins or minerals (usually from a cheap powder), what do I have as my end product.   A high calorie beverage that has little to no nutritional value, especially when compared to its original form (fresh, whole vegetables or fruits).

Here's a quick tool that I've created that can help you choose the best quality and least processed foods.  This tool only addresses the quality of foods related to processing level and does not consider your needs and the amounts that you are eating.  However, I've seen that people can derive benefits (i.e. fat loss, increased energy, etc...) from simply improving the quality or decreasing the processing of the foods they regularly eat!  Give it a shot for 60 days and see how you look, feel and perform and let me know how it goes for you.  I'd love to hear that it worked, or didn't or what tweaks you made that improved it for your n=1 experiment!


Try organizing the foods you regularly eat into a spectrum of processing (similar to the one I created below) and choose the least processed foods that you can.  I'm not a raw food purist or anything, just be sure to eat more foods that are less processed over those that are more processed.  In fact, for 60 days just omit all foods from the processed side of the spectrum and see how that works for you.

Food Processing Spectrum*



*Created by: Dietitian Dan T for this blog.
This is not a quick fix, it's truly a lifestyle change.  It will be challenging at first, but could eventually become second nature.

Perspective Shift

The reality is that we need to burn down the barns of the food industry (figuratively people, I'm not suggesting anything radical). Only then, will we be able to see the big picture, which in this case is that we need to improve the quality of the foods we eat and see how that affects our health!

Honestly, there is nothing better than cleaning up your diet and living better overall.  Better means more in line with our natural genetic adaptations, which I will cover in more detail in a future post, but in the case of today's topic this means as free from the processed forms of foods as possible.

Till next time!

Citations:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=61
http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/processing
http://www.infowars.com/analysis-finds-monsantos-gm-corn-nutritionally-dead-highly-toxic-2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritionism

The Most Common Lifestyle Goals and Strategies and tips to achieve them

Today, I want to chat anecdotally about two common lifestyle goals that I encounter regularly and the specific strategies that seem to work best to help clients achieve them.

I) Leaning out/Burning fat/Losing weight

It is critical for health & longevity not to have too much excess weight on your frame & especially around your mid-section (abdominal/visceral adiposity). Of course, weight is not the major consideration, we need to focus on our body composition vs. just weight, since muscle carries more water and therefore weighs more vs. fat.  Of course location of fat accumulation is also important. Specifically, fat deposited on the hips & butt although confidence shaking is not a health threat vs. that deposited around the liver and other organs within the omentum, which is often reflected in abdominal circumference and importantly is beneath the abdominal muscles.  This is metabolically active fat and has been shown to secrete estrogen and other hormones that stimulate further fat deposition & gum up normal metabolic functioning (i.e. fat infiltration into the liver causing insulin resistance, elevated portal blood pressure, etc…).  Obviously, eliminating this if you have it is the first and most important goal.  Often ideal body composition numbers are stated as 8-13% body fat for men and 11-18 % body fat for women.

Specific Strategies that seem to work:

1)      Nutrition:

-          Try eliminating grains, legumes & dairy for 60 days and see what happens.

-          Limit your intake of available (non-fiber) carbohydrates to around 100 g/day or less.

-          Focus on filling half your plate with low carb vegetables (green leafy, onions, mushrooms, cruciferous, etc…).

-          If you have metabolic derangement (& central adiposity), limit your fruit intake to less than 2 servings per day.

-          Consume most of your available carbohydrates as safe starches (i.e. sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, squash, etc…) and do so in the 4 hours post workout for that day.

-          Adequate fluid daily – 3-5 L/day on average, but will vary.  Use urine color as a guide – optimal = light yellow.
-     Adequate & high quality proteins (grass fed meats, oily fish, free range poultry & eggs). 
-     Adequate & mostly anti-inflammatory fats (i.e. avocado, olives, coconuts, macadamia and hazelnuts and their oils & butters).

Biggest mistake: People tend to over restrict their calories and that leads to burnout & the body activating famine resistance genes that act to re-establish homeostasis (balance). This is often described as lethargy, insatiable hunger and of course irritability.

2)      Exercise:

-          Every day do something (low intensity steady state) LISS – could be walking, jogging or hiking. Depends on your usual daily level of activity.

-          2-3 times per week – Lift Heavy Things – resistance training including weights, resistance bands, body weight activities to stimulate muscle growth, retention and bone reformation. This will help maintain your muscle mass.

-          Once per week – Move as fast as you can, using High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) – Ex. wind sprints – lightly walk/jog for about 5 minutes to warm up, then HIIT IT! Sprint as fast as you can for 10-20 seconds. Stop and walk (slow) for 2 minutes then REPEAT x 4-6 times. In total you will perform very intense work output but for only about 50-120 seconds total, split over a total workout time of 15 minutes.

Biggest mistake: It’s a tie between two.  One, people tend to overdo their volume and intensity of exercise and as a result trigger high cortisol levels that can actually keep us fat! Two, people will ingest high carbohydrate (sugary) post workout supplements to “replenish” after workouts, but we normally don’t need high sugar, so all this does is increase insulin levels, which stop fat burning!

3)      Psychology:

-          Making goal public – sharing with like-minded supportive individuals = greatest odds for success.

-          Plan out your behaviors on a weekly & daily basis in a check list format & check off each behavior, as you accomplish it each day.  This essentially provides a step by step map to your goal!

II) Athletic Performance

Many people are more motivated by competition and achieving a performance based goal vs. leaning out, etc…  This could be a new PR on different Crossfit or Power or Olympic lifting maneuvers or just participating in competitive sports. For most strength, power and endurance based activities a lower carbohydrate nutrition protocol (i.e. ketosis) is adequate, but performance is often boosted or optimized in these events by increasing carbohydrate intake above ketosis levels (>100g).  And in the case of glycolytically demanding sports (i.e. Crossfit, Military training, MMA, Boxing, etc…), it is absolutely necessary to provide adequate carbohydrates, especially in the post workout window (i.e. around 4 hours or so) to replace used up muscle glycogen, which is required for these specific activities.  

Specific Strategies that seem to work:

1)      Nutrition (relative to Leaning out section):

-          Try eliminating grains, legumes & dairy for 60 days and see what happens.

-          Eat carbohydrate amounts for your exercise volume and type.  For strength and endurance activities you can continue your intake of available (non-fiber) carbohydrates around 100 g/day, but for glycolytically demanding activities (listed above), you might need to increase to between 100 – 150 g /day.

-          Focus on filling half your plate with low carb vegetables (green leafy, onions, mushrooms, cruciferous, etc…).

-          If you have metabolic derangement (& central adiposity), limit your fruit intake to less than 2 servings per day.

-          Consume most of your available carbohydrates as safe starches (i.e. sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, squash, etc…) and do so in the 4 hours post workout for that day.

-          Adequate fluid daily – 3-5 L/day on average, but will vary.  Use urine color as a guide – optimal = light yellow.
-     Adequate & high quality proteins (grass fed meats, oily fish, free range poultry & eggs).
-     Adequate & mostly anti-inflammatory fats (i.e. avocado, olives, coconuts, macadamia and hazelnuts and their oils & butters). 

Biggest mistake: People tend to over restrict their calories and their carbs & this leads to burnout and inhibits performance.

2)      Exercise:

-          Since you are performance based, your activity will be contributing to your sport performance. Discuss with a certified, intelligent & competent trainer what exercises will best achieve this!

-          You will undoubtedly have a high volume of intense work in the area of your sport, so possibly work some strength training & low intensity work outside of that to minimize the stress on your body.  Again, discuss with a certified, intelligent & competent trainer.

Biggest mistake: Over training over and above a sports training protocol. This leads to either burnout, stress out or injury more often than not.

3)      Psychology:

-          Be aware of dependency on wins for self-confidence – be sure to be okay with achieving a new personal best vs. beating everyone else in your group, etc… This frees you from stress hormone cascades that occur from not winning.

-          Get counsel from a certified and competent trainer with knowledge of your sport who can advise you as to psychological principles that can help give you an edge to be able to achieve your specific goals.

Till next time!  Whatever your goal is, hopefully these tips will help you achieve it!

Dietitian Dan T

Are Low Carb Diets the Devil?

Hi everyone,

A quick disclaimer to go with my post.  I hope you find the information useful!
 
Remember, I do not know your case at all.  Be sure to discuss this with your doctor or a health care provider who does know your case well, before attempting.  I am providing you with information to better understand a nutrition protocol and how it might be useful to you, but am in no way suggesting you do it.  As such, I am not responsible if you do try this unsupervised and bugger yourself up.  Use your common sense, and discuss this with someone who can help you do it safely.

As a registered dietitian, we are often taught that Atkins was a loon & that low carb diets are the bane of health & longevity. Well, after delving into the research & examining this topic for myself, and also experimenting with this practice personally (n=1 experiment) I can say, that they are definitely NOT the devil & they might actually possess some incredible therapeutic benefit!  Read below & draw your own conclusions.

What is Ketosis

State of elevated levels of ketone bodies throughout the body (including the blood).  These are formed by ketogenesis when liver glycogen stores are depleted. Two major ketone bodies used for energy are acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate.  Both are readily used by most of the tissues of the body except the heart & one portion of the brain.  Interestingly, humans have evolved a method of creating glucose from broken down proteins (certain amino acids).  While semantic debate rages on about why we evolved this capability, the fact is we have it and as a result, we really don't need much direct carbohydrate intake to live healthfully!  The only caveat I will add now is that if you have to perform physically demanding and performance dependent activities on a regular basis, then you will need to add more carbohydrates (complex, safe starches are excellent for this) in the 3-4 hours post activity.

Common Concerns:

As a health professional, the most common concerns that I've read about, heard or even stated as fact myself (incorrectly, I might add) are here:

1)      Ketosis is harmful – The fact is if glucose cannot be broken down (i.e. insufficient insulin levels) then the body metabolizes fat, which will increase blood ketone levels leading to ketosis.  The ketoacidosis situation arises when these ketone bodies continue to elevate due to the complete lack of insulin and the fact that sugar is being consumed and remaining unused in the blood stream.  This leads to high levels of ketone bodies and high levels of blood glucose concomitantly, which decreases the pH of the blood (increases acidity) leading to metabolic acidosis in which enzymes, tissues and organs can fail leading to coma and subsequently death.  Obviously, that is something that we would all like to avoid like.  However, it’s critical we understand that an otherwise healthy person who is making insulin readily can undertake a well-designed low carbohydrate diet safely.  They will be in ketosis, which can be extremely beneficial.

2)      High Protein diets and kidney failure – it’s believed that higher protein consumption increases risk of kidney damage.  This has been disproven by several well-designed long term studies. The only caution I would mention is that people suffering from failing kidney function already or those at high risk for kidney failure (i.e. long term poorly controlled diabetes) or gout might require limited protein intakes.  Otherwise, there is no known upper safe limit for protein intake.

3)      Cognitive burnout - My Brain & nerves needs sugar as a fuel – This is true, to an extent. Parts of the brain can burn only sugar as fuel, however, the body can create sugar via gluconeogenesis (in the liver) from proteins, which is one of the reasons why protein intakes are elevated in low carbohydrate diets.  Furthermore, the only studies that I've seen linking low carb intake to poor cognitive performance vs. high carb intake were in subjects that were NOT fat-adapted.  In other words they did not undergo the 2-4 week adaptation/detox phase in which their body decreases carb burning pathways & upregulated fat burning ones, making us efficient at fat burning.  Anyone, detoxing would not perform well on cognitive test.

4)      High fat diets and high cholesterol – It’s still (erroneously) believed that a high fat diet leads to cholesterol elevation.  This has been disproven by several well-designed studies and it has been established that refined dietary carbohydrate is far more likely to lead to metabolic syndrome and dysregulations in cholesterol that significantly increase risk for heart attack or stroke.  Furthermore, overt blood cholesterol values are less meaningful than once believed.  More telling tests including LDL-particle size, which unfortunately is not routinely available, is one of the best to determine cardiovascular risk vs. LDL number.

5)    Low carb diets will increase risk for Cancers due to low fruit & vegetable intake – It’s (erroneously) believed that high animal protein, high fat diets increase risk for cancer.  There are two active hypotheses.  The first is that animal protein causes cancer.  This comes from studies that showed an association between animal protein intake and cancers, however, on further examination, the data analysis is suspect. For example, whenever pizza (with peperoni) was consumed all the calories were counted as animal protein and including lunch and cured meats as animal protein sources would definitely skewed results, especially in light of the huge body of evidence linking sodium nitrates and the like to stomach & bowel cancers (strongly).  The second hypothesis implicates lack of vegetable matter in this; however, it is carbohydrates that are being restricted, not vegetable matter.  Whenever I am counseling someone on a ketogenic protocol, I recommend that people consume low carb vegetables with every meal and use fruit sparingly.  In the end, clients consuming a low carb paleo diet often consume more plant matter compared with the usual North American diet.  In fact, dietary carbohydrate especially from refined grains, sugars, etc... and excess fat mass have been implicated in causation of many cancers.  Even more research, has demonstrated a treatment enhancing effect by using a ketogenic diet.  Specifically, the theory is that a tumor uses glucose as its primary fuel source, and is unable to utilize ketone bodies, whereas humans can adapt to ketone bodies.  There are many studies showing that a ketogenic diet during cancer treatment helps to eliminate tumors faster and more effectively than traditional treatments alone, likely because it starves the tumor.  Specifically, most of the research on ketogenic diets improving cancer outcomes have examined endothelial derived cancers (i.e. bowel and breast, etc...).

What are the Benefits of a Low Carbohydrate diet?

1)      Decreased hunger - more insulin stability and presence of ketone bodies both act to increase satiety.
2)      Long-duration fuel supply - decreased dependency on quick burning sugars allows for longer lasting, more stable energy levels.

3)      Decreased exposure to highly toxic refined grains & other processed foods - the processing used in preparations of grain products, juices & sugars, etc... act to increase our exposure to many chemicals the effects of which in the long term are unknown.

4)      Reduction of over-stimulation to the brain (i.e. with seizure disorders, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia) - this has been examined for years in children with epilepsy, but more recent studies have found success in subjects with other brain disorders. This is likely due to reduction of readily available, fast burning sugar, so the brain is better able to regulate the use of energy even in hyperactive firing areas.

Okay, I would like to give this a try, how the hell do I do it?

How do I achieve Ketosis?

In order to enter into ketosis, the average person needs to consume < 100 g of total carbohydrates per day.  Metabolic individuality might mean that some will enter ketosis slightly above or below that, but that seems to be a reasonable goal amount for carb intake to be below for ketosis.  This is carbohydrates from all sources, but I strongly suggest eliminating highly refined carbohydrates (I.e. sugars) and grain products (especially wheat), and possibly even dairy for at least 60 days to see how you look, feel and perform (depending on your specific individual goal) and then reintroduce as tolerated, if desired.  This could provide many further benefits in addition to ketosis.  This means that your only sources of carbohdyrates for those 60 days will be low carb vegetables, starchy vegetables and limited whole fruits.  Many of you might recognize this as a low carb paleo diet.

Why is Ketosis safe for most of us?

Human evolved over millions of years before agriculture (only about 10,000 years old) with a cyclical pattern of eating, often famines followed by feasts, etc… Furthermore, there was only a brief time relative to today that fruits & vegetables would have been plentiful (i.e. late spring/summer & fall).  This means that over-winter and even into spring there would have been limited amounts of carbohydrates available at all.  We had to adapt to a long lasting fuel source to allow us to survive over winter.  This is likely why fat evolved and metabolically why we can adapt to ketone bodies as a fuel.

Interestingly, even today there are many documented cases of human societies today that exist in a long-term ketogenic state. After a 2 to 4 week period of adaptation, human physical endurance is not affected by ketosis, according to studies - meaning that we do not necessarily need a high carbohydrate intake in order to replace depleted glycogen stores for exercise. This makes the argument more compelling that; in fact, we are designed to thrive at certain levels of ketosis.

Remember it’s a total lifestyle that’s critical.  So in addition to the diet alterations, be sure to get the rest of your lifestyle in order.

1. Get adequate and the best quality sleep you can nightly;
2. Activity: Be sure to do some (lower intensity) exercise every day and then twice per week add in lifting heavier things (i.e. weights, bands, body weight), and once per week move as fast as you can (i.e. wind sprints).

Great sources for more information on activity for health, performance & longevity are Robb Wolf's site & Mark Sisson's site.  They also have some great info on primal/paleo eating as well.
So here's the protocol, I'm doing & that I have recommended that I see clients get the most out of.

Nutrition Strategies for a Ketogenic Diet 

1. Decrease your total carbohydrate intake to less than 100 g daily. 
2. Avoid highly refined carbohydrates (i.e. sugar and refined flours) because these will spike insulin and that will stop fat burning & stimulate fat storage.
3. Exclude all grain products (especially wheat) for at least 60 days.
4. Consume adequate vegetable matter.
5. Limit yourself to less than 2 fruit servings per day.
6. Avoid fruit or vegetable juices.
7. Consume at least half your plate of low carb vegetables at each meal on average.  This provides at least 6 servings of highly nutrient dense vegetable matter per day.
8. Include safe starches: potatoes (especially sweet potatoes, and other starchy tubers – these will provide carbohydrates to be readily converted into glucose by the body, but also come very complex starches that can be utilized by healthy gut flora (i.e. pre-biotics).
9. Consume adequate protein.
10. Depending on your individual needs, you will need differing levels of protein – usually 35% of total calories are good.
11. Choose either grass fed, humanely raised animals or if you use conventionally raised then be sure to consume high omega 3 animals at least 3-4 times per week (i.e. oily fish).
12. Don’t fear FAT!  You will be consuming around 50% of your calories from fat.  This is the most energy dense nutrient source, but it also has many health benefits.  In a ketogenic adapted person, this becomes your main fuel supply.
13. Choose mostly anti-inflammatory fats – specifically foods high in omega-3 fats (animal sources like oily fish, pastured meats, cream & butter) and monounsaturated fats (like pastured meats, cream & butter, olives, avocadoes and their oils) and also saturated fats (pastured animal fats and coconuts and their milk (full-fat) and oil).  These are all highly anti-inflammatory.
14. Use nuts sparingly due to high omega 6 fats.  Macadamia and Hazel nuts (philberts) have lower omega 6 content vs. monounsaturated fats.
15. Adequate hydration – You will need to consume adequate water per day to ensure that you allow for adequate removal of byproducts associated with protein breakdown & ketosis.  Although some guidelines suggest 3-5 L per day, the best indicator is that your urine color (see chart below)

So I hope that you find that information useful and now you can bring that information with you to your health care provider.  Remember, I do not know your case at all, be sure to discuss this with your doctor or a health care provider who does know your case well, before attempting.  I am providing you with information to better understand a nutrition protocol and how it might be useful to you, but am in no way suggesting you do it.  As such, I am not responsible if you do try this unsupervised and develop issues as a result.  Use your common sense, and discuss this with someone who can help you do it safely.

If you do decide to talk to someone and move forward, remember that it is critical to keep a journal about how you are looking, feeling & performing each day to be able to see and record the changes that are happening in your life.  This way you'll know if this approach is moving you towards your goal or not.


Till next time.

Dietitian Dan T

Citations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis

http://www.webmd.com/diet/high-protein-low-carbohydrate-diets

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/180858.php

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15601609

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23030231

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12047499

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19245705
http://www.appforhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Urine-chart.jpg