WE CAN REBUILD HIM...

"We can rebuild him, we have the technology...but we don't want to spend a lot of money."

By now most of you probably know that I have a pretty severely torn labrum in my right hip as a result of Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI).  What that means is that I have an abnormally shaped femoral head (the "ball" of the ball-and-socket joint) and certain motions result in excessive rubbing and pinching of my labrum.  Over time this excessive rubbing caused a tear.  If both the tear and the femoral head are not repaired, I could easily wear away the cartilage surrounding and lining the socket which would then result in bone-on-bone contact and premature arthritis of the hip.  These dangers aren't imminent, but if I wait any longer it just increases the odds that my labrum will be irreparably damaged (unless I switch over to a sedentary lifestyle, which is NOT an option).

This has likely been going on for a LONG time, but symptons didn't present themselves until late this summer.  My hips started "catching" and then "popping" quite often, and eventually I started to experience discomfort in my right hip (no pain, just discomfort).  That's the other bad news...I have the same type of impingement on the left side and likely a torn labrum too, but the impingement is less prominent and the tear is probably less severe.  My left hip is now like a ticking time-bomb.  The only good news out of this is that I haven't done anything wrong to injure myself.  This is a congenital condition that would have presented itself at some point.

Anyway, after experiencing the "popping" for long enough I decided to make a doctor's appointment.  I went to the Carrell Clinic here in Dallas (a very high-profile clinic whose doctors operate on every professional sports team here in the Metroplex...Cowboys, Mavericks, Stars, and Rangers) on September 18th.  The doctor took x-rays and could immediately tell that I had a cam impingement on both sides.  The next step was to schedule an MRI arthrogram (which involves injecting a contrast dye into the joint) to confirm the doctor's suspicions of a torn labrum.

My MRI arthrogram was last Thursday (September 24th).  Typically I wouldn't have learned the results of the MRI until days later after having the follow-up visit with the doctor.  Luckily for me Lauren works with the Radiologist who performed the MRI on me!  She called him before the procedure to let him know I would be coming in, and then he called her back later that morning to go over his findings.  He said "your husband has one of the biggest labral tears I've ever seen."  Damn.

My follow-up appointment with the doctor was yesterday morning (September 29th).  Lauren came with me and we asked him all the tough questions and ultimately we decided that the best bet for me was to have arthroscopic surgery to repair my torn labrum and reshape my femoral head to eliminate the impingement.

We also did our homework on this doctor (Mark Muller, M.D.).  He completed a 2-year fellowship at Cornell recently in which he focused on this very procedure.  So he has a lot of experience, and he even did his medical school, general surgery internship, and orthopaedic surgery residency at UT Southwestern here in Dallas.

I'm currently scheduled to have surgery on October 22nd.  I am extremely anxious to get the operation over with so that I can start the healing and rehab process.  I told them to put me on standby as well in the event that an earlier appointment becomes available.

On a positive note, Alex Rodriguez had the very same operation on March 9th of this year and was able to return to action shortly after the start of the season!

WHAT I'M HAVING FOR DINNER TONIGHT

Just a minor deviation from my traditional "What I Had for Dinner Last Night" post...I couldn't wait until tomorrow since I am so excited about this meal (and the copious amounts of leftovers that will result)!

If you thought my instructions for baking fish and Brussels Sprouts were easy, then you are really in for a surprise this time.

Lentils w/ chopped onion, celery, new potatoes, and spinach

If you have a Crock-Pot, then I highly recommend using it!  I'm sure most married couples received one as part of their registry, but if not it will be the best $45 you ever spent!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Step 1 - Get out Crock-Pot
Step 2 - Put beans in said Crock-Pot with water
Step 3 - Chop veggies (whatever you like) and put in Crock-Pot
Step 4 - Turn Crock-Pot on
Step 5 - Leave
Step 6 - Come back 8-10 hours later and enjoy!

Perhaps the best part is when I first walk in the door after work.  The entire house smells freakin' great!!

There's a good chance that I will put some hot sauce on the lentils as well as drop a little meat in there too (we have left-over turkey tenderloin from last night).

The benefits of the veggies are pretty obvious, so I'll just highlight some of the benefits of the lentils:

High fiber (roughly 16g of fiber per 1/4 dry cup...that's INSANE)
Good protein source (roughly 13g of protein per 1/4 dry cup, which is very high for a legume)
Inexpensive (a pack of lentils at Kroger, which will make quite a few servings, costs approximately $0.60)

The history of lentils is actually pretty interesting too, so if you care to know more check it out here.

THE MINI WORKOUT

The Mini Workout is a concept that everyone "knows" about, but I'll admit I never actually put it into practice until just a few months ago.  Ross Enamait talks about the Mini Workout a lot in his books Infinite Intensity and Never Gymless, and he frequently mentions its effectiveness when answering questions on his forum.  The premise is simple...everyone has their Main Workout which could consist of lifting weights, running, bodyweight exercises, etc.  Everyone also has weaknesses or areas where they want extra improvement.  That's where the Mini Workout comes into play.  It is a very short, focused workout that is done separate from the Main Workout so that the body is fresh and you can give 100% effort.  Examples could be grip strength, core strength / stability, or skills that need to be honed without the presence of fatigue.

For instance, yesterday morning I performed my Main Workout which was power- and strength-focused.  When I got home from work, I wanted to add a conditioning component to the day's work so I performed a conditioning Mini Workout that consisted of 15 minutes of jump rope and a sledgehammer and med ball finisher:

The total time required was less than 20 minutes (and that was a "long" Mini Workout), which was a perfect way to kill time while I waited on some fish to thaw out before I could cook dinner.

IS ORGANIC REALLY ORGANIC?

I was reading Tony Gentilcore’s Blog the other day and he brought up an interesting point about organic foods that inspired me to dig a little deeper into organic labeling and other labeling practices of the food industry.  Basically, is organic food really organic?  (By the way, Tony’s blog is a nice combination of training info, nutrition info, and miscellaneous posts related to fitness…and it’s hilarious…you should bookmark it).

A lot of consumers typically just look at packaging and see the “USDA Organic” seal and assume that is exactly what they’re buying.  However, as usual, there is a catch.

To quote from the USDA’s Organic Labeling and Marketing Information Fact Sheet, there are three levels of organics:

100% Organic – products must contain (excluding water and salt) only organically produced ingredients and processing aids

Organic – products must consist of at least 95% organically produced ingredients (excluding water and salt).  Any remaining product ingredients must consist of nonagricultural substances approved on the National List including specific non-organically produced agricultural products that are not commercially available in organic form.

Made with Organic Ingredients – processed products that contain at least 70% organic ingredients

Products meeting these requirements may display these terms and the percentage of organic content on their principal display panel.  If the product only qualifies for the “Made with Organic Ingredients” level, the manufacturer is still allowed to advertise in the principal display panel of the package with phrases such as “…made with organic vegetables.”  However they are not able to display the organic seal.

To me, the “Made with Organic Ingredients” label pretty clearly should have a sidekick label that says “Made with non-Organic Ingredients Too.”  The labeling doesn’t mislead consumers to believe that the product is 100% organic, but I have a hunch that the typical consumer just doesn’t think with that mindset (if the word organic appears on the package, it must be good).  However, I do think the second level (“Organic”) is very misleading.  There is no ambiguity in the wording of the label…it very clearly states the product is organic.  There is a contradiction in the meaning of the label though, since it really is telling us that the product is just mostly Organic.  Honestly, if it weren’t for Tony’s blog I would’ve thought that Organic and 100% Organic were interchangeable terms.

Why not make it very black and white?  Either it’s Organic or it’s not.  The only reason I can see why a manufacturer would use less than 100% organic ingredients is so they can get the benefit (premium price) of putting “Organic” on the label without the cost of going completely organic.

Finally, just because something says organic on the label (regardless of which level it has achieved) doesn’t even mean it is good for you.  Case in point:

The real debate should be the benefits of organically grown fruits and vegetables over conventionally grown produce…maybe that will be my next blog.

Well now that I’m all riled up about the food industry and their labeling practices, I want to expand on my previous post regarding Nutrition Info and product label savvy.  This time I’m going to cover the following trick:

“Made with Whole Grains”

Let’s use the example of bread, since that is probably the most common product where consumers think they are buying something healthy.  First of all, a lot of breads are simply colored brown with molasses so that they appear to be a whole grain product, but in fact they are as heavily processed as Wonder Bread.

Anyway, here’s the trick:  If you have a product that says “Made with Whole Grains” with two ingredients listed as grain products, but only the second one is a “whole grain” product, then you are likely consuming a bread made with as little as 1% whole grains!!  Let that sink in for a second.  Technically the manufacturer did not lie to you because the product was “made with whole grains” but they sure as hell deceived you!

You actually have to look at the ingredients list to determine if in fact the bread is 100% whole grain.  A few classic ingredients that manufacturers will use to fool consumers are “enriched wheat flour” and even just plain old “wheat flour”…if it has to be enriched then that means it has been processed to hell and back!  So how do you know that you’re eating whole grain bread? Let’s go to the source…quoted from the FDA’s Summary of Whole Grain Label Statements:

Question:  Are there standards of identity for products made from whole grains?

Answer:  For bread, rolls, and buns, the dough is made from whole wheat flour, brominated whole wheat flour, or a combination of these and no other type of flour is used.

That means if ANY OTHER flour ingredient is on the label (even if they are in addition to those ingredients), then it is NOT a 100% Whole Grain product!!

By the way, you can avoid all of this mess by simply eating Sprouted Grain products instead, and they are carried in every major grocery store!  These products are more expensive, but then you start to get into the “Real Cost” of food.  You will either pay for it on the front end (by buying more expensive, high quality products) or on the back end (with healthcare costs).

TOUR DES FLEURS - THE OFFICIAL RACE REPORT

*This is a guest post written by the co-owner of the SHOP (Lauren)

Drew asked me to write a post race report... first thing first, I ran the 20K (12.4 mile) Tour des Fleurs in 1:27:47 which figures out to be 7:04 minute mile pace.  Quite exciting! 

Out of roughly 1,750 participants I finished FIRST in the female aged 25-29 group, came in FIFTH overall woman and THIRTY-FIFTH overall person!  Not bad!

I was a little worried about the weather, as it has been raining buckets for the past 2 weeks. Which has made my past couple of runs really fun.  The "girls" (my dogs) and I went out in the rain for long runs, we got soaked, but it stays cool and there is noone out.  Am I crazy?  Anyway, it stopped raining the day before the race, but an insufferable humidity was left behind.  Yuck!  Felt like you had taken a dunk in the lake by mile 3.

The course was great, except for the hills.  Lots and lots of hills. I can definitely tell that my SHOP workouts have stregthened my legs.  All those one legged squats and Bulgarian split squats helped me kill the hills.  Except for this one hill!  About a mile left, I remembered that I had to run up the "Spillway Hill"  We usually bike the opposite direction down the "Spillway Hill" and love it because we can fly down and pick up enough speed to clock 35 mph on the bike. Fun times.  But running up the hill really sucked!  I had almost reached the top, when I got that "ick" feeling in my stomach. Oh no, Throw up! I let up a tad, took some deep breaths, got to the top, and  coasted to the bottom without anything bad happening or anyone passing me! Suckers!

Even more exciting I got a $125 gift certificate to Luke's Locker, a couple awesome Tshirts, and a really awesome running hat! Even better is the satisfaction that I kicked ass!

Lauren

ANOTHER SATURDAY IN THE SHOP

From now on, Saturday shall be called SHOPday.  Just having a little fun in the SHOP with my buddy Sammy.  Hope you enjoy!

We did more deadlifts today, but this time we were working a few triples and doubles on our way up to some heavy singles.  We started with 365 for 3, then 375 for 2, 385 for 1, 395 for 1, then finally 410 for 1.

After deadlifts, we did handstand pushups on cinder blocks (for added ROM) and some single-leg hip thrusts (a new glute exercise I learned that is incredible)...sorry, no video of these.

Next came some weighted dips and standing ab wheel rollouts!  I'm working up to the one-arm version of the standing ab wheel rollout, but I'm not there yet, so today was two-arm rollouts going downhill for added difficulty...with video to prove it!

We did more wrestling at the end too...3 rounds, 4 minutes per round.  We had to get fired up since I'm going to watch UFC 103 live tonight at the AAC and Sammy is hosting a boxing party to watch the Mayweather vs. Marquez matchup!  A great night of fights!

TOUR DES FLEURS - UPDATE

I was sitting out on the curb waiting for Lauren to run by.  This video is from about an hour into the race.  Enjoy!

TOUR DES FLEURS

Just dropped Lauren off at the Arboretum (6:45am).  The race starts at 7:30am, and part of the course runs right by our house.  I'll take a chair out to the corner just 1 house down from ours and get a few pictures and video.

I'll post the pics and video around 8:30 or so...

TRACK TRAINING RECAP

*this training session is actually from today!  I have one more past session to post about, and from then on they will all be current.

My group decided to move our speed/power training day to Friday, so (Thursday) was spent in the SHOP and this morning was at the track/football field.  I was telling a co-worker of mine this morning that for a brief moment when my alarm clock goes off at 4:30am I am kinda excited.  It motivates me to think that most people are sound asleep except I’m waking up to go train!  Then reality sets in and I say “Damn!  What am I doing up at 4:30??”

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of studying on Speed and Power drills as well as appropriate progressions, etc. so our workout this morning had a few different twists to it.  We had a great turnout this morning (5 guys), and here’s what our workout looked like:

WARM UP

• Foam rolling
• Dynamic stretching
• Glute activation (since the glutes play such a huge role in sprinting, jumping, and virtually anything that requires max power, it’s crucial to get them primed to do work)

SPEED / AGILITY / POWER

• Speed ladder drills
• We are starting to get creative now with our ladder work!  We use up to 3 sections of ladder with separations between them and cones set up to the side for some additional work.  We could devote an entire workout to all the ladder drills!
• Plyometrics
• Knee to Feet Jumps

• Knee Step Up Jumps

• Knee Step Out Jumps

The purpose behind the single leg jumps is that the movement mimics the explosive start of a sprint (you always start with one leg back and one leg forward (as your drive leg).

• 40 yard dash (1 warm up, 1 ALL OUT, 4 on the 30 sec mark)

CONDITIONING

• ½ Gassers x 5 w/ 45 sec rest (for all you non-football players, a Gasser is a sprint from sideline to sideline twice.  So a ½ Gasser is just down and back)
• CAR PUSHING!  This one’s really simple…but not easy.  Throw the car in neutral and then push your ass off.  We did 30 second intervals, 4 rounds per person.

I love track days!

On a side note, Lauren is running a 20k race tomorrow morning called the Tour des Fleurs.  It starts at the Dallas Arboretum and goes around White Rock Lake.  Click here for a Race Map.  It’s a pretty huge event, and they have bands and other entertainment set up along the course.  Wish her luck!  I’ll get Lauren to post a Race Review on the blog!

WHY EXERCISE WON'T MAKE YOU THIN

I’m sure by now many of you have read the article from the August 17^th edition of TIME Magazine titled ‘Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin.’

First, I want to just give you a quick overview of the article, then I’ll go into a little more detail on a few topics, and finally share an interesting discovery.

I actually have mixed feelings about this article.  The author, John Cloud, makes the assertion that exercise stimulates hunger, which causes a person to eat more (and often times to eat worse in order to “reward” the hard work), thus cancelling out any calorie-burning effects of exercising in the first place.

“Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight.  It may even be making it harder.”

There’s even an illustration within the article that tells the reader how many minutes of various activities one would have to do in order to burn the amount of calories in 1 blueberry muffin (360 calories).  There are 8 activities listed ranging from mowing the yard (66 minutes) or gardening (66 minutes) to vacuuming (92 minutes) and folding laundry (230 minutes).  Now here’s the interesting part…lifting weights is included in the list, and it was (as the article would have you believe) only more effective at burning calories than folding laundry!  You would have to lift weights for 115 minutes, nearly twice as long as you would have to garden, to burn 360 calories.  I can’t tell you how many calories are burned during 5 sets of heavy squats or deadlifts followed by pullups and lunges, but I can assure you it’s more strenuous than vacuuming!! In TIME’s defense, the source of this data was the U.S. Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.

Now to be fair, there was at least one good take-home point:

“Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons:  People who regularly exercise are at a significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases – those of the heart in particular.  They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses.”

In the concluding paragraph, the author offers the readers a glimpse at the solution when he states that “it’s what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight.”  Then, as opposed to actually offering any insight on what to eat, he offers a final warning to readers:  “fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain.”  Great.  That’s all Americans need…another excuse NOT to exercise (and to eat cupcakes instead).  It’s no wonder we are the fattest country on Earth.

Now I’m not so naïve as to believe that John Cloud wrote his TIME Magazine article for any reason other than to be controversial (which helps sell magazines).  I completely understand that, and I don’t have a problem with it.  Perhaps the only real problem I have with this article is that Mr. Cloud spends several pages trying to convince us that exercise won’t make us thin without offering a solution.

So what would make us thin?

Here’s a brief view of my take on the issue.

I don’t know who said it first, but it has certainly been said many times by many different people. You can’t out-train a bad diet.  The principle of energy balance (or G-flux) always applies!  A successful weight-loss regimen has to consider both sides of the energy balance equation (energy intake and energy expenditure).  As Dr. John Berardi put it in his G-flux article, a “complete understanding of this model leads us to realize that trying to manipulate total energy intake alone in order to alter body composition lets us down because the energy expenditure side of the equation quickly changes to accommodate intake conditions. And trying to manipulate the energy expenditure side of the equation in order to alter body composition lets us down because the energy intake side of the equation is signaled to change in order to match expenditure conditions.”  In other words, if intake is low, the body will increase hunger while decreasing metabolism.  If intake is high, the reverse is true.  Intake and expenditure do not function independently!

I have long been a fan of Dr. Berardi and his Precision Nutrition system.  About a year ago, Dr. Berardi published an article on his website titled When Exercise Doesn’t Work.  He also recently posted an article in response to the very same TIME Magazine article that I am writing about titled Why Exercise STILL Doesn’t Work.  Dr. Berardi’s conclusion from his original article was that “Exercise, ALONE, doesn’t work.”  His recommendation:  “What you really need is exercise PLUS a sound nutritional program.”  He goes on to list some of the benefits of regular exercise:  “looking better, feeling better, and performing better every single day.”  Said differently, use it or lose it.  The human body was designed for movement, so if you hope to maintain physical independence into your senior years, you’d better have it in your prime years!

Now here’s where it starts to get really interesting.  A colleague of Dr. Berardi (Hellen Kollias) recently reviewed a study by E. Ravussin and blogged about it (Why Exercise DOES Matter).  The study was designed to measure the effects of diet and diet + exercise on Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE…or metabolism).  The study found that both the diet group and the diet + exercise group lost weight.  The difference between the two groups, however, was in their TDEE.  The diet group actually had a reduction in their TDEE by approximately 209 calories/day.  The diet + exercise group actually increased their TDEE by approximately 129 calories/day despite being on a calorie-restricted diet.  That’s living proof of G-flux!  The study concluded the following:

“Furthermore, our data shed some light on lifestyle change interventions that combining diet and physical activities are probably more successful in maintaining weight loss longer term.”

Oh, you’re probably wondering why this study was so interesting…well it turns out that the author of the study was quoted in the TIME magazine “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” as saying:

“In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,”

On a side note, I thought it was funny that the magazine also featured an article titled ‘Is My Child Overweight?’  The answer…yes.

WHAT I HAD FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT

*this dinner is actually from last Wednesday September 9th


I’m very fortunate that I married a woman who loves vegetables as much as I do, and we cook virtually every night!  In fact, she is solely responsible for getting me to start eating vegetables over 7 years ago!

We look at our cooking time as a way of doing something together that we both enjoy (perhaps with a glass of wine and some music playing on the iPod), and we are absolutely better because of it!  Anyway, this is a blog about nutrition, not marital advice, so back to the point…

A lot of people that I talk to make the same, commonly-heard excuses:

“I don’t have time to cook.”

“I don’t know how to prepare anything good.”

“I hate cleaning up afterwards.”

There are many others, and they are all crap!  First of all, plenty of meals can be prepped, cooked, and eaten in under 30 minutes.  How long do you have to wait if you go to a restaurant just to be seated?  Once you’re seated you have to wait for them to prepare the food anyway, so it’s really just pure laziness.  Of course fast food takes less time, but I shouldn’t even have to elaborate on that one.  Secondly, there are literally endless amounts of EASY recipes on the internet.  Can you read?  Can you follow directions?  Then you can prepare many tasty things.  As for cleaning up, yeah that does suck, but just quit being lazy and DO IT!  OK, rant over.

Last night Lauren and I cooked a ridiculously easy dish that was ridiculously good.  Baked cod with balsamic glazed Brussels sprouts!  Here’s how easy it was:

BAKED COD

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Place cod in baking dish and sprinkle with seasonings (we used a premade fish seasoning Roasted Garlic & Herb)

Bake for 8-9 minutes, flip over, bake for another 8-9 minutes

BALSAMIC GLAZED BRUSSELS SPROUTS

Steam Brussels sprouts for about 15 minutes (until desired softness is achieved)

Place Brussels sprouts in baking dish and sprinkle with various seasonings (we used garlic powder and herbs)

Pour desired amount of balsamic vinegar over Brussels Sprouts

Bake for the same amount of time that the fish is in the oven

Seriously?  Can you not do that?

I’ll try to remember to snap some pictures of these dinners that we cook and post them in the future.  I should also post my Wednesday morning omelet, which is huge and incredible.

LABOR DAY TRAINING RECAP

*this training session was actually from Monday September 7, 2009

Although I had the day off from work on Labor Day, two of my buddies came over to the SHOP and we put some serious work in!

Here’s what our workout looked like:

WARM UP

• Foam rolling
• Dynamic stretching

A:  Box Jumps – we started off with a few warm-up jumps and eventually worked up to about a 45” box for sets of 5

B:  Box Squats – 5 x 5 (my sets were as follows:  295, 305, 310, 310, 310)

C1:  Pullups – 3 x 13, 12, 11 (I was only using bodyweight since I’m coming back from an arm injury, felt good though)

C2:  Single-leg Squats – 3 x 8 each leg (I laid a cinder block on its side to “touch and go” at the bottom of the squat…it keeps you honest by making you go all the way down and keeping your heel flat on the ground)

D1:  Sandbag Shouldering – 3 x 8 (my sandbag probably weighs about 165 lbs.)

D2:  Standing Ab Wheel Rollout – 3 x 7 (I am progressing to the one-arm variations shown in that link, so I started out with 3 sets on flat ground to get some work in, then I did a couple of singles going downhill followed by some wheel pushups and t-rollouts also demonstrated in that video…I’m getting close!)

FINISHER

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Burpees

Med Ball Slams (20 lb.)

This was a pretty brutal finisher.  My goal was to complete it unbroken (accomplished) in about 4 minutes (my time was 4:08).  It was especially brutal since the night before I had to do my Birthday Burpees!

A quick tangent:  I definitely recommend training with as many like-minded people as you can whenever possible.  The level of intensity is instantly raised, and therefore the gains you’ll make will also be better.  For instance, during my box squats, without a friend there to spot, I might not have felt comfortable going with 310 lbs.  However, I had a spotter and was not concerned with getting stuck with the weight.  Also, when one is contemplating lightening the load on a set a squats, a true friend will let him know that he needs to suck it up and do WORK!  Also, during that finisher, those burpees caught up with me really fast.  However, both of my friends completed it before me, and both of them did it unbroken.  With that added pressure, plus both of them yelling at me, there was no way I was going to stop for a rest!

WHAT I'M READING

I just finished reading a book titled The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, M.D.  This book has absolutely changed the way I look at food (whether it is in restaurants or grocery stores) and it has made me hate the U.S. Food Industry (more than I already did).  There have been a few other books or documentaries that have had a similar impact on me…namely Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Food, Inc. by Robert Kenner (producer/director) and Eric Schlosser (co-producer).

The author offers a unique perspective on the food industry.  He served as the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under two presidents (Bush Sr. and Clinton).

I’ll post a full-blown book review in the near future, but for now I mainly just wanted to share a few things that I’ve learned.

Palatability – in everyday language the word “palatable” means that a food has an agreeable taste.  When scientists use the word, they are referring to the food’s ability to stimulate the appetite.  In other words, it is the ability of the food to motivate you to pursue more of that food.  The food industry’s goal is to make foods “hyper-palatable”.

Sugar, Fat, and Salt – these are the three variables that can be used in combination to manipulate a food’s palatability.  The tendency to like sweetness is pretty self-explanatory; fat adds to a foods texture, flavor, and aroma; salt is a trickier one, where a little salt goes a long way and the proper amount (from the manufacturer’s perspective) varies depending on what food it is in (chips vs. soup, for instance).  “Usually, the most palatable foods contain some combination of sugar, fat, and salt.”

The Bliss Point – there is a “perfect” combination of the three variables that results in the greatest pleasure to the consumer, and this point is the target of food manufacturers.  This bliss point, when combined with excessive processing so that the food literally falls apart (or “melts”) in your mouth, results in maximum reward to the consumer and minimum satiety.  Let me put that into a simple, mathematical equation for you:

Maximum Reward + Minimum Satiety = Consumer Buys More of the Product

Conditioned Hypereating – “chronic exposure to highly palatable foods changes our brains, conditioning us to seek continued stimulation.  Over time, a powerful drive for a combination of sugar, fat, and salt competes with our conscious capacity to say no.”  Dr. Kessler describes a conditioned hypereater just like you would think of a compulsive gambler…they know that they cannot afford any more losses at the blackjack, but they have “lost control” and feel compelled to continue gambling.  It’s the saying “double-up to catch up” except when it comes to food it’s “double-up to become morbidly obese and diabetic.”

There were many other very interesting things I learned from the book.  I’ll share one of them with you, but I’m gonna make you think a little bit for the answer…

Here is a little trivia for you to test your knowledge of food labels and nutrition facts:

Take a look at the following sample food label (focus on the ingredients list at the bottom).  I found the picture on the internet, so I’m not exactly sure what product it is (but it is a cereal).  The actual product doesn’t matter.  After looking at the ingredients list, what jumps off the page at you?

click for full-size image

To be honest, there are probably quite a few things that you could list as jumping off the page.  However I was primarily focused on the fact that the ingredients include all of the following:  sugar, high fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, and corn syrup.  That’s 4 different sweeteners in 1 product!!

Now it’s time for the Trivia Question…

QUESTION:  Why would a food manufacturer include 4 different sweeteners in the same product?

HINT:  It has nothing to do with cost of the ingredients or the taste that results from combinations of different ingredients.

ANSWER:  It’s a psychological game that the manufacturer is playing with the consumer.  As you probably (or hopefully) know, the ingredients list is ordered in terms of most abundant to least abundant (the first ingredient on the list is the largest single ingredient and so on).  By using 4 different sweeteners in the product, the manufacturer has reduced the quantity of each single sweetener, therefore they can appear further and further down the list.  The typical “health-conscious” consumer (as in someone who reads the labels) would likely see that sugar is not the first ingredient and therefore conclude that the product is not “sugar-laden” so it must be a good choice.

SIDE NOTE:  It’s also interesting that the label includes partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil and partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils.  In case you didn’t know, that means that the product has trans fat in it.  Yet if you look up at the label under the Total Fat section you’ll notice that it gives the Total Fat and then the Saturated Fat…no mention of trans fat.  Why is that?  Well if a serving size (which can be manipulated in any way the food manufacturer wishes) contains 0.5g or less of trans fat, they are not required by law to include it on the label.

A LITTLE FUN IN THE SHOP...

My buddy Sammy came by this morning for a training session and it was solid.  Just wanted to share video of a couple of things we did:

Some deadlifting

Yes, those are Chuck Taylors, and they're money.

Some Turkish getups

Need a little work on my technique, but fun anyway.

We finished up our strength session with 3 4-minute rounds of wrestling, but no video...sorry!  We didn't have anybody else there to hold the camera.  Maybe next time.

THURSDAY TRAINING RECAP

*this training session was actually from September 3, 2009

Early this morning (alarm clock went off at 4:30am) I met a few of my friends at a high school football field for a workout. This field is incredible…it is actually an artificial turf field, but the next generation turf where it actually looks like it has blades of grass. Pretty impressive for a public high school. We have been meeting Thursday mornings for quite a while now, but this one is the Thursday before my 30th birthday! We added a little extra suffering to the mix as a way of celebrating!

Here’s what our workout looked like:

WARM UP

• Foam rolling
• Dynamic stretching

SPEED / AGILITY / POWER

• Speed ladder drills
• I recently watched a DVD called The 70 Best Quickfoot Ladder Drills and it made me realize how many incredible drills I have been leaving out of my speed ladder work. We included several of these new drills this morning and they didn’t disappoint.
• Broad Jumps
• 5 sets of 20 yards (these were done continuously with no pause between jumps for the prescribed distance, then rest)
• Change-of-Direction Sprints
• These started with a sprint, but then on the call of right, left, or back we would have to quickly decelerate and then accelerate in the new direction

CONDITIONING

RANDOM RUNNING (from Ross Enamait’s Full Throttle Conditioning)
ROUND 1
Sprint 30 yards and back
10 burpees
Sprint 30 yards and back
15 pushups
Sprint 30 yards and back
20 squats
Repeat as many as possible in 5 min
 

1 minute rest

ROUND 2
Sprint 30 yards and back
10 kb swings
Sprint 30 yards and back
10 plyo pushups
Sprint 30 yards and back
10 squat jumps
Repeat as many as possible in 5 min

1 minute rest

ROUND 3
Sprint 30 yards and back
15 med ball slams
Sprint 30 yards and back
10 burpees
Sprint 30 yards and back
10 lunge jumps

Repeat as many as possible in 5 min
 

**I was recently inspired by the book Born to Run to try running barefoot. As it turns out, I really enjoy barefoot training, so I try to implement it as much as possible. So basically whenever I am running on grass or turf (so long as it is the good stuff) I always go shoeless. It feels great!

GLYCEMIC INDEX vs. GLYCEMIC LOAD

"You shouldn't be eating those carrots, they have a really high glycemic index."


"Oh I can't eat watermelon, the sugar content is just way too high."


Those two comments are from a coworker of mine who happens to be at least 75 lbs. overweight (and I'm being conservative).  She's actually telling me NOT to eat fruits and vegetables??  Well, rather than get into an argument with her (because she clearly knows what she is talking about), I decided to just put together a blog post...maybe she'll read it.


Wikipedia defines glycemic index as follows:


The glycemic index (GI) is a measure of the effects of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels.  Carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion, releasing glucose rapidly into the bloodstream, have a high GI; carbohydrates that break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into the bloodstream, have a low GI.


So basically the glycemic index tells us how rapidly the sugar content of a particular food will enter our bloodstream. Sounds pretty good, right?


Actually what the glycemic index fails to do is consider how much sugar will be entering our bloodstream.  This is where the glycemic load comes into play.  Wikipedia gives us the following definition:

The glycemic load (GL) is a ranking system for carbohydrate content in food portions based on their glycemic index (GI) and portion size.  The usefulness of the glycemic load is based on the idea that a high glycemic index food consumed in small quantities would give the same effect as larger quantities of a low glycemic index food on blood sugar.


The benefit of considering the glycemic load instead of the glycemic index can be easily illustrated using the watermelon example. According to Wikipedia, a high GI is anything greater than or equal to 70, and watermelon weighs in at 72! Now consider the fact that watermelon is composed almost entirely of...drum roll please...water!! The carbohydrate content of watermelon is a mer 5%. So given a 100g serving of watermelon, that means it only contains 5g of carbohydrates. Using those number we can calculate the glycemic load:

(Carbohydrates (grams) * Glycemic Index) / 100 = Glycemic Load

(5g * 72) / 100 = 3.6

The glycemic load of watermelon is 3.6.  A glycemic load of 10 or less is considered low, so watermelon is clearly well under that threshold.  While it may be true that the sugar contained in watermelon is quickly released into the bloodstream, the actual amount of sugar released is very low and therefore has a minimal impact on blood sugar.


Carrots, by the way, have a glycemic load of 3.5.