Cinnamon and Sweet Potatoes

Dieting is difficult.  For Everyone.  From the mother trying to lose 10 more pounds before her daughter’s wedding, to the scrawny weakling struggling to stuff heaps of peanut butter down his gullet, to the wrestler sitting in the sauna for the 4^th hour, to the girl trying to make those jeans look great.  Everyone has difficulty with dieting, but while our problems might all be characteristically different, there are some tenants that are effective whether you are a bodybuilder looking to add mass or a schlub looking to drop some weight.  No matter what client I have, I always harp on nutrient density.  Nutrient density is the quality of food that we add to our body based on its micronutrient quality and quantity.  Macronutrient’s consist of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and water; whereas micronutrients include vitamins, macro- and micronutrients, and some organic compounds.  While all micronutrients are found in a variety of foods, most of my clients and the general public face deficiencies with micronutrients attained  from plant sources.  A change to the majority of diets should include an increase in vegetable content (unless specific allergies prohibit you from particular foods.)  The simplest way I explain to most people how to get adequate amounts of plant based nutrients would be to include a variety of colors of vegetables into their diet.  Since most people consume white based flesh fruits and vegetables (bananas , apples, white potatoes, corn, white peaches, etc.) , I advocate the color scheme of vegetables.  Green vegetables are often consumed in higher quanties than others often leading to boredom and distaste of the plant based nutrients you need.  Red, orange , yellow, green, blue, and purple flesh will enable you to maximize the nutrient densities of the food you eat because the color indicates a natural source of micronutrients.  For example, beta-carotene, a vitamin shown to improve eyesight, is often associated with orange vegetables (such as carrots and orange American yams.)  Improving the diversity of your vegetables will allow you to expand the nutrients that you are receiving and help to keep you from becoming bored with your healthy options.

  I remember first reading from Pauline Nordin’s blog that she would consume 2% of her bodyweight in vegetables daily, I thought she was absurd. (citation) For someone at 200 pounds, that would equate to 4 pounds of vegetables daily.  While cooking vegetables makes them easier to eat, most vegetables contain higher amounts of phytonutrients in their uncooked, raw form.(citation)  This means that you would potentially have to spend your entire day chewing through carrots, munching on celery, and masticating your broccoli.  Essentially we all look like cows, ruminating our lives away.  While I advocate that you multitask your vegetable consumption (with something like reading or watching tv) I continue to look for simpler ways to enjoy the foods needed to be healthy. 

One of my heroes is Jack Lalane.  Jack is known for his amazing feats of strength as he continues to age such as towing strings of boats behind him while swimming ridiculous distances.  I invite you to take a look at his feats of strengths. (citation)  Jack is also famous for his juicer, which he advocates makes him young and vital.  Avoiding the topic of lost nutrients in the juicer, I decided that I

Costco, the store where I buy 98% of my food, has an entire section devoted to vegetables and fruits.  A while back, I began purchasing the potato medley pack they offered that included a mix of small sized yellow, red, and purple sweet potatoes.  Purple sweet potatoes are especially useful for increasing your vegetable color wheel diversity.  While potatoes have some downsides, including their high pesticide load and their starchy constitution, I have managed to keep them important in my diet.  Compared to

Several months ago I had gotten some organic sweet potatoes.  I baked and ate them and to my surprised really enjoyed them.  I looked around online at the number of articles that talked about the health benefits that sweet potatoes have.  According to

Add Some Spice to your life!

After considering how bland my diet can be (I have/will be eating eggs for every meal for the 5 days this week), I thought that I should publish an article on how I make each meal unique and flavorful.  The first thing I notice when I diet is the sweetness and fullness of food leaves me.  By adding spices, I am able to make each food count for more.  Here are some of my favorite spices and how they can help you create a healthy diet, without adding calories.

1)      Cinnamon:  When I was growing up, I always thought of cinnamon as cinnamon sugar, like the kind you find on Churros or French toast.  Now I realize that the two are much different.  Despite being slightly disappointed I enjoy cinnamon very much because it conjures up emotions of stuffing my face (even when I am deficiting).  Cinnamon is best used in conjunction with carbohydrate meals because of its insulin like properties.  Despite the evidence being inconclusive, I think there is a net benefit of adding fresh cinnamon to my food (see http://yourfitnessdecision.com/cinnamon-weight-loss).  My favorite is to add a hearty dosing to baked sweet potatoes/yams.  Because they are a pure carb source, I feel these complement each other synergistically.  When needing some variety in a keto diet, I will add cinnamon to protein (chicken, eggs, or beef) as it complements a fuller flavor.  Overall, this is my favorite spice.

2)      Potassium Salt:  This product makes me feel like I'm cheating.  Because most of the food I am eating on a keto diet has a significant quantity of sodium in it, I don't have to worry about upping my salt intake.  It is however to make sure that you entertain your body with some potassium because the body needs a mixture of both sodium and potassium based salt (the idea behind Gatorade).  By adding K-salt to my meat or eggs, I am able to make the item tastier, and increase the amount of sodium I intake into my body: in other words, a win-win.  My brand of choice is No Salt.

3)      Crushed Red Chilies: A recent addition to my spice rack, this spice is often enjoyed on Pizza.  Having found it sold at Costco for a mere price considering it was organic, I had to try it.  Although I am not a fan to spicy food.  Sometimes blowing your head off with spice will help you forget that you are starving.  I find that this spice is difficult to taste in very small quantities but mixes very well into scrambled eggs.  The spice has helped me re-adjust my taste buds, especially when I really want something calorically dense.  Spicy food is also considered to have some thermogenic properties but I don't want to push myself too far that I burn more calories because my mouth is on fire!

4)      Montreal Steak Seasoning:  After sampling several seasonings, I have found that this seasoning allows the best flexibility for me.  Added to chicken, eggs, fish, or beef I have found that it will take the taste score up from bland to moderately good.  At only 5 calories per serving it defiantly fits into my diet and because of the increased demand for sodium while in Keto, I can add it without feeling guilty.  Because of its blend of spices (salt, pepper, garlic, paprika), I feel that I can make it a multipurpose seasoning and thus it becomes more valuable.  The brand I use is McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning from Costco.

5)      Cocoa: Another recent addition to my diet plan, I also thought cocoa powder only came sweetened.  I was stunned to smell the aroma of the powder only contained a bleak 10 calories per serving (1 tbsp.).  I have tried it with some protein sources but it usually doesn't blend tremendously.  I think that it will continue to be useful for four reasons: 1) chocolate taste (especially useful in bulking the chocolate taste in protein shakes), 2) antioxidant power of chocolate, 3) theobromine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine) and 4) the Nitric Oxide affect of cocoa (causes the veins and arteries to dilate to allow blood to flow more easily through the body).

Glucose Tablets

In a state of ketosis, I find it near impossible to maintain or sustain any type of physical exercise.  Since I am currently deficiting over 1000 calories a day in ketosis, it makes no sense to perform any exercise other than strength training (to maintain muscle mass and neural efficiency.  Since I am a huge fan of finding out how naturally handicapped populations cope with adverse conditions, I looked into glucose tablets.  These tablets are found at all drug stores and are designed for diabetic emergencies.  When a diabetic's glucose falls dangerously low, they can boost their blood glucose concentration with a fast acting tablet.  Because an individual tablet is 15 calories, I don't have to worry much about this affecting my long term weight loss as 15 calories is equivalent to walking .15 miles (like the amount of walking you have each day going to the bathroom.

Some recommendations of ketosis based workouts suggest that 5-10 g of BCAA's be consumed before the workout session, however since I am taking BCAA's for the majority of the ketosis state I find it redundant when it comes to an energy surge.

Since pure glucose has a GI of 138 we can count on for fast acting hyperglycemia.  To give you an idea about the sugar rush, ice cream is around a GI of 90-100.  By forcing myself into short term glucose saturation, weight lifting sets become possible and the effect to the diet is neutralized.  With about 3-4 tablets in a workout, I still will burn off all calories before I complete the session.

While Lyle Macdonald and others have discussed this method before I have found two uses of it that they did not mention in their books.  The glucose tablets seem to boost the digestion of caffeine in a ketosis state.  Taking caffeine in a ketosis state, I was not feeling a surge of heat or energy, but when stacked with a glucose tablet, I felt the affects more completely.  Studies into this will have to confirm or deny my experience. 

Also, after looking at the literature, BAT when activated utilizes 50% fatty acid and 30% glucose when activated in NST (non-shivering thermogenisis).  By taking a glucose tablet before BAT stimulations (ie. cold baths), I am protein sparing and thus will preserve my muscle mass better.  With 2 tablets per day, I can maintain fewer than 10g of carbs in ketosis.

Checking the Expiration Date

The other day, I went through our medicine cabinet to check for expired medications and vitamin supplements.  To my surprise, over 90% of the medication I found had an expiration date between 1996 and 2007 (this in Jan 2011).  I decided to clear out the medication and explain to my parents that to take anything expired would be unhealthy and unsafe.  I then put together a supplement list that we should be taking, including a high potency multivitamin, EFA's, Vitamin D, a green drink, and calcium (since these are the things we were lacking the most).  After crunching the numbers, I found that an effective vitamin stack that ensures no holes (especially while dieting) costs between $1.50 and $2.50 cents per day.  After crunching the cost of my meals every day, I was able to put together the cost of my meal plan on diet days and come in just under $10.  Since most meals eaten out cost around $7-8, I figured that I was making a very reasonable meal plan that ensured I was eating healthy and keeping myself safe.  There are several things that I would like to make light of in this situation:

1)      Expired food, medication, and supplements will almost always cause more harm than good.  Minimize the amount of food or other stored in the house to ensure greater turnover.  Cans that sit in the closet and rot are not healthy.  Medication that sits in the cabinet to rot will not make you better when you are sick.  Minimize the risk you and your family take by eliminating unhealthy expired products.

2)      The most expensive food is that which is not eaten.  Spending ten dollars on fruit where only two dollars is eaten before the rest is thrown out raises the cost per fruit value.  Find what works and plan ahead.  Having nothing in the pantry or refridgerator can be a good thing because it minimizes the likelihood that you eat expired food or have to throw things away.

3)      Especially when dieting, a high-quality multivitamin is worth it.  Computing the cost of my multi and green drink, I figure that I will spend a dollar per day ensuring that my body has everything it needs to function and stay operating.  If that seems like too much then consider that most soft drinks cost about a dollar, most coffee beverages cost three to four dollars and most meals eaten out cost 7-8 dollars.  A $50 supplement that lasts 50 days is the most cost-effective way to stay healthy.

4)      Exercise exists where it can create 80 percent of the results for most people, with only 20 percent effort.  Because exercise takes often less than 5% of people's days they can find most of the results by merely working out.  Getting from obese (>25%) to a normal weight (~18%) usually comes as a result of exercise.  Diet is the other 80 percent of the effort, and yields the last 20 percent of the results.  This 20% of results is going from a healthy weight (~18%) to an athletic weight (<10%).  Each pound becomes harder than the one before it but a linear progression can still be followed down to a very low body fat.

5)      The NSCA and NASM (my certification bodies) recommend the following guidelines when it comes to building a diet:

 Fat: <30% daily caloric load

 Protein: 10-30% daily caloric load

 Carbohydrates: 50-70% daily caloric load

While these may work for most people, I have found that some people's genetics do not correspond with these figures.  I have experimented with diets that have eliminated carbohydrates for periods of time, have had greater than 50% daily caloric load from fat, and have had protein hold 80% of my calories at some times.  The recommendations they make are loaded with assumptions.  Not only do they neglect micronutrients but fail to make a connection between hormone and insulin production within the body.  Trial and error works for me.  Journaling can be a valuable tool when it comes to finding your most valuable diet.

6)  Lastly, much debate rages in the bodybuilding community over egg yolks vs egg whites alone.  I see value with both so I have yolks and albumin when I eat eggs.  This will irk the healthy guys because they see egg whites as pure protein.  The protein they speak of is important but biologically, many processes occur in the body using fat to operate.  Testosterone is a fat based hormone derived from cholesterol.  This makes fat, including cholesterol important, especially for men.  I then hear the argument for pesticide loads in egg yolks.  The phenomenon they are speaking of is referred to as biomagnification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnification).  Because most poultry is susceptible to fat soluble pesticides, I ensure that the only egg yolks that I include are from range-fed organic eggs.  Problem solved?  Well, its the best I can do.  Use the regular eggs for the whites and the organic eggs for whole egg product.