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Addicted to Caffeine?

Nov 14
Posted by trainerpaul in Exercise, Fitness Tip, Nutrition

From coffee to Red Bull and everything in between, people are always looking for ways to get a quick energy boost. The problem is, in the long run this tends to backfire and cause the exact opposite to happen! Many of you reading this right now are probably addicted to caffeine to the point where you would get a headache if you didn’t have your daily dose of caffeine tomorrow morning! Now I’m absolutely not saying caffeine is all bad, but our culture tends to think that if a small amount of something can be good then more must be better. Having 25mg of caffeine from a cup of green tea is clearly nothing like 200mg+ that is in plenty of energy drinks out there.

When you take in caffeine and/or other stimulants in excess, it has a similar effect on your adrenal system that taking steroids has on your endocrine system. If a bodybuilder’s body becomes accustomed to getting copious amounts of testosterone injected every week, then his body recognizes this excess and has no need to produce as much testosterone itself because plenty is being supplied already. So in turn, he becomes reliant upon this outside source of testosterone and would have a deficiency if he were to stop injecting it artificially and rely again on his natural production that has drastically decreased (and this is only a small part of the problem, for the sake of this discussion I won’t get into the effects of throwing off the ratios in relation to other hormones and having much more complicated problems than just testosterone levels).

In the same way that the bodybuilder would stop producing enough testosterone because of getting it injected, a person over-consuming stimulants will have trouble producing adrenaline and extracting enough energy naturally from food. Once it gets to this point, stopping all at once becomes extremely difficult but by gradually tapering down and working toward cutting it out completely it is still possible to regain proper adrenal function. And as I said before, this doesn’t have to mean ZERO stimulant use, just preferably very minimal. As a rule of thumb, if you can’t go a few days without any caffeine and feel just fine then you are probably still too reliant on it. All of this being said, this will only work if you are also eating properly, exercising and getting enough rest. In the end, everything comes back to nutrition and exercise, which is why there is no magic pill that can make you healthy.

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What Should I Eat?

May 12
Posted by trainerpaul in Fitness Tip

If you have read my other posts, you will probably see a theme- no single solution works for everyone!  In the same way that there is not a one-size-fits-all exercise program, there is also no single diet that is best for everyone.  For starters, everyone has different goals, different starting points, and different foods that they respond best to.

Just about every person out there has a long list of foods that they are sensitive or allergic to.  Just because you don’t get a stomach ache, a rash, a stuffy nose, or other common allergic symptoms, does not mean that you’re not allergic or sensitive to a food.  I urge all of my personal training clients to pay very close attention to which foods make them FEEL the best after eating them.  If certain foods cause your energy levels to be lower than normal then that can be a sign that you are not efficiently able to process those foods.  This may not come as a surprise, but here is the interesting part- the foods you don’t process very well can just as easily be some of the healthiest foods there are.  Sweet potatoes are an extremely nutrient dense food with many health benefits, but if you feel lethargic after eating them then stop eating them!  Sometimes we try so hard to do things right, and we miss the obvious signs that our body is trying to give us.  My first rule of nutrition (and exercise for that matter!), is to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!  Just to be clear though, apply common sense to this rule.  If you feel good after eating hot dogs, french fries, and cokes, this does not mean that these foods are healthy!  You may process them fine, but if there are minimal nutrients to process then being able to process it doesn’t do you much good!

Here are a few other pointers that I will try to dive into in more depth in future postings:

1. Try to avoid long gaps between meals.  Frequent small meals / snacks (preferably 5-6, but at least 4 per day) will keep your metabolism revving all day.  Going long time periods without food will train your body to store energy as fat instead of using it.  This results in fewer calories being burned, energy levels being lower, muscle being burned for energy instead of fat, and more stored body fat.

2. If you must “cheat”, at least watch your portion sizes.  It will not ruin all of your results to have bad foods from time to time, as long as you have them in modest amounts.

3. If you are not sure how to construct a balanced meal, here is a simplified guide: one complete protein source the size of your palm (ex: meat or eggs), one carbohydrate source, also the size of your palm (ex: quinoa, brown rice, or sweet potato), and one green vegetable serving the size of your palm (ex: broccoli, spinach, or turnip greens).

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How important is supplementation?

Dec 29
Posted by trainerpaul in Body Alignment, Exercise, Fitness Tip, Posture

The key to answering this question is realizing what the purpose of supplements is.  As the name implies, nutritional supplements are meant to SUPPLEMENT your nutrition- not replace it!  Even though there are many great supplements out there that can help, your eating habits are exponentially more important.  Using supplements to make up for a fast food diet is like putting a band-aid on a broken leg!  The only supplements that I recommend for EVERYONE is a good whole food multi-vitamin and a post-workout shake that is tailored to where you are and what your goals are.  There are a number of other supplements I will recommend as necessary, but not until the food intake is improving so that the supplements won’t give false hope that they can out-weigh the poor eating!  If eating frequency is a problem (and it usually is) then I will also recommend a meal replacement shake that fits in with the nutrition plan.

I will do later blog posts about individual supplements, but for now I will address the baseline of all supplements- the multi-vitamin.  First off, all multi-vitamins are NOT created equal!  The common brands such as Centrum and One-a-Day are practically useless because they will pass right through your system with minimal absorption.  This is because most of the ingredients are synthetic (made in a lab!) rather than pulled from whole food sources.  Your body is obviously supposed to ingest vitamins and minerals from food, and when synthetic vitamins and minerals enter the digestive system they are usually not recognized by the body- and therefore they do not get absorbed.  It is also important to only take a vitamin with food to ensure proper absorption.  Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble vitamins, meaning that if they are ingested without a fat source then they cannot be absorbed.  This doesn’t mean you need to eat an excessive amount of fat, even a small amount of fat that you will attain in any meal will suffice.  Eating a meal will also keep the vitamin in the digestive tract for longer and allow more time for it to absorb.

There are many good whole food multi-vitamins out there, but the one I typically recommend is Nature’s Way- Alive (for men and post-menopausal women, use the iron-free version).  I order most of my supplements from Allstarhealth.com because they are the cheapest I have found and are very prompt with delivery.  I have no affiliation with Nature’s Way or All Star Health, so you do not need to go through me to order.

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