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When is it OK to eat Sugar?
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By Isabel De Los Rios
http://yourdietsolution.com

One of two things happens when you even mention the word Sugar...people either jump up for joy, salivating for their next sugar fix or they go running in the opposite direction and avoid it like the plague (Hmm Lewis, which one are you?)

The sugar lovers, well, they just love their sugar and would probably sprinkle it on broccoli if that was socially acceptable. While others are so afraid of it they are even scared to eat foods like bananas, carrots and onions because of their high sugar content..huh?

I'm pretty sure we can blame crash and extreme diets like the all protein, no carbohydrate diets (author will remain nameless but I'm sure you know who I'm talking about) for people's fear of certain fruits and vegetables. When a diet tells you to stay away from veggies and fruit, you have to wonder how healthy it is. (What's next? You can't drink water?)

The real question here is:

Is all sugar created the same? And...Is there ever a time when sugar can be good for us?

Let's start with the first.

No, all sugar is not created equal. Table sugar (sucrose) responds very differently in your body than fruit sugar (fructose - not the same as high fructose corn syrup). Both are metabolized into glucose (the sugar in your blood stream), however it matters a great deal in how that process happens.

When you eat a food that contains sucrose (ex. Cakes, cookies, candies) your blood sugar is elevated very, very quickly and your body's response is to release a lot of insulin to control the blood sugar spike. As you have probably read in your Diet Solution Manual, insulin control is the name of the game as far as fat loss is concerned, and the better we can control your insulin levels, the faster you will be able to shed off unwanted fat. So eating a food that will elevate your insulin levels fast and high is exactly what you don't want and want to stay away from.

Fructose (fruit sugar), on the other hand, does not create the same response. Yes, your body knows it's sugar, but it will elevate your blood sugar and insulin levels much, much slower than sucrose (this is also reflective of how low it is on the Glycemic Index. For more info on the Glycemic Index refer to the Calories chapter, the Grains chapter, and the Glycemic Index Chart in the Diet Solution Manual). This is a good thing because it gives your body more time to respond to the sugar you have just ingested, many times not resulting in a high insulin rise, but a steadier, controlled one.

You can also think about it this way...Would it be easier for you to catch a sprinter (sucrose) or a jogger (fructose)? Choosing sweet foods that allow for a slow and steady blood sugar rise will help your body "catch" and use the sugar more easily and more efficiently.

Now, when can sugar be good for you?

Anyone who has ever tried any "no carb" crash diet before can testify that after just a few days you really start to feel pretty lousy: groggy, lethargic, and possibly even constipated. This is because your body does function much better when you make good healthy carbohydrates and sugars available to it. Now let's not take that sentence and go on a pasta free for all, but including foods that turn into glucose slowly in your blood stream helps your body function much better. Yes, your smart body does have the ability to make glucose even if you don't eat any carbs. However, healthy foods like bananas, apples, carrots and onions do NOT need to be eliminated to control your blood sugar, control your insulin levels and see long term fat loss.

Here are a few sugar tips you can begin to apply to your healthy meal plans right away:

1. Avoid the most deadly forms of sugar (Deadly? Yup, it's really that bad for you.) Refined white sugar really has no place in anyone's diet. Unfortunately, I'm sure you've noticed, it's everywhere! Cakes, cookies and candies are the most obvious, but many cereals, breads, and "so called" health foods (snacks, crackers, and frozen foods) now contain high amounts of processed sugar. Make sure to read the ingredients list carefully and if high fructose corn syrup, refined corn syrup, sucrose or cane sugar (even organic evaporated cane juice is still a bad sugar) are listed, re-assess your choice and look for something without these forms of sugar in the ingredients label.

2. Make foods that raise your blood sugar levels slowly (those low on the glycemic index) your staples when it comes to carbohydrates choices and sweet craving foods. Grab some berries instead of a cookie, cut up a sweet apple instead of a piece of cake, or go for some frozen grapes instead of candies. Not only will you have chosen a much healthier option, but your sweet cravings will quickly diminish the less you feed into them.

3. Save your sweet treats for the special occasions in your life. There's no need to skip your birthday cake or a well deserved dessert on a Saturday night. I usually indulge myself in the sweet treat of my choice on the weekends when I am out with my family. I keep my portion within reason, enjoy it and then continue on with my healthy eating plan from there (no guilt, beating myself up or throwing in the towel). As I have said before, telling yourself you can NEVER have this or that is a sure fire way to make healthy eating feel like torture.

Learn “The Top 5 Essential Truths You Must Know Before You Go on Any Diet Ever Again” from Isabel De Los Rios at http://yourdietsolution.com. Isabel is a nutrition, exercise and lifestyle coach who has helped hundreds of people lose their unwanted weight and take complete control of their health. She is the author of The Diet Solution Program, a complete and comprehensive nutrition program that is helping people all over the world finally reach their ideal weight. For more information on The Diet Solution Program and how it can help to change your life, visit http://yourdietsolution.com.

To your success,
Sarah, CPT
Lewis, Publisher
www.articles.atozfitness.com
AtoZfitness.com Google's #1 fitness site.
www.atozfitness.com
Follow me on Twitter for updates from my blog....
http://www.twitter.com/atozfitness

If you have any questions, you can contact me sending an
e-mail to me at atozsupport@atozfitness.com .

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  Is 6 meals a day still the way to go?
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By Mike Geary
http://truthaboutabs.atozfitness.com

The topic of the "6 meals a day for fat loss" has been touted by bodybuilding circles and personal trainers for years now as the best way to eat for fat loss compared to the traditional "3 square meals a day".

But is this 6-meal per day frequency the ONLY way to do it?  And is it really the most effective?

Well, the answer can go both ways. Let me give you my opinion on this...

First, let's look at what the recommended 6 meals/day instead of 3 really breaks down to calorically... On 3 meals/day, let's take the example of a normal person that might be eating 3,000 calories per day, but eating those calories in three 1,000-calorie meals (or more likely, two 1500-calorie meals for someone that skips breakfast).

This same daily caloric intake spread out over 6 smaller meals would be six meals at 500 calories each.  Keep in mind that this example daily caloric intake is just an example, and would be WAY too much for some people depending on body size and composition, age, and activity level.

The theory has always been (with overall daily calories being the same in both cases) that by spreading the daily calories out over 6 smaller meals per day instead of 3 large meals per day, this essentially helps to promote more steady blood sugar levels throughout the day instead of large spikes and dips seen with larger meals spaced out over longer periods of time.

It's also been theorized that more frequent meals evens out your protein digestion and amino acid availability throughout the day, so that there's less muscle catabolism compared to longer periods of time between meals.

Now here's my take on this...

I do still recommend 5-7 small meals per day for beginners or people that are just finally trying to get control over their diet. A lot of people that are used to eating 2-3 meals per day typically eat WAY too many calories in one sitting, and by eating smaller meals every 3 hours or so throughout the day, it helps them to finally get control over eating excessively large meals.

Think about this scenario... the average person at the office that eats lunch at noon, and then doesn't eat dinner until they get home at about 7pm that night. And they were so busy at work that they forgot to eat any small meal or snack mid afternoon.

With 7 hours between meals, they're so ravenous when they get home that they INHALE 2,000 calories before they've even given their brain a chance to register that they've eaten this much.

End result - eating WAY more daily calories than their caloric maintenance.

I will say that for people that already eat extremely healthy and control their calories each day, I don't think there's any magic bullet with 6 meals/day vs 4 meals, or 3 meals and a couple snacks, etc.

From personal experience with lots of my clients over the years, I've seen many people that struggled with their diet finally get control of things by "grazing" more throughout the day and eating the 5-7 meals/day. The important thing is that EVERY meal is kept small.

Personally, I've changed my eating habits to be so healthy over the years, that I find I can eat in almost any meal frequency and my body always seems to self-regulate appetite because of the high nutrient density of my diet these last few years.

Different methods will work differently for each individual. 

I've actually found in recent years that I seem to operate best by eating a fairly large breakfast of around 800 to 1000 calories, and then just grazing on small 200 to 300 calorie snacks every couple hours throughout the day. And then I like to eat a larger dinner of around 800-1000 calories.

The reason I seem to operate best on this breakdown is because I'm very active throughout the middle of the day most days with exercise, so I tend to not want large meals at this time, just lighter snacks.  However, at night, I like to eat the larger meal once again to help my body recover from my high levels of activity during the days (skiing, hiking, biking, weight training, etc).

Years ago, I preferred to eat the 6 meals a day at 500 calories each approximately (since my caloric maintenance is about 3000 cals/day).  Now, I prefer something more along these lines:

Meal 1:  800-1000 calories
Meal 2:  250 calories
Meal 3:  250 calories
Meal 4:  250 calories
Meal 5:  250 calories
Meal 6:  800-1000 calories

Keep in mind that spreading the calories out more evenly through the day may work better for you if you're not extremely active and you have a job that involves sitting at a desk most of the day.

A good example:

I had a co-worker years ago at my former corporate job that lost 30 lbs in about 2 months by simply changing his meal frequency.  He had previously been eating a carbohydrate-based breakfast, which left him ravaged by lunch time and he would overeat at lunch.  Then he would go all afternoon without eating and be ravaged by dinner and overeat at dinner.

His change...

He took my advice and started eating at least 1 source of satisfying protein and healthy fat at breakfast each day and reduced the carbs.  Then, around mid-morning, he would eat a combo of yogurt and cottage cheese that he had packed with him for the day.

Since he ate the mid-morning yogurt/cottage cheese meal, he was less hungry at lunch, and he would only eat a half of a sandwich instead of a whole sandwich, and he'd save the other half of the sandwich for mid-afternoon.

Then, when he came home for dinner at night, he wasn't starving like usual, and he would eat a much smaller dinner.

In reality, what he really did was inadvertently reduce his daily caloric intake by eating more frequent smaller meals each day because this would save him from the "binge" attacks, where he would eat monstrous lunches and dinners without even knowing how many calories he ate.

I hope this newsletter helped to give you some ideas... Remember, you won't know what meal frequency and meal sizes work best for you until you try different things and see how your body reacts.

Please feel free to forward this articles to any of your friends or family that may enjoy it.

Sincerely,
Lewis & Sarah
Publisher - AtoZfitness Total Body Makeover

CPT Sarah reviews Tom Venuto's The Body Fat Solution Hardcover Book

I am long overdue with this review folks; busy is really not strong enough a word to describe my days lately. Still I have something for you today, something which won’t earn me a dime in commission at all, you’re going to have to physically go to a book store and buy this one OTC (over the counter)

This entire week, I’ve been wondering how best to approach the write-up on this book for you. I’m not sure where this idea came from, maybe mo love of old Western movies? I suddenly had this image of a stage coach veering off course because it only had three horses pulling it rather than four.  (I think some used 6, but you see my point, balance!)

You see, you have a goal. Hopefully a tangible one with precise numbers and dates. You’ve purchased a workout and nutrition program (maybe even BFFM ?). You’ve made your plan and started out on your journey. You hold the reins of your team of horses (see stagecoach above), but somehow they keep pulling you off to the side …

That’s because you have one horse pulling alone in the front, your Goal horse, and two behind, Workout and Nutrition. You’re missing the fourth horse to pair up with Goal in order to bring balance and keep you going forward on the chosen path.

I want you to pull in to the first corral you see (aka bookstore). This is the place to purchase your second lead horse, Mindset! You’ll find him in the shape and form of Tom Venuto’s hardcover book The Body Fat Solution which was released in January (told you this is overdue!)

BFFM in January of 2006. I was able to master my subconscious and had really nice success with the program. However, at the time there was no support group in the form of Burn The Fat Inner Circle which is now available to members, and the underlying parts of my subconscious wasn’t strong enough to keep me on track once that initial goal was met. I slipped backwards and had to fight my way back again.

I know many of you have been or even are right now, in that same situation.on.

Tom’s new hardcover book takes care of the one thing no diet or exercise program does – sure, some have a chapter on mind set, one has an entire on-line audio program – but this is a tangible and entire book, dedicated to showing you why you stray and how not to!

Everything is covered, such as emotional eating, how to set powerful goals, attitude, myths and their debunking, nutrition, metabolism, training, social support, and … last but not least: maintaining your goal results!

Now that you have added Mindset to your team of horses, they are equally strong on both sides, pulling you straight for your goal. That doesn’t mean the ride won’t be bumpy or won’t have uphill struggles or even a deviation or two, but your team of four will get you right back on track without effort and take you to your destination.

The Body Fat Solution hard-cover book and a membership in the Burn the Fat Inner Circle, you’ll be well on your way to success in combating your bodyfat and related health issues; if you want to go all out, you can add Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle e-book as well (there’s an update in the works, most likely free to owners of the original version, so you might want to grab a copy now).

Tom Venuto was my first fat burning mentor, and to this day remains a person I turn to for advice. Ask your GPS where the nearest book store is if you’re not sure … grab that book! Or give it to someone you know could need it, it’s a great gift idea as well.

Sarah, CPT
www.trainwithsarah.com

Yours in fitness,
Sarah, CPT
Lewis, Publisher
www.articles.atozfitness.com
AtoZfitness.com Google's #1 fitness site.
www.atozfitness.com

A Shocking Protein Supplement Discovery!
By The Muscle Nerd, Jeff Anderson
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Yours in fitness,
Sarah, CPT
Lewis, Publisher
www.articles.atozfitness.com
AtoZfitness.com Google's #3 fitness site.
www.atozfitness.com

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Exercise Toxicity
by Dr. Kareem F. Samhouri
Doctor of Physical Therapy & Kinesiologist
http://www.atozfitness.com/recommends/abstrengthguide.html 

This is an interesting topic...

Some people try too hard when they work out, not realizing they are actually sabotaging their own efforts.  There is a such thing as overtraining, and it doesn’t only lead to injury.  Overtraining can absolutely lead to decreased fat loss, less definition, and greater cardiac risk.  I know that this sounds odd, but bear with me as I explain the 3 principles of overtraining that make exercise toxic when you do too much.  These principles are:

1.    Poor Heart Rate Recovery

2.    Acidic State In The Body

3.    Second Session Syndrome (TM)

Let’s take a closer look at each one of these...

Poor Heart Rate Recovery:

By maintaining your max heart rate over a prolonged period of time, as would happen with anaerobic exercise and too little rest, you will actually be training your heart to respond to exercise in an over-exaggerated way.  Your body will begin to learn that your ‘Fight or Flight’ response is an ‘All or None’ response, and react to exercise accordingly.  I believe this is best illustrated by a story of one of my previous clients:

You see, when I first started personal training I wasn’t convinced that overtraining was a legitimate problem, so long as someone maintained mobility, wasn’t 9 out of 10 sore, etc.  I was accustomed to two-a-days from water polo and swimming for so many years, that I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to the idea of my client riding horses for 2 hours a day, riding her bike for an hour, and then training with me to the max 4 days a week.  She didn’t get hurt.

In fact, it was nothing like that.  She got into ridiculous shape, and, to this day, I’m so proud of her accomplishment.  Instead, Juliane (my client), began to notice that within the first minute of walking on the treadmill her hear rate would go up to 155 bpm, without a whole lot of exertion.  Naturally, this got me thinking...

You see, heart rate recovery is one of the greatest predictors of cardiac disease.  I hated the thought of my client who was in such incredible shape having an increased risk of cardiac disease.  Over a couple of months, we were able to correct the issue, but her heart rate ‘spike’ was a result of overtraining.  That was the bottom line.

Acidic State In The Body:

According to Eastern medicine, any decrease in the pH of your body (i.e. making it more acidic) will result in increased probability of infection.  Dr. Mike Gorman, a chiropractor and applied Kinesiologist in the Bucks County area, has explained to me that he balances pH in order to cure cancer.  Crazy, I know!

If you constantly tax your body in ways that make it interpret the stress as illness, it will always be trying to recover.  During this entire recovery process, your body will be more stressed, and you will also have a large build up of lactic acid.  Remember, any prolonged increase in acidity may lead to bigger diseases than just injury. 

Don’t worry, I’m not saying that lifting weights causes cancer, or anything like that.  I’m just explaining that a prolonged acidic state in your body makes it difficult to recover.  By allowing the pH to return to normal, you are creating a stronger body, and a body more capable of fighting outside infection.  It just makes sense. 

Second Session Syndrome (TM):

Overtraining can lead to prolonged recovery time, as is explained above.  It’s a fact that you will be unable to perform at the same level every day over the course of a month if you overtrain.  The following are ways that you can overtrain, leading to decreased efforts on all subsequent visits to the gym: 

1.    Frequency - how often do you work out?  Do you rest at least 1 day per week?

2.    Duration - how long do you work out?  Are you dosing exercise correctly if are building up to a higher exercise tolerance?

3.    Intensity - how hard are you working?  Are you taking ample rest periods to recover between exercises, sets, or circuits?

4.    Mode - are you mixing it up a bit?  Do you constantly do the exact same form of exercise?  Do you need help with program design?

Within a few weeks of overtraining, you are sure to suffer from Second Session Syndrome.  This awful ‘disease’ is when you plateau or decrease strength the day after a workout.  This shouldn’t be the case.  If you are working out correctly, you should be able to feel just as strong today as you did yesterday.

Overtraining is dangerous in more ways than one.  Exercise truly can be toxic.  By understanding the 3 principles listed above, you are sure to have a competitive advantage in your six pack abs exercise program. 

If you’d like a free trial of an incredibly effective ab strengthening program that only takes 10 minutes per day, please go to: http://www.atozfitness.com/recommends/abstrengthguide.html

Sincerely,,
Lewis & Sarah
Publisher - AtoZfitness Total Body Makeover

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The Creatine Grave Yard
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The Creatine Grave Yard
By Will Brink © 2009

Looks like another “high tech” form of creatine has got one foot planted firmly in the creatine grave yard. What is the creatine graveyard? It’s where forms of creatine - other then monohydrate - go when either science has shown them inferior to monohydrate, and or it’s life cycle of hype has come to and end.

I refer specifically to creatine ethyl ester (CEE). As with the many “high tech” forms of creatine before it, all manner of claims were/are made about how superior it is to creatine monohydrate (CM). It always starts the same. First the company will invent a long list of negatives about CM such as “poorly absorbed” or “causes bloat” or “is not stable” and then goes onto claim their form of creatine has solved all those invented negatives. The problem is, the data already shows CM does not suffer from virtually any of the negatives they invent, nor do they show their form “cures” those negatives. Sellers of CCE for example claimed CEE was better absorbed and utilized vs. CM, and that has been shown to be nonsense. There have been several in vitro (test tube) studies pointing to the fact CEE is inferior to CM, but a recent study done in humans puts a final nail in the coffin as far as I am concerned. This study is titled “The effects of creatine ethyl ester supplementation combined with heavy resistance training on body composition, muscle performance, and serum and muscle creatine levels” The full study is public access and can be read here:

CEE Study

Warning, the abstract is confusing and not well written. If you read the full paper, it’s clearer. If you don’t have the time or interest to read it, the take home is: although all subjects in this study (CEE vs. CM vs. Placebo) experienced approximately the same effects; they all had improvements in bodycomp and got stronger. Why? Because they used untrained subjects in the study. Thus, a drawback of this study was due to using untrained people, they couldn’t differentiate between PL, CEE, and CM in terms of effects on bodycomp and strength within that time period as newbies always make fast progress in the beginning. No news there.

However, the study did achieve the essential point, which is it clearly showed the claims of CEE false: CEE had much higher creatinine levels and lower muscle creatine levels compared to CM in this study, thus, yet again, the claims by sellers of CEE that it’s superior to CM and that CM is “poorly absorbed” or “causes bloat,” or my favorite “CM is not stable,” etc are false. They also looked at changes in water compartments (CEE actually had a trend toward greater extra cellular water then CM BTW, so there goes that stupid “no bloat” claim for CEE…) and other issues claimed to make CEE superior, and it failed.

CEE is less stable then CM, increases creatinine to a much greater extent then CM, and is inferior for increasing muscle creatine levels to CM. This study is not perfect by any means, but when combined with what else exists, and the counter studies sellers of CEE offer (which is to say zero), well you don’t have to be a scientist to see the writing on the wall there…

CEE will be added to the creatine graveyard with a ton of others all claiming to be superior to CM which all started with big claims and now sit in the grave yard.

Two essential points about the grave yard before we get to that:

(1) Because they are in the grave yard does not mean they are worthless. Some forms, such as magnesium creatine chelate for example looked promising, but a head to head study with CM found it no better. Remember, another form does not have to show it’s the equal of CM, it has to show it’s superior to CM per its claims. Forms such as creatine pyruvate and many others on the list may be just as effective as CM, but not superior, so it comes down to cost. Others on the list have in fact been proven inferior to CM in studies, such as serum creatine, various liquid creatine versions, and now CEE. Serum creatine was all the rage a few years ago, and studies found not only was it inferior to CM in every respect, it contained virtually no creatine! Of course, there were still those on the various forums using ‘bro logic’ with “bro, I don’t care what the studies say, it works like da bomb for me!” posts, but I digress….Finally, other forms on the list simply lack any data at all to compare to CM. The companies selling these forms will routinely make claims of superiority with nadda for hard data to support them. Therefore, it’s impossible to really separate fact from fiction (i.e., marketing hype) to recommend them.

Me, I will use what has literally hundreds of studies to support its efficacy and safety over a form with zero data to support it’s claims of superiority over CM. Thus, they get put into the grave yard. Future studies may get them out of the graveyard, but I aint holding my breath…

(2) CM is not perfect. It’s not very soluble, and in about 30% of users, does not appear to work at all. At higher doses, generally above 3g-5g or so in a single dose, can cause stomach upset for some, among other small, but significant drawbacks for some users. Therefore, I am in favor of continued research into improved delivery technologies, improved forms of creatine, and so on. I’m all for it, but as they say, don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. In God we trust, everyone else must show data. Hard data talks, BS walks.

I could randomly take two forms from the list below, say dicreatine malate and creatine ethyl carbonate ester and make dicreatine malate creatine ethyl carbonate*, but would it be superior to CM? Unknown as there would be no data. I could just invent a bunch of unproven claims like others do and sell the stuff… Do companies just invent a form of creatine for no other reason then it sound “high tech”? Hell, one company (BSN) is currently in court over one form they sell, called CEM3 or “Creatine Ethyl Ester Malate” which according to the charges “does not exist and is impossible to manufacture”! As I said, CM is not perfect and I am all for continued research into improved (vs. just different!) forms of creatine and or improved delivery technologies, but companies should do their due diligence on these products and stop with all the hype and CM bashing to sell unproven products.

So, without further delay, here is my current list for the creatine graveyard:

The Creatine Graveyard List:

Creatine ethyl ester (CEE)
creatine pyruvate
creatine taurinate
creatine ethyl ester malate
creatine ethyl carbonate ester
creatine gluconate
creatine malate
dicreatine malate
tricreatine malate
creatine citrate
tricreatine citrate
Kre-Alkalyn
creatine phosphate
creatine alpha-ketoglutarate
creatine-6,8-thioctic Acid-ketoisocaproic Acid Calcium (CREAKIC)
creatine pyroglutamate
“conjugated creatine” (Con-Cret)
magnesium creatine chelate
creatine anhydrous
dicreatine orotate
tricreatine orotate
creatine alpha-amino butyrate
creatine HMB
“titrated creatine”
“creatine serum”
“liquid creatine”

Also:
glycocyamine (precursor)
creatinol-o-phosphate (analog)

* = for the sake of an example. I have no idea if such a form is chemically possible, nor do I care.

Will Brink is the owner of the Brinkzone Blog. Will has over 15 years experience as a respected author, columnist and consultant, to the supplement, fitness, bodybuilding, and weight loss industry and has been extensively published. Will graduated from Harvard University with a concentration in the natural sciences, and is a consultant to major supplement, dairy, and pharmaceutical companies. His often ground breaking articles can be found in publications such as Lets Live, Muscle Media 2000, MuscleMag International, The Life Extension Magazine, Muscle n Fitness, Inside Karate, Exercise For Men Only, Body International, Power, Oxygen, Penthouse, Women’s World and The Townsend Letter For Doctors. Will is the author of the popular e-books, both acommpanied by private members forum access , Bodybuilding Revealeded & Fat Loss Revealed.

Sincerely,
Lewis & Sarah
Publisher - AtoZfitness Total Body Makeover