The Mathematics of Obesity

” … the conventional wisdom of 3,500 calories less is what it takes to lose a pound of weight is wrong. The body changes as you lose. Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one.”

– Dr. Carson C. Chow, MIT mathematician

The New York Times Science section has a fairly interesting conversation with Dr. Carson Chow, an MIT-trained mathematician who works for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The article is titled A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity. He’s worked with other researchers in applying a mathematical model to help describe and answer questions related to our national obesity epidemic. Several key findings are important to note in addition to the quote at the top of this page:

Also, there’s a time constant that’s an important factor in weight loss. That’s because if you reduce your caloric intake, after a while, your body reaches equilibrium. It actually takes about three years for a dieter to reach their new “steady state.” Our model predicts that if you eat 100 calories fewer a day, in three years you will, on average, lose 10 pounds — if you don’t cheat.

Another finding: Huge variations in your daily food intake will not cause variations in weight, as long as your average food intake over a year is about the same. This is because a person’s body will respond slowly to the food intake.

Dr. Chow was hired to answer the question of what caused the obesity epidemic. He suggests that food overproduction is the culprit. And if we have too much food then we wind up eating too much food. He also says that changing our weight takes a very long time. He says:

Beginning in the 1970s, there was a change in national agricultural policy. Instead of the government paying farmers not to engage in full production, as was the practice, they were encouraged to grow as much food as they could. At the same time, technological changes and the “green revolution” made our farms much more productive. The price of food plummeted, while the number of calories available to the average American grew by about 1,000 a day.

Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However, the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase in weight.

Dr. Chow was asked about practical advice. His answer:

One of the things the numbers have shown us is that weight change, up or down, takes a very, very long time. All diets work. But the reaction time is really slow: on the order of a year.

People don’t wait long enough to see what they are going to stabilize at. So if you drop weight and return to your old eating habits, the time it takes to crawl back to your old weight is something like three years. To help people understand this better, we’ve posted an interactive version of our model at bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov. People can plug in their information and learn how much they’ll need to reduce their intake and increase their activity to lose. It will also give them a rough sense of how much time it will take to reach the goal. Applied mathematics in action!

Dr. Chow’s final words regarding obesity may come as dreary news for people trying to lose weight and keep it off. He says, “It’s so easy for someone to go out and eat 6,000 calories a day. There’s no magic bullet on this. You simply have to cut calories and be vigilant for the rest of your life.”

That is a very honest observation from a well-trained scientist. Remember that the next time you see an ad for some sure-fire trendy diet or supplement.

Less Sleep = More Eat

A recent study from the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University indicates that lack of sleep contributes to overeating and thus obesity. Here is the conclusion:

The findings of this study link restricted sleep and susceptibility to food stimuli and are consistent with the notion that reduced sleep may lead to greater propensity to overeat.

What’s happening here? Researchers found that, “Overall neuronal activity in response to food stimuli was greater after restricted sleep than after habitual sleep. In addition, a relative increase in brain activity in areas associated with reward… in response to food stimuli, was observed.”

So it seems that sleep restriction caused subjects to like food more. They found it more rewarding. Weird! The take home message is obvious: Get some sleep!

In this study subjects either slept about nine hours or were restricted to only four hours. How much sleep should you get? Ideal sleep time may vary from person to person. WebMD says, “Most adults need seven to eight hours a night for the best amount of sleep, although some people may need as few as five hours or as many as 10 hours of sleep each day.” If you’re a hard-training athlete then you probably need to be on the high side of those numbers.

Retraction on the last article

My previous post, the Skinny on Fat, contained some information regarding fat and cholesterol from Dr. Joe Mercola. Someone contacted me regarding him and some of his very questionable practices and beliefs. Among other things, he’s been ordered by the FDA to stop some illegal claims for his products. If nothing else, some of his business practices are on the shady side. Beyond that, he’s an advocate of homeopathy, which is non-scientific quackery at its finest. Most disturbingly, he has participated in a “vaccine awareness” public service announcement. He helps play up unfounded fears of vaccines which no one in the serious scientific community find plausible. For this reason I’m deleting the section of my last article in which he’s referenced.

The Skinny on Fat

History

I call this portrait "Health Food."

I grew up in the years of the low-fat craze. We were told that reducing dietary fat and cholesterol—particularly animal fat—was the best way to lose weight and improve our health. We saw wide scale proliferation of fat-free and reduced-fat food products. These products were then stuffed with sugar and weird chemicals that were and are very detrimental to our health—but hey!!—there wasn’t any fat. Ironically, this low-fat era saw an exponential expansion of American’s waistlines and all the associated chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Now we’re seeing that a lot of our dietary guidelines were way off the mark. Turns out in fact that a lot of those guidelines were based on very shaky evidence and that researchers of the time were not in agreement on the data. A very thorough look at this evolution of our dietary guidelines can be found at the City Journal in an article titled The Washington Diet. Here’s an excerpt:

“As science writer Gary Taubes notes in Good Calories, Bad Calories, Senator George McGovern’s Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, in coming up with its diet plan, had to choose among very different nutritional regimes that scientists and doctors were studying as potentially beneficial to those at risk for heart disease. Settling on the unproven theory that cholesterol was behind heart disease, the committee issued its guidelines in 1977, urging Americans to reduce the fat that they consumed from 40 percent to 30 percent of their daily calories, principally by eating less meat and fewer dairy products. The committee also advised raising carbohydrate intake to 60 percent of one’s calories and slashing one’s intake of cholesterol by a quarter.

Some of the country’s leading researchers spoke out against the guidelines and against population-wide dietary recommendations in general. Edward Ahrens, an expert in the chemistry of fatty substances at Rockefeller University, characterized the guidelines as ‘simplistic and a promoter of false hopes’ and complained that they treated the population as ‘a homogeneous group of [laboratory] rats while ignoring the wide variation’ in individual diet and blood chemistry. The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences released its own dietary suggestions, which saw ‘no reason for the average healthy American to restrict consumption of cholesterol, or reduce fat intake,’ and just encouraged people to keep their weight within a normal range.”

Practical information

The very strong and very thoughtful lads at T-Nation.com give us a simple and worthwhile article on fat titled Fats Made Simple. This article goes into the various attributes of different fats and oils, which are best to cook with, which ones are best used as a topping, and which ones to avoid altogether. The issue of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids is discussed. I won’t go into every detail but here are some key points from the article:

— Use saturated fats for cooking. These are less likely to become rancid and toxic during the cooking process.

— Use unrefined oils. DON’T use refined oils.

The author’s top 6 oils are:

–red palm

— coconut

— macadamia nut

— extra virgin olive

— hemp seed

— walnut

AVOID THESE OILS:

— safflower

— sunflower

— canola

— corn

— sesame

— peanut

— pistachio

— pumpkin

— soybean
(Next time you’re looking at ingredient labels, see if you spot any of these oils–particularly corn, canola and soybean. Chances are you’ll find at least one if not several. They’re in everything!)

An eating plan

The Perfect Health Diet is an example of a a diet that’s high in healthy fat. It was developed by two scientists who wanted to address some of their chronic health issues. This plan has adherents eating about 2/3 plant foods and 1/3 animal-based food. Besides a high fat content, the diet is further characterized by complete avoidance of sugar and cereal grains such as wheat, corn and oats; this due to their inflammatory nature. (If you cut out the processed food then you’ll cut out a lot of sugar, wheat, corn etc). Legumes such as soy and peanuts are also to be avoided as well. Here are more details of the diet.

Please take note, dietary animal fat should come from free-range grass-fed sources. Most of the mass-produced grocery store meat is chock full of garbage such as added hormones and antibiotics. Plus the animals are fed stuff they’re not meant to eat.

I’m currently on this eating program. Admittedly, I haven’t followed it 100% but I’m working in that direction. I definitely feel more energetic having reduced my grain intake. I realize when I do consume grain, I tend to get a bit bloated. The odd thing is eating and really enjoying a lot of foods that for years I thought were really bad for me: butter, bacon, whole eggs, chicken with the skin on it, organ meats. I’m quite interested in sticking with this plan, further “perfecting” my eating, and seeing where it takes me.

“Hopefully now you understand that damage and soreness are not necessarily bad things, but instead are essential triggers for the adaptations we all seek to improve performance.”
– Steve Magness, Running Times

The previous post on supplements got me thinking about various articles I’ve read recently on the possible negative effect that antioxidants may have on endurance training. Here is some information to consider.

Alex Hutchinson writes a blog called Sweat Science. He also writes a column called Jockolgy for the Toronto Globe and Mail and he’s written articles for the New York Times, Runner’s World and Popular Mechanics. Beyond that he’s your ordinary, every day physicist and elite-level distance runner. Seems like a smart guy to me. I listen to what he has to say.

He recently wrote a piece titled The case against antioxidant vitamin supplements. It’s of a similar theme as an earlier post called Does Vitamin C block gains from training? Both posts suggest the idea that supplementing with antioxidants may inhibit the training effects we want from strenuous workouts. This may seem counter to what many of us have been told.

Science tells us that antioxidants protect us from cellular damage done by free radicals. Free radicals are produced by strenuous exercise. So recent conventional wisdom says that we can protect our bodies by taking antioxidant supplements such as Vitamins C and E.

New research though is telling us that our supplementation may be interfering with the cycle of stress and adaptation that a workout provides. Hutchinson refers to research in the latest issue of Sports Medicine that supports this concept. He cites the following (The ROS mentioned are free radicals.):

“The traditional theory goes like this: strenuous exercise produces “reactive oxygen species” (ROS), which cause damage to cells and DNA in the body. Taking antioxidant supplements like vitamins C and E helps to neutralize the ROS, allowing the body to recover more quickly from workouts.”

“The new theory, in contrast, goes like this: strenuous exercise produces ROS, which signal to the body that it needs to adapt to this new training stress by becoming stronger and more efficient. Taking antioxidant supplements neutralizes the ROS, which means the body doesn’t receive the same signals telling it to adapt, so you make smaller gains in strength and endurance from your training.”

“The new paper comes down firmly on the side of the latter view:”

“The aim of this review is to present and discuss 23 studies that have shown that antioxidant supplementation interferes with exercise training-induced adaptations. The main findings of these studies are that, in certain situations, loading the cell with high doses of antioxidants leads to a blunting of the positive effects of exercise training and interferes with important [reactive oxygen species]-mediated physiological processes, such as vasodilation and insulin signalling.”

The researchers conclude with the following statement:

“We recommend that an adequate intake of vitamins and minerals through a varied and balanced diet remains the best approach to maintain the optimal antioxidant status in exercising individuals.”

All of these ideas and observations are similar to the views expressed by exercise scientist and running coach Steve Magness in his article When Damage is a Good Thing in Running Times. His article discusses not only antioxidant intake but also ice baths, anti-inflammatories, and carbohydrate drinks. If you’re an endurance athlete then you should definitely read the article. Magness sums up things well with the following statement:

“Hopefully now you understand that damage and soreness are not necessarily bad things, but instead are essential triggers for the adaptations we all seek to improve performance. The goal should not necessarily be to minimize them automatically, but instead to work with them–this means allowing for enough damage to take place to initiate adaptation and then allowing for the body to go through its natural recovery response before trying to aid recovery. The goal should be to work with the body, not against it. So keep in mind the goal of each training session and the goal of whatever recovery methods you use, and plan things accordingly so your recovery efforts help you to improve performance, not hinder it.”

Incidentally, all of this has caused me to rethink my recovery strategies.

Questions About Supplements

Dietary supplements are huge business in this country. Over half of Americans take some sort of supplement such as a multivitamin, calcium, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, chromium, iron, zinc, and/or any number of various such nutrients. Consumers spent $26.7 billion on supplements in 2009. We take supplements for weight loss, bone health, cardiovascular health, athletic performance; and we may take them in order to avoid prescription medicine. Recent research may make you reevaluate your view of supplements.

Vitamin E and prostate cancer

First, some information from an article in the Atlantic called Are Supplements Killing You? The article looks at two studies. The SELECT study is the first one discussed. The results of the trial were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The aim of the study was to see if Vitamin E and/or selenium supplementation offered a protective effect from prostate cancer. The study followed 35,000 men aged 50 and up split into three groups: one group took Vitamin E, one group took selenium, one group took both. Participants were tracked from 2001 to 2008. The study was stopped in 2008 because rather than finding a protective effect, there were indications that cancer risks were going up. The pertinent details are these; emphasis is mine:

“The recently published article included results as of July 2011. It found an increase in new prostate cancers among all three groups taking supplements, with the increase only significant in the vitamin E group. That group showed a 17 percent increase in the rate of prostate cancer compared to the placebo group.“

An unclear picture for women and supplements

The Atlantic article also discusses the Iowa Women’s Health Study, which has generated some controversy. This study looked at the effect of taking vitamin and mineral supplements on mortality on nearly 39,000 U.S. women aged 55 to 69 and used information collected from 1986 through 2008

At the start of the study, 66% of the study subjects reported using at least one supplement. This increased to 85% in 2004, with 27 percent reporting use of four or more supplements.

The study examined the effect of taking 14 individual supplements and also a multivitamin. The researchers concluded that women who took any of six supplements or a multivitamin had a slightly higher risk of death over the study period:

Multivitamins were associated with a 2.4 percent higher risk of earlier death
Vitamin B6 gave a 4.1 percent higher risk
Folic acid gave a 5.9 percent higher risk
Iron gave a 3.9 percent higher risk
Magnesium gave a 3.6 percent higher risk
Zinc gave a 3 percent higher risk
Copper gave an 18 percent higher risk
Calcium gave a 3.8 percent lower risk of death

Do the results surprise you? They surprised a lot of other scientists as well. The controversy centers around the statistical methods used to analyze the data. Though I would love to be able to explain the fine details of this issue to you, I definitely cannot do it. (Sometimes I need a calculator to count my fingers and toes.) Read the Atlantic article to learn more or you can hop over to the Perfect Health Diet site and see a very detailed breakdown and critique of the study. If you scroll down just past the picture of the duckling trying to eat a fly, you’ll find it. (The Perfect Health Diet is a pretty interesting concept. Learn more about it here.)

One of the key elements here is that it’s an observational study, not an intervention study. That means the researchers simply observed the subjects. They didn’t try to change their behavior. So while the data may seem to suggest that taking these supplements caused early death, it would be a mistake to draw that conclusion. (One possibility is that some of the women were ill and they started taking supplements; they then died from the illness.) The article also states, “In general, when an effect is present in some statistical models and absent in others, it means that if the effect actually exists, it’s a small one.”

A closing comment was made by Robert M. Russell, M.D., special expert to the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at NIH and former senior scientist and director of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University:

“In general, what we have learned from an accumulating database from both observational epidemiology and interventional studies is that the vitamin and minerals are safe to take in RDA amounts (as are contained in most over the counter multivitamin-multimineral preparations). Further, we have learned that taking large amounts of single nutrients or nutrient combinations often lead to chronic undesirable toxic effects with implications for chronic disease such as cancer. We have seen this with beta-carotene with a stimulation of lung cancer at high doses, and now we are seeing a similar picture with high dose vitamin E vis-a-vis prostate cancer.”

“So what is the best advice for the public? Stick to a varied diet, if you want to take supplements, take a multivitamin-multimineral that has RDA amounts. Don’t jump on the silver bullet of the day single nutrient band-wagon until there is enough evidence for both efficacy as well as long term safety. That said, in order to get RDA amounts of calcium and vitamin D, a single nutrient supplement may be necessary for some people. Following the nutrient guidance of our National Academies of Science is my best advice.”

So it seems that optimal health can be had largely by eating the right foods. Focusing on the individual nutrients doesn’t seem wise. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any miracle supplement out there. The miracle is the interaction between the thousands of compounds found in our food. If we go beyond our needs and add more of a particular nutrient then we may have trouble.

Stuff to Read: Weightlifiting vs. Powerlifting, Hormones & Weight Loss

Powerlifting vs. Weightlifting

To a lot of people the terms “weightlifting” and “powerlifting” may sound synonymous. I assure you they are quite different activities. Both sports require the lifting of barbells with lots of weight attached, but the similarities stop there. (As an example, we can start with the highly ironic term “powerlifting.” In fact, powerlifting features almost no power whatsoever. Weightlifting on the other hand features lots of power. You had no idea did you?) For a very thorough and informative look at the two different activities–and to figure out which best enhances athletic performance–check out this article from TNation.com titled Weightlifting vs. Powerlifting: Which is Right for You?

Hormones and the Difficulty of Weight Loss

Losing weight and keeping it off is typically a very difficult task for a lot of people. The idea that it’s simply an issue of willpower is simply false nonsense. (Look here, here, here, here and here for previous posts on the issue.) Now there’s another study and another article to add to the pile of knowledge on obesity and weight loss. Why Dieters Can’t Keep the Weight Off is an article from Time Magazine that discusses recently published research from the New England Journal of Medicine. It goes into the issue of various hormones that essentially tell us we’re hungry. The levels of these hormones rise in people who are losing weight. Further, these same hormones tend to stay elevated post weight loss. The practical effect is that weight loss is difficult to achieve and maintain. It’s definitely not just an issue of willpower. Read the article for more detail.

“The average American now consumes about 2,375 calories per day, about a third more than in the ’70s.” – Time Magazine

Snacking

Two articles may help you understand why so many of us are overweight and why it’s tough to lose the fat. First, Time Magazine gives us Snack Attack! Americans Are Eating More Between Meals. The information here comes from a recent study on Americans’ eating habits over the past 30 years. Among the findings:

“Analyzing data from four nutritional surveys conducted between 1977 and 2006 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study found that Americans went from eating an average 3.8 meals and snacks a day to 4.9 a day over the last three decades — a 29% increase. The average American now consumes about 2,375 calories per day, about a third more than in the ’70s.”

A lot of this makes sense. Look at our opportunities to eat (another factor examined in the study). We’ve had food in the grocery store checkout for years but now we’ve got food at the Bed Bath & Beyond! I can get candy at Home Depot! I can remember when gas stations had a gumball machine and a cigarette machines–and that was it. Now the average gas station is packed to the gills with weird, low-nutrition/high calorie snack food. Garbage is everywhere and we’re eating it.

Your Brain on Weight Loss

The Huffington Post gives us Weight Loss Psychology: Why Your Brain Might Be Holding You Back. I love this stuff because I’m fascinated by brain function especially at it pertains to exercise. Anyone who’s tried to lose weight has discovered several things. First, everyone knows how to do it: Eat less. Exercise more. Easy? No way! The other thing we’ve all learned is that though weight loss is easy in concept, it’s diabolically difficult to pull off. There’s way more than a simple desire to lose weight. Our short-term pleasure typically wins out over our long-term healthy goals. I like this description of the struggle:

“What drives our behavior is not logic but brain biochemistry, habits and addiction, states of consciousness and what we see people around us doing. We are emotional beings with the ability to rationalize — not rational beings with emotions. If we are stressed, depressed or addicted, no matter how good the advice we are given, chances are that we will not be able to act on it. The more primitive, emotional brain generally has precedence over the newer, more rational brain.”

The article also gives suggestions to help address weight loss:

1.) Focus on a change of heart, not a change of mind. Losing weight through changing what and how much you eat doesn’t happen because you rationally decide to lose weight. You have to have a change of heart; that is, you must get in touch with your deepest, heartfelt desires.Your motivation may not be positive. Indeed, it may stem from a fear of loss. For example, you may not want to get sick. Or you may not want to be ostracized. To get in touch with your motivation, think about the negative consequences of not changing as well as the positive ones. Getting fit must become a priority and your life must be organized accordingly. Nobody can change you but you, and once you’ve made the changes, you need to stay focused. Successful individuals keep their motivation in the forefront of their minds all the time.

2.) Practice self-discipline. Self-control is a muscle that, like other muscles, needs exercise and strengthening. Change doesn’t happen because you want it to happen. Each time you resist temptation, you are developing greater self-control. Success breeds success. Facing down temptations builds strength for future decision moments. Some of my clients throw away their favorite food as a symbolic act that shows they have control over the food and not the other way round.

Self-discipline is required for behavior change, but does that mean that the lack of self-discipline causes obesity? No. That would be like saying aspirin helps a headache go away, so headaches are caused by a lack of aspirin — which is nonsense!

3.) Eliminate or reduce sugary, fat-laden foods. Such foods create physical changes at a cellular level that alter how our brains and bodies react. When analyzing your level of addiction, consider both physical dependence (changes at the cellular level) and psychological dependence (the habitual repetition of a behavior in an attempt to satisfy an emotional need). For example, how often do you use a sugary treat to lift your spirits?

What is often misunderstood is that these dependences exist on a continuum. You can be mildly, moderately or severely dependent, and the degree of dependence determines how difficult it will be to change.

4.) Make history your teacher, not your jailer. You can learn from your mistakes. Instead of [beating yourself up] when you fail to keep your promises to yourself, seek to gain self-knowledge so you won’t repeat the error. No one is perfect. Be sure to acknowledge what you are doing right, not just what isn’t working.

5.) Surround yourself with friends, family and colleagues who will support your effort. Getting fit and losing weight absolutely require others. Although you alone can make the changes you need to make, you can’t make the changes alone. Not only in terms of eating, but in all areas of our lives, we are much more influenced by other people than we imagine. One of the most potent forces for positive change is the emotional support of the individuals who surround you.

You must, however, ask for the support you need. Don’t assume that others know what would be most helpful to you. Similarly, you need to avoid those people who aren’t on the same page as you. Social pressure can work for you or against you. Hang out with the right people.

Several Sources of Gluten: Top: High-gluten wheat flour. Right: European spelt. Bottom: Barley. Left: Rolled rye flakes.

Gluten and ailments related to gluten such as celiac disease and gluten sensitivity have received a lot of press over recent years. It seems that more and more people are experiencing some sort of adverse reaction to gluten. Symptoms vary from mild to severe and may include various digestive issues, breathing issues, skin irritation, joint pain, and lethargy.

Recently I’ve been experimenting with getting the gluten out of my diet. I believe cutting gluten gluten has played a strong role in reducing in my various aches and pains, particularly my Achilles and heel pain. Are You Too Sensitive? is a recent article in Outside Magazine that provides some anecdotal evidence to support my observations.

As I mentioned at the start, gluten seems to cause some degree of distress and inflammation in a good number of people. This may not rise to the level of severe illness but it may be perceived as a threat by the nervous system. So now we’ve got dietary stress. Let’s add that to any number of the other stresses we have including job stress, money stress, or even the normally good stress of exercise. Maybe we’re not sleeping all that well–oh and our seasonal allergies are getting to us. At some point all this stress builds and the nervous system senses a building threat. We’ve got a threshold below which we don’t feel pain. Once our stress hits that threshold, things change. The nervous system which is always looking out for our best interest (survival) wants us to reduce this threat level. The result may be pain–an action signal–that will alert you to reduce your stress. And what better way to get our attention than via a nice efficient pathway such as our old back pain, knee pain or foot pain?

And gluten is everywhere! Bread, pasta, anything with malt or barley like beer, pancakes, pastries… Gluten is often found in sauces, ketchup, marinades, soy sauce and ice cream. It’s often found in processed meat. (Have a look here for a big long list of gluten-containing products.) So we’re swimming in gluten. While this stuff may not be so bad in small amounts, if we’re constantly consuming it then it may build to a toxic level. This chronically elevated gluten may well then contribute to chronic pain.

In addition to reducing my heel and Achilles pain, I believe getting the gluten out has helped me recover after tough workouts and bike rides. I noticed this maybe a week or so after eliminating gluten. Typically it was easy for me to either lift, ride or run to the point that I’d be sore to some degree for a couple of days. The result was my next workout would be inhibited. Now I can say with certainty that I’m simply not as sore as I used to be. This observation is echoed in the Outside Magazine article:

“That’s old news to Robby Ketchell, the director of sports science for the Garmin-Cervélo pro cycling team. Since 2008, riders have experienced improved post-ride recoveries, which Ketchell attributes to the team’s gluten-free diet. ‘When our guys ride, they’re tearing muscle fibers, and that creates inflammation in their bodies,’ says Ketchell. ‘We need to get rid of that inflammation so they can ride strong the next day. The last thing we want is something that causes more inflammation.'”

So if you’re struggling with chronic pain and you’ve tried many methods to address it, addressing your nutrition–and particularly your consumption of gluten–may be a way to move forward.

Follow-up to Is Sugar Toxic?

If you found the previous post interesting then you should read the following articles from the L.A. Times. Sugar: The toxicity question and what to do about it cites the NY Times article on sugar and discusses the issue further. Also from the L.A. Times is Food technology has been bad for human health since long before the invention of high-fructose corn syrup. Bottom line, modern food technology and refinement aren’t doing the human race much good. If it ain’t pulled off of a tree our out of the ground, or if it wasn’t recently running or swimming free, then you should reconsider eating it.

Denver Fitness Journal

All Things Health and Fitness by Kyle Norman, MS, CSCS, FMS, RRCA Running Coach

Nutrition