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.

Cures all that ails!!

Unless you live in a sensory deprivation chamber, you know that we’re awash in news stories and advertisements for food products, drugs, pain remedy potions, supplements of various sorts and all kinds of fitness and health fads. White-lab coated doctors appear on popular TV shows extolling the virtues of antioxidants, fiber, raw foods ionized bracelets, colonic cleanses and more.

We’re often told these products are “clinically proven” or that “Studies show” huge life-changing success when we use these products. But what do these terms mean? Are the hard-to-believe claims possibly true? Which if any of these “sciencey” sounding products are worthwhile, effective or even safe? I’m not a scientist, so what should I believe? (I should add that I’ve probably been convinced more than a few times of the worth of some worthless things.)

In an effort to understand some of this stuff, I’m reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, and I’m learning a lot. He discusses in clear terms some of the strange claims made by practitioners of complimentary alternative medicine (CAM) such as homeopaths and nutritional gurus. We learn about the extraordinarily powerful placebo effect and why this effect is often at the core of alternative treatment methods. We get an in-depth look at the shocking and strange situation surrounding the recent HIV/AIDS denial controversy in South Africa. (This was the conflict in which South African president Thabo Mbeki and his cohorts fully ignored all scientific data regarding treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The result was many thousands of premature deaths due to denial of antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS patients in that country. One man, Mathias Rath, a German vitamin pill peddler, profited tremendously from this situation.) Goldacre also takes the pharmaceutical industry to task for various dubious, dangerous practices and manipulation of data. Bad Science is a look inside all sorts of snake oil.

Thus far I’ve found the chapter on nutritionists particularly interesting. We get some history of nutritional quackery. We learn about a man named John Harvey Kellog. You may recognize his last name. He helped create the cornflake. He sold granola bars, ran a sanatorium where patients were treated with “holistic methods,” advocated colonic cleansing which is popular today (By the way, that’s putting stuff in through a very clearly marked exit.), and he campaigned vigorously against masturbation. (He had some particularly stringent views on incorporating pain into circumcision as a way of inhibiting the enjoyment of sex in boys, and he advocated using carbolic acid on the clitoris to similarly dissuade sexual excitement in girls.)

What you start to realize is that ALL this stuff has been around for a long time. Charlatans making outrageous “sciencey” claims have been with us for decades if not centuries. They claim in one breath that cutting edge science is on their side. Yet when their methods and practices are subjected to truly rigorous scrutiny–and their methods are shot full of big holes–they huff and puff (sometimes they sue) and insist that the medical community is against them. Beware of these people. A lot of them–guys like Dr. Oz, Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra–are very popular and highly respected in some circles including the popular press. They’re entertaining and they deliver very interesting messages. They also run in quite another direction from much of mainstream science.

If we’re looking to summarize the differences between CAM and conventional medicine, the following statement from the site Quackwatch.com says it best:

“Until now, alternative medicine has generally been rejected by medical scientists and educators, and by most practicing physicians. The reasons are many, but the most important reason is the difference in mentality between the alternative practitioners and the medical establishment. The leaders of the establishment believe in the scientific method, and in the rule of evidence, and in the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology upon which the modern view of nature is based. Alternative practitioners either do not seem to care about science or explicitly reject its premises. Their methods are often based on notions totally at odds with science, common sense, and modern conceptions of the structure and the function of the human body. In advancing their claims, they do not appear to recognize the need for objective evidence, asserting that the intuitions and the personal beliefs of patients and healers are all that is needed to validate their methods.”

One statement I found resonated with me, and I think it will help me keep a proper perspective. “There’s a word for alternative medicine that holds up to scientific scrutiny: Medicine.”

Goldacre doesn’t spend all his time bashing CAM, just most of his time. Early in the book he discusses one area where many CAM practitioners outdo their conventional medical counterparts and that’s in listening to the patient. A huge part of a patient’s feeling better relies on the doctor/patient relationship–the doctor’s bedside manner. Many of us have experienced a doctor’s appointment in which we’re rushed through, talked down to, not listened to, and the doc doesn’t do a good job of explaining what’s happening. This does not help us feel better. In contrast, much of the benefit of CAM may lie in the experience of someone taking time to genuinely listen to us, thus calming us and giving us hope that we can feel better.

Bad Science is a fun, snarky read. Goldacre’s criticism of the CAM industry is very direct. At times he’s sarcastic and creatively belittling of alternative medicine. If you’re an advocate of CAM then you might get a little worked up and defensive. If you’re interested in getting a deeper understanding of all the confusing medical and pseudo-medical information around us, please get a copy of Bad Science. You don’t have to be a scientist to understand what Goldacre is saying. For more fun and good information, have a look at Goldacre’s site BadScience.net.

Behavior Change & Healthy Choices One Step at a Time

Working out plus eating right: Feel free to choose only one

In my line of work, I often speak with people who have physique goals (most people want to lose weight). Often these folks are eager to exercise. They like to lift heavy objects and sweat. For them this is fun! When the conversation turns to nutrition though, the mood often changes. These enthusiastic exercisers often express mild to severe dread at confronting their various dietary Darth Vaders.

“Yeah… I know I should eat better. I’ve tried but it’s hard…”

Many a New Year Resolution starts with the idea of getting in shape via “eating better.” But what does it mean to “eat better?” Could be any combination of eat more vegetables and fruit, eat less sugar, eat less processed food, eat less gluten, drink less soda and/or booze, eat more “natural” foods, eat more organic foods, eat less meat… “Eating better” can mean a great many things. There are a lot of choices and it’s tough to pick a place to start. If we try to take on all these changes at once then we’re looking at climbing Mt. Everest. Couple this with efforts to “work out more” and now we’re looking at climbing K2 as well. Typically the individual will try hard for a while, fail and then bum out at their defeat. Gloom and doom at the end of another effort to get in shape.

The problem is, we may not be ready to tackle both of these issues-eating better and exercising–at the same time. We may be ready to exercise but we may plain ol’ not be ready to change our eating habits. We may realize the importance of changing our current behaviors, but trying to change too many things at once may be too difficult. The solution: Pick one. Then at some point in the future–when you decide it’s time–start changing the other.

Find easy success first

With regard to eating, instead of trying to “eat better,” which is very general, can you make one single concrete decision on one of your eating habits? Can you pick one single better thing to eat today than you did yesterday? Can you make a specific choice–just one–that’s better than a previous choice you’ve made?

Ideally, it should be an easy choice to make. (Don’t try to give up your favorite food altogether. That never works.) Just today can you get fruit instead of chips with a sandwich? Instead of drinking three sodas today can you drink only two? Can you have dessert only four times this week instead of five? In other words can you make a very small painless yet definite modification to your behavior?

Psychologically, small but definite victories will give you a feeling of success. And these victories actually matter! They’re small steps but they are steps. Deal with the easy stuff first and you’ll develop truly healthy habits that will stick.

“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.

“High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference. The point is they’re each bad — equally bad, equally poisonous.” – Robert Lustig, MD, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, UC San Francisco

The New York Times Magazine has a remarkably in-depth piece on sugar called Is Sugar Toxic? We get a lot of information on the sweet stuff from the history of sweeteners to the differences between sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup (There seem to be no differences.) to some of the unique physiological effects of sugar. Dr. Robert Lustig of the University of California San Francisco is a source for much of the information of the article. He’s an endocrinologist who recently has focused on preventing obesity in children. He contends that sugar calories are different from other sources of calories, and that sugar is genuinely poisonous to human beings. (You can watch Lustig’s lecture,Sugar: the Bitter Truth on Youtube.)

Buyer beware...

Among the evils ascribed to sugar in the article: obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and atherosclerosis caused by elevated blood triglycerides (fat) which often results in heart disease. This idea that sugar causes blocked arteries is somewhat controversial and runs counter to several decades of “conventional wisdom.” The article also suggest that in fact sugars may play a strong role in developing cancer. For years it’s been dietary fat that’s been the bad guy in the heart disease fight. And to this point, the article does a good job of dissecting the various theories and evidence either in support of and/or against both sugar and fat as the edible evils in our lives. I won’t go into all the fine details here but the discussion should remind us that one theory doesn’t necessarily cancel out another (Could be that both sugar AND dietary fat aren’t that great for us.), and that science is indeed a human endeavor which is subject to human emotion and judgment. The discussion on sugar and cancer is one that I’ve not heard before. There is evidence to suggest that chronically elevated insulin plays a strong role here much as it does with diabetes. Researcher Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School, says:

“I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can, because I believe ultimately it’s something I can do to decrease my risk of cancer.” Cantley put it this way: “Sugar scares me.”

That’s a strong statement by someone with what seems to be a thorough knowledge of his subject. It certainly has me thinking about this stuff more than I have. I love dessert and so does my wife. We devote just one day a week to indulging in something genuinely tasty and fantastic. I think that’s a fairly low level of consumption but now I wonder if sugar is like cocaine or meth. Perhaps there is no such thing as a “moderate” amount of sugar. What is clear to me is that less is best.

First Day on the Clean Program

This post isn’t about power cleans, hang cleans, kettlebell cleans or anything involving a weight of any sort. I’m spending a few days this week trying a dietary cleanse called the Clean Program. It’s typically a 3-week program but I’m only doing it for about four days. My wife is on her final week of the program and she loves the way she feels. I probably wouldn’t have given this thing a shot if she wasn’t a) trying it at all and b) feeling fantastic while doing it.

The idea of Clean is to detoxify the body and give the digestive system a rest. You eat one solid-meal food a day and drink two juices and/or smoothies per day. Clean has you eliminating a variety of foods–even a good number of fruits and vegetables: tomatoes, citrus fruits, soy products, dairy products, eggplant, raw fish, wheat, corn, barley, spelt, kamut, rye, couscous, oats, booze, sugar, and caffeine among other things. There’s also a minimum 12-hour fast between your evening meal and your morning meal. Sounds like a big party right?

Now, I’ve always been skeptical of these things. Sounds like a lot of gimmicky nonsense and shoddy science. That said, I’ve never actually done any research on this process. I do recognize there are health benefits to fasting from time to time and I absolutely understand that even those of us who eat a “healthy” diet are quite likely consuming some junk we shouldn’t be eating. The biggest motivation for my trying this program is what it’s done for my wife. It’s very strong anecdotal evidence that something good might come from it. We’ll see what happens…

Back from DC, Rested & Ready

I had a great time in the DC/NoVA area this past week. (Though the traffic there was bad enough to cause a desperate sort of insanity that simply doesn’t exist here–unless you’re caught up coming back from the slopes I suppose.) I laid off the weights but got in a couple of runs including an excellent track workout with a former client. We went 2×800, 3×200, and 2×100. Running at sea level was nice and wearing the Vibrams on a track was incredible. Can’t wait for further track workouts in those things.

New Eating Pattern

I also finished Marty Gallagher’s Purposeful Primitive and it’s given me some good ideas to play with. I’m going to take some ideas from the Warrior Diet and change up my eating just a bit. I’ll focus my eating on one large main meal in the evening, instead of consuming several small equal-sized meals throughout the day. I may have some fruit in the morning, a salad with protein for lunch, then post-workout I’ll consume a protein/carb drink, and for dinner, it’ll be a massive bunch of clean food: raw vegetables, more fruit, protein and plenty of healthy fats. I want to get stronger and get lean, so I don’t plan on cutting calories, but I’ll consume them in a different pattern. This is similar to changing up a workout. This method of eating is actually ideally suited to holiday feasting. I won’t go into all the hows and whys of the Warrior Diet but I’ll just say it’s an interesting concept and I’m curious to see what happens. I’m not following the Warrior Diet to the T but I’m adapting the general ideas.

New Workout

I’m on a quest to deadlift 500 lbs. at some point in the next few months. I also want to be fully prepared to ski and I want to keep some portion of a running base in place for more spring running. I’m doing a 4-week block. I’ll build in intensity for three weeks then back off the fourth week. I’ll lift three days and probably run twice. Sprint work on the track will be my main running workout. One day of skiing may replace a run day or lifting. It should look something like this:

Day 1: 3 working sets of 3-6 reps; add weight each week
- barbell clean & jerkbarbell high pulls
- barbell deadlift or kettlebell swings
- Romanian deadlift
- one-arm dumbbell row
Day 2: mid-distance run or rest
Day 3: Sprints in the morning then lift later in the day
- Sprints: I’ll start with 1x800m, 2x400m, 2x200m, 4x100m
- Lifting: 4 working sets of 3-6 reps; add weight once I complete 4×6 sets; execute lifts in different order each workout
  - bench press
  - back squat
  - pull-ups
  - hanging knee ups
Day 4: off
Day 5: 5-8 working sets or 1-3 reps
- Deadlift HEAVY: I’ll work up to heavy single sets using 90% or more of my max
- Hanging knee ups

I may need to play around with the sprint day. I want to be fresh and soreness free for sprints. I won’t run them all out. I’ll treat the sprints like my lifts in that I won’t max out every workout but I’ll still work at a high intensity.

Other Info

Post-workout nutrition will be vital. I’ll drink a big protein drink made with organic whole milk and I’ll probably eat an orange or banana. We’ll see what happens. I’m also using creatine daily. Z-Health joint mobility and nerve glides are indispensable daily tools for feeling and moving my best. My old running injuries are 99% gone. Finally, I’ve been making use of my health club’s hot tub after workouts and I’m loving it!

Denver Fitness Journal

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

Nutrition

Questions About Supplements

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

“Bad Science” is a good read.

Behavior Change & Healthy Choices One Step at a Time

Snacking & Weight Loss Psychology

Gluten & Pain

Follow-up to Is Sugar Toxic?

Must Read: Is Sugar Toxic?

First Day on the Clean Program

Back from DC, Rested & Ready