Protein Shakes and Post Work-out Nutrition

A lot of you guys have asked me about protein shakes.  Are they ok?  When should I drink them?  Are they ok to drink in place of a meal?  Well this topic gets super complex and slightly confusing, but I’m going to try my best to break this down caveman style.

Protein shakes can be a great tool for improving performance and recovery, but they are just that a tool.  One to be used in the right situation and at the right time.  Protein shakes, in my opinion, should only be used after a workout, and should never be used as a meal replacement.  Why? Protein shakes, while they do supply protein supply something else: Insulin.  Just like any other dairy derivative, protein shakes have a fairly high insulin response.  Here’s where that causes a problem, insulin can shut off glucagon production, which is one of the body’s natural responses to the ingestion of delicious little critters (big critters too). The large insulin spike and low glucagon production is exactly what we don’t want from most meals and is why we try not to eat nutrient light carb dense foods.  Using protein shakes as meal replacements can lend itself to the same kind of insulin resistance that high carb neolithic diets can.  Now post workout an increased insulin response can aid recovery and increase performance, BUT only in those who are already insulin sensitive.  Those of you out there who are still struggling with insulin resistance can throw a huge monkey wrench into your progress by consistently continuing to spike your insulin with dairy derivative.

Let’s look at it this way. What is cheaper per pound, a delicious hunk of steak and some yams or a shaker bottle of liquid protein?  For that matter, what’s tastier?  Any of you out there that said the protein shakes are tastier need to a) learn to cook b) get kicked in the shin.

Now here’s where it gets to be kind of a pain in the ass.  If you think you are still struggling with insulin resistance, and are taking some shakes (post work-out only) but are still seeing good progress in performance and leaning out, I would continue on the path you are on and ride it till the wheels fall off.  When you stop progressing we can reassess and see if removing these shakes could do some good.  I say this because all too often people get greedy for progress, and in my opinion if you are consistently progressing towards your goals at a good rate you shouldn’t mess with what you are doing till that method stops working.  Now if you are still struggling with insulin resistance, and you are considering using protein shakes, STOP, and eat something that at one point (to paraphrase Robb Wolf) had eyes, a face, and a mother.

Don’t get me wrong, protein shakes have their place, and can be a damned valuable resource for training if you use them properly.  So here’s a short little guide to starting protein shake use:

1.       Are you as lean as you want to be? Or Are you Insulin sensitive?

2.       Only use them post workout

3.       NEVER USE THEM AS MEAL REPLACEMENTS!!!

4.       Try and mix them with coconut milk (cartons) or water

5.       Try not to add a whole bunch of fruit to it

The large insulin spike and low glucagon production is exactly what we don’t want from most meals and is why we try not to eat nutrient light carb dense foods

Since we are talking about something that is supposed to be used only post-workout we might as well touch on other aspects of post workout nutrition.  Now this will change from workout to workout and from person to person, so you’re going to have to use a little bit of brain power (derived from the consumption of delicious animals) to figure out what works best for you.  These are just a few guidelines that I have found in my studies and work well for most people.

I have found that the tougher the metcon (WODs) the more one will need to refuel from that activity to prepare for your next physical effort.  For Crossfit activities, a great post workout meal is a fairly large hunk of meaty goodness and a nice whack of carbs.  Any ol’ hunk of meat will do, but for the carbs I find that a delicious yam or sweet potato works really well for refueling after particularly taxing efforts.  Also getting in a little caffeine post workout has been shown to help recovery as well, now I don’t think this is necessary but its something you can tinker with to see if it works for you.

Now for post lifting heavy things, I find that refueling with a large whack of protein in the form of dead animal works really well, a little less carbohydrate is needed here, so throwing down some spinach or any other veggie works well.  If you are feeling particularly hungry throw down some fats to quench your ravenous hunger.

The last aspect I will touch on for post workout nutrition is for those of you who are using protein shakes, I recommend eating REAL food (meat and yams) about an hour or so after downing your liquid fuel.  I find that it helps with recovery and is 100% delicious and satiating.

Post questions or arguments to comments.

Diet Soda's Dirty Little Secret: O Calories- Infinite Problems.

A question was posed to me that on first sight seemed like it was going to be a really simple one to answer, but as I got into it it grew to be more and more complicated.  The question was about diet soda.  Are they OK to drink occasionally?  What harm can they really do since they are 0 calorie and have no actual sugar in them?  The answer is A LOT!  Now that being said will drinking a diet Coke kill you? Maybe-maybe not.  It depends on who you are and what you are trying to achieve.  In the last post we discussed how soda and diet sodas can prevent calcium absorption, so we'll leave that one alone and strictly talk about the effect artificial sweeteners and diet soda have on the rest of you.
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence out there showing that people who are eating severely low calorie diets still don't lose weight or even gain weight when they consume large quantities of artificial sweeteners in diet sodas.  This is strange because a severe enough caloric deficit should, regardless of food quality, eventually causes weight-loss.  So whats the problem here?  What are artificial sweeteners?
Well without getting to nerdy (I mean if you want me to all you have to do is ask nicely and compliment my eyes and I will), most artificial sweeteners are a smart people tricky way of getting us to taste sweetness without the glucose/fructose that should go along with it.  In some that means taking molecules of sugar and changing them ever so slightly so that our bodies won't recognize them.   Others are modifications of amino acids made to trigger a sweet taste in your mouth.   One of them is a molecule of sucrose with a chlorine attached to it (yes you are consuming chlorine  Either way this causes problems down the yellow brick road that is your hormonal signaling for your digestive system.
These artificial sweeteners make your tongue the boy who cries wolf.  Your tongue tastes sweet so it yells down, "Help! We got some glucose coming in!".  Your body responds by producing insulin to take care of the excess blood sugar it thinks is coming in.  Here is where the shit can hit the fan because there isn't going to be any more raise in blood sugar.  So whats all that rowdy insulin suppose to do?  It does it's job and yanks sugar out of the blood, that your body actual needs to stay there.  This causes your body to start signaling for more sugar/food to replace the stuff it mistakenly took out. This causes you get hungry again or start craving another diet soda.  It really is a great market these diet soda people have, drinking one makes your crave another which makes you crave another.  Sounds like a drug addiction doesn't it? (PSSSTTT That's cause it is).  This is the reason why most people find these things so hard to stop drinking.  They are in fact addictive.  Here's a nice little quote from a super smart guy named Kurt Harris MD of PaNu blog :

"There is some evidence there may be a physiologically significant insulin response with artificial sweeteners just due to the sweet taste- even if small, the corresponding drop in blood glucose may be exaggerated by the fact no glucose is consumed - when blood glucose drops, other hormones rise in response, stimulating your appetite. Of course insulin itself drives fat storage and decreases insulin sensitivity, so there may be direct unhealthy effects as well."

http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/17/what-about-diet-soda.html

And this leads to another problem with these sneaky sweeteners.  Your body can't use all the insulin produced so now you have a bunch of free floating insulin.  This is bad. This is one of the hypotheses as to the cause of insulin resistance.  This is one of the main and most prevalent causes of metabolic syndrome.  This explains why those people on severely low calorie diets still can't lose weight and can continue to gain weight.
Here's a nice little study to read if you want to get down and nerdy with me:  Whats interesting is that in the subjects with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disorder, 80% of them consumed excessive amounts of soft drinks- 40% of those soft drinks being Diet.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661299/
Back to the original question:  Can I drink diet soda every once in a while?  I would say try not to, especially if you are overtly insulin resistant and are in the process of trying to lean out to improve performance.  If you are as lean as you want to be, fat adapted, not eating any grains, legumes, or dairy, and its only once in a very long while (that doesn't mean weekly) when you want to get down with your bad self and have a rum and diet (or just have a NorCal Margarita), go for it.  Enjoy life but understand the problems that come along with drinking artificial sweeteners.
I tried to keep it as painlessly nerdy as I possibly could guys, even though I'm pretty sure most of you guys will now start reading this as a sleep aid every night, but I hope this helps.  And as always if you cannot pronounce whats in it don't eat it.

The Paleo Diet, Calcium, and Bone Health: The Myth of Dairy

A lot of people, when switching over to eating a Paleo diet, are concerned with a decrease in their overall calcium intake with the elimination of dairy.  This would be a valid concern if A) Veggies didn't provide just as much if not more calcium than dairy and B) Overall calcium intake was the only thing that mattered for bone health.

Calcium is one of the most abundant minerals in our diet and in the US we consume more of it than almost anywhere else in the world, but somehow we also have one of the highest rates of Bone Demineralization (Osteoporosis) in the world.  This should confuse you because we have always been told that we need more calcium and calcium is "King" if you want strong bones.  Remember the commercials- "Milk: It does a body good".  Well I hate to say it but they neglected to mention a few other things that are just as important.  It is true that milk has a good amount of calcium in each serving, however there are more factors involved with bone health than just overall calcium intake.

To understand why drinking an absurd amount of milk might not be the best way to increase bone health, you have to understand a few things.

1. We don't just consume calcium, we also excrete it.
2. When food is eaten, the kidneys determines whether it is an acid(acidic) or a base(alkaline).
3. Our body doesn't like being acidic.
4. The are other minerals and hormones involved with maintaining bone health.
5. Certain things can block calcium absorption and retention.

So what does all that mean in terms of the Paleo Diet, calcium intake, and bone health.  Well hold on to your butts, because here we go.

The pH balance of your body doesn't like being acidic, so when you consume a bunch of acidic foods, i.e. fatty meats, processed meats, hard cheeses, grains, legumes, and (believe it or not) dairies,  your body tries to find a way to bring you back into a more alkaline state, back to the pH balance it loves.  The easiest way and the most abundant source for doing this is taking the calcium salts from your bones and shoving them into your bloodstream.  They are then sent to your kidneys and you literally piss away your calcium and bone health.  To keep this from happening you would need to keep your body at the pH it yearns for.  How could someone accomplish such an impossible feet?  It may surprise you, but by eating lots of yummy veggies and fruit, which also are LOADED with calcium and magnesium (I'll explain why that's important in a bit) you can easily keep your body at the pH it thrives at.  The truth is by relying on dairy products for calcium you are forcing your body to take in WAY more calcium than necessary because the acid load of dairy is just going to turn around and make you pee the calcium right out.  If you add in the fact that most people eat grains, legumes, and highly processed and fatty meats along side of dairies, you are basically telling your body that you hate your bones.  And that's not nice because your bones have always been super supportive of you. (ha anatomy jokes are awesome)

Now if we are peeing out a lot of the calcium we take in, I think the best way to obtain better bone health is to concentrate on how to keep calcium in our bodies and out of our tinkles.  On average we only absorb about 10% of the calcium we ingest (1), so figuring out way to maximize your body's use and retention of calcium might be a better idea than just continually dumping more in just to be excreted, which can cause problems down the road, i.e. calcium kidney stones, age-related muscle wasting, hypertension, stroke, asthma and exercise-induced asthma (2).  So the question is not "Are you getting enough calcium?" it's "Are you absorbing and retaining as much calcium as you need from what you ingest".  So here is a shortish list of things that effect calcium absorption and retention that I found, modified, and shortened for your benefit from http://paleodiet.com/losspts.txt :

1.   Parathyroid hormone moves calcium from bone to bloodstream and signals kidneys to conserve calcium and other minerals from the urine.  It also signals kidneys to produce calcitriol, which is the hormonally active form of Vitamin D, which among other functions signals the small intestine to absorb more calcium, which also reduces the loss of calcium in the urine.
   
2.   Calcitonin, which is secreted by the thyroid and increases bone mineralization, and decreases the rate at which the bone is broken down.  Calcitonin production is increased by impact stress on the bones (in other words doing things that oppose gravity), i.e. walking, jogging, lifting, etc.  This leads to increased deposition of calcium in the bones.  Important note swimming and cycling don’t seem to have the same effect on calcitonin production.
3.   Phytic Acids from grains.  It is an acid that binds to a variety of minerals during digestion including calcium,that forms insoluble salts (phytates) that are excreted from the body.  This obviously is bad because it prevents our bodies from even having a chance at absorbing these minerals.
4.   Inadequate levels of vitamin D prevent proper absorption of calcium. And since we have been told to stay out of the sun by "Health Experts" almost all of us could use a little more vitamin D.  So getting some sensible sun on your skin will help you build your bones stronger than drinking milk will.
5.   Magnesium deficiency is probably the most overlooked aspect of bone health. 1:1 ancestral ratio of calcium/magnesium is what our bodies are adapted to have.  Dairy has a 12:1 ratio, and since most Americans drink milk for their calcium it has caused an average modern ratio of 4:1.  Getting our ratio back to where it should be is where that magnesium loaded veggies I mentioned earlier come in handy.  Calcium and magnesium compete for the same absorption mechanisms, and the modern imbalance will lead to a magnesium deficiency. The problem with a magnesium deficiency is that it will lead to inhibition of osteoblast, which are cells that build and maintain bones.  One could increase bone density by an increase of or supplementation of magnesium, not calcium.  (This could also help with sleep quality but that's another post all together)
   
6.   Phosphoric acid(soft drinks) can also cause problems.  In order to utilize calcium well, we need 1.5g of phosphorus and .5g of magnesium for each gram of Calcium.  Phosphorus is very abundant in our modern diets and the increase that comes from soft drink consumption drives up our need for magnesium and calcium, which as you might guess just makes it much harder on your body to keep your skeletal system healthy.

  Here are a few suggestions to help improve calcium absorption, retention and overall bone health: 

1. Get your calcium from vegetables and fruits;

2. Minimize your salt intake;

3. Spend regular time in the sun, or supplement with vitamin D;

4. Get plenty of anti-gravity exercise;

5. Make damn sure you are getting as much magnesium as you are calcium;

6. Reduce or eliminate dairy products from your diet;

7. Avoid processed sugar intake;

8. Avoid soft drinks;

9. Limit coffee and tea consumption to reasonable levels;

10. Do not smoke;

11. Stay away from all grains, legumes, and dairies;

12. Get plenty of quality sleep; 

 Do these suggestions sound familiar, because they should.  These are the exact same 

recommendations that you have been given to optimize not only your health but performance

too. 

So here's the deal, don't worry about "getting enough calcium" on the Paleo diet.  You'll be

fine just eat lots of lean meats, veggies, some fruits, nuts, seeds, and good oils, and run

around and lift things in the sun for reasonable amounts of time, and your bones will 

continue to support you till the day you die. 

Resources:

1) Paleo Diet website by Don Wiss http://paleodiet.com/losspts.txt 

2) The Paleo Diet website by Dr. Loren Cordain http://www.thepaleodiet.com/nutritional_tools/acid.shtml

CrossFit Unbroken Paleo Challenge Questions

So here's the deal to better help you guys out, if you have questions email them to me at Kevin@CrossFitUnbroken.com and I will answer them using this medium. I will also be posting cool studies, recipes, etc. that I find to help you guys out. I will start post when questions start coming in.
I strongly urge you guys to use this resource. Whether you have questions on certain foods, how to better fit this challenge to your goals, how to keep recipes easy and delicious, or absolutely another other question that pops into your brilliant brains.
Also feel free to comment, discuss, but not argue in the comment section.