Connection Between Sugar and Chronic Disease

A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Internal Medicine4 examined the associations between added sugar consumption and cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths. The study did not include naturally occurring sugars in the diet, focusing only on added sugars. The study, which thankfully has met with robust media coverage,5, 6, 7, 8 found that:

• Among American adults, mean percentage of daily calories from added sugar increased from 15.7 percent in 1988-1994 to 16.8 percent in 1999-2004
• Mean percentage of daily calories from added sugar decreased to 14.9 percent in 2005-2010
• Most adults (just over 71 percent) get 10 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugar
• Approximately 10 percent of American adults got 25 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugar in 2005-2010
• The most common sources of added sugar are sugar-sweetened beverages, grain-based desserts, fruit drinks, dairy desserts, and candy

Americans get, on average, about 350 calories a day (equivalent to about 22 teaspoons of sugar and 25 percent of their daily calories) from added sugar in the diet. According to this study, those who consume 21 percent or more of their daily calories in the form of sugar are TWICE as likely to die from heart disease compared to those who get seven percent or less or their daily calories from added sugar.

The risk was nearly TRIPLED among those who consumed 25 percent of their daily calories from added sugar. At present, about 600,000 Americans die of heart disease each year,9 and it's the leading cause of death among both sexes. Not surprisingly, the authors concluded that:

"Most US adults consume more added sugar than is recommended for a healthy diet. 
We observed a significant relationship between added sugar consumption and increased risk for CVD mortality."

Mark Harris, PhD
Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist
TexasMetabolics@gmail.com
Texas Metabolics

Understanding Your Calories

Fact: It not about counting Calories it's understanding what those calories really are and how your digestive system reacts to them!

To Optimize Your Health, Pay Attention to the SOURCE of Your Calories

In order to curb the current obesity epidemic, we do not need more accurate reporting of calories; we need to start focusing on eating the right kind of calories. I firmly believe that the primary keys for successful weight management and optimal health are:

1. Severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet
2. Increasing healthy fat consumption
3. Unlimited consumption of non starchy vegetables. Because they are so low calorie, the majority of the food on your plate will be vegetables
4. Limit the use of protein to less than one gram per pound of lean body mass weight, not total body weight. In order to know this you must know your body fat percentage.

Healthful fat can be rich in calories, but these calories will not affect your body in the same way as calories from non-vegetable carbs. As explained by Dr. Robert Lustig, fructose in particular is "isocaloric but not isometabolic." This means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. Eating dietary fat isn’t what’s making you pack on the pounds. It’s the sugar/fructose and grains that are adding the padding.

So please, don’t fall for the low-fat myth, as this too is a factor in the rise in chronic health problems such as heart disease and Alzheimer’s. Your brain, heart and cardiovascular system need healthy fat for optimal functioning. In fact, emerging evidence suggests most people need at least half of their daily calories from healthy fat, and possibly as high as 70 percent. Add to that a small to medium amount of high-quality protein and plenty of vegetables. You actually need very few carbs besides vegetables; so you see, the federal guidelines are about as lopsided as they could be... pushing you toward obesity and poor health, if you follow them.

Hunger Can Be Used as a Guide to Determine How Much Fat You Need

Many do not realize this, but frequent hunger may be a major clue that you're not eating correctly and are using carbs as your primary fuel. Not only is it an indication that you're consuming the wrong types of food, but it's also a sign that you're likely consuming them in lopsided ratios for your individual biochemistry, and the timing of your eating may benefit from adjustment. Fat is far more satiating than carbs, so if you have cut down on carbs and feel ravenous, thinking you "can't do without the carbs," remember this is a sign that you haven't replaced them with sufficient amounts of fat. So go ahead and add a bit more. You do want to make sure you're adding the correct types of fat though. And vegetable oils like canola and corn oil, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommends is NOT on the healthy list… Sources of healthy fats include:

1. Olives and olive oil
2. Coconuts and coconut oil
3. Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk
4. Raw nuts, such as almonds or pecans
5. Organic pastured egg yolks
6. Avocados
7. Grass-fed meats
8. Palm oil
9. Unheated organic nut oils

Another healthful fat you want to be mindful of is animal-based omega-3. Deficiency in this essential fat can cause or contribute to very serious health problems, both mental and physical, and may be a significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths each year.


Mark Harris, PhD
Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist
TexasMetabolics@gmail.com
Texas Metabolics

How Government Dietary Guidelines Promote Obesity & Chronic Disease

It’s important to realize that the government’s nutritional guidelines are in large part mirrored by agricultural subsidies. They’re NOT built upon sound nutritional science. In short, the reason you’re told to make grains the cornerstone of your diet is because that’s what farmers are paid to grow in the US. There’s a lot of it, and it’s inexpensive compared to healthier foods like vegetables, for which few subsidies are offered.

The wacky and nutritionally inappropriate 1992 Food Pyramid had grains as the largest bottom block of the pyramid, encouraging you to eat 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta each day. This excess of carbohydrates, most of them refined, is precisely the kind of diet that promotes fat accumulation and drives insulin resistance and related diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer. At the very top of the pyramid was fats and sugar, and while sugar clearly belongs there, fats do not.

As mentioned earlier, most people would benefit from getting anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of their total calories from healthy fats. Saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources provide a number of important health benefits, and your body requires them for the proper function of your:

1. Cell membranes
2. Heart
3. Bones (to assimilate calcium)
4. Liver
5. Lungs
6. Hormones
7. Immune system
8. Satiety (reducing hunger)
9. Genetic regulation

The food pyramid was replaced with “MyPlate” in 2011, which slightly downplayed grains as the most important dietary ingredient, making vegetables the largest “slice.” One of its most glaring problems with MyPlate is that it virtually removed all fats from the equation! In fact, except for a small portion of dairy, which is advised to be fat-free or low-fat, fats are missing entirely.

There is no mention of the importance of dietary fats, even the "politically correct" ones like the monounsaturated fats in olive oil and nuts, such as pecans (canola oil is also in this category, but I advise avoiding it and using coconut oil instead). Even one of the most critical of all fats is absent from the plate, namely animal-based omega-3 fats. Deficiency in this essential fat can cause or contribute to very serious health problems, both mental and physical, and may be a significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths each year.

Studies Showing Saturated Fat is Not Associated with Increased Heart Disease Risk

As mentioned earlier, mounting scientific evidence supports saturated fat as a necessary part of a heart healthy diet, and firmly debunks the myth that saturated fat promotes heart disease. For example:

In a 1992 editorial published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. William Castelli, a former director of the Framingham Heart study, stated:

"In Framingham, Mass., the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol. The opposite of what… Keys et al would predict…We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active."

A 2010 meta-analysis, which pooled data from 21 studies and included nearly 348,000 adults, found no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.
Another 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a reduction in saturated fat intake must be evaluated in the context of replacement by other macronutrients, such as carbohydrates.

When you replace saturated fat with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, you exacerbate insulin resistance and obesity, increase triglycerides and small LDL particles, and reduce beneficial HDL cholesterol. The authors state that dietary efforts to improve your cardiovascular disease risk should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intake, and weight reduction.

Mark Harris, PhD
Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist
TexasMetabolics@gmail.com
Texas Metabolics

Asparagus - More Than Just A Green Vegetable

Asparagus is more than just a green vegetable served as a side dish. It's also been recognized historically for its medicinal properties Down through the ages this popular veggie been used as a diuretic to reduce water retention and as a laxative due to its high fiber content. Even though you won't find asparagus sold in a drugstore, this popular veggie has some interesting health properties that make it a good addition to almost any diet. What are the health benefits of eating asparagus?

Health Benefits of Eating Asparagus: Natural Varicose Vein Prevention?

Having an extra order of asparagus may help to protect against unsightly varicose veins. Why? Asparagus is a good source of a flavonoid compound called rutin. Rutin not only has anti-inflammatory properties, but it also helps to improve circulation and strengthen veins and tiny blood vessels known as capillaries '" all of which reduce the appearance of varicosities.

Health Benefits of Eating Asparagus: It Helps to Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease

Asparagus helps to reduce the risk of heart disease in several ways It's a good source of potassium to normalize blood pressure, and folate another nutrient important for heart health. It's also rich in soluble fiber to help lower blood cholesterol levels. Asparagus also lowers cholesterol by another mechanism - saponins. Natural saponins found in asparagus bind to cholesterol in the digestive tract so that it's less readily absorbed into the bloodstream. It also alters liver metabolism of cholesterol in a favorable way. All in all, asparagus is one heart friendly vegetable.

Health Benefits of Eating Asparagus: It Won't Make You Fat

Asparagus is a vegetable you can eat without guilt. At twenty-seven calories per cup, it's hard to eat too much of this low calorie veggie. Use it as a side dish instead of potatoes and you'll get more food for fewer calories '" and more nutrients too!

Health Benefits of Eating Asparagus: It's Good if You're Pregnant

Asparagus is an excellent source of folate, a vitamin that's important for reducing the risk of neural tube defects in an unborn baby.

Health Benefits of Eating Asparagus: It's Good for the Skin

Asparagus is a good source of vitamins A and C, anti-oxidant vitamins that help to protect the skin from free radical damage. Vitamin C is also important for maintaining collagen, a component that gives skin its support structure and prevents sagging.

Another Unexpected Benefit of Asparagus

Asparagus extract may help to prevent hangovers. It seems that asparagus extract boost enzymes in the liver that break down alcohol. Unfortunately, you'd have to eat the leaves rather than the stalks to get this benefit - or else take an extract.

How to Serve It

To make asparagus tastier, roast it at high temperature in the oven to bring out its flavor. 

One word of caution. About half the people who eat asparagus will develop an unpleasant urine odor immediately after eating it. This is due to the breakdown of sulfur compounds in the asparagus. This is no cause for alarm and doesn't indicate an underlying health problem.

Mark Harris, PhD

Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist

TexasMetabolics@gmail.com
Texas Metabolics

Training Through Injuries – The Dos And Don'ts

So many times people do their best to ignore those nagging aches and pains our bodies have simply because they do NOT want to stop training. Those pains you feel are often a warning signal for us to back off, yet many of us continue to TRAIN! 

Let's Get Real!

If you tell me your shoulder hurts so bad you cannot lift it and you just hurt it yesterday, You should have enough common sense to just GO HOME. I understand you are game and ready to go, but we need to think beyond today. We are not professional athletes and tomorrow is not the Olympics. When you are injured, your priority is dealing with your injury, or at the very least, not worsening it. If you are questioning whether or not you should be at the gym – go home.

Focus On Recovery 

Use your time at home to work your recovery. Recovery does not mean sitting still. It could mean using a foam roller and a lacrosse ball to work out muscle spasms or adhesions. It could mean icing for ten minutes at the top of every hour. It could mean visiting your chiropractor, massage therapist or personal trainer. It could mean visiting your doctor and having diagnostic tests run. It does mean, without a doubt, listening to your body and being nice to it.

Be Reasonable

If you choose to stay at the gym and work around your injury, then really work around it and make sure your trainer is aware of the situation. Do not do things that only “hurt a little.” If it hurts, stop doing it. If you are hurting it, you are not healing it. Yes, it might feel better once you get going into the workout, but that has more to do with endorphins and adrenalin than it does with whether or not you are causing damage and preventing healing. This does not mean you cannot move around at all, but do not do things that cause pain.

Don’t Create Other Injuries

If you are dealing with an injury requiring a long healing period, a shoulder injury for example, be careful you do not cause other injuries or imbalances in your training. If your left shoulder is hurt and you spend three months only working your right arm and right shoulder, you are setting yourself up for future problems. It is not just your arms, but your back, hips, and legs that will be affected by this constant unbalanced unilateral movement. In this scenario, you are better of focusing on lower body and core exercises. Engage your coach in helping you choose appropriate exercises.

There Is No Quick Fix

As with most things in life, we are in a hurry to get to the next step and injury recovery is no different. Beware of the quick fix. I have had clients come to me saying their doctor wanted to give them a cortisone shot. Unless you are playing the Super Bowl tomorrow, there is no reason for you to get a cortisone shot. In my experience it only allows you to train through the pain and worsen the injury. Likewise, beware of painkillers in general. If you want to take something, double or triple your fish oil and deal with the inflammation aspect of your injury. Pain is not a voice we should carelessly stifle.

If It Hurts, Stop. It’s Just Not Worth It. 

This one is worth repeating. For the vast majority of us, we work out for fun or because we are committed to a certain level of health. We are not professional athletes, nor for the most part even competitive amateur athletes. Our priorities in our lives are different from a pro-athlete and therefore our priorities in the gym should be also.

Your mission in the gym is to get stronger, fitter, and healthier for the long haul. As a coach, I want to see you getting out of bed on your own at the age of 80. Training through pain and skipping recovery will not get you to that place. You can do it in the short-term, but it will come back to haunt you in the form of continued injuries, arthritis, chronic pain and more.

Think about the people in the gym who have the best form and put up the best numbers. They are the people who put in the work day in and day out, not the people who try to muscle through things. Treat your injury recovery the same way. Take the time necessary to heal properly; it will serve you in both your performance and your quality of life for years to come.

Mark Harris, PhD

Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist

TexasMetabolics@gmail.com

Texas Metabolics

The 3 Cycles of Periodization Training

Periodization is the process of dividing an annual training plan into specific time blocks, where each block has a particular goal and provides your body with different types of stress.
This allows you to create some hard training periods and some easier periods to facilitate recovery. Periodization also helps you develop different energy systems during various phases of training (e.g., aerobic, anaerobic). Most significantly, periodization is the best way to promote the training effect, which consists of changes in your cardiopulmonary and musculoskeletal systems that result in greater speed and endurance in all aspects of competition and training. To develop an effective training program, it is important to understand the foundation of periodization. This foundation consists of three cycles: macrocycles, mesocycles and micro cycles.

The Macrocycle

The macrocycle is the longest of the three cycles and includes all four stages of a periodized training program (e.g., endurance, intensity, competition and recovery). Because macrocycles incorporate all 52 weeks of your annual plan, they provide you with a bird's-eye view of your training regimen and allow you to facilitate long-range planning.

For example, if you want to peak for a national championship event one year from now, you can mark that date on your calendar and work backwards to create a program that allows you to peak at that time. You can use the same process to identify several major events throughout the year and develop a plan that facilitates multiple fitness peaks. Remember, because of its length, you will always make changes to your macrocycle throughout the year.

The Mesocycle

The mesocycle represents a specific block of training that is designed to accomplish a particular goal. For instance, during the endurance phase, you might develop a mesocycle designed to enhance your aerobic endurance (the ability to use oxygen to produce energy for the muscles over an extended period of time). This mesocycle might consist of three weeks of increasingly long rides, and one week of recovery.
Similarly, you could develop a mesocycle for the intensity phase that is designed to improve your functional threshold power (the highest average power, measured in watts that you can sustain for one hour). This mesocycle might include three weeks of lactate threshold intervals followed by a week of recovery.

During the competition phase, you could develop a mesocycle that improves your neuromuscular power, which is the ability to pedal a very big gear, at a very high cadence for a short period of time (i.e., sprinting). This mesocycle might include four long sprint interval workouts and four short sprint interval workouts over a three week period.
You can even develop a mesocycle for the recovery stage of training. Of course, the primary goal of this mesocycle will be to rest and recuperate, but it will also include a series of easy rides designed to enhance the recovery process.
Mesocycles are typically three or four weeks in length. Two very common mesocycles consist of 21 and 28-day training blocks. For example, a 25-year old experienced competitor might use a 23/5 training pattern (i.e., a 28-day mesocycle). This consists of 23 days of relatively hard work followed by 5 days of recovery and easy spinning. Conversely, an older or less-experienced cyclist may opt for a 16/5 training pattern (i.e., a 21-day mesocycle) that includes 16 days of hard training followed by 5 days of recovery.
If you are unsure about which option to choose, I suggest you begin with a 21-day mesocycle and shift to the longer option when you are ready for a harder challenge. Conversely, if you are currently using a 28-day mesocycle and are dealing with recurring fatigue, use the shorter mesocycle, which provides you with more time to recover.

The Microcyle

A microcycle is the shortest training cycle, typically lasting a week with the goal of facilitating a focused block of training. An example of this is an endurance block where a cyclist strings three or four long rides together within one week to progressively overload training volume.
Another example incorporates block training, which consists of very hard workouts for two or three consecutive days followed by an equal amount of recovery (days off or very easy rides). This would constitute an intensity microcycle where the goal is to improve key physiological abilities such as lactate threshold (the highest intensity a fit cyclist can maintain for 60 minutes) and aerobic capacity (the maximum amount of oxygen the body can consume during high intensity exercise). Generally speaking, three or four microcycles are tied together to form a mesocycle.

For more on Periodization training contact us today and book your time for a personal assessment, 713-870-6960.

Mark Harris, PhD

Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist

TexasMetabolics@gmail.com

Texas Metabolics

10 Benefits of the Avocado

10 Benefits of the Avocado

Would you believe that the avocado is considered by many nutritional experts to be a perfect food? It's considered a superfood by many.

Surprise, it's not really a vegetable, it's a fruit. In areas south of the border, it's often called the alligator pear because of its shape and dark green roughly textured skin.

Though avocados are heavy in calories, those are nutrient dense calories. And the fats are heart healthy monounsaturated fats and omega-3. Besides actually being healthy, there are many ways to enjoy avocado, from a few guacamole recipes to mixing into salads and to using it as a meat substitute for sandwiches.

(1) Healthy brain: Dr. Daniel G. Amen, author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life considers avocados as one of the top brain-healthy foods that can help prevent Alzheimer's Disease. The folate in avocado contributes to preventing the formation of brain tangles that are considered a factor for Alzheimer's.

Avocados combine brain healthy omega-3 fatty acids with natural vitamin E, which has been clinically proven to prevent Alzheimer's disease from progressing and even reversing it in its earliest stages.

(2) Healthy heart: Avocados are rich in monounsaturated fats that boost heart health and help lower blood pressure. Avocado monounsaturated fats contain the phytonutrient beta-sitosterol, which was clinically proven to lower LDL and triglyceride blood levels while raising HDL.

Avocados' vitamin B6 and the natural folic acid from their high amount of folate help regulate homocysteine, which if high is a harbinger of bad heart health. The natural vitamin E and the master antioxidant glutathione in a base of avocado's monounsaturated fat's oleic acid are also recognized heart health boosters.

(3) Pregnancy: Folic acid is commonly recommended for pregnant women to help the fetus develop its brain and other vital organs. But some health experts consider synthetically extracted folic acid a problem. They recommend using natural folate for its folic acid content instead.

Folate also reduces stroke risk, according to a study of people who eat folate rich foods.

(4) Eye health: Avocado contains the carotenoid leutein, an antioxidant that specializes with protecting the eyes from oxidative stress damage leading to poor vision, cataracts, and macular degeneration.

(5) Blood pressure: The combination of avocado's high potassium content, 30 percent more than banana, with omega-3 and oleic acid are beneficial toward reducing blood pressure.

(6) Blood sugar: Avocado's monounsaturated fats can prevent or reverse insulin resistance, a source of type 2 diabetes. The high soluble fiber of avocado helps prevent blood sugar spikes.

(7) Anti-inflammatory: Inflammation is considered the basis of most non-contagious diseases. Avocados have an abundance of plant phytonutrient polyphenols and flavonoids, which have been discovered as anti-inflammatory agents.

(8) Anti-aging: The master antioxidant glutathione supports the liver and the nervous system. It is responsible for replenishing and recycling other antioxidants in the body. It is vital for a strong immune system, and avocado is one of the few foods that contain a considerable amount of glutathione.

(9) Digestion: Nutrients and enzymes in avocado reduce inflammation in the stomach and small intestine's mucous lining. This also improves the body's ability to absorb carotenoids and nutrients.

A study's participants who ate salads with avocados absorbed five times the amount of carotenoids than those who did not include avocados. Carotenoids include beta carotene and lycopene. Beta carotene is a precursor to vitamin A, and lycopene is a compound that reduces stroke and prostate cancer risks.

(10) Cancer: Avocados can help protect against prostate and breast cancers.

Mark Harris, PhD

Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist

TexasMetabolics@gmail.com

Texas Metabolics